The Change (Unbounded) Read Online Free PDF Page A

who’d given me the IV bags and comforted me in the ambulance.
    I fought the feeling. I wasn’t grateful. He was a part of why I was here. If Ava was telling the truth, they hadn’t saved my life at all, but were the reason my family was mourning my death.
    “Sorry to disturb you,” he said to Ava. Though he didn’t acknowledge me, his dark eyes rested briefly on my face, the act as solid as any greeting. “Stella has identified signs of Emporium presence at the burn unit.”
    Ava’s face went rigid. “Does she suspect pursuit?”
    “We’re not sure. I’ve put security on alert, but we need to do an on-site check.”
    Ava opened the desk and withdrew a handgun. My stomach twisted when I saw how casually she checked the chamber before shoving in a magazine. Whoever these folks were, they meant business.
    She walked past me, as graceful as ever. “Come. You’ll wait with the others.”
    “Who’s the Emporium?” I reached out to the desk, presumably to steady myself, but I made sure it was near the black cell phone. My heart pounded, but I didn’t allow my mind to dwell on even the shape of the phone touching my fingers. I was too afraid my intentions would show in my expression.
    “The Emporium is who you really need to be afraid of, Erin.” Ava’s gravestone eyes locked onto mine with an intensity I couldn’t escape. “If they’ve been to the burn unit, make no mistake—they are looking for you. If they find you, you’ll wish you really had died in that accident.”
    It was no answer, but all I was going to get from her. I followed her to the door, the tiny cell phone a slight bulge in the narrow pocket of my black pants.
     

 
     
     
     
     

     
    “U NBOUNDED AGE AT THE AVERAGE rate of two biological years for every hundred years,” Stella explained.
    I sat on a chair near her in front of the computer screens. Dimitri and Ava had disappeared a half hour ago, but they’d left Cort and Stella with orders to answer my questions. More likely, they were supposed to keep an eye on me. I had no idea how long I’d be kept in the warehouse, but I was definitely a prisoner. For now, I would play along because I wanted to discover everything I could about what had happened to me.
    Or what I’d supposedly become.
    “Two years for every hundred?” I repeated. “Impossible.”
    On the chair next to me, Cort cleared his throat as he always seemed to do before speaking. “Nevertheless, it’s true. In about two thousand years, you’ll die from old age.”
    “Yippee for me. What’s the drawback?”
    “You’ll watch everyone you ever loved die.” This from Stella, uttered with a gravity too real to be faked.
    My levity vanished, leaving me feeling like an idiot. “I see.”
    Without my family, the appeal of near immortality lessened considerably. Sure, I’d disappointed my father by dropping out of law school to work a dead-end job, and my mother with my obsession for old jeans and for failing to provide her with grandchildren, but in the end none of that was important. They still loved me. Yes, my much older brother, Chris, was busy with his family, and my younger brother, Jace, was off on his own now, and neither of them needed me on a daily basis. But they were still my brothers, a permanent part of me. I needed them.
    And Tom. What would it be like to live without him? Of course there was always the chance he wouldn’t want me when he discovered what I was. I couldn’t believe that, though. Tom was solid, and he was mine. It was always me who wasn’t quite sure.
    I rubbed my finger over the place on my thumb where I’d once had the scar from opening the tuna can. It felt absurd to be upset that it was gone, but it had been with me for so long, a part of who I was. Who I’d been.
    Cort cleared his throat and scooted closer to me. His leg touched mine in a way that seemed accidental but I knew wasn’t. This was the first human contact I’d had in days, and the sensation startled me. It