by Atkins, Dawn
There she found Gage, sprawled in the dirt, motionless, his phone ringing inches from his body. Was he dead?
Heart in her throat, she dropped to her knees to press her fingers against his neck. She felt a pulse as faint as the ring of his phone. “Gage,” she said, a fist squeezing the life from her heart. “Wake up. Come on.”
Finally, he shifted, then cried out in pain.
“Don’t move,” Rena said. “You could hurt yourself.”
But he flopped onto his back anyway, his face covered in blood and contorted by pain. “My shoulder…” He moved it, then gasped. She watched the ferocious effort he used to test his body—legs, neck, arms, chest. His breath caught. “Ribs…,” he gasped.
“Stay still. I’ll get you to a hospital.” She was dialing 911 as she spoke. She stood, planning to see what was in the van that might help her get him up to the road, since the drop-off was so steep. How the hell would an ambulance find them?
“Wait.” Gage raised a bleeding hand. “Watchers drove me off the road,” he gasped. “Were you followed?”
“I don’t think so.” Her phone couldn’t catch a signal, so she grabbed Gage’s to call for help, telling the dispatcher where they were and asking for the nearest hospital. John C. Lincoln in Deer Valley. Not too far away.
“They’ll kill you if they know,” Gage said. “Save yourself. I’ll be fine.”
“You rest, Gage. I’ll be right back.”
She got a flattened Electrique carton beneath Gage’s body, pulled him to a spot where the slope was gradual, and hauled him up to the dirt road. Unwilling to wait for the ambulance, she let them know she’d be bringing Gage in herself and drove like a maniac to the hospital.
Along the way, Gage blacked out.
Chapter Sixteen
In the emergency bay, medical people belted Gage onto a board with a rubber brace for his neck and rolled him into the emergency room, moving with maddening calm. Gage groaned, so she knew she hadn’t killed him getting him here.
They cut away his clothes and soon a doctor was squeezing and prodding him and asking questions that Gage tried to answer between yells and gasps. When a nurse handed Rena a plastic sack with Gage’s shoes and the remnants of his clothes, Rena said, “Could he please have a pain shot?”
“Once the doctor knows what’s wrong,” the nurse said calmly.
Hurry the hell up then. She wanted to grab a needle herself.
Finally, the doctor straightened, smiling down at Gage, who was pale beneath the bloody scrapes, his face tight with pain. “Your dislocated shoulder we can fix quick. Beyond that, looks like you got yourself some cracked ribs and a cracked collarbone. We’ll confirm that with X-rays, of course.”
“Not bad.” Gage managed a pained smile.
“No kidding. We’ll debride your road rash, throw on some stitches, and you’ll be good to go. You’re one lucky biker, Mr. Stone. I’d pick up a lottery ticket on the way home, if I were you.”
“I hope my bike did as well as me.” Gage tried to laugh, then grimaced. After that an intern joined the doctor, and they braced Gage’s bad arm with a sheet, then popped his shoulder into place. Gage yelled once, then his face cleared and he grinned with relief. “Better.”
X-rays confirmed the doctor’s guess. After that they cleaned him up, taped his ribs, stitched his cheek, his forehead, and the back of one hand, and wrapped a sling around the bad arm. Somewhere in there he got a painkiller, and before long, they were sitting on the bed waiting to get signed out. “What the hell’s taking so long?” Gage said.
“Stop bitching. You’re lucky to be alive,” Rena said.
“Do you believe me now?”
“Not entirely, no.” Now that the terror was over she wanted the whole truth. “You lied to me. You’re a reporter.”
His gaze shot to her. “How did you find out?”
“Maya showed me an article you wrote. You’ve been investigating us for a story? Is that why you joined the Life?”
He shook his head. “I joined to find Beth, like I said.”
“You swore you told me everything—all the truth.”
“That wasn’t relevant.”
“It’s who you are, Gage. Of course it’s relevant.”
“You would have jumped to the wrong conclusions. I thought it was better not to tell you.”
“Better for you, not me.” Anger rose in her. “I’m sick of people protecting me with lies. I want the truth, dammit. All of it.”
“I needed you on my side and I was on shaky ground at the time.”
“You still are. Very shaky.”
“You have every right to be angry,” he said levelly. “You’ve been lied to by a lot of people, including me. But all my cards are on the table now. You have to believe me.” He held her with his gaze. She studied his battered face, bloody and stitched, already beginning to bruise.
Someone had definitely tried to kill him. Was it a Watcher in a Lounge van? Had they killed Cassie and his sister, too? Gage had been right about everything she’d checked out so far. “I’m listening,” she said.
“Good. That’s all I ask. We go from here together.” He blew out a breath. “How much did you tell them about me?”
“Everything. I told Maya about the tattoo ink you wanted to test, about the stolen report, and that you think they killed your sister.”
“No wonder they want me dead.” He gave a half laugh.
“You can’t believe Maya ordered you killed because of what I told her.” The thought horrified her. “She said they’d pursue legal action, that you’d only be banned.”
“Maybe she wasn’t the one who gave the order.”
She nodded. “I almost got you killed.”
“Actually you saved my life.” He gave her a crooked smile.
“I didn’t do that much. Your injuries aren’t life-threatening, thank God. Someone would have found you and—”
“No. Your battle move. I used that tumble-tuck you demonstrated. If I’d done it wrong, I would have snapped my neck.” He smiled. “So, see, you saved me.”
“It was my fault they went after you.”
“Now you know what these people are like. Did you get the photo I sent?”
“Of Cassie?” She nodded, remembering the terrible sight.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way. It was Roland. A woman at the shelter described the guy who came for her—mean, red face, sword tattoos. She thought he must be her dealer, since Cassie went with him willingly. They found her in an alley a while later, dead of an OD.”
“Why would they kill her? She was out of the Lounge. What damage could she cause?” She stopped. “Leland says NiGo’s still taking that money from banned players. Was Mason afraid she’d report him? He runs the badass Watchers, including Roland. I could see Mason ordering them to kill people.” The words were bitter poison and they made a terrible sense.
“Somehow she was a threat. Same for Beth and her boyfriend. Maybe other Lost Lives, too, for all we know.”
“Whatever’s going on has to be stopped. I have to fix this.”
He took her hand in his battered one. “It’s beyond that, Rena. You need to stay clear. They’ll kill anyone who gets in their way.”
“They won’t hurt me, Gage. Not yet.” Bitterness turned her smile sour. “They want my father’s money and they need me to get it.”
“What do you mean?”
“My adoptive father is Bingham Wingate III.”
Gage whistled low. “Damn. He’s one of the top tech people in the world.”
“I changed my name, but they knew anyway. They check us out, Leland says. They do a financial workup. That’s why they recruited me.” Her voice shook and she fought emotion. “They want me to talk Bingham into buying the Seattle Lounge. If I do, they’ll make me the GM.” She shook her head, ashamed of how naive she’d been. She swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. “Like a fool I thought I was leveling up so fast because I was good.” She hated that
the tears showed in her voice.
“Hey…” Gage touched her cheek. “You are good. These are cunning, manipulative people. They know how to exploit you to get what they want.”
“Funny, but Maya said the same about you. She called you a sociopath.”
“I’m no saint and I did lie to you, but you deserve better than NiGo, Rena, and I want to help you get it.”
Rena felt suddenly exhausted by all she’d learned and what it would mean for her. “I knew I had to watch my back in the Dead World, but not in the Life. I believed…so much.” Tears made it hard to see and she blinked them back, failing, she realized, when wet warmth streaked her cheeks.
Angrily, she brushed it away. She never cried. Never. “Maya saved my life,” she said, her voice cracking. “I was drinking and I wanted to die. She took me in, helped me get sober, treated me like a sister.” Her nose was burning and she tipped her head back to use gravity to hold back more water. “But the whole time all she wanted was Bingham’s money.” Rena felt ripped up inside, her heart shredded, her brain in tatters.
When Gage brushed her cheeks, she knew she’d failed to dam the waterworks.
“Don’t you dare pity me,” she said, fighting for control.
“I don’t. I’m pissed for you. And we’ll make them pay for what they did. Working together, with you on the inside, we can destroy them.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want Lifers hurt. It’s not revenge I’m after. I want to set things right.”
“We can both get what we want. We’ll figure it out together.”
“How will that work?” She couldn’t picture where to start or what to do next.
“First, we need proof that Watchers killed Cassie and Beth, preferably witnesses who know what they’re up to.”
“I can ask Zeke what he knows about Mason’s Watchers.”
“Could he be with them?”
“Not Zeke. No way.” Maybe she’d been wrong about Maya and the Life, but not about Zeke and her Lifer friends, especially her Recruits.
“Okay, talk to him. Will Leland help us with the blackmail files? Get us copies for the police?”
“He was drunk when he talked to me. He needs the job because of his kids, so he might be too afraid to speak out. I’ll try to convince him.”
“We’ll have the lab results soon. That will tell us a lot, I hope.”
“I want to know why they drugged us.” Outrage burst like a hot fountain in her head. “I’m addicted to Electrique, Gage. Like you thought. I got sick when I tried to quit. When I told Maya she sent me to the health center and they gave me E in an IV.”
“So it’s a big deal that you stay on the stuff.”
“It must be. There were all these files in colors that I think might be based on our status levels. The doctor had a file marked ‘urgent’ on her desk.”
“I’d love a look at the files.”
“I could ask for a new blood test—say I want to be sure I’m normal—but the place is so small I don’t know how I could sneak past the receptionist to grab anything.”
“I’ll come with you to distract her.”
“Looking like that?” She nodded at his damaged body. “Besides, NiGo thinks you’re dead. You should stay that way.”
“No one at the health center has seen me.”
“I don’t know, Gage.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Not really, no. My brain is imploding, I think.”
“I’d also want to check out the Electrique factory, see what I can find out about the formulas, how they separate the gamer E from the Lifer E.”
“I have to let Lifers know what’s been done to them.” She paused. “Everyone will be here for the launch party next week. I can tell them then.”
“What will you say?”
She thought about that. “The story sounds insane—Mason is stealing from EverLife players and killing the Lifers who find out. They addicted us to Electrique and the tattoo ink is poisoned. The question is why? What are they trying to do? And who is it? Mason and Maya or just Mason? Do Nigel and Naomi know? I want to confront them, make them confess.”
“They’re professional liars. How would you accomplish that?”
“I don’t know. Show them evidence they can’t deny. Broadcast their words to everyone at the party. It sounds impossible.”
“Not necessarily. We’ve got a week before the launch, right? I’ll talk to the PI I hired to help me find Beth about using one of his wearable miniature cameras. They look like cell phones or buttons on a shirt or in a purse. You’d transmit the signal to a laptop, then use the Dome sound system to broadcast it.”
“Would that work?”
“With high-end gear, it should.”
“The timing would be tight. We’d have to have them in the right place at the right time.”
“True. But in the meantime, we could put listening devices in key spots in case they say something incriminating.”
“Right. Mason’s office…Maya’s Quarters…the Blackstones’ penthouse if I can get a reason to go up there. Something to do with fund-raising should work. They always want to hear about money coming in.” She hated how cynical she sounded. Like Gage. She felt like a storm raged inside her. She was so tired, so mixed up.
“I’ll get on that. We’ve got a lot to do.”
She was so tired, she couldn’t think straight. “I want to get clean, Gage. I tried to quit E and got really sick. I want off it for good.”
“I know the manager of a detox clinic who would help us. He worked with me on a story about teen runaways.”
“How long will it take?” She swallowed, dreading the agony.
“The worst is over in forty-eight hours for narcotics. I know that from my mother. It probably depends on the drug and how dependent you are.”
“I’ll need an excuse to be gone from the Lounge. Everyone’s busting ass with the launch coming up.” She let her brain run through options, grateful for something tangible to figure out. “The Sacramento GM wants me to demo the Dome battles in her Lounge. I could sign out a van and pretend to go there.”
“Sounds believable.”
She nodded. “There’s one more thing.” She swallowed hard, fought the tightness in her throat to squeeze out the words. “I need to see Cassie. Will you take me?”
He steadied his gaze on her. “If you’re sure.”
“I dragged her out of the Life to her death. I want to pay my respects.” That guilt would haunt her to the end of her days.
“Cassie wanted me to tell you it wasn’t your fault.”
“Cut it out, Gage. No more lies. I don’t need protecting.”
“It’s the truth. She was pissed at first, sure, but when I dropped her off after the visit, her exact words were, ‘Tell Rena I don’t blame her. I stepped in shit. That’s not on her.’”
“That sounds like Cassie,” she said, her heart lifting a little. Neither Angel in the story nor the suicide call Maya had reported sounded one bit like Rena’s tough, mouthy friend. But the words Gage had quoted did. And they soothed her a little.
Before long, armed with pain pills from the hospital pharmacy, they headed back to Gage’s place. Gage slept in the van, doped up and worn out, head against the window, waking when she opened the door to help him out.
“We’re here?” he said sleepily. “What about my bike?”
“It’s not going anywhere,” she said, bracing him to the ground.
“I got a guy who does good body work,” he said. “And I have extra paint.”
“Forget your bike, Gage. You’ve got bigger worries.”
The doctor had told him to let his pain level be his guide to what he could do. Rena didn’t see him running many races. He grimaced with every stiff and slow step he took into the trailer and back to his bed. He could make phone calls, but she didn’t see him doing much investigating. She would have to handle that.
She put the pill bottle and water on his nightstand for when t
he pain hit again, then sat beside him.
His eyes drooped from painkiller and exhaustion. “I’m glad you came for me, Rena.” He reached for her hand. “I would have been sorry if I never saw you again.” He gave her a goofy smile and her heart did a funny flip.
“Me, too.” She couldn’t believe how corny she sounded. It was as though she’d been shot up with Demerol and didn’t know what she was saying either.
“With Beth gone…nothing holds me. But…it’s funny…I thought of you and that night we had…with Orion and all and—”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Gage. You’re high as hell.” But she kept smiling all the same and a funny tenderness made her brush his hair from his forehead.
“We’ll make this work, Rena,” he said, his voice going fainter. “You’ll be out and safe and have a life of your own, I promise.”
“Get some sleep, Gage.”
“You could stay.” He ran a slow hand over the sheet, his gaze intensifying for a moment.
Desire lurched through her, but she shook her head, being sensible. “You want your ribs all the way broken? Besides, I’ve got to get the van back before the mechanics start their shift. Will you be okay here alone?”
“Always have been before,” he said, then hesitated, as if that had changed. He cleared his throat, as if embarrassed by the emotion he’d let slip. “You’ll need protection, Rena. Could you get me inside the Lounge?”
“You’ve got one arm and you can hardly walk.” Still, his concern warmed her as his body had in that sleeping bag in the dark woods. “I’ll be fine. They need me, remember? I promised them a meeting with Bingham about buying the Seattle Lounge.” Which gave her an idea about how to handle the confrontation.
“Just be careful. If you get a bad vibe, get out.”
“I’ll be fine.” She felt better now, as if she was taking charge. Never again would she be tricked or used. She would make this right for Lifers if it killed her. And after what had happened to Gage, she knew it very well could.