Simon rocked back on his heels. “There are a lot of people here who think you betrayed them.”
“I betrayed them?”
“Yes! And they’re going to want your head for it.” His voice was urgent, as though he was trying to shock some sense into me. “Look, just stay hidden here until I can figure this thing out.”
He ran his fingers through his dark hair, which had been lightened with ground-in dust. A smudge ran along his cheek, and his clothes were the same that he wore at the warehouse—except the white starched shirt was mostly wrinkles. A fine layer of grit had colored it the same dull brown as the apartment walls.
“I have to go help out with something. Stay here and don’t make any noise, and whatever you do, don’t jack anyone until I get back.” He started to turn away and then stopped. “Unless you have to.” He quickly crossed the room, but hesitated again at the door and glanced at Laney. “If I don’t come back, stay hidden as long as you can.” He slipped out the door and closed it solidly behind him.
I stared at the door for a long time. Laney’s head was still hidden in her arms as she clutched her folded legs. I sat next to her and linked, very gently, into her mind. Her mind-scent was sweet, like raspberries.
I guess we’re going to be here a while. My name is Kira.
She peeked up and wordlessly showed me a stream of pictures: her fighting with her family about homework; them collapsing on the floor around her; her frantic call to 911 only to have the FBI show up; the FBI saying her family would wake up believing she had run away.
The memories made tears flow down Laney’s face again. I wrapped an arm around her, but it didn’t quell the shaking. I borrowed blankets from two other cots and wrapped them around us. Her body quieted as our collective heat fought off the chill of the room and our dire situation.
I hoped like crazy that no one would find us before Simon returned.
Laney fell asleep on my shoulder.
I wriggled out of our cocoon and eased her down to the thin cot, smoothing the stray hairs back from her face so they wouldn’t tickle and wake her. The peace of sleep made her seem even younger.
That Kestrel would send someone so young to this lawless camp in the desert made me clench my teeth. Not that I belonged here either. I was trying to figure out our options when Simon burst into the barrack. He gulped in ragged breaths and darted looks all around the room, as though he expected an ambush. If he’d brought back an angry mob with him, the flimsy door he was leaning against wouldn’t hold them off.
I put a finger to my lips and slid off the cot, careful not to disturb Laney. If he wouldn’t let me link into his head to mindtalk, at least we could discuss things quietly and not wake her up.
And we definitely needed to talk.
He looked considerably worse than when he left, with dirt ground into his face and a dull smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. I reached up to touch his face.
He smacked my hand away.
I pulled back my stinging hand. “Are you hurt?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m fine.” A purplish bruise was blooming on the side of his face. He must have gone back to the entrance and joined the melee.
I swallowed, my throat still raw from thirst. “What was the fight about?”
“The fight’s over. Clan Molloy is now in control of Block C, which means Molloy and the rest of the Clan will be here soon.” He hesitated. “I might be able to hide you, Kira, because they can’t jack into your head. They won’t sense you from the other barracks. But her,” he said and flicked a glance to Laney, “they’ll notice right away. She’s still a changeling.”
“Well you can’t just turn her over to Molloy!”
Simon grimaced. “She’s safer with Molloy than she is with you,” he said. “And Molloy will be a much better Block chief than that monster Lenny.” I guessed Lenny was on the losing end of the fight, but that didn’t make Molloy worth trusting.
Reading my skeptical look, Simon sighed. “Molloy’s not the bad guy here, Kira. There are a lot worse people out there, and some of them are living in the next Block over.” He gestured to the prefab buildings beyond the walls. “You could have been part of the Clan, you know. Everything would have worked out fine if you hadn’t lost it at the warehouse.”
I gaped. “You were going to kill Raf!”
Anger burst to life on his face. “He was spying on us! I didn’t have any choice! Molloy would have done it, if I hadn’t.”
“What was I supposed to do?” My voice had risen. “Just let you kill him?”
We glared at each other, faces drawn tight and close. A bright red bead of blood formed at the corner of his mouth and trickled down. He wiped it with the back of his hand and turned away, shoulders slumped. With his back to me, voice flat, he said, “Things don’t always turn out the way you’d like them to.”
I stared hard at the back of his head, tempted to jack in and make him sorry for what he had done. Sorry for trying to kill Raf, sorry for luring me into the Clan, sorry for pretending to care about me all that time, only to trick me into working for Molloy. I wanted to make him regret all he had done, but somehow seeing him trapped in a desert camp, fighting to survive—I didn’t have the heart.
After all, he was right. We would all be better off if the FBI hadn’t caught up with the Clan. There had to be some way out of this nightmare. I didn’t trust Simon, but he had already helped us. And I had more than myself to think about.
“If you bring Laney to Molloy, do you promise he’ll keep her safe?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.
He hesitated before he turned to me. Weariness dragged his face down. “He will, I promise. His younger brother disappeared a long time ago, when they were trying to escape the Feds. I told you, he has a soft spot for the young ones, and he hates the way no one looks out for them here. He sent me to check the newcomer truck, even though we were taking a thrashing from Lenny’s clan, just to make sure we got to any changelings before the others did.”
I shifted from one foot to the other. “Okay.”
Simon gave me a short nod. His eyes rested on my lips, still chapped from the desert and the drugs. “Look, we should give Molloy some time to get settled.” His face twisted in disgust. “There might be some stragglers from Lenny’s clan that he needs to decide about.”
“Decide what?”
“Well, there’s nowhere for a defeated Clan to go. They either get broken up and absorbed into other Clans, or…”
“Or?”
“I don’t want to know what happens to them, okay!” The fear on Simon’s face sent a chill through me. “Whatever it is, she doesn’t need to see it.” He glanced at Laney. “It’s better if we let the dust settle. In the meantime, I’ll get you some water and food. Water shouldn’t be a problem, but there’s not much food. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be back soon.”
I didn’t want him to leave. It felt like a pack of wild dogs was roaming outside in the brilliant desert heat, and he was the only one that knew how to control them. On his way out the door, he gave me a grim smile and repeated, “I’ll be right back.”
While he was out, Laney tossed and turned in the rough blankets wrapped around her, letting out occasional soft whimpers. The same scene she had played before, where she accidentally knocked out her entire family, repeated over and over in her mind. I slowly nudged her to a new dream, one where no one was hurt. Her tremors stopped, and she slipped into a deeper, dreamless sleep. The quiet sound of her breathing had me straining to hear beyond the barrack walls, in case anyone might be coming for us. But I didn’t reach out with my mind.
A few minutes later, a scuffle of feet outside kicked up my heart rate until Simon pulled open the door and let in a blast of dust and sunshine. He brought bottles of water and dust-coated protein bars. My throat still rasped like sandpaper. He had to stop me from guzzling an entire bottle at once.
“So are you going to tell me how you ended up here?” he asked, when I paused f
or a breath. I took another swig of water and licked my lips, not sure what to tell him. At this point, there didn’t seem to be any sense in lying.
“The FBI caught up to me.” At the last second, I left Raf out of it. “They wanted to recruit me.” I cocked my head. “Just like you did.”
Simon didn’t seem to take offense at my accusation. “So why didn’t you join them? Why come here?”
“I didn’t plan on doing either. My plan was to escape.”
He snorted. “I guess that didn’t work out for you.” His half-grin was more rueful than cruel, but I still didn’t appreciate it.
“I almost did,” I said. “If I’d had a few more minutes, I could have gotten rid of the last of that orange mist drug, or whatever it was, and taken out Agent Kestrel and his jacker guards.”
Simon’s face went dead still. “You did what?” He stepped closer to me. I held my ground and shifted so I was between him and Laney, where she lay sleeping on the cot. The look in his eyes made me stammer.
“I… I could have taken him out, but the drug…”
“You said you got rid of the drug.” It was a statement, and his eyes bored into mine, daring me to deny it.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Yes, I did.”
“How?” He leaned toward me, as though our lives hung on the answer to his question.
“I told my brain to pump it out.” It sounded a lot more lame than the reality of manipulating my own mind. He took a step back and his eyes widened, as if he had discovered I had a third arm or maybe an alien brain. Too late, I realized I should have kept that to myself.
He quickly regained his composure. “Can you do it again?”
“I did it on the way here. In the truck.”
A smile flashed across his face. He closed the space between us, like he was about to hug me. Instead, he took hold of my shoulders. I shrank back from his touch and the fervent look in his eyes. “Kira, if you tell Molloy about this ability of yours, he’ll let you stay in the Clan, I’m sure of it.”
I didn’t really want to be in Clan Molloy, but the rest of the camp wasn’t exactly attractive. And Molloy was the devil I knew, so sticking with him seemed smarter than taking my chances with the unknown pravers menacing the camp. Besides, I didn’t really trust any of them, and staying in the Clan meant I could keep an eye on Laney. Just in case.
Laney started to stir, her tranquil look lingering as she propped herself up and licked her dry lips. I twisted out of Simon’s grasp and brought her one of the water bottles. She greedily slurped it down. She hadn’t entirely awoken to our nightmarish situation in the camp, and a surreal look of happiness crossed her face as the water hit its mark.
I met Simon’s expectant look. “Fine. Take us to Molloy.”
Simon led Laney and me back out into the blistering sun.
Our barrack was at the tail end of a row of eight identical buildings. Simon took us toward the front and around a corner, where a hundred-foot space opened between our cluster of barracks and the next group of military-style structures. The gap between blocks had been empty before, but now that the fighting was done, several groups of jackers lounged outside the weathered doors of their barracks.
A knot of four boys my age swung their heads in our direction. Their clothes were frayed and torn, some holes patched and others left gaping. They looked like they’d been wearing the same thing for months. Each had a strip of black cloth tied around their arm.
Their minds pressed on mine. Simon said not to jack in here, but these pravers seemed to have no compunction. Laney’s hand trembled in mine.
“Can they jack from there?” I asked Simon.
“Most can’t bridge the gap between blocks to do more than link in. That’s why they’re set so far apart.” The boys stared like wolves sizing up which sheep to eat first. Simon must have linked some thought to them, because they switched focus to him, and the light pressure on my mind evaporated. They gave Laney and me another lingering look filled with nasty promise, then the apparent leader shoved his hands in his pockets, and they turned their backs on us.
Simon hurried us forward. We quickly reached the center barrack in the block, identical to all the others except the letter C had been etched above the first door.
“Just let me do the talking.” Simon walked in, and we trailed behind him.
The room had been stripped of cots, leaving more space for the two dozen Clan members. Molloy’s red head towered over them as they gathered around him. The Clan was in much the same shape as Simon—dusty, beaten, and faces lit up with their apparent victory. Molloy’s broad smile extended to Simon, but instantly twisted to a snarl when he saw me.
“Wha—?” He growled and parted the crowd of Clan members as he moved more quickly than a giant should. “What is she doing here?” he demanded. I was afraid he would run us over, with the speed he was picking up.
“Wait!” Simon leaped in front of me. “Let me explain.”
Molloy hesitated, but seemed ready to pummel me into the ground like the rival gang of jackers he had destroyed minutes ago. Simon felt like a thin barrier to the wrath that was coming off the Red Giant. His eyes flicked to Simon, back to me, and then finally noticed Laney tucked behind me. Molloy’s eyes narrowed as he took in my protective stance.
“She came in the truck with the newcomers,” Simon was saying. “This changeling was there, and another boy, but I couldn’t help him.”
Molloy’s eyes swung back to Simon. “Why not?”
“He was unconscious.” Simon glanced at me, and I wished he hadn’t. Molloy could probably figure out who had made him that way. “I had to fight off Lenny’s crew just to get to the truck. I didn’t have time to haul the kid out.”
“So you brought her instead.” The intensity of Molloy’s stare on my face was matched by the pressure of him trying to jack into my mind. “A fine choice. Now we can pay her back.” The rest of the Clan members had slowly circled around us. Pasty Man, Molloy’s international spook friend, stood by the door. His face was imprinted with a red boot mark. There was no way we were leaving the room.
I was a match in the middle of a keg of gunpowder.
“That wasn’t her fault!” Simon held up his hands. “She didn’t know anything about the Feds. Gomez must have been the rat. Right? Otherwise why would Kira be here?”
“Perhaps the Feds sent her to spy on us again.” Molloy leaned to the side to peer at Laney. “What about the little one?” He was talking to me now. “Is she a snitch like you, Kira?”
I swallowed. “She’s just a kid. She needs protection.”
Molloy didn’t seem to expect that response from me. Simon cut in. “She’s just a changeling.”
Molloy jutted his chin out to the Clan members hovering behind us. “We’ll take the girl into the Clan. But not the traitor.” Hands reached out of the crowd and tugged Laney away from me. She gasped and gripped my hand with both of hers. Her best chance was probably with the Clan, but I had a hard time convincing myself to let go.
I stood straighter and stared down the hatred on Molloy’s face. “Do you promise to keep her safe?”
“My quarrel isn’t with her.” His shark smile hollowed out my stomach.
Laney’s wide-eyed look stabbed through me.
“Laney, it’s okay. I promise.” I linked into her head. I don’t want you mixed up in my mess, okay? I need you to go with them. To be safe.
Fear gave her mind a bitter aftertaste. She slowly released her death-grip. Her small eyes grew large and round as she was swallowed by the crowd.
Molloy’s meaty hand clamped on my arm and jerked me around. My knees softened as he loomed over me, probably deciding how best to take his revenge. Before I could open my mouth, Simon grabbed Molloy’s wrist. “She can help us.”
“I’ve heard that from you before.” Molloy released me and focused on Simon. Pasty Man appeared by his side.
Simon seemed to stagger under a great weight, and I realized that they must be f
ighting in his mind. Simon buckled and fell to the floor, landing on his knees but managing to stay upright. A cruel smile curled one side of Pasty Man’s face as Simon swayed under their assault. I remembered the force that Pasty Man had pressed on my mind in the warehouse. With the two of them combined, Simon didn’t have a chance.
“I know how to fight the gas.” I stepped next to Simon. “Let him go, and I’ll tell you how.” I didn’t like Simon. Not even a little bit. But he was trying to help me, and it wasn’t right for him to take Molloy’s wrath.
In the warehouse, Molloy and his Clan had been unprepared. I had caught them by surprise and knocked them out before they knew what was happening. But now, I doubted I could even overpower Molloy, much less a room full of angry Clan members. Maybe I could bargain our way out of this.
Molloy ignored me and fixed his eyes on Simon. His whole body trembled, and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could keep Molloy out by the power of his eyelids. I clenched my hands. If I attacked Molloy, neither of us would likely make it out of the room. But if they didn’t release Simon soon, I would have to at least try to shove Molloy out of Simon’s mind, before he did any permanent damage.
Right as I was about to jack in, Molloy released his mental grip on Simon, and Pasty Man sneered his disgust at some unspoken command. Simon fell forward on his hands and gasped for air. I gingerly pressed into Simon’s mind, afraid of what I would find. There was no sign of Molloy’s presence. Are you okay?
Yes. Simon’s response was weak.
“So,” said Molloy. “Simon here seems to believe you’re telling the truth about this ability to control the effects of the gas.”
“That’s right.” I stood taller.
Molloy eyed me with curiosity, the hatred having vanished with his interrogation of Simon’s mind. “Well, now, little Kira. It seems you may make a useful addition to the Clan yet.” Some of the hardness returned to his face. “But Simon is much more trusting than I am. And much more enamored with you than he should be.”
I refused to look at Simon. He had forfeited the right to any feelings for me the moment we walked into that warehouse. And my feelings for him were closer to hatred than anything else.
Open Minds Page 14