“How are we supposed to do that? There isn’t even a guard here we can bribe. There’ll all out manning the barricade.” Jakob stares despondently at the floor. “Even if we could get out of here, we’d never reach Trout in time now.”
I flick the hair out of my eyes. “On horses we could.”
We freeze at the sound of someone plodding lightly through the foyer. Jakob throws me a startled look, and quietly gets to his feet. I hold my breath as the footsteps draw closer, then come to a sudden stop in the hallway just outside the door. After an agonizing wait, a petite figure appears in the doorway, twisting shyly to and fro.
Jakob and I gasp in unison.
“Hi,” Izzy says, eyes like saucers as she surveys our predicament.
I stare at her for a moment, shocked into silence by her transformation. I’m not sure I’d have recognized her if it wasn’t for the tiny voice that carries across the room like a chirp. The rags are gone. She’s kitted out head to toe in clean clothes, her face freshly scrubbed. Cocoa-colored curls tumble over her shoulders, framing intense, brown eyes in a porcelain face. She clutches a rag doll by the leg, trailing it behind her as she tentatively approaches.
“Izzy! Are you okay?” I say, the words finally spilling out.
“Uh-huh.”
I grip the bars to steady myself. “How did you get here?”
“A big kid.”
Izzy presses her doll up against the bars. “Wanna play with me?”
I throw a quick glance over Izzy’s head but there’s no sign of a big kid hovering in the background, or any guards either. The place must be deserted. I take a deep breath. I’m not banking on her being able to get us out of here, but right now she’s all we’ve got. “Listen, Izzy, we need your help. Can you to go out to the rubble and find me a nail?”
She takes a step backward, sticks her thumb in her mouth and sucks on it, staring at me warily.
I suppress a sigh of frustration before turning to Jakob. “Think she even knows what a nail is?”
“Let me try.” Jakob elbows me gently aside. He hunkers down at eye level with her, reaches a finger through the bars and pretends to tickle the rag doll. After a moment, Izzy chuckles and pulls out her thumb with a loud, smacking sound. “Wanna play with me?”
Jakob smiles. “Of course I do! If you find me a nail I’ll come out and play with you.”
“Okay then. You can hold her if you want.” Izzy passes the rag doll through the bars, turns, and scampers out the door.
My shoulders sag with relief. “That easy, huh? Think she’ll actually come back with a nail?”
“I can be very persuasive.” Jakob plops down on the floor and grins up at me.
I give him a wry grin in return. “You definitely handled that with more flair than I did. How are your lock-picking powers?”
He pulls a face. “Never tried.”
“Lucky for you, I got plenty of practice picking locks with Owen on the food storage units in the bunkers.”
“What?” Jakob gasps.
“Don’t worry, we didn’t take much. It was mostly the thrill of breaking in.”
Footsteps patter through the foyer again. A moment later, Izzy trots up to the holding cell and sticks a tiny fist through the bars. Beaming with pride, she drops two twisted nails into Jakob’s outstretched hand.
“You’re up,” he says, handing them to me.
I push the nails around in the palm of my hand, my heart thudding wildly beneath my ribs. One of them is rusted through, sure to snap under pressure. But the other one might just work. “Good job!” I say, giving Izzy a quick pat on the head. “You’re the best friend ever.”
She smiles, but it’s Jakob she’s looking at.
I pull the padlock to the inside of the bars and begin jiggling the nail in the keyhole. Sweat beads on my forehead. It’s one thing picking a lock when you’ve got more hours to kill than you know what to do with, but it’s a paralyzing ordeal when every second counts.
Izzy watches intently, clutching the rag doll she retrieved from Jakob. “Are you yocked in?” she asks.
I stifle a laugh and jab the nail harder into the keyhole. Relief bursts through my veins when I hear a welcome ping. “Not anymore!” I swipe my sleeve across my brow and hurriedly tear the lock off the chain. “Let’s go,” I say motioning to Jakob.
He follows me through the holding cell door and reaches for Izzy’s hand.
“Where are we going?” Izzy asks.
“To find the riders,” I reply. “Do you know where they live?”
Izzy nods solemnly. “I’m ’lowed to feed the horses.”
Jakob and I exchange grateful glances.
“Do you want to feed them again?” Jakob asks.
Izzy nods. “Sure.”
The street outside the courthouse is close to deserted even though the sun is high in the sky. The few people we encounter hustle by, barely giving us a passing glance. With so many Undergrounders seeking refuge in the city in recent days, they have little reason to question who we are.
“Word must have spread that Rogues are headed this way,” Jakob says. “Everyone’s disappearing inside.”
“Lucky for us,” I reply. “It gives us a chance to reach the riders before Jerome and his surly sidekick, Blackbeard, get back.”
Izzy tugs on Jakob’s hand and points down a narrow alleyway. “This way.”
“Are you sure?” I stare dubiously down the rubble-strewn lane. “Doesn’t look like it’s used much.”
“The big kid showed me a short cut,” Izzy announces with pride.
We pick our way carefully through the debris and emerge at the end of the alleyway in a large courtyard attached to a concrete building that might have been part of a shopping mall at one point. I smell the sweat of horses before I see them. Judging by the steaming piles of evidence we take care to step around, the horses have been here recently, but there’s no sign of them tethered anywhere in the yard. “Where do they keep the horses?” I ask, looking around curiously.
“In there.” Izzy points at the building and beams up at me, obviously thrilled to be a source of endless knowledge.
As if on cue, a black stallion sticks his head through a gutted window and neighs loudly. I jump back, hair on end. “Guess his ears were burning. So much for keeping our arrival under wraps.”
Jakob shrugs. “We can’t just steal a couple of horses and gallop away on them anyway. You may pick locks like a pro, but you don’t know how to ride. Unless we can persuade the riders to help us, this plan of yours won’t fly.”
I raise my brows in acknowledgement. “Point taken. I definitely don’t talk horse. If the riders are here, I’ll plead our case. Otherwise, we’ll have to wing it. We’re running out of time.”
“I wanna feed the horses now,” Izzy says, pulling Jakob in the direction of the door.
I take a deep breath and follow them inside. The space is partitioned into eight makeshift wooden stalls, only two of which are occupied. Izzy walks over to a bucket and pulls out a small, shrunken carrot. She holds her palm out flat and totters over to the first stall, trying to balance the carrot. “Fing’rs together and thumb in. Jody showed me.”
I watch, fascinated, as the towering horse leans down and lips the carrot from Izzy’s little hand.
“He’s beautiful.” Jakob rubs the horse’s head. “I’m almost certain this is the one you rode in on.”
“His name’s Condor.”
I spin around, my heart racing. Jody leans up against the doorframe, arms folded, eying us with a hint of a smile on her lips. “What are you doing in my barn?”
Jakob spreads his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Uh, Izzy wanted to feed the horses.”
“Don’t you know there’s a curfew?” Jody takes off her cowboy hat and hangs it on a nail. “Unless you’re on duty you’re supposed to stay off the streets.”
“We don’t have anywhere to go yet,” I say.
Jody frowns. “Jerome didn’t assign you
your accommodations?”
I give a one-shouldered shrug. “He was about to, but he got pulled away when the situation with the Rogues came up.”
Jody’s face clears. “Well in that case, I suppose you can stay here for now. We call it a barn, but there are sleeping bunks in the back.”
I take a quick breath. She seems a lot less guarded now that she thinks we’ve passed Jerome’s inspection. I can’t let this chance to help Trout and the others slip away. “Jody,” I say, stepping forward. “We need your help. The rest of our group is still out there in the forest.”
“Already on it,” she replies. “Jerome sent out six riders earlier. He said you looked harmless enough, but he wanted to make sure your story checked out.”
I exchange a quick glance with Jakob. Evidently Jody doesn’t know Jerome had us locked up until he could verify what we told him.
Jody walks over to the stall beside ours and begins rubbing down her horse. “How’d you bump into Izzy again?” she calls, from the other side of her horse.
“They were yock—” Izzy begins.
Jakob gives a quick tug on her arm.
“Out and about,” he says.
I bite down on my lip.
Jody continues to rub down her horse in silence. I press my knuckles to my mouth. I can tell by her tense, deliberate movements that she’s picked up on something. After a few minutes she tosses her curry comb aside and folds her arms in front of her. She arches a brow at me and I brace myself for a loaded question. But before she can probe, the sound of hooves echoes down the alleyway.
Jakob swoops Izzy up in his arms and backs up as a rider on a large sweating chestnut mare trots through the doorway. My knees almost buckle beneath me when I glimpse an ashen Trout clutching the rider’s waist.
“Trout!” I yell.
He groans and swings stiffly down from the horse. “Yikes! These things must run on nitro fuel.”
“Is Tucker with you?” I wet my lips and wait for what seems like an eternity before Trout answers.
“He’s bringing up the rear in a saddle bag at a more civilized pace. He was a bit freaked out. The others are right behind me.”
I embrace Trout warmly, dizzy with relief that everyone’s safe.
I watch as the rest of the horses darken the entry in turn, mentally checking off each member of our group as they appear: Sven, Buck and Elijah, a quivering Won, and a bloodshot Rummy, gagged and swaying precariously like he’s about to pass out. I shiver. I don’t trust him even half-dead. One by one they dismount and totter around on shaky legs.
Sven grabs Won and Rummy by the neck and shoves them down on a hay bale. He tightens the ropes on their wrists, then turns to Buck and Elijah. “Make sure they don’t go anywhere,” he says.
Jody steps out from behind Condor and narrows her eyes at me. “You never mentioned hostages. Does Jerome know about this?”
“He does now,” Jakob says, gesturing toward the doorway.
12
My stomach plummets. Jerome strides through the front entryway, swiftly cataloguing everyone present, his webbed face rigid. A scowling Blackbeard limps in after him and positions himself, legs astride, by the wooden stall closest to the entry. He clutches his gun in a deceptively casual gesture against his chest, but something tells me he could unload a round in half a heartbeat if called upon.
Izzy huddles in Jakob's arms, staring unabashedly at Jerome’s jarring disfigurement.
I breathe slowly in and out as I run through my few options, instantly discarding them. I was banking on Jerome and Blackbeard being somewhere on the city barricade, preoccupied with monitoring the situation with the approaching Rogues. Whatever chance I had of convincing the riders to help us, it’s gone now that Jerome’s discovered us.
All I can do is come clean—maybe he’ll listen to me now that the others are here to back up my story. I steel myself, and take a hesitant step forward. “Jerome,” I begin. “I can explain—”
He makes a dismissive gesture in my direction, lasers his one-eyed beam in on someone behind me. I turn and follow his gaze.
Several feet behind me, Sven stands frozen in place, a stunned expression on his ordinarily unruffled face. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of them, but there’s static in the air. It might have something to do with the alarming first impression Sven makes. I’ve seen how people wither into submission the instant they set eyes on him. But Jerome doesn’t seem like the withering type.
The air in the barn sharpens around us like a spiked collar. The riders exchange uncertain glances, instinctively reaching for their horses’ reins. Jody slides a hand to the gun in her holster. I furtively scan the space searching for anything I can use as a weapon. I don’t want to be caught unarmed if this staredown signals an impending fight. Any one of us could end up in the crosshairs, including Izzy.
I run my hand nonchalantly over the neighboring stall, checking for a loose piece of wood. Out of the corner of my eye I spot Blackbeard step away from the rickety wooden partition he was leaning against and raise his gun. I force myself not to look in his direction, but I can feel his eyes on me. He probably realized I was up to something by the look of obvious desperation on my face. I’ve lost the element of surprise now. I don’t dare make a move with a gun trained on me.
Jakob places a protective hand on Izzy’s head, and turns her away from what’s unfolding. Buck and Elijah raise questioning brows at me, momentarily distracted from their charges. My heart skips a beat. I signal to them to stay alert. Won will likely bury himself in the straw and hide at the first sign of trouble, but Rummy will be bent on escape. I only hope he’s still too nauseated from his ride here to attempt anything.
“Surprised to see me, Sven?” Jerome says, giving him a tight-lipped smile.
He knows Sven? I swallow hard, unsure if this is a good thing or if we’re in even worse trouble now than ever.
“Probably shouldn’t be.” Sven shakes his head. “How’d you pull it off?”
A shadow passes over Jerome’s face. “It didn’t pan out the way it was supposed to. I was the only one who made it.”
Sven frowns. “We never saw the official report, so I wasn’t sure.”
“Sure of what?” I interrupt, my skin tingling with a mixture of dread and cautious optimism. “How do you two know each other?”
Sven looks at me appraisingly for a moment, his amber eyes heavy with emotion. “Jerome and I go back a long way. We grew up together in the cloning program.”
I pucker my brow and stare for a moment at the lattice scars across Jerome’s face. “You’re a military clone?”
He squares his shoulders, his face drawn. “I’m a deviation.”
I suck in a violent breath. My mind ricochets back to the grotesque creature in the Craniopolis who saved my life. I stare agog at Jerome. He’s nowhere near as malformed as that other deviation, but now I recognize his corrugated skin for what it is; a genetic cloning mutation, courtesy of the Sweepers’ obscene experimentation. My mind reels. “How did you escape from the Craniopolis?”
“Another deviation and I worked for months to dig a tunnel from inside a maintenance room. Sven and Mason were working to connect it with a tunnel leading from the Biotik Sektor. We had only another four or five feet to go when a Schutz Clone patrol spotted the other deviation climbing out of the entrance one night. They shot him on the spot and sealed up the tunnel.”
I throw him a bewildered look. “So, did you dig another one?”
Jerome sweeps his eye over the mesmerized faces clustered around. His chest heaves up and down a couple of times, as if the memory lays heavy on him. “I was already inside the tunnel when they sealed it, hidden behind a false wall of dirt we had built to make it look as if we had only just begun. I had no choice but to keep digging my way out all through the night.”
An unearthly shudder runs down my spine. I press my knuckles to my lips trying to blot the image from my mind. I’ve had my share of living beneath the dirt
, but nothing approaching live burial. My heart races. I can almost feel the air hanging thick and stale in my nostrils.
Every last feeling of hostility toward Jerome evaporates. No wonder he’s leery of every Undergrounder who crosses his path. He’s lived through more, and suffered more, at human hands, than any living being should ever have to. What he’s built here in the city, however bleak and dangerous, is a dream he sacrificed to make happen, a chance to live free beyond the iron reach of the Sweepers’ regime. A flicker of hope goes through me. Surely Jerome will be only too willing to help us rescue Owen and Panju.
I turn my head at a sudden movement on the other side of the barn. My breath catches in my throat.
Jody raises her pistol to eye level and points it at Jerome with both hands. “You said you were burned in the meltdown.” Her eyes dart around the stalls before settling on me. “And you said you were with a group of Undergrounders.” She waves her gun at Rummy and then gestures at Sven. “They sure don’t look like Undergrounders to me.” As if in solidarity, Condor suddenly throws back his head, and then pounds both hind legs against the stall. Jody throws an anxious glance over her shoulder when he whinnies, but doesn’t slacken her grip on her gun. I look over at Jakob and Izzy to make sure they’re out of range if Condor bolts, or if Jody pulls the trigger.
I take a step toward her, hands held high. “Jody, I can explain everything. We’re on a mission to overthrow the Sweepers. We need your help.”
She slants her brows inward, a mixture of confusion and suspicion in her eyes.
“The Sweepers are experimenting with human cloning technology. Sven and Jerome were part of the program.”
Jody’s eyes dart between Jerome and me. “So what exactly is a deviation?”
I let out a long breath. She’s willing to hear me out. Now I just have to convince her of something I can scarcely believe myself, even after seeing it with my own eyes. “The deviations are …” I wipe my sweaty palms on my jacket as I fight back memories of a bulging, blood red eye staring up at me from a distorted skull.
Embattlement: The Undergrounders Series Book Two (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel) Page 9