Exiled (TalentBorn Book 2) Read online

  We’re all quiet for a moment while his words sink in. When Scott finally speaks, his voice is coloured by a jarring mix of amusement and hurt.

  “And you believed that? How long have you known me, Nathan?”

  “It seemed to fit,” Nathan defends. “You guys did go missing for a while, and Anna had been talking about leaving. And… you were in love with her. You’d have given her anything she asked for.”

  “Gee, all this time I could have sent you to take over AbGen for me? If only I’d known…”

  “Anna, that’s not helping,” Scott warns me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Gardiner and one of his bodyguards were dead,” Nathan continues, ignoring my sarcasm. “And there were witnesses who saw you do it.”

  “How about CCTV?” I ask, but of course I know the answer. No CCTV. That would have been wiped during the cover-up. “The witnesses lied. Probably under Pearce’s orders.”

  “Why would he make that up?” Helen’s tone is apologetic. I look to Scott and he nods.

  “Just hear us out, and then make up your mind,” he says. “This isn’t going to be easy for you to hear, but it’s the truth.”

  We all fall silent as a dog walker passes us, and Scott steers us toward a quieter area of the park, lined with a few rusting benches. It’s not like we’re passing for a group of friends enjoying a walk anymore, anyway.

  “Anna did want to leave, that’s true. But Gardiner didn’t give her that option. He had Pearce develop a hyper-insulin shot and an EM disruptor that would disable her talent.”

  Oh, thanks for that, Scott. Just tell the whole world what my achilles heel is. They’re friends, I remind myself. Scott trusts them. I trust them.

  “Gardiner wanted to weaponise Anna’s EM pulse. When she told him she was leaving, he had Pearce inject her. There’s a lift concealed at the back of his office – check, if you need to – it goes to an underground prison. He tried to lock Anna up, she escaped. I followed her. We came back to tell the truth, so no-one else would end up in one of those cages.”

  I look from Nathan to Helen, and see the guarded look in their eyes. They don’t believe us. And why would they? Put like that, it sounds crazy. Hell, I barely believe it, and I was there.

  “I know,” Scott says, watching their faces. “It’s hard to believe. But it’s true. Gardiner worked out what we were planning, and he tried to lock us both up. I killed the guard – and trust me, there’s not a day I don’t think about it – but I didn’t kill Gardiner.”

  Nathan looks to me and I shake my head.

  “Wasn’t me, either. It was Joe.”

  “Joe?”

  “Look, it’s not that we don’t believe you…” Helen says uneasily, sharing another look with Nathan. I could write a book on what the four of us aren’t saying right now. We’re never going to convince them like this. Scott sees it too.

  “Use your talent on me,” he tells Helen. “Make me tell the truth.”

  “What?” She’s horrified, or a convincing actress. “No, you’re a friend, I would never do that.”

  “It’s the only way I can show you. Do it.”

  She glances between us, looking as uncertain as I’ve ever seen her.

  “It’s okay,” Scott promises her. “I want you to do it.”

  She nods, and closes her eyes for a split second. I know what Scott is feeling. I’ve felt it before when Helen showed me how her talent worked. Right now, she’s the most important thing in his world. He trusts her more than he trusts himself. There’s nothing she could say that would sound unreasonable, nothing she could ask for that he would deny her. I hate to see him so vulnerable.

  “Why did Anna want to leave AbGen?”

  “Gardiner wanted to weaponise her ability,” Scott answers without hesitating. Helen looks at Nathan and he nods for her to continue.

  “Why did you leave AbGen?”

  “To protect her. He wanted to lock her up.”

  Helen’s voice has lost its confidence as she asks:

  “Who killed Gardiner?”

  “Joe.”

  Helen relaxes, and a shudder runs through Scott as she releases him from her thrall.

  “It’s true,” she says numbly. “It’s all true. Nathan, what are we a part of?”

  Nathan sinks onto one of the benches and stares down at his feet.

  “He fooled us,” he tells the floor. “All those years.”

  Scott takes a seat next to him.

  “He had me fooled too. He had everyone fooled. And now Pearce does.”

  “We have to stop him. You need to come back in.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Nathan’s right,” Helen says. “You have to tell everyone what happened.”

  Scott shakes his head.

  “You guys are our closest friends at AbGen, and you didn’t believe us. How are we going to convince anyone else? Besides, Joe tried that: it doesn’t work. It’s too big for us to stop by ourselves.”

  “What do you mean, Joe tried? Joe’s the one who told us what happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, finding my voice. “Joe did what?”

  Last time I saw him, Joe murdered a man so that I wouldn’t have to keep running forever, and risked everything to stay behind and expose Pearce’s corruption. So I’m having a hard time believing that he’s toeing the company line now. Scott looks just as bewildered as I am.

  “There was a lot of confusion after the alarm was sounded,” Helen explains. “Everyone had a different version of events, but they all agreed Joe was there when it happened. When things calmed down, we spoke with him. We didn’t want to believe what he was telling us, but he had no reason to lie. He seemed so sincere.”

  She breaks off with a frown. It makes sense that they’d want to hear it from the source. I would have, too, had our roles been reversed. And perhaps I wouldn’t have wanted to believe it either. But that’s the thing about talking to a mind reader, I guess. He can read your doubts and counter them as he makes up the story. Must make him one hell of a liar. I store that information away for later, and dwell on the obvious fact. Joe sold us out. I wonder what Pearce offered him.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them!”

  The voice comes from behind me, but the figure I see is stepping from the trees in front of me. I recognise him from the cemetery this morning. Palmer. He has a pistol in his hands, and it’s levelled at my chest. That means his partner is behind me, and he’ll also be armed, but his weapon won’t be on me. It will be on Scott. We’ve been betrayed.

  I curse my own stupidity. I should have seen this coming. Bad enough that Joe sold us out, but now Helen and Nathan too? AbGen is rotten to the core, when am I going to stop letting myself get sucked back in? If it was me alone, I could shift to safety. If it was just Palmer alone I could shift behind him and disarm him. At least, I could if Scott had been allowing me to continue my training, but he was too worried about my EM pulse alerting AbGen to our presence. Not that it matters now. I couldn’t risk it even if I wanted to. Palmer’s partner could kill Scott before I could disarm them both, and everyone here knows it. And that’s not even taking Helen and Nathan into account.

  Scott raises his hands while I stare venom at our so-called friends.

  “How could you?” I spit.

  “Anna, we didn’t do this, I swear,” Helen says, and I almost believe her until I realise she’s probably just using her talent to sway me.

  “You too, Anna. Hands up. No-one has to get hurt.”

  I lock my eyes onto Palmer.

  “What, worried the girl is going to hurt you?” I snap, but raise my hands anyway. They have guns pointed at Scott. There was a time those weapons would have terrified me. Being able to dematerialise at will changes a lot.

  “Anna, could you please stop antagonising the men with guns?” Scott asks mildly. I can see he’s not worried either. That’s crazy. Gardiner proved they’re not above using him to get to me, and I doubt Pearce has s
oftened in his absence. Scott can’t shift if bullets start flying. He could get hurt. Suddenly I’m scared enough for the both of us. What if they decide I’ll be more compliant if he’s shot?

  “You idiots,” Nathan snaps at them, rising from the bench. “What the hell are you doing? They would have come back in willingly. You shouldn’t have followed us.”

  “We’re following Pearce’s orders,” Palmer says stiffly. “He has… doubts about your commitment to the mission.”

  “And did his orders include risking exposure? Do you really think waving guns around in a public park is a good idea? We’re in Essex, not the Bronx! Did it occur to you that someone might notice? What part of ‘secret government organisation’ are you failing to grasp?”

  “Cut them some slack, Nathan. They weren’t going to come.”

  I stare at Helen with renewed hatred. Traitor. She meets my eye and blinks rapidly. That’s odd. I see a flash of movement in my peripheral, and suddenly Scott’s grabbing at the back of Nathan’s waistband and shoving him forward. A gun. He’s got Nathan’s gun. Shit. It was a distraction. Helen and Nathan were distracting them. I catch on to Helen’s meaning a moment too late, and search for that deep seat of terror that always lives buried inside me. I let it seep out, flooding my system until every nerve is screaming at me to run, I’ve got to get out of here, I have to get behind Palmer, I’ve got to–

  A split second later, I’m behind Palmer. Scott is still raising his newly-acquired gun to target the other agent. My head spins and I think I’m going to puke, but I’ll deal with that later. I raise my hand and slam the edge of it down into the back of Palmer’s neck with as much force as I can muster. It’s not much, but it takes him down onto one knee. I swing my foot into his face, sending him sprawling. The gun goes flying from his grasp. I sense movement behind me, but before I can even worry about it, Scott’s voice rings out coldly:

  “Drop it. I’ve already killed one agent. I won’t lose any sleep over you.”

  I leave him to handle the drama and I snatch up the discarded gun before Palmer can recover. I aim it at him but keep my distance.

  “Get over there with him, all of you,” Scott orders, and I look up to see the other agent’s weapon on the floor, and Scott’s stolen gun moving between him, Helen and Nathan. Preserving their cover, I realise. I step slowly and pick up the other gun as three agents cluster around their dazed comrade. Scott singles out Nathan.

  “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  I spit in their general direction, hoping I’m not over-doing it. I still can’t get my head around everything that’s happening, probably not helped by the fact it’s about to split in half, and if we don’t wrap this up soon, I’m going to ruin it by puking all over my shoes. Just as I’d though post-shift nausea was a thing of the past. Guess that’s what you get for letting your super-power go to waste for a month. I touch Scott’s shoulder.

  “They’re not worth it. Let’s go.”

  “Next time, Webb,” he snarls. We back away slowly, widening the distance between us, and then turn and run.

  Chapter Five

  Running is something we’re getting to be pretty good at. We took off in our hire car but didn’t keep it for long – AbGen would already have flagged the plate with local authorities. Instead we stopped by the first car we saw with a ‘for sale’ sign in its window, phoned the owners and gave them cash on the spot for it, along with a fake name and address for the registration. Hence, we’ve downgraded our range rover to a ford fiesta, but on the plus side no-one’s going to be expecting us to be driving the battered silver machine. It makes a few strange noises when you start the engine and the suspension sounds a little iffy, but Scott seems to think it’s mechanically sound. Besides, we’ll only have it for a few weeks, just long enough to throw Pearce off our scent.

  We’re already heading for the M25 – right now our priority is getting out of Essex and away from anywhere AbGen expect us to be. Well, that’s Scott’s priority. Mine is getting some food. It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I used to be a nice, normal girl with nice, normal eating habits. But shifting is a massive drain on my glucose reserves. One of the AbGen scientists back at Langford House figured it out, back when they used to get so badly depleted I’d black out. I still would, if I tried a long shift. I don’t have enough control for that yet though, there’s no way of telling where I’d end up. I landed myself in France, once, which sounds cool until you realise you’re in a special forces camp and they’re really not happy to see you. Anyway, it all boils down to sugar. The headaches and nausea are the first signs of hypoglycaemia, which means I need to get some sugar into my system fast. I found a couple of cans of coke in the range rover and downed them in quick succession, which has taken the edge off, but I need to get some proper food into me and I’m going to feel rotten until I do.

  Scott is a very understanding man. I eat a lot when I shift – luckily, it burns a lot of calories or I’d be in all manner of trouble – and Scott usually has food to hand whenever he catches up with me. Even now he swings into a service station without me having to say a word.

  We grab our fast food and snag a table in the corner so he can watch the entrance, but I’m pretty sure our car change has bought us some time. I’m still ranting as we claim our seats. Hunger and near-death experiences bring out the worst in me.

  “I can’t believe Joe sold us out! After everything he said about exposing Gardiner.”

  I look up from tearing open a packet of salt, and realise Scott is staring at the table top in silence.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve known Joe a long time. He would never cover up something like this.”

  “Yeah, but he has,” I say, maybe with a little less patience than I could have. Scott needs to get on the same page before we walk into any more traps. It sucks, but it is what it is.

  “I know,” Scott says, looking up from the table top. “But why?”

  “Let’s go ask him.”

  “Are you forgetting something?” he asks, gesturing to the untouched food.

  “Oh, right. Yeah, let’s eat first.”

  I take a bite of my burger, and while I’m unable to speak Scott takes advantage of the silence.

  “Besides, that’s a terrible plan.”

  I want to defend my most-definitely-not-terrible-plan, but – burger.

  “If Joe really has turned, he’s going to call Pearce the moment he sees either of us.”

  I shake my head and swallow noisily.

  “It’s like you said, you’ve known each other for years. He’d talk to you. Plus, you’d have the element of surprise. And how else are we going to work out what’s going on? We don’t have a choice.”

  Scott takes a sip of his drink – stalling, for sure – probably because he knows I’m right. Eventually he puts his cup down and nods.

  “It’s worth the risk. I’ll go tonight.”

  “We,” I correct him quietly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We will go tonight.”

  “Forget it. You’re going nowhere near him.”

  That rubs me up the wrong way for a hundred reasons, chief amongst them the fact that I am not a child and refuse to be treated like one. No-one tells me what I will and won’t do.

  “You’re my handler, not my keeper. You can’t stop me.”

  He takes a breath and shakes his head.

  “It’s not safe.”

  “Are you forgetting I’m the one who can actually shift if it turns out to be a trap?”

  “You’re also the one AbGen want. I’m worth nothing to them.”

  That, of course, isn’t true. Scott’s talent – the ability to detect the presence of other absas – is invaluable to them for recruitment. And if they had him, I’d do whatever they told me. Without hesitation. If they had him, they’d have us both. But he won’t be interested in hearing that, and frankly I’m not interested in having this argument. I hold his eye.

>   “Scott, I’m going.”

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, then nods.

  “Okay, but the first sign of trouble and you shift out.”

  I nod. He doesn’t need to know I have no intention of doing that.

  *

  We’re parked outside a modern red-brick bungalow, with freshly painted window sills and quaint floral curtains. The front garden is beautifully designed, with sculpted flower beds, a wishing well and a gnome, though the grass is in need of a trim and the beds of weeding. A small gravel path wends its way to the green front door. In short, it’s not the sort of home I’d envisioned the former soldier to be living in. His wife’s feminine touch is in heavy evidence, though as first-time parents of a young son (whose photo Joe had proudly showed me not long after I joined AbGen), there obviously hasn’t been much time for gardening. Scott presses a finger to the doorbell, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other as we wait for Joe to answer.

  I hear movement behind the door and wonder why it doesn’t immediately swing open. I mean, that’s what you do, right? You hear the door, you answer it. And then I realise. He’s scanning our thoughts while deciding whether to open it or not. Maybe I should be thinking ‘we come in peace.’ Maybe Scott is. I wish Joe would hurry up and decide whether he trusts us or not: it’s starting to spit, and I’m not dressed for this sort of weather. Also, my hair hates the rain. Like, really hates the rain. Maybe Joe just wants to torment me.

  The door creaks quietly and swings open, revealing a man just a little older than me, with short-cropped dark hair, and the sort of physique you only get from working out, a lot.

  “You best come in before I do something really unforgivable and make your hair frizz.”

  I search Joe’s face; he looks tired, worried. He should. He turns aside, holding the door wide. Scott wipes his feet and crosses the threshold, and I follow behind him.

  Joe leads us through the elegantly papered hallway lined with family photos. I pause to look at one: Joe’s wife holding their new-born son, and Joe with his arms around them both. The perfect happy family. A layer of dust sits atop the frame.