Awakening (TalentBorn Book 1)

by C. S. Churton

  *

  The closer we get to AbGen, the worse my anxiety gets. We spent all of yesterday and half of last night going over our plan, but Scott goes through it with me again: either he thinks I have a memory impairment or he’s just as on edge as I am. The plan itself is simple: with Gardiner convinced I’m drugged and Scott’s loyal to AbGen, we can walk straight in through the front door. We can’t risk running into Joe because he’d see through our ruse right away. There’s a reason AbGen puts a mind reader on the door. But Gardiner has just as much reason for preventing that meeting as we do, so Scott is confident our path will be clear.

  Once inside, Gardiner will want us in his office and away from prying eyes – which is exactly where we want to be. From there, I’ll shift directly downwards and into the basement – Scott isn’t a fan of this part of the plan; he thinks it puts me in harm’s way. On the other hand, I refuse to be sidelined and let him take all the risk. My EM pulse will knock out the base’s power, including the EM disruptor, and the locks on the cages, allowing me to get the girl out, and video the basement using a concealed camera. I’ve promised Scott that if anything goes wrong, I’ll shift again and get well clear of Langford House, but there’s no way I’m leaving him in danger. And his job is far more dangerous than mine – while I’m groping around in the dark, in the last place anyone expects me to be, he’ll make sure our escape route through the office stays clear. Hopefully everyone will start sweeping the base for me, but if not… He tried to reassure me last night by reminding me he’s carrying a gun. This is the part of the plan I’m not a fan of, because as I pointed out last night, he won’t be the only one with a gun.

  If we make it that far – and Scott is overwhelmingly confident that we will – then we simply take advantage of the confusion to get out. Gardiner can’t issue a directive to stop us leaving the base, not without risking a mutiny when the rest of AbGen’s agents learn that he’s holding people against their will.

  We’ve run out of possible scenarios to talk through by the time the car comes to a stop. I pull a sugar pill from my pocket and it tastes like paper mache when I put it in my mouth. It’s one thing planning this, but now that Langford House is looming above me, it’s suddenly very real, and the enormity of our task starts to dawn on me. We should have just kept running.

  Scott senses my distress and leans over to squeeze my shoulder. I try to arrange my face into something resembling a smile and nod at him. He nods back.

  “Okay, let’s do this.”

  I chew the pill as he gets out of the car and walks round to my side, opening my door and helping me out. I let him assist me – it’s possible we’re already being watched – and try to focus on how I felt when Gardiner drugged me. I let my feet stumble up the curb and lean heavily into Scott. From his grunt I assume I’m doing a convincing job. He wraps an arm around my shoulder and steers me to AbGen’s door.

  “Is the street secure?” a voice queries through the speaker.

  “There’s a party across the road,” Scott replies, his voice calm and steady and a complete contrast to my rapid heartbeat and ragged breathing. I stare down at my feet and force myself to bring it under control: I’m supposed to be out of it, not acutely aware that I’m about to walk into the lion’s den, where if things go wrong I’ll be locked in a cage in dark, at the mercy of a man who’s already proved he has no limits on how far he’ll go and–

  Scott’s hand tightens momentarily on my shoulder and I take a steadying breath. It’s going to be fine. He won’t let anything happen to me.

  I keep my eyes on my feet as we cross the threshold and the door clicks shut behind us.

  “Follow me, please,” a voice instructs us in clipped tones. I don’t recognise it: good news for us. Joe’s natural curiosity would have blown our cover for sure.

  We’re moving forward again and I let my eyes slide over the carpet as we go. I don’t trust myself to look around, certain my expression will betray my terror. We step into the lift and the door slides shut, trapping us inside with the agent.

  The lift rumbles into life, hauling us closer to Gardiner. A shudder runs through me and my stomach starts to gnaw at itself. There are so many ways this could go wrong. What if I can’t shift when I’m supposed to? What if I end up in one of those cages? What am I doing here? This is crazy, I’m crazy, I should never have come back here. I need to get out, I’ve got to get away, I’ve got to…

  I’ve got to stay. I swallow the lump in my throat. It’s not just me anymore. I can’t leave Scott to face them on his own. I’ve got to see this through.

  The lift jerks to a halt and the doors slide open. A hand takes my arm – whose, I don’t know, and I don’t dare look – and steers me through it, along the corridor until we’re standing in front of the imposing dark oak door. Our escort raises a hand and raps once on the wood.

  “Come,” Gardiner’s voice instructs from within, and I jump at the sound of it. I need to do better than this… of course he’s inside – he’s hardly likely to have popped out for a cup of tea.

  The guard opens the door and ushers us inside. Scott steers me over the threshold while I lean into him and try to make my movements slow and uncoordinated, although whether I can fool someone who’s actually witnessed me drugged remains to be seen. I force myself to lift my head slightly and look around unsteadily, as though I’m having trouble focussing. Gardiner is seated behind his extravagant desk, looking a little too smug, but his reptilian eyes are hard as they slide over the pair of us. Walter Pearce is standing at his right shoulder, his innocent façade so completely at odds with what he did to me last time I was in this office that I could almost imagine he was innocent of it. Almost. My mouth goes dry as I vividly recall the way his poison felt as it flooded through me, and suddenly I’m not worried about not being able to shift anymore. Now I’m worried I won’t be able to stop myself from shifting too early.

  The door clicks shut behind us, though I can’t tell if the guard is inside the office or in the corridor. Either way, it’s too late to back out now. We’re committed.

  “It would seem we have a lot to talk about,” Gardiner says, tearing his eyes from me and fixing them on Scott. I feel Scott stiffen to attention beside me, as much as he’s able to with one arm wrapped around my waist.

  “Yes, sir. I would have kept you informed, had I been able,” Scott tells him, his voice contrite.

  “No matter, you’re here now,” Gardiner replies, and I get the sense anything is forgivable of the man who’s brought the boss’s favourite toy home. I barely manage to suppress a shudder. A polite cough sounds from Pearce’s direction, and Gardiner smiles apologetically at Scott.

  “Walter is right, of course; this conversation can wait until after we get Anna settled into her new accommodation.”

  If he’s looking for a reaction from Scott then he’s going to be disappointed. My acting skills may be a little sketchy, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned on my travels with Scott, it’s that if he ever decided to take up poker as a career, Vegas would be in trouble. I’m still leaning against him and he doesn’t so much as twitch. He does, however, move the hand that’s “supporting” me ever so slightly, pressing the heel of his palm into my side.

  It’s the signal. He’s right. If they get me into the basement before I knock out the disruptor then it’s all over.

  I can hear him talking, but I shut out the noise and focus on the fear locked away inside of me, letting it rise to the surface. A nagging voice reminds me that I’ve never managed to control where I end up before, tells me that I’m going to blow it, and leave Scott stranded here alone. I embrace it, letting it add to the overwhelming terror, and then against every instinct telling me to get the hell away from this place, I picture the basement in my mind. I have to get out of here. I need to get into the basement. I’ve got to get down there, I’ve got to–

  *

  I raise a hand to steady myself, and touch something cold and metallic. I jerk my hand awa
y and open my eyes. Darkness.

  “Where… where did you come from?” a tremulous voice asks from nearby. I turn towards its source, my eyes picking out a small figure as they adjust to the gloom. I’m definitely in the right place. Bars separate me from the figure curled up in the corner of a cell. I recognise the scrawny figure and dirty-blonde hair of the girl I saw before, with no small amount of relief.

  “It’s okay, I’m here to help you,” I promise in a hoarse whisper.

  “No. No, it’s a trick, it’s a trap,” she wails, her voice rising in hysteria. She starts to rock frantically. I look around in alarm. No one’s coming. It’s me she’s afraid of.

  “Shh, shh, it’s okay,” I promise, slowly crouching down and showing her my hands, even though she’s steadfastly refusing to look at me. What the hell have they done to her? “I’m not going to make you go anywhere.”

  She carries on whimpering quietly as though I haven’t spoken and I curse inwardly. Why had I just assumed she would come with me? I should have seen this coming, she’s probably been locked up in here for months, no wonder she’s terrified of leaving. Looking more closely, I can see her clothes are little more than rags – her shirt has a button missing and her black jeans are ripped at the bottom of one leg, and her shoes are old and dirty. Her face is streaked with dirt. It makes it hard to tell her age but she can’t be any older than me. There but for the grace of God…

  I shake the thought away and push myself up from the floor; she shows no reaction. If we’re going to get out of here, I can’t afford to hang around. My EM pulse has taken the power offline, leaving the cages unlocked, but there’s no telling how quickly the backup generators will kick in. We can deal with the psychological damage later – right now I need to focus on getting the evidence and getting us both out of here. I pull a shoe off and wedge it in her cell door before it can relock itself, then grope for the chain around my neck, slipping it out from under my t-shirt. The charm on it – courtesy of Scott’s Ulster contact – looks like something you’d pick up at any marketplace, but set in the centre is a small camera. He assures me it will work even in the dark. I feel for the tiny button on the back and press it, hoping it’s had time to recover from the pulse. I hurry around the room, pausing briefly by each cage and piece of equipment, letting the camera do its thing. I finish up outside the occupied cage, letting the camera get a good look at the imprisoned girl.

  A whirring starts up. We’re running out of time. The power will be back on any moment.

  “Hey,” I say softly to the girl, working against the adrenaline pounding in my ears. “My name’s Anna, what’s yours?”

  She doesn’t reply, but turns her head slowly towards me. For a moment I see what I think is pure hatred in her eyes, but then it’s gone – if it was ever there at all – replaced by that look I saw before, the one that makes my stomach churn.

  “I don’t know how long you’ve been down here, or what they’ve told you, but don’t you want to see your family and your friends again? I bet they’ve missed you. I can take you to them. All you have to do is come with me.”

  I stretch my hand out to her and wait, barely daring to draw breath. If this doesn’t work, then all of this has been for nothing. The thought strikes me like a physical force. We risked everything. Scott put his life on the line for me. I can’t let it be for nothing.

  “Come with me and he’ll never touch you again, I promise.”

  Slowly, her hand reaches out towards me, inching closer. A jolt of electricity sparks between us as her fingertips reach mine, then I wrap my hand around hers and pull her to her feet. She squeezes my hand, digging her fingernails into my flesh. I gasp in pain.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”

  Static tingles across my hand as she stares at me, vulnerability plastered all over her face, and maybe it makes me a bad person, but all I can think is we can’t afford to do this right now. Not yet. We need to get out of here before we’re both locked in a cage.

  A loud buzz comes from across the room. We both jump, and I spin towards it, gripping the hand in mine to keep myself anchored in the room. I can’t shift and leave her here alone. My scattered energy makes my head swim, but I force my eyes to focus as the lift door slides open and a silhouette pauses on the threshold. The light behind it burns my retinas, but not so badly that I can’t see the gun raised and sweeping the room in time with the figure’s head. It turns towards us, the gun levelling at us, and I force my eyes away from it and onto the figure’s face…

  Scott. It’s Scott. Relief washes over me, leaving me swaying on my feet. My hand hangs limply in the prisoner’s grip and I can feel her nails digging into me.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her, finding my voice at last. “He’s with us.”

  Scott hurries towards us, lowering the weapon as he crosses the floor.

  “Anna, thank God,” he says, his relief a mirror of my own. “You were gone so long I thought you’d run into trouble.”

  “We’re fine,” I tell him with a conviction I don’t quite feel. At this, his eyes leave my face for the first time, and fall on the shape beside me. A frown crosses his features.

  “Megan?”

  “Wait, you know her?” I don’t know why I’m shocked, it makes perfect sense that he’d have met her before Gardiner decided to lock her away for lacking patriotic spirit.

  “I recruited her. They told me she turned down Gardiner’s job offer. That was months ago. They–” He breaks off as the full horror of it hits him.

  “We can do this later. We’ve got to go.”

  He nods, his jaw set in grim determination.

  “Stay behind me.”

  He raises his weapon again and starts moving back towards the staircase. I follow him, towing Megan behind me. As we pass through the cell door, I pause to yank my shoe back on, then hurry after him. The door clangs shut, and a loud bleep tells me it’s locked again. I don’t have time to dwell on how close I came to being on the wrong side of the door; Scott has reached the lift. We step inside and Scott turns to me as it rumbles to life.

  “The office was empty when I left – they’re all searching for you – but we may have to fight our way out of here. If that happens, you’ve got to shift.”

  “No way, I–” I start to protest.

  “Anna,” his voice cuts across mine, leaving no room for argument. “I can get me and Megan out of here, but I can’t do it unless I know you’re safe, and I can’t protect all three of us. If anyone’s in that office, you shift, you hear me?”

  I nod unhappily. How can I argue when he puts it like that? My being here is putting him in danger. Again.

  He reaches out and brushes his thumb against my cheek.

  “Hey, we’ll be together again soon.”

  He reaches in and touches his lips to mine, just briefly. The lift slows to a halt, leaving me no time to dwell. I can still feel the electricity of the kiss as he raises his weapon, and the door rolls open.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Drop the gun.”

  It’s Gardiner, and he looks completely unperturbed by the turn of events. In front of him stands two armed guards. I recognise one of them as Marcus, the guard from the basement. The other is the one who escorted us into Gardiner’s office. Both of them have their weapons are trained on Scott.

  Gardiner suspected all along, I realise with a jolt. He’d just given us enough rope to hang ourselves.

  “I won’t ask you again.”

  “Anna, go,” Scott tells me, without taking his eyes from the threat.

  Panic flutters in my throat; leaving him here alone is a death sentence, no matter what he said back in the lift – we both know I’m the one they want. I’m the one they want. The thought flashes through my mind like a lightning strike, illuminating everything for a fleeting moment. They want me, there are no limits to what they’d do to keep me. They’d give up Scott to have me in a heartbeat. It’s a good trade as far as I’m concerned. I just ne
ed to get out of here first.

  I close my eyes and think of the guns pointing at us right now, the guns I have to get away from. I need to get out of here, I need to get to the lake, I’ve got to–

  “Anna, get out of here!” Scott’s urgent voice makes me jump, and my eyes fly open in surprise. Why am I still here? That should have worked, maybe not taken me right to the lake, but I shouldn’t still be here.

  Megan takes two quick steps backwards and suddenly there’s a snarl on her face and a gun in her hands, and it’s aiming at Scott.

  “Shift and I’ll kill him,” she warns me. I stare at her, bewildered by her actions. Gone is the cowering girl from the basement: this Megan is confident, professional, and cold. Her body isn’t lean and wasted, as I thought in the dim light of the basement; her baggy clothing was hiding a lean frame covered in wiry muscles. Her eyes never leave me. Eyes that are brimming with the hatred I saw before.

  “Now, now,” Gardiner says from behind his bodyguards, his voice benign. “There’s no need for that, Megan. Young Anna couldn’t shift even if she wanted to – and I suspect she’s already made that discovery.”

  His eyes rivet me to the spot, and off to my side I see Megan nod and lower the gun. How does he know I’m grounded – what the hell is going on here? He sighs like a parent disciplining a pair of naughty children and turns his attention to Scott.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Scott. You used to be far more perceptive before you started spending time with Ms Mason. Did you really believe I would allow you to walk back in here without taking certain measures?”

  He strolls casually to a cabinet – he’s really revelling in his moment of glory – and opens it to reveal a black cylindrical device.

  “I took the precaution of having Walter install an EM-shielded disruptor – it’s been active from the moment you first shifted. Now, Scott, put your weapon down, before we’re forced to take matters into our own hands.”