Stacey Kade - The Hunt

Ariane Tucker

UNTIL I CRAWLED BENEATH THE designated Dumpster behind the abandoned Linens-N-Things and felt the brush of rough canvas against my fingertips, I really wasn’t sure that the emergency bag would be there, as my father had promised.

My first Christmas, I’d been six. It had also been the first time Outside matched the color and sparkle of what I’d seen on television and in my “cultural training” videos in the lab at GTX. The houses in our neighborhood had been decked out with flashing Santas, red-nosed reindeer, and molded plastic Nativity scenes. And through cracks in the blinds, I’d watched people carry in plastic bags full of presents, brightly colored wrapping paper tubes poking through the top.

This strange but wonderful event—so much preparation and fuss over it—called to me in the worst way. I longed to be a part of it. But our living room remained dark and undecorated, the carpeting empty of pine needles and shiny wrapped packages alike, even on Christmas Day. In our house, it was just another day. Worse, even, as my father retreated to his room and didn’t come out until the following morning. I was alone. And confused. According to lore, only “naughty” children were punished by an absence of gifts. But I’d done everything I knew to do, followed precisely the Rules my father had given me.

Much later, I understood that it was because my father’s true daughter, the original Ariane, had died, and the traditions of the holiday reminded him too much of her. My presence only further highlighted her absence, inflaming a wound that would never quite heal.

Still, it had been the first of many occasions that taught me to understand that my expectations, my hopes, were better kept in check. My father had done his best to be a parent for me (or so I’d believed until recently), but there’d been limits, ones I was usually unaware of until I bumped into them.

This time, though, unlike all those years of dark Christmases, my father had come through. This gift, an emergency bag of supplies, cash, and who knew what else, was exactly where he’d said it would be.

Feeling some measure of tension leave my body, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and promptly choked on the cloud of dirt that rose up in response.

“You okay?” Zane asked quietly. He was pacing nearby, waiting for me. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear the scrape of his shoes on the concrete as he moved back and forth, watching for anyone approaching.

It had taken us a little more than two hours to make our way here from GTX. We’d cut through backyards and taken side streets, doubling back when necessary and keeping to the shadows. But before any of that, we’d had to fight through the overgrown forest preserve that surrounded the GTX campus. Nothing like taking a branch to the face when running full-speed. I’d ended up keeping an arm up to shield myself, and consequently the skin between my wrist and elbow felt shredded, burning as if it were on fire. Zane hadn’t fared much better, new cuts and bruises on his face and arms joining those he’d already acquired in the last few days.

I’d expected him to protest or even quit, turning around to head home. Which was, quite frankly, probably the safest place for him. But he’d soldiered on in determined silence. Well, he hadn’t said much. He had, however, crashed through the woods like a herd of drunken deer. Stealth training was not something taught in your average school system. But lucky, lucky me, I’d been enrolled in some “special” extracurriculars during my time with my father.

Other parents taught their children how to ride bikes, fish, or bake cookies from the family recipe, but my father had spent countless hours passing along much of the training he’d acquired during his years in Special Forces. It had been, I guess, our thing, our shared interest. Maybe he would have taught his biological daughter, the first Ariane, the same stuff. Maybe not. All I knew was that the day I’d managed to sneak up behind him in the patch of woods near our house where we practiced, I’d never seen him more proud of me.

Until last night.

I shoved that thought away. I wouldn’t, couldn’t think about that now. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said to Zane. “One second.” I bit my lip, tasting sweat and unpleasant grit, and contemplated my next move. Unfortunately, just because the bag was there didn’t mean I could actually get to it. I was already halfway under the Dumpster, trapped between the bottom of the trash receptacle and the concrete beneath it, which meant I had about zero leverage. And I was about ten seconds away from a major freak-out. Dark, confined spaces and I are not friends.

Sweating and keenly aware of the metal ceiling above my head, I strained at the shoulder and managed to grasp a corner of the fabric. But it slipped away before I could get a good-enough grip.

“Damn it,” I panted. Though the logical part of my brain knew there was plenty of air, my emotional side was panicking and sucking in oxygen at a far too rapid rate. I could feel dizziness beginning to build.

This would have been so much easier if we could have just moved the stupid Dumpster to reach the bag from the other side. But that meant the shrill squeak of wheels and the rumbling thunder of the empty receptacle moving over the pockmarked and uneven concrete. Not an option on an otherwise quiet night when GTX security was out in force looking for us.

I squirmed closer, a hiss of pain escaping against my will when a particularly sharp bit of rock from the degraded parking lot dug into the abrasions on my forearm.

Zane knelt next to me and tugged at the hem of my lab-issued tunic. “I can get it,” he whispered. “Let me.”

“What?” I asked, distracted. If I could just release whatever was securing the bag, I wouldn’t even have to be under here. I had the ability to move objects without touching them—one of the few perks of my extraterrestrial heritage. The scientists at GTX had played God with a scrap of preserved DNA from the alien entity found at the site of the Roswell incident in 1947, isolating the stem cells and splicing them into a fertilized human egg from a (presumably) willing human donor/surrogate.

I was the result. But it wasn’t exactly ideal.

Theoretically, I could lift the whole Dumpster into the air simply by concentrating on it, but my telekinetic abilities were a little unpredictable lately, due to lack of use. So stepping under a heavy metal object that might fall on your head at any second probably wasn’t a great idea.

But if I couldn’t see what was holding the bag, I couldn’t undo it. And just yanking at it would only pull the Dumpster along.

“I can get it,” Zane repeated patiently. “My arms are longer than yours.”

“No, I can—”

He bent down, his knees suddenly visible at the edge of my vision. “You know, it’s okay to accept help every once in a while.”

Easy for him to say. I swallowed a frustrated noise. He didn’t understand. I’d spent years relying only on myself, trusting only my father (and look at how well that had turned out). I couldn’t just stop doing that. I didn’t know how. And with Zane, much as I wanted to trust him, much as he’d done nothing to make me doubt him, I could feel the other shoe—an ass-kicking combat boot with a steel toe and a thick tread—hanging above my head, waiting to stomp on me.