by Tarah Benner
Deep down, Soren had always known that Naomi would drag Micah down with her. He’d always worried that Micah would be the one to find her dead in a pile of her own vomit, but instead Naomi had drowned in a storm.
Soren drained the plastic cup, and a loud beep sounded nearby. The door to his cell burst open, and Soren jumped to his feet. Two men were standing outside his cell. He recognized one of them as Agent Killigen, but the other he didn’t know.
“I want a lawyer,” he said, not recognizing his own voice. It was low and hoarse and impossibly raw.
The men ignored him. The one Soren didn’t know grabbed him roughly by the arm and tried to slap a set of cuffs on him, but Soren jerked out of his grip and aimed a sloppy overhand cross in his direction.
He missed the agent by several inches, and both men lunged at him. The back of his head hit the cinder-block wall, sending a surge of pain through his skull. He blinked away the flash of color and forced his eyes to focus.
A moment later, Killigen flipped Soren around to face the wall, and the other man cranked his arm painfully behind his back. Soren moaned as they smashed his face into the wall. He was alarmed by the weakness of his own body. His breaths were coming in ragged gasps, and his muscles felt as though they’d had all the strength sucked out of them overnight.
They cuffed him and steered him out into the dim white hallway. The whole corridor seemed to be tilted on an uneven plane, and Soren blinked several times to correct his vision. He was dizzy.
Twice he stumbled, but both times Killigen just tightened his grip and kept him moving down the hall. Soren made sure to look in every window to see if he could find where they were holding Axel and Lark, but all the cells he passed were empty.
As they rounded the corner and marched down another deserted corridor, Soren lost his bearings. Killigen steered him through the cavernous underground chamber with the airlock door, and Soren recognized the hallway where he’d been interrogated before.
They threw him into a room that was nearly identical to the first he’d visited, and he groaned aloud when he saw Agent Reuben waiting for him inside. Killigen pushed him down into a chair, and Soren noticed that all the furniture had been bolted to the floor.
“Jesus,” said Reuben. “You look like hell.”
Soren didn’t say anything. Killigen and the other agent had posted themselves against the wall behind him, and he could feel their eyes boring into the back of his skull.
“You know, if you continue to refuse your food, we’ll have to put in a feeding tube,” said Reuben conversationally.
Soren just stared at him. It wasn’t as if he were refusing food on principle. He just hadn’t felt hungry.
“The food in this place is disgusting,” he croaked.
“What did you expect?” barked Reuben. “A lobster dinner? Turndown service? A little chocolate mint on your pillow?”
He let out a cold, gravelly laugh, and Soren rolled his eyes.
“Do yourself a favor,” said Reuben. “Choke down some food here and there so we don’t have to do intervention feeding. It’s a real pain in the ass for everyone involved.”
Soren worked to keep his expression neutral, but he made a mental note to flush a portion of his meatloaf brick down the toilet that night.
“So,” said Reuben, clapping his hands together. “How else are you finding your stay? Comfortable? Pleasant?”
When Soren didn’t respond, Reuben shrugged as if he had his answer.
“No? Okay, then. I just need you to answer a few simple questions. If you cooperate, I’ll see what we can do about getting you out of here someday.”
Soren’s mind lurched and sputtered as he tried to work out what Reuben might want from him.
“Can you tell me a little bit about what you experienced at San Judas?” he asked. “What were the conditions like?”
“Comfortable . . . pleasant,” said Soren in a venomous tone. “What the fuck do you think?”
“It would be more helpful if you could describe them in your own words.”
Soren let out a huff of air and looked up at the ceiling. It was uncomfortable sitting with his hands behind his back, but he knew there was no way they were going to remove his restraints. Killigen and the other agent were still standing beside the door, as if waiting for him to do something stupid.
“Honestly, if you could keep yourself off of Hudson Peters’s shit list, it wasn’t all that bad. I was a hunter. I had it easy.”
For whatever reason, this didn’t seem to be the response Reuben had been looking for. He cleared his throat and scrunched his eyebrows.
“So, let me see if I have this right. You worked out this little scheme to escape prison — killing a fellow inmate in the process — and dragged your little group of friends with you just so they could be recaptured and have years added to their sentences. Why? Because you were bored? Because conditions weren’t all that bad?”
Soren felt his face heat up. His body was burning with fury, and his throat felt as though it had swollen to twice its normal size.
He hadn’t told them about Finn, and he would have bet a million dollars that GreenSeed hadn’t been forthcoming about that little detail either. How would it look if someone found out they’d eviscerated one of the inmates under their control with a weaponized drone?
“How do you know about Finn?” Soren asked in a low voice.
“Lark told us,” said Reuben breezily, as if he and Lark were old friends.
“No, she didn’t.”
Reuben glanced to his right and his left, as if checking the room for Soren’s imaginary friends. “Who else do you think could have given us that information?”
Soren clenched his jaw. His mind was racing. Why would Lark tell them about Finn? Why would Lark tell them anything at all? She knew as well as he did that they couldn’t trust these people. Any information was a weapon in their hands.
“Nice try,” said Soren. “But Lark didn’t tell you shit.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Reuben, feigning surprise. “Women are always smarter than men about these sorts of things. Men got the short end of the evolutionary stick, if you ask me. We have too much pride. Most of us would cut off an arm to spite our leg. The need to fight is in our DNA.”
Soren was so confused by Reuben’s muddled explanation of human evolution that he was momentarily knocked off track. Lark wouldn’t talk. She just wouldn’t.
“Listen,” said Reuben. “It’s not like your little girlfriend betrayed you. Lark made a decision that she thought would help you and her. She decided she wanted to play ball, so we made a deal.”
“What deal?” Soren growled.
“She agreed to help us out, and we agreed to help her.”
“Help you out how?” Soren’s voice had become so low and ferocious that he was hardly saying words at all anymore. Still, Reuben understood.
“She agreed to play along with the little scenario we set up. She’s gone back to San Judas, which will allow us to secure samples of GreenSeed’s supercrops.”
At that, Soren threw back his head and let out a cold, mirthless laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Lark would never agree to that,” said Soren, cracking a smug grin. “She’d never go back to San Judas. Not in a million years. There’s nothing you could say or do to make her agree to that.”
“Come on,” said Reuben. “You and I both know that everyone has their price.”
Soren’s smile faltered. What the hell was Reuben talking about?
Reuben leaned forward so that he and Soren were less than a foot apart and lowered his voice. “Think about it, kid. You’ve known Lark how long?”
Soren didn’t answer him. He hadn’t known Lark very long at all, but he knew her.
“What does Lark value above all else?” asked Reuben in a low whisper. “What was taken from her that she’d do anything to get back?”
Soren didn’t even have to think about it. The answer came to
him instantly. What Lark valued above all — more than him, more than Bernie, more than life itself — was her freedom.
Soren swallowed several times before he could speak. “You offered Lark . . . You offered Lark a deal?”
“We did,” said Reuben. “But your girlfriend is quite the negotiator. She brokered a deal not just for her freedom, but for yours and Park’s as well.”
Soren’s stomach clenched. As much as he didn’t want to believe it, he instantly knew that Reuben was telling the truth. It was just the sort of thing Lark would do — it was a gamble she couldn’t refuse.
“Now, unfortunately for her, we can’t just set three convicted felons loose,” said Reuben in an offhand voice, as if they’d been squabbling over some minor detail. “Even in this day and age, it just doesn’t happen. Plus, if she comes through for us, we can’t risk her disappearing before we can get her testimony. When these crops go public, GreenSeed is going to file a lawsuit against the department. We need Lark to provide evidence that their data was obtained without the inmates’ knowledge or consent.”
“You fucking piece of shit,” Soren growled.
Reuben expelled a short burst of air from his nose. “Don’t you worry . . . Lark’s not going anywhere. But I can make things a little more comfortable for you. I can even arrange for you and Lark to share a cell. All I need is some information that I can use.”
Soren was clenching his fists so tightly that he could feel his nails digging into his palms. He wanted to lunge across the table and strangle Reuben, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to move three inches in any direction without being tackled by Killigen and his lackey.
Instead, he just raised his chin and glared at Reuben. “Go to hell,” he murmured. “I’m not telling you shit.”
fifteen
Lark
As the nurses steered her down the long stark hallway, Lark quickly lost track of where she was. The building was a maze of bland tile, white walls, and plain white doors. They blended together and became an indistinguishable blur until the nurses wheeled Lark into a room that resembled a doctor’s office.
A mousey Asian woman in a long white coat was standing among several pieces of medical equipment and a flexible plastic ceiling lamp like one a dentist might use. They pushed Lark’s gurney into the center of the room, and the woman flipped on the lamp.
Lark squinted in the bright light and turned toward the woman. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why am I here?”
The woman didn’t answer her. She just groped for Lark’s cuffed arm and felt along her wrist for a pulse. Lark tried to jerk away, but the doctor’s grip was surprisingly strong for such a slight woman.
“What are you doing? Why am I here?” asked Lark, her voice rising a little with every syllable.
Again, the woman ignored her. She just glanced at her watch, removed her hand from Lark’s wrist, and jotted down some notes on her clipboard. At first Lark thought she was finished, but then the woman placed the tips of her stethoscope in her ears and reached over Lark’s chest to listen to her heart.
Lark had had enough. In one jerky movement, she grabbed the tube of the doctor’s stethoscope and yanked it out of her ears.
“Answer me!” Lark yelled, flinging her body to the side and whipping the woman in the face with her own stethoscope.
The doctor jerked away with a whole-body wince but didn’t say a word. She just turned around and wheeled a little cart around to the side of Lark’s gurney.
“Bitch!” Lark screeched, hawking up a loogie and spitting in the doctor’s direction.
It missed by several feet, but the big bald nurse stepped forward and placed a forceful hand on Lark’s shoulder. Terror and helplessness shot through her veins, but the nurse just forced her onto her back and held her down as the woman took her uncuffed arm and rested it flat against Lark’s side.
She wrapped a stretchy piece of rubber around Lark’s arm and swabbed her skin with something cool. Lark squirmed when she felt the sharp prick of a needle, but the nurse just increased the pressure on her clavicle.
Lark heard a little pop and watched the first vial of her blood roll across the tray. She swallowed down the urge to vomit and glared up at the nurse.
It wasn’t the blood that made her queasy. It was the fact that no one seemed to want to tell her what was happening or ask her permission. Lark lay in helpless terror as the doctor filled tube after tube with her blood. Just when she thought the woman might bleed her dry, she released the rubber band from Lark’s arm and slapped a bandage over the puncture wound.
“Hold, please,” said the doctor. She moved around to Lark’s other side, and High-top bent to hold Lark’s shackled arm flat.
Lark saw a familiar tool in the doctor’s hand, and she jerked away on instinct. But the man held her to the gurney, and she couldn’t escape his grip.
“Sharp pinch,” said the doctor, more out of habit than courtesy as she stuck something thick and sharp into Lark’s skin.
Lark gritted her teeth to keep from crying out, but tears welled up in her eyes as something tiny and solid slid beneath her skin. It was another sensor — one they would use to track her body inside and out while she was there.
Lark couldn’t believe it. After everything they had done — everything they had been through — she was back at San Judas, being tracked like livestock.
Finally the nurse’s weight abated, and she could finally breathe again. The doctor disappeared, and they wheeled her back into the hallway toward a shiny set of double doors. Lark tried to get her bearings, but it was impossible. She had no idea how to get back to the room where they’d taken her boots.
She was beginning to panic in earnest. Everything she needed was in those boots. What if they locked her up without ever returning them? What if they threw them in the garbage or took them to some off-site storage unit?
But a moment later, all thoughts of the boots were wiped from her mind. The nurses wheeled her into another room that was empty except for a long operating table and a little laminate counter. A stainless-steel tray lay on the counter, filled with an alarming collection of instruments that Lark couldn’t identify.
A cold sweat broke out all over her body, and she began to hyperventilate. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, and the people around her seemed to be moving in a stilted, jerky fashion.
The bald nurse uncuffed her from the gurney, and the one with the high-top scooted her toward the opposite edge.
“No,” said Lark.
“Let’s go,” rumbled High-top, collapsing the rail on one side of the gurney and slinking a pudgy arm around her waist.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“We’re just running some tests,” said High-top, a slight lisp to his voice.
“No,” said Lark. This was all wrong. She didn’t trust these guys as far as she could throw them. They were about to perform some experimental new procedure on her, and she had no say in the matter.
The bald nurse huffed, looking genuinely annoyed that Lark was causing a scene. He came around to High-top’s side to help, but Lark scooted away from them and aimed a kick at High-top’s chest. It caught him squarely in the gut, but he had so much padding around his middle that her heel just sunk into the fat.
She rolled toward the other side of the gurney, preparing to bolt, but High-top gripped her around the shoulders, and Baldy grabbed her ankles.
Feeling desperate, Lark bucked and flailed on the gurney, throwing out a fist and catching High-top along the side of the jaw. Dread was swelling in her chest, and her heart was pounding in her throat.
She screamed, but High-top flattened her like a pancake. She spit in his face, and he seemed to reach the limits of his patience. He said something to the other nurse that Lark could not hear, and a second later, she felt the sharp edge of plastic against her skin.
They used zip ties to bind her wrists and ankles together, and the two of them lifted Lark bodily from the gurney. They threw her do
wn on the operating table, and Lark felt the blue paper crinkle under her weight.
They rolled her onto her side so that her back was to the door. A moment later, she heard it open, and a pair of nonslip shoes squeaked loudly across the floor. Lark scanned the room desperately, her hands balled into fists, but there was no way for her to escape.
Squeaky Shoes drew closer, and Lark cranked her neck around. The newcomer was a woman: blond with very short spiky hair. She was wearing gray slacks and a pink blouse under her lab coat, but it did nothing to soften her appearance.
Lark felt the tug of latex against her skin and jumped. The woman was unbuttoning the back of her smock.
“What are you doing?” growled Lark.
The doctor didn’t answer. Lark felt something cold and wet against her spine and realized that the doctor was washing her back. Then Lark felt a pinch, and the nurses moved around to face her on the other side of the table.
They gripped her legs and shoved them up to her chest until her body was clenched in the fetal position. Lark pushed against them — fighting whatever was about to happen — but it was no use.
“Hold still,” the doctor instructed. “Just relax.”
“Fuck you!” Lark growled.
She threw her head back to look at the doctor. One of the nurses struck her hard in the jaw and forced her head back down, but not before Lark had caught sight of the giant needle in the doctor’s hand.
A burst of pain shot down her spine, and Lark let out an audible choke. She gasped for air, but her lungs wouldn’t inflate. The pressure of the nurses’ arms on her legs and shoulders was too much. She had to get off of that table, but she couldn’t move an inch.
Lark yelled, and her voice tore out of her throat in a pitiful cry.
A bizarre tingle traveled down to her leg, almost like an electric shock, and Lark had the sudden bizarre thought that they were using the needle to control her body.
The spinal tap continued for what felt like hours. The cold sweat on her skin gave way to goosebumps, and soon her teeth were chattering.