ONE
The world was a very, very big place.
That was Loup’s first impression as the sun rose over northern Mexico. By the time it had cleared the horizon and begun to cast strong light over the landscape, they’d been driving for an hour. Still, the road stretched before them, empty and endless.
And except for Pilar, fast asleep with her head on Loup’s shoulder, everything and everyone in the world Loup had ever loved was behind her, behind the vast concrete wall that sealed off the U.S. border and sealed in a town once known as Santa Olivia, known in Loup’s lifetime only as Outpost—Outpost 12.
The thought made an empty space in Loup’s heart. In the light of day, the thrill of their daring escape through the excavated smugglers’ tunnel had worn off. If she were capable of feeling fear, she was fairly sure she’d be feeling it now.
Pilar yawned and lifted her head. “Are we almost there?” she asked sleepily.
Behind the steering wheel, Christophe laughed. “Not even close.”
Pilar’s hazel eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yes.” He glanced over at the girls. “It’s over a thousand kilometers to Mexico City. Over six hundred miles,” he added, seeing their perplexed looks.
“Wow.” Loup tried to think about what that meant and couldn’t. She knew miles as units measured on a treadmill, going nowhere, not as actual distances to be traveled. It was only the third or fourth time she’d ridden in a car, and never farther than a few blocks before. “So a few more hours, huh?”
“More than a few.”
“How many?”
The cousin-of-a-sort she’d only just met squinted at the convertible’s speedometer. “I drive fast. We ought to be there by late afternoon.”
“Shit!” Pilar said in dismay.
Christophe slid her a laughing glance. “Big world, eh?”
“Yeah, no kidding.” She turned to look at the empty highway behind them. “So we’re safe? No one’s after us?”
“I imagine the army is tearing Santa Olivia apart searching for Loup, but no one has the slightest idea she crossed the border, and it is quite possible they do not even know you are missing, bonita. Go back to sleep,” he said kindly. “Both of you, if you like. It will make the time pass faster. I don’t mind. You had a long night.”
“No kidding,” Pilar repeated, but she closed her eyes and nestled her head back on Loup’s shoulder, worn out with terror and happiness. “You okay, baby?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Okay, then.”
Pilar dozed.
Christophe drove.
Hot wind whipped all around them. Loup studied her Mexican-born sort-of-cousin. Aside from the soldier who had killed her brother in the boxing ring, he was the first person Loup had ever met that was like her—not entirely human. He was the only one she had met who was truly like her—conceived naturally, not created in a laboratory like the father she had never known.
It had been dark when they’d escaped from Outpost. By daylight, she could see him better. He was young, not much older than her. Seventeen, eighteen at the most. Well, that made sense. He couldn’t have been conceived much earlier than her. His hands were steady on the wheel. His skin was darker than hers, brown instead of caramel. He was taller, lanky. But he had the same high, rounded cheekbones, the same wide, dark eyes, wiry black hair, and sweeping lashes that she did.
“You knew my father, didn’t you?” Loup asked him.
“Tío Martin? Yes, of course.”
“What was he like?”
“Quiet,” Christophe said, concentrating on the road. “Very intense. All of them were, the original kin. My father, too.”
“Henri.”
“Henri,” he agreed in acknowledgment. “He was the leader, the smart one.”
“He died, too?”
Christophe spared her a sympathetic glance. “They all died, Loup.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “Because they burned too bright, too hard, and too fast. You know?”
“I know,” Loup murmured.
After a lifetime of hiding her true nature and pretending to be something she wasn’t, she’d burned bright and fast and hard in Outpost, in the town known as Santa Olivia before it was cordoned off from the rest of the world and occupied by the U.S. Army, creating a buffer zone to protect the country from a pandemic that had decimated a generation, from a threat of invasion that might or might not have been real.
The threats were gone, but the safeguards remained.
The only way to win a ticket out of Outpost was in the boxing ring, defeating one of the general’s hand-picked fighters. No one ever had ever done it. Only Loup’s brother had ever come close. She had dedicated her life to a single cause—redeeming her older brother’s death, making it turn out right. Reliving Tom Garron’s destiny. A tight canvas square hemmed by ropes. An opponent like her, like her newfound cousin.
Not quite human; strong and fast and fearless.
Truly fearless.
“How many of us are there?” she asked Christophe.
“Of us kids?” He grinned. “Only seven here, but it seems like more when we’re all together. We’re not so quiet. All boys, too.”
“What about in America?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “The army did a lot of genetic experiments before the program was shut down; there are maybe a hundred soldiers like that guy Johnson, maybe more. There are a lot of rumors, and no one knows the whole truth. But as far as I know, we’re the only natural-born ones. And you’re the only girl.”
“Huh.”
“Is it true you beat him in a fight? Johnson?”
“Yeah.” Loup rubbed her right eyebrow. The gash had healed cleanly during her confinement, leaving a thin pink scar. “Yeah, I did.”
Christophe whistled. “That must have been a hell of a fight.”
“It was.” She replayed the moment of victory in her memory. The crowds roaring, John Johnson climbing to his feet before she knocked him down for the third and final time. Still fearless, but surprised and rueful, knowing himself outboxed and beaten. She had trained long and hard for that fight. For one shining moment, before the soldiers put the handcuffs on her, Loup had given hope to a town that had none. “You know he killed my brother?”
He nodded. “Yes, I am sorry. Your half brother, was it not?”
“I guess. I mean, we had different fathers, but Tommy was my brother. He was the one who taught me to be careful all the time. It was an accident,” Loup added. “Johnson didn’t do it on purpose. It was his twin that Tommy was supposed to fight. A normal guy like Tommy, not like us. The army was afraid he’d lose. They pulled a switch and Johnson took his place in the ring.” She was quiet a moment. “Tommy seemed okay at first. Afterward, he collapsed. They did try to save him at the army base.” Her eyes stung, making her blink, though there were no tears. There never were. “It’s just weird to think, you know? Johnson killed Tommy, then I beat him. Then he helped me escape.”
“We’re not like other people.”
“No.” A thought struck her. “Hey, Christophe? What do we call ourselves? Do we have a name for us?”
“No.” He looked surprised. “We’re just us.”
They began to pass through towns and villages, seeing more traffic on the road. It felt strange to see so many nonmilitary cars, but the towns didn’t look so different from Outpost except that all the signs were in Spanish. Christophe stopped in one town that looked much like the others, parking the convertible and turning it off.
Pilar woke with a start. “Are we there?”
“You think you slept for eight hours?” He smiled. “No, but in about ten minutes, we’ll be getting on the toll highway. Best to get some breakfast before we do.”
“Okay.” She stretched, breasts straining against her T-shirt.
Christophe eyed her. “You’re going to have seven very envious cousins,” he said to Loup.
Despite everything, Loup smiled.
“Better believe it,” Pilar said amiably.
They ate empanadas filled with potato and chorizo at an open-air diner. Pilar finished long before the others and watched with awe as Christophe devoured enormous quantities, fueling a metabolism as heightened and unnatural as Loup’s.
“Wow. He’s worse than you, baby.”
He swallowed. “I am a growing boy.”
“I’m just happy to have food,” Loup commented.
“Aww.” Pilar’s voice softened. “You eat all you like. I’m not making fun. It’s just kind of amazing that we’re here, you know?”
“I know.”
Loup had always known the army would take her into custody after the fight, once she had revealed her true nature. If it was just that they’d discovered what she was, it might not have been so bad. As Father Ramon had once observed, it wasn’t illegal to be the illegitimate offspring of a genetically altered soldier.
But there was the Santa Olivia business from years earlier, when Loup and the other Santitos, the Little Saints of Santa Olivia, had administered what the Father called vigilante justice to a couple of soldiers. Although it was never proved, the orphans under the church’s care had succeeded in helping Loup impersonate the town’s patron saint.
It had made the general very upset… and when Loup was imprisoned, it had given the army an excuse to discover what it would take to break the will of a subject unable to feel fear, pressing her to give up her allies.
As it transpired, the question remained unanswered. Loup had confessed freely to playing Santa Olivia, knowing it was a foregone conclusion from the moment she stepped into the ring. She had refused to admit to having help.
Loup shook her head in wonder. Half a day ago, she’d been stuck in a hot, stifling cell, half-starved and deprived of sleep, resigning herself to years of wondering whether she’d get the hose and conspiracy questions or another smarmy bribe attempt.