Altered

by Jennifer Rush

  One door. No windows. Bedside table. Glass of water. One chair. One vent in the ceiling. Bed made of metal.

  Were there more guards outside? Was there a camera anywhere? I darted a glance around the room. No cameras that I could see. I needed a distraction.

  “I don’t have all day, Ms. O’Brien.”

  “Is there a bathroom?” I swallowed and blinked back the pain blooming in the center of my head.

  “There’s one down the hall, and you can use it after—” As he spoke he twisted slightly, nodding toward the door, and I seized the opportunity.

  With my left hand, I wrapped my fingers in the bed sheet. With my right hand, I scooped up the water. I tugged on the sheet until the corners popped off the mattress. I swept to my feet and tossed the sheet as Riley reached for his gun. The sheet wrapped around him. I brought the glass down on his head and it shattered into a thousand pieces. Water ran down to my elbow. Glass sliced through my fingers so that I couldn’t tell if the blood soaking the sheet was Riley’s or mine.

  His legs got caught up in the sheet. I kicked where I thought his knee might be and felt something snap. A hollow cry escaped his lips as he toppled over. I wrapped my hands around the back of the chair, ignoring the stinging in my broken skin.

  He pushed to his knees and I cocked the chair back, swinging it upward. It burst on impact, splintering into pieces. Riley went over with a final grunt.

  “Sir?” someone said outside the door.

  I froze. Think.

  “Sir?”

  I grabbed Riley’s gun from his shoulder holster and retrieved the sheet. I hid behind the door, bracing myself against the wall. The door opened and I kicked. It whacked the guard, bounced back. I scuttled around and struck the man’s chin with my open palm. He staggered and I wound the sheet around his neck, giving it a jerk. He fell onto his back. I scrambled on top of him, jamming the gun beneath his jawbone.

  “Where are they keeping the boys?”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” he said, but his lower lip trembled.

  “You think I won’t shoot? You have till the count of three to test that theory. One. Two.”

  Would I do it? This place had stolen my life, and anyone who worked here was as guilty as Connor and Riley. I pushed my weight behind the gun. The barrel ground against bone.

  “Last chance,” I said. “Thre—”

  “Wait!” His forehead glistened with sweat. I let up, but only a little. “Go right. Then left. Down the stairs to the next floor. Go straight. You’ll see the lab on the right.”

  “Do you have a walkie-talkie or a phone?”

  The man nodded. “On my belt.”

  I pushed to my feet but kept the gun in place. I tore off everything that was attached to his belt and stomped it flat, reducing the devices to nothing but piles of plastic and wires.

  I backed away, but kept the gun trained on the man. “Don’t move.”

  I maneuvered into the hallway and slammed the door shut behind me. The knob twisted as the man tried to escape, but the lock was still engaged.

  I looked both ways, tucking the gun beneath my shirt. My head still hurt. The place was eerily silent. I followed the directions the agent had given me and encountered no one. I took the stairs down two at a time, feet quick and light, hand trailing the metal railing. At the next level’s door, I went still, listened.

  Nothing.

  I edged the door open. The hall looked deserted. I hurried forward, and just when I started to think that I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, that I’d been given false directions, I found what I was looking for.

  Through a half wall of windows, I saw a lab, and inside were the boys, locked behind another glass wall like at the farmhouse. They saw me, too, and surged to the front, all three of them in a row.

  Sam. My gaze went to him first, analyzing him. Was he hurt? Had they wiped his memories?

  I found the lab door unlocked and pushed through it. There were counters covered in files and beakers and trays to the right. Several computer monitors lined the back wall, the screens showing they were locked.

  Cas whistled. “You are a sight for sore eyes, Anna Banana.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Sam said.

  I sighed with relief. He knew me. Which meant they hadn’t wiped his memory yet.

  “I’m not leaving you guys.” There was a keypad on the wall next to their room. “You don’t by chance know the—”

  “Seven-three-nine-nine-two-four-one,” Sam said.

  I punched in the numbers. The keypad beeped. The wall slid out and over, and the boys filed out. Sam wrapped me in a hug, taking me by surprise.

  “Are you all right?” He scrutinized my forehead and the dried blood I knew was there.

  “Are you okay? What did they—”

  “Shit,” Nick said, cutting me off.

  In unison, we turned toward the door, just in time to see Connor enter, a gun in his hand. He pulled the trigger without hesitating. Thwap. One bullet. That’s all he needed.

  Blood splattered across my face and Sam dropped to the floor.

  34

  “I AM DONE PLAYING GAMES,” CONNOR said.

  I started to reach for my hidden gun, but thought better of it when a line of agents marched in. They were fully uniformed, wearing the same armored jackets I’d seen on the men and woman who died in the lab. Thick bulletproof vests protected their torsos.

  Riley, limping and bloodied, shoved Dad in last. I sank down next to Sam and wiped his blood from my face with my sleeve. “Sam?” His eyes rolled around for a second before settling on me. The bullet had hit him somewhere between his shoulder and chest; I couldn’t tell where without ripping off his shirt. There was so much blood.

  “Sam?” The terror sent a sharp burn to my eyes. “Can you hear me?” He grunted. Coughed. Didn’t say anything, and that made everything worse.

  Riley knotted his fingers in my hair and hauled me back. Cas lurched for him, but he was too weak to fight. Riley knew it. I knew it. Cas knew it. And the gun already pointed at my head didn’t help, either.

  “Now that we have everyone’s attention,” Connor said, coming around to face me. Usually tan year-round, he looked paler than when I’d last seen him, and I wondered how he’d fared after the confrontation with Sam in the lab. When he took a breath, it was labored—a weakness I wouldn’t soon forget.

  “This is a mistake,” I said and received a swift tug of my hair for the effort. I surged ahead. “We have evidence that says you were taking money from foreign countries, selling people. You can’t get away with this anymore. You already know that we have measures in place in case we don’t make it out of here.”

  Connor slid a hand into the pocket of his tailored pants. “Oh, you do? Well, in that case, I should simply let you go? Let you saunter right out of here?” He took two quick steps, putting his face inches from mine. When he spoke, I caught the sharp smell of whiskey. “Do you have any idea how much money I’ve dumped into Sam? And then, to have him run away… He’s a million-dollar project with legs, and I am this close to shooting them off.”

  Something else had changed in Connor since the last time I saw him. He’d shed his charm. And maybe this was the truer form of him: ruthless, power-hungry, merciless.

  “So it’s safe to assume that if I’m this close to terminating him”—he jammed a finger in my chest—“then I’ve already exceeded my limit of tolerance with you.”

  For once, I was profoundly terrified of Connor. Maybe that was why he had turned on the blindingly white smile all those years—to soothe me, tame me, make me think he was harmless. Of course I knew he helmed the program, knew he could be cold, but I’d never feared for my life around him, not even when he held a gun to my head in the lab. This was different, because now he was losing control of us.

  “Let them go, Connor.” Dad, unguarded, stepped up. “In exactly eight hours, all the evidence Sam stole will be released to every major media outlet. Do you know how much mo
ney that will cost you? More than Sam’s worth. The government will be forced to cut off funding, and then what? I don’t think it’s so far-fetched to believe they’ll turn their back on you entirely. Make you the scapegoat in the public’s eye.”

  Connor’s nostrils flared. A lock of his too-blond hair fell out of place. “Don’t pretend for one second that you’re exempt from any of this.”

  “I’m not. But I also don’t want to be a part of the program anymore.”

  Dad had always seemed so small and insignificant next to Connor and Riley, but at that moment, I could see the strength and the wisdom of a man I’d scarcely met. I liked this Dad. I admired this Dad. “Let Anna go, for starters, and we’ll talk terms.”

  Connor, his mouth set in a grimace, flicked a finger. Riley muttered something before letting me go. I immediately went to Sam’s side. He was still breathing and his eyes were still open, but his gaze was unfocused. He looked close to passing out. His skin had taken on an ashen color, making the bruises on his face stand out even more.

  He needed medical attention. I shot a glance over at Cas. He stood straight as a totem pole, not one sign of his wounds visible in his demeanor. But if we had to fight, I wasn’t sure he’d stand a chance.

  And Nick… he might be able to power through, but he was weak, too. If it came down to it, I knew I couldn’t fight all these men on my own.

  Connor clasped his hands in front of him. “All right, then, let’s negotiate.”

  “We need to talk first about the conditions,” Dad said.

  Connor cocked his head to the side. “Please, regale me.”

  “Grant them freedom.”

  “Freedom?” Connor paced, the expertly pressed line of his pants in sharp silhouette. “And who’s to say they won’t leak the information later?”

  “We won’t. As long as you leave us alone,” I said.

  “I have another idea.” He spread out his hands. “I will agree to let you all go if you cooperate with a memory alteration.”

  A knot formed in my gut. I couldn’t let them mess with Sam’s memories. “No.”

  Connor looked over at me. “Anna.” He made my name sound like a sigh. “So surly and determined. Tell you what—you agree to work for the Branch, and I’ll spare your memory. The others will be wiped and let go.”

  That wasn’t a counteroffer. That was worse. Even if Sam survived another wipe, how could I let him go? He’d disappear, because he was good at that, and I’d be stuck with Connor for the rest of my life, knowing that Sam was out there somewhere with no memory of me at all.

  Besides, if the control alterations were permanent, then Connor could use me against the boys any time he wanted, whether they had their memories or not.

  “I won’t agree to that, either.”

  Connor sniffed. “Then none of you leave. How about that?”

  “Eight hours and counting,” Dad reminded him, not the least bit dissuaded by Connor’s rising agitation. “Stalemate, Connor.”

  The men behind Riley fidgeted with their guns. Riley shifted his weight around, jaw clenched against the pain he must have felt in that damaged knee. Served him right.

  “You can’t keep us forever,” I said. I rose to my feet, but stuck close to Sam. “We’re human beings. We deserve free will, the right to our own lives, without some clandestine company directing our every move, stealing our memories and—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  I drew back.

  “I’ll stay,” Sam said, straining to swallow, as if even that small act took considerable effort. “Let everyone else go.”

  “No.” I ducked down. “No, Sam. We’re all leaving here….”

  “They won’t allow it, and I’m in no shape to fight.” He coughed again and had to roll to spit blood from his mouth.

  “We have a plan, and—”

  “Fuck the plan.” His eyelids hung heavy. I could barely make out the iris of his left eye under the red stain of the broken blood vessels.

  Tears pricked my eyes. I’d just learned the truth about everything in my life, and I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to lose Sam. I couldn’t lose him.

  My voice came out a desperate plea, but I didn’t care. “You’re all I have left.” The only constant, the only person from my old life, the one I couldn’t remember.

  He sliced me through with that unflinching look of his. “Then let me do what’s right.”

  I closed my eyes. His fingers found mine. I buried my face in his chest, my vision hazy. “I won’t remember you.”

  “You will,” he whispered into my hair. “Someday. I’ll find you.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, careful not to squeeze too hard. He still smelled like Ivory soap and late-autumn air. Would I forget that? Would I forget his name? The way he felt. The way he looked at me.

  I didn’t know what Sam and I had, if we had anything at all, but the void opening in my chest told me that it was enough, that maybe the connection between us was real, and not something scientific, and manufactured, and fake.

  It was something worth fighting for.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. As I stood, he gave me a look that said, Whatever you’re about to do, don’t.

  But I had to, and the reassuring pressure of Riley’s stolen gun against my back told me I could. I had a chance, no matter how small it was.

  I stumbled to Riley’s side. Be weak. I held my hands out as if I meant to let him cuff me. Be vulnerable. He frowned but pulled a zip tie from inside his jacket. And when the thin plastic raked at the skin on the undersides of my wrists, I kicked Riley’s bad knee and pulled the gun out from beneath my shirt. I shot one of Connor’s nameless men and suddenly everyone was moving.

  Nick head-butted one guy. Cas punched another. Someone tackled me to the ground and I kicked, flailed, pressed the barrel of the gun up and shot at close range. Blood washed over me and I pushed the man off, scrambling to my feet.

  Nick took out a skinny guy. A gorilla of a man landed an uppercut to Cas’s jaw, but Cas was still standing, smashing the man’s foot with the heel of his shoe.

  “Stop!” Connor yelled. He held Sam at his side, a gun pressed to Sam’s temple.

  “Do what he says, Anna.” A vein swelled in Sam’s forehead. “Goddamn it. Just listen to him and you can all go.”

  “Put down your weapons,” Connor ordered.

  I did as instructed and held up my hands. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Anna,” Sam growled.

  “I’m not leaving you,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Connor chuckled, but it almost sounded sad and regretful. “At least I know the program worked. Look at you two—you can’t stand to be apart. If we worked together, we could make the program so much better.”

  I let my hands fall to my sides, determination filtering to the top. “I would rather die here than work for you.”

  Connor pitched Sam to the floor. The gun was now trained, unwavering, on me. “And do you know what, little Anna? You’ve been far more trouble than you’re worth. You’re just a cog in the machine. You aren’t irreplaceable. Eventually it’ll run fine without you.” He narrowed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

  Time seemed to falter. I was tensed, waiting for the blow, when Dad dove in front of me. The bullet hit him, and he took me down, too. I slammed against the concrete floor, the wind knocked from my lungs as Dad’s weight landed on top of me. In his hands was a gun.

  “Take it,” he said in barely a whisper.

  A crammed, crunched sensation filled the spaces between my ribs, but I ignored it and grabbed the gun. Dad rolled away. I sighted Connor and took the shot, not a second’s worth of hesitation robbing me of the one chance I had to finally be rid of him.

  The bullet hit Connor in the chest.

  I squeezed out another and it tore through his shoulder.

  He lurched.

  I shot again.

  For one single second, we stared at each other. Then a trickle of blood ran down
his shirt and time sped up again. I took one last shot—one more, to make sure he never came after me again.

  It tore a hole through his head and his eyes went vacant as he teetered to the side.

  The entire room went still. Connor toppled over.

  I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. The boys stood around me in a loose half circle, Cas with a gun in his hand and a generous bruise blooming on his face, Nick with a smug smile lighting his eyes.

  The other men littered the floor around us. Riley was noticeably absent.

  I spotted Sam a few feet away from Connor. I dropped the gun, scrabbled to Sam’s side, and gave him a shake. He tensed, groaned. “Sorry,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  His eyes fluttered open. “Goddamn it, Anna, you could have been killed.” He coughed. “You can’t be so damn reckless—”

  I kissed him. When I pulled back, I said, “Shut up, all right? You need your energy.”

  A genuine smile played across his face and I fell for him all over again.

  “I think he’s delirious,” Cas said.

  “Don’t die on me,” I ordered.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said right before he passed out.

  We managed to reach floor B1 by taking the stairs. Nick carried Sam slung over one shoulder. Cas held on to Dad the same way. Nick had tried to check Dad for a pulse earlier, rationalizing that leaving him would be easier for all of us, especially if he was dead. But I wouldn’t let him. Because I didn’t want to know if he was okay or not. Because I wasn’t going to leave him there, anyway.

  We’d just started for the ground floor when the door on B1 pulled open.

  Cas had a gun trained on the person before whoever it was even made it over the threshold.

  Trev stared back at us.

  Nick deposited Sam on the floor and slammed Trev up against the wall. “You try to stop us from walking out of here and I’ll kill you.”

  Trev held up his hands. “I won’t, but you should know that Riley is waiting in the lobby for you, and he’s summoned more men. I can help you get out.”

  “And we should trust you?” I asked.