That’s not my dad.
In my head, my words were even. In the small conference room, something rumbled in my throat.
“I’m sorry, but my crew will be leaving the building rather abruptly,” Dr. Adamson said.
That’s not my dad!
I growled at the door, louder this time.
Beckett still shook at the handle, staring into the eyes of the man who could not be my father. “Dr. Cunningham! Let us out!”
“Vasterias is on their way,” said Dr. Adamson. “They’ve tracked us, which is not surprising. We must destroy the building so Vasterias doesn’t get their hands on any information we couldn’t find.”
Jack hadn’t moved. He stood statue still, taking in his father, processing the situation in ways I couldn’t comprehend.
“Everything is contained,” Dr. Adamson continued. “My last men are exiting just as soon as they ensure some final business is done. And then, a bomb will detonate.”
This announcement pulled Beckett’s attention from the man at the door. He turned and stared at the screen in disbelief.
He took four swift steps toward the projected image of his dad. “A bomb.”
Beck’s voice held equal amounts incredulity and acceptance, as if he knew his dad would do something like this, yet still didn’t want to believe it.
“We can’t have Vasterias getting their hands on any of Dr. Cunningham’s information. Just in case we missed something,” Dr. Adamson said in agitation, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world and he was annoyed to repeat it.
I felt a scream rising in my throat, but my rage at Dr. Adamson got redirected. With Beckett’s absence at the door, I could better see the face of the man through the window.
I loped toward the door and clawed at the window, pounding, kicking, squealing.
You’re not my dad! YOU ARE NOT MY FATHER!
The man’s eyes went wide, he backed away and disappeared down the hall.
Behind me, on the screen, Dr. Adamson lifted his hand up. He held his phone, and on the phone screen, a red button. He pressed down on it.
His phone flashed just long enough for me to read the 8:00 already ticking down to 7:59 on the screen.
The conference room went utterly still.
Dr. Adamson smiled. “You won’t let your friends down, will you, Jack? Surely you have this one last escape in you?” Dr. Adamson raised his eyebrows and then nodded his head toward his son. “I leave their fate in your hands.”
What. In. The. World?
This was how Dr. Adamson played? No wonder Jack had a complex about everything on the planet being his fault.
I screeched in fury and shoved the projector off the table.
It crashed to the floor, and Dr. Adamson’s image on the wall went black. We all stared at the destroyed machine on the floor.
Beckett broke first.
“Why?!” He screamed. He kicked the projector, and it sailed across the conference room. “Why does it always circle back to him?”
“Screw it,” Jack ordered. “Time is ticking. We need to get to Finn and Imogen.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed on me. “Sage, if you’re in there, I could use a little help.”
109
SAGE
Ramming my body into a metal door had never felt so good in all my life.
Combined with Jack’s body hitting at the same time, the hinges broke loose after twenty seconds.
And now, to find Finn and Imogen.
110
IMOGEN
A fist pounded on our door, the locked handle jangled, and Jack’s face popped into the small glass window.
My eyes widened, and I gave Finn a playful shove.
“See, chap! I told you they’d come for us.” I jumped up from my seat, ignoring the fact that Finn had actually been the one telling me.
“It’s locked!” I shouted at Jack when I reached the window.
“No duh, Einstein!” Jack shouted back at me, his voice sounded muffled through the weight of the door.
Despite his sarcasm, I’d never been so happy to see him.
“We can’t get out!” I cried.
Jack rolled his eyes. His head disappeared for a second, and then I heard him yell, “Stand back!”
I took a step back just as his fist, covered in a t-shirt, pounded on the tiny glass square. It took four punches for Jack to break through the glass. He brushed away the shards with the t-shirt and then peered in. “Everyone okay? How’s Finn?”
“Alive and well, but we can’t fit through the window, Sherlock.”
“I’m working on that, alright? Just stay back.”
“Sage?” Finn called out weakly from the bed. “Are you there?”
A gasp came from the hall, then Beckett’s hesitant voice.
“Hi … Finn,” Beckett replied. “Good to hear you talking, buddy. She’s here, just not up for saying hello at the moment.”
Then someone—or something—in the hall growled.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jack ordered someone behind him. “He shouldn’t see you right now, anyway.”
My chest flip-flopped.
“Who you got with you?” I said tentatively, already dreading the answer.
This wouldn’t be good for Finn’s psychological rehab, not at all.
“Tell you later.” Jack grunted as his body—and what sounded like another body—hit the door. “We’re on a time limit. Seven minutes until explosives.”
Time limit?
Explosives?
They were blowing this place up?
But what about …
“Bert!” I cried to Jack. “In the basement! They put him in the basement! Finn’s dad!”
Jack’s body stopped ramming the door.
Silence.
Then Beckett’s voice, “We’ll go. You get them out.”
I heard footsteps retreat down the hall.
“Imogen,” Jack said. “I’m on my own. I need something to bust the hinges. Anything inside that room?”
“My dad?” Finn said, his voice full of confusion and betrayal, and I wondered if I should have told the kid earlier about Bert.
But Jack’s voice interrupted that thought.
“Uh, Imogen? Little help?”
I glanced around the room. Unable to contain my smile at our luck. “Will a sledgehammer work?”
111
SAGE
My ears could hardly believe the words Imogen said.
Finn’s dad, in the basement. That meant my dad, in the basement. The man from my dreams, in this very place, within reachable distance. It’s more than I could have let myself hope for.
We found the basement door two hallways down from the others. Beckett kicked it all the way open, and we heard voices carrying up from below.
“I warned you once, old man.” A pause, and then a gunshot. It rang in my ears.
A voice cried out in pain.
No.
No, no, no.
Beckett’s face reflected the same horror I felt in my own body.
“We know you have another location for it,” the voice spoke again. “Where is it? Where?! Do you want another bullet?”
Beckett and I dove down the stairs, and there at the bottom, across the room, beyond the tables, and the papers, and the shelves of science experiments, there, holding his stomach, blood oozing out from between his fingers, was the man from my dreams.
My father.
A guard stood a few feet away from him and another pilfered through sheets of paper on the nearest tabletop. The guy by the table spotted us first and aimed his gun at Beckett, who had already lifted his own gun.
“We’ve got trouble, Charlie.” The man spoke over his shoulder, eying me the whole time. “Finish him up.”
Finish him up.
Finish up my father.
My response was instinctual. I moved before the guy had completed his last word. I leaped before the gunshot even went off.
My mind screamed “
NO!” but my throat let out a long, indefinite roar as my body dove across the room, in front of the only man I’d ever known as a father, even if just in my dreams.
The bullet hit me in the torso.
I shrieked—not in pain, but in fury.
The man took aim again, at me this time, but I kicked the gun from his arm, and it skittered across the room. His eyes went wide as my hand came flying down across his face. His head snapped, jerking unnaturally to left, and he dropped to the ground.
My chest heaved. My eyes met Beckett’s.
He breathed heavy too, standing over the body of the other guard.
Within seconds, the adrenaline rolled away, and I felt my injury, a sudden burst of sharp pain in the upper part of my torso, on the right. Beckett grabbed his side at the same time, in the very same spot I felt my pain.
I dropped to my knees. Blood leaking from my wound. My world became dizzy, blurred.
“Sage!” Beckett cried.
But I pushed away his voice and the pain.
I wouldn’t let either consume me, not right now.
I rotated my head slowly, slowly, keeping the white stars in my vision at bay so I could finally look at him without distraction.
So face to face, I could finally see … my dad.
112
JACK
“This is not a sledgehammer,” I said to Imogen. I held up the chair leg she’d shoved through the broken window hole.
“Oh, come on, it’s metal, and there’s a wheel on the end. It’s as close to a sledgehammer as I’ve got. Now bust us out of here already.”
The leg was thick enough, so it might just work.
I hit the chair leg on the concrete floor a few times to knock off the wheel. Then I aimed at the first door hinge. It broke loose with five hits. The second hinge only took three hits. The third hinge groaned, taking on the full weight of the door alone. I gripped the loose side of the door, along with the door handle, and ripped it fully from the frame.
“My hero,” Imogen said flatly. She turned to Finn. “He can’t walk. And I can’t carry him.” She held up her hands as proof.
I masked my surprise. Her hands looked like vultures had slowly eaten away at her skin.
I contained myself.
Later. We’d deal with it later.
“Alright then, looks like you’re with me,” I said to Finn, striding toward the bed.
His long, thin body had begun the process of returning to normal. Something jumped in my chest at the sight of him. Both for him, and for Sage. Maybe there was hope for her to return to normal after all.
Later.
Think later, act now.
Finn sat up, or attempted it, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he was afraid of me or because he was trying to assist in the process of getting himself up and out of the bed. It probably didn’t help that the last time he saw me through normal human eyes, he’d seen my screaming face, my arms pounding on the lab room door, just as he was about to get injected by my dad.
There would be a time for formal introductions later.
Later. Everything later. Ideally, outside the building, after it exploded without blowing us to bits.
“Up you go then,” I said.
I flung Finn’s lanky frame over my shoulder at the same time I heard the first gunshot.
113
SAGE
His hand pressed to the center of his belly, but despite his pain and despite the looks of me, he smiled.
“Hello, Hope.” His eyes had tears in them.
My own cheeks felt wet.
Dad.
I knew this was right. This was the man I’d seen in my dreams. This was his face. The face of my father. My heart pulled toward him, reached toward him in desperation, as if I’d known him all my life.
My father stretched his arm toward me where I’d dropped on the ground.
“I’m so sorry ….” he said, his hand resting on my head, my shoulder, my cheek. “I’m sorry it all turned out this way …. I wanted only good for you. I love you so much. My daughter.”
A noise erupted from my throat, a choke, a sob.
I had so many words I wanted to say to him. So many questions. And I couldn’t say any of it. So I only leaned in, letting the touch of his hand comfort me. Blood pooled on the floor below my torso and also below his, both our blood mixing together on the concrete.
“We have to go.” Beckett stumbled over, still holding his side. “We have to get out of here, now.”
“Are you injured, too?” My dad looked at Beckett.
“No … no, I’m not hit. I don’t know what it is.” Beckett began to pull me up off the floor.
“Where does it hurt?”
Beckett pointed to the area on the upper right side of his belly.
Dad looked at Beckett’s torso, then back to mine.
“It’s entrainment.” Dad’s voice held wonder when he said the words, even as he pushed himself up off the floor. He struggled, dropped to his knees, then stood again. More blood poured out onto his hand. Beckett reached to help him.
My dad grimaced as he spoke. “Synchronicity of soul. It happens in nature all the time. Like a school of fish, moving together through the water.”
Dad groaned as he stood, slouching over his hand on the wound. “Or a flock of birds in the air. It’s a phenomenon sometimes experienced after two people become closely bonded, say, after decades of marriage or after a life-changing event. Only something energetically substantial creates such a bond.”
Beckett supported my father with his free arm; his other held me up. The three of us started a slow movement toward the steps.
“It’s the metaphysical side of a relationship that we can’t see with our eyes,” my father said. “With Sage, this would naturally heighten once the code awakened inside of her.”
Beckett’s voice strained with the weight of my body and my father’s. I tried to hold myself up, but the pain, the loss of blood, threatened to pull me under with every step.
“Well,” Beckett clenched his teeth. “I wish I wasn’t suffering from entrainment right at this very minute. It would make this a lot easier.” He grimaced. “We’re not exactly free on time.”
Together, the three of us shuffled our way toward the stairs. As we passed a long table, my father paused.
“Is he better? Is Finn better?” My father looked at Beckett.
Beckett nodded. “He’s not a modwrog anymore, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then it worked,” my father said. “I finally found a compound mixture that works.” He lifted a piece of paper from the table and folded it in half, wincing as he moved his arms. “We’ll take this, then. The others will need it.”
Beckett raised his eyebrows. “Others?”
My dad nodded toward the stairs, his breathing ragged. “I’ll explain later. Let’s go.”
We struggled across the room together and made it to the stairs, but it took us far too long. We all knew it.
The burning in my torso screamed at me.
An unending stream of blood flowed from my father’s bullet wound, his hand covered in red.
Up one step.
Then another.
On the third step, my father collapsed.
Beckett tried to pull him back up to his feet, but my dad pushed him away.
“Leave me,” my father said, breathless. “I will not make it.”
An order.
Nooo! I roared. Pain shot through my belly at the exertion of the noise.
Dad looked at me, as if he knew what I’d said.
“Yes. You must go without me.”
He pulled something from his shirt pocket and handed it to Beckett, along with the paper he’d taken from the table.
“A note for her.”
“No, you’re coming with us,” Beckett said, grabbing onto my dad’s arm again. “Come on, get up.”
My father shook his head. “It’s too much. Not enough time. Take her. Get her out. Survive.” He l
ooked straight into my eyes. “Live.”
Beckett glanced at me, torn.
“Go,” my dad said again, shoving the papers into Beckett’s hands.
Beckett clenched the notes in his hand, holding them up. “But will this mixture help her? Will Sage live?”
My dad didn’t look away from me while he answered Beckett’s question.
“I have nothing that can help her. She never should have changed. It’s only ….” He paused, his face pale from the blood loss. He leaned his head back against the stairwell wall. “It’s only because it’s what she wants. Once the code awakened in her, everything expressed in her body is what she wants. That’s how powerful her mind and body are now. That’s how we were all originally created.…” My dad coughed. Blood covered his hand when he lowered it from his mouth.
“She wanted to lose her heightened capabilities, so they went away. She wanted to turn mod, so her body did. She’s staying this way because she wants her body to do so.”
“You know this for sure?” Beckett said.
“Yes. I’m sure of this. ‘Believe ye shall receive, and ye shall have it.’”
My father used the last of his strength to push us toward the next step. “Now go.”
Beckett didn’t hesitate another moment. He slid the notes into his own pocket and dragged me forward, up the staircase.
No! I didn’t want to leave my father. I wouldn’t. I’d rather die right next to him. We’d only just met. I hadn’t said what I wanted to say. I couldn’t leave yet; I couldn’t let him go.
I would not leave him there like this.
But my father mouthed it again, his voice barely a whisper. “Go. I love you.”
Beckett pulled me away.
We reached the top of the stairs.
I glanced back for one final look at my father. His head still rested against the wall, his hand covering his wound. His face looked peaceful. His eyes were closed, but at the last moment, they fluttered open, and he gazed up the stairwell at me. He smiled.
Go. Live.
Beckett pulled me forward. The two of us stumbled down the hall together, most of my body weight on Beckett now. My mind and heart were unable to go, unwilling to go, and my weakened body fought against Beck.
The Golden Order Page 26