There was just certain shit that was too legendary to ignore for law enforcement.

Like raising the horde.

Which brought more questions than answers. Where were Clyde, Parker... and the new chick? Nevaeh.

Jade burst into the room and I stood, forgetting about that attractive hospital flap that came open.

She didn't.

It was almost worth the hospital stay.

*

Jeffrey Parker

"How'd it go?" Parker asked and Amanda pursed her lips.

"Obviously, it was only an amputation."

Christopher shrugged. "It's a slow bleed but they'll be trying to recover for years." He smiled suddenly and said, "Hart is funnier than hell."

Parker frowned. "Yeah, raising Zondorae was an interesting choice."

Amanda snorted. "That's one way of putting it."

"They offed him without thinking about it," Christopher stated, stuffing his hands in the front pocket of his jeans, his frown of contemplation eating his grin.

Parker nodded. "A dead Zondorae is a good Zondorae. He was a helluva zombie," Parker said with reflection.

The two nodded in agreement.

"Joe is still out there, ranting about espionage and terrorism," Christopher said. "He'll give all the do-gooders who haven't served a day securing our freedom some credibility."

Parker nodded at Christopher's words.

"We'll move forward. Then, when they think that they've reestablished control, we'll tear the rug out from underneath their feet," Amanda recited from a voice steeped in repetition and deep-seated zealotry.

"Pass the map," Parker interrupted.

Amanda narrowed her concentration at the map, her brow furrowing. The map lifted and came at Parker in a flash of rippling paper.

"Don't get cute," Parker said, catching it.

"Why do I support paranormals?" Christopher asked to the room at large, shaking his head.

"'Cuz we're hot, baby," Amanda said, twining herself around Christopher and giving him some tongue and lip.

Parker sighed and they disentangled.

Christopher wore her lipstick like a clown had mauled him.

"Stay classy, guys," Parker tried.

Amanda flipped him off.

"Anyway," Parker said, elongating the word significantly. He gazed down at the map, detailing every building the Graysheets owned in the state.

There were ten. There were even greater numbers in some of the more densely populated parts of the nation.

But Parker was worrying about Washington. Others would worry about their territory. Now, if he could just secure the cooperation of the rogue C-M.

As if reading his mind Amanda scattered his thoughts with, "So what about the AFTD chick you picked up like a stray. Is she really all that? I mean, why did the Graysheets want to clean her?"

Parker had looked into her records. He knew why.

He just wasn't sure they should know.

Parker wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He was also dead sure Nevaeh did not. What a clusterfuck.

Instead, he shrugged. The file that had held her secrets was now a molten and destroyed mess of glass in the incinerator. It'd been within the guts of the Graysheet building his sponsors had destroyed.

"We were lucky to get those files," Christopher said, tapping his finger on the long file holder made of a sophisticated lucite material. The predecessor to acrylic.

Amanda agreed. "It reminds me of the Holocaust, what they're jonesing to accomplish."

Christopher raised a brow. "The what?"

"That brilliant whacko, Hitler?" Parker prompted.

Christopher nodded. "The dude that tried to kill off an entire race of people back, what?" His eyeballs lifted, he was thinking. "It was in the middle of the 20th century, right?"

Amanda nodded. "1940s, I think."

He shrugged. "Don't see the correlation."

"It's the same. Their focus is on the paranormals. They want to take away our powers. Then, they know that our DNA has been permanently altered by the Helix Cocktail. Basically, they're screwed if we reproduce."

"And we've taken care of that," Christopher said in a flat voice.

"Not all," Parker said and they met his eyes. The silence stretched. Finally, Parker told them the worst news.

"You know the clinical trials were sketchy. That Dr. Kyle Hart was fed deliberate facts, ones that made it appear safer than it was. Lies by omission."

"It was the Zondoraes' baby," Amanda interrupted him.

Jeffrey nodded, remembering the boy he was. The boy they exploited, and pushed the memory away with the rest of the disturbing shit in his internal lockbox. He wasn't a big believer in introspection.

"Even I couldn't get to this one thing here," Parker said, pointing at the thirty-odd glass slides, the invisible helix lying in wait for the right pulse print.

"Well?" Amanda asked, hooking a thumb through a belt loop on Christopher's black jeans.

"One," Parker began, "they only want some powers reversed."

"Smart," Christopher said, smirking.

Amanda nodded, biting lightly on her thumbnail. "It makes them look-

-Responsible," Christopher finished.

"Discerning," Parker added, then, "they'll gain public sympathy as well."

"What are they 'keeping'," Amanda asked with airquotes.

"Hardly anything. The brass has announced that the 'vital abilities' will be 'managed'," Parker said.

"Which?" Amanda's eyes searched his face.

"Organics. Locators... maybe Electromagnetics?"

"Hmmm. Not good." Christopher looked at Parker. "There's worse news than this."

Parker nodded. "The single worse thing that they could have kept secret in the trials were the side effects of the HC."

They watched him and he told them what the Helix Cocktail destroyed.

"No!" Amanda cried. "It negates what we were trying to accomplish."

"Not entirely," Parker said.

"What do you mean?" Amanda asked, guarded hope crowding her eyes.

"I mean that they were scientists without more than just integrity. They lacked vision and purpose beyond their own greed. So now, unless those kids," Parker paused, "several of whom are adults now... unless they get a counter serum there will be a great fall in the human population."

For the HC given at the onset of puberty took the most precious choice of all: life.

The millions of children inoculated now had an end without options, stolen forever by the hunger for power.

Sterility was the future for paranormals.

But for a twist of fate, Caleb Hart would have been amongst this number.

However, he was not. Like Nevaeh, he was a special case and his father had given him more than height in the genetic equation.

His interference had saved his reproductive potential.

*

Caleb

Jade lay curled against my side, fitting there like she'd always been while the mess of my life slid through in a stream of images through my head.

"I'm scared," Jade said.

I stroked her bare back, loving the feel of it against my fingertips, not being able to believe skin existed that was as soft as hers.

I thought about lying. Not that it was possible but it bleeped through my mind and was gone.

Instead I just answered with the truth, "Me too."

"Can they force us?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Oh, Caleb." She gave a small cry and nuzzled in against my ribs tighter, using her small arm to grip me.

"They said they'll do it by year then alphabetically. They've already gotten through almost everyone born before us."

We'd all be next, all of us had birthdays that were close to one another.

Wow, they were moving fast. Parker's people had crippled them but there were enough Graysheets scurrying around that the imperative moved forward regardless.

Damn. I pulled away, looking into the deep green of her eyes. "Did this happen when I was in the hospital?"

Hell... overnight?

A sly grin appeared on her face. "I would have told you if we hadn't... ya know, not talked."

I threw a hand up in surrender. "You're the one that attacked my ass."

She giggled. "It wasn't really your ass."

True. "I can't argue that..."

Jade gave me That Look and I set the bullshit aside and tackled her.

It worked out pretty well.

*

early autumn

Jade threw a pillow at me that I deftly caught and flung on her bed, making it in a half-ass way.

"Don't you know how to make a bed?" she asked, looking absolutely hot in the first degree. "Hello?" Jade said, snapping her fingers.

My chin shot up and I swung my head to the crap job of the bed, not tucked in anywhere, the covers still rumpled from... activity.

Uh-huh....

I grabbed Jade and she squealed, her shirt half buttoned and one boot on. "Caleb!" she squealed.

"What?" I asked, nipping and licking along her neck.

"Ooh," she purred at me and I went for it. "No, no!" she said, pushing me away gently with a laugh. "You're still living with your parents, I don't want them pissed at me."

Right. "For about three more seconds. Then I go to train."

She shook her head. "We don't know that. All this reversal inoculation could change our futures. If I'm no longer an Empath... if you're not AFTD?"

That wasn't going to happen. A world without the dead was one I wouldn't be a part of. I couldn't fathom their absence. Even though in a moment of weakness I had let Parker have my blood to do just that, or so I'd believed.

Just when I thought nothing could take Jade from me there was a loud knock at the lower level of the old-fashioned house she bunked in.

We looked at each other.

When the commotion sounded downstairs, I was momentarily distracted by a pulse.

I looked down even as I pulsed the lock on the door, the bolt sliding seamlessly into place.

Are you with Jade?- Dad

Yes- CH

Can you leave safely?- Dad

Why, Dad?- CH

Emotive response High.

Holy shit, I never got an emotive response from my parents.

It's come to my attention that the reversal inoculation will be compulsory.- Dad

Then-

Did you get my last pulse?-Dad

I scrolled through and found a bunch of details about the Herding of the Paranormals.

But I'd been busy with Jade.

Shit.

I tried to regret it and couldn't.

I knew this day was coming.

No- CH

Get out of there- Dad

Wherever you are, get out safely, you and Jade- Dad

What about the Js?- CH

pause in pulse communication.

I'm sorry, son. I just don't know.- Dad

Fuck me.

Jade's eyes widened. Holding her hand saved time.

I took my thumb off the pulse.

"Did you get that?"

She nodded. "They're here and they're going to force it."

"They'll have the police on their side," I said, searching her face.

"What can we do?" Jade asked, then asked the only critical question for me, "What will you do?"

I didn't hesitate. "What I have to."

When the pulse lock on Jade's door was deactivated, she gripped my hand. "It's them," she said.

I called the dead. It was simple, I let the leash go and they came running.

The Graysheets weren't taking me.

And they sure as shit weren't taking Jade.

I put her behind my body protectively and tensed, expecting the worst.

It wasn't them, it was Archer. He'd worked her lock like the pro he was.

"Come on. We don't have long."

I got over my surprise and we followed Lewis as he opened every door that stood in our way, locking it behind him with a grim smile affixed to his face.

We left.

Safe for the moment, but not for long.

CHAPTER 14

Kent Refuse

"Shit, Hart. It's a load off that you're gracing us with your presence," Jonesy said, rubbing a rough hand over the short nap of his hair.

I gave a chin lift and smiled, throwing my coat onto one of the milk crates at the dump, it'd been a logical place to go.

Jade went immediately to the tossed coat and sat down on the crate, wrapping it around her legs. Perpetually cold. Not me, it was grounds for ass sweat if I had too many clothes on.

Not gonna happen.

My eyes scanned the group. Tiff was missing, Bry was here.

I lifted a brow at Terran.

"She'll be here, she had to babysit one of the brothers."