He starts to slip out of my grip, so that all I have left to hold is his belt. He dangles pathetically. I slide down the rope, feeling the skin on my hand burn away and my arms tear out of their sockets as Hayden’s weight overcomes me.
As the pod fires up its engine and pulls away from the ship, the rope tightens until it snaps. With a yell of alarm, we swing on a rope that’s suddenly attached to thin air, and crash down onto the roof of the pod. As I lie winded and gasping, I realize we’re still alive. I start to laugh a strange, forced laugh. I don’t know where it’s coming from.
“What’s funny?” Trinity asks as she rolls me over and loosens my grip on Hayden. He lies curled up in a ball, groaning.
“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t know. It’s just… We’re never going to get out of this alive.”
“And that’s funny?” Trinity asks.
There’s a jolt as the pod picks up speed and bounces over the waves, and we’re forced to cling on for dear life. Spray stings my eyes painfully as we whizz toward the shore.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Skylier
“Abaven? Are you there?” Gavyn repeats into his watch urgently. Anxiety rises up in me. What’s happened to Abaven?
“I’m here, I’m fine,” comes Abaven’s distant crackle eventually. “A bit of trouble here, but nothing I can’t handle. Opening the door.”
“Understood,” says Gavyn briskly, and beckons us out.
I’m relieved as the door slides shut on the chaos in the lab where we found Father. Outside, in the corridor, the noise is so much worse. The piercing whine of an alarm fills the space, and we can hear shouts and thundering boots.
“Now!” cries Gavyn, and we dash across the corridor, turning a corner and sprinting a few hundred yards. I hold my father’s arm. He feels light, like there’s nothing left of him. He stumbles, and I catch him.
“It’s OK,” he wheezes, but I’m not convinced.
“We’re here,” says Gavyn into his watch, and a door opens.
We slip into the new lab as the sound of boots gets closer. As the door shuts behind us, the sounds from the corridor are cut off. We all stand panting for a moment. We’re in some kind of anteroom outside the Chancellor’s lab. Clinical equipment blips, but there’s no one here. They must all be out investigating the alarms. Gavyn has his gun out anyway. There’s a metal door up ahead of us, with a control pad to the side.
“One more door, Abaven,” Gavyn whispers into his watch. “Is everything OK over there?”
There’s no reply from the watch, but after a few seconds there’s a click from the metal door. Gavyn creeps forward and pushes it open hesitantly.
What’s going on with Abaven? I say to Rian.
He’ll be OK, Rian responds. He knows what he’s doing.
Even so, I can’t help but be worried for him. He’s not indestructible. I look at my father, and still can’t believe he’s here with us. He’s pale and looks like he’s about to collapse, nothing like the man that stepped on the shuttle in Cueva. I wish I could speak to him telepathically like I can with Rian. There’s no time to think about any of this, though, because we’re finally here at the lab where they’re holding our mother and Callie.
“Father,” I whisper, “don’t be alarmed. The Chancellor has been holding mother and Callie prisoner too, but we’re here to rescue them now.”
His eyes widen. Gavyn puts his finger to his lips as he pokes his head around the door. We crowd behind him, and I realize how nervous I am about what we’re going to find here. It’s my fault they’ve been imprisoned, after all.
I can’t bear to look, I think to Rian. What if they’re like father? What if they’re worse?
We can’t think about that sort of thing right now, Rian replies. We have to get in and rescue them. That’s the biggest challenge. We can worry about all that later.
Gavyn is first in the room, holding his gun ready. We hold our breath. He scouts the scene, then beckons. It must be safe. We cross into the room, ready to see the banks of emaciated bodies like in the last lab.
“The doctors aren’t here,” he whispers to us. “They must all be trying to contain the patients we let loose in the other lab. But it won’t take them long to come back here.”
We nod. I scan about the room, looking for mother and Callie. There aren’t many beds in here. Only about six.
“We won’t turn off the machines this time, just wake them gently.”
I search the faces of the patients, but from where I stand I can already see they’re not there. There must be some mistake. This is the Chancellor’s private lab. This is where Abaven and Gavyn both said they were being kept. Gavyn doesn’t know what they look like, I realize. He thinks they’re here.
“I’ll keep a guard by the door, you two go and free them. The old man can stay with me,” says Gavyn. Rian nods.
Rian, they’re not here, I say, feeling the familiar panic rise in my chest.
He gives me a quizzical look and runs to the beds. He searches each face, the patients lying prone and unresponsive. All of the bodies in here are female, but as I run over to them too, hoping I’ve been mistaken, it’s obvious none of these people are our family. My father, not content with being made to wait by the door, also examines the patients.
“There not here,” my father croaks to Gavyn. “My wife isn’t here.”
Gayvn looks alarmed.
“They must be,” he says. “The intelligence said… I heard from the Chancellor myself.”
“He must have lied,” says Rian, scanning round the room like there might be another lab hidden there somewhere. But there isn’t. There’s nothing but metal equipment arranged tidily along one wall, a bank of computers, and the beds. The only door is the one we came through.
Gavyn’s face changes from tense to horrified as he realizes that something has gone terribly wrong.
“If they’re not here, where else would they be?” I demand, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
I run over to the bed where my sister should be. There’s a young girl there, but it’s not her. It’s like she was put there to deliberately let us know we’ll never free them. It’s as if they knew our plan and let us get this far without any trouble, only to laugh in our faces.
“Abaven,” I say. “What’s happening? Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” says Gavyn. He lifts his watch, still stunned. “Abaven, do you read?”
There’s no response. He tries again. We wait, but Abaven doesn’t answer.
“…trap,” comes a distant voice from the watch. It’s Abaven. We glance at each other.
“Did he just say ‘trap’?” I ask.
“Adohnes, we’ve been watching you for a while,” comes a sinister voice through the watch. Gavyn’s face is alarmed. He puts his finger to his lips.
Abaven must be keeping the line open to warn us, thinks Rian.
“This is an interesting setup you have here,” the voice continues. “The Chancellor will be fascinated.”
“Oh, it’s you,” comes Abaven’s response.
“We know what you’re doing here,” says the voice. “You can’t succeed. Your people are already dead.”
“We should go,” mutters Gavyn, beckoning us toward the door.
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” says Abaven.
“What is it you’re calling yourself down there in Cavern?” sneers the voice. “Abaven? And you thought no one would find out about your double life? I recognized you as soon as I saw you.” My memory shoots back to that soldier in the Cavern while Abaven was giving his speech. I recall the look of recognition and understanding on his face.
“Are you here to gloat or are you actually going to do something?” Abaven asks.
“Don’t get smug,” replies the voice. “Hey, what’s that red light?” There’s a thunk, and the line goes dead.
“We’ve been found out,” says Gavyn.
“And we don’t know where mother and Callie reall
y are,” Rian moans.
“Don’t talk like that. You found me, didn’t you?” my father pants. He’s even paler than earlier. “Come on, the place is in chaos. We still have a chance.”
“He’s right,” says Gavyn. “The alarms are sounding, and the guards don’t know where we are. We can keep looking if we’re careful. There wasn’t anyone in here, for a start.”
“But don’t you find that a bit strange?” I ask. “The actual lab we thought my family was being kept in, and there’s not a single doctor or guard here?”
“Abaven said trap,” Rian says uneasily.
“Then they’ll be here any second,” says Gavyn. “There’s only one way in, so maybe there’s a chance to defend ourselves.”
“The empty bed,” I say, running toward the only one that doesn’t have a patient. “We can push it in front of the door. It’ll hold them up.”
Rian joins me and together we drag it toward the door. Then I run back to the equipment table to check if there’s anything at all that can be used as a weapon.
“What’s this?” I ask, picking up a syringe and bottle of blue liquid.
Gavyn glances at the bottle I’m holding up and shrugs. He stands a few feet from the door, pointing his gun, ready to fire the moment it slides open. I fill the syringe and pass it to Rian. I’m filling another when we hear the unmistakable sound of the outer door opening.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Skylier
“Skylier, get by the door. If you stand there you’ll be in range of their guns,” says Gavyn urgently.
I don’t hesitate. I run to the door, helping father limp out of the way. He’s looking bad, but I can’t do anything about it now. A second later the door slides open and Gavyn fires immediately. He’s hit someone, I think, but it’s hard to tell because gunfire responds.
Three guards are in the doorway, momentarily distracted by the bed blocking their way. It’s only a split second before they begin pushing it, but I lunge forward and stab one of them in the arm with my syringe. I can see Rian doing the same, but the gunfire blazes now and we’re totally outnumbered.
There must be more guards behind the three at the front, because while they’re occupied pushing the bed, the gunfire keeps coming. Two guards are already lying dead or unconscious on the floor, but now the bed is out of the way and they pile in.
Everything is chaos. I think I see Rian knocking a guard out with a chair, and was that Gavyn hit by one of the guards' bullets? But he’s still firing.
I run at the last guard who comes through the door, yelling and biting. He’s taken by surprise and I knock him flat.
His gun flies out of his hand and I struggle to my feet before he does. He starts getting up, but I stamp on his arm and reach for the gun. He lets out a squeal of pain but grabs my ankle and I crash back down again.
Terrified, I kick and kick out at him, but he’s strong and much bigger than me. He pins me down and leans over for the gun.
I realize I still have the syringe in my hand. There’s not much blue liquid left in it, but I stab him all the same.
He roars and misses the handle of the gun, which was inches from his hand. He grabs my hair and throws me aside.
Rian, help! I cry out in my mind, but I can’t sense him. He must be deep in concentration, fighting. I look up and scan around frantically but can’t see him. There are people lying all over the place, some shot, some looking unconscious. Gavyn is wrestling with one of the guards across the bed near the door. My guard is holding his gun again, and grins as he points it at me. He points it straight at my head and I know I only have a second left to live. I close my eyes and hope it will be over soon.
The guard gives a weird choking noise and my eyes snap open again. His gun arm drops limp and his eyes bulge. He tries to lift it, pathetically squeezing at the trigger, but nothing happens. I leap up and dive at him. It must be the liquid in the syringe. Whatever was in it is paralyzing him. He grabs the gun with his left hand, but it’s seizing up too. I throw myself against his lower legs, something we learned to do playing with the bigger kids in Cueva. If you’re small, all you can do is upset someone’s balance. There’s no other way to bring them down if you can’t match their strength. The guard convulses and falls still, gun held weakly in his limp hand. I pry it open. He’s still conscious, breathing lightly and staring at me.
“Skylier! Skylier!” Someone’s been shouting at me, but I’ve only just noticed. “Get his gun! Watch out!”
With what feels like supernatural instinct, I roll out of the way as a chair flies at my head. I reach forward, grab the guard’s gun, and fire it indiscriminately. I can’t think and I can’t look. I just fire and fire.
I’m out of bullets, and there’s no one left to shoot. There are six guards lying on the floor, and Rian is leaning against a table clutching his leg and groaning. One of the guards shot him. One of the patients is awake and is screaming.
“Help your father, we’re getting out of here,” Gavyn orders. He’s holding a terrified-looking doctor, his gun rammed against the man's spine.
I do as he says, and run to my father, who’s crouched in the corner. He hardly has any strength left in him as I lift him and help him toward the door.
“Are you OK?” I ask, concerned.
“I’ll be fine,” he replies through gritted teeth.
“Were you injured?”
“No, I’m OK,” says my father.
Rian’s limping really badly too, but we follow Gavyn toward the door. He pushes the doctor in front of him, checking for more guards as we dash into the anteroom.
“OK, it’s safe, no more guards,” says Gavyn. “You did well back there.” We nod, and Gavyn turns to the doctor. “Where are they holding Skylier’s family?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says the doctor tensely.
“Do you think I’m playing games?” Gavyn snarls, and punches him in the gut. “You were part of this trap. You know where they are.” He pauses. “Well, if you don’t know, I suppose we don’t have any more need of you.” He lifts the gun.
“Wait!” cries the doctor. “They’re in the test lab.”
“What’s the test lab?” I cry in alarm.
“Take us there,” snarls Gavyn.
“You don’t want to—” the doctor tries to say.
“Now,” Gavyn says menacingly, and presses the gun against the doctor’s chest.
Gavyn forces the doctor to use his clearance to open the door and lead us into the corridor. There are more guards out here. I tense up. This isn’t going to work. A guard lifts his gun and aims it at Gavyn.
“Let us through or the doctor is dead,” says Gavyn.
For a second I think the guard is going to shoot anyway.
“I’m Medellin!” the doctor yells in panic, seeing it too. Recognition passes across the guard’s face. Maybe this doctor is important then.
“Get into that lab,” barks Gavyn. “And if you follow us, Medellin dies immediately.”
The guard nods, and we run past them. I hold my father up again. Rian is limping badly on the other side of me.
Are you OK? I ask him urgently.
I got shot in the leg, he replies. But we can’t afford to stop. We’re nearly there.
Rian!
It’s OK, I’m running on adrenaline. Keep an eye on father, though.
As that thought comes into my mind from him, I feel father collapse and thud to the ground.
“Father!” I yell. Gavyn stops running and turns.
“Help him up! Quick! They’re not going to just let us go,” he says urgently.
I kneel beside father, who is white as a sheet. His eyelids flutter. “Father, can you get up?” I ask.
He shakes his head slowly. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“What was that? Say that again.” I lean forward to catch it. Rian’s at my side as well.
“I… I can’t breathe…” he says faintly. “Most of my organs are fake,” he
says hoarsely. “They’ve harvested them all. They’re not meant to keep going outside of the lab…”
“Father!” I gasp as his eyes close.
Rian leans forward and feels his pulse.
“His heart’s still beating,” he says, and turns to the doctor. “You have to help him.” Then he pauses and frowns at me.
Skylier, use your healing powers. He’s nearly gone.
My healing powers. Can I? How do I? Gavyn looks from my father to the doctor to me.
“Skylier, you’ve got your gun, haven’t you?” he asks. I nod.
“Yes, but I can help here,” I start saying.
“Good. We’ll stay here and help your father. I’d come with you, but Rian’s injured too. I can’t leave him alone with the doctor. Do you understand?”
“But—” I reply.
“It has to be you now,” he says. “There’s no time to discuss it.”
He doesn’t know about my healing powers, that I can save my father. I’m about to blurt all this out, but then I realize what could happen if I demonstrate them in front of the doctor and the Purenet cameras. I need to help my father, but I can’t. I feel powerless. And this is the only opportunity to get Callie and mother out of the labs.
“How far to the test lab?” Gavyn barks at the doctor, pointing his gun.
“Round the next bend. Big glass window,” says the doctor, gulping as the gun rests right against his temple.
I leap up.
“You’ll be OK?” Gavyn asks. He looks worried. I nod, feeling terrified.
“We’ve come too far to stop now. I have to get Callie and mother out of there.”
Gavyn nods, and I turn and run.
Be careful! I’ll keep my mind open. If there’s any trouble, call out for me, says Rian, and I can tell he’s scared stiff of what’s going to happen.
I fly down the corridor, blood pounding in my ears. There aren’t any more guards, and soon I can see the door the doctor meant: a large metal door labeled “Test Lab” with a round glass window. I skid to a halt, check either side to be sure no one’s coming, and then realize how stupid we’ve all been. Without the doctor, I have no clearance to open any doors. My heart sinks into my shoes. This was never going to work. I should have sent Gavyn to rescue Callie and mother with the doctor. But I wanted all the glory. No, I didn’t want glory. I felt responsible. I needed to do it myself. But now I’ve missed my opportunity to heal father and I can’t get into the lab, either. I feel despair start to wash over me. I’m about to call to Rian in my head, but the Test Lab door slides open.
Captured Memories (The Sanction Series Book 4) Page 10