Leah slumped forward. Her muscles screamed. A cramp twisted her right foot into a claw.
“Leah, talk to me!”
Leah tried to open her eyes, but the muscles in her face wouldn’t respond. Her mouth was open, but her tongue and vocal chords refused any attempt to speak. Saliva, slick and wet, slipped down her chin.
Thoughts formed somewhere in the back of her mind, but they were sluggish, barely coherent things. She tried to pull them together and make the connections she knew were there somewhere. Synapses fired briefly then sputtered and died, taking the thoughts with them.
Only one word stuck with any clarity—Lancaster.
Rough fingers pulled her eyelids apart. Light flashed across her vision, but it was faint, as though it were filtered through thick smoke. The fingers released her eyelids, but they stayed open. She could see shadowy figures through the haze.
“Leah, please!”
The sound of the storm still rang in Leah’s ears, muffling the words, but she recognized the voice. Alice. Again, she tried to speak. Again, her body let her down.
Katherine’s voice came from somewhere off to the right. “We need to get out of here.”
“Give me a second.” Alice. The clatter of metal. “Here.” Alice again.
There was the rustle of plastic. Leah felt her shirt being pulled aside. Something hard thumped into her chest. Pain speared into her, quickly followed by liquid fire that swept through her core. She threw her head back, dragging a long, wheezing breath into aching lungs. The heat spread through her arms and legs, and the cramp released its grip.
Hands gently touched the side of her face and tilted it forward. The gray fog over her vision had cleared enough for her to see Alice’s concerned eyes looking at her.
Leah worked her mouth for several seconds until she managed to form a single word. “Ow.”
A relieved smile broke out across Alice’s face. “Welcome back.”
Leah lifted one arm, then the other. Then she moved her legs. Only then did she allow herself to return Alice’s smile.
Katherine was standing on the opposite side of the chair. She gave Leah a nod.
“Do you think you can walk?” said Alice.
“Yes,” said Leah, grateful her cracked voice hid the uncertainty she felt.
“Good. Da Silva’s on her way to pick us up.”
“But… the crash… at the train…”
“That wasn’t her.”
The meaning behind the words clicked into place, and Leah felt a flood of relief.
Alice helped Leah swing her legs over the side of the chair and sit up. Her head swam, but her thoughts had lost most of the sluggishness. Three names surfaced in her mind. “The bombs! I know who Transport is—”
“We’ll worry about that once we get out of here,” said Alice.
Leah grabbed her arm. “You need to know, too. Just in case.”
Alice pursed her lips, but she nodded.
“Their names are Jacob White, Nicolas Black—no, Nicolas Beck.” Leah pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. The third name was there somewhere. “Renata! Renata Marino. They’re part of something called Project Phoenix. I think Transport is using them just like they used you, Katherine. Maybe, I’m not sure.”
Alice grabbed Leah’s shoulders. “You did good, Leah. Now we need to get you out of here.”
Helped by Alice, Leah stood. The muscles in her legs ached, especially the foot that had cramped. Alice cupped her hands beneath Leah’s elbows and guided her forward. Leah was surprised to find her limbs doing pretty much everything she asked. Her vision was still clouded. The edges of the world were soft, as though someone had smeared petroleum jelly over it.
Alice looked at Leah questioningly.
“I’ll be okay. Really.”
“If you need a rest, you’ll tell us to stop, right?”
Leah gave a wan smile. “Of course.”
Alice rolled her eyes and guided her to the door.
Katherine pointed left down the corridor. “This way.”
Part of Leah was still convinced Katherine was working with Westler. Maybe she was sending them in the wrong direction. She fought to remember the journey to the facility. The memories were cloudy and ill formed. The trip through the VR and Westler’s torture seemed to have turned part of her mind to a thick, gelatinous soup.
“Leah?” said Alice.
Leah found herself leaning against the wall. A trickle of blood ran from her nose. She wiped it away. “I’m fine.”
Alice looked as bad as Leah felt. Her face was pale, and her shirt was soaked with sweat. She clenched her teeth. “Come on.”
Katherine was already hurrying down the corridor. Leah forced herself upright. The corridor tilted left and right as she walked, and it took all her effort not to fall. She could almost feel Alice’s concern as she followed along behind her.
Katherine stopped beside one of the doors. “I think this leads to a maintenance corridor. We should be able to get out that way.”
“You don’t sound very sure,” said Alice. She was breathing heavily and holding her ribs.
One of the other doors farther down the corridor opened, and two Transport guards walked out. They were busy talking to each other, but one of them spotted the group and shouted. They pulled their guns.
Katherine hauled the door open. “Run!” She grabbed the back of Leah’s jacket and dragged her through the door.
Alice fired off a few rounds then ducked after them. The frame exploded, torn apart by gunfire. She slammed the door shut. There was no way to lock it.
Katherine had been right. They were in a short maintenance corridor that ended in a fire door. The floor sloped upward, and Leah had even more trouble staying upright as they ran along it.
The door behind them crashed open. Alice fired two more shots. Katherine threw herself against the metal bar on the fire door. It burst open, and they stumbled out into an alley between two concrete buildings.
Four metal containers stood along one wall. The air smelled of oil, and there were black stains dotted across the ground. The buildings stretched high above the alley, blocking out most of the light and giving the space a claustrophobic feel.
Leah looked up at the gray walls, and suddenly she was back in the concrete lobby. Wind howled as it rushed around her. The floor buckled and broke beneath her feet. She staggered. A chunk of the wall beside her head exploded with a crack. She cried out and covered her face.
Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her sideways. She tried to resist. She had to stay close to the wall, or the storm would take her—
Alice shook her. “Leah!”
She blinked. Gunfire reverberated down the alley. Bullets clanged off a metal container in a shower of sparks. Alice pulled Leah’s arm again, and this time she let herself be led.
The three of them ran down the alley. Alice and Katherine returned fire as they ran, unleashing shots randomly to keep their attackers pinned down. Leah kept her head low. Her thoughts crowded in around her.
She was in an alley, running from Transport.
She was a wolf, leaping to attack.
She was inside a storm.
She was dead.
Leah shook her head, trying to dislodge the feeling of dislocation that was overwhelming her. Her mind cleared enough that she could see the green expanse of a field ahead. If they could reach the end of the alley, they’d be safe.
A shot whistled past her ear. Her vision seemed to blink, alternating from blank gray walls to waterlogged tunnels and back again. Disoriented, she stumbled sideways and collided with the wall.
Shots rang out. Pain ripped through Leah’s thigh, setting her nerves on fire. An iron fist slammed into her back. Agony rushed through her side. She screamed. Her legs crumpled, and she pitched forward. Her head cracked against the concrete pavement.
53
Leah peeled her eyes open and stared at the broad expanse of the beige ceiling above her. The dull thrumming
of the power station’s generators was barely audible through the walls. The smell of antiseptic clung to her, drowning out the rest of the base’s odors. There was no clock in her room, and the bright lights above robbed her of all sense of the passage of time. Only the bland, tasteless meals the doctor brought with him provided any kind of temporal landmark. She’d been lying in the bed for three breakfasts—three days.
All she had of the trip back to the power station was fragments.
Alice carrying her across a field, every movement sending agony ripping through her thigh.
The sound of a helicopter passing overhead.
The tin-can clatter of bullets ricocheting off the chopper’s body as it flew away from the Transport facility.
Alice’s bruised face staring down at Leah as though she was the one who needed help.
Shouted commands as she was carried from the helicopter and into the power station.
A plastic mask being pressed over her mouth.
Pain.
Now Leah was lying in a bed, alone. She’d seen no one but Doctor Vanier, a gruff, bearded man with all the bedside manner of a rotten potato, and a nurse who kept the sheets pulled tight enough that Leah could barely move. At night, she had to fight back the feeling of claustrophobia that kept creeping up on her.
The bandages wrapped around her stomach were just as tight, and she thought they might be the only thing holding her internal organs inside. Any attempt to sit up triggered harsh pains in her stomach and thigh. The edges of her vision were still slightly blurred, although she was almost certain it was improving day by day.
So, she lay in the bed, gathering her strength and thinking about her mother. She’d looked so young. And happy. How could she be so happy without Leah’s father? Unless the photograph had been taken before he’d… Before he’d done what? Abandoned her? Was she really still alive? Had Westler been telling the truth?
The image of Westler in the chair, her slack mouth leaking white foam, came unbidden to Leah’s mind. It made her feel sick. The rage she’d felt attacking the woman was gone. In its place were a constant, low-grade guilt and a feeling that she’d crossed a line and done something her father would never have done. She’d tried reminding herself that Westler had been responsible for the torture of dozens of people. It made no difference.
Leah took a deep breath and lifted her arm, trying to loosen the sheets.
“You’ll hurt yourself doing that.”
Alice stood in the door. The swelling on her face had gone down dramatically, and the bruises had faded to a soft yellow.
Leah was relieved to see her, and she realized she’d been afraid she might never see her again. “Hi.”
Alice stepped into the room, smiling, and pulled up a chair alongside the bed. “How are you doing?”
“I need to get out of here.”
Alice gently laid a hand on Leah’s shoulder. “I know it’s frustrating, but you’re lucky to be alive. You were out cold for six days.”
Leah’s breath caught in her chest. “Six days? What happened to me? Doctor Potato wouldn’t tell me.”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “Potato?”
“Okay, Doctor Vanier wouldn’t tell me.”
Alice smiled. She placed her hand on her right-hand side, below her ribs. “You took a bullet right here and a second in your thigh. They didn’t hit anything vital, but we weren’t sure you were going to make it. The doc patched you up as best he could, but it’s going to be a while before you’re up and about.”
“No, I can’t stay here.”
“What’s so important you’d risk internal bleeding and a slow, painful death?”
“I need to find my mother.”
Alice’s shock was clear on her face. “She’s alive?”
“I think so. She lives somewhere called Lancaster. I need to talk to her.”
“You’ll have to wait until you’re better.”
“I can’t; I need to know the truth.”
“Leah, I’m serious. You’ve got to rest.”
Alice’s voice was soft and full of sympathy, but it still triggered a wave of anger in Leah. “No! I—”
Alice held her hands up. “But I will look into it for you. I’ll find out where Lancaster is and see if your mother is there. If she is, I’ll take you to see her myself. Once the doctor says you’re okay to travel.”
Leah’s agitation had awoken a dull, pulsing pain in her thigh. She winced, suddenly defeated. “Why didn’t anyone come to see me?”
“We did. Da Silva, Hobbs, and I all kept an eye on you. We came by so often while you were unconscious that the doc threatened to ban us.”
“Hobbs is okay?”
“Yes, he and Morgan got Elaine and James out. Elaine has gone north to Canada, I think.”
Leah smiled, but it quickly faded. “What about Adam?”
Alice shook her head.
Leah hadn’t really known the man, but she still felt a flicker of sorrow. Too many people had died. “What happened to Katherine?”
“Billingham has her and James confined.”
“Like, in prison?”
“Just to their rooms. She’s helping us, but he’s still not convinced she didn’t have more to do with the bombing than she says.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes. Everything she gives us checks out. We’ve already shut down a dozen Transport operations.”
Leah’s breath caught in her chest. She’d forgotten about the bombs. She struggled to sit up. Jagged pain cut through her stomach.
“Lie down.”
“The bombs!”
“Don’t worry. We found the people whose names you gave us, and you were right. Transport was holding someone from each of their families and forcing them to work against TRACE.”
“You stopped them destroying the cities?”
“It was close, but yes.” Alice’s face darkened. “The bombs have been taken to a secure facility in the south somewhere. Morgan is helping them reverse engineer the tech.”
“But isn’t that a good thing?”
“Maybe. Hobbs has been trying to find out more, but he keeps getting blocked.”
The pieces of the puzzle slotted into place. “TRACE is going to use the bombs against Transport.”
“No. But they aren’t going to destroy them either.”
“You’re afraid they might change their mind and use them.”
Alice sighed and nodded.
“They won’t, I’m sure.”
“I hope you’re right, but mankind has a bad history with this sort of thing.”
A cough wracked Leah’s body. She grimaced as a new source of pain made itself known, this one in her back.
Alice poured a cup of water and handed it to her. “I’m going to let you get some rest.” Before Leah could protest, she said, “I’ll look for your mother, I promise. But you have to do what the doctor says. We’re not going to find her until he says you can leave. Okay?”
The aches and pains in Leah’s body made that seem like an impossible dream, but she nodded.
Alice stood. “Good. Now, you take it easy.”
“One more thing before you go.”
“Sure.”
“Can you get Nat to bring me some decent food?”
Alice laughed. “I’ll talk to him. Now, get some sleep.”
Leah wanted to protest, but her eyes were heavy. Sleep sounded like a very good idea.
The door clicked shut behind Alice, and Leah let her head drop back onto the pillow. She smiled. Tomorrow she’d ask the doctor when she’d be able to get out of this stupid bed.
54
Leah felt as though her thigh were filled with shards of broken glass. Doctor Vanier had said the bullet had broken apart as it entered her leg. Some of the fragments had lodged themselves in the bone. He’d spent a couple of hours extracting them and trying to repair the damage as best he could, but as he kept reminding her, he didn’t have the resources he needed to run a real hospita
l.
The doctor was right there, sitting on the other side of the room, reading an old magazine while she struggled through the physiotherapy exercises he insisted were the only way she was ever going to get out of the medical ward. Leah hated him.
The nurse tapped on the side of the medieval torture device Leah was strapped into. “Five more, Leah. Come on!”
She hated the nurse, too. She was a tiny woman, three or four inches shorter than Leah, but she had a wicked temper.
And she was psychic. The moment Leah even began to think about giving up, she’d start shouting at her. “Don’t be weak! Do you want to stay here forever? Stop wasting my time!” Once, she’d even screamed “Pathetic! Pathetic! Pathetic!” and then stormed out of the sweaty room the doctor claimed was a rehabilitation center.
Leah strained against the machine as she tried to straighten her right leg against a metal arm attached via a pulley to a stack of weights behind her head. It felt like her muscles were about to finish off the damage the bullet had started and shred themselves. The machine’s metal frame groaned. Leah’s heart quickened even as she reminded herself she was in TRACE’s power station, not back in Westler’s virtual reality. A twinge of pain ran up her spine. She let out a yelp. The muscles in her leg gave out, and her foot swung down.
The nurse looked like she was about to explode. “Is that it? You’re just going to give up?”
Leah wanted to scream, “Yes! I give up! Now stop torturing me, you old hag!”
Instead, she gritted her teeth and swung her leg back up, lifting the metal arm again. The weights behind her rose unsteadily upward. Her leg reached the horizontal.
“Hold… Hold… Hold…”
Sweat trickled down Leah’s forehead and into her right eye. She tried unsuccessfully to blink it away before it started stinging.
“And release. Slowly!”
Leah let her leg swing back down. The weights clanged against the base, and she winced. The nurse had punished her for not controlling the weights’ descent in the past. The look on her face suggested she was about to again.
The Girl in the Machine (Leah King Book 3) Page 19