Hunted (2 page)

. . .
I’ve got the troopers shielded from the telepath.

There’s no way she should have detected them, not unless
she’s far more powerful than I was told
. . . .

I pull out of her head, gasping.

“Caitlyn . . .” Mom says, a wobble in her voice.

I lean forward, peering through the darkness, shielding us both while reaching for the bitter metallic scent of the Para-slave.

There, up ahead—just around the curve of the road.

Waiting for us hungrily, like we’re prey.

I grab Mom’s arm. “Turn off here!”

“It’s not our exit!” Mom says.

16

HUNTED

“Trust me!” I say, reaching for the steering wheel, yanking it. The car jolts, and we edge into the next lane.

Thank god there’s hardly any traffic. Thank god there was no one behind us.

The curve looms toward us. The troopers, the Government Para, all waiting, intent.

“Caitlyn?”
John sends, his mind-voice full of anxiety for me.

Mom dithers, keeping us on the road, past the exit, approaching the curve.

“Get off now!” I scream, yanking the wheel again.

Mom shoves me away, but she steers us over the cement meridian and onto the exit, metal scraping cement.

17

CHAPTER 2

“Caitlyn!”
John sends.
“You’ve got to get away from
there. Now!”

“Oh my god, oh my god!” Mom says. We pull up to the crossroads.

“This way!” I say, pointing away from the troopers that I can sense now—away from the Para-slave. The Para-slave reaches for us, trying to get a lock. “Mom!” Mom steps on the gas pedal and we jerk forward, driving into the outskirts of the city. “Were there troopers?”

“And a Government Para,” I say. Waiting for us. For me.

Mom goes silent.

Pain tears through my head like lightning, momentar-ily blinding me. My whole body tenses up unbearably, muscles seizing, fingers stiffening against the pain, toes arching upward. I feel the Para-slave scream, her pain mine, and I know her handler is punishing her for losing us. The Para-slave’s nausea shudders through me as the electric shock increases. All the sickos sign up to be ParaTroopers; they can torture us with full government approval. Even kill us 18

HUNTED

if they go too far—and all they get is a lousy fine. I clench my teeth against the acid rising in my throat.

I feel Mom’s warm hand on my forehead, hear her voice in the distance, and then feel the car jerk to a stop.

“No! Keep going!” I mumble.

The car jerks forward.

Pain rips through me again with jagged teeth, but it’s lessening the farther away we get. Dad used to worry about how strong my talents are, even though he was proud—and I know he was right to worry. Someday I’m not going to be able to hide my connection well enough, or get away fast enough, and then I’ll be like that poor Para-slave getting tortured.

I rub my face with my hands. I can’t feel guilty for what happened to her. I have the right to stay free. Me and my mom both do. But guilt twists through my stomach.

I stare out the window. We drive past nightclubs, liquor stores, tattoo parlors. A storefront church crouches next to an exotic dance club, and more than one store advertises

“free” payday loans. Some of the stores have anti-Para flags in their windows.

Mom flexes and unflexes her fingers against the steering wheel, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. She glances over at me. “You doing okay, hon?”

I nod.

She reaches past me and pops open the glove compartment, grabs a bottle of painkillers, and hands it to me without taking her gaze off the road. “Take two,” she orders.

I swallow them dry.

19

Cheryl Rainfield

I don’t hear sirens behind us. The Government Para is faint now. I think we’ve lost them.

“They knew you were coming!”
John sends, his mind-voice rough with emotion.
“I don’t know how they could,
but— Are you safe?”

“For now.”
I rake my fingers through my hair. I don’t want to think about it. It has to mean that one of the Underground Normals betrayed us. It hurts to think that, though. They may be Normals, but they’re part of our cause. Part of our safety net.
“Someone must have tipped
them off.”

“I know,”
John sends.
“We’ve got a rat in the system.

I’ll hunt down whoever did this and fix them good—I promise.”
His sadness rises up over his fear, washing through me like a wave.
“It’s hard to believe anyone we know could do
this. Even a Normal. Listen, don’t go to the safe house; it
might be watched.”

Du-uh.
“I know how to do this.”

“I know; you’ve eluded them for years. But be careful
anyway. There’s a lot of weirdness going on.”
I grunt.
“You’re right.”

“And don’t reach out to any of your contacts until I
find out who the rat is, okay?”
I want to snap at him that I’ve been managing just fine for years—but the fear in his mind-voice grips me tight.

“Okay.”

“Promise me. You know what those Para-hunters are
like. Once they’re on your trail, they’ll never give up.”

“I promise.”

“Keep safe,”
John sends.

20

HUNTED

“Keep strong,”
I reply, the formal closing coming easily to me. We disconnect.

Mom’s edging our car slowly down the road, craning her neck to peer out at the shabby buildings. “I take it our plans fell through.”

I nod, lock my fingers together. “They were waiting for us.”

“Waiting.” Mom’s voice is weary, an old woman’s.

“Caitlyn—can you hear me? Let me know if you be
okay. You should have checked in by now,”
Netta thinks at me worriedly, loud for a Normal. She’s the contact John found me in this city, one that will lead us to a safe house.

I grip my hands between my knees and block her out, forcing myself not to respond. It could have been Netta, even though we only just connected. Or someone else she works with. I don’t know who betrayed us, but it had to be a Normal. No Para could have done this without my knowing. The thoughts and emotions would have leaked through.

Mom turns the corner, our old car rattling. The houses and buildings on this street all look dingy, with peeling paint, shingles missing from the rooftops, fences leaning sideways. A motel hunches on the corner, half the lights are burned out on the sign.

Mom pulls up slowly to the curb. A window in the dreary motel blinks VACANCY.

“We have to go where they won’t expect us to be,” Mom says. “They know our pattern. Safe houses, underground hideouts . . . they’ve found them all.” I swallow the lump of guilt in my throat. They found
me
. “It’s easier to hide in a big city.” 21

Cheryl Rainfield

“Exactly,” Mom says, looking at me with her lips pressed softly together, like she knows how hard it’ll be for me with all that mind-noise.

I swallow again. I don’t think she can drive much farther, not tonight. And wherever we go, there will be ParaTroopers and Government Paras—unless we cross the border. But we can’t cross it, not now. Not with Government Paras on every exit.

“Let’s do it,” I say.

We get out of the car together and stagger to the office, our legs cramped from the long ride.

e

The motel room the owner ushers us into is dingy and small, the walls a dirty green, the TV so old it doesn’t even have a remote. The double bed looks hard and lumpy, and the room smells moldy, like there’s been a major water leak.

Mom wrinkles her nose, and I know she doesn’t want to be here any more than I do. “Do you have another room?

Perhaps a bigger one?”

The motel owner tightens her bathrobe around her scrawny body, glaring at Mom. “I told you, this is all we got. You want it, or not?”

. . . Not going to give them nothin’, wakin’ me up like
this . . .

Her stringy hair falls in clumps around her face. She shoves it out of the way.

Mom turns to me.

I listen in on the woman.

22

HUNTED

. . . Shoulda asked for more. They can afford it. Look
at them, too snooty for the likes of us. What are they doing
out in the middle of the night, anyway? . . .
Her eyes narrow as her gaze darts back and forth between us. . . .
I bet they’re
Paras. I could make a buck off them . . .

I look past her, to Mom. “I can’t believe the hotel double-booked us like that. Or that the manager was so rude.”

“Yeah?” The woman squints at me.

. . .
Shoulda worn my glasses. Knew it wasn’t Henry;
he never rings the bell. . .

“Well, what didja come here for?”

. . . Gotcha now. Nobody comes here for a good time.

They come to repent, or to visit their loved ones in Para-jail, or to find others who wanna bring back the lynchings

. . . but nobody ever comes here for a holiday—’cept for the
Para Cleansing, but that’s days away . . .
“You here for Para Cleansing Day?”

I don’t look at Mom. I can barely stop myself from shuddering. How can anyone let the day Paras were massacred just slip off their tongue so easily? But most Normals do, I know that. To them, it’s a holiday, even though it was the beginning of all the riots. “That’s a great day, no matter where we are,” I manage to say. “But we came because we heard you have a good Para-capture record.”

“The best in the country!” the woman says proudly.

“This is one safe city. But why’d you come
here
? You look like you could afford something better, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“I’m afraid that was my fault,” Mom says. “I made a wrong turn and got us hopelessly lost. We were relieved to see your place.”

23

Cheryl Rainfield

“Huh. So, do you want the room or not?”

. . . Shoulda never been so proud with Henry. Shoulda
told him I wanted him to come by . . .

I wait, but she doesn’t go back to suspecting we’re Paras. I nod at Mom.

“We’ll take it,” she says.

“Sixty bucks a night, two nights minimum,” the woman says, holding out her roughened hand.

Mom pulls the bills reluctantly out of her wallet, her hands trembling slightly. We might look middle class, but we’ve been depending on the generosity of people in the Underground for a year or two now, since our savings ran out. Mom always finds a job, but it’s never enough with the kind of work she can get, and paying first and last every few months hasn’t helped. If she’d let me work, too—but schoolwork comes first, that’s what she says. Schoolwork and keeping a low profile.

The motel owner turns to go.

Outside, something glistens. I take a step closer to the window and peer out into the gloom. “Mom, there’s a pool!”

“The pool’s an extra twenty-five a night,” the woman says, holding out her hand again.

Mom bites her lip.

“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I don’t need it.” But Mom knows that I do.

She opens up her wallet and reluctantly takes out two more bills.

e

24

HUNTED

The outdoor pool is grungy. Leaves, twigs, and wrap-pers float along the surface. The tiles are cracked and stained, the diving board browned from years of dirty feet—but I don’t care.

As soon as I dive into the water, the pain leaves. The voices that grate through my mind become whispers. I relax, muscles unclenching. I’ve never understood why water has that effect on me—it’s not like thoughts are transmitted over sound waves—but I don’t really care why. All I care about is the blessedness of almost quiet, the peace that fills me. It’s like unfolding an extra pocket of time that no one else has, time that’s woven from sunshine and cool breeze, soft grass and laughter. Time that spreads gently through me, massaging my thoughts into jelly-bliss.

The cool water enfolds me like an embrace. I duck under, so I’m immersed completely, and swim to the other end. I do lap after lap until my muscles protest, until I can’t drag my arms forward anymore, and then I float on my back, water gently lapping against my face.

25

CHAPTER 3

“Do you know of any cheap places for rent?” Mom asks the motel owner standing behind the counter.

The woman doesn’t look much better in the morning light—her hair is still stringy, her body still scrawny, un-derfed. “You could stay here,” the woman says, and licks her lips.

Mom shakes her head wearily. “Too expensive.”

“How much were you thinking to spend?”

“Five hundred—six at the most.”

“You can stay here for that,” the woman says, leaning forward.

“For a month?” Mom sounds surprised. She raises her eyebrow at me.

I haven’t heard any suspiciousness coming from the woman this morning. Just a need for money—a desperate need.

“Yeah, for a month,” the woman quickly agrees.

I decide to push her. “But we were going to get a two-bedroom. So I could, you know, have my own room.” 26

HUNTED

The woman looks down at the faded countertop. “I was just being ornery last night. Didn’t like being woken. I got a two-room available.”

I poke beneath her surface thoughts, but there’s no suspicion, no malice, just worry about money, the bills she owes, the creditors who are after her, a craving for cigarettes and beer, missing Henry. . . .

“But—but we’d need a kitchen,” Mom says.

“All our units got bar fridges and microwaves—and I could lend you a hot plate,” the woman says.

It’s hard to feel her desperation. It presses against me, close and smothering. “Might as well,” I tell Mom. “It’s not like we’ve got another place lined up.”

“Are you sure?” Mom asks.

“At least they have a pool,” I say.

“I’ll knock that off the price, too!” the woman says.

. . . if Henry had come by—paid his share. All the
money I owe—people aren’t gonna wait much longer for it

. . . The anxiety fills her lungs like phlegm, thick and heavy, and I feel like I’m drowning from the inside.

I gasp for air. “Even better,” I say, though I know she falsely charged us in the first place.

Mom exhales loudly. “Fine.”

e

Mom turns to me when we’re alone in our new rooms—two rooms with an adjoining door. “You felt sorry for her, didn’t you?”

27

Cheryl Rainfield

I shrug. “I guess.”

“And there was something else. You started to look . . .

in pain.”

“She was desperate,” I say.

“You can’t let other people’s emotions decide what you’re going to do. She’s a Normal. She’d turn you in if she knew.”

She’s right. I don’t know what came over me. Usually I can block Normals out better than this if I have to.

Someone from the Underground reaches for me—

Netta. I keep myself disconnected, though I feel guilty.

Netta sounded so warm the few times we connected. To ignore her without explaining, and allow her to worry . . . .

But safety comes first.

It makes me anxious, being cut off from the Underground like this. I unzip my duffel bag, taking out my melamine dishes. They’re light and unbreakable, easy to carry.

“What did the Underground say? When will they have another place for us?” Mom asks.

I set my plate, bowl, and cup next to the microwave. “I haven’t asked.”

“You haven’t—?”

“Someone let us down. Someone in the Underground.

All these months, I thought it was me. I thought I wasn’t passing well enough, slipped up somehow.” My voice trembles, and I struggle to get it back under control. “But that isn’t it. Someone has it in for us. I don’t think we can use them again. Not right now.”

28

HUNTED

“But how will we get new ID?” Mom bites her lip.

“You know I can’t get a job without it. And we can’t register you for school until. . . .”

She’s right. We’re even more of a target without ID. I close my eyes. There has to be a way. How do other people do it? Refugees, people on the run who don’t have the Underground to help?

I pull out my cell, log on to my anonymizer, and search Google for “fake ID.” A ton of sites come up. I start scroll-ing through them, checking the quality of the images they show, and then enter in Mom’s and my new names. I order birth certificates, a driver’s license and Social Security card for Mom, and school records for me. I pay with what’s left in my PayPal account, checking off the fastest shipping method.

“All done,” I say. “We should have them by tomorrow.” Mom tilts her head. “Do you want to tell me how?” I turn my phone to show her the screen. She nods, slowly. “That should work, for now. As long as it’s not a setup by the government or the ParaWatch to try to find stray Paranormals.”

Shit. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“But most likely it’s not,” Mom says, smiling bravely.

“And of course we can manage without the Underground.

It’ll be just like before. Only better . . .” Her voice trails off.

I wince away from those long nights sleeping in the car, the smell wafting off our bodies, the way my stomach always cramped in hunger, the way I never spoke to anyone except Mom, and a few of the voices in my head—Paras I’d never met.

29

Cheryl Rainfield

Mom looks away from my face, unzipping her duffel bag. She takes out her own dishes, setting them carefully beside mine. “It won’t be the same; I promise. You’re older.

You can look out for yourself better. And things are different now. Normals aren’t running around in mobs, lynching us.”

But she doesn’t sound so certain.

“If we can’t trust the Underground, we can’t trust the Underground.” She opens the cooler bag, takes out the travel bread, almond butter, and soy milk, and puts them in the bar fridge. Her mouth has gone tight, the way it does when she’s trying to hold in her feelings. I wonder if she’s thinking of Dad. Of the way Normals murdered him.

“It won’t be the same as before,” she says again.

“Yeah—they didn’t have all those anti-Para laws back then.” I clap my hand over my mouth, regretting my words.

It’s the truth—but she knows it as well as I do. Maybe more.

Mom pulls out a bag of nuts, then a bag of dried fruit.

“No, they didn’t,” she says quietly. “But people were taking things into their own hands, killing randomly. Beating people to death. We survived a long time without contacts; we can survive again.”

I can’t believe this is happening. The Underground has been our lifeline for years. It’s the only place I know I can trust Normals—because they’ve been vetted by dozens of Paras and they’re sympathetic to our cause. Whenever we were threatened, whenever Government Paras or ParaTroopers came too close, the Underground was there for us.

30

HUNTED

The Underground is more than just a network of Paras and Para-sympathizers. It’s more than just a route to safety.

It’s an extended family. And it’s the only sane voice in the torrent of hatred that surrounds us.

To have that security ripped away because one person—
one
Normal—infiltrated the Underground . . . . It makes me tremble with rage.

But even more than safety—the Underground is my one possibility of finding my brother. Of somehow connecting to Daniel again. If he’s still alive, if his Para-abilities haven’t been tortured out of him . . . .

I try to push away the waves of anger and despair that are pulling me under. I can’t let one bigot keep me from something so essential. But I can’t risk our safety, either.

“Caitlyn.”

John. Reaching for me.

Has he found the rat? I’m almost afraid to find out.

31