The Cure Read Online Free Page B

of us. “I’ll leave these guys to you.”
    Without waiting for a response, I hurried to Mari’s side. I could feel Ritter’s gaze on me, but not a hint of his emotions came through. Once I would have been discouraged at the backward step, but for now I was relieved. I hadn’t yet decided how I was going to play this.
    Ava had warned me that Ritter didn’t stick around, and I’d replied that at least he kept coming back. We were both right, but I didn’t know if I could share a man with whatever else held so much fascination for him. I also didn’t know if there was room enough inside him for both his obsessive hatred of the Emporium and his feelings for me. In the end, maybe I was better off without him. He was scarcely more than a killing machine. That was what the Emporium had made of him—what they’d made of us all.
    Mari’s gaze fixed on my bloodied shirt before going to my face. “I don’t understand any of this. It’s like a nightmare. Look, I’m getting out of here. I need to talk to Trevor.”
    It had to be shock that made her even consider going after him. “You can’t. You’re not safe with him.”
    “He loves me!” Tears started down her cheeks.
    I shook my head. “He’s a Hunter. Or at least connected with them. He was paid to watch you—you heard that yourself. Hunters kill people like you and me.”
    “What do you mean? Who are you?”
    The men passed us with the unconscious Hunters. Ritter had tossed the older, heavier man over his shoulder, while Gaven dragged the younger man by the collar of his coat. Mari stared at them, her face nearly colorless.
    “Look, Mari, do you know a woman named Stella Davies?”
    She blinked, her attention coming back to me. “She used to come around when I was young. She was good friends with my mother. They wrote letters and talked on the phone all the time. She still sends me presents for my birthday and Christmas, but I haven’t seen her in years.”
    Stella had stopped visiting because unlike Mari’s mother, Stella hadn’t aged. There were numerous advantages to aging only two years for every hundred that passed, but there were also huge drawbacks. The worst was that eventually you’d see most of your family age and die.
    I was one of the lucky few who had a sibling with the Unbounded gene. I had Jace.
    I tried not to think about our parents who weren’t Unbounded. Or our older brother Chris and his children. That hurt too much.
    “Well, I know Stella, too.” Now the hard part, telling Mari I’d been sent to watch her, that in the past few weeks she’d Changed. I put my hand on her arm and propelled her gently after the men. To my relief, she didn’t pull away—I really didn’t want to force her. “Look, have you ever wondered about your father?”
     “What do you mean? I told you before that my mother went to a sperm bank. I never received any information about him, except his general stats—you know, height, weight, race. That sort of thing.” Her voice lowered. “But of course I wondered. I mean, what kind of man gives away part of himself like that? Isn’t he even curious how his children might turn out?” She frowned, her eyes narrowing. “Why do you ask?”
    “Because I know who he is. Or was.” He’d been one of the Unbounded caught in the New York raid, cut into three precise pieces, all focus points severed. No chance of revival. I didn’t add that we still hadn’t discovered where the Emporium was keeping the few Renegades who were missing after the gruesome attack.
    Maybe searching for them is what kept Ritter away.
    “How do you know? Tell me,” Mari said with a hint of demand that signaled an onset of the Unbounded confidence she would eventually possess.
    I explained it all—about Stella being her ancestor and becoming friends with her mother and arranging things at the sperm bank so an Unbounded became her father. How we’d come to Oregon to watch her for signs of the Change and how she might live for two