“Come on, the house is finally empty and we have an entire night to ourselves. No doing last minute homework, no sleepovers, no fighting. It’s just us and I think we have a lot of catching up to do.” Charlie takes my hand and seconds later we’re surrounded in darkness. Charlie turned the power off.
“You shouldn’t be doing that, Charlie.” She sounds resigned, like maybe she’s said that a lot over the years.
“I have to set the mood right.” There are flickering lights up ahead, and I know Charlie has set up candles in one of the rooms. It’s easy to guess which one. I stop moving with them and remain in the dark, hearing them laughing about something I don’t understand. In my fake world everything seems perfect. Charlie and I are happy, Dana and Drew are happy and alive, and we all get to grow old together. Couldn’t I stay in this world forever?
“Come on,Third—Zoe. Wake up.” Blake shakes my shoulder. When I open my eyes, soft light from the sky surrounds me. We stopped in a mostly clear and level area with only short bushes around us. The wind is strong and rain is in the air. I shiver, feeling like my bones are frozen solid. When I try to get up, that thought is cemented when every part of my body aches and I feel like I weigh an extra fifty pounds.
“The sun is rising over there.” Blake points to my left. “When we were running the sun was setting in front of us. It means we want to keep going this way.” Blake points to my right.
“Okay.” I stretch and my entire body aches worse. My legs are in the most pain. I’m pretty sure my feet are covered in blisters.
“Ready?” Blake asks me.
“Can you give me a minute to… you know?” I blush, knowing I’m going to have to squat somewhere out here and relieve myself. My voice is croaky and I crave water badly. My head starts aching and I’m unsure if it’s from the hit I took yesterday from the rock or from dehydration.
“Right, just hurry up.” Blake looks equally as embarrassed as I am. I quickly rush away from here and find a place to hide from view.
I only just finish when I hear voices in the distance. I can’t see anyone, but I rush to find Blake. I’m fearful it’s Martha and her crew. We find each other, wearing the same worried expression. He pulls me down behind a bush to hide. He closes his eyes while I strain my ears to try to hear what the voices are saying. I can’t make anything out, though.
“I can hear a male voice. He’s tired, hungry. He wants to go to the police.”
“Is it one of your guys?” I ask, wondering how he can hear so well. I realize moments later he might not be hearing their voices, but their thoughts.
“I don’t know. I doubt it.”
“What do we do?”
“Shh,” Blake hisses. I narrow my eyes at him, not appreciating being shushed.
I wait tense minutes and finally I start to hear footsteps getting closer to us then the voices get clearer.
“We should go back, we can’t just—” Even though Rose is cut off, I instantly recognize her voice.
“No, it’s too dangerous. We focus on getting out of this stupid forest alive and then we regroup and rethink our options.”
“But—”
“Rose!” I shout out, seeing Blake’s glare as I spring upwards and, ignoring my sore legs, start running.
“Zoe?” Rose calls out tentatively.
I break through a thick part of bush and into a large grouping of trees where I see Rose and Dean. They look tired, beaten and dirty. I don’t slow down my running until I crush Rose in a hug.
“You’re okay!” I gasp, crying from the relief I feel. I know Blake said he didn’t think they’d been captured, but he might have just not been told or they could have been caught after he ditched his radio.
“We’re fine, Zoe. Are you okay? The last I saw you, you were being dragged away by a guard.” Rose’s voice breaks and I hug her tighter.
“Joel helped me escape…” I trail off, realizing that he’s dead and that I’m going to have to say those words out loud.
“Is he with you? What about Will and Charlie? Did they get out?” Rose forces me to face her, her hands holding my face so I can’t look away.
“Who the hell are you?” Dean shouts and he quickly stands in front of Rose and me as Blake comes into view.
“It’s okay, this is Blake,” I quickly speak up.
“Blake, Blake? Isn’t he working for P.A.G.E.?” Rose questions, eyeing him suspiciously.
“He was misled by Stan and Martha. He didn’t have Drew there to explain things. He helped me escape.”
“You trust him?” Rose looks me in the eye.
“I do,” I say and even though he’s threatened to kill us if his family is in fact dead, I realize that I do trust him. I don’t think he’s going to hurt us.
Rose turns her attention back to Blake for a moment and then seems to accept the fact that he’s okay.
“What about the others?” Dean asks me, but his eyes remain trained on Blake. While Rose is content to trust my instincts, I don’t think Dean is quite there yet.
“Will and Charlie were taken away.” I feel another overwhelming urge to cry. Rose wraps me in her arms again.
“I’m sorry. We’ll get them back; we won’t stop until we do.”
I nod my head into her shoulder.
“What about Joel?” Dean asks me.
“Martha killed him.” I feel a sense of loss at saying those words and I wish I didn’t. I hated Joel, why should I feel anything at his passing? I shouldn’t care.
“I’m so sorry, Zoe. Sounds like you’ve had a really rough night. Let me see your chin.” Rose lifts my head upwards and I feel her fingers graze over my scratch. I’d already forgotten about the injury.
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“Come on, guys. We need to keep moving.” Blake eyes around us suspiciously.
We all walk forward and silence descends upon us as we each get lost in our own thoughts. We keep a fast pace up and soon Dean is muttering to himself about food. I should probably feel hungry, too, but I don’t. The only thing I want right now is to see Charlie again. I want to be in his arms, to hear his voice and to breathe in his scent. I miss him already and it’s only been a day. I doubt time will make this easier. I know it’ll have the opposite effect.
“Do you know where Charlie and Will were taken to?” Rose asks Blake.
“No. I know of a few facilities they have that I’ve been to, but there are many more. They could be anywhere.”
“Then we stick to our original plan,” Rose reasons.
“What original plan?” Blake curiously asks. If I’m wrong about him, then we’re about to give him our end game.
“We’re going to take down The Core,” Rose says levelly, not revealing the enormity of that task.
“How can we do that? We’ve just lost three people and we don’t have any more information than what we did yesterday,” I whine, feeling this whole situation is hopeless. Our priority should be finding Will and Charlie.
“Sure we do, we have this.” Rose takes the camera I gave her yesterday that belonged to the blogger from her jacket pocket.
“What is that?” Blake looks at it interestedly.
“It’s a camera that has a memory card in it. That card is full of photos and time stamps of The Core. It’s our very own surveillance. We know how the guards work and their weak spots.”
“You really think that’ll make a difference? What about inside the building?”
“Don’t worry, Zoe. We won’t rush this. We’ll do this right. We simply make one adjustment to the plan. I need to get to a computer and find out where they’re holding Will and Charlie and then we’ll burn the place to the ground. Once we do that and get them back, we’ll end this once and for all.”
I recall my dream where I’m being shot at in an office building, one I assume is The Core. Nothing is ever going to be easy. I already know breaking into The Core is probably going to cost me my life. However, if doing it gets Rose the information she needs to find Charl
ie and Will, then it’s worth it.
Chapter 34 – The Weapons
February 1st
It isn’t until very late in the day that we find a road, which is thankfully, one that leads to a diner and proper food. We know we shouldn’t spend time there, but a bathroom to use and actual food to eat is too much to pass up. Plus, considering how freezing we all are, the place feels like a sauna. It’s enough to make any aches and pains go away, at least for a little while.
My face is unrecognizable as I wash it off in the sink. Bruises litter all over me and my clothing looks atrocious. Holes and dirt patches are everywhere and a nasty gash lines my chin where I hit the rock. I’ve bled all over my sweater and I can’t wait to change into some new clothes. Unfortunately, we only have whatever cash we have on us and no change of clothing. Everything I have is left back at the cabin that we can’t ever go back to.
I sit down with the rest in a corner booth and nibble at a pastry that is sitting in front of me. Rose glares at me when I refuse to eat it properly. I don’t taste it, but Rose is relieved when I’m finished.
“We have to get out of this place soon. Spencer can track us here.”
“How does that work exactly?” Dean asks as he finishes his third piece of pie.
“She can find people just like I can read minds and you guys can do what you do. She’s just learning, though, and she has to track people she’s never met. That’s hard. She was always able to pinpoint areas of the country you were in, sometimes down to just three or four cities, but never any further. We searched and searched, but it wasn’t until you were heading to D.C. that we got lucky. Spencer felt you moving cross country and we put everyone out on the roads. That’s when you came into contact with Ocean and Mags.”
“Okay, so because she’s close to us now, she’ll be able to track us better?”
“Unfortunately, she’s met me, several times. She’ll find tracking me a lot easier and since we’re in a sparsely populated area, it’ll be even easier. We need to get somewhere crowded.”
“Where do we go?” I ask.
“You want to break into that Core place, right? Then we head to Washington D.C.”
“Hold up, we need a plan before we even think about doing anything like that,” Dean interrupts.
“We have many days of driving ahead of us. I think that’s plenty of time,” Rose scoffs. She’s just as keen to get the boys back as I am.
“Well, we need a car first, any ideas?” Blake eyes us all.
Rose rolls her eyes as Dean straight away tenses up at Blake’s question.
“I’ll go sort that out.” Rose finishes her coffee quickly and then both Dean and Rose stand up.
“Are they any good at this?” Blake watches out the window as Rose and Dean walk through the parking lot. It’s obvious they’re having a disagreement.
“Stealing cars? Yes.”
“Good, I have a phone call to make.” Blake takes the last bite of his own piece of pie and then slides into me, forcing me to stand up to let him out of the booth. He grabs hold of my arm before I can sit back down and pulls me along with him. He presses the same knife he had threatened me with earlier against my side, his body hiding it from anyone else’s view.
“You’re going to call home?” I go on high alert straight away, my eyes widening as I take in the knife.
“Yes.” He eyes me suspiciously.
“You can’t, they’ll trace it.” I panic. What if something did happen to his family? I was only guessing when I said they might be alive. I can’t die here. I need to save Will and Charlie first.
“They can trace us through Spencer here. I need to do this.”
“You’ll put them in danger, they probably think you ran away or you’re dead. If you call, you give them more reason to look for you, to put themselves in harm’s way. If they ask too many questions they could be hurt.”
“I need to know they’re alive, and this will prove if you’re lying to me or not.” Blake drags me outside and I notice a few strange looks from the other customers around us. None can see the knife in Blake’s hand, but I’m sure my panicked look is making us seem suspicious.
“Help us destroy The Core and then you can go home. Once P.A.G.E. is shut down, we’ll be free,” I hiss at him.
Blake reaches the pay phone outside and puts in the correct coins needed. He dials quickly and holds the phone to his ear, his other hand still holding the knife to my stomach. I’m boxed in by his body and the payphone. I feel his breath hitting my face harshly as he waits for someone to pick up the call.
I glance behind his shoulder, looking for Rose or Dean, but they’re nowhere to be found. The longer the call rings for, the more I change who I’m looking for and I glance in the forest surrounding this area for men and women dressed in black. This is a bad idea.
I hear a quick intake of air, maybe even a gasp, and I focus back on Blake. His face is showing a range of emotions. He’s looking anxious, ecstatic and then he settles on relieved. I watch tears fall down his face, but he never says a word. Eventually he hangs up the phone.
“What happened? You didn’t say anything?”
“They’re alive. Mom answered the phone and I heard Nicole talking in the background. They’re both okay.”
“Stan and Martha are liars.” I fill my lungs with fresh air after Blake pulls the knife away from me and puts it back in his pocket, stepping back so I can move away from him.
“I realize that now. I can’t believe they lied to me about something like that.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to hear the whole story straight away. We honestly thought you were dead. We didn’t know we were leaving you behind when we escaped.”
“It still seems crazy, this whole thing is crazy.”
“And you being able to read minds is just as insane. But we’re here and we’re stuck here until we do something about it. You’ll help us, won’t you?” I hear the slight pleading in my voice. I know we need him. Four against The Core is nothing, but three is even worse.
“I said I would. I want to go home. I never thought I would get to see them again, and they’re alive. I will do anything to get home.” He stands up straighter as he speaks and I see the trained soldier coming out. He can’t be older than eighteen, but already he looks ready to fight a war. That’s good because we are about to start one.
***
It takes us almost two weeks to make it anywhere near D.C. Blake doesn’t think they had much idea where we would head if we were on the run, but Spencer makes it harder. Going to a place you’ve already been to makes it easier for her to track us, so we have to continually go through different routes to ensure none of us cross paths with a place we’ve been to before. That means it takes us the long way to get to places and in order to save money, we spend a lot of time sleeping in the car and using restrooms along the way. Rose stole money again from a bank and it caused a huge fight between her and Dean. I think that even though he understands it’s necessary to steal cars and money for us to survive, he also has a moral code that is being broken, repeatedly. They’ve been snapping at each other nonstop. Often we will leave them alone to fight, or make up, whichever happens between them. Once Blake and I nearly walked in on them making up, and ever since then we keep our distance until they come out to us.
I’ve spoken a lot to Blake about Charlie, and in turn I’ve heard a lot about Sophie. I can see how desperate he is to call her, to see her, to be with her. It helps me build on the anger burning inside me. When I think of what I’ve been through, what we’ve all had to deal with, it fuels my determination to keep going.
Back in the forest, when I knew Charlie was going to be taken—when I saw that Will already had—I felt like I was breaking. I felt hollow and as though I would be unable to ever feel again. I was ready to sink into that depression and content to never really come out of it, but then Joel took me away, and I didn’t get the chance to go back to that place. I can feel it inside me still, waiting to be ca
lled on. However, I keep the anger inside me; it’s stronger than my fear and pain. It keeps me willing to fight.
I am determined to stop that future dream of Charlie turning onto P.A.G.E.’s side. I will do everything I can to save him. Even if it means breaking into a government run facility with very little training and getting shot at. Even if it means me most likely getting myself killed.
“We’re here,” Rose announces from the front seat. I lift my head and watch the busy streets of suburban New York. It’s our last stop before we head down to D.C.
We’ve had a slow drive here, but we’ve also talked nonstop along the way about what our plans are. I’m sorry to say I’ve had three separate shooting lessons, which I hated every second of. No matter what, I keep seeing all the death I’ve seen caused by guns. Dana’s dead body. Joel’s lifeless face. Will unconscious after being shot four times. It weighs heavily on me, which I think is why I was surprised to find how light a gun weighs.
It doesn’t hold any warning for the emotional baggage you’re about to embark on. It doesn’t make it hard to pull the trigger and potentially end a person’s life. It even looks more like a toy than a murder weapon. It should at least burn to touch, or have some complicated trigger combination so that you have to be absolutely sure about what you’re about to do. Even having it weigh a ton would be an improvement.
In all three lessons, I don’t hit a thing. Dean, of course, is perfect and Blake only misses once. Rose is more in-between me and Dean.
They pour over the photos on that camera. Luckily, it just takes regular batteries because we go through four sets of them. Dean especially studies them, pointing out possible holes in their security. It takes him and Blake three days to think of a way in. Every few hours we all go through it. I swear I’m going to remember this mission until I’m eighty. Well, if I were going to live that long I would. I even dream about it. Not future dream, merely having the words going over and over in my mind. I don’t think I ever fall deep enough into sleep to truly dream. Not even enough for a fake dream.
Taken By Force (Taken Trilogy Book 2) Page 32