Body Parts

by Jessica Kapp

  The sirens pierce the air and the hair on my neck stands up.

  “They’re here.” Gavin cups his mouth and lets out a yipping noise, the kind a wild dog would make to find food or a pack to run with.

  Someone answers the call and Gavin and I follow the sound. It takes several minutes for us to reach an uprooted tree. It lies on its side surrounded by mushrooms and decaying branches. A head pops up from behind the log and Mary waves, her grin stretching the width of her face.

  I trip on a branch as I race to greet her. Everyone is here, and Mary’s still hugging me as Paige sandwiches her between us.

  “You made it.” Paige grips my face as if she doesn’t believe I’m real. Sasha’s hug is quick, but she squeezes me hard enough to tell me she cares. Parker is the only one who doesn’t greet me. I try to catch his eye, but all I get out of him is a nod.

  The group bombards Gavin and me with questions, but their mouths clamp shut at the sound of a long blare.

  Mary wraps herself around Craig’s leg. “It’s just a bullhorn,” he says, smoothing her hair. “The bad guys are trying to get our attention. They want to know where we are.”

  “Is your dad supposed to call you when it’s safe?” I ask Gavin.

  Sasha doesn’t wait for his answer. “Maybe we should head deeper into the woods.” Craig argues against it, and the chatter starts up again, our voices lower this time.

  All I hear is uncertainty and it triggers my own doubts. Would the military really come? What if they do, but it’s not my dad? Maybe they’ll agree with PharmPerfect’s plan to make a super drug using my insides. I try to bury my pessimism, but when I glance over at Parker’s gloomy face, it’s hard.

  Gavin and Adrian work to quell the group’s fear while I slip away. I need to make things right with Parker. If we don’t make it out of this alive, I at least want to have a clear conscience.

  Parker doesn’t look up as I approach. “Hey,” he says, staring into the woods. His back is against the fallen log, and he’s sitting several feet from the rest of the group, as if he got kicked off the team. Guilt punches me in the chest. It’s a blow I probably deserve.

  “I’m sorry I locked you in the basement.” I sit next to him. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  He shakes his head. “Do you know how helpless I felt locked in there while you were running straight into danger? You had no right.”

  “Somebody has to stay alive if we’re going to shut down the Center.” I gesture to Mary, who’s making a flower necklace while Gavin talks to the group. “She’s still so young. So innocent.” My voice breaks a little. “There aren’t many of us that know the truth. I owed it to you to keep you safe. And to her.”

  A forgiving smile tugs at Parker’s lips, but when he looks at me his eyes are sad. “It’s not just that…of all the ways I imagined my life would be after the Center, this wasn’t one of them.” He pulls in a long breath, so deep it feels like he’s sucking the air out of me. “My life’s a joke.”

  “Parker, that’s not true—”

  “Of course it is. I mean, come on, I was raised to be a lab rat. Hell, on paper, I don’t even exist.” He tears at the grass between his feet, as if he’s clawing his way to someplace else. Anywhere but here.

  “Screw the Center, Parker.” I rub his back. “They can hide our past, but they can’t decide our future.”

  He meets my eyes again. “I hate what they did to us, what a nobody I am. Then you left me behind, trapped in that room.” I cringe, my hand stopping on his shoulder blade. “That’s not what I meant,” he says quickly. “What I’m trying to say is, you could’ve died, and I realized my life would be worse without you in it.” His lips press together when he pauses, his eyes flitting over to Gavin. “All I want is for you to be happy.”

  Tears brim my eyes. “I don’t know what to say…” I squeeze his shoulder. “Except my life would be worse without you in it too.”

  My hand clamps down when we hear a pop pop!

  I scramble to my feet at the sound of the agonizing yell that follows the noise.

  “Noooooo!” Gavin wails, already halfway over the log. He’s heading back toward the barn, and I bolt after him, ignoring Paige’s plea for me to stop.

  Gavin runs at full speed, but I’m quicker and cut the distance in less than twenty seconds.

  “Stop!” I yell. “Don’t go out there!”

  When we reach the clearing, he brakes like he’s hit a force field and laces his hands above his head. He groans at the scene. There are two police cruisers parked cockeyed in the drive and the SUV door is ajar. My eyes flash to the man lying on the ground, sprawled out as if he fell while trying to climb in. It takes a millisecond for me to piece it all together: Bracken’s been shot.

  Chapter 29

  “Dad!” Gavin darts through the field and I sprint after him, trying to snatch his arm. He growls at me to let go, dragging me a few feet. I try to tow him in the direction of the forest, but he’s too strong and twists his torso to shake me off. I lose my footing and fall as Paige and Parker burst out of the woods. Paige points at me, but I clamor to my feet before either of them can help me up—or hold me back.

  “Tabitha, wait!” Paige yells.

  “I have to stop him!” I will my legs to run faster. Gavin’s heading straight for his dad. Straight toward the man with the gun.

  There’s an officer behind the door of the police cruiser. He adjusts his stance and steadies his gun, pointing it at Gavin’s chest. “Freeze!”

  Gavin doesn’t stop.

  I hear the gun click and dive for Gavin’s foot, stretching my fingers to catch his heel. He trips as the bullet whizzes by, and his body hits the ground with a thud. His groan is eclipsed by Paige’s scream.

  I roll over and sit up, expecting Paige to be running toward us. When I see her hand around Parker’s leg, his knee mangled like it’s been turned inside out. I hurry to his side, helping Paige remove his shirt so we can stop the bleeding.

  Parker curses as I cinch the fabric tight. “It burns!” He closes his eyes, gritting his teeth.

  “Lie back. Try to slow your heart—” My advice is interrupted by the gravely voice bellowing through a bullhorn.

  “Put your hands above your head and walk this way.” The officer stands in the grass near Gavin, who’s on his knees with his hands clasped over his head. The gun is on Gavin, but the officer’s eyes are on us.

  “He can’t walk,” Paige yells back. “You shot him!”

  Tears streak her face. I try—and fail—to pinch back my own. Bracken looks dead, Parker’s been shot, and Gavin has a gun to his head. My chest tightens like it’s collapsing in on itself.

  “Stay with Parker,” I say, letting go. She shakes her head, and I wipe my face with my palm. “I have to, Paige. I’m not going to watch my friends die when I’m the one they want.”

  I walk toward the officer, picking up my pace when he presses the barrel against Gavin’s temple. “I’m coming.” I lift my hands above my head so he knows I’m surrendering. “You have me. Let him go.”

  The officer chuckles. “Get down and shut up.” He motions with his gun and I drop to my knees next to Gavin.

  “I’m sorry,” Gavin says, lifting his chin. His eyes look sunburned, his face wrenched with guilt. But before I can tell him I understand, that he was afraid for his dad, we hear a soft moan. Gavin and I glance over at Bracken’s body. He’s not moving and the gravel is stained with blood, but the sound came from him, which means he’s still alive—for now.

  “Eyes forward.” The officer waves the black barrel in my periphery.

  “Hold your fire!” Another officer rounds the back of the SUV, his face flecked with ash, as if he’s been sifting through the barn rubble looking for us. He props a foot up on the bumper and leans his ear toward the radio on his shoulder. “Don’t shoot the girl.” He gestures to me. “She’s the one we need.”

  The officer with the gun grumbles and yanks me to my feet. He pulls my han
ds down to the small of my back and cuffs me as a sleek black car approaches. It parks behind Bracken’s SUV, and when the door opens, Gavin yells out in desperation, “He needs a doctor!”

  Gavin clamps his mouth shut when he sees who it is. Mr. Murphy gives Bracken a quick once over and flicks his wrist. “We’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”

  “Murderer!” Gavin spits out the word. As if the barn is angry too, the wood begins to creak, and the roof collapses, sending a fresh puff of smoke and embers into the air.

  The officer hauls Gavin away and I watch helplessly as he’s slammed against the cruiser for a pat down. I turn back when I hear footsteps, swallowing hard when Mr. Murphy is close enough to count my freckles. Close enough to cut me here and now if he wanted to.

  He looks out to the field. “How many are out there?”

  “It’s just the four of us.” I drop my gaze to his lapel and try to control my breathing.

  He must sense I’m lying because he makes a two-fingered gesture to Officer Ash Face. “Check the woods. My son said there were more of them. If they’re in there, haul ‘em out. Let’s shut this operation down for good.”

  The first officer tosses Gavin into the back of one cruiser and comes back for me, tugging so hard the steel cuts into my wrists. “Let’s go.” He drags me toward Ash Face’s patrol car.

  “Easy now,” says Mr. Murphy, walking alongside us. “I want this one unharmed.” He smiles at me as if it’s a shared joke between us. I wish he’d move in front of me so I could kick his teeth in.

  “You have me. What more do you want?” The words taste acidic on my tongue, because I already know the answer. “Why don’t you just let the rest of them go?” I look back at the field hoping that Paige and Parker have escaped. My heart sinks when I see they haven’t moved.

  Ash Face bypasses them and heads into the woods. Parker must be too injured to move, and Paige is too noble to leave him. Her top is splotched with red as she holds the blood-soaked shirt tight around Parker’s knee.

  Of course Mr. Murphy won’t negotiate. He dissects children. I doubt he even has a heart of his own. Parker and Paige will either be shot or parted out, Bracken will bleed to death, Gavin’s going to jail, and if the others don’t get away…I don’t want to imagine what they’ll do to Mary.

  I choke back my tears. “Please. You won. Isn’t that enough?”

  Mr. Murphy looks past me to the officer. “Take her away. I’ll meet you at the hospital.” Only then do his eyes land on me. “We have a lot of work to do.” He disappears into his fancy car and the engine purrs contently when he starts it.

  “You heard the man,” the officer says, pushing down on my head. I stiffen my neck, fighting to keep my eyes above the hood of the cruiser. Even though I know this is the end, that once I’m locked behind this door I’ll become PharmPerfect’s science project, my fighting spirit refuses to make it easy on Mr. Murphy’s team.

  “Get in, you little—”

  I shake my head from side to side and underneath the officer’s curses, I catch the sound of gravel being chewed up by tires. The officer eases his grip and we both look over as two sedans pull into the driveway and grind to a stop in front of the exit.

  The cars are almost identical to Mr. Murphy’s. My friends are as good as dead—unless they got a head start.

  “Get. In,” the officer says, giving my head a firm shove. He may have muscle, but I have bite. I twist my face around, my mouth searching for the nearest clump of skin. I clamp down on his sweaty flesh and he lets out another explosion of expletives as his hand jerks back.

  I ram him with my shoulder and take off for the woods. My body’s unsteady without the balance of my arms and I’m barely ten feet when I feel a pinch in my back. A jolt of electricity courses through me. My limbs go rigid and I fall on my face, staring helplessly at the ground.

  After several minutes, my muscles stop twitching. There’s still a buzz between my ears when I hear a man’s hardened voice say, “Get her up.”

  I’m hoisted to my feet. When I stop wobbling, I notice two men staring back at me with bulletproof vests that read SWAT across their chests. They flank a man in a military uniform. My brain snaps to attention and I look over my shoulder, searching for Gavin, who’s still sitting in the back of a cruiser with his forehead pressed against the glass, his eyes wide. I can’t tell if he’s afraid or in shock. Probably both.

  The military got Gavin’s message, but it seems they decided to work with Mr. Murphy rather than reconnect me with my father.

  Smoke and tears burn my eyes. I glance back at the solider, his face rough and weathered, like he’s been sleeping on a bed of sandpaper, or not sleeping at all. His hair looks like it’s been colored in with a dull, gray crayon. When I meet the man’s gaze, he scans my face, reading me with equal intensity.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Tabitha Rhodes.”

  Shock flashes in the deep recesses of his eyes, like he doesn’t believe me.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “Gladstone…I think.”

  He frowns. “Where are your parents?”

  “My mom died.” I use my shoulder to motion toward Mr. Murphy’s sedan. “That man used her for drug tests. The same tests he plans to do on me.”

  The man whispers something to one of the SWAT officers who immediately runs toward the newer sedans.

  “And your father?”

  I stare up at the sky, unsure how to answer. “He was on assignment when I was taken to the Center for Growth. That’s all I know. I haven’t seen my dad in ten years. I’m not even sure he’s alive.” I bring my gaze back to his and my lip quivers. “I don’t know what Mr. Murphy’s told you, but I’m not volunteering for the military’s drug project, and neither are the kids he’s raising for body parts.”

  The SWAT officer returns with a white box that looks like a first aid kit. “This is what we need,” the solider says then nods at Mr. Murphy’s car. “Bring him out.”

  Mr. Murphy exits his vehicle with his eyebrows scrunched together, as if he’s been asked to spell the name of every ingredient in one of his drugs. My body tenses when he nears.

  “This girl says her name is Tabitha Rhodes,” says the solider.

  “That’s impossible. She’s been kidnapped by a group of kids who sell body parts on the black market. I’m sure her brain has been scrambled by the drugs they’ve given her.”

  Before I can object, the SWAT officer opens the white box and pulls out a syringe and a vial of purple liquid. He sticks it in and points the needle at me. “It’s ready,” he says, handing it to the solider.

  So this is how it ends for me.

  I suck in a breath and there’s a flash of amusement in the military man’s eyes. He aims the needle at Mr. Murphy instead. “Let’s try this again.”

  “Get that thing away from me.” Mr. Murphy makes an X with his forearms and steps back. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Restrain him,” the solider says, his voice so sharp I flinch. One of the SWAT guys pulls Mr. Murphy’s hands behind his back and I feel a small twinge of pleasure when the soldier punctures his neck. He drains the syringe and tosses it back in the white box. “Now. Be honest this time. What’s this girl’s name?”

  Mr. Murphy’s eyes gloss over and his face goes slack. “Tabitha Rhodes.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “To help the military, of course. You want stronger soldiers?” Mr. Murphy grins. His white teeth shine despite the cloud of smoke blocking most of the sun. “You need my help. And I,” he nods at me, “need her.”

  “For a drug?” The man’s voice is as stiff as his uniform.

  “Not just a drug, the drug.” Mr. Murphy leans forward and one of his hands slips free. He wags a finger in my direction. “We need her for Gideon. She’s the incubator.”

  “How did you find her?”

  “She was wandering the streets. Alone. A customer brought her in.” Mr. Murphy
beams. “She had the genes!”

  “Genes like her mother?” The soldier’s eyes are ablaze with anger and I shrink when his jaw tightens.

  “Exactly!” Mr. Murphy tugs his other arm loose and claps his hands together with a single pop.

  “So you admit she was raised for the experiment? And others,” the military man gestures to Parker and Paige, “were raised for parts?”

  “Yes! Business is booming. And with this girl, we’ll be able to help our nation excel once again. Invincible soldiers.” Mr. Murphy reaches for the man’s shoulder, and in a flash, the solider grabs his hand, twisting hard. Mr. Murphy wails and falls to one knee, his arm wound so tightly it looks like it will break with another half inch of torque.

  “Before I’m through with you, you’re going to give me the name of every doctor you work with, every person who’s ever had any knowledge of this operation. Do I make myself clear?” The solider lets go, and another man, one who looks like a SWAT officer without a vest, lifts Mr. Murphy to his feet and hauls him away.

  People in dark, non-Gladstone police clothes materialize from the SUVs, armed with supplies and guns—ones that aren’t pointed at our heads. They’re talking on radios and moving so fast I can’t figure out who’s in charge or what’s going on.

  “We need medics, stat!” says a man behind me. I glance back to see him squatting next to Bracken.

  I’m trying to absorb it all, to understand what this means—when the solider barks orders at the Gladstone officer who Tased me. “Uncuff her,” he says. The officer obeys and stands off to the side, cowering as if he’s become a gazelle among lions. I flex my wrists and glare at him until SWAT finds a home for him in the back of one of the rigs.

  “What now?” I ask, still unsure about the solider, but convinced enough that I can drop my guard—at least a little.

  “The FBI will talk to everyone who worked for Mr. Murphy to figure out who knew what, who took bribes—” He cuts himself off with a curt nod. “It’s a long process. But I can assure you, no one else will be sold for parts.”