Unleashed

by Carolyn O'Doherty

  KJ stops walking so suddenly that I’ve gone three steps past him before I realize he isn’t there. I turn around. KJ is standing stock-still in the center of the sidewalk. He’s the picture of dejection: shoulders slumped, arms dangling by his sides, hands loose and empty.

  “So he’s murdering them.” KJ stares at the ground, his voice so flat it sounds as if he’s reading the words off the sidewalk.

  “He won’t kill them right off the bat,” I say, aching for the words to be true. “Maybe this research project is just a small thing, and then when he’s done, he’ll send them back.”

  KJ shakes his head. “He’s never sending them back. The Center has to be crawling with rumors. Aidan saw Jack vanish the day you got us all out, plus you’ve popped in and out of there, what, twice? If the other kids know the truth, or even suspect it, they can never be part of a new Center.”

  A truck rumbles past, blasting warm diesel air. The smell coats the inside of my nose. It tastes like ash.

  “KJ.”

  He raises his head. His eyes are pure black, as if everything that usually lies behind them, all the joy and life that is KJ, has winked out, leaving only darkness behind.

  “She’s going to die,” he says. “They all are. Because of us.”

  My stomach twists. KJ said us, but I know most of the blame is mine. I’m the one who “popped in and out” of the Center. I’m the one who made Jack disappear.

  The three-step separation between me and KJ yawns like a chasm. I want to close the gap—hug him, soothe his hurt—but I know I can’t. Our last embrace led us here. The only reason we are alone together is because Shannon is gone.

  “We’ll get them out tonight,” I say. “All of them.”

  “How?”

  A fierce energy bursts open inside me. The odds are against us, and we have two choices: crumble and die or gear up for a fight. If I’m going to choose a fight, I’m going to make it a good one.

  “Yolly,” I say, putting a plan together as I speak. “When Miguel said we’d never break out a third time, he didn’t consider that we might have an inside helper.”

  There’s still no flicker in KJ’s eyes, no spark of hope or enthusiasm. He just studies me for a while. Then he nods.

  23 CARSON ROSS

  THE BRAZENNESS OF ALEX’S PLAN TAKES ROSS’S BREATH away. Does she really believe she can walk into the Crime Investigation Center and waltz out with twenty spinners? Her skills change her chance of success from impossible to unlikely, but that’s still too much risk. Twenty-plus unmedicated spinners roaming around on their own would be a disaster. There is no way the Center can cover up all the mistakes they’re bound to make, and if their secret skills are exposed, all Ross’s plans would implode. Just thinking about it makes him feel twitchy.

  “I think your best bet,” Yolly says to Alex, “is to come in through the underground parking garage as I go out.”

  Yolly’s voice over the phone sounds muffled, as if she’s talking in a closet, or else has her hand cupped around the mouthpiece. It doesn’t help that the officers who share the office with Ross seem to be confused about the difference between talk and yell.

  Ross adjusts the volume on the headphones plugged into the laptop he’s using—the one loaded with the precinct’s finest wiretapping software. He’d pulled Alex’s phone number off Jack’s cell yesterday afternoon and asked Chief to approve a rush court order to track and tap it. Chief agreed when Ross claimed that the number was the final piece he needed to close out the rewound murder case, but the “rush” still took over twelve hours. Ross’s original goal was merely to catch the girl who betrayed him so he could turn her in to the Center; he never expected to uncover a full-fledged rescue plan.

  “What about the inner door?” Alex asks. “The one from the garage into the Center?”

  “I’ll leave that one propped open,” Yolly says.

  “Better to leave us a key card. That way, if something goes wrong, they won’t suspect you of helping us.”

  If something goes wrong? The pen Ross is using to take notes slips, making a blue slash across his notepad. The question can’t be if, it has to be when.

  Yolly warns the runaway that Dr. Barnard slept in his office the past two nights, and that he’s added extra security guards—one per floor, plus a guy that walks through the whole building in a circuit. She and Alex hash out a plan while Ross writes down every detail. Key card. Rental van. Room keys. Staff lounge. Alex promises she’ll be at the Center when Yolly’s shift ends at eleven p.m., and they both hang up.

  Ross slides his headphones down around his neck and sips from the mug of coffee cooling at his elbow. What he’d really like to do is catch her in the act. It would make Ross a hero, but unfortunately, it’s not a realistic plan. It would be impossible to feign innocence of the spinners’ true skills if Ross inserts himself in the middle of their escape. He’ll have to settle for catching her privately and then turning her over to Barnard in the morning. Her and her friend KJ. He’ll say he found them sleeping, or that they turned themselves in. Barnard won’t ask too many questions as long as he gets what he wants.

  Which still leaves the problem of coming up with a way to “prove” that Jack has either fled town or died. Ross turns the mug in his hand and thinks about the boy locked away in his forest hideaway. Jack had been quite meek once he’d relinquished his knife and come with Ross the day before. Ross had spoken soothingly to him the whole drive out to the secret house. Once inside, he’d made the boy a hearty lunch, which included a drink laced with both Aclisote and a sedative. When Jack woke up, hours later, he’d been calmer but also leashed and the bearer of a brand-new tracking device, one of the modern near-microscopic ones, which Ross had inserted not under the thin skin at the back of Jack’s neck, but deep in the fleshiest part of his thigh.

  The conversation that followed was short. Ross was very clear about what he could offer and what Jack had to do in return. He told Jack he could save only one spinner; if Jack didn’t want the deal, then Ross would find someone else. Turning in the escapees wasn’t treachery, he told the boy, just a shortcut to their inevitable end, and having Ross bring them in was more humane than letting them be hunted down by the wipers. Jack didn’t look happy about this bargain, but as Ross predicted, he understood it. The boy still shuddered every time Ross said the word wiper.

  Ross puts his coffee down and picks up Jack’s phone. It has only one number saved in the contacts. Ross clicks on the text icon and taps out a message to Alex.

  Where is your motel?

  Within seconds, the phone in his hands buzzes to announce an incoming phone call. Ross hits reject and types another message.

  Can’t talk right now. Text me.

  Alex’s answer comes quickly.

  Shannon caught by Barnard. We’re going to break them ALL out tonight. We met a guy who can get us somewhere safe.

  Ross squints at the message. They met a guy? She hadn’t mentioned that part to Yolly. Alex must be more desperate than he thinks. Didn’t all those years working vice teach her not to trust strange men who offer protection? He shakes his head. He’s seen what happens to girls like that. Bringing her back to the Center will be doing her a favor.

  Who’s the guy? Ross taps out. Where is he taking you?

  Out of town, Alex types back. Meet us tonight and we can all go together.

  Ross tries to think like Jack. He’d be suspicious, right?

  Let’s talk in person. Where are you?

  Better to stay separate, Alex replies. And DON’T freeze. That’s why we’ve been so paranoid.

  Ross frowns at the message. It’s inconvenient that Alex knows about freezing’s side effects; it might make her more cautious. That boy KJ must have helped her figure it out. He was always a little too clever for his own good.

  Breaking others out sounds too risky, Ross writes. Meet me and we�
��ll run for it.

  No. We have to help them.

  Where are you??

  Phone dying. We’re leaving from the Sick. Meet us by the garage gate at 11 p.m.

  The officer across the room laughs a loud, honking laugh. Ross bends over the phone and types quickly.

  I’ll help you plan. Just tell me where you are.

  No answer. Ross checks the phone tracker. There’s no signal, which means Alex’s phone must have powered off. Ross tosses Jack’s phone on the desk. So much for the idea of tricking Alex into telling him her location. He drums his fingers on the desk’s cheap laminate top. He could go with Jack to meet up with the other kids at eleven, and then nab them in a freeze, but that’s risky. The best way to contain the spinners is to handcuff them to the rail inside his police car—even if they froze time they’d be helpless—but he only has one leash, so he’ll have to take them one at a time. It will be a lot safer if that whole operation happens somewhere more sheltered than a public street. Ross doesn’t want to chance more unexplained disappearances, much less get caught himself as a flicker on the Center’s surveillance video. Besides, thanks to Alex’s phone call with Yolly, Ross knows exactly where they’re going to be and how to intercept them. This time, Alex won’t be able to escape him, because this time, the odds will be even. This time, Ross will have a spinner on his side.

  Ross slips Jack’s phone in his pocket next to his own and heads out of the precinct. He’ll pick up something hearty for him and Jack to share for dinner when his shift is over. They’ll need it. The two of them have a long night ahead.

  24

  WAITING IS HORRIBLE. KJ AND I WALK DOWN RANDOM streets, ending up sitting on metal bleachers next to an empty baseball field. We work through the details of our plan until the cold settles into our bones and the only thing left to talk about are all the ways things might go wrong.

  “There could be zappers set up all over the place,” I say.

  “You said you can sense them.”

  “Yeah, but we still can’t get near them.”

  KJ blows on his fingers, then shoves his hands into his armpits.

  “It’s too risky for Yolly,” he says. “If she gets caught helping us, she could go to jail.”

  “It’s her choice,” I counter. “She offered.”

  A dog across the field starts howling. I chew on the last fragment of fingernail I have that sticks even slightly above the line of my skin.

  “Our biggest weakness is us,” I say. “It’s going to be hard to hold time long enough to get that many people out.”

  “So we run off to safety and leave them all to die?”

  We give up on talking and walk aimlessly around the city instead, afraid to freeze time, afraid to stay anywhere too long. I suggest we find somewhere to take a nap, but the suggestion is half-hearted, as we both know we won’t be able to sleep. Besides, where could we go? We end up killing most of the afternoon in a library. I flip through book after book without absorbing a single word. KJ sits at a table with a magazine and doesn’t turn the pages. At least the place has electrical outlets. I plug in the phone charger and sit on the floor in front of it so the librarian doesn’t see. When I check later, I don’t have any messages.

  Day fades into night. Lights blossom behind shaded windows; neon springs alive in the shops. We take a bus downtown, then find a coffee shop a few blocks from the Center. My nerves are jumping so much I don’t need the caffeine, but I’m hoping the preemptive dose might slow down the headache waiting in my future. At 10:55, we dump our cups into the dirty-dish bin and head outside.

  The bite of coming winter slides through the seams of our clothes. Night presses down from a starless sky, darkness kept at bay only by the mustard gleam of streetlights.

  KJ and I turn up the street that flanks the north side of the Center, staying on the opposite sidewalk, out of range of the Center’s security cameras. The street is empty except for a U-Haul truck parked at the end of the block. On the side panel, a banner screams Venture Across America in bright letters over a picture of a wide-eyed green alien. Underneath, it says New Mexico. What happened in Roswell? The alien looks like he’s laughing at me.

  I check my watch: 11:00.

  “Jack’s not here,” I say.

  “Did you expect him?” KJ asks.

  “Sort of.”

  KJ shrugs, an uncharacteristically callous gesture. “Jack will take care of himself. He always does.”

  I swallow my disappointment, take out my phone, and dial Yolly’s number.

  “Alex?” Yolly’s voice cuts through the first purr of the phone’s ring. She must have been holding her cell in her hand.

  “I’m here,” I say.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. Either we’ll be with you in a few minutes, or we won’t, and then you just drive away and no one will ever know you tried to help us.”

  Yolly makes a whimpering sound. “Remind me what I’m supposed to do.”

  “It’s easy. Go to your car and get your overnight bag and then walk out through the parking garage so the gate opens. You mentioned to someone that you were helping your cousin move this weekend, right?”

  “I told Charlie.”

  “See? You’re covered. No one is going to suspect anything. When you leave the Center, go to the U-Haul. Did you hide the keys for us?”

  “Yes,” Yolly says. “They’re in the staff lounge, like you asked. I put them under the spider plant on the windowsill.”

  “Perfect. We’ll see you soon, OK? Everything is going to be fine.”

  I click the call off.

  We wait. A taxi slides past, the yellow light on its roof shining like the eye of some urban predator. When it’s gone, KJ takes off his backpack and stashes it at the foot of a parking meter. I do the same. If the night goes well, we can pick them up later, and if it doesn’t, their contents won’t matter. All either of us grabbed from the squat was a change of clothes and some toiletries. KJ pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head. I take the cell phone from my pocket and drop it down a sewer drain. Miguel’s is the only number I need, and I have that one memorized. All my phone can do now is expose Yolly.

  From across the street, the Center watches us with the blank stare of a fortress. There’s no hint of the uproar taking place inside those stone walls. Packing boxes, questions, and fear must be clogging the hallways. I wonder how many spinners lie awake behind the dark windows. There’s no way to tell. The Center keeps its secrets.

  A breeze ruffles the trees lining the sidewalk, sending a flurry of dead leaves down the street. I shift my attention to the underground garage. The driveway sinks into a dark tunnel, its entrance protected from the street by a sliding gate made of crosshatched metal bars. As I watch, a light, faint and wobbly, drifts up from the depths of the garage. KJ and I draw closer together. The light gets brighter; the gate clicks and starts slowly grinding its way upward.

  I hold out my hand, and KJ takes it. His palm feels dry and impersonal. When the garage gate is four feet off the ground, I stop time. KJ lets go of my hand as soon as it’s done.

  “All right,” he says. “You ready?”

  I rub my empty palms together and look up and down the street again, hoping against hope I’ll see a frozen Jack hovering on the sidewalk. He’s not there. The tension of this long day winds a little higher. If we leave Jack in Portland, will we lose him forever?

  “Come on,” KJ says.

  The two of us troop across the street and duck under the entry gate. Yolly stands on the other side, a flashlight in one hand, a small rolling suitcase gripped in the other. The ramp beyond tilts sharply downward, dark and unwelcoming. We walk in silence until we reach the bottom. Down here, it’s brighter. The garage has lights ringing the interior, one bulb set between every other parking space. Only a few cars are parked, most presumably belongi
ng to the guards. I search for Barnard’s beige sedan before remembering he totaled it when he tried to take me to the Central Office. Any one of these cars could be his.

  “Do you see the key card?” I ask.

  KJ shakes his head, and the two of us spread out across the garage, faces bent toward the floor. The card releases the electronic locks on both the garage door that leads into the Center and the door to the staff lounge where Yolly left the other, nonelectronic keys we need—one to open the spinners’ bedroom doors, and one to open the back of the U-Haul that will transport us out of here.

  “Here it is.” KJ squats down near a blue Honda, then stands up waving a small rectangular card. “She must have let it slip when she got her luggage out of the car. Very natural.”

  The entry door to the Center is painted off-white, the bottom section marred with scuff marks. A wire-enforced glass panel on the top half allows me to peer inside. A hallway stretches beyond it, shadowed and empty.

  “Ready?” I hold out my hand. We’ll have to melt time for a second so we can release the lock.

  A furrow pinches KJ’s brow.

  “If the guard’s watching the monitors,” he says, “he’ll see us open the door.”

  “He won’t have any reason to be watching the monitors in the garage now that Yolly is gone,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. “And if he is, we’ll only show up for a couple of seconds. Even if he comes down to investigate, we’ll be long gone and the door shut tight by the time he gets here.”

  KJ’s frown doesn’t lighten. I don’t blame him. Of all the dozens of rescue-destroying scenarios we have imagined, this is not one of them.

  “Come on.” I flick my fingers impatiently. “Let’s just do this.”

  KJ’s hand clasps mine as he places the key card against the reader. I tilt my face away from the security camera perched over the doorframe and let time slip forward. I wait one heartbeat after I hear the click of the door’s electronic release, to make sure it caught, and then slam time to a stop again.