Freefly

by Michele Tallarita

  “And getting yourself killed is the solution?”

  “Yes. I’m gonna get him free, and then, once I’m gone...” I wince, pushing the thought away. “The scientists will have no reason to come after him. It’s not like he can fly on his own.”

  Jiminy shakes his head. “His picture’s on every newspaper in the country. Even if you get him free, he’s not gonna have a normal life—”

  “Damien can hide. At least until the story dies down. People will forget. His looks will change. And I won’t be around to get him into any more trouble.”

  Jiminy stares at me steadily, saying nothing.

  “What I came here for,” I say, “is to make sure the boss isn’t going to come after him after I’m—”

  “You know very well he will.”

  “I’m asking you to stop him.”

  Jiminy looks at me incredulously. “Since when do I have that kind of power?”

  “You do,” I say. “He listens to you. Please. Haven’t you ever loved anyone?”

  His face softens, and he glances around the lobby. He has. It’s the reason he’s not quite like the others, the reason he’s still human.

  “I’ll do my best, alright. But I’m not promising anything—”

  “Thank you.” I launch toward him and hug him. Jiminy takes a deep breath that makes his chest quake, then slaps me on the back and pulls away.

  “I’m gonna miss you, kid—”

  The elevator doors burst open, and Lederman rushes out. In a second, he slams me against the wall. Jiminy comes at him, but Lederman points a gun at his face. His other hand presses against my neck.

  “Get off me!” I wheeze, swinging my fists at him.

  He presses my neck harder. I struggle to breath. He leans in, his eyes flashing murderously.

  “Flying at a high school dance?” His voice is surprisingly smooth and even, despite the massive amount of pressure he’s exerting on my neck. “Were you trying to expose your powers? Or are you honestly that stupid?”

  “Hey, back off!” Jiminy says.

  Lederman clicks his gun, and Jiminy silences. The edges of my vision turn black. I feel my knees buckle beneath me.

  “Can’t pull off double-fly, huh?” Lederman continues, the groove in his forehead deepening. “I can’t wait until the boss gets here—”

  Jiminy bursts forward and tackles Lederman. I suck in a gigantic breath. The two men wrestle to the ground, though, from the looks of it, Jiminy is going to come out on top. Then there’s a bang! Lederman rolls off Jiminy. Blood gushes from Jiminy’s chest, as he lies flat on the ground.

  “Jiminy!” I shout.

  The elevator door glides open again, and several men rush out.

  “Go already!” Jiminy shouts, coughing. “Go!”

  I barrel out the door and leap into the sky. When I glance back at the shrinking Tower, I can just make out the boss standing outside, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Damien

  It takes me a long time to open my eyes, or even to recover the sensation of having a body. Thorne injected me with something that knocked me out, and that has also made my limbs feel like they’ve been pumped full of quicksand. I do not know what happened while I was asleep, though there is a sharp pain at the base of my skull, as if something has poked through it. Slowly, as I regain feeling in my arm, I reach behind me and touch that spot. The rough padding of a bandage meets my fingers.

  I am in the small white room, lying on the strip of foam in the corner. My legs don’t move when I want them to. It’s frightening. The sun is still shining through the window, which at first makes me feel relieved, until I realize that it could easily be the next day, or the next week, for all I know.

  Steadily, sensation seeps back into my legs, and I am able to swing them off the foam padding and sit up. I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. I do not feel good. What has been done to me?

  An hour passes. I drag myself to my feet and walk to the window. Occasionally, a car pulls up in front of the building, and a person in a black suit gets out and charges inside. A black dot appears in the sky at one point, and my heart leaps, but it turns out to be a turkey vulture. I tap my toe against the wall. How did Sammie do this for eleven years?

  The door slides open. I whip around. Michael Thorne walks inside, alone this time.

  “That wore off fast,” he murmurs, stopping to jot something in a small notepad. I marvel at the fact that spending an hour unable to feel your legs is considered a fast recovery.

  “Where is Sammie?” I say.

  “Not back yet.” He gestures at the metal chair. “Sit down.”

  “No.”

  “Relax. I just want to take a look at the bandages.”

  Cautiously, I walk to the chair and lower myself onto it. Thorne limps behind me, and soon his cool fingers probe the back of my neck, causing a shiver to run up my spine.

  “What did you do to me?” I say.

  Thorne rips off the bandage in one quick movement. I flinch.

  “Just took a look at your brain, that’s all,” he says.

  He’s silent for several seconds, fiddling with the wound at the back of my neck. He splashes some sort of cool liquid against it, and what remains of the pain dulls into nothing. I exhale, stretching my hands over my knees.

  “What did you find?” I say.

  “Nothing. You are...how do I put this? Painfully normal. It’s clear that the flying was Sammie’s doing alone.”

  I exhale. This is a relief, but it is also, strangely, a bit disappointing. Part of me was hoping that I had something to do with double-fly, that there was something special about me. But it’s as it seemed all along: I am a nobody.

  “That’s good news for you,” Thorne says, stepping out from behind me. “We’re not going to waste any more resources running tests on you, that’s for sure.”

  “Are you going to let me go?”

  Thorne snorts. “Of course not. You’re the bait, remember?” He limps toward the door, humming under his breath. Then he turns back. “Looks like all that’s left for you to do is sit here and think, huh? Unless, of course, you feel like doing some work around here—”

  “Never.”

  He shrugs and heads out the door. “Let me know when you change your mind.”

  The door slams shut. Huffing, I drift to my foam mat and plop down. What am I going to do with all of my time? I wish I had something to read. I haven’t learned anything new in what feels like forever, a fact that makes my brain feel itchy.

  There’s a strange noise. I leap to my feet and listen closely. There’s a yell, then a bang. I press my ear against the door. What is going on out there?

  I yelp as my feet lift off the floor. A cool breeze shoots up the back of my neck. Double-fly? I flail wildly as my body floats higher. The only logical explanation is that Sammie is nearby, but where?

  The door slides open. Sammie stands outside, clutching an unconscious Thorne by the collar. Her T-shirt is speckled with blood, and the look in her eyes is deadly.

  “Sammie?” I say. I’m in a bit of an awkward position, with my upper body pressed against the ceiling and my legs hanging down.

  She drops Thorne, who lands with a thud on his face, and looks at me. Her expression softens.

  “I was using double-fly to sense where you were,” she says. Her voice is weirdly robotic.

  “Great,” I say, because nothing really could surprise me at this point. “Could I come down?”

  I drift to the floor. We take off out the door and sprint down the long, white hallway. Within seconds, an alarm sounds: it’s like a fire truck siren, so loud it hurts my ears. Red lights begin to flash, making the hallway seem bathed in blood. I glance at Sammie. Her face contains no fear, only determination that borders on ruthlessness.

  We bust through a metal door and emerge into a stairwell. Sammie clutches my hand as we fly (not literally) down the stairs side by side. I count the number of flights we descend: three, four, f
ive. The place is even larger than it seemed from the outside.

  A door blasts open, and six or seven black-suits pour into the landing below us. Sammie yanks me back in the other direction, but the door above us flies open, too, unleashing another troop of black-suits. Sammie and I freeze in the landing between them. There’s the sound of many guns clicking.

  “Get on the ground!” somebody yells. The men crowd around us, pointing their guns.

  I drop to my knees. Sammie remains still, her body rigid.

  “Sammie,” I hiss, really not wanting to see her get shocked again.

  “Get down!” the man yells.

  Sammie only now seems to register that I’ve spoken: she twitches her head in my direction and stares at me with confusion. What is wrong with her?

  “Get down,” I say softly.

  She sinks to her knees. Instantly, the men converge upon us. My arms are yanked behind me, and I’m dragged to my feet. Sammie cries out in pain.

  “Don’t hurt her!” I say.

  Smack! A male voice cries out. I strain to see what is happening, but there are too many black-suits in the way. My captors pull me up the stairs, my feet dragging. Clap! Bang! Two of the black-suits hit the floor. Sammie is revealed behind them, kicking the gun out of a scientist’s hand. Then she barrels into him and knocks him to the floor. The men release me and rush to help their fallen comrades. I watch in awe as Sammie takes down all of them, one by one, extremely efficiently. When the last guy takes a kick to the chest and falls to the floor, Sammie jumps on top of him and continues to pummel him.

  I rush over and grasp her shoulder. “Sammie, stop.”

  She freezes, holding her bloodied fists above his mangled face. Her breath is coming in gasps. All around us, the scientists are sprawled and moaning.

  “You’re not a killer,” I say.

  Her breathing slows, and her fists sink to her sides. Very slowly, as if there is a thousand-pound weight on her shoulders, she rises to her feet. Her eyes don’t leave the man’s face as she says, “I am. But let’s go.”

  She snatches my hand and we clamber over the fallen scientists, descending the stairs once more. The alarm continues to blare, an undulating wail that seems to coincide with our circling down the stairs. The air smells weirdly metallic, as if somewhere in the building someone is boiling a vat of iron. I wonder what sorts of things go on in here.

  Sammie pushes us through a door and we emerge into another long hallway. The alarm is even louder in here, and the flashing red lights make Sammie’s fierce expression almost terrifying.

  “Where are we going?” I croak, breathing heavily. “Are we going to try to get out the front door?”

  Sammie only pulls me faster, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

  “Are you okay?” I say.

  No answer again. Several men appear at the end of the hall, and they kick into a sprint when they spot us. I skid to a stop, but Sammie jerks on my arm, lurching me into motion once again.

  “What are you doing?” I say. “They’re coming!”

  Sammie’s voice is low and robotic. “This is the direction we need to go.”

  She finally stops in front of a door. The men are barreling toward us.

  “Freeze!” one of them screams.

  Sammie reaches into the pocket of her shorts and pulls out a thin strip of metal, the shape and size of a credit card. She presses it against the black panel beside the door.

  “Stole if off Thorne,” she says.

  The panel flashes green, and the door slides open. We rush inside, and it slams shut behind us. A gigantic metallic cylinder lies in the center of the room, steam rolling out the top. The smell of boiling iron, weak in the staircase, is pungent in here.

  Sammie pulls me toward the cylinder. Except for it, the room is wide, white, and empty, with a high ceiling and very bright lights. There does not appear to be any way out, other than the way in which we came.

  “What are we doing in here?” I say, eyeing the shiny cylinder. With Sammie acting so strangely, I can’t help but worry that she wants us to climb inside.

  “This is the way out.” She stops in front of it, tilting her head upward. I follow her gaze. Above the cylinder, the steam escapes into a vent covered in metal grating.

  “I think it goes to the roof,” Sammie says.

  “Yeah, but how are we going to—”

  We lurch off the ground to the top of the cylinder. A choppy, bubbling sea of metal boils within, churned round and round by a turbine. The steam licks at my face, clinging to my skin like a layer of sweat.

  “...get off the grating?” I continue.

  “Hadn’t thought of that yet.”

  The door of the room bursts open. Thorne limps inside, his forehead bleeding, followed by a troop of men. I turn my attention back to the grating. The metal is thick and solid. Four screws, one in each corner, secure it to the ceiling. The screws are small, probably able to be swirled out by hand, but we don’t have a screwdriver.

  “Come on down, kids,” Thorne says, standing at the bottom of the cylinder. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”

  “Sammie,” I say. “Let me see your hair.”

  She cocks her head. Her hair is still in the bun Mom did for the Spring Shake, though it hangs down in many places, several bobby pins sticking out from the sides. I snatch one of them.

  “Use this.”

  She understands me and grabs it, and is on the first of the screws in an instant. I glance down at Thorne. His men are huddled together and whispering, seemingly deciding what to do. Thorne glares at me.

  “That’s not going to work,” he says.

  The first of the screws falls into the cylinder with a hiss.

  “Shoot them!” Thorne yells at the men.

  “Wouldn’t do that!” Sammie screams. “I might fall into the boiling metal. That’d probably ruin your plans.”

  Macabre as this sounds, I’m glad to hear Sammie say this: it’s the most life she’s shown since she got here. What happened at the Tower? She clearly been traumatized in some way. Thorne scowls, then turns to his men.

  “Don’t shoot,” he says.

  The second screw falls into the cylinder. Thorne mutters something to his men, and they bolt from the room. He himself remains, his arms crossed over his chest. I glance back and forth between him and Sammie, glad to see the third screw go plummeting into the boiling metal. The grating slumps down, hanging on by one screw.

  “Don’t think this is it,” Thorne says. “Anywhere you go, I’ll find you. There’s nowhere in the world you can hide, not for long.”

  The final screw drops, and with it the whole grate. Sammie yanks me out of the way as it plunges into the metal, sending sizzling droplets flying in all directions. Thorne cries out and scurries away. Sammie moves back toward the vent and slips inside. I stick my head in, then grunt when I realize my shoulders don’t fit.

  “Sammie!” I call, peering upwards into the darkness. “I’m too big!”

  “Turn around and go in feet first!” she screams, her voice echoing.

  I pull my head out of the vent and turn upside-down, sticking my head right into the steam. It scalds my face and pushes into my nostrils, making me choke. I stick my feet into the vent and slide upwards, but, once again, jam when I reach my shoulders. My head sticks out of the vent awkwardly. The steam seems to be turning to liquid in my mouth.

  “Sammie!” I gargle.

  Her hands close around my ankles and jerk me a little further into the vent. My shoulder blades cramp together painfully.

  “I can’t wait for the day we take Sammie in for good,” Thorne says, his tone menacing. “I’m not going to kill you, you know.”

  There’s another jerk on my ankles, and I budge almost all the way in.

  “I’m going to keep you alive,” Thorne continues. “I’m going to make you watch, every day, for the rest of your life. There will be nothing you can do. You can’t protect her.”

  Anger and revulsion surge
up inside of me, at this twisted excuse for a person, this walking, talking body that has lost all trace of its soul. “I can love her.”

  Sammie yanks me all the way into the vent, and I shoot up the small passageway.

  “That’s not going to be enough!” Thorne yells.

  I spit liquid metal and gasp for air. The vent is tiny, hot, humid, and smells awful. My throat and nose feel like they are on fire.

  “How much further?” I groan.

  No response from Sammie, though suddenly the vent grows wider and brighter. I scrunch up my body and turn right-side-up, relieved to see a small, bright patch of light at the end of the tunnel. Sammie shoots toward it, many feet ahead of me.

  “Let’s go!” she calls.

  She reaches the top of the vent before me, and I slide up beside her, nearly bashing my face against the same metal grating we encountered at the vent’s entrance. I twine my fingers through the bars and press my mouth up against them, gasping at the fresh air. Sammie does the same.

  “I’m not feeling too good,” I say.

  She continues gasping, then pulls her head down and looks at me, her eyes roving over my face. In an instant, her hand lands on my cheek, her palm soft and slightly cool. She gazes at me very seriously, almost angrily, before running her hand down the side of my face, as if she is trying to memorize its shape with her fingers.

  “I don’t know how to get the grating off from in here,” she says.

  I look up at the grating. The screws are on the other side.

  “So we’re stuck in the vent?” I say.

  “Yep.”

  I take a deep breath, my face tingling where Sammie touched it, as if her hand has left a trail of sparks. Her eyes are bright, but in a fierce way. I swallow hard, and it feels like I’m gulping metal slime.

  “What happened at the Tower?” I say.

  Pain fractures her expression. I’m certain she’s not going to answer my question until she says, unexpectedly, “Jiminy got shot. I think he was going to die.” Her voice is low and even, as if she is trying very carefully to control it.

  I take a sharp breath. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  I shake my head and can’t think of anything to say. We are so close to escape. Sammie’s hair captures the sunlight, a slight breeze making a wisp of it flutter against her forehead. All at once, I feel extraordinary anger. We can see our freedom but cannot reach it, all because of four flimsy screws on the other side of a vent.