Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2)

by Laura Disilverio

  I breathe deliberately, trying to calm myself. I need to get out of here. I know Keegan won’t be satisfied with merely destroying my work. On the thought, footsteps tell me he’s on the move. He’s headed toward the door. Maybe this is my chance. The steps become a trot and then a run. He’s out the lab door—gone. Has something happened? I half-rise, ready to seize the opportunity to escape. Something tells me he’s coming back, though, and I can’t afford to run into him in the hall. I sink again a second before he bursts through the door.

  Carrying a bulky weapon with a reservoir on the stock and a cone-shaped muzzle, he strides down the middle of the lab, straight toward the locust enclosure. He puts the weapon down as he fumbles to get the door open and I recognize it. It's an experimental flamejet, probably from the weapons lab next door. No! He’s going to destroy the locusts, wipe out months of research. Without the locusts themselves or my research notes, the eradication project will be starting over almost from scratch. If the locusts continue evolving, which they will, he could set it back more than a year. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people will die, eaten by the locusts, if we don’t release this batch of genetically modified locusts to mate with the wild population. He’s going to sentence thousands to death to get back at me, to destroy my work. He’s sick. Insane.

  I can’t let him do it.

  I stand. “Keegan!”

  He whirls at the sound of my voice, eyes popping like he’s seen a ghost.

  “It’s really me.”

  “Everly-fucking-Jax.”

  Well, something like that.

  The door to the locust lab stands open and their hum fills the air. Keegan takes a step toward me, and then another. He nicks the flamejet with his foot and it slides half an inch. I breathe a little easier; the locusts are safe for the moment. I, however, am in imminent danger. I can see it in his eyes, his absolute determination to kill me. My gaze lands on the scalpel I used to cut out the locator and I palm it, sliding it into my pocket. Will he be satisfied with my death, if it comes to that, or will he still destroy the locusts? I can’t risk it—I have to find some way to summon help, even if it means I’m captured or killed. There are alarms in every lab, in case of emergency, but I don’t know if I can get to the one near the door to activate it. I sure as hell can’t get to the one in the locust lab, not with Keegan blocking the way.

  He’s gotten closer and a smile thin as a blade stretches his lips. The tip of his pink tongue pokes out and he licks the upper one.

  His silence, his laser focus, is intimidating. I slip out of the cubicle so I’m not trapped in there. I need room to defend myself. I’m in the middle of the lab now, with him stalking me from the far end. I could run for the door, but I’d never make it.

  “I hated you from the moment the proctor brought you to our house,” he says conversationally.

  “I remember.”

  He’s pacing forward with deliberation. He’s taller than I am, outweighs me by seventy pounds, and has a longer reach. He’ll be on me in a moment. I back up a step.

  “I should have killed you then.”

  “You tried. You failed.”

  His eyes narrow and he hisses.

  His anger—I can use his anger against him.

  “You’ve got a history of failure, don’t you? Couldn’t kill me, can’t get the top job here, got beaten to the locust solution by a teenager. Poor Keegan . . . nothing but a failure.” I try to sound as scornful as possible, but my voice shakes.

  With an unintelligible cry, he lunges, too far away for maximum impact. He’s put himself off-balance and I take advantage. I surprise him by stepping toward him and launch a palm strike at his nose. He sees it coming at the last second and turns his head slightly. His momentum carries him into it and his nose crumples with a crackling sound under the heel of my palm. He’s deflected the blow enough, though, that it doesn’t drive the nasal bone into his head. Blood spurts. Keegan bellows and lashes out with a powerful backhand before I can dance out of the way.

  His fist catches me on the side of my throat and sends me reeling. I slip on blood and go down. I roll automatically and send silent thanks to Fiere who made me practice falls so many times. I spring up. My reflexes aren’t what they were. Exercising in my cell and then in my billet has kept me fit, but I had no one to spar with. My timing is gone, my fighting edge dulled. I turn in time with Keegan who is circling me. I’m trying to back up, lead him away from the locust lab, and get close enough to the alarm to activate it.

  Keegan’s breathing hard through gritted teeth, making an eerie hissing noise. He’s in a half-crouch, a feral animal ready to spring. Deliberately letting my gaze drift over his shoulder, I widen my eyes and let my mouth drop open as if I’ve seen something surprising. He falls for it and starts to look over his shoulder before some instinct brings his head forward again. Too late. My roundhouse kick connects with his jaw, snapping his head up, and he staggers backwards. He plows into a cubicle wall. It collapses beneath him, but cushions his fall. The connected cubicle wall sags inward, making it impossible for me to jump on him and finish him off. I whirl and run flat-out for the alarm at the exit.

  I’m reaching for it, fingertips almost grazing it, when he tackles me. I instinctively tuck to roll, but I’m too close to the wall and he’s got his arms around my knees. As I fall, my head slams into the wall, and then my elbow hits the floor and takes the brunt of my weight. The pain jolts up to my shoulder and down to my wrist. My hand goes numb. I roll, but Keegan drops onto me with his full weight. Air explodes from my lungs.

  While I’m trying to suck air in, Keegan gets his hands around my neck. His torso lifts off me so he can extend his arms and put more weight on my throat. My lungs inflate, and it’s like I’ve been pumped full of endorphins as the pain in my chest eases. The relief is short-lived as his fingers constrict my airway. I feel like I’m breathing through a narrow reed, and then I can’t get any air at all. My functioning hand comes up to claw at his hands, but he only laughs. I buck my lower body, but his weight barely shifts.

  “Now who’s the failure, Jax?” Blood drips from his nose and spatters on my cheek. “I think it’s the stupid nat. You tried to worm your way into my parents’ affections, to steal them from me. I never understood what they saw in you, but in the end they sent you back. They got rid of you. They wanted me, me, me.” With each repetition, he bounces and my head whams against the floor. Blackness shimmers at the edge of my vision. I inch my hand toward my pocket.

  Suddenly, the pressure lets up, although his fingers still encircle my neck. “What’s it feel like, dying?” he asks. There’s genuine curiosity in his voice. “No one’s ever been able to explain it to me before. But you, you’re a scientist, Jax. Tell me what it feels like as every cell gasps for oxygen, as the carbon dioxide builds up in your blood.”

  “Fu—” I start to say, startled by the roughness of my voice, but he immediately throttles me again.

  “I can do this all night,” he says, bringing his face within inches of mine. His breath is rank. “Bring you to the edge of death, and let you come back a little way. After I found out the truth at the Kube, I was going to let the IPF have you, re-arrest you and throw you back in prison for killing that soldier. But this is so much more satisfying. I don’t know what I’ll tell them. It doesn’t much matter because you’re a wanted criminal and I’m a respected citizen. I’ve got all night to think of a story. Maybe I can even come up with something that will implicate that bitch Alden. That would be perfect.” His gold eyes gleam and seem to expand and contract in changing patterns, like a kaleidoscope.

  “Are you experiencing cerebral hypoxia, Jax? Do you feel your brain cells dying? Maybe I won’t kill you—maybe I’ll just deprive you of oxygen long enough to turn you into a vegetable.” He giggles and I feel his erection pressing against my thigh. His brutality, the excitement of killing me, has aroused him. He eases up slightly so I can suck in a thin breath.

  I’m ready this time. My fingers cl
ose around the scalpel. I get my feet flat on the floor.

  “I wonder how much pressure it will take to burst the blood vessels in your eyes? I’ll—”

  I drive the scalpel blade sideways into his neck with all the force I can muster. I try to slice it toward his jugular, but the angle is awkward and his arm blocks the downward slash. He lets out a high-pitched scream and grabs at the scalpel. I buck upwards and shift his body weight to his left. Rolling to my left, I scramble to my feet. I’m dizzy, but the will to survive keeps me standing. If Keegan gets me again, he won’t mess around with his sick games—he’ll kill me instantly.

  Keegan staggers up, his hand fastened around the scalpel still stuck in his neck. A snarl twists his face and murder glitters in his eyes. He tugs the scalpel blade free. I hope for gouts of arterial blood, but only a thin line of red pulses down his neck. With the gore from his nose, he’s a bloody mess, but he’s up and coming after me and he’s between me and the door.

  Pulses.

  Hope flares. I’ve nicked the artery. He will bleed out without treatment. Trouble is, he might manage to kill me before he goes down. My left arm is useless, my elbow possibly broken. I can’t fight him. I can’t get around him. I run the other way, to the locust lab. His thudding footsteps are right behind me. I jump through the locust lab’s open door. The hum of thousands of insect wings envelops me, shooting me back to when I ran into a swarm to escape the IPF. I hope this works better than that did. I try to yank the door closed, but Keegan’s fingers close around the edge when there’s only an inch left to go.

  He strains to open it, the tendons in his neck standing out with the effort. Is it my imagination, or is the blood pulsing faster? The artery is tearing open. Not fast enough. I hesitate, and then slam my hand against the alarm by the door, knowing I’m signing my death warrant. I have to stop Keegan from wiping out the locusts. Whatever happens to me, I’ve got to make sure the genetically modified locusts live to be released and infect the wild population with their death-bringing mutation. The alarm lets out a keening blip, blip, blip that notifies everyone in the building there’s been a lab incident and protective equipment may be required.

  As soon as I let go of the handle, Keegan wrests the door open. I stumble back, whanging against the enclosure with the carnivorous locusts, and jolting my elbow. Lightning bolts of pain nauseate me. It’s all I can do to stay standing, back pressed against the cage. The whirring intensifies.

  Oh, no. He’s got the flamejet.

  “I am going to kill you and then I’m going to kill every bug in this room,” Keegan grits between clenched teeth. He brings up the weapon’s nozzle. “You and everything you ever accomplished will be wiped out. Gone.” Before I can move, he unleashes a jet of flame at the first enclosure, the one with my golden locusts.

  The insects ignite and the interior of the cage becomes a tornado of yellow and orange flames until the charred corpses start dropping to the ground. Despair knifes through me. I must make some sound, or my face betrays my agony, because Keegan swings toward me and grins, showing all his teeth in an exultant rictus. He points the weapon’s nozzle at the cage of instars and blasts it with fire.

  I see his bloody hands on the controls and they inspire a desperate plan. I have no idea if the carnivorous locusts are attracted by the scent of blood, but many animals are, including mosquitoes, bedbugs and other insects. I reach behind me and fumble with the lock, my fingers made clumsy with fear, but then it opens as Keegan’s hand tangles in my hair.

  “Hiding with the locusts won’t help you this time.”

  My scalp feels like it's ripping off and tears start to my eyes. He’s bringing the nozzle up, aiming at my face. The damn locusts are quiescent at first, and I think my plan has failed, but then Keegan shoves me back against the enclosure so there’s enough distance between us for him to flame me without being burned himself. As if electrified, the locusts spray out of the cage. A few light on me, but most home in on Keegan, on his nose, face, hands and neck, where the blood is heaviest. He releases me to bat at them. Flames shoot randomly from the weapon and I drop to the ground.

  One locust bites my ear and another my face where Keegan’s blood dripped on me. The stings take me back to the dark, fluttery, noisy swarm in the spring. I hadn’t remembered being bitten—the torture and beatings had covered the marks and obliterated the memory—but now it comes back to me. Only a small percentage of the locusts in that swarm were carnivorous; all of the insects in this one are. I crawl toward the door. Keegan drops the flame thrower and flings his limbs about and shrieks behind me, trying to brush the locusts off. More settle on him. I get the door open and fall through it as locusts gnaw off bits of uncovered flesh. I kick the door closed.

  Closing my hands around one locust after another, I tear them off me and fling them away. My ear leaks blood. My left arm jangles with pain and I can’t think through it. Several moments elapse before I cradle my elbow in my right hand and stand. Trembling, I look through the window into the locust lab. Keegan whirls like a dervish, completely submerged in locusts. As I watch, a geyser of blood spurts from his neck. The artery has finally torn wide. In less than a minute it pumps itself out and Keegan crumples to the floor. Curls of smoke drift upwards from the floor of the cages, but the flames have died out. I turn away.

  No one has yet arrived at the lab and I realize that only two or three minutes have passed since I hit the alarm. The guards are probably donning protective gear and I’ll bet there’s no one else in the building at this hour. I tongue the capsule. Maybe I can still get away . . .

  The lab door slams open against the wall.

  A hooded figure looms in the doorway.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Too late. My teeth gently grab a fold of my inner cheek and I’m about to bite down when the figure crosses the threshold, cloak swirling. “Good God, Ealy! What’s happened? You’re bloody—”

  Minister Alden. Relief gushes through me.

  Too overwhelmed to say anything, I motion to the locust lab. The minister strides to the window and looks at the feasting. Horror distorts her features for a moment, and then she says, “Usher? The hair—”

  I nod.

  “Tell me later. We’ve got to get out of here. The guards will be here any second.”

  “The lockdown—” My voice is a painful rasp, unrecognizable. My hand goes to my mangled throat.

  She doesn’t waste time explaining. Putting an arm around my shoulders, she hustles me to the door. We turn toward her office. As we turn a corner, booted footsteps clomp into the corridor we just left.

  “Too close,” Alden whispers.

  She picks up the pace until we’re almost jogging. Each step jars my elbow and sluices pain like acid along every nerve, but I keep up. I have a sliver of hope that I don’t need to die tonight. Excited male voices issue orders. The alarm keeps blip, blip, blipping. At her office door, Alden holds her eye to the iris scanner and then we’re inside. I’m not sure what good it will do us—the soldiers will search every cranny in the building once they find Keegan’s body and the bloody scalpel.

  “Private elevator,” Alden says, shoving me through the anteroom to her inner office.

  I think inanely about the many privileges of being a government minister and then Alden has opened the elevator doors with another iris scan and we’re inside. The elevator shoots up. Up? I look a question at the minister.

  “The battles and shifting alliances during the Between taught me to never enter a building unless I knew at least two ways out besides the obvious.” She smiles grimly.

  I reassess her, imagining the young freedom fighter in place of the dignified scientist and stateswoman. I can see the vestiges of that girl in her alertness and the still-fit body.

  We emerge onto the ministry’s roof. Stars sparkle; it’s an unusually clear night. Not so good for evading IPF troops. The alarms cuts off and the sudden silence is a blessing. Alden hurries to the roof’s edge and I join her to peer down
at one of the walkways connecting the ministry to the Capitol. It’s a good ten feet below us.

  “Can you do it? Your arm?” Alden asks.

  I have to. I nod. Alden swings herself over the lip and holds onto the gutter for a moment before dropping onto the walkway. She lands with a thud, in a crouching position. She stands and looks up at me, the hood falling away from her face to show blond hair. With only one usable arm, I’m not going to be able to hang before dropping and cut the drop to five feet. I just have to jump and roll. I flatten myself against the roof and inch my way toward the edge, parallel to it. Fastening my right hand to the gutter, I slide my right leg into thin air, grateful there’s not much pitch to the roof. My left leg follows and I’m hinged at the waist with my torso on the roof and my legs dangling, right hand holding tight. I know as soon as I slide down another foot gravity will win and I’ll only be able to hold on for a second.

  “Hurry!”

  Taking a deep breath, I inch backwards, scraping my stomach. My belly button clears the lip. My hand clenches the gutter, metal cutting into my fingers and then my weight rips my hand open and I’m falling. Tuck and roll, tuck and roll. I land on my feet, knees bent, and let the momentum carry me down. I tuck into a ball automatically and roll. The motion brings me perilously close to the walkway’s edge and Alden grabs my shoulder to keep me from going over. I lie winded for a moment, ankles and hips aching, and then roll away from the edge and push to my feet.

  “Thanks.” My voice is a harsh whisper.

  “Anything broken?”

  Not waiting for a reply, Alden starts across the walkway toward the Capitol. Instinctively, we place our feet carefully so no one in the walkway will hear our steps overhead. When we hear voices below, we pause until they’re gone. On the Capitol end, metal rungs welded to the building lead from the catwalk’s roof to the ground and up to the dome. The Capitol’s dome and spire gleam several more stories above us.

  “Maintenance,” Alden mutters, descending the ladder. I manage it, although it’s awkward with only one arm. Alden works her shoulder around in circles when she steps onto the ground.