I think of Colt. He probably heard my conversation with Tank, but he won’t know that he’s lying on the floor unconscious unless I say something. But how will he get up here? He isn’t anyone famous that no one will question. I won’t risk his life any more than necessary.
It is up to me to save Max. I can do it for him. I have to.
At least I have a stunner. I lift up my dress and unhook it from the case around my thigh. It fits perfectly in my hand and should go unnoticed.
I take a deep breath and slowly open the door just a crack and peek out. Down the hall are a man and woman. They are both in white pantsuits like the other guards and have hair the color of seaweed. They have no distinguishing features for me to tell what type of species they are, which means I will have to wait until I see their eyes before I know how to react.
I’m going to have to get close.
Before I change my mind, I open the door and stumble out, laughing hard with snorts in between. My father taught me that when you act inebriated, people are more inclined to excuse outrageous behavior, giving you the opportunity to make a move. I’m hoping these guards will excuse my clumsiness enough until I can get close to them.
“Stop!” the woman says. “You shouldn’t be up here.”
I stumble forward, one arm swaying high. “Huh? I can’t hear you.”
“Go back,” the man says. His voice is deeper than I expect. “You need to turn around and go back to the party.”
I keep moving forward, searching the ground like I’ve dropped something. All the while I’m holding the stunner close to my stomach.
“You might have to help her,” the woman says to the man.
I glance up for a fraction of a second, just enough to see his eyes. This time I stumble for real. One eye is dark brown and the other is a lime green. The woman’s are the same. Speeders. They are almost impossible to fight in hand-to-hand combat. You blink and they appear behind you.
And I’m about to fight two of them. By myself. I swallow hard and lean against the wall while trying to remember if they have any kind of weakness. They don’t.
The man approaches me and takes hold of my arm. “Let’s go.”
Better act fast before he does. Real quick, I jab the stunner into his chest and press a button at its top. The man jerks violently and falls to the ground.
“What did you do?” the woman asks. She blinks a few times until she decides to rush me, but I barely see her before her fist collides into the side of my face. I stumble along the wall, trying hard to keep my feet beneath me. My long dress makes this even more difficult.
Another blur of movement. All I can distinguish is a swish of her long seaweed hair before a blow to my stomach explodes air from my lungs. A fraction of a second later, the stunner is knocked from my hands.
“I’m going to break you now,” she says, standing across from me with fists raised.
She comes straight for me, but I spin out of the way just in time. The stunner is ten feet away. If I go for it, I’ll lose sight of her and that could be deadly. I stay where I’m at, every muscle tight.
The air stirs to my right and a flash of white comes at my head. I duck but not fast enough. The heel of her boot catches the side of my cheek, making me fall to the ground.
The stunner is only five feet away.
Glancing back, I kick hard where the woman is standing. The upper half of her body is already in motion, but I manage to graze her shin. She cries out and I scramble forward, tripping over my dress the whole time. Just as my fingers touch the stunner, something hard, probably her dumb boot again, smashes against the back of my head. Stars explode in my vision, and my body goes limp. Before my face hits the ground, the woman is jerking me up by the back of my hair until I’m upright with her standing behind me. Her other arm wraps around my throat, cutting off my air supply.
She whispers in my ear, “I’m not allowed to kill without permission, but I can break bones.”
I attempt to fight, but the movement is only in my head. Without oxygen, I can’t think or move. It’s over. Maybe they’ll put me in the same room as my brother. I hope.
Before I lose consciousness, the woman’s arm leaves my throat, and I suck in as much air as I can handle. Unfortunately it’s not much because now the woman is pulling my right arm backwards. Any moment and I think the tendons in my shoulder will tear, but instead there’s a strange gurgling.
The woman releases me, and I fall to the ground, gasping for air. As soon as my vision clears, I turn around to see why I was released. Colt is standing there, pressing the stunner to the woman’s side. She’s shaking violently while he holds her tight to his chest. The electric blue of his eyes shines through his contacts, and his lips are scrunched tight.
“Let her go,” I say, but the words barely make it past my lips. I slide over to him. “Let her go,” I say louder. Only when I touch his leg does he drop her to the floor. A whiff of smoke swirls into the air above her, and I smell something that reminds me of tanning animal skin, something I’d done plenty of back home.
Colt kneels next to me. “Are you all right?”
He takes the bottom of my dress and presses it to my cheek. If I’m bleeding I can’t tell. My whole body is numb.
“I’m okay,” I say and stand up, my head pounding. I stumble sideways, but Colt steadies me. He’s breathing heavy. “How did you get up here?”
“I had to stun a few people.”
“That was—” I was about to say “risky,” but Colt’s sudden, startled expression stops me.
“I can hear them. They’ve found the bodies, and they’re coming up.”
“Max!”
I run to the room Max should be in and open the door, all pains forgotten. It’s a sterile office full of metal and electronics, a stark contrast to the rest of the building. On a white wall behind a silver desk is a tall painting of Ebony.
Behind me, Colt closes the door and locks it. “That should buy us some time,” he says.
I search the rest of the room until I find Max on the other side of some metal shelving. His back is to me and he’s sitting in a chair, staring out the window.
I hold out my hand to Colt to stop him from coming forward. “Give me a second.”
“But they’re coming! We need to hurry.”
“I know, but I need a little time.” I walk to Max and stand between him and the window. I bend down in front of him. His blond hair is combed straight and his skin is a perfectly white color, made even more so by the plain black t-shirt he’s wearing. His pale blue eyes stare right through me.
“Max?” I say gently. I rest my hands on his small knees. He looks much younger than ten. “It’s me. Sage. I’ve come to take you away from this place, but we have to go now.”
He remains still, locked away in a prison I can’t access. I notice there are marks on his arms. Tears burn the back of my throat.
“Max, please,” I say again. “Remember the ocean? The shells, Max. We need to go to the ocean and gather shells. We’ll count every single one of them.”
This time he blinks. Behind him Colt is finding objects to press against the door. Already he’s blocked it with a metal bookcase.
“Max?”
He blinks again, but he’s not quite with me.
I say, “Do you remember that great big shell we found? The one with the tail that was twisted? We hung it on the porch and whenever Daddy would come home he’d blow it. Remember?”
Max’s eyes shift to mine. He makes no sound, but his bottom lip quivers and he bites it. Tears fill his eyes and he wraps his arms around me. I return his hug and pick him up; his legs naturally go around my waist.
“I’m here. I came back,” I say, rubbing his back.
Colt walks to the window and peers out. “I can break it and try to fly us out of here. I don’t know if I’ll be able to carry you both at the same time, though.”
There are sounds outside the door. Two voices yelling. Max begins to squirm against me.
“Take him,” I say.
“I’m not leaving either of you.” He’s looking around the office, probably searching for something to break the window.
A pounding rocks the door.
Colt picks up a silver, triangular-shaped object that looks like some kind of art sculpture and raises it above him.
“You have to take Max,” I say again, my voice rising.
Max drops to the ground and runs to the corner of the room.
“Max!” I hurry after him.
Colt throws the silver object and hits the glass, creating a spider-web like crack, but it doesn’t break. He curses and picks up the object again.
I try and grab Max, but he avoids me and pounds his little fists on a bookcase engraved with animals along its trim.
“Stop it, Max,” I say. “We have to go.”
He takes hold of my arm and jerks it hard.
“Hey, what do you think—” I pause, a memory surfacing. Max only tugs on my arm when it’s something really important. He did it once when he caught sight of a bear coming toward us along the bank of a river. I was too busy reeling in a fish. He saved our lives that day.
Glass shatters behind me.
“Let’s go!” Colt yells.
The door to the office is shaking. They’re coming in. I turn back to the bookcase, looking for anything that doesn’t belong.
“What are you doing?” Colt shouts. Wind blows into the room, twisting up loose papers into the air.
I focus on an engraved shark at the corner of the border. It has wings. I press my finger against it and jump back, taking Max with me when the bookcase opens.
Behind it is a closed metal door with a keypad next to it.
Colt comes up from behind. “There’s no time to figure out the code. We have to go now!”
Max lets go of my hand and goes to the keypad. He pushes a series of numbers until the door slides open.
Just then the door behind us explodes open.
“Everybody in,” Colt says and pushes us inside what looks like a small closet. Men are pouring into the room, yelling for us to stop.
As soon as we’re safely inside, the door closes and the room begins to move down. I exhale and rest my head against the wall, which is a shiny metal. My reflection is a mess. Hair tangled every which way, makeup smeared, and blood running down my cheek.
“Where do you think it’s taking us?” I ask. My breath steams the metal.
“How did your brother know the code?” Colt says, staring down at Max.
“By paying attention.”
The elevator jerks and I straighten, thinking it’s going to stop, but it keeps moving down.
“Wherever it’s going, we’ll get through it,” Colt says. “We’ve come this far, which completely surprises me, so maybe we’ve got a chance.”
The elevator jerks again, this time stopping. Colt lowers into a defensive position.
I pick up Max and hold him tightly to my chest.
The door opens.
I fully expect a whole legion of Primes to be waiting for me when the elevator doors open, but no one’s there, and I exhale. Colt goes first into a darkened room.
“We’re in the lab,” he says. “Let’s go.”
I can barely see as I follow him through a series of long, narrow lab tables. When I pass a refrigerator with a glass door, I stop.
“What are you doing?” Colt asks, his voice tense.
I set Max on top of a nearby counter and click the light on my wristpad. After opening the refrigerator, I remove a case of six vials. Their labels read oDNA 748. I tuck them under one arm and pick up Max again.
“Let’s go,” I say.
I’m not sure why I’m taking the vials other than I know they are important to the Institute, which makes them important to me. Another lesson of my father’s.
Colt opens a door at the opposite end of the lab, and together we sprint down the hall leading to the storage room. Colt looks up at the ceiling as if he’s hearing something. “They’re almost here.”
I hurry into the room and set Max down so I can put the vials into the backpack I left behind. Colt closes the door behind us and pushes one of the shelves in front of it. Because there’s no time to change, I tear the bottom half of the dress, giving my legs more movement.
“How much meat do we have left?” I ask.
Colt picks up his backpack and looks inside. “A few slabs. And we still have the daggers and a stun gun.”
I kneel next to Max and look into his eyes, but I can tell by their glazed look that he’s not really paying attention. This must be so scary for him. “I’m going to take you into a tunnel, but I don’t want you to worry. We will be out soon, just keep your eyes closed, okay?”
He blinks but it could be an involuntary movement. I pick him up and hold him tightly to my chest.
“We’re coming, Anthony,” Colt says, just as footsteps hurry down the hall after us.
I open the square door leading into the tunnels and jump down. Max almost slips from my grip, but I hike him back up. Colt drops next to me and makes a gagging noise. “This smell is going to kill me.”
“Not if the Junks get you first.” Light from my watch spreads out before me. “Do you sense anything?”
“Nothing close. You want me to carry Max?”
“I’ve got him. Let’s go.” I begin to run. Max’s fingers dig into my shoulder blades, and his body shakes. The sooner we get out of here the better.
Colt stays close behind me as we hurry through the tunnels. When we come to a cross tunnel I think I see movement, but I keep moving, holding tightly to Max.
“Go faster,” Colt says.
I’m already sprinting, but I push harder, my legs burning from hip to ankle. Seconds later, I hear Junks, their strange gurgling sounds made worse by running. Colt tosses a slice of meat over his shoulder. Some of the sounds die off, but not enough.
“At least they’re behind us,” I say, panting. Two more turns and we’ll be back at the hatch leading to the forest.
I glance back at Colt. The light from my wristpad catches his expression. His eyebrows are scrunched together and his lips are pressed tight, like when I was dancing with Tank, or when he took out the Speeder. He’s either angry or worried.
“Anthony,” Colt says, “we’re in trouble.”
I wonder what he’s talking about, then we round the final corner. I skid to a stop. Directly under the hatch are Junks, at least ten of them. Behind Colt are three more running toward us. He pushes me to the side and withdraws a dagger. I look around. Just ahead is another turn that looks like the beginning of a partially constructed tunnel. I tug at Colt.
“This way,” I say and run toward it.
“It’s a dead end,” Colt says.
“I know, but at least we can defend our backs better.”
I rush to the end of it, which is only twenty feet or so off the main tunnel, and set down Max. Colt rounds the corner after me, but with each step he slows as if he’s walking through thick mud. The light from my watch shows the muscles in his face have gone lax. He looks like he’s about to fall asleep.
“Colt?”
He doesn’t answer. His eyes glaze over and they shine. Then they roll up and show white.
“Colt!” I rush to him, but not fast enough to catch him before he falls to the ground, his body shaking uncontrollably.
The Junk’s watery choking sounds change to what sounds like asthmatic hyenas. They are laughing.
I tug on Colt’s shoulders and dig my heels into the dirt to drag him to the back of the tunnel. Behind me, Max whimpers.
“It’s okay, Max. I’m here. Just keep your eyes closed.” I want to comfort him, but I need every ounce of strength I have to drag Colt.
I’m almost up against the tunnel wall when Junks appear. I roll Colt over and grab the last of the meat from his bag. I throw it hard, hoping to get it over their heads and far away from us, but it lands in the middle of the small swarm. Th
ey turn on it like a pack of rabid dogs, slicing and cutting at anything and everything.
With the Junks distracted, I turn to Colt. He’s still shaking, his hands curled tight; one of them still clenches the dagger in a death grip. I hold his head to the side and look over my shoulder at Max. His eyes are closed tight and his hands are covering his ears. Any moment he may start screaming. I need to get us out of here and fast.
“Anthony,” I say. “Colt’s had another seizure. I need help. I’m trapped near the hatch.”
“I’m almost there,” he says into my com. He’s out of breath.
A wet, tearing sound makes me look back at the wild pack. One of the Junks has ripped another with his claws. There is more blood than skin on his face. The bloodied Junk lunges at the aggressor, and the two roll away from the feeding frenzy. Razor-sharp teeth tear off an ear, and I look away.
Colt makes a sound. He’s stopped shaking, but his eyes still swim in a murky sea of unconsciousness.
“Colt?” I whisper.
The two fighting Junks tumble closer to us. Max presses against my back and buries his head into my neck. I reach my left hand behind me and squeeze his leg, and pull Colt closer to me with my right. His legs lie only a few feet from the Junks. As long as they keep fighting, and the others keep eating, we may go unnoticed until Anthony can get to us.
I keep my head down and watch the two Junks out of the corner of my eye as they tear at each other with their long fingernails. All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, the Junks stop eating and the two near us stop fighting. They stand erect as if they’re listening to something beyond my hearing capabilities. Several of them run back the way they came, but the two who had been fighting before turn toward us, sniffing the air.
I slowly untangle myself from Colt and Max, who’s rocking back and forth, and remove the dagger from Colt’s relaxed hand.
The Junk with the missing ear growls and steps forward. The other one hangs back, its eyes glancing anxiously between us. I remember the female Junk I helped kill earlier. How human she appeared at the end. I don’t want to kill anything else, not if there is a chance it could be saved. The dagger shakes in my hand.
Escape to Eden Page 13