Child of Lies

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  Summer fiddled with the poncho. She rolled it up, creating a pocket for their catch, then twisted the ends until they were thin enough to tie around her waist. “Let’s go.”

  Jacey led the way, deciding to take a straight route for the trees and hoping that it wouldn’t leave too distinct a path in the grass behind them.

  “This is too slow,” Summer said. “We’ve just got to run.”

  Summer was right. The grass simply wasn’t tall enough to conceal them from the air.

  Jacey ran, her hands outstretched to block the stiff stalks that tried to snap her face. She hoped she wouldn’t stumble across a thornskipple patch or turn an ankle on the countless hidden stones among the weeds.

  The tree line grew closer, but the way grew steeper, and soon she was clawing with her hands to pull forward.

  “It’s coming,” Summer said.

  Jacey glanced over her shoulder, saw nothing in the sky. She heard the thump of the blades much louder now. Then it appeared to the east, a black dot in the sky heading straight for them.

  Jacey thrust her legs, forcing herself up the slope, careless now of what she grabbed onto. The binoculars swung wildly around her neck and thumped painfully against her chest. The sound of her own breath, ragged and loud in her ears, was soon drowned out by the thump and roar of the helicopter.

  “They see us!” Summer moaned.

  The breeze coming from the ocean was suddenly replaced by a wind blowing straight down, and the grass flattened all around them. Summer cried out. Jacey spun to see the girl flailing to keep her balance. Jacey grabbed Summer’s collar, pulled her forward.

  Summer’s wide eyes seemed to take up half her face. There was nothing sullen or cute about them now. They conveyed only pure panic.

  “Go,” Jacey urged.

  Together they scrabbled up the rest of the slope, making the tree line, which instantly cut off the force of the helicopter’s downdraft. The slope steepened further, but in the shade of the trees the undergrowth was thinner.

  “We’ve got to get over this hill,” Jacey said between gasps for breath.

  Summer didn’t say anything and kept moving. The exertion was wearing on her, though. Every few steps, she groaned plaintively as if she was at the end of her endurance.

  The sound of the helicopter abruptly changed, and Jacey sensed that it was lifting higher. A quick glance at the canopy told her that they were well concealed, and she paused by the bole of a thick tree, leaned against it, and helped Summer the last few steps.

  The girl put her hands on her knees and bent at the waist, heaving in air. Jacey was tired too, but she had spent far more time running the Scion School paths than Summer had.

  The helicopter’s sounds grew fainter, as if it was backing away from the forest.

  “It must be looking for a place to land,” Jacey said.

  “How many people do you think are onboard that thing?” Summer asked, voice shaking.

  Jacey thought it looked big enough to hold at least five or six. Seven if she included the pilot. Once on foot, they would spread out to cover more ground. But they’d be slower.

  She glanced back toward the ocean, which she could make out as a thin blue line between the gaps of the trees. She turned away from the ocean, getting her bearings. The plantation lay a bit farther west and to the north. Their heading on entering the rainforest had actually been a bit easterly. Hopefully that would throw off the pursuit.

  They went slower, taking care to be quiet and not leave any sign of their passing. The helicopter had moved off a great distance, though they could still hear its pulse on the wind. The hills and the trees played tricks on their ears. There was no telling in which direction it was.

  They made it to the top of the ridge and began the descent toward the plantation. Another five minutes brought them within sight of the great house ruins and fallen chimney.

  “Finally,” Summer said in a tearful voice. “I need to lie down.”

  “They won’t give up,” Jacey said. “They’re going to find this place. We can’t stay here.”

  “Where can we go?” Summer sounded very young. Very afraid.

  Jacey couldn’t begrudge her that. Their pursuers were after Summer. If they caught Jacey, the worst that would happen was a quick flight back to the Scion School and her locked in Girls’ Hall. But if they caught Summer . . .

  “Stay here,” Jacey said, guiding Summer to the shelter of the remaining wall of the house. “If anyone approaches, run.”

  “Where are you going?

  “I’m going into the windmill. I don’t know where we’re going to end up staying tonight, but we’re going to want that tarp and our water jug.”

  Summer crouched, leaning against the wall just beneath the window. Jacey crept toward the fringe of the forest, senses alert, heart pounding. She paused there, hugging close to the trunk of a tamarind tree and studied the landscape through the binoculars. She didn’t see any movement, didn’t hear voices or footsteps. The helicopter sounded even farther away, muffled by the rise of the hill. Realizing there was never going to be a better time, Jacey dashed toward the windmill and shoved her way through the vines and into the cool shade inside.

  She scrambled to roll up the tarp. “Where’s the rope?”

  She cast about, heart falling. Evidence of their presence was everywhere, the most damning being the little fire pit Summer had made. If the searchers found this place, they’d set up a trap and wait for Summer and Jacey to return.

  She kicked some vines over the pit, hoping that anyone who came in would only give a cursory look. With one last look behind, she pushed through the vines and into the open.

  A voice cut across the air, freezing Jacey to stillness. “Circle ‘round.”

  It was a woman’s voice, hard-edged and full of command.

  Jacey hugged her tarp bundle to her chest, head turning this way and that, trying to find the source of the voice. She saw nothing.

  She edged around the windmill, then dropped to her stomach atop the tarp. A figure dressed entirely in black picked its way twenty meters from her, head turning back and forth as it scanned the ground. It was a man in all-black clothes. He reminded her of the armed men from Captain Wilcox’s squad.

  She crawled backward until the curve of the windmill was between her and the man. A noise came from behind her. Very close. She stood, holding her breath. With painfully slow movements, she slipped back among the vines and into the windmill. She set the canvas down and carefully pulled the vines around the entrance.

  “Alice! Thought I heard something over here.” A man’s voice.

  “That was probably me, you idiot,” said the woman. “I told you to search over there.”

  The woman, Alice, was obviously in charge. Even in low tones, her voice managed to be a shout, as if long years of command had compressed and shaped it for use as a verbal hammer.

  Jacey backed away from the entrance. It seemed to her then that an enormous amount of sunlight cut through, as if every gap in the vines were a meter wide. She remembered how hard it had been to find the entrance just the day before. But she and Summer had been going in and out. Jacey worried that they’d left evidence of their passing on the ground outside.

  Jacey took a step back. Her foot fell on something that gave a little too much. Crouching, she felt around her feet. It was the rope that Summer had used to fashion the backpack out of the canvas tarp.

  She lifted it and felt along its length to the loop Summer had tied in one end.

  “There are ruins over there,” another man said.

  Jacey coiled the rope in her hands, leaving the end with the loop free. She paused to listen, but heard nothing. With a great heave, she threw the loop into the air, arcing it over the rotten old crossbeam overhead.

  “Yeah, I noticed,” Alice barked. “Focus on your own patrol, Simpson.”

  A pause. “What is this thing anyway?” The woman’s voice was very close.

  The loop had made it over
the beam, but just barely. Not good enough. Jacey tugged it free. It fell with a crunch onto the dry foliage on the floor.

  “This looks like a structure,” Alice said. She was just outside, but not directly in front of the entrance.

  Jacey tried to control her breath. It shook more from fear than the exertion. The same fear drove her heart to its top speed. She threw the loop again. This time it made it well over the beam, but it still hung out of reach.

  She flicked the rope to create more slack and it lowered a bit more.

  “This is definitely a structure.” The voice had come from just outside the entryway. Loud. Almost as if the woman was standing next to Jacey.

  Jacey fed the end of the rope through the loop and drew it tight against the beam. The vines covering the entry rustled.

  “Hey Simpson, bring your machete over here.”

  Jacey’s eyes went to the tarp. There was no way she could carry it and climb the rope at the same time. She pulled the binoculars from her neck and shoved them among the dead vines, then launched herself upward. She grabbed the rope, sweaty palms threatening to slip.

  Squeezing with all her might and pinching the rope between her ankles, she struggled her way up.

  The vines at the archway shook. The woman outside grunted as she hacked at it.

  New energy coursed through Jacey’s veins, and she pulled the last centimeters up the rope. She flung a hand out to catch the edge of the beam. Splinters dug into her skin as she hefted herself up and swung a leg over the beam.

  More blows shook the vines, each letting in sharp rays of light.

  “I see something!” Alice said.

  Jacey sat up, straddling the beam. Her hands feverishly sought the loop below her. She loosened it and pulled the rope free, then brought it up in a messy coil and draped it over her shoulders.

  “Something on the floor.”

  Jacey swallowed, then put one foot on the beam and slowly stood, flailing for balance with wide swings of her arm. Flakes of wood and dust fell, glistening like mist as they drifted to the floor.

  Jacey brought her other foot down to the beam, desperate to strengthen her balance. She glanced over her shoulder at the ragged edge of the rotting loft floor. It would conceal her. If it held.

  She tried to take a step backward, but her foot couldn’t find the beam, and her weight suddenly shifted to one side. She flung her arms out again and, for a long second, hung frozen on the edge of falling before slowly tipping back and gaining her balance. Not giving herself time to process the fear, she turned a half-pirouette. Without thinking about it, she took five quick steps en demi pointe and crossed past the edge of the remaining loft floor. She fell into a crouch, then lowered herself onto the mossy planks.

  The hacking stopped, and the woman let out a groan. Her footsteps fell heavily on the floor below, directly beneath Jacey.

  Jacey held her breath, braced her hands on the slimy boards to either side.

  A second later, she heard the sound of the tarp being unrolled.

  “They’ve been here,” Simpson said.

  “Obviously.” Alice’s voice filled the windmill ruin with a palpable disgust. “They have to be close by. They’ve probably been holed up in here like scared animals.”

  A burst of static blasted from a walkie-talkie, followed by a tinny voice. “We saw one of them. Lost her in the trees. In pursuit.”

  The woman swore and soon her voice was barking from outside the windmill ruin, ordering her men into an orderly search group.

  Jacey lay back, chest heaving as she surrendered to her body’s need for air. “Run, Summer,” she whispered. “Run.”

  25

  Ten Per Day

  Belle drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she motored closer to the Scion School. She had covered the road twice already, first creeping along at a crawl, then faster.

  Things were looking bad. Jacey and Summer were hiding somewhere, and now a helicopter was flying over the island. Belle was running out of time. If she didn’t find Summer first, she’d have no bargaining power. No leverage to get the andleprixen for Vaughan, and certainly none to get off the island.

  She had no alternative, so her search continued. Her remaining hope depended upon the one positive quality Belle saw in Jacey: tenacity.

  Jacey wouldn’t give up. She and Summer would not be easy to find and, once found, not easy to catch. Since they were Scions, the bodyguards would have no option but to capture them alive and unharmed.

  They were both fit, strong, and resourceful. But the island was small, and given what Belle had seen of it, the only possible hiding spot was the rainforest, most of which covered hills with no roads. At the western extreme of the island, some areas looked utterly impenetrable, even on foot.

  She slowed to a stop. If she kept on, she would be at the front gate of the Scion School in minutes. She no longer cared that she was out in the open. The helicopter had disappeared to the west and south. If it happened to come into view, she would easily be able to escape among the trees. Unless she ran out of fuel, of course.

  Her eyes went back to the gauge. The little pin stood three notches above the E. She didn’t know how many kilometers that would take her, but it had already fallen one notch, and that had taken three trips of driving from the Scion School all the way to Mother Tyeesha’s. When she had last left, she had checked on Vaughan. If anything, his condition had worsened. He had raved about pain, sweat beading on his forehead, eyes wild with suffering.

  And that decided it for Belle. Vaughan needed the pills.

  This was the perfect time to go back to the campus, since the senator’s bodyguards were all hunting for Summer. At least, Belle hoped they all were.

  She pressed the accelerator down. Her confidence in driving had grown tremendously over the past day, and she flew up a hill and down the switchbacks without slowing, finally heading straight for the gate. Her hands reached out to the touch panel in the dash, barely having to look to find the command to open the gate. She slammed the brake and skidded to a stop as the gate slowly slid open. Its red light flashed and its siren whooped.

  She didn’t see any Scions about, and as soon as the opening grew wide enough, she powered through. She tore across the quad, past the medical ward, and wound her way up the wide gravel path to the hacienda.

  Belle slid the Jeep to a halt at the top of the path just a few meters from the carved mahogany doors of the hacienda. She leapt out and raced to the doors. Barging through, she dropped low, just in case one of the senator’s bodyguards was posted there.

  Her skin prickled at the unusual silence filling the huge house. The silhouettes of wicker chairs and a long sofa hunched directly ahead. The space felt closed in with the far wall closed up. Usually Mr. Justin kept the span of folding doors wide open, letting in the easterly breezes.

  Belle stopped, looking down both hallways. One led to Dr. Carlhagen’s office and the dining room. The other direction led to the bedrooms.

  She went right, glancing in each doorway until she found the room that had to be Dr. Carlhagen’s. It was the largest and had sliding doors that opened onto a private patio looking out over the raging ocean far below.

  She pulled open all the drawers in the bureau, digging through Dr. Carlhagen’s clothing. Nothing.

  The bathroom cabinets were next. There she found a bottle. She snatched it up, shook it. It was empty. Enraged, she threw it at the mirror. It bounced off and rattled on the floor.

  “What’s going on?”

  She spun, hands out in a defensive pose.

  The tension rushed out of her. Humphrey stood in the doorway, looking ridiculous in one of Dr. Carlhagen’s white suits with a blue bow tie.

  “I need andleprixen for Vaughan,” she said, then shouldered past him into the hallway.

  “Wait. Where’s Summer? Where’s Jacey?”

  “I don’t know,” she called over her shoulder. With quick steps, she ducked into Dr. Carlhagen’s office and began rifling t
hrough the drawers in his desk.

  Humphrey followed her. “Didn’t you see any sign of them?”

  “The senator’s guards are searching for them now. I saw the helicopter,” Belle said, absently.

  “Are you sure you don’t know where they are?”

  “I swear I do not know. Now, do you know where there’s andleprixen or not?” She pulled open the last drawer and found another bottle. She snatched it up and shook it.

  It rattled.

  Fingers fumbling with the lid, she popped it open and looked inside. She uttered a curse under her breath. There were only three pills.

  “I hope they’re okay,” Humphrey said. He gazed out the window and fidgeted with his tie. He turned on her. “That huge woman dragged me out of bed by my hair this morning.”

  “What woman?” Belle restarted her search, tossing handfuls of pens, notepads, paper clips onto the floor as she emptied each drawer.

  “The captain of the senator’s bodyguards. She’s a beast,” Humphrey said. “She must be two meters tall and has muscles like I never imagined would be possible on a human.”

  Belle looked up. “A woman?”

  “Yes. Her name is Alice. I managed to delay the transfer overnight, telling the senator she needed rest in order for the transfer to work safely. I insisted her guards leave Summer alone so as not to alarm her. But this morning, that woman realized Summer was missing. I bluffed my way through it, but then that idiot Horace told her the Jeep was gone.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I played stupid.”

  “I guess that wasn’t a stretch for you.”

  “Ha ha,” Humphrey said sourly. He snapped his fingers. “Alice had that helicopter here in thirty seconds.”

  Belle arched an eyebrow. “Thirty seconds?”

  “Well, it seemed like it.” Humphrey rubbed his throat as if remembering a hangman’s noose. “Let me tell you, I’m going to have a tough time explaining how Summer knew to run away when Alice returns.”

  Belle emptied the last drawer. No more pills. “There has to be more in the hacienda.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Humphrey said. “Mr. Justin told me that Dr. Carlhagen was taking as many as ten of those per day. He might have used them all up.”