Lies

TWELVE

HUNTER HAD BECOME a creature of the night. It was the only way. Animals hid during the day and came out at night. Opossums, rabbits, raccoons, mice, and the biggest prize of all: deer. The coyotes hunted at night, and Hunter had learned from them.

Squirrels and birds you had to go after in the daytime. But night was the time for Hunter to truly live up to his name.

Hunter’s range was wide, from the edge of town, where raccoons and deer came to look for ways into people’s backyard gardens, to the dry lands, where snakes and mice and other rodents were to be found. Along the shoreline he could kill birds, gulls, and terns. And once, he had bagged a lost sea lion.

He had responsibilities, Hunter did. He wasn’t just Hunter, he was the hunter.

He knew the two words were the same, although he could no longer spell the word.

Hunter’s head didn’t work the way it used to. He knew that. He could feel it. He had murky memories of himself living a very different life. He had memories of himself raising his hand in a classroom to answer a hard question.

Hunter would not have those answers now. The answers he did have, he couldn’t really explain with words. There were things he knew, things about the way you could tell if a rabbit was going to run or stand still. Whether a deer could smell you or hear you or not.

But if he tried to explain…words didn’t come out right.

One side of his face wasn’t right. It kind of didn’t have any feeling in it. Like one side of his face wasn’t anything but a slab of dead meat. And sometimes it felt as if that same dead-meat thing spread into his brain. But the strange mutant power, the ability to direct killing heat wherever he wanted, that remained.

He couldn’t talk very well, or think very well, or form a real smile, but he could hunt. He had learned to walk quiet. He had learned to keep the breeze in his face. And he knew that in the night, in the darkest hours, the deer would head toward the cabbage field, drawn there despite the killer worms, the zekes that would kill anything that stepped foot in one of their home fields without permission.

The deer, they weren’t that smart. Not even as smart as Hunter.

He walked carefully, treading on the balls of his feet, feeling through his worn boots for the twig or loose rock that would give him away. He moved as quietly as a coyote.

The doe was ahead, moving through the scrub brush, indifferent to the thorns, intent on leading her baby toward the smell of green ahead.

Close. Closer. The breeze blowing from the deer to Hunter, so that they didn’t smell him.

A few more feet and he’d be close enough. First the doe. He’d kill her first. The baby wouldn’t know how to react. She would hesitate. And he’d take her.

So much meat. Albert would be very excited. There hadn’t been many deer lately.

Hunter heard the noise and saw the deer bolt.

They were gone before he could so much as raise his hands, let alone send the invisible killing heat.

Gone. The whole night stalking and tracking and just seconds away from a good kill, and now they were bounding away through the brush.

The noise was people, Hunter knew that right away. Talking and jostling and rattling and tripping and complaining.

Hunter was angry but also philosophical. Hunting was like that: a lot of the time you ended up wasting your time. But…

Hunter frowned.

That voice.

He crouched in the brush and quieted his breathing. He strained to hear. More than one person. Boys.

They were coming in his direction, skirting the zeke field.

He could see them now, dark silhouettes. Four of them. He could see them through stalks of weed and tangles of bramble. Stumbling around because they didn’t know how to move like Hunter. Stumbling under the weight of heavy packs.

And that voice…

“…what he wants. That’s the problem with mutant freaks like him, you can never trust a word they say.”

That voice…

Hunter had heard that voice before. He’d heard that voice crying out to a bloodthirsty mob.

This mutant, this nonhuman scum here, this freak Hunter, this chud deliberately murdered my best friend, Harry.

He’s a killer!

Take him! Take him, the murdering mutant scum!

That voice…

Hunter touched his neck, feeling again the scrape of the rough rope.

He’d been hurt so bad. Head beaten. Blood running in his eyes. And his words not working…

Mind not…

Brain confused…so afraid…

Grab on to the rope!

That voice had urged, pitch rising, bellowing, the mob of kids shrieking and giddy, and the rope had tightened around Hunter’s neck and pulled and pulled and he couldn’t breathe, Oh God, gasping for air but no air…

Grab on to the rope!

They had. They had grabbed on to the rope and pulled and Hunter’s neck had stretched and his feet lifted, kicking in the air, kicking and wanting to scream and his head pounding and pounding and eyes going dark…

Zil!

Zil and his friends.

And here they were. They didn’t even know Hunter was there. They didn’t see him. They weren’t hunters.

Hunter crept closer. Moving to intersect their path. His powers didn’t usually reach more than fifty paces or so. He had to be closer.

“…think you’re right, Leader,” one of the others was saying.

“Can we take a rest?” a third voice whined. “This stuff weighs a ton.”

“We should have gone back when it was still light so we could see,” Antoine griped.

“Idiot. We waited until dark for a reason,” Zil snapped. “You want Sam or Brianna to catch us out in the open?”

“We have guns now.”

“Which we will use when the time is right,” Zil said. “Not in some open fight with Sam and Dekka and Brianna where they’ll take us out.”

“When the time is right,” one of them echoed.

They had guns, Hunter thought. Sneaking with guns.

“Leader will decide,” another voice said.

“Yeah, but…,” someone began. Then, “Shh! Hey! I think I just saw a coyote. Or maybe it was a deer.”

“Better not be a coyote.”

BLAM! BLAM!

Hunter dove facedown in the dirt.

“What are you shooting at?” Zil demanded.

“I think it was a coyote!”

“Turk, you idiot!” Zil raged. “Blasting away like a moron!”

“The sound carries, Turk,” Hank said.

“Give that gun to Hank,” Zil snapped. “Idiot.”

“Sorry. I thought…it looked like a coyote.”

It wasn’t a coyote. It was Hunter’s deer.

They were moving on now. Still grumping at one another. Still complaining.

Hunter knew he could move faster and more quietly than they did. He could get close enough…

He could stretch out his hands and bring the killing heat to Zil’s brain. Cook it. Cook it inside his skull.

Like he had Harry…

“An accident,” Hunter moaned softly to himself. “Didn’t mean to…”

But he had.

Tears filled his eyes. He wiped at them, but more came.

He’d been defending himself from Zil. So long ago. They’d been roommates, Zil and Harry and Hunter. A stupid argument; Hunter no longer remembered what had started it. He only remembered that Zil had threatened him with a fireplace poker. Hunter had been scared. He’d reacted. But Harry had moved between them, trying to separate them, trying to stop the fight.

And Harry had cried out. Grabbed his head.

Hunter remembered his eyes…the way they had turned milky…the light going out…

Hunter had seen that same dying light in the eyes of many animals since then. He was Hunter the hunter.

Of animals. Not of boys. Not even bad boys like Zil.

Taylor bounced.

Sam’s house. Nighttime. Astrid asleep, Little Pete asleep, Mary out at the day care working the night shift, John asleep.

Sam’s bedroom empty.

There was still trouble in paradise, Taylor thought with some satisfaction. Sam and Astrid had not made up.

She wondered if it was permanent. Sam was way hot. If Sam and Astrid had broken up for good, hey, maybe there was an opportunity.

She could wake Astrid. That would probably be the proper thing to do. But her instinct said no, especially after Astrid had chilled her earlier.

Boy, was Astrid going to freak when she found out Taylor had gone to Sam first. But this was the kind of thing you took to Sam right away. Too big for Astrid.

Well, too big for anyone, really.

Taylor thought of the fire station. On occasion Sam had stayed there. But all she found there was a sleeping Ellen, the fire chief-the fire chief with no water to spray. Ellen grumbled in her sleep.

Not for the first time Taylor considered the fact that she could be the world’s greatest thief. All she had to do was think of a place and, pop! There she was. No sound-unless she happened to bang into something once she had materialized. In and out-no sound, no sign-and even if someone was awake, she could bounce right back out before they so much as breathed.

Yep, she could be a great thief. If there had been anything to steal. And only as long as it was small. She couldn’t move anything much more than the clothes on her back when she bounced.

She bounced from the fire station to Edilio’s place. Edilio now ran a sort of barracks, or whatever you called it. He had occupied a big seven-bedroom house. He had one bedroom to himself, and the other six were used to sleep two guys each. It was his quick reaction force. Half the boys and girls had automatic weapons within easy reach of their beds. One boy was awake. He jumped when he noticed Taylor.

“Go back to sleep; you’re dreaming,” she said with a wink. “And, dude: smiley face boxers? Really?”

For Taylor it was like changing channels on the TV. It didn’t feel like she was moving as she bounced, more like the world was moving around her. It made the world seem unreal. Like a hologram or something. An illusion.

She thought of a place and, like tapping a button on the remote control, suddenly she was there.

The day care.

The beach.

Clifftop-but not Lana’s room. The word was out that the Healer was extremely cranky since she’d been practically sucked into the gaiaphage. And no one in her right mind wanted to piss off the Healer.

Finally, it occurred to Taylor where Sam might go to crash on a couch if he was fighting with Astrid.

Quinn was awake, getting dressed in the dark. He seemed strangely unperturbed by Taylor popping in.

“He’s here,” Quinn said without preamble. “The bedroom at the top of the stairs.”

“You’re up early,” Taylor said.

“Four a.m. Fishing is a job for early risers. Which I am. Now.”

“Well, good luck. Get a tuna or something.”

“Hey, you talking to Sam? Is this some kind of life-and-death emergency? I need to know if I’m going to get killed on my way down to the marina,” Quinn said.

“No.” Taylor waved a dismissive hand. “Not life and death. More like death and life.”

She bounced to the top of the stairs and then, with unusual consideration, knocked on the door.

No answer.

“Oh, well.”

She bounced. Sam, asleep, tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets, facedown in a pillow like he was trying to dig his way through the bed and escape the room.

She grabbed an exposed heel and shook his leg.

“Unh?”

He rolled over fast, hand raised, palm out, ready for trouble.

Taylor was not too worried. She’d done this many times before. At least half the time Sam woke up ready to fire.

“Chill, big boy,” Taylor said.

Sam sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, trying to banish sleep. Definitely nice chest and shoulders. And arms. A little skinnier than he used to be, and not as tan as he’d been back when he was a serious beach rat.

But, oh yeah, Taylor thought: he’d do.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

“Oh, nothing too big,” Taylor said. She examined her nails, having fun with the moment. “I was just out spreading the word. You know, talking to kids who were heading out to see Orsay. It’s all way nocturnal, you know?”

“And?”

“Oh, a little something came up that I thought might be more important than trashing Orsay for Astrid.”

“You mind just telling me what’s going on?” Sam grated.

So much, Sam, Taylor thought. Sooo much. But there was no point complicating things by recounting some crazy kid’s story about Drake. It could only distract from the excellence of her main piece of news.

“Remember Brittney?”

His head snapped up. “What about her?”

“She’s sitting in Howard and Orc’s living room.”