Free Lethal Engagement (An Unbounded Novella) by Teyla Branton

reached for my purse before I remembered that my nine mil was back in a hidden compartment on the plane with the rest of our normal weapons. Instead, I pressed the release on one of my arm sheaths, allowing the knife to slide into my hand. The weight was different from my regular blades, but the enhanced plastic would cut through flesh and meat just as well.
    Patrick put his arm around me, pulling me close, trying to look relaxed. “In case those women can see through the glass,” he explained. “The sooner they quit lusting after my genes, the better.”
    We all tensed as the car pressed slowly through the crowd, the bumper nearly touching several sign-holders. One man shoved his crazed face against the darkened glass of the window next to me, screaming obscenities, but we got through without further incident. Rather a letdown with the adrenaline zipping through my veins and the energy filling the limo. I could see numbers in my head without trying, and I had the crazy notion that I could shift the entire car to any destination of my choice.
    “Sorry, I thought it would be better having you fly into Dulles instead of National,” Patrick said. “But it looks like more people besides the reporters got wind of my pending announcement.”
    “Should calm down now that we’re almost through,” Keene said.
    But things weren’t calming down, at least not for me. Numbers filled my head, the car, the faces of my comrades. A sound must have come from my throat because Patrick’s arm tightened around me and Keene leaned forward, his face creased with concern. “What’s wrong?”
    I didn’t know what was wrong. Most of what I knew about my gift I’d discovered through trial and failure. I’d never met the only other Renegade shifter, who’d died in Europe of old age shortly after the president’s announcement. By that time, he could barely shift across a room. As far as I knew, the Emporium had no shifters. Mine was one of the rare abilities that both Renegades and the Emporium had been trying for decades to revive. There was no one I could ask or learn from. For all I knew, this could be some fatal side effect of using the ability.
    I could see Keene’s number color was green. Green as in rebirth, green like growing, green meaning balance and a tendency toward martyrdom. I could see Keene. I could see him more clearly than anyone. Not only him, but the others in the car, though the green was the clearest.
    What the hell was going on?
    Then, all at once, I knew. It wasn’t me . . . it was Keene. The others had hinted, but I hadn’t understood. Keene wasn’t just acting different, he was different. He had Changed. Beyond all hope or expectation, he was Unbounded, and all this energy was coming from him. The fact that I hadn’t realized what everyone else knew made me furious at myself.
    And at him.
    Keene removed his seatbelt and put his hands on my shoulders. “Mari,” he shouted, “what is it?”
    “Stop,” I told him, unable to catch a breath. “Too much.”
    Whatever he was doing was strangling me.

THE NEXT INSTANT, THE PRESSURE was gone, along with the numbers and the colors. My lungs filled with blessed air. I stared into Keene’s eyes, the emerald color dark in the gray interior of the limo. A flitting anger passed over his face. He released me abruptly and sat back.
    “You okay?” Patrick asked, running a hand from my shoulder to my elbow and back again.
    “Yes. Sorry.” I breathed deeply. “Sometimes I get a little claustrophobic and my instinct is to shift.”
    Keene’s nostrils flared, and I knew he was affronted with the lie. Keene didn’t lie, except in my book withholding the truth was every bit a lie as telling a whopper.
    I held Keene’s eyes as I added, still addressing Patrick, “I was seeing numbers like I never have before. Couldn’t you feel the pressure?” Keene and I were so going to have this out when we arrived at wherever we were going.
    “To be honest, I did feel