Two
Greens
It didn’t take long for everyone (except Aaron) to assemble downstairs in the War Room. The two teenagers, a boy and girl who hadn’t said a word past whispered greetings, sat huddled together at one end of the table, while the rest of us converged opposite them. None of us were in uniform, and Marco had even shifted back to human for the occasion, since the sight of a big black jungle cat probably would have made the kids wet themselves.
I imagined we were an interesting group in our own right, even though it was difficult for me to see our appearances as anything except normal. Renee’s blue skin and blue eyes, Marco’s black- and brown-dusted hands and face and glowing green eyes, Teresa’s striped hair and the purple smudges on her neck and face, Gage’s silver-flecked eyes and white-streaked hair. Dahlia and I didn’t have any physical discolorations (unless you counted me being a ginger), and Dr. Kinsey didn’t even look like a doctor, much less a scientist.
At first, the teens didn’t look too unusual, either. The girl had long brown hair, was on the short side, and watched us with a lot more suspicion than her companion. She was also wearing leather gloves in August. The boy with her had similar features, a less pretty version of hers—probably siblings—and he didn’t hide his curiosity.
They were our first Greens in Hill House, and in some ways, I envied them. Two kids with (we all assumed) superpowers that didn’t come with the added baggage of the War my friends and I had survived. They didn’t know what it was like to see kids their own age die in agony, or how it felt to run away from rampaging Banes in absolute terror for their lives. They didn’t know the pain of having their powers stolen away for fifteen years, or of trying to survive by living an absolute lie.
“I have a feeling you know exactly who we are,” Teresa said.
The girl’s gaze tracked around the room, until she stopped. “Except for him,” she said, pointing at Dr. Kinsey.
“Dr. Abram Kinsey,” he said, smiling. “I’m a live-in physician.”
True enough. We’d needed one, considering the amount of injuries we managed to collect at any given time, and he’d fallen easily into the position—after recovering from his own gunshot wound.
“I’m Kate. Kate Lowry. This is my brother, Denny.”
Teresa slid into a chair one down from Kate, giving her space. “Kate, how did you guys end up in Detective Pascal’s custody?”
The siblings shared a long look. I glanced at Gage, who was watching the kids intently, reading their body language for truth.
“He picked us up so we didn’t get booked for destruction of public property,” Kate replied.
Gage’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t dispute the statement.
“What did you destroy?” Teresa asked.
Denny blushed and looked down at his lap. “I tore up some of the roads in Plummer Park.”
“How?”
“I was practicing my powers.”
“On the road?”
“Kind of.”
“He runs at super speeds,” Kate said. Even though she was smaller than Denny, she straightened up like a mama bear protecting her cub, and I guessed her to be the older of the pair. “We were testing his speed on asphalt, but he’s still learning how to take light steps so he doesn’t rip up the ground when he runs.”
“Okay,” Teresa said. “I can see how the police would take exception to that. Is that your only Meta ability, Denny?”
Denny nodded and ducked his head again, longish hair falling down to hide his eyes. He looked like he wanted to disappear beneath the conference table. He was scared and uncomfortable, his life had just changed dramatically by being dropped at our doorstep, and he didn’t seem to know which way was up.
I could totally sympathize.
“Do you have an ability, Kate?” Teresa asked.
“Don’t the rest of you talk?” Kate countered.
Behind me, Renee laughed. “Oh, I like her,” she said.
Kate scowled.
“Yes, they talk,” Teresa said. “But I’m the boss, so they’re really good about letting me be bossy in situations like this.”
“Situations like what?” Kate asked.
“Situations where we’re just as confused and unsure what to do as you are. You see, you and Denny are the first young Metas to show up on our doorstep since our powers returned.”
“No shit?”
Teresa shook her head. “No shit. It’s hard to step forward and declare yourself Meta when a lot of people are terrified of us.”
“Yeah.” Kate glanced at Denny, then took off her gloves. She held up her hands, palms facing herself, and they looked normal enough. Then the fingernails grew into hooked claws an inch long—thick, deadly, hooked claws. “It happens on my feet, too. I can climb stuff, like right up the side of a house. And they’re strong, really strong. I can’t even break them with bolt cutters. Denny tried once.”
“That’s impressive,” Teresa said.
“I also have really good eyesight. I can see in almost total darkness, and in the light things are really sharp and in focus.”
“I can help you work on your eyesight,” Gage said. “It’s one of my tricks, too.”
“What about me?” Denny asked.
“Aar—” Dahlia started to speak, then clamped her mouth shut tight.
She was going to suggest that Aaron help out with Denny, but Denny and Kate couldn’t know he was here—which was going to make the house very claustrophobic for Aaron. Aaron’s hybrid-Changeling ability was linked to speed. With room to run, he could increase his body’s density and smash through solid objects like a battering ram. I hadn’t seen him do it, but I did once see a hole he left in the side of a building.
“We’ll figure something out,” Teresa said. “The important thing I need you both to understand is that you’re safe here. You’re among friends. We want to help you learn your powers so you can control them. The more in control we are, the less the public has to fear from us.”
“Is that on your business card?” Kate asked.
The defensive sarcasm rolled right off Teresa. “Something like that. I only have one request for you both.”
“Which is what?”
“The people here, standing behind me? We’re a family. We trust each other. Please, don’t ever give me a reason not to trust you.”
The siblings shared a look, then both turned their attention back to Teresa. Kate nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“Good. Speaking of family, who’s missing you right now?”
“No one,” Denny said, maybe a little too quickly.
“We live with our uncle,” Kate added. “But he’d want us to be here, getting help.”
Gage frowned again. “How old are you?” he asked.
“We’re both twenty. We’re fraternal twins.”
“College students?”
“Used to be, but we kind of got kicked out last semester.”
Gage didn’t push. It was a story for another time.
“Well, we’d like you to stay here at Hill House for a few days,” Teresa said. “It’ll be easier to help you with your powers and, if things work out, you can stay permanently. Do you need to pick up any belongings? Clothes? Toothbrush?”
“We should get some stuff, I guess,” Kate said. “We didn’t really have time before the cops took us.”
“Will that be a problem for your uncle?” Gage asked.
“He’ll be at work until, like, six or seven.”
And it was just after three now.
“Gage and Ethan can drive you over to your uncle’s house,” Teresa said. “That way you can get what you need before he comes home.”
I didn’t mind being volunteered, and Gage’s powers gave us an advantage when it came to subtle surveillance. The Lowrys didn’t seem stoked about their babysitters, and I couldn’t really blame them. Fifteen years ago, I’d been dumped at the doorstep of total strangers with the promise that they’d take care of me.
We wouldn’t fail these kids the way I’d been failed.
• • •
Kate rode shotgun while Gage drove. The back bench seat of the Sport was pretty large, but Denny had curled into the corner as close to his door as he could get, like I smelled or something. Whatever. Gage tried to make conversation for the first five minutes of the trip, but quickly got tired of the one-word answers. Maybe they’d get more talkative when they realized this wasn’t a game, or a class they could flunk.
This could very well be their life now.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a long drive to Plummer Park from our home in Beverly Hills. We’d chosen that area as our home base because the houses were huge, they were cheap, and our neighbors were extremely scattered. Only the very crazy or the very poor still lived on the west side of the Hollywood Freeway. Thanks to Dahlia’s trust fund, we were squarely in the former camp.
Strings of yellow caution tape blocked off parts of the street through Plummer Park, keeping cars from driving into the deep ruts in the asphalt. Gage slowed as we went past so we could get a look at the damage. Denny had some power in his feet. He’d broken down a good three inches into the road, creating a trail of footsteps that could have been left behind by a rampaging elephant.
Kate directed Gage to a white, single-story home with a slant roof and bay windows in a style that hadn’t been popular in more than eighty years. A handful of this kind remained in neighboring lots, but the majority of the houses had been built in the last three decades, when steel and concrete replaced most wood construction.
“We’ll wait here,” Gage said once he’d shifted into park in the driveway. “Unless you want us to come inside?”
“No, we’ll be fine,” Kate said. “We’ll be fast.”
“There’s no rush.”
She didn’t say anything else as she and Denny climbed out, slammed their doors at the exact same time, and walked toward the house.
Gage rolled down all four windows. “Ethan, when they open the front door, can you gust a little wind our way?”
“Sure.” I had a good view of the door, and the kids were nearly there. Kate pulled a key out of her pocket and fit it into the lock. “Sniffing for clues?”
“Just curious about something.”
As Kate pushed the front door inward, I caught the natural air current her action created and swirled it around inside, gathering the scents of the home’s interior and carrying them outside. The door stayed open long enough to get a good rustle of air going, and I pulled it toward the Sport’s windows. Unless I was superstressed or wounded, rustling the air like this was as easy as breathing it; I didn’t even have to move.
Gage closed his eyes and tilted his head, leaning toward the air blowing inside the Sport. I didn’t smell anything particularly interesting, but I also didn’t have his bloodhound’s nose. Dude could smell a lit match at five hundred feet. In a blind smell test, I was lucky to tell the difference between strawberry and blueberry.
He sat quietly for a minute, processing the scents, and it occurred to me to ask, “Are you listening to them?”
“No.” Gage opened his eyes and met mine in the rearview. “I’m tempted, but I don’t want to give them any more reasons not to trust us.” His emphasis on the words them and us caught my attention. I’d known him long enough to see the hidden meaning.
“You smelled something,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to share?”
He hesitated, then twisted around in the front seat to face me. “Detective Pascal wears a very specific cologne. I’ve noticed it every time I’ve interacted with the man, except today. He wasn’t wearing it when he dropped off the Lowrys.”
“And that’s weird?”
“Only if he’s trying to hide something.”
“Like what?”
Gage tilted his head in the direction of the house. “Like the fact that the home these kids came from smells like that cologne. And gun oil.”
“Hell, Gage, you think this is Detective Pascal’s house?”
“Yes. And I think he’s the uncle they mentioned, and he doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”
I glanced at the closed front door. “Why wouldn’t he just tell us? Why the ruse?”
“I’m not sure.” Gage’s eyebrows slanted into an annoyed frown. “But I do plan on asking him in the very near future.”
• • •
The near future didn’t happen right away, like I expected. When we got back to Hill House with the twins and two suitcases, Dahlia shuffled them off upstairs to show them their rooms. Gage grabbed Teresa (not literally), and the three of us went into the kitchen to discuss his suspicions about Detective Pascal.
Teresa surprised me by not immediately losing her temper over the subterfuge. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said when I expressed my surprise. “I’m annoyed he didn’t just tell us the truth, but I get it. He’s a police detective, and I can’t imagine the suspicion that would get tossed his way if anyone found out he had relatives with Meta powers.”
“Could he be Meta, too?” Gage asked.
“It’s possible, depending on whether or not they’re blood related. Not all Meta children develop overt powers.”
We’d figured that one out the hard way back in January when a supposedly mundane supposed ally turned out to be both Meta and our enemy. Dr. Angus Seward had worked for the Ranger Corps before the War, and he’d supported us during those first few days after our powers returned. We’d trusted him—hell, he helped save my life after a ceiling fell on me—and then he tried to kill us all. It took us three months to track down his two grown children (living in Europe, blissfully ignorant of the crazy villain their father had become) and figure out that if they had abilities, too, they were extremely limited.
“And he didn’t technically lie,” Teresa added. “He just conveniently left out a few facts about his relationship to the twins.”
“Should we tell them we know?” I asked.
“I’m not sure it would help, at this point.”
“But isn’t letting the lie stand, even when we know the truth, kind of like lying right back to them?”
She stared at me with a thoughtful expression, her lavender eyes blinking rapidly. “You’re right, Ethan.”
I put a hand over my heart and feigned shock. “Ooh, say it again.”
“Dork.”
The shuffle of footsteps in the hallway drew our collective attention, and we looked up in unison. Right in time to see me walk into the kitchen. No kidding. A second me, right down to the clothes on my back.
“What are you doing?” Teresa asked “me.”
“I’m thirsty,” Aaron said, and damn, it was weird to hear his voice coming out of “my” mouth. Aside from the host absorption ability, a Changeling like Aaron could also touch someone and borrow their appearance; he called it a glamour, and the mirages were impossible to see through. Smell through, yes, because he’d never managed to fool Gage, and he couldn’t borrow a voice. Just the image.
The only way to completely become that person, right down to smell and voice, was to take them over. But that led to the absorption of the host’s memories and personality, and once a Changeling took someone, it was next to impossible to separate them without the physical death of the host. Marco was the only successful separation we’d seen, thanks to Simon’s psychic abilities.
Two months ago, Aaron had left a handful of old hosts behind in his quest to survive his own extermination. He swore none of them were truly, completely dead, because parts of them were still in his head, but I’d seen their discarded skins. Sometimes death is in the eyes of the beholder.
“So you came downstairs as me?” I asked. “I’m standing right here.”
“The new kids didn’t see me.”
“Not the point.”
“I” scowled. “Look, I’m already going to be stuck in my room for who knows how long, so give me a break. All I wanted was a soda.”
I scowled right back at myself while Aaron went about grabbing two chilled bottles out of the refrigerator.
“I’m sorry about the arrangements,” Teresa said, “but it’s become critical that Kate and Denny don’t see you.”
Aaron paused by the counter, one bottle in each hand. “Why?”
“They may have a deeper connection to Detective Pascal than we thought, and the last thing anyone needs is for him to suspect we’re hiding you here.”
The oddest thought struck me, and I directed it to Teresa and Gage. “Could that have been part of Pascal’s reasoning, do you think? Put people here he knows, get them help, and also let them spy for him?”
Teresa rubbed the bridge of her nose, while Gage sucked his lower lip in. Nervous, thoughtful gestures. Aaron shifted, agitation in both his posture and expression, and was that really what I looked like to other people?
“It’s possible, of course,” Teresa said. “But Pascal knows what our powers are, and he knows we’re not stupid. I can’t imagine he’d think he could ask two ex–college students to pull off that kind of scam right under our noses.”
Aaron’s glamour flickered—a sure sign of his anxiety. “All they’d need to have seen is one picture of Aaron Scott. Noah’s got a permanent hiding place, but I don’t.”
Sharing the body of one of my best friends wasn’t what I’d refer to as a hiding place, but I wasn’t going to tip his fear into anger by commenting. Aaron hadn’t wanted to stay in Los Angeles, but he’d remained here for his family—first because Dr. Kinsey was too injured to travel, and then because Dr. Kinsey and Noah had found a way to fit in. Aaron didn’t have that luxury. I got it, I did—even if he was still kind of an ass about it.
“I realize that,” Teresa said. “And I know it isn’t fair to keep you cooped up for however long it is the Lowrys will be here.” She fell silent, mulling something in her mind. I knew that look.
“What are you thinking?” Gage asked her.
“Simon called while you guys were out,” she said. “He finally got permission from the warden to go into Manhattan and search for the Metas whose files are incomplete.”
I blinked, surprised she’d managed to keep news that huge to herself. Getting into Manhattan was a pet project of hers and Simon’s, and this was a big step in her “Banes aren’t as bad as they used to be” campaign. Simon had been fighting for permission to go back inside what was still, technically, a maximum-security prison. It just happened to be a prison the entire size of Manhattan Island.
“How does that help me?” Aaron asked.
“Simon asked for some volunteers to go inside with him—”
“I’ll go,” I said at the same time Aaron said, “I’m in.”
We looked at each other. And looking at what must have been the exact same expression of surprise on my own face was pretty damn eerie. He seriously needed to drop that glamour.
“It’ll be for a couple of days, at least,” Teresa said to me. “Maybe a week.”
I paused long enough to seem like I was mulling it over, since my initial response had been fast enough to gain her suspicion. “That’s fine. I mean, who else? You can’t go, and I don’t see you sending Gage without you”—and really, since they met up again in January, they hadn’t spent more than thirty-six hours apart and were insanely happy together—“Renee is still healing, Marco might try to bite someone, and the psychics out there might figure something’s up with Double Trouble.”
Double Trouble had been Renee’s nickname for Dahlia and Noah, and it kind of stuck. It was hard working “Dahlia-slash-Noah” into casual conversation.
Teresa’s lips parted as if she was going to argue, and then she nodded. “Good points. On the other hand, Gage’s abilities would be useful for tracking the missing Metas.”
“Not necessarily. By now they have to know who we are and what we can do. They’ll know where and how to hide so Gage can’t sniff them out.”
She shared a look with Gage that communicated in whatever shorthand long-term, deeply in love couples develop over time. Then to me, “All right, I’ll call Simon and make the arrangements. You’ll probably fly out in the morning.”
“Terrific,” Aaron said without any actual tonal inflections. He turned on his heel and left with his sodas.
Teresa whispered something to Gage, who slipped out through the other kitchen door. I didn’t even bother trying to sneak away. Instead, I leaned against the wall by the cupboards and waited.
“Not to pick apart your earlier logic,” she said, “but why’d you volunteer so fast, Ethan? Getting the Metas pardoned and off Manhattan isn’t your favorite initiative of mine. Why go and help?”
Because the Bane once known as Jinx was one of the dozen still missing on the island—not that I’d ever mentioned him to Teresa.
I went for another truth. “I’ve been restless here for a while,” I said. “I know I’ve always raised my voice against helping the Banes”—she flinched—“the ex-Banes, but we don’t really have the mobility or support to help any of the other Metas out there, either. Even if I don’t necessarily like the Metas in Manhattan, I need to be doing something more than watching our old HQ get bulldozed to make way for a movie studio.”
She watched me quietly for a while, her expression difficult to read. “No other reason?”
Lying to Teresa was not something I liked doing, nor was it something I was good at. But I couldn’t tell her I was going across the country on the off chance I’d meet up with Jinx. I didn’t know for sure what I’d do to Jinx when I did meet him. She’d never let me leave the house if she knew I’d entertained ideas of ripping the air right out of his lungs and letting him suffocate for a very serious, very personal reason.
I couldn’t tell her any of that, but I still couldn’t lie.
“A lot of other reasons, and a lot of them private,” I finally said. “But mostly I want to go to help you. This is your pet project, and I know what it means to you.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Ethan.” Her gaze flickered past me. “You’re going to have to make nice with Aaron, you know.”
“I know. Simon will be around to act as a buffer.”
“And you know his bullshit tolerance is even lower than mine.”
“I do. I won’t start any trouble, Teresa, I promise. We’re a reflection of you and the team, right?”
“Right. So don’t make me look bad.”
“You have fun with the junior recruits. Try not to burn the place down.”
“Funny.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
We both laughed.
• • •
The other awesome thing about having Dr. Kinsey on our team, aside from his medical expertise, was access to his wealth and assets to help supplement Dahlia’s trust fund. As a scientist at Weatherfield Research and Development, he’d been well paid and he’d invested as well as anyone could in our economy. So, besides the monetary funding he’d poured into Hill House’s medical facilities and their upkeep, he also let us use his private jet.
Yes, he owned his own jet.
Which Aaron and I were on about fourteen hours later, heading east for Newark, New Jersey, and the largest man-made prison in the world. A prison full of people who’d tried very, very hard to kill me and my friends—and who had very much succeeded in killing our parents and mentors.
Like Jinx had killed my mother.