Exiled (TalentBorn Book 2) Read online

  I hurry to catch up with Joe and Scott as they enter the living room. Joe gestures half-heartedly to a sofa.

  “Please, sit.”

  We sink into the worn but comfortable sofa. Joe wants us together, so he can see if either of us tries something. That’s fair, though I think it’s us who should be worried about what he has planned. I glance around the room, trying to take my thoughts away from what brought us here: that conversation is for Scott to have with Joe, not for me to mentally blab. There are more photos proudly on display; a wedding photo of a particularly radiant Mrs Joe – Angela, I think her name is – hand in hand with Joe in the sharpest suit I’ve seen outside of Langford House; a holiday snap of them looking windswept out in the countryside; a studio photo of their son sitting with some ABC blocks. He’s going to be a heartbreaker when he grows up.

  “You, uh, you guys want a drink?” Joe offers with a glance towards the kitchen, silencing my internal dialogue.

  “We’re fine,” Scott declines. I elbow him in the ribs.

  “That’d be great, thank you,” I say with a smile. Joe nods and heads into the kitchen. Scott frowns at me and I frown right back.

  “What were you, born on Mars?” I hiss quietly, though I don’t know why I bother since Joe could just listen in on my thoughts if he wanted. It’s draining, and it requires intense concentration, but he could do it if he chose. In his shoes, I would. I shake my head in exasperation at Scott’s poor etiquette.

  “If someone offers you a drink inside their home, you accept. It’s civilised. Besides, he needs a moment to think about what he wants to say to you.”

  “Exactly. We lose the element of surprise.”

  “He’s a mind reader. We’ve already lost the element of surprise.”

  I glance at Joe moving around the kitchen, amidst piles of used plates and dirty mugs. He opens a cupboard, closes it again, and then goes to the fridge. A moment later he comes back into the room holding three bottles of beer. He offers them to us with an apologetic shrug.

  “Haven’t had a chance to get to the shop,” he offers by way of explanation.

  “Beer is great, thanks,” I say, taking one of the bottles as Scott takes the other. “How’s Angela and the little one?”

  Joe claims an armchair across the room from us.

  “Um, yeah. Good. Thanks.”

  Guys and small talk. Seriously.

  “What’s going on, Joe?” Scott says, getting straight to the point. Like I said. Honestly, it’s a dying art.

  “It’s complicated,” Joe says, taking a swig from his bottle. He stares off to one side, and I wonder if he’s reading us or just thinking. Eventually he speaks again.

  “You never found the Ishmaelians?”

  “It’s a big country. It’s not easy to find someone who doesn’t want to be found. And to tell you the truth Joe, it’s not like we had a whole lot to go on.”

  Joe nods.

  “I know, I’m sorry. Gardiner’s thoughts weren’t making a lot of sense, I snatched that right before he blacked out.”

  “What exactly did he think?”

  “Can’t let the Ishmaelians have them.” He frowns, picking at the label on his bottle. “There was something else. An image. I don’t know what it means.”

  “What image?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. Joe shakes his head.

  “I’m not sure. Like I said, he wasn’t making a lot of sense, his thoughts were jumping around and blending together. It looked like some sort of peacock, with a feather in its mouth.”

  Joe’s right. That doesn’t make any sense. Scott shifts in his seat beside me, and I see his face light up.

  “That makes perfect sense!” He must see the strange looks both Joe and I give him, because he turns to me, excitement in his voice, and says;

  “It’s a bustard – it’s on the Wiltshire flag. Gardiner sent me and Nathan there on a recon mission a couple of years back. He said there’d been reports of absa activity in the area, but we were only there a couple of days when we got recalled to base for another mission. He must have been looking for them, even back then. Anna, they’re in Wiltshire.”

  I shake my head. It’d be easy to get caught up in his excitement, but he’s over-looking the obvious.

  “No, they were in Wiltshire two years ago. They could be anywhere by now.”

  “No, I don’t think so, Anna,” Joe surprises me by saying. He sounds excited now too. “A few weeks before everything happened, Gardiner wanted me to put together a team of ex-military in AbGen to deal with a violent exposure risk. In Larkhill, Wiltshire.”

  Wiltshire. I’ve never been there before. I hear it’s very rural though – lots of places to lay low if you’re heading up a rebel group and don’t want to be found. We all celebrate the revelation with a moment of silence, then it stretches out and becomes strained. Joe is watching Scott closely: reading him, I think. And it doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s thinking. Why would Joe want to help us now, when he was so quick to sell us out? Joe leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he says quietly.

  “Then what was it like?” Scott demands.

  Something’s been niggling at the back of my mind since we got here, and when it finally falls into place it stuns me so much that I don’t wait for Joe to answer Scott’s question before I cut across him.

  “Where’s your family?”

  The unkempt garden, the dusty photos, dirty kitchen and empty cupboards… they all point to one thing. Angela isn’t here, and she hasn’t been for a while. Scott stares at me, then looks back to Joe. The ex-soldier drops the act, and slumps forward, his clenched fist still wrapped around the bottle neck.

  “He has them,” he says finally. “Pearce.” He stares at the bottle in his hand for a long moment, then hurls it across the room. It shatters against the wall, spraying beer over one of the photo frames.

  “Collateral, he says.” He clenches his fists again. “In case I didn’t go along with his story. He wanted everyone out hunting you. It didn’t suit his agenda for me to be the guilty one. He said he’d let them go if I helped him catch you.”

  “Anna, we need to leave,” Scott says without taking his eyes from Joe, too calm to be reassuring. “You did the right thing, Joe. If you hadn’t made the call, he’d have killed your family. You didn’t have a choice.”

  My blood turns to ice in my veins as I ask,

  “What call?”

  “The one he made while he was in the kitchen. Telling Pearce we were here.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry… but my wife, my boy…”

  “I know,” Scott says, rising from the sofa. I’m on my feet beside him in a heartbeat, fighting my body’s instinct to shift away from the incoming danger. “And trust me, you’re going to thank me for this.”

  Joe frowns at him, then gets to his feet with a nod. I frown too – sucks not being a mind reader – and then cover my mouth to stifle my scream as Scott punches him. Joe falls back, out cold.

  “What the hell?!”

  “If it looked like he’d let us leave without a fight, Pearce would have taken it out on his family.”

  “Oh.” Yeah, actually that’s pretty obvious. To everyone except me, apparently. Scott tenses.

  “They’re close. Really close, Anna. Shift out.”

  I shake my head.

  “No way, I’m not leaving you here alone.”

  “Dammit, Anna! Just go. I can’t watch both our backs if bullets start flying.”

  One day I’m going to be a good enough fighter that he can’t use that argument anymore. But he knows that the only thing I can’t bear is him being in danger because of me. He’s not playing fair. I lean forwards and kiss him gently on the lips. I can be pissed at him later. If there is a later.

  I reach deep inside myself for the darkness, opening the gates of terror until it’s rushing through me and I’ve got to get out of here, I’ve have to ge
t away, I’ve got to–

  Chapter Six

  I open my eyes and see Scott staring at me. I’m still here, and my head is pounding. I squeeze my eyes tight and focus on the fear again. Nothing.

  “EM disruptor,” Scott realises before I do. Damn my stupid achilles heel. Pearce armed his team with the one thing guaranteed to clip my wings. No EM pulse, no shift. They must be really close if I’m already feeling its effects. I stare at the door, waiting for them to burst through.

  “Anna, run!” Scott grabs my hand and tugs me behind him, and then we’re both crashing through Joe’s home, through the kitchen and to the back door. As we tumble through it I hear the front door smash open, and booted feet pounding along the hallway. I sprint harder, hurdling a toppled kids’ slide in my path and grabbing the bolt on the back gate. It’s jammed! I yank on it frantically and Scott pushes me aside. He grunts and leans his weight into it, and it gives with a groan. He pulls the gate open and we spill through it just as AbGen’s agents catch sight of us.

  “Freeze!” one shouts as I stare back over my shoulder at him.

  “Stay where you are!” another voice commands.

  We don’t listen to either of them, taking off along the pavement as fast as our feet can carry us. Not fast enough. I can feel myself falling behind as we tear through the back alleys. Scott feels me lagging and drops back – idiot!

  “Shift!” he shouts at me. I don’t argue. He can’t escape if he’s waiting for me. I don’t even think about the fact I’m running. Fear is already powering me, and I latch onto it, letting it propel me a different way, because I need to save him the only way I can, I’ve got to–

  There’s suddenly a wall coming at me very quickly – or more precisely, I’m flying towards it, my feet completely out of control beneath me. I crash into it, knocking the air out of my lungs, and collapse to the floor. For a moment I just sit there, dazed and aching every inch from head to toe. My head’s pounding and I don’t know if it’s from the shift or the wall. Oh. Oh. My stomach. My hand flies to my mouth then I lean over to my side and lose whatever I had left of lunch. I groan and wipe my lips.

  Shifting on the run. Definitely a bad idea.

  Scott. Oh God, did they catch him? Where is he? Come to that, where am I?

  I look around and force my eyes to bring everything back into focus, squinting against the light – was it always so bright out here?

  Nope, don’t recognise anything. Yeah, that never gets old. Resigned, I push myself to my feet, and don’t even bother getting my phone out because it won’t have rebooted after the EM pulse yet. Also not annoying in the least. Dilemma: wait here (next to a small puddle of my own vomit), or stumble off in search of a road sign whilst looking like the town drunk? There’s just not a good option here. Story of my life.

  I need to find Scott, and I need not to get caught while I’m doing it. I’ve got money in my pocket, enough for a cab, but first things first. I step out onto the street and make my way into the first shop I reach, arming myself with a can of coke and a couple of chocolate bars. I hope when we hook up with the Ishmaelians they offer us dental cover, because all this sugar is not doing me any favours.

  Back on the street, I devour the first chocolate bar, and walk along swigging the coke as I keep my eyes peeled for a taxi. Now would be a really good time to know where I am. I pull my phone out, and stare at the screen in dismay. It’s smashed. The whole phone is crushed. I try to turn it on, but it’s not happening. Something inside it must’ve broken when I hit the wall. I can’t even call Scott from a payphone because I haven’t memorised his number, and do payphones even exist anymore? Today really isn’t going my way. And there’s not even any traffic coming down this stupid road, in the back end of wherever the hell I am.

  With a frustrated groan I sink to the floor and cradle my head in my hands. I can’t deal with this right now. I buried my best friend a few hours ago, can’t I even have one day to mourn her before AbGen gets back to ruining my whole damn life? Just one day! It’s too much. I’m not ready to let her go, she’s supposed to be living her life, falling in love, laughing at my bad dress sense. Not lying in the cold ground. Oh God, I miss her so much.

  I don’t even realise I’m crying until I feel the dampness in my hands. Great. Now my face is going to be puffy. If there is a God up there, then he has a sick sense of humour. Like, ‘Hey, your life sucks so much that water’s literally exploding from your eyes. Let me help by making your face swell up to twice its size.’

  Sometime later, I abandon my pity party and push myself up off the ground with a sigh. Sitting around feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to help me find Scott. When he can’t reach me by phone, he’s going to come looking for me. Assuming the agents didn’t– no, I’m not even going to go there. He’s fine. Trouble is, he has no idea where to find me. But we had this place, a lake back in Ryebridge, where I first decided to join AbGen, and where Scott came to me when I first started running from them. Surely he’ll know to find me there again.

  I wipe my hands on my jeans and shuffle along the street, feeling like a train wreck, and probably looking worse. I need to get onto a busier road, where I’ve got a better chance of finding a cab, or a bus, or a payphone, or anything even remotely useful to me right now. The only problem is I have no idea which direction that might be.

  I’m still deliberating when a car turns into the road. It catches my attention because it’s moving at way below the speed limit. Checking out pedestrians? Could AbGen be that close behind me? My heart pounds in my chest as I watch its progress. I’ve got to get out of here, I need to get away from them, I’ve got to– No! I can’t shift, not so soon after my last one. My glucose reserves are already run down, my head is throbbing, there’s no telling what another shift will do. Leave me unconscious, at the very least – and I can’t afford to be vulnerable right now, not with AbGen out hunting me.

  So, shifting’s out. What do I do? I can’t run, that’ll attract all sorts of attention and the state I’m in, I couldn’t outrun a snail, never mind a car. I take a breath and do that only thing I can think of: turn up one of the driveways, put some purpose in my stride, and make for the door. Odds are no-one’s in, and if they are, I’ll blag it until the car’s passed. My face is hidden, and as long as I’m at a door I look like I belong. I allow myself a quick glance in the car’s direction, justifying the risk by telling myself it’s useful to know the faces AbGen have sent. I wish I hadn’t. It’s the guy from Janey’s funeral, the one with the clean hands. He’s ditched the cheap suit jacket and tie, and he’s just in a shirt. His eyes are scanning the pavement on both sides, and I turn back to the door and raise my hand to knock, but I’m pretty sure he clocked my face. My heart pounds furiously as I track the sound of the car, waiting for it to stop, for him to challenge me, and I have no idea what I’m going to do when he does that.

  He doesn’t stop. I swallow my nausea and lower my hand. That’s made my decision for me: I’m headed in the opposite direction to him. I hurry back down the driveway and along the pavement as fast as I can without drawing more attention to myself. Why the hell are there no taxis in this stupid town?

  I turn the corner and see something even better than a taxi: a sign to the local rail station. I can catch a train back to Ryebridge, and flag down a taxi there.

  I pay for my ticket, finish my coke and eat the last chocolate bar, and settle back on the train, contemplating everything that could go wrong in the next hour. It doesn’t make for a relaxing journey; nor does scanning the faces of everyone entering my carriage or jumping every time someone brushes past me make the time pass any faster. But pass it does, and eventually I’m getting off at Ryebridge station. I make my way through the gates, hidden amongst the rush hour commuters. I don’t have a hood to pull up as I pass the CCTV cameras, so I duck my head and stick with the crowd, hurrying past them as quickly as any other commuter trying to get home.

  Outside, I hop into the first cab I see and tell him to
head for the lake, and we’re on our way again. The closer we get, the more I start to worry. Did Scott make it, or is he locked up at AbGen – or worse? If he’s out there, will he have thought to look for me at the lake, or is he putting himself at risk right now, searching for me near Joe’s home with agents hunting him? There’s no telling what I’m going to find at the lake. If he’s here, he could be hurt. Or he might not be here – he could be lying in a hospital bed, injured. And vulnerable. And AbGen could be closing in on him, and–

  “We’re here.”

  I look around and realise that we are, in fact, here. I pay the cabbie and hop out, and hurry towards the bend that will bring the lake in sight, then slow to a crawl as anxiety gnaws at me, then hurry again – because whatever’s round there, it can’t be worse than not knowing.

  I swallow, and take the last steps round the bend, my eyes running over the lake, the treeline, the hill… and that’s where I see him, sitting on the gentle slope where we first talked about what my future could be like. If only we’d known. I can’t hold myself back any longer. I run down the track towards him. He hears me and rises to his feet, walking to meet me and catching me as I fall into his arms, crying with fear, relief and a hundred other emotions I don’t have the time or inclination to analyse. All I need to know is that he’s here, and he’s okay. He is okay, right?

  “You’re okay, right?” I ask, as soon as I can speak again.

  “I’m fine,” he murmurs into my hair. “I was so worried about you. I tried to call…”

  He pulls me away from him and looks down at me, examining me for any sign I’m hurt as I look up and do the same to him. His sleeves have some fresh rips in them, like he snagged them getting through a small gap. His jeans are smeared with a few traces of mud and grass – he’s taken a tumble at some stage. No bruises. No blood. He’s okay. I breathe for the first time since I shifted. He’s okay.

  He runs his thumb over my cheek, tracing a dull ache on my face. A bruise, for sure.

  “What happened?”

  “A wall. It’s nothing.”