Chapter Fourteen

Fourteen

Jackson is right. I’m a pack rat, Renee thought, depressed as she stood in the middle of her room, sealed and labeled boxes to one side, open boxes and strewn belongings on the other. Mentally exhausted, she gathered the stack of fairy-tale books she’d been using for reference and set them in a box with her old boots. She hadn’t worn the knee-high, snake-proof, ugly things since she’d gotten here, and the dirt encrusted on their soles was dusty. The boots she would undoubtedly wear again, but she was bringing the fairy-tale books because she liked the idea of them side by side with her genetic titration manuals on her reference shelf.

Home, she thought, her emotions a jumble of anticipation and loss. The helpless fury last night that had fueled her determination to leave had eased to a jaded anger over a late dinner alone on her bed. As Jackson had threatened, she was under house arrest again. At least this time, she had access to the installation’s Wi-Fi. The texts were piling up, but she refused to look at them beyond the first sentence. None of them had started with “You were right” or “Monroe and Tayler are Nextdoor,” so she wasn’t interested. There was even one from Vaughn. Like I would ever click that one open.

Sleep had been fitful, and she’d been up at the crack of dawn when the guard she had talked to last night had shown up with her requested boxes and tape. That had been hours ago, and now she was wondering if anyone was going to bring her breakfast or if she was going to have to remind them.

The sssskkkt of the packing tape was loud, and she turned at the soft knock on her door.

“It’s about time,” she muttered. Rising, she set the box atop the others. “Come in!” she called as she fumbled for the marker in her back pocket. Desert, she wrote, as opposed to storage , hoping it wasn’t a wish but a premonition. The world knew about Neighbors, so she would likely not be detained her freedom under the flag of secrecy, but thinking that she could return to her old life with the snakes and the sun somehow seemed…naive.

She turned to her door as it opened, her welcoming smile for the expected guard and her breakfast faltering. Vaughn? “I quit,” she said needlessly, and Vaughn seemed to shrug.

“You got a minute? Jackson is on his way with a tray, and I need to convince you to stay before he gets here.”

“ Need to, huh?” Renee put all her weight on one foot, eyeing the tall man. “I’m not changing my mind. I’m so done with this place. And I don’t have to talk to you anymore. Will you leave, please? I have to pack.”

But for all the clutter of her room/office, not much of it was hers, and her shoulders slumped. I’m going to miss you, August, she thought, quashing even the hint of the welling pity party.

“Let’s get to it, then.” Vaughn pushed forward, almost shoving into her personal space.

“Hey!” Renee fell back, her brow furrowing when Vaughn shut the door and stood before it with one hand at his chest. “What is your problem?” she added when he reached for her shoulder. “Get the hell out of my room!”

His hand landed on her shoulder, and she froze at the sudden, whisper-familiar tingle pulsing into her, driving its way to her head. “You will not quit.”

Vaughn’s four words rocked her back as they wedged themselves into her head and exploded. Gasping, she struggled to breathe. “Let go,” she slurred, pushing at his fingers to no avail. “You’re hurting me.”

“You want to stay,” he said firmly, and Renee staggered, her heart pounding as her head throbbed and his words beat at her. “You won’t remember me being here.”

What the hell? she thought, struggling to keep from throwing up as she peered at him, straining to see past her throbbing headache. But there was more than Vaughn’s words ricocheting like a pinball in her skull, and she shoved his demand aside, finding strength as she focused on a tiny ribbon of loss at the core. Like a spine, it snaked through Vaughn’s words, giving them power and strength. Borrowed power. Stolen strength.

It’s not Vaughn’s loss I’m feeling, she thought suddenly.

Gasping, she brought her arms up, falling back as she broke his hold on her. Vaughn cried out in surprise as she landed against her desk and stared. His eyes were not shaped right, and they were blue, not brown. That leaf ring glittered from his finger, and his hair was like black straw. “What the hell,” she whispered, and then she hunched, stifling a groan as pain flashed through her and was gone.

When she brought her head up, Vaughn looked like he always did—apart from his confidence…which had been replaced with a shaky realization.

“My God, do you even know you’re doing it?” he whispered, and her gaze dropped to his hand trying to hide his ring.

“Doing what?”

Vaughn licked his lips and glanced at the door. “I’m not your enemy, Renee. I’m trying to help you. Help all of us. I doctored the video of what happened with Mikail,” he whispered. “They will never know you can use creation energy. No one will. You can’t ever tell them that you can commune with their sparks. Renee, they will kill you. You have to keep it a secret.”

Renee backed up, suddenly scared. “I don’t know what you are talking about. We can’t use their body tech.”

“Good.” Vaughn ran a hand over his face, clearly shaken. “Keep it that way. Because if they ever find out…”

Renee’s eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you?”

“No one.” Again he glanced at the door. “This is getting too complicated. I need to know how much you can use their tech, but you can’t let them know.”

“August knows. He won’t say anything, and you haven’t answered me. Who the hell are you!”

Vaughn shifted uneasily, fear crossing him as he glanced into his cupped palm. “You can’t quit. Not now. Jackson…” He took a slow breath. “You are going to keep this all a secret, got it?” he said, and Renee jerked back from his reach. “Because if you don’t, they will kill you.”

“August would never hurt me,” Renee whispered, stiffening as something warm seemed to settle over her. It was as far away and distant from the expected headache as a caress from a slap, and she felt her eyes droop. The hint of salt lifted through her awareness, and the soft sound of a gentle surf. Home, she mused, not knowing why. She had always loved the desert.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Vaughn whispered. “Renee…”

The knock at the door shocked through them both, and Vaughn’s grip on her vanished.

Renee’s eyes flashed open, and she took a step back, startled as Vaughn’s eyes seemed to grow small and brown. The glint of the ring on his finger caught her eye, and then she looked away, forgetting it the instant her gaze left it.

“Renee?” came Jackson’s call. “I’ve got your breakfast. Can we talk?”

Confusion dropped from Renee like a sheet of water. “Come on in!” she shouted, arms over her chest. “Vaughn was just leaving.”

“Vaughn?” Jackson’s surprised utterance was clear as the guard opened her door. “Did you convince her to stay?”

“Nope.” Vaughn smiled, cellophane crackling as he unwrapped a sucker and stuck it in his mouth. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.” Vaughn stared at her for a moment. “Doctor,” he drawled as he ambled out into the hall.

“See you never, Vaughn,” she shot after him. But as she turned to Jackson, a lingering confusion swirled up from nowhere. She remembered being angry at the psychiatrist, but not why.

“What did he want?”

“I have no idea,” she said, and Jackson kicked her door shut, seeing as his hands were holding a covered tray. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving as soon as I can get an Uber out here.”

Jackson in his blah utilities met her eyes squarely—no shame, no guilt—and it kind of ticked her off. There was an envelope beside the covered plate, and she forced her eyes from it.

“Did you draw the long stick or the short?” she asked, and a smile cracked his guarded expression.

“Ha, ha,” he said flatly. “Should I leave it, or just leave?”

Renee lurched into motion, her frustration from yesterday swinging back to the forefront of her thoughts as she moved two boxes off her swivel chair. “Sit if you want.”

Jackson hesitated for a moment, then put the tray on the bed before dragging the rolling chair to the foot of it and easing himself down. “I was told you had requested boxes and tape.”

“Yeah?” she said, and then she turned from closing another box. “I can leave, right?” she asked, wincing as a headache threatened to take her.

Jackson bobbed his head. “Yeah.”

Hurt blossomed, anger that he wasn’t going to protest, try to stop her. “Great.” She glanced at the tray, stomach rumbling. Slowly her anger ebbed. “Thanks for breakfast,” she said, motions slow as she sat on the bed and put the tray on her lap.

“I should probably put together a box myself,” he said as she unfolded the napkin wrapped around the silverware. “I brought Monroe in in handcuffs. What was I thinking?” His elbows went on his knees, and his head dropped into his hands.

“Let me guess.” Renee set the lid aside to find a steaming omelet, toast, jelly, and bacon. “Monroe and Tayler never made it to DC. Surprise, surprise, surprise,” she mocked.

“You don’t have to be so nasty about it.” His jaw clenched. “They’re probably already set up in a lab on the East Coast somewhere, going over their data and making more of those sonic cannons. Maybe at an abandoned installation. We’ve got them everywhere. I’ll be lucky if I’m not court-martialed.”

Renee eyed him, startled from her next tart remark when Digit popped into the room, colorful wings beating the air and sending her short hair flying.

“Holy sassafras,” Jackson said as Renee beamed, her hand going out to give the snake somewhere to land. “Is that the same one? He just pops in like that?”

Holy sassafras? “Jackson, I am not going to work with people who not only allow that kind of brutality, but then work their asses off to cover it up, thereby sanctioning it,” she said as the smooth feel of the snake twining about her fingers seemed to ease her mind. “And don’t give me any bull about national security, either.” She smiled at Digit, cooing at him as he struggled to evade her fingers to get to her breakfast. “What Tayler did wasn’t for national security, it was pure malice. A hate crime. She did it with the intent to harm because she perceived them as a threat simply because they were different from her.”

“Are you going to eat all that?” he asked, and she brought her gaze up from Digit, surprised he wasn’t arguing with her.

“No, I’m sharing it with my buddy here.” Her brow furrowed at his sigh. “Seriously?” she said. But he was staring at her plate, so she distracted Digit with a thumbnail-size chunk of egg, cut her omelet in two, and dropped half on a piece of toast. “That’s all you both get. I’m the one stuck here, unable to get to the commissary.”

“Thanks.” Jackson reached eagerly for his share. “So, as I was saying, it was fortuitous that I confined you to quarters all night, a guard at your door.”

“Mmmm?” she prompted. Eat a bite, share a crumb.

“Gorman is gone, too,” Jackson said. “Right out of his locked room.”

“Somehow, ‘I told you so’ just doesn’t cut it,” Renee said, charmed by the little snake curving through her fingers and beating his wings in annoyance, demanding she give him more.

Jackson took an enormous bite of omelet-draped toast. “I’d say Noel was behind it,” he said around his chewing. “But it was probably my own people. Damn it, Renee, sometimes I hate this job.” He teased a second napkin out from under her plate. “I’m glad you stopped Mikail from killing Dr. Tayler.” He dabbed at his mouth and crumpled the napkin in his fist when he was done. “But unless we can find her, we will never learn what really happened in those cages.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” she said, gaze on Digit as the satiated snake curled into a little ball in her shirt pocket and began to drowse.

Jackson’s gaze sharpened on her. “That’s exactly what Noel said when I told her this morning.”

Her chewing slowed. “Really? I wouldn’t have expected that mild of a response from her. Was that before or after you gave her the doctored USB?”

“Mmmm. What an interesting assumption,” he said as he leaned forward and took the envelope up from beside her plate. “I didn’t find anything to doctor,” he said as he extended it. “They got a clean copy. Maybe you imagined your ability to use their body tech.”

Vaughn… her memory mused, and then it was gone in a flash of a headache. Renee set her fork down and wiped her fingers clean. “Last time I accepted an envelope from you, I was drafted.”

Jackson shrugged, and she took it. Her name was on it, in both English and Nextdoor. “What is it?” she asked as she broke the seal.

Elbows on his knees again, Jackson hunched over and stared at the shaft of light coming in under the door. “Seems that in response to the many misunderstandings, the Neighbors are inviting a small group of people to live Nextdoor. Not at an embassy, but sort of a student exchange.”

Renee’s pulse quickened. “It’s not from you?” she said as she felt the odd, almost slippery paper. Dear Dr. Caisson…. Appreciate your dedication to furthering understanding between our two societies…. Integrated pilot program…. Focus on identifying and isolating Earth species into a Nextdoor biosphere with intent to rebalance their ecosystem.

“My God. This is what I went to school for,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.” He seemed depressed. “What’s not on there is that you will be there for five years, no trips home.” Jackson’s eyes met hers. “This showed up an hour after I delivered the USB showing Mikail’s attack on you. There was one for Will, too. They want to know our weaknesses, Renee. Our strengths. With a full immersion, it might be hard to hide your potential ability to use their body tech. Acclimating to their environment alone could leave your lungs damaged. And then there’s the question of language. We can’t duplicate it. Renee…”

Her pulse quickened and she stood. She loved her desert, but the chance to see an entirely new world? “I’m doing this,” she said breathlessly, the little snake lifting a sleepy head over the rim of her pocket. August would be a part of it, wouldn’t he? This was what he’d gone to school for, too.

“Don’t you think you should mull it around a little?” Jackson said, a worried smile on him as he sat there looking dejected. “You’re probably a celebrity for having helped find Mikail, but it’s five years. There’s no direct communication between our world and theirs, and once you’re there…”

She laughed, taking his hands in hers, pulling him to his feet, and practically dancing him about her cluttered floor. “Don’t analyze this to death. I’m going. I say yes!”