Trina and Curly have managed to get Trey on an examination table, but he’s still passed out. Mina excuses herself when she sees me and shuts the door behind her.
“How long until that stuff wears off?” I ask.
Curly shrugs. “Depends on how much we gave him.”
“And how much did you give him?”
“Don’t know. Something about you multiply weight by height to figure out dosage and frequency.” He shrugs again. “Never was good at math.”
I groan. “Are you telling me you have no idea how much you gave him? He could be knocked out until next week.”
“Exactly.” He grins and gives a little bow. “No need to thank me.”
Trina is staring at Trey. She reaches out and touches his forehead. “He looks so… different.”
“I know.” I move to her side. “Remember, underneath the clothes and the hairstyle is the same Trey. We just have to find him.”
Trina nods, letting her hand drop. “How do you know you can trust this Steele guy?”
“I don’t,” I reply. “I’m hoping I can, that’s all. We’re out of options and barring a miracle, we’re screwed.”
A low moan comes from Trey’s slightly open mouth. I move to his side, and Trina goes to the other. We stand there, waiting for him to open his eyes. When he does, he tries to lick his lips, and then he says, his voice hoarse, “Water.”
Trina hurries across the room to the small sink, fills a paper cup, and brings it back to him. She helps him sip the water, holding the back of his head and gently pouring the cool liquid into his mouth.
“Thanks,” he says, once he can speak. His eyes rove over her face. “Do I know you?”
Trina smiles. “I’m Trina.”
Trey smiles back, but when his head turns and he sees me, it fades. He only utters one word. “Why?”
Leaning over, I kiss him lightly on the cheek, and then whisper in his ear. “Because I’m just as good at lying as you are.”
Trey’s eyes darken. “I wasn’t lying, Sienna.”
“What about in the garden at Marmet? You weren’t lying then?”
“Yes, but—”
“So you expect me to believe that you had a sudden change of heart, a moment of clarity, and now you remember everything?”
A muscle in his jaw jumps. “I never said that—”
“Then what did you say?”
Trey shakes his head. “Just forget it.” He glances around. “Where the hell are we? I want to go home.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
Trey’s eyes shift to Curly, who’s standing erect in the corner like an armed guard. “Who are you?”
Curly clears his throat and takes a step forward. “I’m Jeb. But Sienna calls me Curly. Sir.”
“And I know you?” Trey asks, his eyes narrowing.
“Um, yes, sir. You did.” Curly appears very uncomfortable with this line of questioning. Maybe it bothers him to see Trey like this? I’m used to it by now, but I try to remember what it was like when I first realized Trey had no memories of his past.
It hurt like hell.
I’m about to cross the room and reassure Curly when the door to the room bursts open, an army of black enters, and then shouts and gunfire rain down on us. No, wait. The gunfire isn’t raining down on us, but all around us. The Enforcers are firing up at the ceiling, and bits of the tiles fall down, covering us in white and gray confetti. Rough hands force me to the ground, my face pressed into the cold concrete floor. A sharp pain shoots up my arm to my shoulder as my arms are twisted behind my back and rubber-and-metal cuffs clicked on.
Heels click and I see a sideways version of a woman with short, blonde hair. She’s dressed in a navy business suit with the Pacifica crest—the three running legs symbol—embossed on her left shoulder. I know her immediately. Assistant President Neiman.
“Leave the Winchester boy to me,” she says in an authoritative tone. “The others are yours.”
I’m dragged to my feet. Trey is sitting up on the exam table, a dazed expression on his face, but no one has dared to touch him. Trina and Curly’s hands are both bound behind their backs. At least half a dozen black-clad Enforcers take up the room, their laser guns held steady in their hands, aimed at the three of us. Madame Neiman gazes at me, her eyes cold, her mouth severe. She turns to the man standing in the doorway. Steele Ryder.
“Thanks again for the tip, Mr. Ryder.”
Steele nods. “Always a pleasure to work with you, Madame.” He gives me a contemptuous look.
He ratted us out. The growing knot in my stomach turns into a fireball of shame. Then realization dawns. The computer chips in the back of the desk. Mr. Ryder’s denial of his involvement… Always a pleasure to work with you. This isn’t the first time they’ve worked together.
I think back to the words Steele spoke in the hallway about Trey and the Fringe. We don’t need scourges like him running around creating havoc. Our society can be better than that.
I turn and glare at Steele. “You’re the one, aren’t you?”
“Pardon?” His tone is more of a sneer than an actual question.
“You’re the one,” I repeat. “The one who’s been experimenting on juvenile inmates.”
Steele’s eyes turn as hard as his name. “Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, Miss Preston.” He turns to go, but stops himself. “And leave my brother alone. You’ll only ruin him.” Before I can say anything, he strides out of the room.
With Steele gone, Madame Neiman’s cold eyes focus on me. “Miss Preston,” she says. “You’ve caused me nothing but trouble. And yet, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of making each other’s acquaintance.” Her lips curl into a sneer.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” she says. “Assistant President Andrea Neiman.”
She looks different from her broadcasts on comscreens. Her skin is paler, her lips redder, and her scowl ages her by at least ten years.
“Are you the one who ordered the hit on Radcliffe? And Rayne?” I growl.
She taps a finger on her lips as she pretends to be concerned. That’s when I notice her excessively long fingernails, like mini daggers.
“How can you say such a thing? Colonel Radcliffe was a fearless leader of the Commonwealth of Pacifica. His death was a great tragedy to us all.”
I snort. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“And that Williams girl?” Neiman shrugs. “It appears you broke into her apartment and took care of her yourself.”
My eyes are full of hate for this woman who disposes of life without a second thought. And blames me for it. “You murdered them!”
In a few short strides, Madame Neiman is in front of me, one knife-like fingernail lifting my chin until I’m looking directly in her eyes. Her fingernail burrows into my skin, but I don’t cry out, not even when I feel droplets of warm blood running down my neck. Her cold, gray eyes scrutinize mine like she’s trying to read my thoughts. “Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps Radcliffe wasn’t the target?”
My breath catches and my mind spins, remembering that night. When I was in Radcliffe’s house, I bent down to retrieve the picture frame at the exact moment the bullet pierced his chest.
It was me. The sniper shot was meant for me.
“You have a lot to learn, Miss Preston,” Madame Neiman continues. She draws her hand away and looks at the blood trickling down her finger. My stomach heaves as she brings her index finger up to her lips and then presses it to her tongue, tasting it. Bile rises in the back of my throat as I get a whiff of the metallic scent of my own blood. Her eyes never leave my face, watching me for a reaction. I give her none.
“A handkerchief, please,” Madame Neiman barks. A hankie is placed in her outstretched hand, and the purity of the white linen is immediately stained with the bright red of my blood. After wiping her hands, Madame Neiman carefully tucks the handkerchief into her suit pocket. “Blindfold and gag them. We
don’t need them causing trouble on the way to Maximum Confinement.”
At her words, my heart trips over itself. Maximum Confinement? No. I can’t let them take us there. With its steel walls and heavily armed guards, we’ll never escape. The security in real Confinement is quadruple what it is in the Juvenile Division, which is where Kaylee and the other juvenile delinquents were held in Legas.
Because I’m shot up on fear and desperation, I do the only thing I can think to do—which turns out to be the stupidest thing I could do. As the Enforcer with white-blond hair tries to gag me with a scarf, I bite down as hard as I can, until I taste blood. He lets out a string of curses. Something hard, like the butt of a gun, knocks me across the back of the head. A lightning burst of pain explodes through my brain.
And I slump to the floor.
34
SIENNA
The bouncing and jostling only exacerbates the pain in my head. Moaning, I try to open my eyes, but all I see is blackness. When I blink, my eyelashes catch on the rough material of a blindfold. When I try to swallow, I gag on the cloth stuffed in my mouth. It’s worse than the tongue depressors the medics use to swab your throat.
“She’s awake,” I hear a gravelly voice say.
Someone slides closer to me, a sweaty hand presses against the back of my neck, and then hot breath grazes my cheek as a voice whispers in my ear, “I liked watching you sleep.”
Shuddering, I shift away from him, which is difficult since I have no access to my hands or sight. He laughs harshly. “I love it when they put up a fight.”
“Simon!” someone barks. “That’s enough.”
I’m racked with a coughing fit, which turns into gags and dry heaves since I can’t breathe past the cloth in my mouth. Every time I inhale, I taste sweat and dirty socks. Clearly, this rag wasn’t a clean one, which causes another round of dry heaves.
“Um, she’s gagging back here,” the pervert who whispered in my ear only moments ago says.
“Ignore her. It’s just a ploy.”
I suddenly can’t breathe. I try to inhale through my nose, but it’s plugged with snot from so much gagging. And when I try to breathe past the sweaty socks, my gag reflex kicks in. I try to tell myself that it’s mental, but after a few moments where I’m only able to take in tiny bits of stale air, I start to panic. I throw my head back and try to cry through the cloth.
“Hey, man, I don’t think she can breathe.”
Yes, idiot, that’s correct.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks now, and even though my mind screams at me to get a grip, I can’t manage to get a hold of myself. Just when I start to see twirling stars behind my closed lids, someone says, “Be careful, soldier. She has one hell of a bite.”
The pressure in my mouth lifts and I spit out the cloth, gulping large amounts of air.
“See, told you,” the pervert says.
Once I’ve recovered, I croak, “Where are my friends?”
I can feel his breath on my cheek as he says, “Not to worry, sweetheart. They’re right behind us.”
A few minutes later, the vehicle comes to a stop, and doors open. Rough hands grab my arm and yank me out, causing me to hit my knee against something hard. Stumbling, I wince as I hobble across a rocky surface that feels like gravel underfoot. The sandals I borrowed from Rayne are gone. They must have taken them while I was knocked out. There’s the sound of other footsteps shuffling through the gravel.
“We can remove the blindfold now,” the one in charge says. “Once inside that building, they ain’t ever leaving, so it doesn’t really matter what they see.”
The blindfold falls from my eyes, and I blink rapidly against the morning sun. Trina and Curly are doing the same thing only feet away. And when I see the bruise on Trina’s face and Curly’s swollen eye, I know they tried to fight too. And lost.
I’m not sure where we are or how long I’ve been unconscious, but one thing is certain, it was night when we were captured, and now it’s daytime. With our hands still cuffed behind our backs, we’re forced into a boat. There are the three of us Fringe members and four guards—one for each of us plus the leader. My pervert guard keeps a hand on me at all times, like he thinks I might try to hurl myself over the side of the boat or something.
As the boat moves, the wind picks up, gliding over my skin and dragging through my hair. The sun heats my back and warms my face. Tilting my head back, I drink it in. Who knows how long it will be until I feel the sun again?
It’s a short ride to the fortress they’re taking us to. I can see it, rising out of the ocean like a sentinel. Rocky cliffs, concrete walls, barbed-wire fencing. It is said to be impenetrable. No one has ever escaped in the hundred years it has been in existence. Convicts go there to die.
The closer we get, the harder my heart hammers. I glance over at Trina and see the fear in her eyes. As tough as she is with her combat boots and fierce attitude, even she knows we’re riding toward our death sentence. When I look over at Curly and he flashes me a wild grin, tears fill my eyes. Even now, amid the danger of our imminent imprisonment, Curly remains upbeat. I wish I had a piece of his optimism inside of me. Because all I feel now is despair.
The guards dock the boat and help the three of us prisoners climb out onto the rocky soil. A long row of steps has been built into the side of the cliff, and we climb them steadily. The next few minutes are a blur of gray concrete, harsh hands, and the slamming of metal cell doors.
I try to get a feel for the guards as we pass through cell block after cell block. Which ones are nicer than others? Which ones might show a little compassion? It leads me to wonder…
Can any of them be bribed?
As much as I’m hoping they’ll put Curly, Trina, and me together, they separate us, of course. Pervert guard shoves me into a concrete room with no windows and only a thin mat on a sagging cot. A crude bucket in the corner of the room is where I’m supposed to defecate.
“Home sweet home,” the guard sneers. His hand lingers a little longer on my shoulder than necessary before moving behind me to undo my handcuffs.
Once my wrists are free, I feel a snap at my waist. Rayne’s diamond-studded belt falls to the ground. I spin around, my throat closing.
“Relax,” the guard says. He bends over to pick up the belt. “This,” he says, holding it up, “is considered a weapon. Can’t have you choking one of our guards with it.”
Rubbing my sore wrists, I take a few steps back to put some distance between us.
“However, if you get lonely—” he starts to offer with a patronizing smile.
I glare at him. “I won’t.”
He tips his head back and laughs before sauntering to the door, the belt swinging from his hand. “Well, if you change your mind…”
“Get out,” I hiss.
He chuckles and slams the metal door behind him.
As soon as he leaves, I sink down on the cot, my head dropping into my hands. All this time I thought Mr. Ryder was the one feeding those inmates into the experimentation system. I thought he was the evil one who didn’t care about anything but making money. That may still be true, but now I have someone else to hate, someone else to blame.
Steele Ryder.
This is it. There’s no escaping this time. Of all the decisions I’ve made this past year, this is by far the stupidest one. What was I thinking going to Steele for help? Why did I ever think he would come to the aid of me and my renegade friends?
Because Zane told me he would. I trusted him and look where it got us.
How did Zane turn out so good when the family members surrounding him are so bad?
Just thinking of Zane causes a pain in my chest like slivers of glass piercing my heart. He left me in Rubex all alone. When I needed him most.
I want to believe he had a good reason, but the truth is, he’s committed to Arian, not me. Which means that he probably went back to smooth things over with her.
Did you expect anything less?
No.
No, I didn’t. But I guess I hoped for something more.
35
ZANE
The news of Sienna’s arrest is broadcast over all the news stations and on every comscreen.
“Sienna Preston, the seventeen-year-old girl wanted for the murder of Colonel George Radcliffe, was captured last night at the Match 360 Headquarters in Rubex. It is believed that Miss Preston is also responsible for the death of eighteen-year-old Rayne Williams, who was found in her apartment earlier this evening. Authorities say that at the time of her arrest, Miss Preston was traveling with two Fringe companions and another young man they’d kidnapped. The three Fringe members are currently being held in maximum-security Confinement as they await the results of their trial. If found guilty, young Miss Preston and her cohorts will be executed.”
I click the screen off and sink down onto the couch, so shocked that I can’t think clearly. They have Sienna… this is my fault… I told her to go to the Match 360 Headquarters… if I’d been there…
Executed.
No. No way. I will not allow Sienna to die for crimes she didn’t commit. There must be someone I can speak to, someone I can reason with. Perhaps even bribe.
Swallowing my pride, I stride to my father’s office, swinging the mahogany door open without knocking.
“Zane.” He looks surprised to see me.
“You’ve heard, haven’t you? About Sienna?” I demand.
My father takes his reading glasses off and sets them down on his desk. “Why yes. How unfortunate. I suppose she thought she wouldn’t get caught.”
My fists clench. “She didn’t do it. She may have hated Colonel Radcliffe, but she didn’t kill him. And Rayne? She would never.”
“And you have proof of this?”
“I have her word. And that’s enough for me.”
My father clasps his hands together and rests them on the desk. “Then what is it you want?”
Forgotten Page 24