∞ The Tethered Ones ∞

Chapter 48

━━─── • ───━━━

• Luna •

Luna pushed herself up to her knees, glass slicing her palms, and lunged toward Lily, who was throwing electric charges with her fingers.

A bolt of energy slammed into Davenport's bookcase, ripping a hole through the majority of the books. It fizzled before it could touch Luna's skin, but the bookcase casualty confirmed what she already suspected.

She was out for blood.

Her blood.

That flash of electricity was not a warning.

As Lily lunged at her, Luna darted to the right. Davenport's beer bottles sloshed all over the kitchen floor, covering it.

Luna charged at Lily, doing the only thing she could think of at the time. She slashed her skin by throwing bottles at her. As she stumbled back, raising her hands to her eyes, the glass shattered. A foul-smelling liquid ran down her cheeks, mixing with flecks of blood.

Luna hoped it felt excruciating.

"Lily," she said, stepping back. "I have no idea why you're attacking me, but I'm your friend—I can help you!"

She wiped her eyes, splattering water on the walls. Her gaze met Luna's with no recognition. Her eyes were terrifyingly wide and empty. Luna had become nothing to her after months of being washed away. There was nothing behind those eyes.

Luna's eyes had to be playing tricks on her, or she was dreaming because she was Defective. Her sweet friend in St. Matthew's who had helped them in getting to this estate was now violent and ready for war.

She was undercover for their resistance.

Oh, dear baby koalas . . . Lily had been activated.

She was a Trojan.

Her head cocked to the side, eyes narrowing.

"Please, Lily, it's me. Luna. You know me," she begged. Her back hit the desk as she looked behind her at the open door. "We're friends. Remember?"

Lily stalked toward Luna, like Jason going after his victims.

And she was so her victim.

She took a deep breath in, but it became stuck. "Our hospital rooms were next to each other—we ate lunch sometimes. You wear black square glasses." She didn't know what to say, but she kept babbling in the hopes of reaching her friend; the last thing she wanted to do was hurt her. "Lily, please . . ."

But Lily seemed to have no qualms about causing her some harm.

The air became static-charged once more. As Lily let go of her electricity once more, Luna lurched to the side. It burned the back of Luna's shirt. When she spun toward the desk, the smell of burned lint and charred meat wafted into the air. A low whine came from the desk, and smoke billowed from a closed laptop.

Luna gaped.

The laptop looked brand new and probably had notes that the general needed.

Important information could have been on it.

And the electricity was two inches away from her hand.

Son of a mother . . .

It was on.

Luna charged at Lily, knocking her to the living room floor. Her hands lifted and wrapped around her hair. She slammed her head down, a stream of dark strands billowing behind her. Lily let out a low squeal of pain as she landed with a satisfying thud against the end table.

"You—" Lily rolled by tilting her pelvis up, wrapping her legs around Luna's hips, and gaining the upper hand in seconds.

Who knew she was a damn ninja?

This time, she slammed Luna's head back much harder. Her vision was clouded by starbursts. Sharp pain exploded along her jaw, startling her for a split second.

And then something inside Luna snapped.

Blistering rage welled up inside her, coating her skin and igniting every cell in her body. A surge of power surged through her chest. It rushed through her veins like lava, reaching the tips of her fingers. Her eyes were hidden behind a whitish-yellow veil.

Time slowed to a standstill. The curtains were blown out by air from the windows; the thin fabric groped for them before stopping and hanging in midair. The little gray and white smoke puffs froze. She also became aware that although everything appeared to have stopped moving because she was traveling so quickly, they weren't actually frozen.

Lily wasn't someone she wanted to hurt, but Luna was going to stop her.

She was unstable.

Luna leaned back and smashed both fists into her shoulders. Lily swooped into the bedroom. Cologne bottles clattered and tipped over, clanging off her head.

Breathing deeply, Luna jumped to her feet. The power she possessed surged within her, pleading to be released and put to use again.

"All right," she gasped. "Let's just take a moment to relax. I can help you, and we'll figure out how to reset you."

Lily climbed to her feet slowly and painfully. Their gazes locked, and the absent look in hers sent shivers down her spine. "I don't need to be reset!"

"Stop," Luna warned. "You're not yourself."

Lily's hand snaked out, caught Luna's cheek, and spun her around. Lily landed on her hips on the bed and slid to the floor. Luna's mouth filled with a metallic taste. Her lip stung and her ears rang.

She yanked Luna to her feet with a handful of her hair. She screamed as a fire burned her scalp. She pushed her onto her back, her hands wrapped around her neck. Thick fingers dug into her windpipe, cutting off her supply of oxygen. The inability to breathe reminded Luna of her first encounter with the female Defective, bringing back feelings of desperation and helplessness as her lungs were starved for oxygen.

Lily wasn’t the same girl she once knew.

She was a terminator on a mission.

Luna let the electricity build up inside her and then let it go. As the blast knocked Lily back against the ceiling, stars exploded in the room, dazzling in their effect. The plaster cracked, but she remained standing. Smoke billowed from her charred sweater.

Lily wouldn't go down.

Would she be like this if she were a Trojan and were activated?

She rose to her feet, attempting to reach Lily once more. "You're my friend. This is not something you want to do. Please, listen to me. Let's figure this out together."

In any other situation, Luna would be jealous of how easily Lily had mastered that ability in what seemed like a nanosecond because last week . . . last week she had helped them flee from the plantation.

And now Luna had no idea what or who stood in front of her.

Ice shards formed around her insides as they filled the pit of her stomach. There was no reason to argue with her. There was no chance, and the realization cost her.

Luna was distracted and didn't react quickly enough when Lily released the ball of energy.

"No!" said Luna as she lifted her hands.

Putting all of her energy into the one word, she imagined the minuscule light particles in the air answering her call by constructing a barrier. Around her, the air glistened as if a glitter tub had been precisely poured in a straight line. The energy of a thousand suns shone from each speck. And deep down, she understood that whatever was happening ought to have been able to stop the ball.

The shimmering wall was broken, but it still managed to get through, slowing it down but not stopping it.

Luna was knocked over with her legs over her head as the energy struck her shoulder, causing an explosion of anguish that temporarily blinded her to sight and sound.
With a loud thump, Lily landed on her stomach on the bed. Air rushed out of her lungs, but Luna realized she didn't have time to feel the pain.

She raised her head and looked through her matted hair.

Her friend moved fluidly at first and then less so as she crept forward. Her left leg shuddered slowly, and then violently shook. Only the left half of her body was affected by the shiver. Half of her face spasmed, and her arm flailed.

Luna pushed herself up on her shaky arms and scooted across the bed till she fell off the side. "Lily?"

Her entire body trembled, nearly shaking the ground. She initially appeared to be suffering a seizure, but her actions caused the house to tremble.

Sparks erupted from her skin. Luna's nostrils were burned by the smell of burning clothing and human flesh. Lily continued to tremble, her head drooping onto her bony neck.

Somewhere outside, there were murmurs and rumblings.

As Luna moved toward her, she covered her mouth with her hand. She needed to help her but wasn't sure how.

"Oh, my God, Lily . . ."

Around them, the air collapsed.

Davenport's room was ripped apart by a seismic wave. The computer chair fell over, the bed was hoisted up and suspended on one side, and the wave kept coming. His closet's contents flew out. As if it were raining, papers began to whirl and fall.

When the wave got to Luna, it scooped her off the ground and threw her back like she only weighed as light as a paperclip. She was slammed into the wall next to the tiny stand near the bed and hung as the shock wave swelled.

She couldn’t move or breathe.

And Lily .  . .

There was nothing there in her eyes anymore.

As if a suction had been attached to the back of her and turned on, her skin and bones began to sink in. She shrank little by little until the room, the entire home, and perhaps the entire street was illuminated by a solar storm's worth of light, rendering her blind.

As the illumination faded, the shock wave also subsided with a loud, deafening pop. With heaps of clothing, papers, and maps dangling in the air, Luna fell to the ground in a slump.

She locked her gaze on the spot where her friend had once stood. There was nothing but a darkened spot on the floor where the Defectives had been killed.

Like ashes.

There was nothing of the girl—of her friend.

Lily had vanished.

• • •

A warm tingle spread numbly down the back of her neck, and then Amir stepped through the doorway, brows lifted and mouth open.

"Wow. We can't be apart for more than two seconds, Moon."

Luna leaped from the wreckage and threw herself into his arms. Her explanation was a jumbled mess of words and run-on sentences. He slowed her down and asked her to repeat herself several times before he got the gist of what happened.

He sat beside her on the bench outside, his fingers moving over her bottom lip as his eyes narrowed in concentration. Healing warmth spread across her aching cheeks and along her lips.

"I don't understand what Lily was doing here," Luna said, staring at Amir's movements. "She was normal last week. Amir, you saw her. How could we not sense she was different?"

His jaw tightened. "I think the better question is, why was she fighting you?"

The knot in Luna's stomach had moved upward, settling on her chest and making breathing difficult. "It was as if nothing was there, and she only wanted to kill me."

Luna didn't know anything anymore. She kept rewinding every conversation she had with Lily, from the first time she met her in St. Matthew's until they met at Dr. Kim's as an "Implant." Where were the hints that she was hiding more than they thought? She couldn't think of anything that stood out.

Amir frowned. "She could have been caught snooping on the organization. Maybe they discovered her and she didn't know until it was too late."

"But that's eight years of dealing with them," Luna pointed out. "They must have been on her trail for a while then."

His gaze lifted. "She slipped up somewhere."

"Or . . . Lily was always their puppet? They had her believe they weren't onto her until she let us go."

It was possible that she was being watched and was unaware of it. Luna knew BARDA was cunning, and she had no idea what they'd done to her inside a compound. But to pursue Luna and attempt to murder her?

The organization could have been several steps ahead of Lily and ambushed her, but dear God, what went wrong? Did she use her abilities and they caught her on video? "Could they have . . ." She was unable to finish the question. It was insane, but Amir knew exactly where she was going with it.

"That the organization injected her with serums and transformed her into a terminator out to annihilate others? That they may have developed something more dangerous than Trojans and Defectives?" Anger deepened his brown hues. "I sincerely pray that is not the case. If it is, it's . . ."

"Revolting," Luna grumbled. Her hands trembled, so she stuffed them between her knees. "It was like fighting a zombie who wouldn't go away. Just completely insane."

Amir moved his hands away, and the healing warmth faded. When it did, so did the barrier that had prevented the truth of everything from truly breaking free and consuming her.

"God, she died. Does that mean . . . ?" Luna swallowed, but the lump was pushing its way up her throat.

Amir's arms tightened. "Something happened to her, just like the Defective, to cause her to dissolve like that. Maybe General Davenport knows."

"We could also talk to Ethan," Luna muttered, shuddering. "He'd worked for the organization for a long time." Her vision blurred even more as she blinked. "Oh, Amir . . . that was my friend. That was Lily, and they did her wrong."

Another shudder racked her shoulders, and before she knew it, she was sobbing—those huge, breath-stealing sobs. She vaguely realized he had drawn her over to him and cradled her head against his chest.

Luna wasn't sure how long the tears lasted, but every part of her ached in a way that Amir couldn't fix. Lily was almost innocent in all of this, or so she thought, and perhaps that's what made things worse. She had no idea how deeply she was involved, and she had no idea how to find out.

He didn't try to turn away as the tears completely soaked his shirt. He actually hugged his wife closely while speaking to her in his language she recognized and found attractive in his lyrical whisper. She was comforted by his comments, and she wondered whether someone, perhaps his mother, had held him in the past and said similar sentiments to him. And how many times had he done the same for his relatives? Amir was an expert at relaxing someone now, despite all the bark and bite he carried.

He helped to calm the dark abyss and dull the edges of the sharp blow.

Lily . . . Lily was gone, and Luna didn't know what to do. Or the fact that her most recent act had been to attempt to eliminate her, which was unlike her.

She sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeves once the tears had stopped. The one to her right had been charred by the energy blast and was rough against her cheek. The scratchy sensation pried a memory loose.

She raised her head. "Lily was wearing a bracelet I'd never seen her wear before. The same bracelet Titus was wearing."

"Are you sure?" When Luna nodded, Amir leaned back against the seat, holding her in his embrace as the sun shone above them. "That is weird."

"Yeah."

"We need to talk to Titus without our pest around. Ethan is far too suspicious." Amir sighed and tipped his chin up. Worry touched his face and roughened his voice. "I'll let the others know what happened." She began to speak, but he shook his head. "I don't want you to have to tell them anything. You're still shaken by it."

She laid her cheek on his shoulder. "Thank you."

"And when the general returns, I'll speak with him. We'll clean everything up."

Relief washed over her. She was not looking forward to having to explain to General Davenport why his house was destroyed. "You're wonderful. And perfect. Beautiful and perfect."

"Only for you," he murmured, his chin brushing against her cheek. "I'm sorry, Luna. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. She was a good person who deserved better."

Her lips trembled. "She helped us get away."

"You didn't deserve to have to deal with her like that, either," he added.

Luna didn't respond because she wasn't sure what she deserved. She didn't always think she deserved Amir.

They'd planned to go to Titus's club within the week after a few training sessions with the group, but she couldn't even concentrate on that right now. It was important to learn what happened to Lily and how she ended up as one of BARDA's experiments. Not to mention how she wound up with his bracelet. Luna sensed that the jewel meant something when she first saw him, and perhaps it does. It could be some kind of ability booster or something.

She didn't know.

Luna exhaled a breath and curled up against Amir. The aches from the fight had long subsided, but she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. He kept humming a lovely soothing lullaby, almost putting her to sleep right there on the bench.

She opened her eyes hours later to find Cami on the couch with her in the house, legs tucked against her chest, reading a book from the community library. Luna's favorite New Adult paranormal about a Seattle-based demon hunter.

Luna sat up and pushed her hair out of her face.

Cami closed the book. "Amir went to Kroger with the guys. That will take some time, but it is the only open location with water. Even the Walmart near us is out of stock."

"That sucks."

Her brow furrowed. "Yeah, but hopefully we'll get some more. The general told me about the pantry and what they had available."

"Oh." Luna reached for Cami's hand. Then she threw her legs off the couch, but they were too shaky to stand. Tears welled up behind her eyes. "No, I didn't . . . Lily didn't die by my hands."

She had no idea why she said that. Maybe it was because she was afraid that people would automatically blame her for what happened to her if they find out.

"I know. Amir told me everything." Cami stretched her legs and lowered her lashes, fanning her cheeks. "I can't . . ."

"You can't believe this happened, too?" Luna tucked her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, and nodded. "I just can't get my head around it. She was such a great person."

Cami fell silent for a moment. "I haven't talked to her since . . . well, since the hospital." Her hair slipped over her ears, shielding her face. "I liked her, and I was a complete jerk to her at times. I bet she hated me."

Luna began to tell her that she wasn't hated, but Cami looked up, a wry smile on her lips. "Don't lie to make me feel better. I appreciate it, but it doesn't change anything. I don't think I've said anything to her since we were given the . . . hallucinogens, and now she's . . ."

Luna closed her eyes and rubbed a kink in her neck. Her mind was foggy, and she wasn't sure what she should be doing. All she wanted to do was grieve for her friend, but how could she grieve for someone who wanted to kill her? Even if she was just a bystander?

Cami cleared her throat. "Amir and Faisal cleaned the general's house. There were a few things that couldn't be saved. The guys threw away some clothing that had been burned or torn. But they did notice something." She peered over her shoulder at the door and back at Luna. "They discovered a drone and a collection of photos from the community."

Luna's mouth dropped open. "He had a drone in his house?"

Cami nodded.

"So, Amir did see something flying that day," she realized.

"I'm not sure. When Amir questioned the general about it, he stated that he uses it to detect any outsiders. Agents who can cloak themselves. The device is some kind of scanner."

"Oh, wow," Luna whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "The drone makes sense now."

Cami twisted a hair strand around her finger. Minutes passed in silence before, "Are you all right? I mean, really