Reborn

by Jennifer Rush

  Chloe met me halfway to the car. “She’s really upset right now. When she woke up, she started bawling. She keeps asking for you.”

  I pushed past Chloe.

  “Wait,” she said, and caught up to me. “Please, just be gentle with her.”

  “I’ve never been anything but gentle with her,” I said. “I need to see her.”

  I opened the back door and slid inside. It was silent. Elizabeth was folded in on herself, her hand covering her eyes. Her head lay against the door.

  “Elizabeth? Talk to me.”

  Nothing.

  She didn’t even move.

  I inhaled. I’d already proven to her that I sucked at consoling, but I had to try something. Otherwise I’d just look like a jackass.

  I reached out to her, slid my fingers around hers, and pulled her hand away from her face.

  Her eyes were closed. Her arm was limp in my hand.

  “Elizabeth?”

  Chloe opened the driver’s door, pinned herself in the crook of it, and pulled something from the seat.

  I saw the flash of silver too late, heard the gunshot next. Heard Anna scream to Sam. Heard the pop of a tire.

  “What the—” I started, but I wasn’t quick enough.

  Chloe reached over the seat and pistol-whipped me in the face.

  Everything went black.

  “You are the worst bad guy in the history of bad guys.”

  I blinked.

  “You had her in your grasp and she got away. Slipped out a bathroom window? Isn’t that the oldest trick in the book?”

  I didn’t make a sound.

  The car was moving, but not speeding. If Sam and the others had come after us, Chloe had lost them.

  “Yeah. Yeah. I know. My absolute, perpetual freedom for theirs. I got it. I’m on my way.”

  Chloe hung up the phone and cursed. I moved just enough to glance over at Elizabeth. Still out.

  How long had I been unconscious?

  Did I still have my gun?

  I slowly reached behind me. Nothing there.

  I’d apparently been out long enough for Chloe to escape Sam and the others, and for her to stop to retrieve my weapons.

  The car lurched as the tires left pavement and hit gravel.

  Stalks of corn turned into a blur outside the window as Chloe pressed into the gas pedal.

  We were on our way to the barn lab.

  Shit.

  I looked on the floorboards for something I could use as a weapon. Empty coffee cups. A tube of lip gloss. A notebook.

  Nothing that would hurt.

  What was the surest way to take her out?

  Gun.

  I didn’t have a gun.

  Knock her out.

  I could punch her, but from this angle, it’d be iffy.

  Choke her. I could put her in a choke hold, but if she had a gun close by, she could shoot me in the goddamn face.

  Seat belt.

  And Chloe wasn’t wearing hers.

  I charged upright, grabbed the belt, and gave it a yank so I had as much slack as I needed.

  Chloe saw me in the rearview mirror and reached for her gun. I wrapped the belt around her neck, pushed my foot against the seat for added strength, and crouched.

  My weight was too much for her to fight. The air left her lungs in one ragged gasp. She came up off the seat, lost her footing on the pedal, and the car slowed.

  Chloe let go of the wheel. The front end swerved.

  I tugged harder on the belt and felt my stitches pop. I bit down a cry of pain.

  Chloe reached up and cut the belt with one swipe of a knife. I dropped to the floorboard. She slammed on the brakes, and I rammed against the seat.

  With the car in park, she got out, came to the back door, and just as she opened it, I slammed a foot into it. She staggered back from the hit.

  I hurried from the vehicle, feeling the hot welling of blood in my wounds.

  Chloe had a gun trained on me.

  The barn rose out of the cornfields in the distance.

  “I’m out on the road,” she said, and it took me a minute to realize she was on her phone. “Nick tried to get away.” She narrowed her eyes at me but smiled. It was a real smile, too, as if she was amused at my daring play for escape. As if she was impressed.

  “Get out here now before I shoot him.”

  I put my hands up as she ended the call.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  If I couldn’t fight my way out of this, maybe I could talk my way out. Doubtful. I sucked at talking.

  “You don’t remember, do you?” She sniffed. “The Branch and their memory wipes.”

  “Remember what?”

  I took a step toward her. She lowered the gun and shot me in the leg.

  I went down. Dirt gritted between my teeth. A sharp pain raced up my leg.

  “Son of a bitch. What was that for?”

  “For being an idiot.”

  Chloe walked over, the gravel crunching beneath her flip-flops. She was in a dress. Flowers all over it. Her blond hair hung forward in a loose braid. Her lips were pink and glossy.

  She looked like any other teenage girl dropped into the middle of an Illinois summer.

  But she wasn’t.

  Obviously.

  She was obviously someone else entirely.

  “Six years ago,” she said, staring down at me as I blinked up at her, “you didn’t come here to kill Elizabeth. You came here to kill me.”

  34

  NICK

  MY FREEDOM FOR THEIRS.

  That’s what she’d said on the phone.

  She was using Elizabeth and me to bargain for her own freedom.

  Chloe sat beside me in the dirt, propped herself up on an outstretched arm, and used her knee as a rest to keep the gun pointed at my face.

  She stared down the road, squinting into the sunlight.

  Chloe was involved with the Branch? Chloe was a part of my old mission here?

  “You knew exactly who I was when we met up at Arrow, didn’t you?” I said.

  Chloe nodded, but didn’t look at me. “Imagine my surprise. I had to know what you were doing here again.”

  “So you got me drunk.”

  “Is there any other way to get information out of a guy like you?”

  I didn’t answer her. She was right.

  “You shot me that night you saved Elizabeth,” she said. “When I first came over to you at Arrow, I thought for sure you’d recognize me. Then when you didn’t, I realized you must have had your memory altered. So then I started wondering why.”

  “Would you have hooked up if I hadn’t had that flashback?”

  She finally turned to me, her eyes running up and down my body. “Maybe.”

  We sat in silence for a beat.

  “Why was I sent here to kill you?”

  “Do you remember what Riley’s instructions were? From that night?”

  That night was still vague in my head. I was fuzzy on the details. There were a few that stood out. Elizabeth staring up at me from the forest floor. Me with a gun in my hand. Elizabeth crying.

  I had known Riley was there, but I couldn’t remember what he’d said.

  What I did know was that Target E was supposed to be decapitated—and then suddenly all the pieces I’d gathered over the past few days added up.

  The Angel Serum. Decapitation, incinerating the body. The mystery girl from the barn lab. The one who kicked my ass with a bedsheet.

  That girl had had dark brown hair and…

  Chloe tilted her head, and I cursed my lame-ass observation skills. Her roots were dark brown.

  “Target E,” I said, and she nodded.

  I filed through my flashbacks, trying to see where she fit.

  Two stood out: the one of a girl in a white room, and the one I’d had that night when Chloe and I had stumbled back to my hotel room after meeting at Arrow. They were the same memory, I realized, just different parts.

&nbs
p; It made sense, though, that if the flashback was of Chloe, it had come racing out when I was with her. Memories are always easier to access when you have a physical anchor in the present.

  The only flashback of Elizabeth I was absolutely certain of was the one in the forest. It was possible that was actually the first time I met her.

  “My real name is Emily. Emily Chloe Noelle,” Chloe said. “I was known as Patient 2124 in the lab.”

  For a brief second, I forgot that we were enemies, and instead I was just in awe of her. “You shot yourself in the head.”

  She laughed. “Oh yeah, I did do that. Hurt like a bitch when I came to.”

  “Weren’t you afraid you wouldn’t survive a hit like that?”

  “No. Side effect of the Angel Serum—probably why they wanted me gone—I don’t feel fear anymore.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Like a light switch. It’s just gone.”

  So not only could she survive blowing off her own head, she didn’t fear anything. Which made her the most badass opponent the Branch had ever seen. No wonder they’d wanted her eliminated.

  “So that night, in the forest,” I said, “I did shoot you, and then you healed while I took Elizabeth to the hospital.”

  “I’d already died fifteen times by then. Healing from a bullet wound took less than three minutes.”

  “Why would you stick around here, though?” I asked. “With the lab so close. Why didn’t you run?”

  “I did run the first time I escaped.” She must have seen the confusion on my face, because she said, “That’s why you were sent here? To hunt me? Do me bodily harm? Ringing any bells?”

  I scowled. “But you were in the lab that night, the night Elizabeth got out. You’re in my flashbacks.”

  She blinked and looked away. “Let me tell you a story. It’s a short one. I think we have time. There once was a girl who broke free of the Branch, but her escape was scarred with regret. There was another girl, a girl she’d left behind, someone who needed saving.

  “So the first girl hatched a plan, and when she returned a few days later, she broke back in and freed the girl with big green eyes because it was the right thing to do.

  “But not just that. You see, the green-eyed girl was—” She stopped abruptly. “Well, I don’t want to ruin the ending.”

  I buried a grunt of annoyance. “But you could have left after that. After Elizabeth was free.”

  “No. I had to know if they returned. I had to know if they took her again.”

  My scowl deepened. “So you could use her to save your own ass, you mean.”

  She sent me a cutting look. “It’s not as simple as that. You of all people know how deep this game is we’re playing. This story is stitched with revenge, Nick, and we all have a seam to make, even Elizabeth. And besides,” she added, “the game has changed. Now I have you.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, and even if I asked, I doubted she’d explain.

  I shifted my leg, trying to take as much pressure off the wound as I could. “They’ll kill you, you know. Riley isn’t a man of his word.”

  She grinned. This girl could change emotions quicker than anyone I’d ever met. “Oh, I know. And I’m not a woman of mine.”

  An SUV skidded to a stop twenty feet away. Branch agents spilled from the vehicle and formed a line on either side of us, semiautos up and ready.

  Before Chloe got to her feet, she muttered to me, through clenched teeth, “Don’t screw this one up.”

  Riley slid out of the passenger side of the SUV and walked over to us.

  Clearly, he was in charge now. Awesome.

  “You did good,” he told Chloe.

  Chloe grabbed the hem of her skirt and curtsied, with a sly grin on her lips.

  Riley scowled.

  If the girl wasn’t so damn psychotic, I might actually like her as a fighting partner. She knew how to piss people off, and how to make herself look innocent while doing it.

  “Get them in the car,” Riley said, and the agents swooped in, grabbing me beneath the arms and dragging me to the SUV. I was tossed in the backseat, and sandwiched between two agents. Zip ties were tightened on my wrists.

  “Am I free to go now?” I heard Chloe ask.

  Riley didn’t say anything at first, and I thought for sure he’d make her come. Instead, he nodded, and Chloe climbed back into her car.

  Elizabeth was gently sprung from the backseat and put in the trunk of the SUV, still passed out.

  As Chloe stomped on the gas and barreled past us, she looked at the back window of the SUV, even though the glass was tinted and there was no possible way she could see me.

  She grinned again and winked.

  The short ride to the barn lab was a bumpy one, and my leg throbbed with each hit. The pain had lessened, though, so it was only a dull ache in the bone. Two gunshot wounds in less than twenty-four hours. That must have been a record.

  Riley didn’t say anything to me as we made our way back. Which was fine, because I wasn’t sure what I’d say in return. Probably something smart and civil, like, Fuck off.

  The SUV was pulled inside the barn, and the door closed behind us. A lock slammed into place.

  “Carry them down,” Riley ordered, and I was lugged from the SUV and dragged down the winding stairs and through the lab.

  The agents at either side of me seemed to know exactly where they were going through the maze. I was deposited in the room from my flashback.

  I still didn’t know the details from the past, though it was easy to figure it out. I’d come to kill Chloe. I’d had to chase her through the woods where I finally shot her. That’s when I’d stumbled on Elizabeth, who’d been trying to escape on her own.

  That still didn’t explain Elizabeth’s role in all of this. Was she just another test subject? Or was she somehow more involved?

  There were two agents stationed outside my locked cell. I could see them through the window that looked out over the maze. I sat, slumped, on the bed, cursing my injuries, though slightly dumbstruck by how much the wound didn’t hurt. The pain grew less and less with each passing minute.

  If my pain had lessened, then my agitation had grown, and I cracked every joint I had as I waited.

  I needed a plan. I needed to find Elizabeth. I could fight off a lot of guys, but even my abilities had limits. I couldn’t fight everyone inside, while injured, and while trying to save Elizabeth, too.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, the lock clicked, and the door opened. Riley came in first.

  “I’m glad it ended this way,” he said, his face blank, emotionless. Riley had always been even-keeled.

  It hasn’t ended, I thought. Sam and the others are coming. We’re going to break out of here. We’re going to survive like we always do.

  “Kill him,” Riley said.

  Three agents stepped into the room, their semiautos trained on me.

  My heart pounded against my skull.

  I had to get out of here. This was not how this would end. No way in hell.

  I charged toward them. I could fight my way out of this room. I had to.

  They opened fire, and the force of the gunshots sent me staggering back.

  I looked down at the bullet holes peppering my chest. Blood poured from the wounds like water from a spigot.

  I dropped to my knees. My line of sight skittered sideways, then narrowed.

  The room grew dark and sticky and cold.

  My body went numb, and I keeled over on an exhale. My heart slowed to a thump-thump in my ears. I had a flash of an old memory, of a time before the Branch, when I lay on dingy carpet that smelled of stubbed-out cigarettes and spilled beer as my dad glowered over me, blood smeared across his knuckles.

  Back then, I’d thought I was dying. This time I really was.

  “Get in a few more for good measure,” Riley said. “Then bury him out back.”

  The agents blasted me again.

  35

  ELIZABETH

&nb
sp; I SQUINTED AGAINST THE GLARE OF overhead fluorescent lights. I sat up. My body protested, as if it’d been in the same position for too long, my muscles cramped from disuse.

  “Chloe?” I mumbled, finding my tongue too dry, too thick.

  Beneath me was a thinly padded mattress covered in stark white sheets. The bed creaked when I shifted. I tried to recall what had happened before I’d fallen asleep. I was with Chloe, that much I knew, but everything else was a haze.

  Using my hand to block out the blinding light from above, I examined the room. The walls were as white as the sheets, the floor gray tile. There were two doors, both closed. No windows.

  I took in a breath and caught the old scent of lemon floor cleaner.

  I jerked to my feet and opened the door on my right—bathroom.

  I tried the door on my left—locked.

  My heart rammed against the back of my throat. Panic burned through the air in my lungs, and I staggered against the wall, gasping.

  It was a mistake. I wasn’t back here. I wasn’t here.

  Maybe I was hallucinating. It wasn’t so far-fetched, was it? I was mentally unsound, officially diagnosed, even. It wasn’t such a leap to think I’d transitioned from panic attacks to full-blown delusions.

  I closed my eyes and counted to four, over and over again until my breathing was regulated. I wasn’t going to fix whatever this was if I was having a panic attack on top of it.

  When my heart slowed, when I could no longer hear it hammering in my ears, I opened my eyes, but the room hadn’t changed and the artificial-lemon smell was as present as it had been five minutes ago.

  I tried the door again, tugging on the handle with everything I had. When it didn’t budge, I beat against it and screamed until my ears hurt.

  I couldn’t go through this again. I wouldn’t survive this time.

  Defeated, I sat on the bed and propped my head in my hands, tears pricking my eyes. I recalled Dr. Sedwick assuring me months ago that I was safe, that I was home now and that I was never going back to the place where I’d been held.

  But here I was. Here again.

  And somehow, in some twisted way, I wasn’t surprised. I might have been free for the past six years, but the memory of captivity had haunted me every single day. I had never truly been free of the lab, and maybe now I never would be.