23. Jane

The next morning is game day, which means a team breakfast in the dining hall, but since Manson never came to bed, I sleep through Parker's knock and have to settle for another energy bar. I had plenty of time to think in the night, and I've decided that since this might be my only chance to get into the military archives, I need to take it.

"You look excited about study hall," Parker smirks as we head into the library. He's my escort for the morning, since Manson had some business with their coach, and I plan to make the most of my freedom. "Are you a secret nerd, secret girl?"

He's dropped his voice to ask the question, but I still send him a quelling look. "I doubt anything stays secret for long when you're around."

We've taken the stairs to the second level, and I cast a quick glance around for Travis, trying to ignore the disappointed flutter in my chest as I head towards an empty study table.

"Are you saying I have loose lips, runt?" Parker fires back, but it's more for the students we're passing than because he's taken offense. Parker seems to sail through life knowing he's untouchable, which means that most things seem to slide right off his back. "Maybe you should pucker up and test them out."

"Sure," I reply quickly, stepping in close enough to brush his lips with mine. "Lay it on me, Parker. Manson loves it when I taste like another alpha."

It's nothing more than a peck, but his eyes almost bug out of his head as he digs in his bag and pulls out a stick of gum. "Chew this before you get me killed, you terror!"

I bat my lashes at him. "Maybe you should pop into the bathroom with me and help me freshen up?"

No one is paying us any attention, but Parker still looks around in concern. "You're distracting me from my studies, runt," he says in a loud voice, parking himself at the table. I drop my backpack on the chair next to him as he shoots me a warning look over the top of his book. "Just there and back, okay?"

"Of course," I reply, regulating my breathing and heart rate so my face doesn't betray me. I walk slowly past the stacks, weaving past a few study carrels until I come to the back stairwell. A quick glance over my shoulder reassures me that I'm alone and I hurry down the steps, pulling Law's access card out of my chest binder.

According to what I've learned in class, the Army Heritage Center contains historical records, materials, and artifacts, including over a million manuscript pages, three hundred thousand photographs, and five thousand maps. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack except that the vast majority of records are stored in an electronic library. The leftovers – those deemed too obscure, damaged, or of little value - are stacked in a room off the official archives. And that's exactly where I'd hide any materials I hoped would never see the light of day again.

The main area is easy enough to access with a swipe of Law's card. There is a reference desk just inside the door, but the librarian is on a call, so I drift past with a vague smile. There are a few students sitting at the tables and computer terminals as they work on their military history assignments, but I keep my head down as I head over to the display case at the back. I pretend to study the artifacts under the glass, inching closer to the back room with every step. A quick glance around and I pass Law's access card over the scanner, my heart leaping as the panel turns green.

I slip through so fast I can feel a breeze on the back of my neck. Pressing against the wall, I wait for an irate librarian to storm in and drag me out, but it's just me, a pile of dust, and a mountain of old boxes and filing cabinets. Faded strip lights flicker on the walls, and I look around, disheartened by the clutter. "Should have brought a snack," I mutter.

"No eating in the library," a prim voice says behind me, and I whirl around, my heart almost leaping out of my chest.

There's no way he's a librarian, dressed in faded jeans and an overstretched sweater. He's only a few inches taller than me, with a shock of coppery curls and piercing eyes, all the more startling because one is blue and the other green.

"You smell like cookies," I blurt out, and he cackles. Not laughs, but throws his head back, the sound rolling from deep in his belly and echoing in the windowless room. "Shh! You're going to get us in trouble with the librarian."

"You mean get you in trouble," he says, his eerie eyes dancing. It's only then I notice that his sweater hangs off one shoulder, his skin the color of cream shot through with swirls of colored ink. " I have a great exit strategy."

I blink at him, breathing in his scent again. "Cutter?"

"That lunatic?" he chortles. "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

"But…" I know that scent, sweet and addictive. He also fits Travis' description, although I can't get a clear idea of his designation. He smells like an omega, but holds himself like an alpha, and I wouldn't be completely surprised if he said he was a beta. "You live in the attic of Bleak House, right?"

He cocks his head, then cracks open the drawer of the nearest filing cabinet. He sneezes into his sleeve, then starts rifling through the dusty files, pulling out a few and studying their labels before dropping them back at random. "Sometimes," he finally admits. "But I prefer to think of myself as a free bird."

"Can you fly?" It's a crazy question, except there are feathers tattooed on his neck, and he has a birdcage in his room.

His eyes gleam as he stares back at me. "Can you?"

"No, of course not." My gaze drops to his ankles. His jeans are tight, and it's obvious he's not wearing a monitor. "How do you get in and out of the attic with no one noticing?"

"How do you?"

I'm tempted to nudge him, hard. "I knock on your door and walk in."

He leans an elbow on the edge of the cabinet and taps his lips. "Funny, I don't remember you seeing me there. Maybe because you can't invite someone in if you're someplace else."

I pause, trying to untangle his words. "You're not easy to question, are you?"

He narrows his eyes at me. "Is this an interrogation?"

I shake my head at him and start inspecting the labels on the boxes, looking for some kind of pattern. I don't know how long Parker will give me before he sounds the alarm, but I need to make every second count. "Since you're here, how about helping me? I'm looking for anything about the start of the war, or any mention of the communes being created."

"Sure," he replies, "or you could just tell the librarian your research topic and let them dig it out for you."

I peel back the flap of a box, almost choking on the cloud of dust that erupts into the air. It looks like a bunch of old diaries or travel journals, but the pages are stuck together, the ink a blurry mess. "This is a personal project."

Cutter is in the far corner, nosing about in a crate of old film reels. "Oh, you mean the one where you're going to take on the UAF single-handedly, exposing the way they fractured pack society and herded us onto communes like cattle?"

I stare at him in shock. " You bugged Manson's bedroom? "

He unwinds a reel, holding the old film up to the light. "Why would I, when I can just stand in the corner and listen for myself?" His eyes crinkle at the edges. "You like the Bleak House boys, but you have the best conversations with Manson. Why is that you think?"

He's still smiling whimsically at me, but I charge across the room, grabbing him by the sleeve. "How do you get into the den?"

"Do you want to know because you plan to report me, or because you want to know how you can get out? Doors go both ways, after all."

I pause, because he's right. I might have an access card, but that won't help me get past the cadet guarding the den. "Are there tunnels? Is that how you sneak around?"

"Do I look like a sneak?" he demands, handing me a dusty file. "This one is grenade-level explosive, so handle with care."

I glance at the label and slowly peel it open. It's an old memo from something called the Civilian Movement Administration and its mandate under Executive Order to control the identification, processing, and relocation of civilians to Whitby Commune. Its date makes it fifty years old, and as I quickly flick through the file, I find that it's just one of many. Every commune I've ever heard of seems to have a memo. I look up at Cutter. "Is there more like this?"

"Oh, that's just the easy pickings. There are field reports over there," he says, pointing at a filing cabinet in the corner, "and if you want the really juicy stuff, there's a bunch of surveillance photographs of what they call ‘pack dissenters'. Basically, the army had a most wanted list of packs who led the riots."

I jolt at the word. "Riots?"

"Like Manson said, the powers-that-be didn't just wait for packs to die out. They split them up and tore them apart, and plenty of packs went down fighting."

I look at the corner where he's pointing, my heart clenching to see the broken down, dusty boxes. They went down fighting, but for what? The communes have been in place ever since, and packs are now the stuff of romance novels and corny TV shows.

"It's horrible. And no one knows what they sacrificed their lives for."

"Some do," Cutter corrects me, and his voice is so grim, my head snaps around to stare at him. The smirk is gone from his face, his mismatched eyes as hard as gems. "But if you want real ammunition against them, you should be checking out the archives of the Military Research Division."

"You mean Van Ness?"

Cutter's eyes darken until they're the color of stormy seas. "Him, but his predecessors, too. It's all kept in a locked room under their labs."

An icy tremor grips the back of my neck and then works its way down my spine. "You've been in there?"

Cutter studies my face, and for a moment his cookie scent is tinged with fear. "I was a special guest."

"I'm sorry." I don't need to hear the details to know that whatever happened to him was traumatic. "We don't have to talk about this…"

"But I made copies. Want to see?"

I blink at him. He made copies of some potentially explosive information on the military's research division?

"I don't think I want to go anywhere near Van Ness," I tell him slowly.

"You won't. They're upstairs." He holds out a hand that's a swirl of colored ink. Feathers, but also flowers, with thorny vines twisting around each finger. "Come on, I'll show you."

I nod and after tucking the commune file inside my jacket, slip my hand into his. His skin is warm, almost hot, and there's a feverish glow in his eyes as we slip out of the records room. I don't know if he's sick, in the most basic sense of the word, but he's definitely hurt, and I feel a familiar anger coil under my skin.

What did Van Ness do to him? Is Cutter a ‘treasure', like I'm meant to be? Something for the scientist to dissect and study? And if he is, why don't the other Bleak House guys know about it? Or maybe they do, and the whole absentee housemate thing is just a ruse. Maybe they know exactly what has happened to him, but they don't trust me enough to share his secret.

I push away the troubling thoughts and try to focus on looking inconspicuous. We get out of the archives room without any problem, but when Cutter leads me towards the main part of the library, I pull back. If Parker sees us holding hands, Cutter's secret won't remain secret for long.

"Some of the Trap Team guys are studying out there. If they see us, it could be a problem."

We're standing at the stairwell door on the same floor as Parker, although I can't see his desk through the smoky glass pane. When Cutter nudges me around to look at him, I'm surprised by the mixture of fear and excitement dancing in his eyes. "There's only one thing for it. Sneaky powers."

I raise my brows at him. "You mean the tunnels?"

He bites his lip, but a slightly manic giggle still slips out. "More like camouflage. But for it to work on both of us, we have to get a lot closer." He leans forward until his nose is only inches from mine. "I'm afraid you're going to have to kiss me, Mercy."

I watch him carefully. Is this just a ploy to get a quick healing? "If you're in pain, Cutter, I can help with that, but we have to be honest about it. A kiss and a healing are two different things."

"That's not what I'm saying." He's already taking a step back, a wounded twist to his lips.

Mercy. Somehow, I've insulted him. I bite my lip as I take in the hunch to his shoulders. Do I give him the benefit of the doubt? What can one kiss hurt, even if his motive is a little murky? Making up my mind, I squeeze his hand. "Okay, but we have to make it quick…"

He lunges before I'm finished, his mouth hot and hungry as it rams against mine. It's sloppy and desperate, his tongue pushing between my lips and licking across my teeth. I gasp, my spine stiffening, but the crushing grip on my fingers loosens, and I taste something sweet and tart, like wild berries. Cutter makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, and my skin tingles with a wave of goosebumps. It fizzes through my blood, somewhere between an itch and a caress, but before I've even started to process it, he's pulling away, and I can feel my eyes growing impossibly wide .

He's shiny in the middle and fuzzy at the edges. It's crazy, but it's the only way to describe him. While his skin and hair are glowing with an unearthly light, it's like looking at an out-of-focus photograph instead of a real person. "Like I said," he murmurs, his voice catching, "camouflage."

Lifting our clasped hands, I stare in disbelief at my wrist. It shimmers inside the smudgy outline of my sleeve, the skin gleaming like it's been rubbed in crushed pearls. "Me, too?" I ask, my voice a high-pitched squeak.

"That's what the kiss is for. Transference. But you only look like this to me, because we're both bound by the kiss." He nods at the window. "When we walk out there, you'll be nothing more than a sweet scent and cool breeze on the back of their necks. They won't see a thing."

I gape at him, then start patting down my body. "It's all gone? Clothes, and everything?"

He sniggers. "Well, you're invisible, not naked. I've got sneaky powers, not pervy ones."

"Invisibility," I whisper, reaching out to touch the tattoo on his neck. It's a bird – maybe a songbird – peeking through some foliage. Against his shimmering skin, the image twists and dances under my fingers, more alive than the canvas it's inked on. "How?"

"Well, it's not really invisibility. More like blending into the background."

The definition of camouflage. But this isn't a shirt with a clever pattern on it. This is on a cellular level. "You're a chameleon."

He tilts his head, the bird on his neck mimicking the action. "I don't really know what I am, but I can fade out of existence whenever I want. And if I kiss someone, they can do it too, only I've never tested that out in the wild before."

Which means I'm his first. Why? Why would he pick me to share this incredible power with? And what does he mean by testing it in the wild? It reminds me of Van Ness and his lab, and I wrap my arms around myself, trying to suppress a shudder.

"It's incredible," I tell him, and his shoulders unfurl, his face lighting up so brightly it's like looking into the sun. "This is really amazing, Cutter."

"Luke," he says quietly. "There are no Cutters left."

I don't know what he means by that, but I reach out and squeeze his hand. "Hi, Luke. I'm Jane. "

His answering smile would be shy if it wasn't so radiant. "Hi, Jane. Now, do you want to go get this ammunition?"

I nod, too overwhelmed to speak, and he quickly solidifies, the shimmering effect sliding off him like a thin, silk cloak. "Have to be visible to open doors," he tells me with a beleaguered sigh. "It's a pain, so make sure you leave them open a crack in case I'm not around to kiss you back."

I nod again, although that's something I'll have to process later. For the moment, I've accepted his power is tied to his kiss, which I guess is something we have in common.

As soon as the door is cracked, he melts back to a shimmer state, and we both slip through. I brace myself as a student walks towards us, weighed down with books, but Luke presses me back against a bookshelf and he strides past, oblivious to our presence. I stare after him, waiting for him to turn around and call us out, but he just drops the pile of books on a desk and slumps down into his seat.

I'm invisible.

A tingle of excitement ripples through me, and Luke gives a soft chuckle in my ear. "Come on," he whispers again, and we sneak across the room, hands clasped. I feel almost giddy as he takes me right to the back of the stacks, into the darkest, most secluded corner. "Best hiding place on campus."

I frown, because he can't mean the evidence is right here. Yes, it's an out-of-the-way spot, and it doesn't look like many students come back here, based on the fine layer of dust. But still…

He crouches down at the end of a row, pulling out a large book with a thick spine. The old-fashioned cover depicts a faded bouquet of flowers and the title: The Fine Art of Apology.

"How many students at this school have checked this out, do you think?"

Luke's smirk gleams like a knife in the dim light and I smother a laugh in my sleeve. He's right. It's probably the best hiding place on campus, because it's somewhere no alpha would ever look.

Placing the book carefully on the floor, he opens the heavy cover and pulls out a sheaf of paper. His face is grim as he stares down at them. "You sure you want to know, Jane? Information might be power, but knowledge isn't always a gift."

"You mean ignorance is bliss?" I think of those abandoned boxes down in the dusty archives. They're ignored, their cause forgotten, and I can't make myself believe it's a good thing. "I want to know, Luke. "

He bites his lip, but then nods and hands them over. "I'll keep watch," he murmurs, getting to his feet and walking to the end of the row.

I sit back on my heels, taking a steadying breath as I start to read. I've seen plenty of medical reports and recognize the top page immediately. It's a research protocol for a clinical study, including the trial details, investigational product name, and primary sponsors, General Nathan Whittle and Councillor Lord Edward Lancaster. It also includes the names and ranks of the study team, some military and some civilian, and details of the trial site, which in this case is Buck Valley in the Andorn Province.

I don't recognize either name, but as I flick the page, my heart starts to thump. It's a military action report detailing the payload, munition, and delivery mechanism used in Operation Terminus. I scan the next couple of pages, stumbling over some of the clinical jargon, but I'm fairly certain it means the Civin States' military released the trial product into a water supply in Buck Valley.

"What is it?" I mutter, flicking through the pages. "What did it do?"

Its scientific name is long and complicated. There is a chemical equation – not my strong suit – but they call it BAW 016 for short, or Aphoros .

"Luke," I whisper, and he's by my side in a heartbeat. "Aphoros. It means… infertile, I think?"

"It's all Greek to me," he quips, but traces a line of text with his fuzzy, glowing finger. "I looked this acronym up. BAW stands for biological agent waterborne ."

My hands have started to shake, but I force myself to focus. "Most biological warfare is an aerosol assault, focusing on the respiratory tract. But waterborne pathogens can be easier to hide, masquerading as digestive issues, especially in remote areas." I bite my lip, my stomach churning as I flip back to the cover page. "Do you really think the Military Research Division could have tainted a community's drinking water and messed with their reproductive systems?"

Luke looks as grim as I feel. "There's more," he says. "Further tests and field reports. I've hidden the copies in a couple of other books on this floor."

I glance around, wondering which ones they are. According to their spines, we seem to be sitting in a section of the library devoted to flower arranging and etiquette guidelines. "But you've read them?"

He crosses his arms over his ribs, like he's giving himself a hug. "I copied six reports like this. All different targets and all dated sixty years ago."

"At the beginning of the war."

"Yeah. And when I looked up the locations, they were all major towns located near key military compounds in Vistria. Not just soldiers, but their families, as well."

My stomach swoops, tumbling all the way to my boots.

War is an ugly business, but could the Civin States really have targeted our nearest neighbor like this?

I'm tempted to ask Luke to show me these other documents, but there's an angry growl from across the room, and I scramble to my feet. "Oh, Mercy. That's Manson. And he doesn't sound happy."