Dr. Adamson’s grip tightened around the gun in his lap. My own hands clenched the armrest.
“Can’t we go around?” Dr. Adamson shouted up at the pilots over the pound of the water on the metal exterior.
The lead pilot shook his head. “Straight on! We’re nearly there now.”
At the end of the pilot’s last word, the helicopter took a sudden plunge, and for an entire second, it felt like free-falling.
My brain flashed to a moment back in Kansas so many years ago, when Finn and I jumped from the loft of the barn, all the way down to a big pile of hay. The fluttering in my stomach felt the same. The risk of the jump felt huge, even for me at ten years old. Except that Finn had been there, three years younger than me and laughing, making the moment innocent and sweet and somehow obtainable.
There was no hay at the bottom of this fall.
My jaw clenched tight and smothered a scream in my throat.
And then, the helicopter straightened itself, and the quivering in my stomach snuffed out, just like landing on the hay.
Amid the determined chop of the blades, everything about killing myself became clear.
I could not leave Finn behind.
I loved him more than anyone else alive on this planet. He needed me. There was only a tiny percentage of hope that Finn would live past his modwrog state. But it was still a possibility, and I could not leave him, not if there was a small chance of him living.
The helicopter lurched again, and I closed my eyes and pressed back into the seat for some artificial semblance of stability.
We tipped hard to the left, and a first-aid kit slid across the floor.
So, if I wasn’t killing myself, what was I doing? Dr. Adamson said we were flying to headquarters. I knew what happened there. They’d inspect me, run lab tests, take my eggs, match them with Jack’s sperm, and sell the embryos to the highest-bidding country. Which meant I had to escape before they could get to me and my eggs.
I had to escape and find my brother.
I had no idea how to get to Finn or where to find the rest of them. Jack and Beckett and Imogen might not have made it off the island with Finn. I might be headed straight back to where I came from.
The helicopter trembled. It felt as if the aircraft was giving in to the storm, the walls quivering at the strength of the wind. Dr. Adamson stared out the window, his fingers clinging to the gun in one hand and the armrest in the other. The pilots leaned forward, a focus in their postures. They shouted back and forth through their headsets.
My stomach contracted, a deep, weary throb, not for fear of crashing to the ocean, but because I knew my new plan would mean seeing Finn dead or alive, but quite possibly dead.
Don’t think about all that right now. Just focus on getting yourself out of here.
Escape. Get to Finn.
I didn’t have the freedom to be a martyr, at least not while my younger brother was still alive.
Now, all I needed was for these pilots to get us out of this sky.
5
BECKETT
I pushed through a queasy feeling, a sensation of spinning and dipping in the air. The guard must have hit me hard on the head.
Footsteps echoed down the hall, coming toward our cell. Imogen heard them too because she lifted her gaze from Finn and his bleeding arm.
Through the small window in the door of our cell, I watched a guard pull Jack to a stop in front of our door. Jack’s hands were cuffed behind his back.
“Now that we’re alone—” the guard said. And then he punched Jack in the face.
Jack’s head flung to the side. He didn’t even stiffen at the hit. The fight that usually lit up in his eyes was completely gone.
The guard massaged his hand. “I’ve been waiting to do that a very long time.”
There was a time, back when Jack and I were fourteen, and we were on vacation with Dad in Brazil, when Jack actually broke out of handcuffs. So why wasn’t he trying now? He never let people just hit him. Especially not just because “they’d been waiting to do it for a very long time.”
Behind me, Finn, his giant body sprawled across the concrete floor, was showing the first signs of rousing from unconsciousness. I glanced at Imogen, and she gave me a knowing look. If Finn was waking, we didn’t have much time. Then what? Without his sister here, he’d rip us all to pieces. Especially because his sister wasn’t here.
The guard unlocked the door.
My eyes met Jack’s. If we were going to break out of here, now was our opportunity. But Jack read my expression and shook his head. Not now.
I hesitated for a split second. If not now, when? Were we basing our entire escape plan on whenever Jack felt like fighting back? Sage was out there, over the Pacific somewhere with Dad. We needed out.
But the guard shoved Jack forward, and Jack didn’t fight it. As much as I hated it, I took a step back, giving him room to enter the concrete cell.
“Finn is starting to wake up,” I said to the guard, waving my hand toward the floor so he would know who I was talking about. “We need another tranquilizer dart if we’re all going to stay in this cell togeth—”
The door closed before I could finish.
I eyed Finn warily. His limbs and torso looked larger than ever, larger than any normal fifteen-year-old boy should ever look. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen Finn since he and Sage had been kidnapped. Thanks to my dad’s injection, Finn wasn’t recognizable any longer. His bones and muscle had expanded, distending his face and jaw bone, enlarging his entire body. His skin had changed to a grayish, translucent green. Boils speckled his skin, and clumps of his wavy brown hair had fallen out.
He’d moved beyond the Finn I knew from the farm.
I longed for the farm—for Finn to be normal again, for me and Sage to be riding horses across the land, herding cattle, checking the crops.
I wanted that, instead of here on the island with Finn dying before my very eyes, and Sage who knows where.
Earlier, when Finn’s arm had started bleeding again, Imogen had ripped the bottom part of her shirt and tied the piece around his arm. Now his whole limb was swollen and purplish. Blood trickled down his arm, dripping to the floor, mixing with a blood stain already on the concrete—Jack’s blood from last night, from bullet wounds. Bullet wounds our own father gave him. I wanted to ask Jack if his injuries were healed up, if he felt alright, but I was too ticked at him for failing Sage. In fact, some cruel part of me hoped Jack was still in pain from wounds.
“You have a plan, Sherlock?” Imogen said to Jack.
Without saying a single word, Jack glanced at me, glanced at Imogen, glanced at Finn’s giant body lying unconscious on the floor, and then stared up at the ceiling. He was either deep in thought or ten seconds from blowing up. This was the calm before the storm. Sometimes, though, Jack could bottle his rage for hours, days, weeks. The waiting made the explosion all the bigger, whenever it came.
But, actually, this time, I didn’t care. I felt my own anger growing, seeing Jack here in front of me, while Sage was somewhere on a helicopter with our dad, getting closer to headquarters and the science labs with every passing moment. And we were here, locked inside this cell.
“Well?” I said. “What’ll it be? You got some magnificent plan up there? Brilliant enough that it would keep us from taking out that guard just a minute ago?”
We should have figured out Dad’s plan earlier. We should have outsmarted him. But we didn’t, and Jack acted like he didn’t even care.
Jack lowered his wrists below his hips and stepped over his cuffed arms, bringing his hands to the front of his body. Then he leaned against the wall next to the door. If his bullet wounds still bothered him, he hid it well. He hid most everything well.
“Well?” I prodded.
Finally, Jack spoke. “Why don’t you just say what you want to say, Beckett? Get it off your chest.”
He wanted to tango? Fine.
“You know what I’m gonna say,” I bega
n.
Jack shrugged. “Then say it.”
“Fine.” I wasn’t backing down. “Why didn’t you get her out?”
Jack’s eyes snapped to mine, like he was suddenly awake for the first time since falling from the helicopter. Maybe he wasn’t expecting me to be so blunt?
A look of muted fury crossed over his face, but before he could mask it, I saw what lay underneath.
Pain.
Go ahead and feel it, Jack. Soak it in. Feel the pain. This is what it feels like when you fail. Sucks, doesn’t it, when you don’t get everything you want? I’m just sorry it had to be something I wanted too—something I desperately needed. Like air to breathe, I need her.
Imogen watched Jack and me glaring at each other, probably feeling the tension growing in the air. Seconds passed.
The energy reached a boiling point, both Jack and I refusing to look away from each other, an unspoken contest to see who was weaker—which of us would look away first or lose control of his emotions. We’d done it like this since we were four years old. Except now, we both had muscle. We could hurt each other.
Screw it. I’ll just punch him.
But Imogen’s voice wrecked my decision. “Just cut it out, you two, okay? We’re here. Sage isn’t here. Period. End of story.” She knelt down to inspect Finn for the fiftieth time since we’d been in the cell.
I wasn’t sure if Jack got distracted by her movement or Finn’s sudden ragged inhale, but either way, he looked down at Finn and broke our stare. I logged my silent victory.
“The tranquilizer dart is wearing off. He’s starting to wake up,” Imogen said. “He won’t recognize any of us. We need to restrain him because he’s going to flip out.”
Maybe that’s what Dad wanted. For it all to end with Finn ripping us to pieces.
I loved Finn like he was my own brother, and I couldn’t look at his body without large amounts of guilt. What if I’d gotten to the island sooner? What if we’d left the farm before Sage and Finn ever got taken by Vasterias and my father? What if we had actually made it off this island in time to help him?
“And then what, Imogen?” I said, hating the helplessness that slipped into my voice. “Once he’s tied up, then what? How do we get out of here? How are we actually going to save him?”
“Forget about that!” she said. “I need to tie his limbs. Give me your shirts or something.”
But before I could lift my hand to the hem of my shirt to do what Imogen asked, Finn’s eyes fluttered open, and he swung his good arm toward Imogen’s face.
Imogen ducked, and before Finn pushed himself to sitting, Jack hit Finn right in the center of his forehead. Finn fell back to the floor, unconscious.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. “He’s already hurt enough as it is!”
“I just bought us fifteen minutes and no injuries, that’s what I’m doing. Would you rather I let you do it, Beckett?”
I spun toward Jack. “He’s still one of us, Jack. He’s still a human.”
“You always seem so appalled when I do what has to be done,” Jack said. “And yet, you never acknowledge that it gets us out of problems time and time again.”
Jack’s sarcasm did me in. He was right; I wouldn’t punch Finn in the face, but I could certainly punch him. I was completely fine with that.
“Well, it’s too bad you can’t deliver when it actually matters,” I said and lunged toward Jack before he could reply, ready to smash in his face. Unfortunately, Imogen leapt into the space between us before I could get there.
“Enough!” she said, pushing her hands into both our chests and shoving us away from one another. “Will you two prats channel this into something productive? Like figuring a way to get us out of here? I don’t have time to babysit you two and take care of an injured modwrog. Calm yourselves and use your brains for something besides beating each other up.”
She placed her hands on her hips, satisfied she had our full attention. “Now. Hand me your shirts.”
6
SAGE
The pounding rain lightened its onslaught, and the pilots finally leaned back in their seats.
The darkness of the clouds relented to an ominous pale gray. Dr. Adamson relaxed his death grip on the gun.
My focus remained the same: Escape. Get to Finn.
I’d be watching for my first realistic opportunity.
Ahead, I spotted land. A large island propped in the eternity of the darkened water below, the sand and greenery breaking the monotony of gray.
The helicopter approached, hugging the coast. As we flew over the south side of the island, my heart jumped.
People.
A ray of sun poked through the clouds and seemed to shine down directly over the small community. Little kids playing and dancing in the misty rain. A man wearing a navy shirt, hunched over in a red fishing boat near an inlet. Two teenagers on their bikes riding down the single paved road that cut through the center of a cluster of buildings and huts. A woman buying fruit at a stand. Three men standing outside the door of a shop.
Normal, everyday people, going about their lives.
I want to be part of that. Not this. Not what I was wrapped up in. I’d give anything to be one of those people, down in that little village, free from the weight of everything unfolding in my life, free of all that is to come.
Only a few children looked up as we passed in our helicopter overhead. It must be a regular routine if our presence surprised no one.
The little town couldn’t be more than four hundred yards below; I could see everyone so clearly, and yet I felt so disconnected, so far away. I might as well be on another planet entirely.
Our helicopter flew on, heading toward the north end of the island.
Dr. Adamson cleared his throat and adjusted the gun in his lap, the barrel aimed at me.
“We’re about to land and move to a plane for the ride to New York. No tricky business, do you understand?”
“Or what?” I said.
Seeing signs of normal life had snapped something inside of me.
“You’re going to threaten me? My brother is already a modwrog, Dr. Adamson. And you already killed my mother.”
This is what Dr. Adamson did. He threatened in order to subdue. Maybe my father didn’t want me, maybe he never showed up for me, but at least he didn’t play games like this. Dr. Adamson had always entangled himself in his sons’ lives, manipulating, weaving webs of confusion and mistrust.
I straightened in my seat, gaining confidence. “Why are you so cruel to them?” I said.
“Who?” His voice sounded indifferent, uncaring.
“Your boys. I’ve never met someone so willing to physically and psychologically damage his very own offspring.”
Dr. Adamson’s smile faded.
He shared a few facial features with his boys—Jack’s sharp jawline and dark hair, Beckett’s wide-set green eyes. And yet, Dr. Adamson’s face held a harshness all its own. Years of bitterness etched into his features from the death of his wife—a death he blamed Jack for every single day.
I continued, bolstered by his silence.
“They care about each other too much for you to ever break them apart, you know that, right?” I wanted to hurt Dr. Adamson in some way, to dig deep enough into his hard heart that I struck pain.
“You can see their loyalty to each other, and it frightens you. Because there is power in loyalty, and you’ve never been able to break their connection. No matter how many times you pit them against each other, no matter how many times you threaten them with ending the life of the other. It’s making their bond stronger, you know. Because the more you attempt to push them away from one another, the closer their bond gets, and the more they fight against you to keep it that way.”
I shouldn’t have said it. It was meant to spite him, but now Dr. Adamson actually pondered my words, like he intended to use the knowledge to its fullest depths.
Our helicopter dipped slightly.
The trees at t
he north end of the island had been ripped down to make room for a giant expanse of concrete, a small airline hanger, and a helicopter landing zone.
The view solidified something in Dr. Adamson. “Remember what I said. Nothing stupid.”
I didn’t reply.
He planted a tight, fake smile on his face. “I heard your dog is at the mansion. Ollie, isn’t it?”
A thick, rancid lemon taste coated my mouth. Ollie? I thought he was still back on the farm ….
Dr. Adamson spoke his next words lightly. “Sure would be a shame if he got sick.”
The mention of Ollie’s name, combined with Dr. Adamson’s threat, chipped at my composure. It was too much of home. Lonesomeness for my beagle pulled at a small tear in my heart, and the more I thought of Ollie, the more I thought of the farm, and the wheat fields, and then … it was too late. My heart’s weakest spot, the location where I’d tucked away the death of my mother ripped open completely, and grief flooded my body.
I turned away from Dr. Adamson and looked out across the glittering, gray Pacific Ocean.
If Dr. Adamson’s plan was to keep me from attempting escape for just a little bit longer, it worked, because now I felt desperate to see Ollie and bring him with me. I knew how comforting it would be to wrap my arms around the warmth of his body and nuzzle my face into his neck.
Ollie connected me to home.
Ollie had loved my mom, too.
Dr. Adamson smiled for real this time, knowing he’d pricked a soft place inside of me.
My body went rigid, and indignity rolled through me.
Dr. Adamson was a smart man. Didn’t he know that he was never going to get what he wanted from me? That no matter the threats, I’d never allow him to extract my eggs or any of the DNA in my cells? I’d escape first, or if I got word of Finn’s … my chest constricted as I stumbled over the thought … Finn’s death, then I’d willingly kill myself. In the meantime, there was no way I’d let Dr. Adamson and Vasterias pull things from my body and use the pieces for power.
The Golden Order Page 2