Tremble (Denazen #3)(48)
Standing, I handed him his shirt. “Stop right there. This is starting to border on TMI and to be honest? The last thing I want is to hear about you sucking face with my sister.”
I started to step away, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. “You’re not the only one who feels this,” he said softly. “If everything you’ve told me is true, then I lost just as much as you did.” He let go of my arm and yanked his shirt over his head. Rotating his arm, he nodded. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“What is?”
“The fact that you just preformed minor surgery on my shoulder. Most wouldn’t handle it as well. You seem surprisingly calm.”
“I’m not most.”
“I’m starting to understand that.” He pulled on his jacket. “Roz would have passed out.”
While I didn’t necessarily revel at being compared to Kiernan, I did get some small amount of satisfaction that she wouldn’t have been able to hack it. She hated the sight of blood. We’d gone to a Nix party after Kale and I had returned from our trip to warn the others, and two testosterone-fueled man-monkeys ended up throwing each other through a glass door. She’d puked for an hour straight.
The train slowed, about to come to a stop. Hopefully we weren’t far from the airport. “If you compare me to Kiernan one more time—Roz isn’t her real name, by the way—I might dig into the other arm. Just for fun.”
A slow smile spread across his lips, and he threaded his fingers through mine. “I can see why I like you.”
19
Ben Simmons’s plane was scheduled to land at ten a.m. That didn’t leave a lot of time to plan.
“I don’t like this,” Mom said on the other end of the line. We’d settled in the field behind the airport and the sun was almost up. There wouldn’t be enough time for backup to get to us before Ben landed. They were too far away.
“I’m open to other options,” I said, waiting for someone—anyone—to give us something better to work with. Mom, Dax, Ginger, and Vince were on speakerphone, and Kale sat across from me. The only plan we’d come up with so far was for Kale to distract Kiernan and for me to mimic her, getting Ben out of sight before Denazen could get him out of the airport. But there were too many variables, and that made me nervous. Not to mention the idea of slipping into my sister’s skin made my stomach turn, and the physical cost of mimicking an entire person was hard on me. Normal stuff had become a piece of cake, but an entire person sapped my energy and left me vulnerable.
“Are you sure you can trust him?” Dax asked. “What if this is a ploy so Cross can get his hands on you?”
Kale laughed. “If I wanted to give her to Marshal, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Besides, I know all about you, Daxil Fleet. You can hear my voice. What do you think?”
Dax’s ability worked through sound. If Kale planned to double-cross us, Dax would know. “He’s telling the truth.”
Mom let out an audible sigh.
“You won’t make the flight, but if you guys leave now, you can be here not long after the plane lands. If this works, we’re gonna need a ride.”
“A ride? What did you do to my car?” Ginger growled in the background.
“Relax, its fine. I just…don’t have it at the moment.”
“We had to run,” Kale interjected. With a sidelong glance my way, he added, “Unfortunately, the car was probably impounded by the local authorities.”
“The car isn’t important at the moment,” Mom snapped. “We can leave now, but I need to know you’ll be all right. Do you think you can do this?”
Everyone asked me that lately. Do you think you can do this. The truth? I wasn’t sure, but I’d never let fear and doubt get in my way before. No reason to start now.
…
Ben’s flight was slightly delayed, and I still hadn’t decided if that was good or bad. Kale was pacing the room, the proof Aubrey promised—a CD he’d taped to the sink—now in his hand. He waved the thing back and forth, angry. “How is this supposed to show me the truth?”
I grabbed his arm. He was making me dizzy. “There’s information stored on it, I imagine. Something that will shed some light on things.”
Kale looked down at the disk in his hands with nothing short of pure suspicion. “Information?” He turned the disk over several times before sighing. “I suppose you know more about it than I do. I’ll have to take your word for it.”
We were camped in the out-of-order men’s room, conveniently right by the terminal where Ben was set to arrive. So far the coast was clear, but we didn’t have a good view from in here.
“I promise. As soon as we get back to the cabin, we’ll find out what’s on there.” I stole another peek around the corner, impatient. Doing nothing was making me crazy. “This is ridiculous, and I’m sick of waiting. There’s an easier way.” Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and concentrated on the flight attendant I’d seen getting ready to board one of the planes. The familiar tingle at the back of my neck and the shift in clothing—from comfortable jeans to restricting nylons and a stiff pencil skirt—told me the mimic was a success. When I spoke again my voice was different. Not entirely foreign, but it had more of a rasp to it.