by Jeff Sampson
“Would it help if I told you that after all the destruction you caused at BioZenith, we were easily able to claim it as a branch of Vesper Company once more?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not really. But good start!”
He cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he mumbled.
Someone must have been watching and listening in because there came a buzzing from the door, then a thunk as it unlocked. It opened to reveal armed guards waiting to escort me back to my cell.
I waved at Mr. Savage. “See you tomorrow.”
They walked me down the stairs and long hallways and deposited me in my room. As soon as the door shut behind me, I went into my bathroom and peeled off my sweaty pajama clothes.
I twisted on the shower, nice and hot. Then I climbed in and tried to process all that I now knew—about my friends and about the defenses they had to make sure I didn’t get out.
I was sitting on the floor of my shower, knees to my chest, eyes closed as water pelted my face and dripped down my nose and chin. The hot water was timed to only last five minutes before shutting off, and I was determined to enjoy every last bit of warmth I could before I was forced to towel off, get dressed in a clean set of the thin clothes, and go back into my blank, boring cell.
That was when I heard someone’s footsteps on the linoleum. Immediately my eyes darted open. Blinking away water, I saw a shadow through the plastic of the shower curtain.
So they couldn’t even let me take a shower in peace, huh?
I didn’t even think. I leaped to my feet and willed my fingernails to extend into long, shredding claws. Snarling, I tore the curtain open, prepared to attack.
And came face-to-face with Evan.
23
YOU IN?
Evan stood there in the foggy bathroom, appearing no worse for the wear, dressed in the same pale blue pajama clothes they forced me to put on. His blond hair was longer than I remembered, disheveled. Looking at me in all my naked glory, his eyes went wide.
“Oh God,” I gasped. Not because I was nude. But because seeing him, knowing for certain that he was actually one-hundred-percent okay, made my heart swell and my inner wolf-pack leader howl with joy. Tears streaming down my face, I let my nails turn back to normal, then lunged forward and pulled him into a sopping-wet hug.
“You’re okay,” I said. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I am,” he said, his voice muffled by the wads of my wet hair I’d shoved his face into. “But um, you’re sort of not wearing any clothes.”
Laughing, I pulled away. “What do you care? I thought you’d be immune to naked girls.”
As soon as I let him go, he turned away from me, then fumbled for the towel on its plastic hanger. Shoving it back toward me, he said, “I’m sure tons of guys would love naked hugs from you, but it’s sort of awkward, so please.” He shook the towel. “Just so we can talk before your shower runs out.”
I’d been so excited to see him that I didn’t realize why he chose the bathroom, of all places, to pop in on me. It was the only room with privacy, and the water would drown out any recording devices. That is, until the timer shut it off automatically—and the people watching my room on camera would expect me to exit the bathroom.
“Are you decent?” he asked.
I wrapped the towel around me and held it closed. “As decent as I’m gonna be.”
Grinning shyly, he peeked over his shoulder. Seeing that my lady bits had been put away, he turned all the way around.
“Man, it is so good to see you,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve been popping between worlds for weeks now, trying to find your room. I mean, we only knew each other for like a day before getting kidnapped, but…” He shrugged and looked down at the floor.
“I know,” I said. “Trust me, I know. Ever since this werewolf-hybrid-vesper thing started, meeting any of my pack members has felt like reconnecting with an old friend. And—hey, you’ve been popping between worlds? Like by accident or what?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No. Not by accident. Mr. Handler tried to tell me about how this worked, but it wasn’t until he made me go get Dalton that I finally figured out how to control it. Apparently all of us were supposed to have this ability—I was just the only one who turned out like they wanted. No offense.”
I shrugged. “None taken. I’m not sure I’d want to go over there anyway.”
“So okay,” he said. “Before the shower stops. First, they have no idea I can slip between worlds—I figured it out but I didn’t tell them. Second, I only managed to find one other person here, and that’s Amy.”
“Amy?” I asked. “Is she okay?”
He shrugged. “She’s…Amy. It’s hard to tell what she feels with the way she acts. I think she’s sad, though. About her sisters.”
I looked down at the puddle forming around my bare feet. “Yeah. I can’t believe they turned on us like that.”
He nodded. “But Emily, she and I have been talking every day. We’re not going to let them hold us captive. And I’m guessing you don’t want that, either. We’re going to break out of here.” He grinned, showing off his perfect teeth. “You in?”
I met his eyes, my gaze firm. “Oh hell yes, I am in. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since they unfroze me. If we can escape your crazy mother and BioZenith, we can definitely get away from these people.”
He laughed and raised a hand. “Awesome. High five!”
“Seriously?” I asked.
Blushing, he shrugged again. “Yeah. It’s like…go team, go! High five?”
I raised my hand and slapped his. “Go team, go.”
Just then, the showerhead squeaked and the water abruptly shut off. Raising a finger, Evan placed it in front of his mouth. We fell silent, the only sound in the bathroom the dripping of the faucet.
He mouthed, “Same time tomorrow?”
I nodded.
Evan’s bright blue irises faded as his eyes began to glow white. The air beside him rippled, then tore, revealing black nothingness beyond. Every part of his body seemed to stretch, like strands of taffy pulled by unseen hands.
In a flash, he was sucked through the distortion, which zipped itself closed immediately following.
And I was alone once more.
I walked to the mirror above the sink, then wiped my hand across the glass to clear it of steam. I saw myself staring back, skin flushed, hair hanging limp and wet. Just a normal girl, fresh from the shower.
Only not a normal girl at all. A girl with a plan.
For the first time since I saw Dawn and Jared fall at Megan’s hands and my old friend be possessed by a shadowman, I smiled at myself.
I still had a pack to lead and friends to save.
And the first step was to get back on Mr. Handler’s good side.
The next week was somehow both the longest and shortest of my life.
I woke up each morning to a tray of steaming coffee and whatever they felt like serving for breakfast that morning—usually a veggie omelet or breakfast sandwich. I was never much of a coffee person, but I liked the heat of it in my gut, the way it made my hands jitter.
The first half of the day was spent writing furiously at the word processor, fingers a blur as I zoned out and let every last memory flow from my brain and onto the page. I pretended I was a fancy writer in some wintry chalet, but mostly that was just so I wouldn’t think too much about how real all the events were.
After lunch I was sometimes taken out to the obstacle course—a prize for cooperating—while skinny, balding Mr. Savage watched me and tried to engage in conversation. I did my best to play along like I enjoyed talking to him.
“So, ah, Emily,” he asked me, legs crossed, a folded newspaper on his lap. “What all did you learn about the vespers while investigating BioZenith?”
I was hanging upside down from the monkey bars, my knees curled over the poles. With a quick glance at him, I swung myself forward, let my legs go
, then grabbed the bar three rungs across with my hands.
“It’s all gonna be in my pages,” I told him. “Just like I promised.”
He chuckled. “How about you give me a sneak peak?”
I dropped to the trampled grass and wiped my hands on my flimsy pants. My clothes did little to keep the fall chill away from my skin, but the exercise and my determination kept me plenty warm.
Turning back to Mr. Savage, I forced a grin. “There’s us wolves and the telekinetic cheerleaders. But I know there are more.”
He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “You, ah, know that for a fact?”
Shrugging, I stepped forward to stretch my legs, one by one. “I don’t know the specifics. But those shadowmen sure had some crazy technology, huh?”
“Hmm. Yes.”
He jotted a note down in the margins of his legal pad. I went back to tackling the rock wall.
After daily exercise and forced bonding with Mr. Savage came my shower. While I washed my hair and let the warmth of the water envelop me, Evan stood on the other side of the curtain and we talked. Planned. They’d attached some device to Amy to keep her from using her tech powers, but they apparently figured out where the keys to remove it were being kept.
“She’ll easily be able to blast the door open,” he told me. “And then she’ll pull you out, and the two of you can free whoever else we can find in here.”
Running my fingers through my hair, I let soap bubbles rinse free and swirl down the drain.
“And what exactly will you be doing while us girls handle the rescue?” I asked.
“I’ll be making sure the way is clear once you’re done.”
Afternoons and evenings were devoted to more writing. Sometimes I was so hyper-focused on telling my story that I wrote long after they shut my lights off. My eyes burned from the glow of the computer monitor; my body ached from sitting in one position for so long.
I didn’t care. At some point during my writing spree, I decided that if they wanted to know everything that happened, they were going to know.
Vesper Company were the ones who started all of this. They were the ones who allied with the Akhakhu and ordered the creation of all us mutant kids, with the sole purpose of using our abilities to bring the Akhakhu into our world and then put them into power.
I figured, since they were the ones behind everything that had upheaved my life the past two months, it was time for them to stop thinking of me as a “subject” or a “vesper.” If they wanted my account, they were going to get all of my thoughts and feelings about what they did to me, too.
I was a girl whose body they changed against her will, and whose life they tried to control.
But the truth was, despite everything, I was still me.
And they were about to get a big dose of what being Emily Webb was all about.
24
I’M TIRED OF BEING TRAPPED HERE
I’m typing this in the last few minutes I have stuck in this place.
Any second now, I’m going to be whisked out of my cell—and then it will begin.
I didn’t expect, with what I had planned, that anyone at Vesper Company would actually get to the final pages of my account. Which is why I was so terribly forthcoming.
But just for fun, I’m going to pretend they might. Allow me to switch things up on you for just a page or two:
Hi, Mr. Savage. Just FYI: I’m tired of being trapped here. Hence all the fake cooperation while we hatched our plan.
Yeah, I said hence. What of it?
Just one thing I want to say to you before I finish these pages and send them off to you.
I offered you this: I’d write out a long, detailed report about the events as long as you promised to release all of us vespers, and Patrick, too. You couldn’t answer yourself, but you got a call on your cell from whoever was listening in, and you more or less confirmed that you agreed to my incredibly simple terms.
Now that wasn’t shady at all.
But, whatever. I did as you asked. And now we’ve reached the end of my story up until now. It’s a lot of pages. But I think you’ll find them enlightening.
And I have a feeling things are going to really get interesting around here at Vesper Company, very soon.
25
MY NAME IS EMILY WEBB. I AM SIXTEEN YEARS OLD.
Before the events of the past two months, I never considered myself much of a writer. Maybe I’m still not much of one. My abilities aside, as a fan of books, comics, TV, and movies, it made me itch all over to think of ending the story with that final chapter in my last account to Vesper Company. The dangling plot threads would drive me absolutely insane if I hadn’t, y’know, lived this. I’d be super surly on the internet. Super.
So I’m gonna crack my knuckles and scrounge up some pens and complete this story, even though now no one is making me write it.
By the end of that week, I’d written 680 double-spaced pages, separated into three parts. As instructed by Mr. Savage, I found a menu option that said SUBMIT TEXT and clicked it. Off it went through digital space, presumably to the computers of Mr. Savage, Mr. Handler, and whoever else cared to read my words.
The morning I turned in my final pages was the day of our big escape.
I still didn’t entirely know why I was being held captive anyway, or why they were so damned interested in me writing down everything that happened.
But it didn’t matter to me right then. My story was all told. Now it was time to get the hell out of that place.
And maybe wreak a little havoc along the way.
I woke up that morning long before my lights turned on to signal it was a new day. Heart thudding and mind racing, I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling. In the corner the little red light on the surveillance camera blinked, over and over and over.
After what felt like hours, the fluorescents inset in the ceiling clicked on with a buzz and a hum. Tossing my gray sheets aside, I jumped onto the cold tile floor, then strode purposefully to the food slot on my door. Right on cue, a tray popped through with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a paper plate of eggs Benedict.
I plopped the tray on my bed and sat at my desk. I opened up the file and added one last chapter—a message to Vesper Co. that I had no idea if they’d ever read, though I hoped they would—after I was free.
I sent off the file, then spun my desk chair around to face the door. Leg shaking restlessly, I ate, not taking my eyes off the door.
Then, finally, a shadow crossed in front of the food slot. Men spoke in hushed tones on the other side of the door. A beep as a keycard was accepted by a security reader, then a thunk as the heavy lock inside the door unlocked.
The door opened to reveal short, slender Mr. Savage standing there. His balding head was shiny with sweat, and he offered me a shaky smile. He carried a large black briefcase.
“Are you ready to discuss these pages?” he asked me.
I downed the last of my coffee, tossed the cup onto my empty tray, then jumped to my feet. The broad grin on my face was anything but forced.
“I am definitely ready, Mr. Savage.”
My good mood lasted only so long.
I realized the day wasn’t exactly going to be a breeze when, instead of leading me to Mr. Handler’s office with the plush carpet and the wood-paneled walls and the antique leather couches, the gun-toting guards guided me into an interrogation room.
Concrete walls. Concrete floor. Another black camera in the corner with its intrusive, blinking red light. Steel door and table and chair—the first of which was fitted with three locks, the other two bolted to the floor.
And, oh yeah, the chains they attached to my hands and feet after two of the guards shoved me down onto the chair.
The guards left after that, the heavy door slamming shut with a resounding thud behind them. The fluorescents above flickered, and Mr. Savage cleared his throat as he plopped the briefcase on the table, took out the first part of my account, and then produced a re
cording device.
I raised my hands and shook my wrists. The chains clanged.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked.
“Hm?” Mr. Savage looked up from straightening the pages, then blinked at the sight of my bindings as though he’d never seen them before.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m afraid yes. The people upstairs were a little, erm, perturbed by some of the things you wrote. I insisted the precaution wasn’t necessary, but…” He shrugged, his shoulders minuscule in his oversize suit.
Leaning forward, I glanced over the first page of my report. I WAS HALFWAY OUT MY BEDROOM WINDOW WHEN MY CELL RANG. It felt like ages since I’d written those words. Even longer since it had happened.
“You guys read all of this already?” I asked.
“Just part one,” he said, fussing with the recorder. “We separated it into chunks, and then we each wrote a report on our chunk, and then there was a meeting to give our individual feelings on each, ah, chunk.”
“Say chunk again,” I muttered.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.”
Mr. Savage cleared his throat. “All right. Yes. Today you and I are going to clarify the things in these pages that weren’t entirely clear to us.”
That was when my mood entirely deflated.
Not only was I not in Handler’s office where Amy could quickly find me and bust me out, but I was actually going to be forced to spend my entire day in this tiny, cold room, chained to a table, talking about my life with a weaselly Vesper Company employee.
The only silver lining was knowing I could mess with him a little before my friends completely blindsided him.
Finally figuring out the recorder, Mr. Savage set it in the center of the table, then clicked it on. He shoved his seat back, sending it squeaking over the concrete floor, then sat down.
Coughing into his hand, he leaned forward, looking down his nose at the recording device as though it was some crazy new technology.