Two out of the three tables were occupied. At the closest, a college-aged guy demolished a bagel while he thumbed through something on his tablet, his lips moving as he read. The woman at the second table with the painfully tight ponytail was glaring at her phone, her coffee forgotten in her annoyance.
I started for the last table in the row, which also offered the advantage of the corner. I could put my back to it and know that no one would be sneaking up from that direction, unless someone decided to leap over the ordering counter and come through that way.
That seemed like something Ford might do. But not today, I hoped.
As I passed the second table, the woman with the phone looked up suddenly. Her gaze passed over me from head to toe, lingering an extra second on my hair and my face, with frank curiosity.
“Wait,” she said, holding out her free hand, palm out, as if to prevent me from passing her by.
Her interest immediately set off an alarm in my head. Nothing about her seemed inherently dangerous, though, except that she was sitting up straighter and paying more attention than she should have been.
That, in and of itself, wasn’t exceptional. Occasionally I’d had strangers—women, usually—stop me before. It never failed to send me in a panic in Wingate. But running would have broken Rule #4, keeping my head down and being as inconspicuous as possible, so I’d stood my ground, trying to keep my shaking from being obvious.
It had always turned out to be innocuous. Most of the time, they wanted to know if that was my natural hair color, and if not, who did it for me. Sometimes one of them would cluck over my thinness and ask, “Isn’t anyone feeding you?” as if I were a stray animal.
I’d always given the answers as quickly as possible. “Yes, it’s natural. And yes, I’m fed well at home. I just have a small frame.”
Responses that would ring true and encourage no further dialogue.
So, more out of habit than intention, I paused, those old phrases leaping to mind in preparation.
But then she spoke again. “Ariane,” she said with a big smile. “Right?”
My field of vision narrowed to the woman’s face, panic blocking out everything else. The intense interest in her expression was familiar in a very specific way. I’d seen it from Dr. Jacobs repeatedly, every time I’d achieved another level of accomplishment in his experiment. It was an eagerness born of the desire to obtain, to own.
This woman, whoever she was, knew not only who I was but what I was. Worse yet, I couldn’t get anything from her thoughts, which meant she’d had training and knew exactly what to expect from me.
Suddenly, the air felt suffocating, the warmth and smells that had seemed so pleasant a moment ago now seemed to cling to my face, like plastic pressed against my nose and mouth.
Get out. Now. A scene in here with all these people, that would only draw more attention to me, which was the last thing I needed. I didn’t know this woman, but if she knew me, that could only mean that she was somehow involved in this mess.
I spun around immediately to return the way I’d come.
“Don’t.” As if she’d anticipated my reaction, the woman’s hand landed on my arm before I got more than a step, jerking me to a stop.
NO. Even before I consciously made the decision to defend myself, power rose up in me and flooded outward, surrounding her.
The pressure of her hand on my arm lessened as she loosed her grip and tried to pull away. But she wasn’t going anywhere.
I turned to face her, holding her frozen.
The tips of her fingers twitched against my forearm as she struggled to free herself. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispered, her eyes wide as she stared at her hand and then at me.
“No,” I agreed. “You’re not.”
The college student guy at the table in front of us turned to glance back with a frown, evidently sensing the tension.
“Leave,” I said, making sure he heard the threat implied in my tone.
His eyes bugged, but he didn’t move.
I stared him down. It didn’t take much effort to make full-blooded humans recognize that something wasn’t quite right and that they should listen to the tiny voices in their brains screaming at them to run away.
College guy scrambled up out of his seat, grabbing his bag and his iPad, leaving his half-finished bagel behind.
There. That was better. One less witness for whatever I did next.
“Ariane!” I heard Zane’s voice, breathless, behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him move around the bakery racks toward me.
“What are you doing?” He approached, his hands out as if to keep me from making a sudden move.
“She grabbed my arm,” I said flatly, in the same tone I would have said, “I don’t like her.” The two were equivalent in my mind.
“I see that.” Zane sounded wary. I glanced at him, his face even more flushed, his eyes still oddly dilated. He looked…ill. That’s what had bothered me before. He and Adam, they both looked like they were on the third day of a virus. That had to be a side effect of their alteration. I wondered if it was permanent. Would he always be on the verge of being sick?