by Susan Adrian
And if I never get clear of this? I told Dedushka I’d go to Roswell, but I don’t know how I can get away from this guy. What if he really sells me to someone else?
They’ll be safe anyway. Maybe Dad won’t be, after what I had to do. I hate that. But I saved Mom and Myka, and Dedushka knows I’m still alive. I’m better than I was a few minutes ago.
Next I have to worry about Rachel.
I realize I’m not trembling anymore. The jitters, the physical fear of being trapped, is gone. It vanished when I saw Rachel threatened, realized we’re in this together. I can’t afford to have jitters. It’s not just me anymore.
* * *
I don’t know how long we’re on the plane after that. A few hours, maybe? He gives us some food, water. Time stretches like it did in the cell, like it did when I was handcuffed, waiting for Liesel.
Hallucinations of Liesel, then Eric, come to visit. I don’t know why my brain keeps choosing them over everyone I love, but there they are, both of them raging in their own ways that I’m here with Smith instead of with them. That this is why I should be in custody in the first place. That I’m a traitor to my country because I escaped them and let this happen.
I wish I could punch them, swipe them. Make them go away. But I can’t move.
It’s a perverse relief when Smith saunters down the aisle and takes his seat. At least something will happen, maybe something I can use. Though Rachel shrinks back in her seat at the sight of him.
I have to get her out of this.
Smith ignores her, eyes bright on me. He watches me for a few minutes, silent. Then he grins. Like a crocodile.
“You have just made me a very wealthy man, Mr. Lukin.” He waves at the luxurious jet. “Well. Wealthier.”
“Happy to help.”
He laughs. “I’m sure.” He’s definitely in a different mood. Giddy. “I’m almost sorry to have you go. I’m quite sure you would prove useful to me right here. And you’re such a joy to have around.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, casual.
“You? You’re going night-night again. Next time you wake up you’ll be in the care of your new owner.” He gestures to one of the goons, who pulls a case out from under the seat. Smith snaps it open, shows it to me. A needle, ready to go.
The panic slides back, and I feel sick. No. Not again. “I’m not going anywhere without Rachel.”
“Yes,” she cries. “Send me too. He—needs me to work now. I help him.”
He glances at her, curious. “That is patently false. But a fine lie, on short notice. And you’re going, but not for that reason. I recommended that the new owner take you too, as … incentive for Mr. Lukin to work his best. It was agreed.”
I try to launch myself at him again. I can’t get far out of the seat, but I swing my arms up, try to clock him with the handcuffs.
He signals with one finger, and one of the guys grabs me, holds me down while the other one plunges the needle into my arm.
I look at Rachel, focus hard. Maybe I can be stronger than the drugs. Maybe I can hold out this time, find a way.…
Rachel’s face, tearstained, her jaw set, is the last thing I see.
39
“Dad” by Goldfinger
When I come to this time it takes a couple disorienting seconds to realize I’m blindfolded, my hands still cuffed. Though there’s something about the air that gives me a bad feeling. It’s heavy, motionless. Underground air.
I want to cry. If I’m stuck again, back at square one …
No. I’ve learned a lot since then. I sit up straight, rattle the cuffs. “Hello?”
The door opens, shuts. Someone is in here with me. I hear the breathing, soft. I have the wild thought that it’s a predator—a wolf, or a mountain lion—before my brain kicks in and reminds me it’s worse than that. It’s probably my owner.
There’s rustling at my cuffs, a click, and the weight is lifted off. I rub my hands over my free wrists, instinctive. Then fingers come up to my blindfold, lift it up. I blink in the light of a white, bare room. Into eyes that are just like mine.
“Dad?” I whisper it, as if saying it aloud will break him. He seems real, but he might just be a hallucination, one my brain cobbled together.
“Jake,” he says, in his round, familiar voice. He’s real. He clasps my hands, looks into my face sadly. “What have you done?”
Right. All of this, everything, is my fault because of the party, because I did what he told me not to. Wait, no. Liesel drugged me at the party. I think I’ve done all right, considering.
But I don’t argue. “Is Rachel okay? Why am I here?”
He lets go, lets his hands dangle between his knees. Like he always did. I can’t believe he’s here, alive, in front of me. At last.
“She’s fine. Sleeping. As to why you’re here—” He sits back in the white plastic chair, studies me. “Do you know where ‘here’ is?”
“An underground base. I don’t know why, but—I saw you trying to make someone tunnel.”
“Ah.” He looks a lot older in the two and a half years since I’ve seen him, the lines etched in his face. “You tunneled to me. Yes. And you told Gareth Smith where you found me?”
“He threatened Rachel.”
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. It’s longer now than he ever had it, the first time he hasn’t been in the military. It probably makes him look more like me.
“I understand. Well, he’s smart enough to know that I’d be the highest bidder for you, Jake. But that man won’t stop there. If I’m right, he’s already sold the information about where I am, where you are, to someone else. Maybe Liesel—but that won’t be a problem. It’s the others we have to worry about. We have to get out of here, soon.”
Crap. I’m still not safe, even here. And I’ve brought them to Dad too. None of this is going how I thought it would. Where’s the relief? The happy reunion? It feels … wrong.
“How do you know about Liesel?” I ask.
He shakes his head, sharp. “Not now.”
I’m so tired of hearing that. “What is this place, Dad? Why are you in an underground base trying to get people to tunnel?”
He stands, his hands in his pockets, and turns away. I can’t see his face. “This is my base.” It’s so quiet I strain to hear it. “My project.”
“Making tunnels like me?” My eyes fill, and I remember the memorial marker again, huddling with Myka, Mom, and Dedushka. My breathing seems amplified. I hear it loud in my ears. “You left on purpose? You pretended to die, left us alone, to come here and try to make tunnels?”
He turns. “It’s not that simple. You don’t understand how critical this project is, could be, to national security…” He trails off. “But you do understand. They found you.”
I feel my face crumple. “Four months. Underground, being their puppet.”
He closes his eyes and just stands there for a long moment, like a statue. “I tried so hard to keep you out of it.”
I stand too, so we’re face-to-face. We’re the same height now. “But you didn’t. And you’re trying to make more like me? Don’t you think one person with this curse is enough?”
“Curse?” His voice is shocked. “Jake. It’s a gift. A gift I would do anything for.”
I take a step closer. Curl my hands into fists. I can’t believe how much my chest aches right now, like it might cave in on itself. “How much did you know? About me? About what they were doing to me?”
There’s a long pause. Another head shake. “Nothing, I swear. Not until you escaped, and then the general told me. I was very upset. But I think—he realized you might come to me.”
The general. That’s who I recognized in the first tunnel to Dad. The general from that first tunnel in Dad’s office.
He puts his hands on my shoulders. “He’ll pull Liesel off now. Now that you’re here, we’re together. We’ll work together. We’ll have to be underground—not here, but there are other bases—”
I pul
l back sharply, and his hands fall. I can’t believe he’d even say that.
“I’m not tunneling for you. Or anyone. I’m not staying underground anymore.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Jake. There isn’t a choice. Now that they know, everyone knows. Gareth Smith will try to sell you to foreign governments, terrorists. Maybe he already has. I’m sorry, but you can’t be up there anymore. Neither of us can.”
The ache twists deeper, sharper. Ever since I knew he was alive, all I wanted was to find him. Save him. Reunite our family. And he wants this?
“I’d rather take my chances out there,” I say violently.
He doesn’t say he won’t let me, that I’m a prisoner, a tool, to him too. My own father. But it’s there in the look he gives me.
“Take me to Rachel,” I say. “I need to make sure she’s all right.”
“And that.” He thrusts his hands in his pockets again, like he’s making fists too. “I can’t believe you brought a civilian—”
“I’m a civilian. I’m staying a civilian.”
We stare at each other, eye to eye.
“Very well,” he says. “You can go see the girl—”
“Rachel.”
“Rachel,” he repeats. “And then we need to evacuate with everyone else. In the chopper we can discuss what to do.”
In the chopper?
Those words seal it for me. He’s just like them. Like Liesel and Eric and Ana and the rest. Now that I’m exposed, in his hands, there will be no discussion. He already has it planned out, and as soon as I set foot in that chopper my fate’s decided. On to another bunker. Forced to tunnel over and over for their purposes. Worse, he’ll probably use me to try to make more like me. Make himself like me. And then I can really never be free; no one can. He—they—probably want Dedushka too.
Rachel and I have to get out of here before any of that happens.
He takes me to a barracks-type room a few doors down, all set up with a twin bed and a dresser and all. There’s a lock on the door—from the outside. The overhead fluorescents are off, but there’s a desk lamp on the nightstand, glowing yellow. Rachel’s sprawled out on the bed, asleep.
As soon as I’m through the door I turn, shut it in his face.
I hope they don’t lock us in. But it wouldn’t be for too long anyway if we’re evacuating.
“Rachel,” I whisper. She looks so peaceful, I hate to wake her. But we may not have this chance again. Still I stand there for a second, looking. Her hair spilling across her neck, her eyelashes dark against her cheeks. The tiny smudge where the knife cut her.
I sit on the edge of the bed, touch her arm. “Rachel. Wake up.”
She bolts upright, startling us both. She stares at me in confusion.
“It’s okay. It’s me. You’re all right.” I touch her arm again, to soothe her.
She surprises me by throwing her arms around me, hugging tightly.
“You’re okay,” she murmurs, her mouth against my neck. “I didn’t know.”
I hug back, with all my attention, for a minute. Then I make myself pull away.
“We have to get out of here,” I whisper, heads close. “It’s my dad—but he’s one of them. They’re going to try to put us on a helicopter. But we can’t get on. If we do, that’s it. We’re done.”
She thinks for a minute. “Distraction?” She rubs her fingers over my chin, rough with stubble. “You know I can act.”
“Good call. Can you run?”
She leans her forehead against mine, like we were before. “First place, four hundred meters.”
I thread my hands in her hair. It’s come out from the braid, thick and wavy. “Distract, then run,” I whisper. “It’s all we’ve got.”
The door opens. “We don’t have time for that,” Dad says, bland. “It’s time to go.”
We stay together a moment longer, share one more meaningful look. Then I kiss her on the cheek, on that tiny scratch, and we go.
40
“Run” by Kill It Kid
Dad lets us use the bathrooms, and then we follow him down a maze of hallways that look remarkably like the ones in Montauk. Enough to give me shivers. Rachel notices, takes my hand. She squeezes it, then winks up at me.
Smart. We can signal each other that way, when it’s time to run.
Dad turns to check on us, glances at our linked hands. His face stays blank. But he drops back, walking next to us instead of in front. There’s just enough room in the hallway. He has to make room whenever other people—all scurrying around preparing for evacuation—pass by. A few glance at us curiously. I wonder how much I do look like him, now.
“Jake,” he says quietly. He stops, faces me square. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. You know that, right?”
Rachel’s finger traces my thumb gently. Giving me enough support to ask my questions.
“How do you know Liesel, Dad? And … Gareth Smith?”
He flinches. Looks over his shoulder. Then he lowers his voice. “We all worked together. A joint project. Pentagon, DARPA, CIA, a couple other agencies. Liesel and Gareth were junior scientists working with me. Exploring paranormal abilities, their use in intelligence gathering. Counterintelligence. Dr. Miller continued my work, after I … left.”
“And Smith became a … what? A black-market dealer in people?”
He leans in. “We cannot allow him anywhere near you again, Jake. Liesel will stop when the general tells her to. He won’t. He scents blood in the water—more money—and he won’t let it go, if he can get to you.” He starts walking again, and we have no choice but to move with him. “We’ll be exposed, for a little while. But once we’re in a new base, we should be all right. You should be safe.”
I don’t answer that. I squeeze Rachel’s hand, and she squeezes back. If all goes well, we’ll have to brave the risk of Smith on our own. Dedushka will help. I’ll tunnel to him as soon as we’re clear of Dad.
Sounds simple enough when I say it to myself.
We go up one set of stairs, then another. Then down a hall and up five more flights.
Dad stops in front of stairs below a heavy metal door, says into a radio that we’re ready. He waits for an all-clear. Then he climbs the stairs, pushes it up and open. We follow, first Rachel, then me.
I’m outside again.
It’s night, which I didn’t expect for some reason. I’ve lost so much time lately I had no idea. But it’s the desert in July. It’s probably better for all these people to travel at night. It’s a lucky break for us too.
Dad looks back, then leads us across a long stretch of hard-packed dirt. The chopper is on a pad about half a mile away, the engines already running, deafening. There isn’t anyone else around. But I scan the landscape, and my heart sinks. I don’t see how we can make it. It’s nothing but flat scrub in every direction, not even a road. There’s nowhere to hide. Yeah, it’s dark, but we’d have to get a fair distance away before that would help. Especially with their chopper. Dad could call people on his radio and be after us in seconds.
Still, we have to try. I stop about halfway to the chopper. Dad stops too, eyebrows up, already suspicious. Time for distraction. I squeeze Rachel’s hand.
She swings a small bottle out of her pocket with the other hand, and sprays something right into Dad’s eyes, then kicks away his radio, off into the darkness.
He screams and falls to his knees, clawing at his face. I stand there for a second, totally deer-in-the-headlights. That’s Dad. She just hurt Dad, so we could escape from him.
“Come on!” Rachel cries.
I force myself to turn away, and we run.
* * *
We trot evenly through the dark. It’s only a half moon tonight, but there’s a ridiculous number of stars, so it’s easy enough to see, to avoid holes. It’s cool, though I know it won’t be once the sun comes up.
We’re over a mile away, and no sign of anyone after us yet. Or anything around us. But I thought I saw a light, so
we’re heading that direction. We need to put some distance behind us and then I can tunnel to Dedushka, figure out how to meet up with him.
I glance at Rachel, jogging next to me. “What was that? That you shot at him?”
“Drain cleaner,” she pants. “It was under the sink in the bathroom.” She stops for a second, hands on her knees. “He’ll be okay. You just flush it out, and it’ll be fine. I thought maybe distraction wouldn’t be enough.”
I picture Dad writhing on the ground, take a deep breath. “It was perfect. Ruthless, but perfect. We wouldn’t have gotten away without it.”
She smiles small, and we keep running.
I know about ruthless, after all. She just learned quicker. What would it have been like if she’d been with me the whole time?
“Your mom must be worried about you,” I say. “They might have Amber alerts out and everything.”
She makes a face. “Probably not. Mom is—strange. She’ll probably tell them I ran away.” She laughs. “Wait, I guess I did.”
The light’s getting closer. I see the shape of an oil well. It’s not working, but there’s a single light shining from a trailer on the lot. I wonder what they’re up to.
It doesn’t matter to us. What matters is there’s an oldish gray truck parked near the trailer, right there for the taking. I point at it, and Rachel nods. She was with Dedushka when he stole a car.
It’s too easy. I slip in, mess with the wires, and start it up, not as fast as Dedushka but fast enough. A guy runs out of the trailer after us, but by that time we’re on the road. It turns into a main road, curves around northwest. Eventually there’s a sign that confirms what I was hoping. We’re heading toward Roswell.
* * *
We stop near a place called Artesia, in the fields on the outside of town. It’s still dark, so nobody’s around yet. Rachel switches behind the wheel—in case we have to leave in a hurry—and I sit in the passenger seat, focus. Tunnel out loud.
Dedushka. I reach toward him, toward all I know about him. That smell of tobacco and fish, his laugh when he tells old Russian jokes. His hands, calloused from fishing, from working.