by Jamie Zakian
“There’s another girl in the hall.” Sabrina waved Sally off, keeping her steady pace.
“You’re in your knickers!” Sally yelled.
Sabrina stopped short, glancing down. Her black bra cast a thin shadow over her bare stomach. She turned and pointed to her ruined top, which Sally had just cut from Joey’s hand.
“My locker.” Sally gestured to the tall metal cabinet across the room. “I keep extra clothes in there.”
Sabrina flung the thin door open, grabbing a tank top. As she headed for the door, while dressing, Sally jammed an IV into Joey’s arm.
“Jesse.”
The weak groan kicked Sabrina’s feet into double-time. She stepped into the hall as an officer rounded the bend, cradling Kami in his arms.
“I found her in the hall,” he cried out.
Sabrina backed into medical, pointing to an empty cot. “Put her there and come with me,” she said, storming out the door. She stopped in the hallway, looking at Sally. “Lock up after we leave. Don’t let anyone in but me.”
Without waiting for a reply, Sabrina took off down the corridor. The officer’s footsteps thumped close behind her, so she moved quicker.
“Sound the alarm.” Sabrina came to a halt in the wide landing of the sleeping quarters. She glanced at the four parallel corridors, all full of children and crewmembers. “I need all hands on this deck.” She fished a keycard from her pocket, flashing it over the main control pad by A-wing.
A buzz squelched; a red light flashed. Sabrina turned to the officer, who rambled into his handheld while pacing. The guy was about to lose it. He looked like a kid playing soldier. And the small group in their crisp uniforms who pushed their way off the elevator seemed even less capable.
“Forget this,” Sabrina grumbled, pulling a knife from the sheath on her belt. She turned her face away, then crashed the hilt against the oversized keypad.
After a crackle and a bright flash, three short beeps rang out. All the lights flickered on, and every door slid open. Sabrina stepped toward the first hall but was pushed back by a wave of metallic stench. The thick odor lodged in her throat, and she covered her mouth, coughing. A sudden rush of heat ravaged her senses. Lights blurred, walls spun, and she stumbled. Strong hands latched onto her waist, holding her steady. She looked over her shoulder, her eyes focusing on Reyes and his gentle grin. “What are you—”
“What’s happening here?” Reyes moved his arms away once she regained her bearings. He buttoned his fresh blue shirt, grimaced, then started coughing. “What’s that smell?”
“I think there’s been a gas attack. We gotta get these kids outta here.”
The floor vibrated from the slew of officers that flooded the scene, all stopping to stare at Reyes for instruction.
“We got a code F-13. Start clearing all these rooms,” Reyes yelled to the growing crowd of officers. “Get the kids to the cafeteria and put them on rebreathers.”
Men and women scurried, bumping into each other while desperately avoiding a panic.
Sabrina slapped her hand on Reyes’ chest, peering into his deep brown eyes. “You good?” He nodded, and she turned back toward the hallway. “Good. I could use your help.” She teetered, bouncing off the wall as she ducked into the first room.
“Jesse!” Reyes cried out when seeing the boy slumped over a pile of electrical parts. “Are they …” He rushed to the bed, his fingers landing on the side of Jesse’s neck. “I have a faint pulse.”
“Me too.” Sabrina grabbed Rai under the arms, pulling him toward the door. A tidal wave of dizziness hit her again, taking her gaze up. Through blurry eyes, she glimpsed a white mist stream from the vents. She hauled Rai from the room, falling to one knee.
“Here, ma’am.”
Sabrina looked up to see two shiny canisters with clear silicon masks. She tilted her head further up, and a young man nodded.
“For you and Mr. Reyes,” he said. “I’ll take the boy.”
After gripping onto the rebreathers, Sabrina motioned for the officer to wait. She held the mask to her face, taking a few deep breaths. As clarity returned to her mind, she fought the urge to grin. She lowered the mask to Rai’s mouth, then fastened the strap around his head.
“Okay. Take him,” she said just as Reyes dropped to his knees beside her.
Sabrina held out the other rebreather, and Reyes took a long gulp before backing away.
“Put the mask on Jesse,” he said, grabbing the pant leg of a man who hustled by. “You, Phil, get this kid to the cafeteria.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, dragging Jesse away.
Sabrina pointed at the smoke that puffed from the vent inside the room. “We have to shut down the air flow.”
“There’s a crate of rebreathers here,” a voice called out above the clamor of rushed steps. “Equip yourself before the other …”
His words blended with a swarm of voices, flowing through the halls. A man walked by, dropping a rebreather in her lap, and she thrust the mask over her face. She rose to her feet, staggering onto the landing.
Bodies littered the floor, officers maneuvering around them while dragging others. It was chaos, pure, unorganized chaos. She stomped toward a tall man with a tablet, who boomed orders to the officers around him.
“Why are these children out here?” she all but growled. “Get them in the cafeteria.”
The man leaned close to her, his face twisted in sorrow. “These are the ones who didn’t make it.” He blinked, his eyes glazing over. With a jolt, he straightened his posture and returned to shouting orders.
She froze amid the commotion, eyes stuck on the heaps of motionless faces. When her legs finally allowed for a step, she peered down the next corridor. More bodies lined the hall, piled in tangles of arms and legs.
Reyes inched beside her. His hand shook against her side, and she looked at him only to peer into frantic eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I …”
His words may have trailed off, but a twinge of guilt lingered in his stare.
“Why would you be—”
“Captain Stone,” a deep voice rumbled from behind her.
“Yeah?” Sabrina said, ripping her gaze from Reyes.
“We got him,” an officer gloated while tapping his tall buddy on the arm. “The freak was roaming around on the engineering level, talking to himself. We heard him confess and everything.”
Another body thumped atop the mini-mountain of death at Sabrina’s feet, warping her fiery rage into a wild inferno of wrath.
“Where is he?” she asked through clenched teeth.
***
A fuzz clogged Joey’s ears. Bit by bit, jumbled sounds cut through the static. A sliver of light invaded the dark that swaddled her. She wanted it to go away; her misty bubble felt so warm and secure.
“She’s coming around,” a deep voice echoed in her head.
“Joey,” a woman said from what sounded like miles away. “Joey, can you hear me?”
Fingers pried her eyelids open, and a flood of white shocked her system. She flailed her arms, swatting at the hands upon her.
“It’s okay, Joey. You’re safe in medical. Your friend Chuck is here with you.”
“Jesse,” Joey mumbled. “Kami, Rai.”
“I’m sure your friends are fine,” the woman said as Joey commanded her eyes to open. Once the fog cleared, she lifted her throbbing head and Kami filtered into view.
A mask covered the lower portion of Kami’s face, wires running along her body. The sight of her friend transformed into a science experiment caused her quivering shoulders to all-out quake.
“Kami!” She rolled off the cot, crashing to the floor. Hard tile rattled her knees, sending razor-edged shocks into her toes.
“Joey!” Chuck cried out, hurrying to her side.
She pushed Chuck’s hand away and crawled to Kami’s cot. “Kami?” She gripped onto Kami’s arm, shaking.
> Soft cotton brushed her skin. She looked beyond a blanket, which draped around her, to see a woman’s tender smile.
“My name’s Sally. I’m the doctor here. Kami needs a few more hours on the oxygen; then she’ll wake up. Come on. Let’s get you back in bed.”
The woman clasped onto Joey’s wrist, and Joey jerked back, wobbling to her feet. “No! I need to find my brother.” She flung the blanket off her shoulders, thankful to find her clothes intact, but not so happy to see bare feet.
“Jesse’s your twin, right?”
After scanning the room for any type of footwear, Joey nodded.
“Then he’s probably fine, like you were.”
“What do you mean?” Joey asked, eyeing a pair of slipper socks stuffed under a cot.
“You’re a very special girl, Joey.”
When the woman reached for her tablet, Joey snatched up the wooly socks.
“I ran some tests. There are high amounts of Xenothane in Kami’s system.”
The second that woman moved to Kami’s side, Joey slid her feet into the warm socks.
“It’s an anesthetic,” Sally said, repositioning the mask on Kami’s face. “In small doses, it’ll knock a person unconscious. But in high doses, it can prove fatal. Kami had a lot in her, but you” —Sally turned, stepping toward Joey— “you have none. You’re completely immune to anesthesia.” She lifted Joey’s hand, examining the fresh scab left by a laser skin regenerator. “If it wasn’t for your horrible cut, you would’ve been perfectly fine.”
“So what? I’m some kind of freak or something?” Joey glanced at Chuck, who slowly backed into the scenery. If that wasn’t the biggest freak status confirmation, she didn’t know what was.
“No,” Sally chuckled, patting the back of Joey’s hand. “You’re very rare. Your DNA could hold many interesting properties. Although if you ever needed an operation, it would prove difficult. So be careful.”
“Yeah, right,” Joey muttered.
“Dr. Boone.” A lanky man with dark hair popped his head from the back room, a flap of his lab coat falling from the doorway. “You were just paged to the cafeteria. They said to bring a med kit.”
“Oh, dear.” Sally grabbed a large black bag from under her desk, filling it with various instruments.
“I’m going with you.” Joey moved toward the door, swaying just a bit. “Maybe that’s where my brother is.”
A knock shook the locked door, and Sally peeked out its small window. Joey inched to the side, flinching when the door scraped open.
“Natalia,” Sally said. “I was wondering when you’d turn up.”
Joey eyed the open door, waiting for the women to move away. The short curvy one finally stepped into the room, and Joey slithered along the wall.
“Chuck,” Natalia said with a relieved smile. “I looked in your room and the cafeteria. I’m so glad—”
With that, Joey sprinted into the hallway. The corridor was a maze of passageways, but the drops of her blood soaked into the carpet led a clear path. The clank of high heels echoed behind her, and she pushed her weak legs faster.
The cafeteria doors fell into sight. A few more steps and those double doors would be in her grasp. People hurried and shouted all around her, but she only saw those doors. She reached out. A metal handle hit her sore palm, sending ripples of pinpricks up her arm, but that didn’t keep her from pulling. She ran inside, stopped short by her gasp.
Chapter Nineteen
Sabrina crossed her arms, watching the number on the elevator wall flash from three to two. Her chest burned. The feeling had to be the dead eyes of innocent children searing into her soul. This ache could never be soothed, only replaced by vengeance. Her fingers drummed the metal hilt of her knife. The weapon had only ever been used in self-defense. Today, that might change.
The elevator lurched to a stop, its door creaked open, and she lowered her hand from the hilt. To stoop would be too easy. No matter how badly her heart stung, she refused to allow her core beliefs to be shattered. The evil that stole children’s lives wouldn’t rob her of the morals she cherished.
She followed Reyes off the elevator and past a wide room of launch chairs. Beside the stifled hum of gears churning, which radiated from engineering below, the level fell silent.
“It’s this way,” Reyes said, leading her through the locker room and into a hallway. “We have a few holding cells back here.”
As they walked down the hall, she tried to work up a game plan, remember her training, but a heavy layer of hatred covered her mind.
“Is everything okay?” Reyes asked, casting a wary look her way. “You’ve been … quiet.”
While preoccupied by a barrage of murderous thoughts, she’d completely forgotten about Reyes. He was all right, hobbling and holding a strange expression, but all right.
She grabbed his wrist, pulling him to a stop. “Thank you.” His hand landed atop hers, warming the chill in her veins. “You saved my—”
Reyes set his lips upon her mouth. She pulled away but only for a second before she wrapped her arms around his neck. Time slowed in his grasp. Life, death, her own judgment faded into the background. All that mattered in this moment were the silky lips gliding against her own, the hands clutching her waist. His soft kiss grew hard, driving her back against the wall.
A clank of metal rang out from behind the closed door beside them and they both pushed away from each other.
“There’s, um” —her gaze bounced off everything in the hall, except for him— “an interrogation.”
“Right.” Reyes cleared his throat, stepping toward the keypad. “You ready?”
Her fingers clasped together, knuckles cracking. “Yep.”
***
Joey staggered to the side as two men carried limp bodies into the cafeteria. They were everywhere. Bodies lying on the long tables, bench seats, the floor. She stared at the faces of two girls tucked beneath an officer’s arms. Their expressions reflected one of tranquility, but she knew that wasn’t the case. These people were poisoned.
“We should move the ones who didn’t make it,” she heard a man say and a sting pierced her heart.
“Jesse,” she uttered in a near sigh.
Sally stepped into the room with an irritated glare, and Joey hurried to the nearest table. She scanned a few mask-covered faces, then peeked up at the door. When Sally veered toward the patients across the room, a puff of relief blew her hair forward.
Two tables checked and still no Jesse or Rai. She tried to rationalize it away. They got lost in the shuffle; she had missed them in her hysterical search. However, one thought blasted louder than all the others—they were dead.
Her fingers balled into her hair, knuckles jabbing her scalp. They were dead. She stumbled forward, blinded by the tears that gushed uninvited. Through a watery gaze, she glimpsed a purple spot.
She wiped her eyes, standing up straight. There it was, a splash of paint on the heel of a sneaker. She knew that mark by memory—a perfectly round circle, four skinny lines at the top and two short wide ones at the bottom. A splotch left by her on Jesse’s shoe when she painted her version of a forest on their bedroom wall back home.
Her own cry shook her body, and she sprang forward. As careful as quick legs can be, she climbed over the table of unconscious people that stood in her way. Her feet hit the floor, and she leaned over a body on the bench, pulling the rebreather down from Jesse’s face.
A flood of waterworks burst free, and she dropped her head onto his chest. The feel of a stiff, lifeless body only brought more tears. Her arms wrapped around him, and she hushed her sobs, enjoying the sound of a beating heart.
“Keep his mask on, miss,” a man said. “He needs that oxygen right now.”
“Right.” Joey lifted her head, finding an officer beside her. With shaky hands, she raised the clear plastic back over Jesse’s mouth and nose.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
&nbs
p; Joey stared at the fog that filled and cleared the mask with each of Jesse’s breaths. “He’s my brother.” A hand landed on her shoulder, and she flinched.
“Your brother will be just fine. Come back in two hours. He should be awake.”
As the officer gave her a little shove, she searched the faces nearby. A tangle of black hair gleaming against cool beige skin skipped her heart twice. She shrugged away from the grip on her shoulder, dashing to the end of the table.
In no attempt to be gentle, she nudged the unconscious chick on the bench aside and knelt beside Rai. His stillness tormented her mind. All the bodies scattered around her, trapped in sleep, was torturous.
She slid her hand down Rai’s cheek, the elastic strap of his facemask scraping her palm. The officer clasped onto her shoulder, again, and she looked up at him. “This one’s my boyfriend.”
“Lucky guy,” he said with a grin. “Come on now.”
While ushered from the room, Joey glanced back. Amid the sea of people, her eyes zoomed to Jesse. That bright purple splotch shined, consuming her gaze until the door closed in her face.
***
Sabrina stepped into a small, windowless room. Although she noticed the officer in the corner, her glare locked on the man handcuffed to a lone metal chair. She did a quick circle, eyeing him over. Not exactly the fierce monster she was expecting. He was a pitiful looking creature: short black hair ripped out in patches, crooked brown teeth, and a wide scar leading from his stubby chin to his dark beady eye. The guy was almost too pathetic to beat, almost.
Her fingers curled into a fist as she glared down at the man, who looked up with a crazed stare and spiteful smile. She raised her arm; the freak’s smile grew, and she slammed her knuckles against his cheek.
Reyes darted to her side, but it was too late; she had already delivered two more blows to the ugly face in front of her.
A deep chuckle flowed from the man shackled to the chair. His head lopped to the side, then he spat a wad of blood to the floor.