“It’s true, I take it back,” Hi said. “Our peoples have a rich history of mutual respect. Long live the alliance!”
I noticed movement in the corner of my eye. A wisp of gray passing through the forest. Sniffing once with my supercharged nose, I teased a scent from the air.
Warm fur. Hot breath. Musk.
Wolf.
“Look alive, Coop. Your mom’s here.”
“What?” Hi craned his neck. “Where?”
Three animals stepped from the trees. Whisper, the matriarch, was a gray wolf. A gorgeous, regal animal. All silver, with a hint of white on her nose.
Her mate, a rogue golden shepherd, stood by her side. I’d taken to calling him Polo. Behind them paced Coop’s older brother, another wolfdog hybrid. I’d dubbed him Buster.
For a moment, the pack watched the scene on the beach. Then Whisper barked once. Cooper sprang to join his kin. Reunited, the family loped into the forest.
“Have fun!” I called.
I was happy to let him visit his folks, but Coop lived with me now. Whitney and Kit just had to deal. So far, so good.
Well, sort of. Coop and Whitney weren’t exactly best friends.
Shrug. The opinion of my father’s annoying girlfriend was extremely low on my list of concerns.
“Did you smell her?” Hi asked.
I nodded. Downwind, I’d picked up Whisper’s scent at thirty yards.
“Amazing.” Hi stripped off his shirt, wrung it out. “Score one for your honker.”
“Thanks, I think.” I cocked my chin at Hi’s substantial midsection. “Nice abs.”
“Yeah, I work out twice a month. No exceptions. But stop hitting on me, it’s embarrassing.”
Hot day. Not surprising for mid-August in South Carolina. I wiped my forehead. My sweating talent was in full effect.
“Shoot.” Hi blinked, his eyes back to normal chestnut-brown. “I lost my flare. Stupid Ben.”
“Can you get it back?”
“I’ll try.” Hi’s face went blank in concentration. His pupils focused on nothing. Seconds ticked by. A minute.
Hi shook his head. “Still can’t burn back-to-back. Not since …”
He trailed off. I didn’t press. I knew what he was thinking.
The only time we’d flared twice in a row was at Claybourne Manor. The night when, somehow, I’d forced it on the other Virals. When I’d stepped inside their minds.
I don’t know how I did it. Had never been able to repeat the trick. Not for lack of trying. But no matter how hard I strained, I couldn’t reconnect. Couldn’t recapture that odd feeling of oneness. The cosmic link that broadcast my thoughts and let me hear theirs.
The close bond of a wolf pack.
“Do you want to try again?” Hi asked. Hesitant. I knew that this particular power gave him the willies. Same went for Ben and Shelton.
“Try what?” Ben joined us, water dripping from his shoulder-length black hair. “Are you talking about telepathy again?”
“It worked once,” I said. Defensive.
“Maybe.” Ben frowned. “Maybe not. It might’ve been part of the sickness.”
When our powers first presented, we’d been slammed for days. A terrible, soul-crushing illness that left us weak as kittens. The major symptoms eventually subsided, but random oddities continued to afflict us.
Would the symptoms ever disappear for good? I had no answer.
But the current topic of conversation was an old argument.
“It wasn’t the sickness,” I said. “I felt a real connection, even with Coop. We’re linked now.”
“Then why can’t you do it again?” Ben had no patience for things he couldn’t understand.
“I don’t know. Let me try now.”
Never one to wait for permission, I closed my eyes, slowed my breath. Tried to crawl backward into my psyche.
I pictured the Virals in my mind. Hi. Ben. Shelton. Even Coop. Then I forced the images together, into one shape. A single unit. A pack.
Something twitched inside my brain. A tiny surge, like a breaker flipping. For a brief moment I felt my mind push, find resistance.
An invisible wall separated my thoughts from others outside my being. Encouraged, I shoved again in a way I can’t describe. The barrier buckled, yielded slightly.
A low hum filled my head. Then it fragmented into murmurs, like hushed voices in a distant room. Coop’s form appeared in the center of my consciousness, but vague, indistinct.
As suddenly as it formed, the bond frayed. I heard a thud, like a book slamming shut. The image slipped its tether and dissolved into cerebral darkness.
SNUP.
Blink.
Blink blink blink.
My eyes opened.
I was slumped in the sand, flare long gone.
Hi’s voice broke through. “Cut it out, Tory! You’re going to faint again.”
Ben and Hi took my arms. Eased me back to my feet. Held on until satisfied I wouldn’t collapse again.
“Let it go.” The nimbus faded from Ben’s eyes. “The mind talk was a delusion. It’s making you crazy.”
Before I could disagree, a voice carried down the beach. Our heads whipped as one.
We were no longer alone.
“YOU JOKERS COULD leave a note next time!”
Shelton strolled up the sand, hands in his pockets. Short and skinny with thick horn-rimmed glasses, he wore a blue Comic-Con T-shirt and oversized white gym shorts.
He also wore a lopsided grin. Shelton knew he’d startled us.
“Well, well, the caged bird sings,” Hi said. “When did you bust out?”
“Pardoned this morning.” Shelton wiped sweat from his dark chocolate brow, a gift from his African American father. The high cheekbones and hidden eyelids came straight from his Japanese mother. “I figured you’d be out here. And I can guess what you’re doing.”
“Tory’s trying to play mind-bender again,” Hi said. “She ended up face-planting on the beach.”
Shelton’s grin faded. “Can’t we just pretend that never happened? I can’t sleep as it is.” One finger nervously spun a key ring containing his prized lock-pick collection. A hobby of Shelton’s that often came in handy.
“Pretend it never happened?” I scanned their faces. “We need to understand the changes. We can’t just ignore them. What if we have more reactions?”
“I know, I know.” Shelton’s palms came up. “I’m just freaked out. I tried flaring a little, when my parents were gone. I still have no control. Then I caught a cold, and for two days I was sure the virus was killing me.”
Ben nodded. “Even when I can flare, the powers are never the same. Or stable.”
“We’ll get there.” I sounded more confident than I felt. “We just need practice.”
“Or lobotomies,” Hi muttered.
“But we experiment nowhere but here.” Ben’s gaze traveled from Viral to Viral. “Loggerhead is safe, but we have to be careful. It’s too dangerous to use our powers where someone might see. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded. Our fear of discovery was ever-present. The ramifications of being caught were too horrible to contemplate.
“We can only trust each other,” Ben finished. “Never forget that.”
“Enough doom and gloom.” Hi slapped Shelton’s back. “How’d you find us, anyway? Expert tracking skills?”
“I ran into Kit at LIRI.” Shelton turned to me. “Your dad’s looking for you. He told me to find ya’ll and bring everyone back ASAP. I think something’s up.”
“Great,” Ben said sarcastically. “What’d we do this time?”
“They probably heard about your assaults on me and the dog,” Hi said. “You’re looking at hard time, pal. Hope it was worth it.”