by Jus Accardo
“It’s that simple?” Cade’s eyes were wide as he stared, mesmerized by the light on Rabbit’s skin. I agreed. This made skipping seem as blasé as driving a car.
“It will be as soon as I activate them.” He let his arm fall slack and leveled his gaze at Dylan. “Which only happens when Kori and Ash are safe. Be careful what you’re touching when you skip, though. The chip will change the frequency of your body to move you from one place to another, and by extension, anything you’re touching. If you want to skip inconspicuously, I’d avoid leaning against cars or buildings when you activate it. If you want to skip and stay together, I suggest you all hold hands or something because there’s no guarantee you’ll end up in the same place as someone else with a chip.”
“Okay. Lesson over.” Dylan hitched a thumb toward the door. “Let’s do what we need to do.”
Rabbit nodded and bent over a small computer. His fingers scurried across the keyboard, lines of code flashing on the screen.
I peered over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“We have to get down to sublevel seven. It won’t be as simple as walking into the hall and hopping in an elevator.”
“I figured.” I inclined my head toward the screen. “So you’re, what, creating a diversion?”
He glanced up at me, brows knitting together to form a deep V. “Diversion? What do you think this is, the movies? That never actually works.”
“Um, okay. So you’re…?”
“Opening up an alternative route.” As if on cue, a loud creak filled the room and all the crap on the desk in front of us shimmied and shook. A few feet away, on the floor next to one of the computers, a large door in the floor opened. “Cora was desperate to gain me as an employee. I have a lot of quirks. Anything I requested she fell all over herself to supply.”
Cade peered over the edge of the newly opened hole in the floor. “You requested a trap door?”
I snorted. “Rabbit has a rabbit hole!”
“I requested a way to move around the facility without having to interact with anyone.” He glared, then waved me away. The guy had no sense of humor. “I have personal space issues.”
“Yeah, but Cora must know about this. She’d be keeping an eye out.”
“Cora would never think I was working with you.” The conviction with which he said it made me a little curious. I studied him, searching his expression for something—a small hint that he’d betray us. He caught me staring and shuffled, adjusting his shirt and clearing his throat. “I’m a good little worker bee. They leave me alone and I don’t interfere. Besides, like the main lab entrance, Cora believes she has access—but doesn’t.”
“Even so.” Cade pulled the door up the rest of the way to reveal a narrow set of stairs. He hadn’t noticed the weird exchange between us. “It can’t possibly give you access to every room in the building.”
“No, but I can get us close to where we need to be. It’s completely soundproof and no one has access to it but me, so you three will be safe while I make sure the coast is clear.”
“Cameras?”
“Still off. But we don’t have a lot of time. As stupid as Cora’s security is, someone is going to notice eventually.”
“Good point.” Cade was the first one into the hole. “Let’s move.”
We followed Rabbit down his hole. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, a long hallway stretched out in front of us. “Where does it go?”
“The better question would be, where doesn’t it go?” Rabbit flicked a switch on the wall and light flooded the tunnel. “I have access to every floor except sublevel seven and eight from here.”
“Seven? Isn’t that where we need to go?” Dylan stomped his foot. “What the hell is the point of this if we can’t get there from here?”
“I told you, I can get us close. We just need to get to sub-six. I can hack the elevator code from there to take us down one more floor.”
And that was it. No one else said a word as we followed Rabbit down more stairs and around twists and turns. The whole thing was insane. Knowing this world’s Cora, she’d just about shit a moose if she found out that Rabbit had changed all the locks and essentially barred her from his lab. Then there was the tunnel. When you thought secret passageway, it was darkness and cobwebs with dusty air and stench. Rabbit’s little slice of heaven had what looked suspiciously like marbled floors, oak wood trim, and really tacky red wallpaper.
By the time we made it to a blue door marked S-6, Dylan was beyond antsy. “If you’re trying to stall, remember what I said about your—”
“Just wait here. The door will lock the moment I close it and no one else has access. Cora thinks she has the code…” A sly smile spread across his face, similar to the I’ve been up to no good expression our Rabbit usually wore.
“That’s the plan?” Normally I would never agree with anything Dylan said, but hurry up and wait? Not a game I played well. And aside from that, the last time the three of us had been left together, it hadn’t gone well. Pushing our limits, especially when everyone’s nerves were just about frayed, seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. “Stand around until you come back to get us?”
Rabbit rolled his eyes and pushed me away from the door. Then, without another word, he slipped through and closed it with an echoing snap.
Dylan huffed and slumped dramatically against the wall. “What shall we do while he’s gone? Rock, paper, scissors? Maybe truth or dare?”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to poke us?” I said through clenched teeth. “You’re in an enclosed area with two people who already want to tear out your spleen.”
“There’ll be no spleen tearing and we all know it. You wouldn’t risk Rabbit’s dear, sweet mother—which is exactly why you failed to save all those other versions of Kori.”
Cade stiffened. “What did you say?”
“Come on now, Cade.” Dylan jabbed a finger in my direction. “If you were just a touch more like your buddy over there, you might have managed to save a few more of your girls. Hell, if you hadn’t gone all Boy Scout and turned me in in the first place, none of us would be here right now.”
“Dylan,” Cade warned. Every visible muscle was taut. If Dylan kept poking, I wouldn’t be able to keep him locked down—and I wouldn’t want to.
Dylan threw up his hands and inclined his head in my direction. “Just sayin’! Take a page from the doc’s book. Be a little selfish. Like, for example, if you really wanted to take me down, you’d just do it. Here and now and be done with it. Screw Rabbit’s mom. To hell with the innocent lives I’ve threatened.” He leaned forward and waggled his brows. “Unless, of course, she wasn’t that important to you. I mean, you’ve both replaced her with that new, improved model and I gotta say—I approve.”
The little voice in my head told me this was stupid. Counterproductive. If we were discovered, none of us was getting out of here alive. But just like Dylan and his running mouth—an issue he’d always had—I was unable to stop myself.
I couldn’t be sure which one of us lunged first. Could have been that we went at the same time. I reached him first, swinging hard. The blow connected with the underside of his chin and sent him sprawling back—right into Cade.
He let out a grunt of satisfaction and brought his knee up, square in the center of Dylan’s back. Dylan let out an anguished howl and doubled over just within my reach. I kicked out, the corner of my boot catching him in the side of the head.
In the back of my mind a little voice told me this wasn’t a fair fight. The little voice in the front of my mind laughed like a drunken asshole. Fair fight? I’d never given a shit about those. Use what you had to gain the upper hand.
With each injury we inflicted, another part of my brain wondered if I was really meant to be a doctor. Healing the sick and tending to the injured. That was the shtick. Lately though, I’d been too invested in creating injury. What did that say about my future? But I wasn’t a med student right now. I was a guy faci
ng off against the bastard who tore apart his life and family.
“That all you got?” Dylan stumbled to his feet between Cade and me. His voice was a little slurred, lip split and already swelling. I couldn’t be sure, but I had a feeling we’d knocked a tooth or two out.
Cade had his back to the wall while I stood with mine to the door Rabbit had gone through. Call it karma for starting the fight, or simply bad timing, but just seconds after Dylan lunged for me, Rabbit opened the door. We toppled out, the three of us landing in a heap in the main hallway, a few feet from an elevator.
Of course, the shitstorm didn’t end there. A woman came around the corner, nose in a thick book. When she saw us, she dropped the thing and scrambled for a small blue panel on the wall. A second later, the lights were flashing and a siren wailed like a damn banshee…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ash
“What’s going on?” The sound was horrible and the lights flashed from ordinary white to red and blinking, pulsing with dizzying speed. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers into my temples. “And how long until it stops?”
“That’s the security alarm,” G said. There was a note of excitement in his voice. “Something’s going down somewhere in the building.”
“It’s them. My—Kori’s friends. They’re here. They came to get her.”
“The elevator,” he exclaimed. “Someone’s coming down again.”
I couldn’t hear the elevator over the wail of the siren, but I heard the footsteps. “Hurry up and get her back in the cell,” a gruff voice snapped. There was a dragging sound, and a moment later, two men walked past my cell, Kori listless and limp between them.
“What did you do?” I threw myself against the bars and stuck my arm through in an attempt to grab them. “What did you do to her?”
They ignored me as though I didn’t exist and continued on until they got to the cell she’d been in before. I heard the door squeal, and the shuffle of them dragging her inside—and then a string of curses.
A black and gray blur flew past my cell, launching itself at the men. It was followed closely by another blur, this one I’d know anywhere. Cade and Noah took down the guards with ease, and even though I couldn’t quite see the throw down, from the sounds of it, there hadn’t been much of a fight. Then again, they’d both fight like demons for her. Those guards never stood a chance.
A few moments later, Noah appeared in front of my cell. “You okay?” He gripped the bars on either side of my hands and let his head fall forward. “Tell me you’re okay.”
I did the same, taking comfort in his nearness, and nodded. “They’re stealing people, Noah. That’s what Omega is.” I’d meant to reply simply with I’m fine, but seeing him just brought it all pouring out. “Taking people who don’t exist here anymore and skipping them in to take their place.” I wanted to say more, to tell him that I was one of those people, but the words wouldn’t come for some reason.
His eyes widened and his skin paled. “Brewster…”
“They’re wiping memories. Giving the new people a clean slate. They took Kori. I don’t know if they—”
“I’m…okay.” From the hallway there was more shuffling and a soft groan. Cade helped her from the cell and they stopped in front of my door. His face was ashen as she stumbled forward. “They were prepping me but the alarm went off.” Cade didn’t look like he was buying it and she rolled her eyes. “I swear I’m fine.”
Noah opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked from his sister to me. “We have to get you out of here.” He glanced back down the hall and motioned for someone. A moment later, Phil appeared. “Get her out of there.”
“I—”
“Now,” Noah growled. He looked truly ferocious and it made my heart beat a little faster knowing that it was for me.
They’d come for Kori, but they’d also come for me.
Phil groaned and mumbled something, then pushed him aside. He fiddled with the keypad for a moment before exclaiming. “Gotcha!” With a wave of his hand, he added, “Might wanna stand back, Ash.”
I did as I was told as sparks erupted in a small fountain from the lock. They fizzled and spit for a few seconds before the lock disengaged with a soft pop. Noah flung the door open and reached inside. He grabbed my arm and tugged me from the cell, starting for the elevator.
“Wait!” I dug my heels in and pulled against his grip. God only knew what sadistic plans Cora had for G and Sera on top of what she’d already done. “We can’t leave them.”
“Them who?”
Kori’s eyes went wide, like she’d totally forgotten about them. It was also that moment that her gaze fell to Dylan, standing off to the side. She opened her mouth, face pale. For an instant they simply stared at each other. Hate in her expression, amusement in his. The tension in the small space was palpable, but like a champ, Kori shook it off. “Sera and G. They’re locked up here, too,” she said finally. “We can’t leave them.”
“Phil.” I jabbed a finger down the hallway. I was just as thrilled to see Dylan—he’d killed Corey right in front of me, then threatened to do the same to me—but now wasn’t the time to lose my shit. With a nod, I said, “There are two more cells. Please.”
He groaned, but thankfully took off without argument. At the other end of the hall, I heard him grumbling as he messed with the lock. “I can’t believe it. Of all the things I thought Cora might be doing—” He wasn’t listening. Noah was staring at something over my shoulder. In fact, everyone else’s attention seemed to be suddenly riveted to something on the far end of the hall as well.
I spun to see what they were all looking at, terrified that Cora’s security had us blocked in from the other end. However, when I turned, all I saw was my first glimpse of Sera—a beautiful girl with dark eyes and hair that framed a pixie-like face, and G, who aside from his scruffier face and longer, darker hair, was a carbon copy of Cade’s brother, Dylan.
“I can’t believe it,” Dylan whispered. He pushed past Cade and Noah and crossed to his double. Except it wasn’t his double that had him entranced. It was Sera. “You’re here.”
“He knows her?”
Noah shook his head and took my hand. There was a hint of sadness in his eyes. “We all know her. That’s Ava.”
Ava. The girl who essentially started a war. The person whose absence from a world had inadvertently caused so much pain and suffering. The one he’d been skipping from place to place to find. He’d said she wasn’t here, but Sera wasn’t from here. Cora’s team had dragged her here. Experimented on her.
Dylan reached for her, but Sera jerked away. G stepped up and moved between them instantly. “Lose something?”
“Matter of fact, yeah.” The venom in Dylan’s voice was acidic. “Her. So if you’ll kindly get the fuck out of my way…”
G rolled up his dirty flannel sleeves and flashed Dylan a wicked grin. “Go for it, man. I might not know much about my past, but I’m pretty sure people used to tell me I was my own worst enemy. Seems like kicking your ass is a good chance to prove them right.”
Cade recovered from his shock and ran to wedge himself between them. “We don’t have time for this,” he snapped. He gestured between them, the hint of a grin shadowing his lips. “Any second now security is going to be on top—”
The door at the other end of the hall exploded inward and a group of Cora’s security detail flooded the narrow hall.
“—of us,” he finished.
“I blame you for this.” Noah let go of my hand and jabbed a finger at Cade. “Every damn time you say that…” He launched himself into the fray without hesitation. Cade was next, followed by G. Dylan lingered, unwilling—or unable—to take his eyes off Sera, while Phil inched toward the edge of the melee, trying to stay clear from flying fists. I wondered if there was a version out there that didn’t avoid confrontation.
Cade kicked, sending his opponent flying in my direction. I was able to move out of the way as he harmlessly sailed by, c
rashing into the wall. Unfortunately, the impact didn’t deter him. He picked himself up and recouped almost immediately. And this time his sights weren’t set on Cade.
He made a swipe for me but I danced clear, which only made him scowl. “You’ve got no way out. Just surrender.”
“Oh. Well if you’re asking nicely…” I awkwardly ducked his next attempt and pivoted. As the move sent him slightly off center, I brought my arm up and punched out blindly. Luckily the blow caught him in the gut. He doubled over and I braced my foot against the small of his back and shoved out as hard as I could. This time when he hit the wall, it was head first. There was a muted thud. He didn’t get up to try again.
Noah and G were back to back, dealing with the last two. When they were down, everyone regrouped in the center of the hallway. “We’re out of time.” Cade shot a pointed look at Phil. “Assuming we need to get back to the lab to get Kori and Ash chips?”
Phil glared at him. “I’m not carrying any on me.”
“Me? What do I need a chip for?”
Noah stepped in front of me, standing so close that I could almost hear his heartbeat. “You have any reason to stay?”
“You want me to go with you?” Sure, anyplace was better than here, but I’d been raised to fear skipping. No one left and went to a better place. It was a punishment, used to tame crime and clean up cities. But Noah and his friends had been doing it for a while now. It didn’t sound like it’d been all fun and games, but it didn’t sound like it’d been all horrible, either.
Then again, maybe there was a chance to go home. To see, to meet, my real family.
“I’m not gonna twist your arm or anything, but it doesn’t seem to me like you’d be walking away from much here.”