The distant sound of breaking glass made Abby jump. Dr. Kane, in contrast, sped past her into the hall, followed by the guards. Abby stared after them a moment, then unhooked Baby’s restraints. She helped him sit, but his lethargic body wasn’t cooperating.
“Baby, you’ve got to get up. Martyr has come back for you,” she said, “and if we don’t move now, he may have come back for nothing.”
Baby’s eyes locked with hers. He banged his chest with his fist then pointed to his cheek.
“Find him!” Dr. Kane’s voice boomed from the hallway.
Abby peeked out the door and saw the guards running down the hall away from Abby, Dr. Kane and Dr. Elliot at their heels. Had her dad freed Marty? Were they escaping without her?
She took Baby’s hand and darted across the hall, through the reception area, and to the elevator. She pushed the up arrow, but when the doors opened she realized she couldn’t operate the elevator from the inside without a keycard. Footsteps neared, so Abby dragged Baby out of the elevator and down the opposite hallway. Halfway down the corridor, a bald Jason poked his head out from a door, looking away from them.
Like an excited chimpanzee, Baby grunted in a language of his own. The Jason turned to face them. Marty! His face lit up in a smile, his previous comatose behavior completely gone as he waved them forward. Baby broke into a sprint, almost dragging Abby along. The little guy was surprisingly strong.
Marty crowded them into a dark lab room, then locked the door and pressed his ear to the white surface.
Baby continued to grunt and whimper. After a glance at the door, Marty walked to the middle of the room and put his arms around Baby, shushing and rubbing the smaller boy’s back. Baby put his thumb into his mouth and went silent, tucking his head into the crook of Marty’s neck. How cute is that?
Marty looked over Baby’s head at Abby. “Thank you for freeing him, Abby Goyer.”
Abby smiled.
“We must hurry to the elevator.” Martyr pulled two keycards from his waistband. “I would give you one in case we’re separated, but you need two to operate the elevators.”
“What about my dad?”
Martyr’s eyes shifted away. “He should be safe as long as he’s not seen helping us.”
“Should be?”
“He must look frustrated with our escape, like he’s on Dr. Kane’s side. Don’t believe anything he says when Dr. Kane is in the room. He’s playing a part, like the people on TV.”
Abby pressed her lips together to avoid laughing.
Marty put his ear to the door again and then twisted the doorknob. Abby followed Marty and Baby back toward the elevator end of the building. They’d only walked a few yards when Marty froze, forcing Abby to bump into his back. Johnson had rounded the corner and was blocking the way.
“Found ‘em,” the guard yelled, stepping closer. “Always tryin’ to save the day, ain’t you, Martyr? Can’t just toe the line. Always got to make trouble.”
Abby grabbed Baby’s hand and ran the other way. When she didn’t hear footsteps behind her, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. Marty hadn’t moved.
He stepped sideways, skipping slightly as Johnson neared. The guard slapped his stick against his empty palm in time with each step. Heart racing, Abby turned the corner and reached a door. Peeking through the rectangular window revealed a stairway that led down. She yanked the door open.
“No, Abby Goyer!” Marty’s bare feet slapped against the tile floor as he sprinted to her side. He grabbed her sleeve to keep her from going through. She bit her lip against the pain shooting down her left arm as Marty pulled her around the next corner, back to the elevators. Dr. Kane, Dr. Elliot, and Rolo ran toward them.
Marty stepped in front of her, inching backward.
Abby darted back to the stairwell. “Marty, what are you doing? There’s nowhere else to go.”
“But if we go down, we will be trapped,” Marty said.
“If we don’t, we’ll be caught.”
Marty’s forehead wrinkled. He yelled in frustration and pushed through the double doors. Abby grabbed Baby’s hand and followed.
Martyr’s hope sank with each step that took them lower. Dr. Goyer would be disappointed. He simply asked Martyr to get Abby out, and already Martyr had failed. How would escape be possible from the lower levels? And what would the Jasons do if they saw him? More importantly, what would they do if they saw Abby? Martyr swallowed the queasy thought, pushing aside the haunting image of Dr. Woman’s broken body. He stopped on the landing between levels two and three and ran his hands over his face.
Abby took his hands in hers. “Don’t worry,” she said. “God will protect us.”
She looked frightened despite her brave words.
“We’ll go all the way down to level three,” Martyr said. “We need to be very quiet. The Jasons are sleeping on level two, and we don’t want to wake them.” He squeezed Abby’s hand. “I have a few hiding spots the doctors don’t know about.”
Martyr padded down the steps to level three, wincing as the door squeaked open into the dark hallway. They crept past the classrooms and stopped before the vast darkness of the recreational area. Four dim overhead lamps lit the large space.
Please, let everyone be asleep.
Abby clutched his arm. “Marty. Where is the cafeteria and playground?”
“Upstairs. On level two.”
“There is a tunnel that leads outside. That’s how they brought me in.”
Martyr turned to face Abby. “What is a tunnel?”
“A way out. A long hallway that leads outside.”
“There is no tunnel at Jason Farms.”
Abby dragged Martyr toward the double doors in the center of the wall of reflecting glass. “It’s on the other side of the doors like these, on the level with the cafeteria. Let’s try.”
Martyr hesitated, certain Abby was mistaken. Surely he would have heard of a tunnel if one existed on level two. He handed her a keycard anyway. Abby poised it over the keycard box on one side of the doors. He held his over the other and counted to three, like the guards always did, before he and Abby swiped.
The door clicked.
Abby pulled it open. “We’ll go up one level and I’ll show you the door.”
“But what if someone comes down this way?”
Abby glanced up at the ceiling, where a camera’s lens glinted. “They’re watching us anyway. We may as well try.”
They punched the button on the elevator and waited. The elevator’s gears seemed to shift in slow motion. He prayed the Creator of Everything might allow the elevator to be—
Ding!
Martyr jumped and pushed Abby and Baby behind him. The elevator opened. Empty.
Thank you, Creator.
They rode up one level. When the doors opened, Abby ran out to the left. Martyr jogged after her, pulling Baby alongside, but stopped when he saw the windows. Dark glass stretched the length of the hallway. Not reflecting glass. Windows. Baby pressed his palm to the window and grunted.
Martyr nodded. He and Baby were both thinking the same thing. Why? So the doctors could watch them eat, play, exercise, and study in the classrooms?
“Marty!” Abby said.
He turned to see Abby at the end of the hallway, standing at a door, keycard poised at the top of a keycard box. He furrowed his eyebrows. Where might such a door lead? Perhaps it was another staircase?
Could it really be a way out?
Filled with hope, Martyr immediately held his keycard to the free slot. Abby counted to three and they swiped their cards. A red light flashed on Martyr’s keycard box.
“Again,” said Abby.
They swiped their cards, but again the light blinked red. Over and over they tried, but the door would not respond.
“Different keycards must open different doors,” Abby said. “Whose cards are these?”
“Your father’s,” Martyr said.
“He probably doesn’t have clearance for the se
cret exit.”
Martyr turned, scanning the tinted windows for movement. “We must go back down. We need to hide.”
Martyr jogged across the spongy track, grabbing two towels off the pile by the weight bench before ushering Abby and Baby through a door in the middle of the far wall. The moment the door clicked shut, he tucked the towels against the crack at the foot of the door until he couldn’t see a speck of light. Then he felt along the wall until he found the switch and flipped it on, illuminating a dull bulb that buzzed softly. They would be found eventually—the guards knew about this hiding place—but at least here they would have some time to think.
Abby looked around at the shelves of sports equipment and sat down on a basketball. “They let you play sports?”
“It’s important we remain in good physical health.” Martyr sat cross-legged on the concrete floor. He draped an arm around Baby, who had settled beside him and leaned his head against Martyr’s shoulder. “I missed you, Baby. I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye. I never intended to be gone so long.”
Baby sat up and signed urgently, his face molded into a pout.
Tears tingled behind Martyr’s eyes as he watched Baby’s story and took in the horrible bruises on his friend’s face and neck. Iron Man and Fido had done plenty of damage while he’d been away.
“What’s he saying?” Abby asked.
“He’s telling me he spent two days in the infirmary.” Martyr laughed. “He says he can eat all the food he wants in the infirmary and no one bothers him.”
Baby’s expression sobered. He glanced warily at Abby, signing and grunting with fury.
“He says you are very kind and you smell nice, but he is worried for you because … No. We will keep her safe, you and I. I think it’s part of our purpose.” He tapped his chest, then reached out and tapped Baby’s chest. “Purpose.”
Baby grunted and banged his chest.
“Shh.” Martyr reached out to calm Baby, but the doors swung open. Martyr jumped up, staring into the dark void beyond the storage room door, heart pounding. No one made a sound. Had Martyr not pulled the door closed all the way? Maybe it had simply fallen open?
“Look who came back, Fido.”
Fear doused Martyr like a cold shower. He backed in front of Abby while Baby scrambled behind them both. A white-clad figure stepped out of the darkness and stopped just inside the door.
Iron Man.
[CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO]
ABBY PEEKED AROUND MARTY’S LEG. A massive JD Kane stood in the open doorway, looking like some kind of wrestling superstar. This had to be the guy Marty said hung out with a clone named Fido and terrorized all the Brokens. He was no taller than Marty or JD, but his white T-shirt clung to his he-man chest and arms. It was almost gross.
Something growled in the darkness behind him. Slowly, another clone, also dressed in white, prowled into the storage room. It was beyond weird how they all had the same face. This one stood hunched, bug-eyed, licking his lips, and sniffing. Fido, no doubt. Not only was he emitting a perpetually low growl, saliva dribbled out the corner of his mouth and glinted under the light. Was it cloning gone wrong or psychological abuse that had him behaving this way? If the guards had told him he was a dog all his life, he might believe it.
No wonder the boys who lived on the Farm needed a protector. These guys were messed up.
Iron Man gazed down at Abby with lupine eyes, but his words were for Marty. “Who is this?”
Maybe it was best not to show fear. Abby stood and shook out her hair, mustering up as much confidence as possible. She stepped around Marty and held out her hand to shake. Marty moved with her. She could feel him hovering behind her like some kind of static cling.
“I’m Abby Goyer. Marty has told me so much about you. Never thought I’d actually meet you two, but what do you know? Dr. Kane made an exception to his no visitors allowed policy. It’s my lucky day, I guess.” She laughed, and it came out in a nervous whinny.
Iron Man looked down at her hand, clearly uncertain what he was meant to do with it.
Think, Abby. The Farm doesn’t teach social skills.
Fido sprang forward, snatched her hand with both of his, and brought it to his face. He sniffed it—each breath a raspy growl—then licked it with one long swipe of the tongue.
Abby cringed, holding back the gasp of disgust that wanted to leap from her throat. She forced herself to remain still. Show no fear. Maybe they all just wanted to play, like overgrown children. She spotted a ball on the floor. Maybe Fido knew fetch.
Iron Man clapped twice. Fido dropped Abby’s hand and shrank back as Iron Man stepped toward her, devouring every inch of her with those hungry JD eyes.
Uh oh.
“Where did you find him?” Iron Man’s eyes didn’t leave Abby’s. She kept her gaze fixed on his, determined that looking him in the eye proved she wasn’t scared.
“Outside,” Marty said softly.
“Lies.” Iron Man stepped past Abby, nearly knocking her over with his sandbag arm. He instead used the momentum on Marty. Marty cried out as his head slammed up into one of the shelves, bumping the metal plank off its pegs and over Marty’s left shoulder. Five-pound weights clanged to the floor one at a time. Two landed on Iron Man’s bare foot, but he didn’t seem concerned, focused instead on the massive hand that gripped Marty’s neck.
“He’s not lying.” Abby pulled at Iron Man’s fingers. “My father is Dr. Goyer. He works here.”
Iron Man dropped Marty and swung toward Abby. He looped his arm around Abby’s waist and hefted her against his side like carrying a stack of books. Fido followed obediently. Abby looked back at Marty, who was scrambling to his feet, gasping.
Baby lay in a little ball on the floor.
Iron Man towed her across the dark track. Fido ran alongside, occasionally circling them like an excited animal. They walked down the long hallway to the stairs and paused as Iron Man flung open one of the double doors. Abby turned to see Marty sprinting after them. Baby loped behind like a wounded gazelle. This was starting to look like something from National Geographic. Abby hoped she wasn’t the carnivore’s prey.
She felt off balance, like her top half could swing over at any moment. She clutched Iron Man’s forearm with her right hand and let her left arm hang limp. Her left shoulder was a throbbing numbness she was sadly growing used to. “I can walk, you know.”
If he heard, he didn’t show it. Her leg snagged on the railing as Iron Man whipped around the landing, climbing the stairs to level two. She winced and shook off the sting. At least her weight appeared to be slowing the behemoth clone down; by the time he pushed the doors open on level two, Marty had caught up.
“Please.” Marty’s voice was an urgent whisper. “We must keep her from the guards. Dr. Kane is—”
Iron Man spun around in the dark hallway, swinging Abby’s head out like a pendulum. Her left arm slapped the wall, sending a violent tremor through her shoulder.
“No one is on guard,” Iron Man said. “They all left.”
Because the guards had been out chasing her. So why hadn’t the guards come down after them yet? A quick scan of the hallway ceiling brought a small, gray camera into view. It pointed toward a door a few steps away. Perhaps the guards were watching, waiting to see what their massive clone and his wannabe dog were going to do? Her chest constricted as her breath grew ragged. This was her life, not reality TV. She had to get away.
Marty met her eyes, his face a mask of concentration.
Abby sucked in as deep a breath as possible. Iron Man’s grip was cutting off the circulation to her legs, making it impossible to run even if she could overpower the guy.
Fido padded ahead and burst through the third door on the left, holding it open. Abby’s boots scraped the doorframe as Iron Man carried her inside. Marty followed.
Someone turned on the lights. Abby found herself in a large room filled with bunk beds, four on each side wall. An open, tiled area with showerheads, urinals, and toi
lets filled the back. No dressers, no TV, no personal items of any kind, no bathroom stalls.
Over a dozen half-dressed Jasons squirmed to life on the beds. Some sat up, some rolled over, and all of them squinted in the halogen lights.
Abby looked from face to face, taking in glimpses of JD Kane from junior high on up.
Unreal.
Iron Man finally put her down. She massaged her waist, certain he’d left a welt.
A skinny boy wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants staggered out of his bed. “What’s wrong?”
Abby jumped as a hairy bare leg swung past her ear.
“Who is he?”
“What is he?”
“She,” said Marty. “Women are she.”
“Martyr is back.”
“Martyr!”
The skinny boy in the sweatpants sidled up to Marty and clapped him on the back. “Where did you find the she?”
Abby wrinkled her nose as a chubby Jason, wearing nothing but a pair of tighty whities, stalked toward her. She averted her eyes from the horror and shrank back against Marty as the Jasons closed in.
Her National Geographic episode had turned sci-fi. Instead of Gorillas in the Mist, she was now living out some kind of Planet of the Apes. Make that Planet of the JD Kanes. The clones were intelligent, but—because of her—they were acting like primates: staring and grunting at each other.
“Ow!” She scowled at a shorter Jason, who’d plucked out a few strands of her hair.
Another boy stroked her cashmere sweater. A purple sweater. She winced, remembering Marty’s fascination with bright colors. Another Jason mauled the side of her face with his clammy hand.
Pawing at her like animals.
No. They weren’t animals. They were people. Children. Who had been psychologically abused.
And not loved.
Regardless, Abby thought back to the gorilla show she’d seen on the Discovery channel a few weeks back. Don’t show fear. That had been the main thing. Marty took her right hand in his and pulled her close, and his touch filled her with warmth. A Jason grabbed her other hand and rubbed it, frowning at her painted fingernails and purity ring.
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