My hand shook as I brought my eyes up to meet his gaze. His bright gray eyes were burning with hope, pleading with me.
“All right,” I sighed. “Tell me how.”
Amory cleaned the kitchen table, prepped all the supplies we would need, and tested the sharpness of every available knife we had until he found the best one.
Before sterilizing it, he showed me the proper technique to make an incision. My hand shook a little, but he pretended not to notice. I knew he did not want to shake my confidence.
“If it’s like the last one, they inserted it directly in the center. This one won’t be as deep as yours was because they would hit the skull.”
I nodded, feeling the bile rise up in my throat.
“Just stick the tweezers in and feel for something small and solid.”
I followed him into the bathroom. He was rummaging in the cabinet. “Can you shave the hair that’s covering the scar?”
I nodded, and he handed me a disposable razor.
Amory grinned. “I’m not picky, but a smallish incision would be nice.”
Running the tap, I splashed some warm water on the back of his head and positioned the razor at the bottom of his hairline. I pulled it down, and pieces of his dark hair fell away. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed how short his hair was at the bottom, as though it had just grown over the scar. It looked a little funny, but now I could see the telltale scar where the PMC had inserted his CID. It was no wider than a quarter of an inch across, and it was perfect, mechanical.
Amory ran a hand along the back of his neck, jerking his head to try to see his reflection in the mirror. “Those bastards,” he breathed.
We returned to the kitchen, and he produced a bottle of clear liquid from over the sink.
“We have real antiseptic,” I said, confused when he handed it to me.
“It’s for you.”
I threw him a dubious look before putting the bottle to my lips. The smell of alcohol stung my nostrils, but I tipped my head back and took a swig. The fire shot down my throat, warming my insides.
Without warning, Amory pulled me against him and brushed my lips with his. The kiss was warm and inviting, but the moment felt all wrong. I couldn’t shake the image of him stabbing the carriers with that possessed look in his eyes. I pulled back.
His face was flushed, and his eyes were hungry.
“I need to focus,” I said, managing a weak grin.
Lying down on the kitchen table, Amory watched me pull my hair back into a ponytail and wash my hands. I took my time swabbing the back of his neck with rubbing alcohol, waiting for my heart rate to return to normal. My eyes took a final quick inventory of everything I would need, and I picked up the knife.
Hefting the blade in my hand, I drew an imaginary line over his scar exactly where I would make the incision. I only hesitated for a moment. I remembered Amory writhing on the ground in pain, and the decision solidified in my brain.
I bent over the tender skin of Amory’s neck and placed the tip of the blade against flesh. In one smooth motion, I pressed down and drew straight across his scar. A perfect line of red blossomed at the incision, but Amory did not flinch or make a sound. I quickly traded the knife for the tweezers, pressing the prongs together as I slipped them between the folds of skin.
Blood pooled over his neck, and I felt my breath catch in my chest. There was no going back. I moved the tweezers, releasing more blood, but I couldn’t feel anything. I pushed them deeper, wincing before Amory sucked in a burst of air through his teeth.
My throat constricted. Where was it? Trying to make infinitesimal movements, I searched with the tweezers. I heard Amory’s great intake of breath again, and my heart rate increased. I hated causing him pain.
More blood trickled down his neck, but I forced myself to refocus. Again, I remembered him writhing on the floor and retching in pain. I could end that.
Finally, I felt the tip of the tweezers graze something solid. It was so hard it could have been bone, but it wasn’t. Clumsily, I found the other end of the CID and gripped it. Slowly, carefully, I pulled.
Amory yelled in pain, and I almost dropped the CID in panic. I pulled again, but it was stuck. Amory whimpered, trying to stifle his cry, and I blinked back tears that were threatening to drop.
Just get it out! I thought desperately. I pulled again, and Amory screamed. I felt the CID disconnect with something — perhaps a bit of flesh or bone, and I coaxed it out of the incision.
The CID was covered in blood, barely recognizable. I laid it on the table and returned my attention to the blood gushing from Amory’s incision. I pressed a towel to the cut and applied pressure. Amory was breathing heavily, and his skin was damp with sweat.
“What do I do now?” I whispered.
“Is it out?” he breathed.
“It’s out.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing. Hopefully it won’t need stitches.”
My stomach contracted in revulsion at the idea of suturing his skin back together. I held the towel in place as I waited for our breathing to return to normal. The cut wasn’t bleeding as profusely as Amory’s head wound during the riots, so I felt comfortable cleaning the incision and bandaging it. When I had finished, he sat up and grabbed the bloody CID.
“This one is a lot smaller than yours was,” he said. “It’s a miracle you even found it.”
“We should destroy that.”
He nodded but grabbed my hand instead. “Hey.” He waited until I looked him in the eye before continuing. “You did a good job. I’ve never seen someone that calm on their first try.”
“I’m not calm,” I said, my voice shaking a little.
“It’s okay. I’m fine. You did it.”
I nodded and sank down into the chair. I realized I still had his blood on my hands, but I didn’t get up to wash them. Amory wandered into the kitchen and rummaged in the cabinets. Watching him curiously, I saw him come back into view holding a cast iron skillet and a roll of tape. He taped the CID to the floor, raised the skilled over his head, and brought it down onto the floor with a heavy thunk that resonated in the air. He hit it again and sighed with satisfaction.
As he peeled the tape off the floor and showed me the glistening shards of the broken CID, I felt a huge weight lift off my chest. Amory was no longer on the grid. They couldn’t control him, and they couldn’t track us down from satellite rovers. We weren’t safe yet, but we were no longer risking exposure every second.
I washed my hands and followed Amory into one of the bedrooms, watching him as he sank back onto the bed. He winced slightly when his fresh wound made contact with the pillow, but there was an unmistakable look in his eyes. It was as if he was the old Amory once again; he looked strong, in control, and he was burning with that intensity that made my stomach flip. I wasn’t scared of him — I wanted him.
Cautiously, I sank down on the bed. I didn’t know what I expected — maybe he wouldn’t want me to sleep there. Maybe he would think it was too much too soon. But he grinned and put a hand on my hip, rolling me closer until I was right against his shoulder.
It was very strange that, just hours ago, I had not known if he was alive or dead. Now that he was here in front of me, all I wanted to do was touch him.
We lay back against the pillows that smelled like mothballs, and he cradled me in his arms. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his gentle breathing and drinking in the secure warmth of his arm around me. Even though we were in the heart of Sector X, I felt safer than I ever had at the rebel camp.
“Do you know what bothers me most about Isador?” said Amory. “Besides not knowing what they did to me.”
I shook my head, feeling him tense under me.
“My dad didn’t even visit me. I was his test subject — not his son.”
“Maybe you weren’t his test subject. Maybe bringing you to Isador was the only way for him to save you.”
Amory shook his head. “It was his experiment. He headed
up the whole initiative.”
“I just don’t understand what they wanted with you.”
“To test the new generation of CIDs.” He shuddered. “I had a bad reaction to the behavior modification frequency of the old one, but it didn’t feel like this.”
“How does it work?”
“I heard my dad talking about it once. The rovers activate your CID, and it sends a signal to your brain. The pain when I was trying to escape felt real, but it was all just my brain telling me I was in pain.”
“But it burned you.”
“What?”
“When you were within range of the rover, it looked like it was burning you from the inside.”
“They probably had it turned up to the maximum setting. I’m surprised that didn’t fry it.”
“It would have killed you first.”
He sighed angrily. “I hate that you had to see me like that.”
“It wasn’t your fault . . . it wasn’t even you.”
“But it was me. And it was me who didn’t see you with that carrier. I could have killed you.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
For a long moment, Amory didn’t answer. I sat up and turned my head to face him in the darkness.
“I still trust you with my life. The PMC can’t change that.”
He let out a long intake of breath and cupped the back of my head in his hand, bringing my face down to meet his lips.
I snuggled deeper into the crook of his arm, not wanting any of the rest of it to be real. Just him. I didn’t even have time to marvel at his warmth, the smell of him, or the way my heart was pounding through my chest against his ribcage.
For the first time in a long time, I felt safe. Amory was himself again, and we were together. We had survived the worst.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I woke with a start, unable to breathe.
A hand tightened around my mouth. Disoriented, I bit down reflexively, trying to scream, but the sound was muffled by the hand.
Terror — pure terror — clamped down on my chest. I thrashed on the bed, and Amory awoke with a yell. I made a grab for him, but someone seized me roughly by the arm and yanked me up off the bed, nearly dislocating my shoulder. I tried to pull away, but whoever had me was very strong.
Amory.
I wanted to cry out — scream to warn him — but I couldn’t make a sound.
Another pair of hands grabbed my other arm, and I lost my footing as two people dragged me out of the room. I twisted around to look for Amory, but I couldn’t see anything in the pitch blackness. My feet fumbled to gain traction as they pulled me across the apartment.
The PMC — they were taking me. I couldn’t let them take me.
I dug in my feet, breaking my face away from the hand clamped over my mouth. I yelled, but the hand clamped down again. My captor crushed me against his chest, dragging me bodily out the front door.
Somewhere behind me, I heard a struggle. I twisted, my captor’s fingers pulling painfully against my skin. Through the darkness, I could see three figures lurching from side to side like a drunken caterpillar. One of the three was knocked backward, banging into the doorframe. The other hit the person in the middle, who stumbled.
Amory. I tried to call his name, but I just tasted the skin of the hand around my mouth: sweat and something chemical.
This was it. I only had one chance.
I stopped suddenly, hunkering down and jabbing my elbows into the soft guts of the people on either side of me. My right jab was stronger, and his grip loosened. I kicked wildly, finding purchase with a shin.
Freeing my arm, I swung toward the person on my left. He caught my wrist, and I kicked up my knee as hard as I could. I hit something soft, and his cry of agony told me I had hit the mark. I yanked out of his grip and ran blindly down the hallway.
My bare feet brushed the threadbare carpet, and I tried not to think about all the carrier blood soaked into the floor. At least it was dark. I tried the door on my right, but it was the wrong one. Desperate, I tried the next door, but the first had slowed me down.
The first man who had gone down was just feet behind me. I threw open the door to the decoy apartment, slamming it against his body as he tried to follow me. He grunted but didn’t seem badly hurt. I tore through the darkness to the window, heaving it open with one hand.
The cold, sharp wind stung my bare arms, but I threw myself onto the fire escape. The man was right behind me — stumbling, reaching through the window. There was no time for the ladder. I jumped, but his hand caught my ankle. I lost my balance and plummeted sideways toward the ground.
I flailed my limbs, trying to right myself before I hit the ground, but the fall was shorter than I’d thought — shorter and more painful.
The hard, rough concrete cut through the snow, slicing against my exposed skin and scraping down through the flesh. All the wind was knocked out of me.
Get up. Get up! I thought.
Trembling, I tried to stand, but my ankle shook.
A door on the side of the building burst open, banging against the brick. Two enormous PMC officers emerged, dragging Amory between them. He was flailing around, fighting as I’d never seen. His eyes were dark again, his teeth bared in an animalistic snarl as he dug in his feet and jerked his elbow up to connect with an officer’s spleen.
It didn’t matter. They had him. I crawled forward — desperate to get away — but a boot stomped down painfully on my ankle. I looked up.
The officer who pursued me onto the fire escape was towering over me, a smug look on his face. He had messy blond hair that was a little too long for PMC standards, a hard square jaw, and protruding cheekbones that cut his face into sharp planes. Flinching away, I felt the raw hatred and fear cutting my insides. This was it. After everything we had done, they had ambushed us in our sleep.
I caught Amory’s eye. He looked as miserable as I felt. His left eye was beginning to swell, and blood trickled from his nose. At least he had not gone without a fight, either.
A fourth PMC officer emerged from the side door. Hunched over and walking funny, I knew instantly that he was the officer I kicked in the hallway. I felt a cold hand grip my upper arm, and any satisfaction I felt drained away.
The blond officer pulled me roughly to my feet. I stumbled to one side, but he held fast to my arm. My left ankle would not support my full weight. A strange look crossed the officer’s face, but he dragged me through the snow toward Amory to stand under the streetlight.
Another one of Amory’s officers grabbed my arm, and the blond officer stepped back to look at us, as if admiring his work. I realized we must look like a motley crew. Amory’s nose was still dripping blood, bruises blooming on his face. I had scrapes and cuts running all up and down my arms from my fall, and I was shivering barefoot in the snow.
“Yeah, that’s definitely them,” said the blond man. “Amory Elwood and . . . accomplice.” He formed the last word around his lips with a smirk, as if he knew how much it irritated me to be pegged as somehow less important — Amory’s sidekick. It was stupid, and I should have been glad that they had not uncovered my real identity, but somehow the officer’s smugness dug into me more than our present danger.
“Why don’t you run her CID?” said the officer I had kicked. He had red hair and a slurred British accent.
The blond man smirked, grabbing my arm for effect. “She’s a defector, you idiot. They both are.”
I yanked my arm away, glaring up at him.
“Why don’ you tag ’er? I bet she’d be real forthcomin’ —”
“We’re under direct orders,” barked the blond man. “Besides,” he grinned, “she knows a thing or two about that already. We’d probably have to give her enough to kill her just to get what we want.”
He eyed my arm tattooed with HALLO burns, and I wanted to pull away.
Taking a step toward me, he jerked me forward until I was right up close, causing a surge of pain to shoot up my right side. Amory lunged
next to me, but the officer holding him grabbed both his arms. The blond officer slapped a piece of hard plastic over my wrist and yanked the other in place next to it. I looked down. It was a one-piece restraint, like handcuffs.
“Let Elwood deal with her.”
“Whah?” said the redhead with marked indignation. “Why ’im?”
“They breached security at Isador. He’s curious.”
My heart sank as the man holding me gripped my arm and dragged me toward a parked PMC cruiser. Pain shot up my leg in protest, and my eyes watered. He tossed me in the backseat, and the other men followed with Amory. He wore plastic restraints, too. Our eyes met as he struggled against the men holding him, and I could tell he was not really trying anymore. If I was captured, he would not run and leave me.
The car door slammed, and the blond man climbed in the front seat with one of the enormous officers who had taken Amory down. The other officers piled into another cruiser, the redhead shooting me a murderous look. I was glad he wasn’t one of our drivers.
Pulling away from the safe house, a sick feeling of dread rose up in my chest.
What would they do to us now that Amory had already escaped once? And what would they do once they found out his CID had been removed?
Either his bandage had ripped off during the struggle, or he’d pulled it off himself, but I could still see the coagulated blood around my shaky incision on the back of his neck.
We pulled through an empty intersection, and, as if on cue, Amory doubled over with a yell.
Brilliant, I thought. He wanted them to think he still had his CID.
Twisting around in his seat, the enormous officer smacked him hard across the face.
“Stop!” I yelled. “It’s your fault he’s like this!”
“It’s the new CID,” the blond man muttered. His hazel eyes flashed in the rearview mirror. Although he couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, they were etched with lines of fatigue.
The enormous officer shifted in his seat as Amory let out another cry, and his fat fingers flexed around the nightstick at his hip. Anger twisted my gut, but I focused on arranging my face to look pained instead. Amory was doing a good job; his face was contorted with agony, his knuckles white as they gripped the edge of the seat.
Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) Page 9