The Change (Unbounded) by Teyla Branton Page B

kept waiting for a miracle, for one of the others to save me, or for my so-called Unbounded talent to kick in and tell me what to do.
    Nothing.
    Sitting on my stomach, my assailant punched me hard in the face. Fury burst through my fear. I’d been burned practically to death, lost my best friend, held prisoner, separated from my family, trained till my arms bled, and finally rejected by a man who’d claimed to love me. I wasn’t going to let myself be kidnapped by a twenty-something idiot I didn’t even know.
    I feigned semi-consciousness but was really absorbing nutrients from the grass I laid in, the trees looming above, the air I breathed. My assailant came to his feet, dragging me with him. In seconds, I’d be in that car, all hope of escape gone. There were no convenient rocks or heavy sticks nearby to use as a weapon. But there was the car.
    I faked a stumble, grabbing at him and using my body to ram him into the car. Then I grabbed his head and shoved it into the window with all my strength. After a sickening thump, he slid down into a heap.
    I was free.
    A man leapt from the other side of the car, a pistol in hand.
    Crap, I thought.
    He fired, too soft a sound for the hot fire that sliced into my right shoulder. While I stood in shock, he rounded the vehicle.
    The crack of an unsilenced gun split the false quiet of the night, and the man crumpled, a bloody hole blossoming on his chest. I glanced and saw Ritter turning back to his own opponent in time to smash a pistol into the man’s face.
    Everything was still. I counted eighteen men lying dead or unconscious. Ava was seated by Dimitri. “You shouldn’t have jumped in the way like that,” she told him. “He might have missed me.”
    He gave her a pain-filled smile. “Ah, well, you know me.”
    “We’ve got to get this looked at.”
    “I’m fine. I’m a doctor, remember?”
    Ava laid her hand on his cheek, and in that moment of unguarded tenderness, I saw what I hadn’t seen before. I wondered if they knew it themselves.
    Behind them Cort on the phone, no doubt rounding up our security. He was also pulling out a dark green bag from the trunk of the car. He threw it to Ava, who removed a bottle of something and passed it to Dimitri. Then she brought out a familiar bag of liquid. When Dimitri had finished the drink, she pressed the bag over his wound.
    I tried to take a step toward them, but my knees buckled under me, the fall sending what felt like shards of glass into my arm and chest. I touched my right shoulder and my hand came away slick with blood.
    Ritter came toward me, knife in hand. He knelt down, cut off my sleeve, and tied it around my wound. “Ouch,” I said.
    He closed his knife and tucked it into a pocket of his black pants. “Next time act sooner. Before the guy gets out of the car.”
    Next time? Who was he kidding? “I’ll remember that,” I said, deciding not to thank him for saving me. “Who are they anyway?”
    Ritter sighed heavily. “Hunters. An organization that kills Unbounded. See that insignia of a man with a rifle on their uniforms? It’s a secret code to identify members.”
    “How’d they find out about the Unbounded?”
    He gave a bitter laugh. “Years ago the Emporium’s inbreeding program began to result in dozens of children who were kept locked away and then abandoned when they grew up and didn’t Change. A few eventually discovered the secret of their birth and started hunting us, recruiting anyone they could get to believe them. For fifty years now their hatred for Unbounded has been like a religion. Emporium, Renegades—we’re all the same to them. They’re the ones who shot down Kennedy Jr.’s plane when they discovered the Unbounded link. Fortunately they’re largely untrained, and they die easily. We wouldn’t have survived tonight if they’d been Emporium.”
    “I see.” The pain in my shoulder was intense, and the knife wound in my hand had torn open again during my struggle. I’d thought