True Born

Chapter Six

Hey, Wattpad! Welcome to Day 6 in 10 Days of True Born! And welcome to Dominion City.  I'll be posting the first 10 chapters of True Born here ahead of its official release with Entangled Teen on May 3, 2016.  For those of you familiar with the original version, you'll notice one really big change in this chapter. I really hope you like it! 

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The damp, moldy scent of the concrete is overlaid with notes of motor oil and a whiff of garbage. There's so much dust in the air I want to sneeze. As Jared shoves me up hard against the wall, I finally do, right in his face. Serves him right, I think, trying to ignore the shiver of heat that curls along my spine.

I'd thought I'd known what I was in for. The second we arrived at the Clinic the team went to work like a well-tuned machine. Mohawk slipped into the shadows to disable the cameras and cut the alarm. Jared got busy tapping on a small keyboard—disrupting phone signals, I was told—while Storm swiped between figures and a glowing floor plan of the place on his intel screen.

He nodded at Torch. "Now."

Every so often the peppery sound of gunshot broke the silence. Fighting in the quarters. I froze each time a gun popped. Storm's people kept their heads down.

The gangly boy, Torch, exited the vehicle and walked up to the fence. From my perch I could see current flowing through the wires, the faint sheen of electricity humming through it like the glow of a firefly. In the blink of an eye the current was gone. Torch glanced over his shoulder at Storm as though he liked what he saw. He raised his right hand to the fence, curling his palm around something. Moments later a glow erupted from his palm. Heat shimmered through the dark as the boy blew through the fence with a flame so hot it melted the metal links into puddles in minutes. A gaping archway just shy of my shoulders appeared. Torch peeled it back with a grin. He wasn't even sweating.

Then we'd run for cover, and at a nod from Storm, Jared hauled me into the darkness of the delivery bay...where I now linger in purgatory waiting for the extraction to be over so I don't have the mortal sin of murder on my hands.

As Jared snarls, "I said stay back," I wonder if he can tell that I'm dreaming up all the ways I'd like to kill him.

He's too close, too hot. I barely form the words, "I heard you," before he cuts me off with a loud, "Shhh. No talking." I glare daggers again, wishing he could see me, and try to pry his hand from my chest.

"I said, shut up," he says in a loud whisper.

"I wasn't talking," I whisper back, plucking madly at his hand. It might as well be a steel trap for all I'm able to move it. But even though I hate him, I can't seem to stop my traitorous body from tingling all over at his proximity. His entire length presses up against me, and I can tell from the way his eyes take on a faint sheen, a green I've never seen before, that he's noticing how close he is, too. I say nothing as he blinks and backs an inch away.

On this side of the Clinic the shadows are thick and impenetrable. Security is tight all around the Clinic but here in the delivery bay, where Storm has parked me and my demon babysitter, no one could hear me even if I scream. Between us and the fence is at least fifty yards of empty parking lot. Past the fence where Storm's van waits for us is a park whose greenery extends all the way up through the center of the city. We are cocooned in an island of darkness.

"It wasn't my idea to be saddled with you, either, you know," I mumble under my breath. Not that anything I say will matter. It's clear as glass that Jared feels stuck with me and resents the hell out of it. The thought sends a traitorous pang through me, and I remind myself that a merc doesn't need to like his clients to protect them.