“Situation in Building Two, Stairwell Beta,” says Guard Three. “We have a—”
Guard Two and I both jump. The sound of gunfire is deafening in this confined space. My ears ring, but Guard Three goes down, dropping the walkie-talkie. Jordan dashes up the stairs from behind. Between the two of us, Guard Two has no chance.
“What the hell is going on?” Kyle says. “What are you doing here?”
“What’s going on is I’m flying you away with me.” My voice shakes, but my hands are steady as I retrieve a knife from one of the guards’ belts.
Kyle’s gaze shifts toward the knife. “Funny.”
“I’m serious. Turn.”
He doesn’t move. “Explain to me why I should do a thing you say. This is your fault.”
I can’t speak. No words are adequate.
Jordan, however, doesn’t have that problem. “We don’t have time for this. You will listen to her and do what she says because we’re risking our asses to save your mutant life. And the only reason I’m helping you is because of her. So if you don’t want to become someone’s science experiment, get over it.”
“Turn, please,” I say again. “I’ll explain more later. I promise.”
This time Kyle does, and I slice through the zip-tie around his wrists. He rubs his skin, his jaw hanging slightly open.
“Hey, mutant boy.” Jordan tosses a walkie-talkie at him. “Gawk later. Get on that thing and call off the reinforcements.”
Kyle looks at me. “What do I say?”
I take it from him and check the channel. “Say ‘False alarm. Building Two, Stairwell Beta clear. Proceeding with prisoner transfer.’ Press here.”
He does as Jordan says, and I grab two of the guns.
“We have a problem,” I tell her. “Malone gave my backpack to Fitzpatrick. It’s in her office.” I swallow because I don’t want to say this next part, but it’s the smartest move. “You should take Kyle and head—”
“No.” We both turn toward Kyle. “No offense, but I don’t trust any of you. At least I know her.” He nods at me.
“Then I’m going too,” Jordan says. “You’re going to need cover.”
“No time. You have to let the others know we’re delayed. Kyle, can you…?”
But Kyle’s grabbed the remaining gun. He pops the clip, checks the rounds and snaps it all back together like he’s done it a hundred times. “I can handle the cover.”
“You can shoot?” I finish.
He smiles sheepishly. “We figured this day might come. You’re not the only one keeping secrets, you know.”
I blink at him as I search the guard’s belt for more supplies. “We? Like who you were talking to on the phone about the AnChlor?”
“You heard that?” Kyle’s eyes open wide, then he shakes off his surprise. “That was my stepdad. He recognized the symptoms when I told him what happened.”
“And so you suspected someone at school might be looking for you.” The files on his computer make sense.
He nods. “I really didn’t want it to be you.”
Cringing, I reach for him, but Kyle steps back, and my throat tightens in dismay. “Kyle, I’m so sorry. I—”
Jordan clears her throat. “Whatever revelations you two are sharing, finish it some other time. We’ve got to GO.”
As usual, with Jordan, GO is in all caps. This time she has a point.
I drop my hand, and Kyle looks torn but relieved. I have to push down the sick feeling in my gut because this is neither the time nor the place.
Jordan passes us up the stairs, and after she gives the all clear, we hurry outside. The sun is cresting the mountains at last. The snow—I hadn’t even noticed it earlier—is falling more thickly, turning the asphalt slick. I wonder where the others are. If Octavia’s been located. If Summer’s gotten the van and supplies. If Gabe and Lev have any more tricks planned. If any of them have been captured.
I take Kyle’s arm and pull him into the shadows of the building nearest to Fitzpatrick’s office. Jordan’s gone off in the opposite direction. Security is still down as far as I can tell. Guards and CYs are taking to the roofs, searching for us, but thankfully that doesn’t do much good since the buildings are only one story.
“What’s in your backpack that we need so badly?” Kyle asks, catching his breath.
“Proof about what’s going on here and money.”
“That’s it?”
I wet my lips. There’s a lot of open space between here and Fitzpatrick’s office. “Not a little money. A lot. It’s the money I was going to share with you on Saturday so we could disappear. If you wanted to do it that way, I mean.”
“You weren’t going to hand me in?”
I want to smack him for even asking, but I suppose it’s a fair question. Still, the horror must show on my face.
“I hoped not,” he says.
I grasp his arm tighter in response, afraid I’ll babble if I speak. Then, pulling myself together, I poke my head out of the shadow. The guard on the next roof has his back turned. “Follow me and stay low.”
We make it across the road and up the walk, and I throw open the door, fearing for a second that Fitzpatrick will be in there or the door will be locked.
She’s not and it’s not, which means security is indeed offline. I pause a second to wipe sweat from my forehead. Kyle rubs his arms against the chill, but compared to the outside, this office is a furnace.
“Backpack, backpack,” I mutter. “Where would you be?”
“Closet?”
I try the handle. Locked, of course, with an ordinary key.
“Keys now.” I don’t know why I’m saying these things out loud, but Kyle takes it as instructions. We begin tearing through Fitzpatrick’s desk.
Kyle goes through the lone drawer on his side and moves on to the shelves. “So why did you end up telling them about me? Do you know who these people are?”
I want to tell him not to ask me these questions now, let him know I can’t concentrate on escaping and begging his forgiveness at the same time, but I owe him. He said it himself—he doesn’t trust me anymore.
“These people raised me, Kyle. Worse, really. They created me. They grew me, and they think they own me. But I had no idea who they were when they sent me to RTC to find you. When I discovered that, I knew I had to keep searching for you because once they knew you were alive and went to school there, they wouldn’t stop. If I disappeared, they’d just send someone else to pick up where I left off. I planned to see what you wanted to do, but when we got to South Station, I had to take out the tracker they stuck in me. When I did that, I…” Rebooted. But that’s one more thing I don’t have time to explain. Besides, I’m rambling. “I hit my head, and you know the rest.”
I slam the drawer. Fitzpatrick must have her keys on her like Malone did.
Kyle shoves aside a trash can. “Good. You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.”
Grabbing a paperclip, I kneel in front of the closet lock. This is far from ideal, but I don’t even want to think about how late we are for the rendezvous. “You don’t sound happy.”
“Well, it’s… Um, is that a bomb counting down over here?”
“What?” I almost knock him over in my haste to see what he’s staring at by the trash can. “Oh, shit.”
“That’s a yes, then?” He snatches the paperclip from me and runs to the closet.
Twenty seconds to go. I inspect the device. It’s a crude thing. Bondar would fail Gabe and Lev for it, but it’s not like they had a lot of time to be clever. And it’s not like I have any wire cutters on me to disarm it. “They must have thought it’d be funny to blow up Fitzpatrick’s office. Ha. Ha. It is too. But, Kyle, we should go. I don’t think even you can withstand C4.”
“Give me a second.”
“You have seventeen. Six
teen.”
“I don’t work well under pressure.”
“Thirteen. Twelve.”
The closet door opens, and Kyle grabs my pack. “Told you way back when, didn’t I? I pick a mean lock.”
“You’re awesome. Run and shoot.”
There’s no time to make sure the money is still there or whether we’re clear to leave. We book it to the door, but Kyle throws a hand up at me before I can open it. “Let me go first and draw their fire.”
“I’m rescuing you!”
“Yeah, and the reason for that is because I can better withstand being used for target practice.”
I can’t help myself. I kiss his cheek. “All right then, mutant. But move.”
Kyle throws open the door. “Don’t call me mutant, Hernandez.”
He’s right. Being part robot and all, it’s probably hypocritical of me.
Kyle fires several shots in the direction of the roof sniper we passed on our way here. He must send the guy ducking because when I bolt out after him, no fire is returned.
Snatching at Kyle’s arm, I surge by him, leading him to the nearest cover. Someone yells my name, but I don’t know who. I can’t look at anything except where I’m going. Can’t focus on any sound except the fake ticking of the counter in my brain.
“Kyle!” I skid behind the row of dumpsters by the mess, my arm flailing to grab him but catching only air. He arrives half a second later and falls on top of me as he tries to slow down. “Head down and cover your ears.”
Instead of listening, he presses me deeper into the stinking, wet ground with his torso and puts his arms over my head. The explosion follows. This close, the very air shakes and ripples, and the force seems to tear its molecules apart. The stench it leaves behind is even worse—sulfur and burning plastic and hot metal. My nose burns. Bits of debris roll and clatter everywhere.
One of the pieces is Fitzpatrick’s favorite orange coffee mug. It’s bizarre, but I know from Bondar’s lessons that the oddest things can survive a blast. I grab it as a souvenir.
Breathing heavily, I reach up and pat whatever bit of Kyle I can reach. He gets the message and lets go of me. “You okay?”
He nods, poking at his ears.
“I told you to cover them.”
“Covering you seemed more important. Anyway, it’s just ringing, and ringing is caused by damaged hair follicles, and you know—I can repair those in no time. Being a mutant and all.” He smacks his ears a couple times, and his right one an extra few. “It’s kind of hard to hear right now.”
In spite of everything, I let out a little laugh. “Dork.”
Kyle smiles, and I’m transported back to RTC, to the times I laid next to him like this and the giddy happiness that enveloped me when he smiled. I think Kyle remembers too because longing flashes over his face. His breath is sweet and his lips so close. For a moment, I believe he might kiss me and all will be back to normal, but the moment passes.
It’s too much, too soon. I have no right to be disappointed, but I can’t shake the emotion. Focus, I tell myself.
I open the backpack, dig down for the hat and pull it open. The money is there. My body sags in relief. “Come on, let’s keep going. That’ll distract them for a minute.”
Kyle grunts as he gets to his feet. “So you know who planted that bomb?”
I check the path ahead, but people are running to the site of Fitzpatrick’s former office. Sirens sound in the distance. Someone needs to put out the fires. “This way, and yeah. You think I could do all this on my own?”
“I don’t know what you can do.”
I glance at the gun he’s carrying. “I’d say we’re even then.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
A lump rises in my throat, and I force it down. Yeah, he’s right to doubt. We’ll never be even again. The world doesn’t contain enough apologies. Yet my mind tries out a few, which is not only stupid but dangerous under the circumstances because I need to focus.
As I turn a corner, sloppily forgetting to check my left side, it becomes a full-fledged mistake.
“Don’t move, Seven.”
My heart stutters, and I swear. Kyle, who’s right behind me, steps on my ankle as he comes around the corner.
Fitzpatrick is alone except for the gun she’s pointing at my head. “Drop your weapons.”
Slowly, I sink to my knees and put down the guard’s gun and the coffee mug. Next to me, Kyle does the same, minus the mug. Malone’s .38 presses into my back, invisible to Fitzpatrick but useless to me.
“Step away from them,” she says, reaching for her walkie-talkie. Fitzpatrick is no fool. She’s aware of how fast I can move. “I should have known you’d be behind something like this, Seven. You might have been able to convince the males around here that you’re special, but I’ve known since you were little that you were a mistake.”
Yeah, yeah. She knows about me, but does she know about Kyle’s mutant healing abilities? And, oh shit. I glance at Kyle from the corner of my eye. He’s not going to try testing out those abilities, is he? His fingers are twitching, and it wouldn’t surprise me.
I nudge the coffee mug with my toe as Fitzpatrick switches on the walkie-talkie. “Give me a break. I saved your mug. Doesn’t that count for something?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why do you have my mug?”
“Because Three and Eleven blew up your office.”
Her face snarls in disgust, an expression I know well, but she doesn’t close her eyes like she normally does. Nope, Fitzpatrick is no fool, but it was worth a shot.
Damn it, think! I am smarter. I am faster. I am stronger.
Fitzpatrick is on the radio, informing security she has me and the prisoner cornered. Security is already swarming the area because of the blast. We could be surrounded any second.
“How much would it hurt?” I ask Kyle. “If you got shot, I mean. Do you know?”
Fitzpatrick turns to me in surprise, but Kyle shrugs. “Depends on where she shoots me.”
I want to scream at him: Is that true? Have you been shot before? But I keep those questions to myself. “Up to you then, but we’re going to have company any second.” I don’t intend to let Kyle take a bullet if I can help it, but I need to distract Fitzpatrick.
Kyle flexes his knees, and Fitzpatrick angles the gun back and forth between us. It’s working. She’s not sure who to aim at anymore.
“He’s a mutant, you know,” I tell her. “That’s why Malone wants him. Shoot him in the head, and he’ll get right back up.”
If that’s not true, and I suspect it’s not given that it took a couple minutes for his hand to heal at the dance, Kyle is smart enough not to correct me. While I have Fitzpatrick’s attention again, he dives away from me. She shoots in his direction. I draw the .38 and fire at her.
Kyle hits the ground, and so does Fitzpatrick. Hoping fervently that Kyle’s as tough to kill as I’ve been led to believe, I ignore him and race to her. Blood oozes from her thigh, but this is Fitzpatrick. She has the gun in her hand, and she struggles to level it at me.
I slam my foot on her arm and kick it away before she can. When she stares up at me with that cold hatred, I want to scream at her until I’m hoarse, but I won’t give her the satisfaction. “I hate you. I’m sure you know that, but also know that’s why I’m not going to kill you. I don’t want to be like you.”
However, I’m not above kicking her in the stomach. She refuses to so much as grunt, and I hate her even more for being less human than me.
While I’m venting my childhood issues, Kyle’s peeled himself off the ground. He blinks at me, and I have the decency to feel ashamed for kicking a woman while she’s down. “We have a history.”
“And you’re not going to shoot her again? Are you crazy?” He grabs his right arm with his left hand. Blood seeps between his finge
rs.
I snatch my gun and the mug. Having taken out Fitzpatrick, I deserve this souvenir. “No. Are you okay?”
“She grazed me. That’s all.” He lunges for his gun, and I decide not to question. Either he’s telling the truth and it’s no big deal, or he’s lying because he doesn’t want to deal with me freaking out. Makes sense.
“Come on then. We’re really late.”
We keep low, sticking to the sides of the buildings for cover. Snow wets my hair, making it cling to my face, and it melts, running down my nose. Kyle shivers. The bloodstain on his sleeve continues to grow. We need that escape vehicle. Where is it?
When we approach the rendezvous spot and there’s no van or truck, I swear.
“What is it?” Kyle asks.
Before I can respond, someone whispers my name. Crouching low by the front guard post are Jordan, Gabe, Lev and Octavia. We hurry over. As I pass the post window, I see someone took out the guard inside. He’s crumpled over his phone.
“Where’s Summer? I thought we were so late.”
Lev wipes dripping hair from his face. “You are, but Octavia just got here a moment ago too. And no Summer.”
“They finally traced the initiating breach to me,” Octavia says. “They surrounded our quarters. I had to take to the ventilation system to get out. Fitzpatrick found me then, but I got away.”
“Did you punch her?” Gabe asks.
Octavia laughs without much humor. “No. I barely got by her. She shot at me.”
I force a grin. “Well, I shot her. So there.”
Jordan and Octavia let out restrained whoops.
“Seriously?” Lev slaps me on the back. “Sweet. Wish I was there.”
Gabe shifts and adjusts the rifle he’s carrying. “Don’t we all.”
Kyle looks at me. “The Fitzpatrick? So she’s real?”
“Unfortunately. You met her—bleached hair, skin like old leather, shot you in the arm.”
Understanding dawns on him. “So that was her. No wonder you call her Bitchpatrick.”
The others seem to notice Kyle for the first time. “You are the Kyle?” Gabe asks the same way. He holds out a hand.
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