And when I did get back to town?
Well, I was probably going to have to go to Axel’s place, anyway. I needed new clothes. I needed my phone. I needed my stuff.
I grimaced. I wasn’t looking forward to that.
And the worst thing about all of this was that something was wrong with Leigh. She’d tried to kill me. What the hell had happened to her?
* * *
“Jesus, Sloane, are you okay?” Axel was standing in the doorway to his apartment wearing a suit with a jade green tie and matching shirt.
I was still covered in blood. Also, I was sweaty from the walk. I was exhausted, and I was terrified. “I need my stuff,” I said, pushing past him. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”
He shut the door and came after me. “Hold up. Seriously, what happened?”
I went into the guest bedroom, where my suitcase was. I went through it to check that everything was there, and then I zipped it up.
Axel was standing in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. “What? You can’t talk to me now?”
I picked up the suitcase. “It’s not about you anymore. Hell, I don’t care about any of that shit. French did something to Leigh. She brainwashed her or something.”
He furrowed his brow. “Brainwashing? Is that even possible?”
“Apparently, it is, because Leigh tried to kill me.”
“Jesus,” said Axel. “Is that why you’re all bloody?”
“Look, I need to do something about this.” I started for the doorway.
He didn’t move. “Wait. How did Leigh try to kill you?”
“She shot me.”
“What?”
“Can you move, please?”
“What did she say while she was doing that?”
“She didn’t say anything. She was like a robot. Even if I get her out of there, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make her snap out of it. And I don’t know if the same thing’s happened to Griffin and Silas. I could go back in there and try to save them, and they could all kill me instead.”
Axel shook his head. “Well, then you’re not going back.”
I let out a disbelieving noise. “What did you just say?”
“I’m not letting you get killed.” He squared his shoulders.
“You can’t tell me what to do. You have no say in—”
“Sloane, this is getting really fucked up. You can’t do this on your own. Maybe it’s time to call the police or—”
“I told you, the police can’t be involved. They’d turn us all into science experiments.”
“It’s sounds like you already are science experiments. The others, anyway.”
“Get out of the way, Axel.”
“No.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “If you won’t call the police, you at least have to let me help you.”
I wanted to tell him not to touch me, but the truth was that it felt nice for him to be touching me again. I’d missed him, even though we hadn’t been apart for longer than half a day. I almost didn’t care that he only wanted me for sex. It had been wonderful sex, and when he’d touched me, I’d felt so good about myself. Axel made me feel so… noticed. Important. And…
I was crying again.
“Shit,” he muttered. He wrapped his arms around me.
“I’ll mess up your suit,” I sniffled.
“I don’t care about my suit.” He held me close.
I grabbed onto his lapels and started sobbing into his chest. I was so worried and confused. My best friend had tried to kill me, and she’d looked through me the whole time, and I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Axel rubbed my back. He whispered in my ear, “We’re going to find a way to fix this, all right?”
I looked up at him. “I don’t see how.”
“I’m going to help you. We’ll do it together.”
“What are you going to do? If you come with me, they’ll kill you. It’s dangerous.”
“Yeah, but if something happened to you, and I knew that I sat on my ass and didn’t do anything, I wouldn’t be able to deal with that.”
“Because we have such great sex,” I said, bitterness creeping in between my tears.
He sighed. He let go of me. The front of his suit was ruined. There were tear stains and bloodstains, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
I picked my suitcase back up. “I’m going to leave, okay?”
He turned back around. “Look, Sloane, I don’t know why.”
“What?”
“I don’t know why you’re important to me. But… you are. Ever since you came up into my office and asked for my help, I’ve been… drawn to you. And the closer I get to you, the closer I want to be. And that’s all I can say about it. So, can you just promise to not die while I’m trying to figure it out?”
I bit down on my lip.
“I want you to stay here. If it matters to you, we can keep it strictly business. No touching or whatever. But please, don’t go anywhere. Take a shower, calm down, and then let’s talk about what we’re going to do.”
Well… a shower did sound like a really good idea.
* * *
The phone in my suitcase was ringing. I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I was wrapped in one of Axel’s towels. They were fluffy, big, and decadent, and I had to admit that it was nicer here than in a hotel. I padded across the carpet to dig the phone out.
This phone was my backup, and I didn’t have all my numbers programmed in to it. I squinted at the number coming in. It took me a few seconds to recognize it. Christa.
Hell. Of course it was Christa. I hadn’t talked to her in days.
I answered the phone. “Hey, Christa.”
“Sloane? Oh my God, I didn’t know if you were dead or not.”
“Sorry. I know I missed some of your calls.”
“Some? I’ve been calling you every day. And you never pick up. So, then I realized that I had this other number for you, so I called it. Did something happen to your other phone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. I didn’t remember your number.” That was a lie. Silas and I forced ourselves to memorize every number we programmed into our phones because you never knew when you’d need to know them in an emergency. But maybe Christa didn’t know that.
“I’m just glad you’re alive,” she said. “I was losing my shit.”
“Sorry,” I said again. “It’s only that nothing’s changed. I don’t have them yet.” No way was I going to tell her that they were all possibly brainwashed into mindless killers. I wouldn’t let her think that. Not unless I was positive that it was true, and that it couldn’t be undone.
“Look, Sloane, you can’t do this alone. You need help. You need me to come to wherever you are and help you get them back.”
I picked at the towel that was wrapped around me. “No, I can’t let you do that. Griffin and Silas want you safe.”
“I know that, but they’re stupid about this kind of stuff. They need to worry about themselves instead of me. I can take care of myself. I killed people when Silas and I were captured by Rolf, you know.” There was a slight bit of hesitation before she said Rolf’s name. The man had violently raped her, and I could tell it was hard for her to think about him.
“That was different. You didn’t have a choice.”
“Well, if Silas is in danger, I don’t have a choice now.”
“You can’t come, Christa. I don’t know if I can protect you.”
“I don’t need you to. But I need to do something. Do you understand that? I can’t sit here alone doing nothing, because I’m losing my mind. I’m going stark raving mad. I need to help.”
I knew how she felt, but I wasn’t sure that having her around wouldn’t just make things tougher.
“I have good aim. I’m a fast learner. Please, Sloane, I need to help.”
I hesitated.
Axel appeared in the doorway. “Who’s that?”
“Are you talking to
someone?” said Christa. “I thought you were alone out there.”
“Uh…” I turned away from Axel. “No, there’s no one here. It’s, um, it’s nothing.”
Axel touched my shoulder. “Who are you on the phone with? Is it someone from the lab?”
I glared at him.
“I heard that,” said Christa.
“Don’t worry about it, Christa,” I said.
“Even if you do have someone there, you could use me,” she said. “Trust me, Sloane, when push comes to shove, you’d be surprised what I can do. I know you think that I’d freeze at the first sign of trouble. But it’s not like that for me. The worse things get, the more focused I get.”
Freeze at the first sign of trouble.
I rubbed my forehead. Christa didn’t freeze, but I did. I hadn’t frozen when I was facing Leigh, but maybe that was only because there had only been one person I was fighting, not a swarm. Was I really cut out for this? Could I really do this on my own? I sighed. “Can I, uh… can I call you back, Christa?”
“Actually, I’m trying to tell you something,” she said.
“Well, you can tell me in a minute.” I hung up the phone.
Axel raised his eyebrows.
“That was my brother’s girlfriend,” I said. “She wants to help. Generally, I’d say no, but I feel like I’m in over my head here. Thing is, if I tell her to come, she could end up hurt. Hell, she could end up dead. And if that happened… Silas would never forgive me. Neither would Griffin for that matter—she’s Griffin’s sister.”
Axel just looked at me.
“Well,” I said. “What do you think?”
“You’re asking my advice?” he said.
My phone rang again. It was Christa. I hit ignore. “I feel like I don’t know what to do. Even if Christa’s here, I don’t see how it helps us much. I don’t know what happens if we go back into that place. Do we end up fighting brainwashed versions of the people we’re trying to save? What if Griffin or Silas kills Christa? How would either of them live with themselves after that?”
“Yeah, it sounds too complicated,” said Axel. “Tell her not to come.”
“On the other hand, I’m not sure if I can do this on my own.”
“Well, you’ve got me,” he said.
“Yeah, but you’re so much easier to kill than I am. I’m the one who should be doing this. This isn’t your fight.”
“I’m helping,” he said. “That’s all there is to it.”
“If I wasn’t so fucked up, I wouldn’t let you,” I said. “But I could always freeze up again. You remember what happened in the hotel room with Armstrong?”
“I don’t really,” he said. “I just knew you were shot. I thought you were dead.”
I licked my lips. “Sometimes that happens to me. Sometimes I freeze up, and I can’t move. It always happens at the worst times.”
My phone rang again. Christa. I hit ignore again.
Axel looked me over. “I don’t get that. Why do you freeze up? You’re the most capable woman I’ve ever met. You can handle anything, Sloane.”
I shook my head. “Not anything.”
LEIGH
The next time they came to the door and ordered us all to put our hands up against the wall, we had a plan. We knew that if we broke out and tried to fight all of the guys, we wouldn’t be successful. But Griffin thought that if maybe all three of us tackled one of the guys, that at least one of us stood a chance of getting a gun away from the guy. Once one of us had a gun, we could shoot the others, and we could get away.
We stood tense as the guards entered the room, waiting for Griffin to signal that we start moving.
I could hear the footsteps of the men behind us. If I peered around, I could see their black boots and gray pants. Behind them was the sea foam green color of the wall.
They filed in. The door shut behind them, booming and echoing through the big room.
The room smelled heavily of our own sweat, with a faint undercurrent of urine. I supposed I was only noticing because the men had come inside, and I was waiting to move. My senses were heightened.
One of the men started forward. He poked Griffin. “You. Hands behind your back.”
Griffin turned to look at me, and then to look at Silas. “Now,” he whispered.
I moved right away, flipping around from the wall and rushing for the man that had poked Griffin.
Silas moved too, and Griffin whirled.
Griffin punched the man in the face—a loud smack.
The man grunted, going for his gun.
Silas wrapped his arms around the man from behind, trapping his arms.
I dove in for the gun, which was just hanging off his holster.
But there was gun fire from the other guards.
Silas’ head jerked back, and his grip loosened.
My fingers were inches from the gun, but the man stumbled backwards as Silas fell away from his body.
I dove after him, colliding with his body.
I wrapped my hands around the gun, tugging it free from the holster.
In the background, I could hear guns firing like a scattered drum beat, but I paid it no mind. I had the gun, and that was all that was important.
Even when I saw Griffin go down, blood pouring out of his throat as a bullet lodged there, I didn’t stop to look at him.
I had the gun.
This was the plan. Now, I needed to shoot.
I flipped off the safety and leveled it at the man I’d stolen it from. I shot him in the head.
And then I whirled to face the other men. There were only three more. I took aim at one.
But they were all aiming at me.
The bullets tore through my body in quick succession.
One in my leg.
One bursting into my chest.
One in my shoulder.
The pain was like fire, spreading everywhere.
I wavered on my feet, unable to focus.
I squeezed off another shot, but I couldn’t tell if it hit anything. Everything hurt so much.
And then there was the last bullet, ripping into my face just under my cheekbone. I felt the agony of it searing into me, and then—
Blackness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I sat down on the bed in Axel’s guest room. I was still only wearing a towel, and I toyed with the edges of it. “I’ve never talked to anyone about what happened. Even Silas and I don’t talk about it too much.”
“Something happened?” Axel was concerned. “Does it have something to do with your parents?”
My face twitched. “Silas and I killed them.”
Axel took a step backwards.
“We had to,” I said. “You don’t understand. They were horrible. And they were going to…” I swallowed. I didn’t know quite how to talk about this.
“What?” said Axel. “What were they going to do?”
I got up and put my hand on his chest. I pushed him backwards, back towards the door. “If I’m going to talk about this, I want to be dressed.”
He sputtered.
I pushed him out the door and closed it in his face. “Give me a minute.”
“You know,” he said from the other side of the door, “it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked already.”
I glared at the door. I wished he hadn’t felt the need to remind me of that. I opened my suitcase and yanked out a pair of jeans, a shirt, and some underwear. “It’s not about whether you’ve seen me naked.”
“You can’t talk and get dressed at the same time?”
I didn’t answer. I tore the towel off and stepped into my panties. Then I put on my bra.
“Sloane?” said Axel.
“Just wait.” I shimmied into my jeans.
My phone rang. I looked at it. It was Sloane again. Jesus Christ, I told her that I’d call her back. Why couldn’t she have a little patience?
“What could your parents have done that was so bad that you had to kill them?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You said they were drug addicts and that they neglected you. But killing people just because of neglect—”
I yanked the door open. “That wasn’t why.” I put a finger in his face. “Don’t you judge me, Axel Whitman. You haven’t been through half the shit I’ve been through.”
He hesitated. But then: “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, the first time that I froze up was when it was happening.”
“When what was happening?” said Axel.
“When we were…” I swallowed. I crossed the room and picked up the towel. I went into the bathroom to hang it up.
“What?” said Axel, following me.
I looked up, seeing him in the doorway, seeing him blocking the only way out of the bathroom, and I felt panicked. “Move.”
“Sloane, you’re not talking to me. When what was happening?”
“When we were killing them, okay?” I said. “And it wasn’t just my parents that we had to kill. There were other people there. They were all part of it.”
“Part of what?”
“Please let me out.”
He sighed, but then he moved.
I fled past him, drawing in deep breaths now that I was out here in a larger space. I wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s hard to talk about. You can’t push me.”
“Well, you can’t just drop a bomb on me like you killed your parents and also a bunch of other people and not expect me not to want to know more.”
I dug my fingers into my own flesh, pushing against my rib cage. “I’ll tell you, but I need to take my time.”
“Okay.”
And then we were both quiet.
I turned to look at him.
His expression was hard to read. He didn’t look disgusted or angry, but he didn’t look concerned or worried either. What was he thinking of me?
“I didn’t start it,” I said. “Silas started it, but he had to. He thought he had to.”
Axel took a step closer to me. His voice was soft. “Why did he think that?”
“He thought it might kill me,” I said.
“What?”
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