Ravage

by Jeff Sampson

  “Testing,” he said. Waving his hand at me, he added, “Say hello.”

  I leaned forward and said, “Hi.”

  Nodding and smiling encouragingly, Mr. Savage waved his hand again, as if I was supposed to know what he wanted. “Please state your name and age for the record.”

  I cleared my throat. “My name is Emily Webb. I am sixteen years old.”

  It was midafternoon when we first heard the commotion in the halls outside.

  At first it was just distant rumbles. Thunder, maybe; a storm outside that was raging so hard that we could hear it even in our concrete room. As the day grew longer and we neared the end of part one of my report, though, there was no denying it—something was happening outside the interrogation room.

  But even as the noises outside grew louder—the screams of startled guards, sickening thuds of bodies hitting walls and floors—Mr. Savage insisted on finishing the review of my account. Not even frantic texts on his phone could deter him from his task.

  Can’t say the guy wasn’t dedicated to his job.

  I barely paid attention as the man read about how Spencer and I killed Dr. Elliott and our first investigations into BioZenith. Leg tapping, I focused on the door, waiting. I couldn’t even keep up the faux innocent personality, and every time I was forced to respond to one of Savage’s queries, my words came out snarkier and snarkier.

  Pages dwindled. Amy was getting closer. I could sense it, sense her power. It wouldn’t be long before she found me.

  Across from me, Mr. Savage read the final pages. Musky, salty sweat dripped down his head, soaked his collar. He didn’t even bother to wipe it away now. The scent of it was strong with fear to the wolf side of me.

  Good.

  I watched him, stoic, silent, as he read aloud the last pages of the first account. It ended exactly where I wanted it to: the moment this man snuck into my life, pretending to be a school counselor as he investigated BioZenith and the potential that Project HAVOC was alive and well.

  “Looks like we’ve come full circle, Mr. Savage,” I said.

  My eyes bored into his face as he held the final page in shaky hands, his look glossy, distant.

  “Because that week ended the day I met you,” I went on. “Or at least who you pretended to be.”

  Setting down the last page, Mr. Savage cleared a throat. He stuck a finger under his collar and ran it back and forth, trying to let air in. “I apologize for all the initial deception, Emily,” he said. “But like I’ve said—”

  I slammed my palms down against the table. My chains clanged.

  “You did all this for my own good, yes,” I snapped.

  Outside, a woman’s screams echoed down the corridor—then fell abruptly silent. Footsteps thudded, then became echoes.

  Finally meeting my eyes, Mr. Savage looked at me pleadingly. Begging. “It’s the truth, Emily, I swear to you it’s the truth.”

  Licking my lips, I looked the man up and down. “Are you sweating, Mr. Savage?” I asked sweetly. “I think you are. I can smell you. You’re afraid, and the stench is totally nauseating.”

  Shrinking in his chair, Mr. Savage started to say, “I—”

  “What did the text message say, Mr. Savage?” I interrupted. Loud. Forceful.

  Alpha.

  He raised his tiny hands, as though they could protect him. “Everything’s under control, i-i-i-it’s—”

  “What were those noises in the hall?” Palms still on the table, I stood and leaned over, putting my face as close to his as my chains would allow. “Are things not going as you planned? Did it turn out that you and your freak bosses and their shadowmen underestimated us…?” I smirked. Using the slang term he told me the scientists used to refer to us rebel vespers, I finished, “Deviants?”

  In that moment, I slipped easily into Nighttime’s strength and righteous anger. Clenching my fists, I raised my hands as high as the chain’s slack let me. Teeth gritting, muscles straining, I willed every last ounce of strength I could muster to my arms. Veins bulged on my forearms.

  And the chains snapped. They clattered to the concrete floor, useless. Focusing on my legs, I kicked one, then the other, snapping the chains at my ankles as well.

  Mr. Savage gaped at me, all the color flushed from his face. Still holding his hands high, he tried to scoot his chair backward.

  “Emily, please,” he begged. “Please, I—”

  Jumping to my full height, I darted around the table so that I towered over the cowering, simpering man.

  “You know, Mr. Savage, my friends and I thought about it and we guessed that you weren’t actually going to let us go.” I put my lips next his ear, speaking almost in a whisper. “Because we know what you and the Vesper Company have been up to all this time. We know all about BioZenith and how we were made and what we were made for. I know that all of the horrible, awful things that have happened have been because of you and the other deluded people like you. And so we’re not going to sit here and take it. Not after you made me…”

  Memories flashed into my head.

  Dr. Elliott, his throat torn out.

  Dawn on the verge of death, with Jared, crippled, looking on.

  Megan smiling happily as a being from another dimension stole her body.

  Trembling, I stared past Mr. Savage, my eyes blurring as I stared at the blank gray wall.

  “You made me…” I whispered again, unable to finish the thought.

  With a whimper, Mr. Savage twisted to the side and fell off his chair. Thrusting himself up with his hands, he made a mad dash for the door, his loafers squeaking on the concrete.

  And that’s when I sensed her on the other side. Listening. Waiting.

  Shaking my head to catch my bearings, I called after my interrogator, “You can’t really run anywhere, Mr. Savage.”

  A second later, the steel door buckled as easily as if someone had punched a sheet of aluminum foil. With one more thunderous boom, the door exploded inward and flew across the room, slamming into the opposite wall, almost swiping a terrified Mr. Savage.

  Chalky dust from the broken concrete swirled around us in a cloud. Hacking, Mr. Savage backed away from the shadowy figure who stood in the doorway.

  Hands on her hips, the figure stepped forward. With an eyebrow raised, she took in the pitiful Vesper Company employee who’d been tasked with gathering all my secrets.

  “Going somewhere?” Amy asked.

  I grinned. At long last, the cavalry had arrived.

  26

  LET’S MOVE

  We let Savage go.

  Not that I was really planning on, you know, killing him. I had never wanted to kill anyone—I still don’t want to. I made the man feel like he only escaped by some merciful whim on my part, but I really let him go for the same reason I left behind the recorder and the pages with my account.

  After all the work of writing down who I was and what I’d become, I wanted as many people at Vesper Company to know my story as possible.

  “We’re not going to kill you,” I told him before he scurried off.

  Amy shot me a look. “We’re not?” she asked between clenched teeth.

  I forced myself to keep my expression static, unreadable. “No. Like I told him, I’m not a big fan of blood.”

  After my interrogator was gone, I took in Amy. I hadn’t seen her for a month, not since the day her sisters and parents betrayed her. Physically, she looked the same—average height, tan skin, pretty face, wavy black hair.

  But there was a look in her eye that unsettled me. She had always been sarcastic, flippant. In your face if she thought you were threatening her or her friends. Now, she seemed to be filled with an anger that threatened to boil over.

  At that moment, I didn’t have time to worry about it. I hated to admit it, but I needed her anger to fuel our escape.

  Oh, the girl I’d become.

  We stepped out of the jagged hole in the wall where the steel door had once been. The hall was littered with bodie
s—mostly guards, but also a few people in business wear. I took in a breath at the sight of them, thinking for a moment that Amy had killed them all.

  A chest rose and fell. Another person stirred, moaning. I let out a shaky breath—they were just unconscious. Good.

  Without a word, I stepped over the guard in front of me and headed down the hall. Like all the corridors in that place, it was blank white with glaring fluorescents above and tile below.

  As we stalked through the halls, stepping over more unconscious guards and stomping on scattered paperwork, Amy filled me in on what she and Evan had planned.

  Whenever he was able, he’d been popping between the Akhakhu dimension and our own, figuring out the layout of the place. He described it to me during one of our shower sessions—the world over there was half overly elaborate city, half wasteland. When he was there, he could see our world sort of layered on top of theirs.

  “Like ghosts or mirages or something,” he’d said. “I’ll be walking down a street there, but I can see the shadows of trees in the middle of the road. It took a while to get used to.”

  Though he’d only managed to find my cell and Amy’s, by doing this he’d more or less mapped out the rest of the facility and its important landmarks.

  Which is how Amy knew directly where to go next: the control room where they watched all of us.

  The room was occupied day and night, which is why Evan couldn’t look at the monitors himself. But no amount of staff was going to stop us now.

  Following the placards next to the doors in the hallways, we followed Evan’s instructions until we stood outside the control room doors. Distant footsteps echoed down the hallways, fading as people ran. I guessed the scientists in the place had figured out we’d escaped and were getting the hell out of there.

  Smart people.

  Amy raised her hands, and the steel door to the control room buckled, burst inward. It didn’t fly off its hinges like the door to my interrogation room, but it did slam against the wall with a satisfying clang.

  And we came face-to-face with a slew of guards. As one, they kneeled, aiming their guns at us.

  “Don’t move!” an older guard shouted. “We don’t want to shoot you!”

  I looked to Amy, and she looked to me.

  “You ready to do this?” I asked.

  She grinned. “Oh yeah.”

  Before any of the guards could react, Amy raised both hands again. An unseen wave of energy burst from her palms and all of the guards fell backward, their guns flinging from their hands. The bays of monitors and computers sparked with electricity, and the lights above us dimmed and blinked.

  Gasping, Amy dropped to her hands and knees on the linoleum. I grabbed her shoulders.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’m fine!” she shouted back. “Don’t just stand there, get them!”

  Groaning, the guards were starting to get back to their feet. Letting go of Amy, I stood up straight, rolled back my shoulders, and thought of Spencer and Tracie and everyone else, huddled in cells, alone and afraid.

  And I shifted into Nighttime.

  I was a tornado of kicks and fists. I punched one guard in the head, so hard that his helmet cracked. His eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.

  I roundhoused and knocked another one’s feet out from under him, then stepped gently on his neck until the lack of air sent him to sleep.

  Two heads clanged together and two more guards dropped. A couple tried to flank me, but they flew backward, and I glanced back over my shoulder to see Amy back on her feet.

  Darting behind one of the remaining officers, I kicked him in the back of his knee, sending him sprawling. His gun flew from his hands and I grabbed it by the barrel midair. I swung it, clubbing the man on the back of his head.

  In seconds, all but one of the guards was knocked out, a heap of uniform-clad men on the floor. Only one remained.

  He was a slender man, and what I could see of his face behind his mask was young. He clutched his gun and backed slowly away from us, eyes darting to look at the open doorway.

  “You want to go?” I asked the guy as Amy came to stand next to me.

  He nodded, jaw slack as he gaped at me.

  I jerked my thumb for the door. “Then get out of here before I change my mind.”

  Hugging the wall, the young guard kept his eyes on us until he reached the exit. Then he turned and ran as fast as he could down the hall.

  We scanned the monitors and used a fire exit map that was tacked on the wall to plot our route. Tracie was easy to find and close by. And I spotted Spencer who was in an adjoining building. Dalton’s camera was black, but labeled by his vesper number, and he was apparently on a lower floor of the building we were in.

  There was no sign of Nikki or Patrick.

  Amy and I decided to start near and then work our way out. So our first stop: Tracie’s cell.

  Amy and I made our way there easily enough. But with each step closer I took, the more nervous I became. Tracie had only a day to learn to go hybrid before we were captured, and I couldn’t help but worry about what being left alone would do to her.

  Amy burst open her cell and the first thing I saw were the drawings. Dozens and dozens of crayon drawings taped to the wall opposite the door, making up a fake bedroom wall. Perfect brown rectangles represented shelves, atop which were books with brick red and goldenrod spines. There was a window plastered over the fake, glowing window that was in all our cells, showing a scene in pine green and midnight blue.

  Tracie sat with her back to us at a table in the center of a room. Crayons were arranged in a neat row next to her—sorted in rainbow order, of course—and she drew purposefully on a piece of plain printer paper.

  “Tracie!” I said.

  Setting down the crayon, she turned to us, blinking.

  “Oh. It’s you.”

  It didn’t take much convincing to get her to join us. She seemed in a strange haze, but I couldn’t worry about it.

  We still had more people to find.

  Now a trio, we stalked the halls to our next destination: Dalton.

  We met some more resistance along the way—a few of the more audacious guards and some of Tracie’s old friends, the hovering robots. But they were easily dispatched, especially since they seemed hesitant to shoot us.

  Seemed even in escape, Mr. Handler wanted us alive.

  Dalton’s cell was far north of the hallways where Tracie and I’d been held, according to the map we yanked off the wall. We had to descend a flight a stairs and walk down a long stretch of concrete. The lights went from bright fluorescents to dim red, and steam burst from pipes that ran along the top of the wall. It felt like a set straight out of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

  Finally, we were there. The cell was at the end of one last dingy hallway, its door old and rusted. It had a metal wheel on the front, almost as if it was some hatch on a submarine.

  Arms trembling, Amy reached out and clutched her fists closed, grabbing an invisible steering wheel. Twisting her arms around, the wheel on front of the hatch screeched and turned. A bolt thunked free, and the door swung open.

  The cell was padded on all sides—dingy beige walls and floors and ceiling that looked like some oversize quilt. The lights were pale and orange.

  And sitting in the center of the floor, torso constrained by a straitjacket, was Dalton.

  I ran forward and dropped to the soft floor next to him. I fumbled with the straps constraining him while Amy and Tracie hung back by the open door, watching.

  Dalton looked over to me, his jaw slack, his eyes distant, glassy. His red hair had grown longer, shaggy, and sweat plastered it against his forehead. He smelled rank, as though he hadn’t bathed in weeks.

  He inhaled deeply, his body going calm, slack. He smiled at me.

  “Emily,” he whispered. “It’s really you. I thought I smelled you coming, but I thought that before and it was…” His smile faltered. “It was never you. May
be this isn’t you now.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Amy asked, crossing her arms. “Did they drug him?”

  Tracie gently slapped the girl’s arm. “He was kidnapped by shadowmen, remember? Who knows what happened to him over there.”

  Dalton’s head snapped to face them at the mention of the shadowmen. His lips moved, but nothing came out.

  “Dalton, it’s me,” I said as I unbuckled one strap and moved on to the next. “It’s Emily. We have to get out of here, okay? We need to run.”

  Clenching his eyes closed, he moaned, “It’s too late.”

  I released the final strap, and his arms fell free. I grabbed the jacket by the shoulders and wriggled it to free him from its grasp.

  “What is?” I asked him as one pale white arm and then another pulled out of the long, scratchy sleeves.

  “It’s too late, Emily,” he said, opening his eyes to meet my own. Pleading with me. “They’re already here. We’ve already lost.”

  Amy peered back down the hallway behind her. “Uh, no one’s here. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t move.”

  Though I was curious about what Dalton had just said, it was more important for us to continue our escape. I hauled Dalton to his feet, and he clung to my shoulders, even though he was a head taller than me. He stood on legs that trembled like a newborn fawn’s.

  Half carrying him, we exited the padded cell and went back into the dingy hallway. Amy took the lead, and Tracie took up the rear as the four of us backtracked down through the sublevel.

  “They’re here,” Dalton said again. He leaned his head into the crevice between my shoulder and neck.

  “Who’s here?” I asked him. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

  He chuckled. “I missed you guys,” he said with a sigh. “I was with the creatures for years and years, and they would never let me see the light, but I thought about all of you and about Nikki and I knew you’d save me.”

  “I didn’t, though,” I said as we reached a cross-hallway.

  Amy looked both ways, then referred to our map. She gestured for us to go right, down a section we hadn’t been through yet.