Powerless (Bird of Stone Book 3) Read online

  “There are eight of us total. Myself, Naomi, two guards, a single nurse, and three patients.”

  “Single as in she’s the only one,” I clarify, “or single as in she’s available?”

  “Campbell,” Alex groans.

  “Shhh! I’m gathering intel, SB.”

  “Single as in singular,” Liam answers me patiently.

  “Is anyone here normal?” I ask frankly.

  “Yes. Gwen, my nurse, is like you; powerless.”

  I smirk. “You say it like it’s a bad.”

  “Do you believe it to be beneficial?”

  “You don’t? I’m an all organic thoroughbred in a crowd of mutants. No offense.”

  “Offense taken,” Beck quips from behind me.

  I smile at him over my shoulder. “Sorry, but it’s the truth. All of your powers have gotten you nowhere but in trouble and here I stand, untouched and unaltered, and I’m rolling with you. Carrying you, sometimes. I’m the first person Carver called when things got out of control. Not because I can leap tall buildings in a single bound or turn my angst over my parents’ death into some sweet karate moves, but because I’m me. I’m Maxwell Campbell, a genius in my own right and a highly trained, highly skilled soldier. So, who’s really powerless here? ‘Cause it isn’t me.”

  No one answers me, but they all look at me. Their expressions range from annoyed to really annoyed. Everyone except for Alex.

  She looks at me with her head cocked, her eyes wide with amazement. “Your name is Maxwell?”

  “Your name is Alexia?”

  “I’m named after my great grandmother.”

  “I’m named after my great father.”

  “That’s—that would make him your grandfather.”

  “Not if I’m using ‘great’ as an adjective.”

  “Are you?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Alex signs, her shoulders slumping tiredly. “Never mind.”

  “I can do this all day, SB.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m walking away.”

  “I love our talks.”

  “I’m done, dude. You won. Be gracious about it.”

  “Never.”

  Liam shows us to the farthest of the small, gray buildings. Lights are on inside the other three, burning yellow and warm. Surprisingly inviting considering the fact this place looks like a concentration camp in the making. I don’t have Alex’s deep-rooted issues with Russia, but even I’m a little nervous being this close to the Kremlin in a joint that looks like the set of OZ. Alex’s ability to bounce us out at any second is the only thing that keeps me moving one foot in front of the other.

  That and the Walther PPK pistol stowed in my waistband under my shirt.

  Liam swipes a card across a black box on the door. It opens with a beep and a clink. A soft whoosh of air followed by the rapid tick-tick-tick-tick of fluorescent lights struggling to come alive. They flicker overhead, a sallow yellow compared to the warm glow in the other buildings. I follow the crowd in, taking in every corner. Marking every window, every exit. Each piece of equipment and fixture; anything that can be ripped off the wall and used as a weapon.

  There’s not much.

  On one side of the room is a wall of sinks and mirrors. No countertops. Just white porcelain sinks, white tile on the walls and floor, and basic steel frames around the basic rectangular mirrors. Some are cracked. One is busted out entirely, the steel backing all that’s left. Someone has vandalized it. They scratched forget it crudely into the surface and I wonder what the hell that’s about.

  The middle of the room is made up of three shower stalls covered in the same white tile on each of their three walls. No curtains. No coverage. Next to them are toilet stalls. Four of them, all steel surrounds. At least those have doors.

  “Nice place,” I tell Liam dryly.

  He frowns at me. “It’s a medical facility, not a resort hotel.”

  “I can see that.”

  I glance behind me, checking the door. Nick is standing in the frame. He’s holding it open and one quick glance at the knob tells me why – there isn’t one. That thing closes and it could lock us in.

  Nick meets my eyes, shaking his head slightly. He lets the door close. Lets the lock click into place. When he pushes on it, it pops right open, the cold outside air rushing in around our feet.

  “It only locks from the inside,” Liam tells him. “You cannot be locked into any of the buildings. No one is a prisoner here.”

  “You get why we’d wonder,” Alex reminds him meaningfully.

  He nods, unoffended. “Of course. But I’m not my father.”

  “Yeah. We’ll see.”

  “I sincerely hope you do.”

  There’s a weird moment where we all stand in the cramped, damp space together, silently. Outside the wind howls like a wounded animal. The rain knocks at the high, opaque windows. A door bangs shut in another building. Boots clomp purposefully across the pavement.

  They’re coming toward us.

  Liam moves quickly through our crowd to the door. He goes to leave, but then hesitates with one foot outside, one inside, and the doorframe held tensely in his large, alabaster hand. “You’ll find everything you need in the wardrobe by the loo. Towels. Soaps.”

  “Thanks,” Alex says slowly, watching him, “but we have everything we need in our bags.”

  “Of course you do.” The footsteps are getting closer. Liam’s grip on the door gets tighter. “I’ll leave you to it, then. You’ll wait here when you’re finished. I’d like to introduce you to—” He pauses, glancing around the side of the building. “Everyone,” he finishes quickly. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  He disappears. The door shuts loudly behind him, locking in place. Liam’s footsteps hurry to meet up with Boots. Both stop, a quick, quiet conversation ensuing. I can’t make out what anyone is saying, but Boots is definitely a woman. Her voice is higher than his. Angrier. But when she pushes too far, insisting on something too hard, Liam’s voice rises sharply in one clear word that shuts Boots down immediately.

  “Gone!”

  Nick raises an eyebrow at me. “You listening to this?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t hear much.”

  “Me either.”

  “Brody, however…” I turn on my heels to face him. “What you got, man? What were they saying?”

  Brody doesn’t answer right away. He waits for Boots and Liam to walk away. The sound of another door nearby opening and closing signals their departure. When they’re gone, he drops his bag onto the floor before dropping his butt down onto a bench inside one of the showers.

  “It was a woman,” he tells us quietly, his voice always hushed. Always hard to hear if you’re not listening very carefully. “She was pissed.”

  “About us?” Alex asks.

  “Mostly about you.”

  “Me?” she laughs in surprise. “Who is she? How does she know who I am?”

  “They didn’t say, but her voice sounded familiar. I can’t place it, but I’ve met her before, and I’m guessin’ so have you.”

  Nick steps farther into the room. “What were they talking about?”

  “She was askin’ if he brought us back with him. She must have known he was gonna warn us about the ambush. He told her that, yeah, we were with him. She asked why. He said because we could be useful. That there’s safety in numbers. She laughed all bitter and said he did it for you,” he nods to Alex. “Gave him some grief about you. Basically said he’s obsessed with you and you’re worthless.”

  “That’s harsh,” Alex mutters.

  “She hopes you die.”

  “Whoa.”

  “She doesn’t like you.”

  “What’d I ever do to her?!”

  Brody shrugs. “She didn’t say. But when she threatened you—”

  “Time out,” Alex interrupts, forming a hard T with her hands. “She said she hopes I die or she’s going to kill me?”

  He frowns, his eyes going to
the ceiling pensively. “I don’t remember.”

  “Big distinction.”

  “Not really. Let’s say she wants to kill you, just to be safe.”

  “Oh, okay,” she replies weakly, her face falling.

  Nick puts his hand on her back. He rubs it reassuringly.

  “So, anyway, she threatens to kill Alex,” Brody continues. “And Liam didn’t like it. He got pissed and told her to watch herself. She told him Alex should be the one watchin’ her back, and he tells her if she can’t play nice he’ll boot her from the island permanently. She tries to argue and he shouts that she’ll be gone. That shut her up. That’s when they went into the other building.”

  “Can you still hear them?”

  “Nope,” he groans, standing slowly. “These walls are thick. I’d say the whole place is soundproofed. I can hear people movin’, motors runnin’ on equipment somewhere, but I can’t make out conversations. It’s kind of nice with this place secluded like it is. No traffic noise. Not even a bird chirpin’.”

  “You know that’s never good, right?” I ask him. “Animals disappearing in the wild. That’s a sure sign a tornado or an earthquake is coming. Or you’ve built your med lab on sacred burial grounds and the zombies are rising.”

  “Or worse,” Beck chimes in. He looks nervously in the direction of the other buildings. “It because she’s here.”

  No one replies to that. We all quietly start to gather our gear, keeping our thoughts to ourselves, but we’re all thinking the same thing. Marcus is right. That oppressive feeling I get from the island; it’s not the island at all. It’s not the weather. It’s not Russia.

  It’s the girl. The nightmare.

  It’s Naomi.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NICK

  I’ve dealt with some uncomfortable situations in my life, but this is by far the worst. My girlfriend is naked and wet in a room with three other guys. That’s bad enough, but one of the guys is Campbell. That’s torture. He’s parked himself on the bench in the adjoining shower stall. He’s down low, he can’t see anything, but he’s so close. That’s on purpose. That’s designed just to annoy me.

  Beck coughs wetly to my right. The acidic scent of bile is thin in the air, wafting through the steamy strawberry smell of Alex’s shampoo. It’s a disgusting mix but I don’t complain. I want Alex to finish up quickly. She’s the last one to get clean and I’ll be relieved to look at her without blood in her hair. On her skin. It made me anxious to see her like that. The blood isn’t hers, but every PJ instinct in me was screaming at the sight of it on her. Follow the blood – that’s what they taught us. That’s how you assess an injury when you first come across a downed airman. They drilled it into us for hours, days, months. It’s a hard voice to silence.

  “Did you know the shower is the best place for a woman to perform a breast cancer screening?” Campbell asks the room conversationally.

  “Dude,” I warn him.

  “It’s never too early to worry about breast health, Carver. I personally take it very seriously.”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Actually, yeah, I would,” he argues. “I missed most of your show back in England. I get off on those stones, man. They’re wicked.”

  “I wouldn’t use the stones.” I turn my head to look at him placidly, my expression at odds with my words. “If you tried to touch Alex’s breasts, I’d kill you with my bare hands. And I’d do it slowly.”

  The water cuts off behind me.

  “I’m done,” Alex announces.

  “Thank God.”

  “Oh no, trust me,” she says impatiently. “No one is more excited to end this conversation about my boobs than I am.”

  She takes hold of one corner of the towel, tugging it gently.

  The door in front of me beeps. It clicks. It swings open just as Alex is slipping the towel out of my hands.

  Liam steps inside, wind and rain rushing in around him. A guy in dark sunglasses steps in behind him.

  “Cold, cold, cold!” Alex cries rapidly.

  Liam’s eyes go wide when he sees her. Not all of her, but definitely more of her than I’d like. He immediately looks up at the ceiling, stepping in front of his friend to block his view. They let the door slam closed behind them.

  “I’m sorry,” Liam says quickly. “I didn’t—I thought you’d be done by now.”

  “Three showers, four guys, one girl, and no curtains,” Alex rattles off, shuffling quickly behind me. Her body bumps against mine, wet and warm. “It takes longer than you’d think.”

  “Clearly.”

  When she’s ready, I move out of Alex’s way to let her through. She pads carefully across the wet floor, her long, auburn hair dark with water, a bright white towel pulled tightly around the curves of her body. She’s insanely beautiful and incredibly vulnerable. I’m relieved when she’s safely behind the closed door of one of the toilet stalls, getting dressed.

  “I came to tell you that we’re ready for you,” Liam announces when she’s gone. “I’ve gathered everyone together in the common area to meet you.”

  Campbell nods to the guy behind him. “Who’s your friend?”

  The guy steps around him, smiling mildly. “Justin. Hey.”

  “What’s up, man? What can you do?”

  “Campbell!” Alex shouts from inside her stall. “Rude!”

  “No, it’s fine,” Justin assures her quickly. I can’t see his eyes under his glasses, but I feel it when he gives the room a cursory scan. He’s counting heads. Counting feet under stall doors. “I, uh, well,” he chuckles helplessly. “It’s hard to say, exactly. Um. I die. I guess that’s it.”

  “That is not it,” Liam corrects sternly. “You die, but you rise. That is your power.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. The dying part is what really sticks out.”

  I take a step toward him, looking him over more closely. He’s young. Seventeen or so. Pale, but not any more than Liam. His hair is blonder than Campbell’s. Almost white. He’s a little shorter than I am, probably about five-ten. His lips are a little chapped. That’s the only unhealthy thing I can see about him. He might be dehydrated, but definitely nowhere near death.

  “What do you mean when you say you die?” I ask, intrigued.

  Justin hesitates, licking his lips nervously. “I mean I die. Out of nowhere. And a minute or so later, I get back up.”

  “You mean you pass out?”

  “No, I mean I die.”

  “He was part of a side project my father was running,” Liam explains quietly. He doesn’t look at Justin as he speaks. If anything, he’s actively avoiding the kid’s face. He’s ashamed. “It was another military application. He looked to employ nanobots to heal soldiers in the field. To close a gunshot wound or open an airway.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Campbell chants, bringing the conversation to a halt. “You’re saying he’s a cyborg?”

  “I’m not a cyborg,” Justin laughs.

  “You’ve got robot parts. A lot of them, I assume. You are definitely a cyborg.”

  “He’s not a cyborg,” Liam sighs. “He’s a man. A flesh and bone, living, breathing man.”

  “Yeah, right until I’m not,” Justin mutters.

  Campbell’s eyes light up. “Seriously, what does that mean?”

  Liam shuts him down quickly. “If we could carry on with this show-and-tell at a later time, one where I don’t have a room of people waiting to meet you, that would be ideal.”

  Alex opens the stall door, stepping out slowly. She’s dressed again; clean in worn jeans and a yellow tank top. She looks at Liam hard as she pushes her arms into the sleeves of a black sweatshirt.

  “Who’s the girl who wants to kill me?” she asks bluntly.

  Liam immediately looks at Brody. Not accusing, but not grateful either. He’s slow to swing his gaze back to Alex. “I can keep her under control.”

&nbs
p; “Who is she, Liam? I deserve to know what I’m walking into.”

  “Is she talking about Kim?” Justin asks.

  Alex’s eyes go wide. “Kimberly Fry?!”

  “You’ve met her before?”

  “We have a history, yeah,” I confirm mildly.

  Justin looks between Alex and I. Neither of us looks friendly. “I’m guessing it’s not a good one.”

  “Liam,” Alex snarls.

  He sighs. “Yes, Alexia.”

  “What the hell, man?”

  “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I want an explanation on why you have her here.”

  “If you recall, you brought her here.”

  “Yeah, like, months ago! Why is she still here? With you?!”

  “Because I needed help,” he answers plainly.

  He’s not happy about this. He’s tired and exasperated, held together by a thread, and I think this is one of the reasons why we’re here. Why he was so willing to bring us to his hiding place after all these months of hard segregation. Liam is losing control. He’s alone. He needs help from people he can trust, and even though he’s burned us time and again, we’ve never returned the favor.

  “I found her here after our confrontation with Sandrine,” he continues. “I explained to her that my father was dead. She didn’t mind that much, but when I told her that I had thrown in with you lot and we’d been to the other island to see Sandrine, she was livid. Our argument turned violent and I left, leaving her behind. I came back three days later to find her much more agreeable.”

  “She was calm because she was scared you’d leave her here to die if she attacked you again,” I guess.

  “Exactly, yes. And I would have.”

  “Did she get a piece of you?”

  “No. I was able to escape uninjured.”

  “Lucky you,” Alex mutters, obviously remembering the knife Fry put in her stomach the last time she saw her.

  “It rarely feels that way.”

  “Oh, poor you. You’ve suffered so much.”

  Liam looks down at the wet floor. At the drain in the center slowly gurgling down the remains of our showers. He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t have to. As kind as she can be, Alex is not a very forgiving person. She’s still holding onto the anger from the betrayal he dealt her on this island months ago, and she’s not giving credit for the good he’s done since then. She’s not taking into account the reasons why he did the things he did.