Modified- The Complete Manipulated Series

by Harper North

  Panic explodes in my chest before I register what I’m seeing. A chain link is lengthening, ready to break.

  Crouching, I slip through the railings and seize Emma’s forearms. At the same time, the chain snaps. Emma and the scaffolding slide downward. She bites her lip, swallowing the scream that will get us all killed as I dig fingernails into her flesh.

  “Sky!” I hiss, but he’s already wrapping his arms around my torso.

  We pull as Emma kicks, staring up at me in terror. Her shoes scrape metal as the river rushes below.

  With one great heave, we pull her through the railing and onto the dam. She rests on her stomach, face buried in her arms, and I realize she’s trying to stifle sobs of terror.

  More chains snap and the section of scaffolding plummets to the river below. A loud splash follows.

  The two guards shout in shock.

  Emma snaps her gaze up at us, but no words are needed.

  We might be dead.

  CHAPTER 9

  I GRAB SKY’S arm and Emma’s shirt sleeve, biting my lip so hard I taste the tang of blood on my tongue. The silence stretches out except for the rushing of the water below. The two guards stay quiet, listening for intruders. They must be looking at the scaffolding—our only known way back—floating down the river.

  I work my mind, and Emma licks her lips. She must be doing the same.

  “They’ll radio the others,” Sky whispers.

  And just then, a radio crackles.

  I mutter a curse and eye the darkness beyond the blasted wall. Shouts echo from deep within it. Cho’s people are coming, and I calculate our chance of survival with just our pistols is way less than one percent. Scanning the area, I realize they’ve fixed the scaffolding that leads back to the air vents we took before. They’ll expect us to take that way.

  However, they won’t expect us to descend into the control room again after the gassing. It’s our only hope.

  “Down,” I say.

  Sky’s eyes widen. “Are you crazy?”

  “They won’t expect that.”

  The sound of rushing footfalls intensifies. We have seconds. My heart pounds in my throat as we run to the hatch and down the dizzying steps. The stairwell still smells like faint chemicals.

  But then I hear voices down below.

  “Janet? Is that you?”

  In the semi-dark, Emma grimaces. Cho has people operating the control station now. We should have known. But at least the guards above won’t gas us. Maybe. It depends on how much Cho values his Naturals.

  Emma shocks me by speaking. “Here,” she answers.

  I listen but can’t tell how many people are at the controls. There can’t be more than a few. If they’re off guard, we can take them, but at the same time, we just have a tarp separating us from the guards on the shore.

  The guards above us thud closer. I nod to Sky and Emma, drawing my pistol. With a shaking hand, Emma does the same, and Sky follows my lead. I might get us killed, but I swallow down the painful terror and descend the steps as if I’m just delivering coffee.

  The control room has a blue tint from the light seeping through the tarp. Two men sit at the controls, backs to us, with automatic rifles propped up against their seats. They think that Emma’s Janet. Only when I’m halfway across the room does the first guy, a wiry man with black hair, turn to face me. His eyes widen with confusion as I slap my hand over his mouth, silencing him.

  “Hmmph—” he starts, reaching for his orange handheld radio.

  His buddy, a shorter guy, whirls and reaches for his weapon, but Sky clamps his hand down on his mouth before he can, holding him in his chair. In silence, I look at Emma, who stands back and watches the stairwell. The guards overhead are silent, as if they want to sneak up on anyone who may have climbed over the scaffolding. We listen as the footfalls move over us, fading.

  The tall guy bites into my palm.

  Pain explodes up my arm and my grip loosens. The guy reaches for his weapon. I move my arm without thinking, striking him on the temple with my elbow. A quiet thunk follows, and I don’t miss the muted crack that signals a broken skull. The man sways in his chair, unconscious. I grab his forearm to stop him from falling to the floor and making noise. He’s limp, and I curl my fingers into a fading pulse. A bad taste rises in my mouth. He’s dying.

  Sky nods to me. Put him down, it means.

  The footfalls fade. A guard shouts “Clear!” from above.

  Emma releases a quiet sigh. We’re going to live—for now.

  The man’s pulse stops. I’ve damaged his brain with my modified strength, and he’s not coming back. His buddy turns his full gaze up at me in terror.

  “Stay quiet,” I whisper, barely speaking over the rush of the water, “and you’ll live.” As I speak, I lower the dead man to the floor and pick up the automatic rifle. That ups our odds a little. “We need you to help us find Cho.”

  He shakes his head as much as he can with Sky holding it back against the chair. This guy is loyal. He won’t give up his master even if it means his life. I know what that means.

  Shaking, I raise my hand to my neck and cut across it with my fingers. Sky pales.

  We can’t take this risk ever again. Lacy and Talen depend on us.

  The man shakes, but Sky closes his eyes, grabs the man’s head, and twists. I look away as Cho’s servant grunts for a horrifying second and goes silent as a crack fills the space.

  Sky breathes out. “I didn’t want to do that,” he whispers. “It’s different than shooting people.”

  “Sky, we had to. We can’t have another Cho.”

  What am I saying? Cal could be another Cho, and we’re playing his games.

  “She’s right,” Emma agrees, walking past the dead men. “Can I have this weapon?” She taps the rifle on the back of his chair.

  “Take it,” I say. Emma needs extra protection.

  Sky releases the dead man and lets him slide out of the chair. He looks away, at the tarp. “We should leave before Janet gets here, whoever she is.”

  He’s right. I strap the new weapon over my shoulder but keep my pistol out. A pair of ammo belts hang on a coat rack near the door. Outside, the male guard shouts something into the radio about rusty chains and work hazards. They’re blaming the falling scaffolding on wear and tear. Good.

  But they can’t blame bodies on that. Someone will eventually be looking for these people.

  “Hide them.” I grab the arms of my victim and pull him toward a closet on the far end of the room. “Then we find Cho’s office or wherever. He’ll take the best house for sure.” I talk to distract myself from the killing. Sky was right—murder by hand is more personal than shooting at some random guard. My stomach clenches like I might throw up.

  We stuff the bodies in the closet, but limbs fall out as we try closing the door. It’s not an easy task, but at least we didn’t leave any blood. I pull an ammo belt over me while Emma decks herself out the same. Sky’s left with just the two pistols, but I know he’s capable.

  “Can you shoot that?” he asks Emma, gesturing at the rifle.

  “I will if I have to,” she says. “I feel better with a better weapon.”

  Emma hasn’t fought much, and I doubt she’ll be an expert with the rifle, but she’s stuck in this situation with us, and she has the right to cope with it however she wants. “Come on,” I say.

  We climb the steps again, and after listening to make sure the guards are gone, I wave the others up. The top of the dam is clear once again, with no sign of Janet or anyone else coming. The darkness of the hole blasted into the concrete waits. Somewhere down there, guards are stationed, ready to jump into action. Even I can’t figure out how far away they are, and I spot Emma screwing up her face as she thinks.

  “It’s dangerous to go that way,” she says.

  “We have no safer options,” Sky tells her. “At least the dark will shield us.”

  I lead the way, pistol out and an automatic rifle hanging over my s
houlder. The trick will be to stay quiet. Covert. This isn’t a full battle. I rake my free hand along the wall as I walk through the darkness. The brick has a moldy feel to it, like this tunnel’s been sealed for a long time by the EHC. No power hums overhead. Parts of this area will stay shut off.

  The tunnel drags on for what feels like forever, but at last, a bit of pale light shines from around a corner ahead. Well, a curve. I reach out and wrap my fingers around Sky’s free arm. He, too, has his pistol out and ready. I make out the familiar outline of the weapon in the semi-dark.

  Once at the curve, Emma peeks around. She quickly ducks back and runs into me. “Guards. Everywhere,” she whispers.

  “Great,” I mouth.

  I don’t have to ask Emma for details. She offers them in a hushed tone. “There’s a big storeroom and at least two dozen of Cho’s guards. We’ll never get past them.”

  “No Cho?” I ask.

  “Didn’t see him. I’m guessing this storeroom heads back to Sunlight Gardens, like the one at Elysian Beach.”

  “What about the scaffolding?” Sky asks. “They fixed the stuff that goes back to the station. We can go there through the vent—so long as we can reach it.”

  “That way will be guarded, too,” I say. To reach the Gardens, we’d have to go through the rail station. After our attack, Cho will have moved more men there.

  “It might be our only chance,” Emma says.

  No one whispers a word for several seconds. There’s no good option, and we all know it. One radio call from a guard could end our whole mission. Reinhart sent us here to die, but I’m determined to get back and rub his nose in the fact that we’re still a thorn in his side.

  “No way around?” I ask, peeking around the curve.

  We’re lucky this tunnel—and the storeroom—doesn’t seem to have working power, because the darkness shields me from view. The storage room is big, with lots of crates, almost as worn as the ones in the caves, scattered around. Men and women with the trademark green jackets tied around their waists mill around the room, having low conversations. A few settle to play a game of cards over a smaller crate. Battery-powered lanterns cast shadows over tough faces. They’re distracted, so that might be a major plus. A pair of open double doors wait on the other side of the room. They lead to an empty hall with a working fluorescent light at the first corner.

  We might have a chance. A small chance, but it's something. These guards are coming down from a scare, and if we give them a few more minutes, they might not pay as much attention to us.

  “We have to sneak around,” I say, pulling back. I whisper to Sky and Emma what I’ve seen. “Looks like they spend a lot of time being bored. We have to let them get more bored before we try it.”

  “What do we do? Crawl?” Sky asks.

  “Well, yeah,” I say into his ear. “We crawl and stay in the dark as much as we can. It’ll be slow, but that room is big, and the lanterns will make it hard for them to see the darker areas.”

  Let them focus on their card games, I think.

  “We’ll have to leave the rifles,” Sky whispers. “We’ll never make it with them banging around.”

  “Backpacks, too,” I add. “In case we get in a tight spot.”

  We wait for several more minutes. Each time I peek, more guards are seated around the crates on folding chairs almost as rusty as the scaffolding we left. They’re settling back into a routine, and once all but two men are seated, I wave the others forward. We leave our backpacks and the stolen rifles behind.

  I crawl, inch by inch, careful not to make the slightest scraping noise with my palms and knees. I keep my toes pointed and off the floor. My heart races so fast I’m sure the guards can hear it, but as I draw closer to the storage room, I hear low voices instead. Some of the words I can’t make out because they’re in other languages, but I can understand the group of guards in the center of the room.

  “Did you hear when our next orders are?”

  “Cho wants to take Elysian Beach first.”

  Cards shuffle.

  “That place is miles away. If I were him, I’d secure Longview Beach first. He should know overreach could do him in. Look at what happened to his brother.”

  I shudder and pause. Cho knows where we’re hiding—or where we were hiding. And Lacy and Talen are still there.

  Despite wanting to throw up, I crawl into the big room. A ring of light starts just feet from me, but I use the cover of conversation to crawl around one of the crates. At least none of the soldiers wanted to sit near the doorways. It’s as if they fear they’ll fall first if Lacy and Talen come back.

  Good. I hope they lost friends they cared about—as much as anyone like them can care.

  Crawling around the room takes forever. I don’t dare look to see if Sky and Emma are behind me. One inch. Another. The door creeps closer, and at one point I have to pause for a guard to pace past in front of me. It’s so dark here on the edge of the room that I can’t tell if I’m about to bump into a crate or trip over something. I have to feel around in front of me.

  At long last, I reach the opposite doorway. My head pounds with stress as another deck of cards shuffles. A guard laughs. Another sneezes.

  Someone taps the back of my shoe, but I don’t look back. It must be Sky. We have to get into the hallway before someone walks over this way or leaves the room.

  I crawl through the double doors and onto the linoleum of the hall. My pants make a very faint scraping sound. Sky taps on my shoe again, urging me forward. Fifty feet down the hall, we’ll reach the lit area. Then, if we don’t move fast enough, we’ll be exposed. There’s nothing I can do to shut that light off.

  Several guards laugh, and I use the mask of the sound to rise to my feet. Pressing against the wall, I scoot along it, praying my shadow doesn’t show against the light. A guard says something, and Sky joins me. I can smell his salty sweat. His hand brushes mine.

  Emma takes the longest. We have to wait another five panic-filled minutes for a third round of laughter for her to join us. Sky taps my arm when it happens, and I continue to hurry along the wall. The farther we get down the hall, the more I lower my shoulders. I hear nothing around the corner except the buzzing of more lights. One flickers up ahead. Once we’re around the corner, our odds will go up a ton.

  “Hurry,” Sky growls beside me. We’ve put fifty feet between the room and us, but now we’re headed into the light—the danger zone.

  I hike my shoulders up all over again and curl my hand around my pistol. Then I snake around the corner in a single motion, and Sky joins me on the other side a second later. The hall ahead is empty, lit by flat fluorescent lights, mop buckets and shelves of cleaning supplies lined along the walls. Two doors that lead to bathrooms wait ahead, and another one must lead to a storage closet. A set of double doors takes up the end of the hall—the way back to Sunlight Gardens. It has to be.

  Holding her chest, Emma slips around the corner to join us. I can’t contain my grin.

  But Emma’s eyes are wide. Full of panic.

  And then she mouths, They saw me.

  Of course. She can’t move as fast as us.

  I grab her arm, and we listen.

  A guard’s voice gets louder as he approaches. “Fine. I’ll check it out. You see things down here, Ralph. The dark makes you hallucinate.”

  We won’t make it to the double doors in time. I spot the bathrooms and nod at the women’s door—at least I think that’s what it is. It has a plaque with a stick person in a dress on it.

  As quiet as we can, we slip inside. I close the door slowly, avoiding making it creak. The bathroom’s lit and has pink stalls, but some of the doors are missing.

  “What now?” Sky asks.

  If that man checks the bathrooms, we’re dead.

  Only a single air vent hangs near the ceiling.

  “Hello?” the guard asks from the corner. “Is anyone down here? I swear, he needs to stop panicking over everything.”

  I
hold my breath, but the man’s footsteps continue their approach. He’s going to investigate.

  I listen as he pushes open the door to the men’s bathroom.

  “We need to go,” Emma hisses, pushing me toward the vent. I let her.

  “Sky.” A girl’s voice echoes strangely through the bathroom.

  We all freeze. My first thought is that someone’s speaking to us through a speaker and we’re caught. Or maybe Emma brought a secret radio.

  “Up here. In the vent. I’ve been following you for a while. Thought you’d never get over here.”

  We look up into the vent and see a pair of blue eyes peeking out at us from the other side of the bars.

  Sky’s jaw falls open. “Cia?”

  CHAPTER 10

  “NO TIME FOR questions!” Cia chirps, obviously delighted by her heroic disobedience. She pushes down on the vent grating until deep red indentations form on her tiny fingers. She grunts, then huffs. “A little help up here?”

  “Oh, right.” Sky shakes his head like he’s clearing away a haze of confusion. “Get back, Sis.”

  He scrambles onto the nearest sink and jumps up, curling his fingers around the metal bars. He winces as they cut into his skin, but holds on, swinging his body away from the sink. Dangling over the floor for a moment, Sky then pulls himself up until his head is touching the grate. His face contorts with pain as every muscle in his body strains into a cannonball position.

  Uncoiling himself with explosive force, he lands on his feet in front of me as bolts clatter across the floor, holding the grate awkwardly above and behind his head.

  Sky opens one eye. “Did I do it?”

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat and lick my lips. They’re dry from my mouth hanging open in shock this whole time.

  And then I grab him by his shirt collar and press my lips against his.

  It’s hard to tell if Cia’s squeal from above is in disgust or delight. Emma laughs, half amused and half exasperated.