“Just stop talking!” My back hit the wall as I slumped onto my rear.
I felt the raw, prickly presence of Diesel’s eyes watching me, waiting for me to get up and continue on. But screw him! I just had my world torn apart. If I wanted to sit down for a minute, then I was going sit down for a goddamn minute. What am I going to do? What can I do? Start over? Live life as a fugitive? Above my bowed head, I heard Diesel cursing and the scratching of his boots as he paced.
After a few heavy pants, I wiped my wrist across my forehead and stood. “I can’t do it! I can’t keep going like this, I need to leave here, forever. I need to hide as far away from any Elite-infested rat nest. Maybe I could change my name, dye my hair—” I jumped backward as Diesel turned and aggressively booted the backpack hard into the factory wall. “What? What are you-?”
I raised my hands protectively to my face as he charged at me and yanked me down so I fell hard to my knees. “Ow! What are you doing? Let me go!”
“Oh, stop your whining!” He twisted again so my elbow bent awkwardly against my back. “I’m not going anywhere with some damn cry baby!”
The next thing I felt was the sharp point of a blade skim over my neck. I clenched up as a dribble of blood ran around my throat before he twisted the knife sideways with a fluid jerk.
Suddenly, he stepped back and let me go. I slapped my palm to the cut where beside me, covered in small freckles of blood was a small metallic chip. “The tracking device…”
I turned over so I could face him. Diesel crushed the chip with his heel then turned and wiped the blade clean.
“What the hell is your problem?” I screamed. “You don’t just shove someone to the ground and cut them, you psycho!”
“I’m not hearing a thank you.”
“Screw you!”
“Seriously though, if you continue blabbering on I’m going to stitch your mouth shut.” He pocketed his knife and mumbled as he dug into my backpack. “Oh boo hoo, poor me, my parents were mean! Can’t believe what I’m hearing.” There he pulled out a bandage that he handed over. “Listen here, I don’t care if you like it or not but you’re with me now. I’m all you have left.”
I snatched it from him. “You’re such a prick. And don’t get so cocky. I don’t need you.”
“Without me, you’ll be a heap of organs on the operating table.”
“And without me, you’ll still be in your soiled rags at Alpha.”
Diesel laughed. “You’re right. I do need you. But I’m not above kidnapping, threatening or even chopping off your feet if you think about running away.” He stood over me before helping hoist me up into a stand. I declined his offer and stood on my own.
“What the hell do you want, Diesel? Didn’t you hear what my mother said? The D400 is running out!”
Diesel cocked an eyebrow, “Really? You think the most important drug known to humanity is just going to disappear because they say they ‘don’t have any more supplies’? The Elites would sooner blow up the planet before they allow the drug to disappear. Use your damn head.”
“So, you think there really is a cure?” I rolled my eyes.
“No, but I do want to know more about the XCELL. And I know exactly where to start searching.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
By mid-afternoon, we had made it to the outer skirts of town. We kept out of sight, dodging the open space as we manoeuvred into the hollowed mouths of the open underground tunnels on an old construction site. Above our heads, the sirens blared. It was a whooping ring, unlike the raids or the sweeps where the alarm was more like a whistling tune; this alarm hit every pocket throughout the city. It hurt my ears to the point my head throbbed.
“Ha!” Diesel cocked his head back in laughter. “I don’t believe it.”
I slowed. “What?”
“That siren, they only ever ring that siren when they are on code red.” He twisted back to me. “You really must be super important, huh? I feel like I’ve stolen the golden goose.”
Lurking underground, I could only see patches of pavement in front of me. The smell from the dirty water was nothing compared to the furnace, with any luck my sense of smell had altogether diminished. The piping was large enough that we didn’t need to duck as we walked through. It belonged to an old construction site that had stopped development indefinitely on the new hospital. Today, medicine was a luxury not a necessity. If you were sick enough, most people didn’t suffer through the pains of recovery, chemo or any type of discomfort. If you were sick, you just ended that body and started again anew.
No wonder the Elite had to start a tracking system; people were changing their identities like it was some sort of fad. I once come across one guy in high school who said he had never let himself get older than twenty-five. Every time he hit his twenty-fifth birthday, he would jump off a building, not wanting to lose his youth. Everyone wanted to be born wealthy and beautiful, unwilling to settle for any lifestyle that required work. So yeah, a lot of people died.
“We’re here,” Diesel called, shaking me from my daydreaming. My boots were drenched in mud and my shoulders ached from the weight of my backpack.
“And where is here exactly?” We stood at the end of a pipe that faced a set of descending stone steps leading to an iron door.
Diesel knocked, waiting perhaps two seconds before swinging the rifle around and blasting the locks off. He then booted the door in and walked through.
Turned over cots, tables, scatters of paper and disregarded boxes and clothes littered the bunker. I shrugged out of my backpack and sat down on one of the cots. Diesel walked around disappointed.
“Not what you were expecting?”
“Not exactly.” He kicked at some of the boxes on the ground. “Looks like they left in a hurry.”
I bent down and picked up a piece of paper, quickly recognising the symbol on the top left corner. “You’re part of the Mad Dogs group?”
“Yeah, so?”
“They’re terrorists.”
Diesel glanced over his shoulder, teeth bared. “Yeah, so?”
Well, can’t say I’m surprised by his answer. Diesel didn’t come off as the type of guy to feel empathy or guilt. In fact, I would say violence gave him a type of sick pleasure. Kill first: ask questions later. More like kill and then, well, who cares?
He crossed the room and rifled through the papers left in the drawers. “Looks like they burnt everything too.”
“Do you think their hideout was exposed?” I asked.
He slammed the drawer shut before picking up a binder. He flipped it open as though puzzled. Quickly, I got up and checked over his shoulder to see what the confusion was. On one side of the documentation was faded print, but on the other, there were sketches of faces. The black charcoal was fresh too; it was sketched over the burn marks, meaning someone had been back here after the fire.
“Do you recognise them?” I asked as Diesel flipped through the papers. He tore one piece out and shoved it into his pocket.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know who drew them?”
He looked at me as though I was stupid. I slammed my mouth shut; guess that was a dumb question. From outside the door near the top of the tunnel, we heard a rock bouncing along the pipe walls. Following the sharp echo were footsteps. Automatically, Diesel pulled me to the front of the bunker and pressed us both against the wall. With one hand, he kept it firm on my shoulder, keeping me still while the other he prepared the pistol. The noise moved closer. The footsteps were coming fast.
Then they stopped right outside the door. I looked at my backpack on the cot to where a handheld gun sat in the pocket.
I went to reach for it but Diesel shoved me back. I looked at him with a glare but he quietly shook his head at me. He had the gun trained on the entrance; the moment the door opened the person was stepping into a clear head shot.
The door opened as the cloaked figure walked in, crouched and mildly alarmed. I caught sight of their profile and slapped Diese
l’s hand back, just in time to knock his shot off course. The explosion rocketed through the pipes as the bullet grazed the wall, splintering on the bricks. The girl screamed and scrambled backward, slipping and hitting her back on the steps. Diesel shot me the nastiest look before he lurched forward to pursue her.
“Wait!” I screamed as I gave chase. The girl only got a few meters away before Diesel caught her by the hood of her jumper and pulled her down to her knees. He turned the gun on her again when I rammed into his back. He stumbled forward, dropping his aim.
“What are you doing?” He turned and roared at me.
“She’s just a girl.”
“She’s a witness!”
“Diesel! Stop it!” I put myself in front of the girl and opened my arms. Behind me, I could hear her gasping.
“Who the hell are you? What do you want?” she squealed. I glanced over as she scrambled backward, shielding her face with her hands. She was young, perhaps sixteen or so. The high squeal in her voice made me think of Annie. “Just let me go!”
“For Christ’s sake!” I snarled. “Diesel, put the gun down.”
Diesel weighed the loaded pistol in his hand, his vicious glare not lifting from the teenager’s face. Reluctantly, he turned his body side on as though to hide the weapon, but his snarl only deepened.
I turned to the girl but didn’t offer my hand for assistance. I’d seen plenty of teenagers blast the skulls off officers.
Though we may have caught her by surprise, I was not letting my guard down. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question,” she snapped.
“Watch it; I’m the one who saved your life.”
“Whatever!” She quickly rose to a stand and adjusted her scuffed-up clothes. Her eyes were piercing blue, magnified by her intense black mascara and flaming red hair overspilling from her high bun. She looked like a lollypop, big head but tiny, sickly body. The dirt that scuffed her elbows and dried under her nails looked months old. She wore unmatched shoes and her clothes were far too big.
I glanced back up to the bunker. “You’ve been living in there, haven’t you?”
“I found it so by law it’s mine,” she argued.
“And which law is that?”
“It’s under the none-of-your-fucking-business law,” she snapped again. Diesel snorted and I glared at him. Just as fiery, she lurched at him. “Keep your dog under control. He almost blew my brains out.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“I’m the goddamn queen. What do you think?”
“No, for real, we’re not going to hurt you,” I insisted. She pulled at the hem of her sleeves. It was then I noticed the ash soot covering her clothes.
“What’s it to you? Are you the police or something?”
I indicated to her hands. “You like to draw?”
“What type of question is that?”
Diesel then too noticed the ash covering her and pulled out the scrunched piece of paper. “This yours?” he asked in a bark.
“No,” she denied as Diesel fired into the air, causing a ringing bang to spiral up the pipe. We both ducked out of instinct.
“I’m going to give you one last chance. How do you know this man?”
“I said, I didn’t do it.”
“Then you’re useless to me.” He turned the gun to her chest as her eyes flew open in panic.
“Whoa! Wait, yes, okay. Yes, I drew it.”
“What do you know about the group Mad Dogs?”
“I don’t know anything, I mean. I kind of snuck in here sometimes. I didn’t know they were part of the Mad Dogs. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. At least in here, I was out of the cold.” She lowered her hands and wiped them across her face. “I thought he was kind of cute, so I drew him.”
“Did you hear where they may have gone to? Or what happened here?” Diesel stepped closer as he cocked the trigger back.
“No! Not that I would care anyway. Once they were gone I moved in. Can I leave now?”
I looked at Diesel as he glanced back at me. I knew what his answer was and that answer meant a bullet to the head. “Fine,” I answered. “Get lost.”
She didn’t look back as she kicked off into a run, her footsteps a hollowing echo as she hit the open space outside. I looked at Diesel again to find him glaring. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”
“What did you want me to do? We’re not going to shoot her.”
“She was lying.” Diesel shoved the paper back into his pocket as we both went back to the bunker. “I say we chase her down and force her to tell us. Nothing like some broken bones to help jog those memories.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I growled as I pushed the door back and stopped at the threshold. My backpack, along with Diesel’s, was gone. I stumbled inside and twirled around, speechless. Diesel took one step in before he turned and punched the door.
“That little thief!”
“How could it have possibly been her? We were with her the whole time.”
“I know a thief when I see one,” Diesel snarled when I suddenly noticed something was off. I reached into my pocket at the vacant weight of my phone, and when I pulled my hand out, my pockets were lined with soot. I curled my fingers in.
“But… how?”
Diesel pulled me into a run as we hit outside in hopes of catching up with her. Unsurprisingly, the lot was completely empty.
“She’s long gone,” I said as I craned my head back and shielded my eyes with my hand. Again, Diesel tugged me forward and I pulled out of his grip. “Quit pulling me.”
“We have to find her. She has my backpack with all the paperwork on the D400 and contacts. Everything I have is now in the hands of some dirty homeless girl.” Diesel’s croaky laugh lifted into the air. “It’s so perfect; it’s almost poetry.”
“How do you suppose we find her? We’re wanted fugitives. She’s a homeless nobody. We can’t exactly report her to the police.”
“Oh don’t you worry, I have a few ideas.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Regardless of my concerns, we headed back into the main section of the city. One of the old commission houses had a shattered window so we helped ourselves into the trashed dwelling and camped out for night. Inside smelt bad, I mean really bad. The stench of cat pee could almost knock you out. We checked the back rooms and found the previous owner dead in her recliner. She was badly decomposed, her face was missing too but I’m sure what ate her. We locked the door to her bedroom, hoping to block the smell out.
We waited for nightfall before we dared to move again. There were cameras everywhere and the word for our capture would have hit every cop and bounty hunter by now. In the heart of the city was Central Square. It was heavier in security but I wouldn’t say a safer place. On one of the tower faces, there was a giant television screen. Usually the news would be on, but tonight, it was Diesel’s face that took up the entire monitor. His black hair had been forced back, held by a hair tie and tucked behind his elf-like ears. He had his chin lowered; his eyes were a fierce black as his eyebrows pulled his face into a scowl. Under his chin, he held a sign with his fake identification number printed on it. After a few moments, the screen shifted and my face appeared from when I was in high school. My hair was longer; my cheeks were rounded and my face unscratched or scarred.
I could still see the white-collar shirt pinched to my throat from my old school uniform. “Ah, look, we’re famous.” Diesel laughed where as I hunched further into my jacket.
“Not the good type of famous.”
“No one pays these things any attention.”
There was a place close by where the homeless and the senseless were herded off the street and out of sight. It was down where the old China Town used to be, before the fires ripped through the buildings and the council turned it into a tip yard for the insane.
“They really have the patrols out in full, huh?” For the fifth time within half an hou
r, Diesel and I had to crouch in the doorway of a nearby house. We pressed ourselves against the panel of the door, our cheeks touching the wood as another patrol went past. We waited until the search lights disappeared before ducking our heads out. “Well, can’t say I’m surprised. I wonder if they ever did find the doctor’s body.”
“I doubt it.”
Diesel sighed, “Disappointing.”
Quickly, we crossed under the temple archway and into the narrow, cramped street of China Town. Along the single road, the homeless pitched up soiled mattresses against the neighbouring buildings, narrowing the path to a single file through the centre. There were bonfires lit across the walkway every couple of steps where people hovered around them roasting their fingers. Their constant whimpers breathed down my neck as I kept my arms strictly to my side. To them, reality was nothing more than a whisper in a room of screaming voices. To the right of me, a man was digging up the soil in-between the cracks in the pavement and sucking his fingers dry. To my left, a woman sat on a mattress cradling what looked like a dead pigeon cocooned in a plastic bag.
The further we walked, the more crowded it became, until it got to the point I couldn’t step forward without shouldering someone. Luckily, most of them were either too high or intoxicated to notice us.
“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing here or not?”
“Looking for the thief,” Diesel said.
“In here? Talk about your needles in a haystack.”
“No, not in here. But I know someone who knows the drifters.”
“Drifters?” I repeated.
“The insane, the broken, the ones who just… drift. He sees them as his own personal trading cards. Not like Cesar to let a drifter come into town and he not put a price tag on their head.”
“He sells them off like slaves?”
Diesel scoffed, “As if they would know any different.”
We arrived at what looked like an old bombsite that had exploded and split the road, causing a small underground cave to form beneath the building. The earth underneath had collapsed to the point it created a shallow dip into the rubble leading underneath the property. There was a man standing guard outside the entrance. As we approached, he puffed out his chest and pulled his trench coat back, revealing his machete tucked in his belt.
Soulless (The Immortal Gene Trilogy Book 1) Page 10