by Everly Frost
He looked up at me, his face covered in sweat. There was something new in his expression, a strange mix of disbelief and gratitude. “What are you going to do, Ava?” he asked, his voice low. “Be my human shield?”
He’d spat out bullets for me, walked from a burning car. I tried to smile but failed. I took his hand and helped him to his feet, bearing most of his weight as more tremors racked his body. I sensed the rippling in his skin, a different kind of electricity, not the living kind that brought regeneration, but the bad kind that took life away. It was wrong. It shouldn’t be in his body. Just like my own ampule, I would find a way to remove his, too. “If I have to be.”
“I don’t know how much time we have.” His eyes met mine, sunlight reflecting off them. He looked as if he wanted to tell me something, but I hurried to interrupt him.
“Don’t say anything else. They’ll just hurt you for it.”
“It’s not something I want to say.” He dropped his head into the curve of my neck and shoulder, resting there, and it was all I could do to keep us both upright under his weight. The reversal of our roles shocked me. Suddenly I was the one protecting him. They’d made him like me. To feel pain. To feel fear. Mortal.
He crushed my hand in his. “I just wanted to do this.”
“What?”
He didn’t say anything, just squeezed my hand harder. “This, star girl.” He let out a deep breath. “Because you might never let me hold your hand again.”
I concentrated on keeping us on our feet as the roar of the truck came closer. Around the bend in the road, a massive armored vehicle ground to a halt. Then there were men with drones all around us—ten of them all dressed as though they were Hazard officers, but none of them carried a recovery pack, and I was sure they were just like Reid. Black Ops. Not one of them asked questions or hesitated as they dragged Michael away.
He didn’t shout or try to resist. Instead, he pulled me with him, not letting go of my hand. One of the soldiers smacked him over the head, telling him to let go, but he didn’t. His fingers stayed clamped around mine all the way across the road toward the back of the truck. I stayed close to him until another soldier slammed a metal baton across Michael’s forearm with a sickening crunch. I clamped down on a scream. If I fought them, they’d only hurt him more. Michael didn’t yell, but his fingers finally unclenched.
I stopped in the middle of the road, standing away from him, not wanting to give them an excuse to break anything else. They dragged him into the truck, his feet bouncing on the gravel.
Someone tapped my shoulder. When I turned, Reid looked grim. “Cheyne was right,” he said. “You’re ready now.”
He seized my forearm and pushed me toward the vehicle, saying, “Michael will die if you do anything we don’t like. You know what that’s like, don’t you? Thinking you’re about to die. You don’t want him to die, do you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t hurt him any more.”
His forbidding expression disappeared. He gave me a grin. “We’ll see.” His grip would have bruised me before. My skin hurt beneath his fingers, but as soon as he let go, the bruise disappeared.
“In here.” He motioned inside the truck, at what looked like a cage in the center. Two long benches lined either side, and at the front of the truck was another panel with a door. I didn’t see Michael anywhere and I was sure they’d taken him into the front.
I peered into the cage, empty other than a chair with straps on it. Climbing up the ramp, scraping my legs on the metal bumpers, I sat down, letting him restrain my arms and legs.
Six soldiers filed in behind him and lined the area, all of them glaring at me. They were well-muscled, bulky, taller even than Michael, handling their weapons with complete ease, as though they’d been specially chosen for this task.
“I came prepared this time,” Reid said, tightening the final strap as one of the soldiers grinned at me. “Just in case we’ve miscalculated your dosage and given you too much.” He tapped my shoulder where the ampule rested and closed my new prison door, padlocking it. “Sit tight. We’ll be there soon. In the meantime, you can catch up on the latest news.” The doors shut and lights switched on. I clutched the edge of the armrest to keep from overbalancing as the truck headed around the first corner.
Reid clicked a button and a miniature air screen flickered on.
The local news jingle jarred my ears and the newsreader’s voice blared in the cramped space. “We have reports of yet another Basher attack this morning, similar to the explosion yesterday that caused the sixth death of eighteen-year-old, Jeremiah Isaacs, and the first death of his ten-year-old brother, Thomas.” They cut to a photo of the guy with the gun we’d encountered the day before, and then showed footage of two bodies encased in recovery domes being wheeled away from the front of my house, as though they died when Michael’s car exploded.
I tried not to react as I watched the screen. That hadn’t happened. We’d left Jeremiah and Thomas alive. I remembered the boy calling me an angel. My jaw ticked, but there was no way I’d show emotion in front of Reid.
The newsreader continued. “This morning’s explosion occurred just minutes ago inside a vacant mechanic’s shop off the NorthWest Motorway. Hazard Police are on the scene.” They cut to an aerial shot showing the truck disappearing off camera. I looked away, not bothering to hear the latest theory about the explosions until I heard my name.
“…missing teenager, Ava Holland. She was last sighted in notorious Bridgefield Park.” The screen showed a reporter sticking her microphone in the face of the drug addict who’d tried to strangle me. He grinned. The camera was close enough to see that one of his teeth was in backward. He pointed to the photo of me, nodding and smiling, “Sweetie nectar.”
“At this time, Hazard Police advise that Ava Holland should be approached with extreme caution. Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts is urged to contact police immediately at the number on your screen.” The news reporter’s solemn face brightened. “On a more cheerful note,” she said, swiveling to her co-reporter. “The Terminal has announced its latest experience—a combat room like nothing before.”
Her co-anchor gave the viewers a knowing look. “They’re calling it ‘the Dojo’ and it’s equipped with the latest technology, even gravity defying fields so you can fight like the ultimate ninja. We can’t show you pictures before the unveiling tomorrow night, but we can tell you it is ah-mazing.”
The woman said, “All you fans of martial arts out there, don’t get too excited, though. Only the best five fighters of the night will be allowed inside the Dojo.”
I focused on the floor of my cage and tuned out. I wondered if I should be paying attention to where we were going—the curves in the road, the sounds. The cabin became even darker and I recognized the whoosh-whoosh of the inner city bypass tunnel. Five minutes later we hadn’t made a turn, so I guessed that meant we were going toward the city. Twenty minutes later I still didn’t know for sure because when the truck finally stopped and the doors opened, we were already inside the building.
Keys rattled. Reid opened the cage and put a bag over my head.
Half an hour later, the bag came off, but I didn’t understand what I was looking at.
My eyes failed to adjust and, at first, there was only my own face staring back at me, reflected in a glass panel. Reid had cuffed my hands, yanking my arms back harder than necessary, especially since I didn’t intend making an escape anytime soon. Not until I figured out how to help Michael.
From what I could see, I was in a room without furniture. Just four walls with a door, except that one of the walls—the one facing me—was thick glass and my face, reflected back at me, looked old. Dark under my eyes, cracks in my lips, my hair lank.
I tried to remember the last time I’d had a drink of water. My last meal had been oat bars and apples the night before. I would survive a while longer without food, but I was sure I’d need water soon. I wondered how the nectar would cope with dehydration and wheth
er my body would shut down into a coma like the boy who got lost in the national park. That wouldn’t do me any good right now.
Next to me in the glass, Reid’s form hovered, a green blur as he spun toward the door. His voice broke my thoughts before I had the chance to look through the panel and see beyond my own face.
“As directed, sir.”
“Good.”
I looked out of the corner of my eye at the newcomer—Cheyne—Michael’s godfather. He seemed to suck all the light out of the room with his big form as he said, “That will be all, officer.”
Reid hesitated, looked as if he wanted to stay, but gave a curt nod and left the room. Once alone with Cheyne, I wasn’t sure I wanted Reid to leave. At least he was predictable. I didn’t like the way my heart rate increased as Cheyne stepped behind me. Up close, he was even bigger than I remembered. Thinning hair in a long braid, sharp hazel eyes. He smelled like tar in the boiling sun, as though he’d ignite at any second and burn me with him. Was he about to grab me? Put my head through the glass? Bitter nectar trickled into my back. Even my body thought I was in trouble.
He ran a hand down the back of my arm and my eyes squeezed shut. There was a click. The handcuffs clattered to the floor.
My eyes flew open and I flexed my fingers, waiting for his next move.
His voice was soft, curling around my ear. “They’re not dead.”
“Who?” Was he talking about my parents? About Michael?
He gestured at the glass. “We keep them like that because they’re useful. Everything you see here has a use. If it doesn’t, we get rid of it.”
I focused beyond the glass. Before I could stop myself, I drew a quick breath and took a step back, bumping into a muscled arm and thigh.
The bodies in the other room were all lain out on single metal pallets, four of them in a row, their heads cushioned on padded indents. Each one was connected to a separate machine, multi-colored tubes leading to different parts of their bodies.
“I believe that one is your late neighbor.” Cheyne leaned against the glass and pointed a thick finger at a bed toward the middle. “She’s a fast healer. We needed to test your mortality against the strongest ones.”
“Mrs. Hubert.” I pressed closer to the glass, putting my hands up beside my face, trying to hide my shock. I scanned the other faces, dreading whom else I might see. In the bed next to her was an older man I didn’t recognize. But there was Jeremiah and his younger brother, Thomas, wrapped in white robes with tubes protruding from their feet. They’d ended up there because of me and it made my heart sink.
“Right now, we’re trying to identify what part of the body is most vulnerable to your mortality. The armpits seem best so far, but that’s hardly practical during combat.” He imitated a soldier with a gun. “Hey, lift up your arms so I can shoot you dead.” A smirk. “Yeah. Not likely.”
“You’re talking about me like I’m…”
“A weapon.” His keen eyes landed on my face. “That’s exactly what you are.”
My heart sank. Michael was right… He’d said the Bashers wanted to use my genetics to kill, and now I knew that his dad and Cheyne had the same agenda.
Cheyne circled around me and I cringed as he moved up close. “You’re the weapon we’ve needed for so long. Now Seversand will think twice about attacking us.”
I stared at him. “People are saying Seversand will attack us because of me. Because I can die.”
He shook his head, cutting me off. “What is it they teach you in school about why the world war ended?”
“The nuclear bomb failed. War is pointless.”
“My great-grandfather was there the day they dropped that bomb. He said it was the first time he ever felt pain. Seversand split an atom.” His expression became incredulous. “They split an atom. And still nobody died. So yes, it makes sense to say that war is pointless. But in all the years since that failure, Seversand hasn’t stopped trying to find another weapon. They’ve never stopped searching, infiltrating, threatening us. We even suspect that the Bashers are affiliated with them. But everything changed when the truth about your brother went public.”
He stared directly at me. “Our President didn’t travel to Seversand to beg for mercy. He went to tell them to back off. Because we beat them to the ultimate weapon and we will use it if we have to. We have you, and now Seversand fears us.”
“What about the Bashers?”
“For the first time, we’re stronger than they are.”
He was triumphant, but the feeling of despair that spread through my body was like nothing I’d felt before. It was so huge and hot and undeniable that I could have withered to a crisp right there. They were going to turn me into something I wasn’t, something I didn’t want to be.
They were going to use me to kill.
I tried to focus, to get my bearings, there were things I needed to know, answers to questions that had plagued me. “Why did you let me go from the recovery center? You could have kept me there.”
He sighed. “We thought we had everything we needed from you to synthesize your DNA into a mortality weapon, and Robert … he’s not a big fan of keeping people against their will unless we have to. It’s a particular weakness of his.”
I remembered Robert Bradley’s name from the news reports. He was Michael’s dad.
Cheyne’s lips thinned. “But we discovered two things after we let you go: first, the mortality serum has a shelf-life, which means we need you alive to produce more of it. And second, we didn’t count on the reaction of the general community. You won’t believe me, but we actually hoped you could go back to your life.” He held up a finger. “You know what, this is going to be a whole lot easier if I just show you.” He smiled as if he was my friend, as he inclined his head toward the door. “C’mon.”
He pushed on the metal door and waited for me. It reminded me of the door at the recovery center, right down to the dent in the middle.
He saw me looking at it. “Your brother caused us a lot of trouble too.”
My eyes snapped to his, wondering what he meant. I wanted him to say more, but he didn’t. I followed him out, expecting to see another swarm of soldiers. Instead, the quiet corridor stared back at me.
“This way.” He pulled me to the left.
I could try to run, but it seemed pointless, so, for now, I followed him. He strode on down the corridor, boots thumping, passing five other closed doors before he turned and stopped outside another opening, this one without a door. He gestured inside to a row of chairs and an old wall screen, the kind my parents said they had when they were kids.
He nudged me into a chair facing the screen and stood back as it flickered on to reveal the same green-lit room they’d taken me to at the recovery center. There was a time stamp at the bottom of the screen, seconds ticking over, but it was years ago.
There was a boy inside the room on the footage. He was young, maybe thirteen. He bashed himself against the door.
It was Josh.
As I stared at the footage, a pair of speakers crackled on and I wanted to block my ears as sound filled the room around me.
Josh cried and screamed at the same time, an anguish that wrenched through me. With each impact of his head into the door, a split on his forehead opened, started to bleed, and then closed again. I couldn’t see anyone else in the room. The surveillance drone circled, not getting too close.
Cheyne’s voice was low, hushed. “This footage is from the day your brother killed that little girl. What was her name?”
I started. Josh killed someone?
He clicked his fingers. “Kristy. Her parents used to work here. They tried to smuggle a sample of nectar out of the country. Their little girl got hold of it and shared it with your brother at school. It was experimental and it gave him some pretty bad hallucinations. He didn’t know what he was doing. The Hazards who attended the scene reported the unusual substance and we were alerted as a matter of security.”
I tried to remember
back when I was twelve. Mom’s stricken face. Josh gone all of a sudden. He hadn’t come home one night and after that, I didn’t see him so often anymore. After that, he was always disappearing on me.
Cheyne pressed a button and the footage skipped forward three hours and I didn’t want to think about how alone and scared Josh was during that time.
The footage slowed and Josh was curled up on the floor in the corner, so still, not even trembling. A man entered the room with a glass of water. His hair had the first hints of gray speckles, reached a little more than halfway down his back, and he wore a beard cut short around his jaw. He looked so much like Michael that it had to be his dad. The older man approached Josh, but kept his distance, telling Josh to drink. Josh unfurled and got to his knees. He scooted forward and snatched up the glass, drinking the whole lot.
The man’s voice was gentle. “How are you doing, Josh?”
My brother inched away from the man, shoulders hunched, but he said, “I’ve been better.”
Cheyne bumped my shoulder. “We used to test nectar on homeless people—nobody noticed when they went missing—and we made sure it was safe enough before we tried it on Josh again.”
I thought about the homeless addict in the park who’d been desperate to get at the ampule in my back. “Safe enough doesn’t mean safe.”
He inclined his head. “Over time, we perfected it. We got rid of the hallucinogenic effects, but nothing seemed to change the extra strength it gave him, no matter how we adjusted the formula.” His eyes were suddenly hard and piercing. “When we first gave you nectar, it was the raw stuff like Josh had the first time. But you compartmentalized your brain, protecting the part of your mind that controls reason and logic.” He tapped my temple before I could shove his hand away. “It’s like you built a barrier in there. A wall.”
Walls. The ones Michael didn’t want to talk about.
“Unlike your brother, you stayed aware of what was happening—you controlled the effects and tried to escape. Your strength increased even more than Josh’s. That room’s made of concrete, Ava. It’s twelve inches thick and you put cracks in it. If we’d let you get to the door, you wouldn’t have just dented it.”