“Listen here, you little goon,” I hissed at him, “it’s time for you to start talking. I know you’re lying. Tell me what you know about an Agency memory cure or I’ll make you pay.”
Even as the words left my mouth, I knew nothing like that would ever happen. I didn’t believe it myself—how could he? Me? Cut a person? Chase once told me a story of a night back before they wiped my memories—we’d broken into an Agency building together, and I apparently didn’t have the heart even to bonk some Agency goon on the head with a baseball bat.
Still, I gritted my teeth and pressed the Buck knife closer to Bellington’s throat.
He stared at me, the light of the lantern reflecting in his eyes. He blinked a few times, and his terror seemed to transform into confusion, then irritation.
And then—he laughed. With a knife to his throat, he laughed. Then he shoved me away with a great heave of his arms and shoulders. I fell back on my ass like a puppy tossed aside. I dropped the knife and it thumped away into the shadows.
“I—I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling. “It’s just so—” He groped for a word.
“Ridiculous?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
For his answer he just laughed more and nodded his head.
I sighed hard and sat there on the tent floor with my arms on my knees.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily. “Whose idea was this? Was it theirs? I guess I should say, what’s the plan here? What are you up to?”
He had a faint British accent. I glared at him.
“I mean, really,” he said, his voice thick with drowsiness. “I bet there’s not even a real cave, is there?”
I sighed again and looked at the floor.
“Oh. Listen. My pardon. It’s just—no offense, but you’re about as frightening as a three-legged kitten.”
“I was that bad?”
He shrugged, nodded.
“What gave it away?”
“Oh, it was everything. Your posture, your tone of voice, your word choice. Even your weapon there. I mean it’s a pocket knife.”
I frowned.
“I haven’t offended you have I?” asked Bellington.
“No,” I said. “I guess not.”
“Good. That wasn’t my intention. But you’re all quite desperate, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “I don’t know when the last time was that you lost your memories, or if you ever have, but it leaves you feeling very unsettled. You’re missing parts of yourself, but you don’t know what the parts were. It’s like you don’t know yourself anymore.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, his gaze drifting to the tent floor. “That I know well.” He tilted his head. Then he added, “Uhm, look, this may sound odd, and I assure you I’m not trying to trick you, but, haven’t we met?”
I hadn’t recognized his name, but now that I looked at him closely, he looked familiar.
He raised his brows and held up a finger. “I know. You’re married to Gosford!”
“You—knew him?”
“We worked together on projects sometimes. I went for drinks with him a few times at the canteen, and I saw you once or twice, scurrying off into another room when we’d drop him home.”
I hoped he wasn’t one of the men I’d tried to blow up at the amusement park.
“So you lived at the Agency dorms?” I asked.
“Building F-9,” he replied. “Right across from yours, G-9.”
It was almost surreal, catching up and comparing notes with someone who was apparently fond of Gary Gosford.
“Oh, trust me, you’re lucky,” said Bellington. “In F-9 lives an old retired general who took to karaoke, serenading the entire building every night, singing at the top of his lungs in his bathroom.”
Despite myself, I laughed. “Serious?”
“Well, I’m being somewhat overly generous when I use the word ‘singing,’ of course. Sounded like an alley cat trying to perform an opera.”
“Oh, wait!” I cried. “I think I may have heard him! He sang rock anthems, right? Like ‘We are the Champions’ and ‘Don’t Stop Believin’?”
“Yes!” said Bellington, laughing. “‘Don’t Stop Believin’ is his favorite!”
I laughed again. “Well, did you have anyone in your building who tried to make liquid rubber by melting their shoes?”
“What? That didn’t happen,” he said.
“Yes! Mr. Murmont!”
Bellington shook his head. “Maybe you did have it worse. Wasn’t there a shooting in your building? Didn’t someone gun down an intruder in the hallway near your flat?”
I gasped and covered my mouth.
His mouth gaped. “No, it was you?”
I nodded sheepishly.
He leaned back. “Well, well, well. P’raps I should be more frightened of you.”
“I really didn’t intend to harm you. I guess I was just so hopeful. So eager.”
“No harm, no foul, as they say,” Bellington drawled. “But tell me, how does a high-ranking officer’s wife end up here?” Bellington asked. “Is Gary—here?”
“No,” I said. “Gary’s dead.”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. My condolences.”
I gave a slight nod.
“I didn’t know, hadn’t heard,” said Bellington softly. “I thought they merely transferred him. Huh. Second bit of bad news I’ve had today.” Then he raised his cuffed hands to point at the tent door. “Did they—?”
“No, no,” I said. “It wasn’t them.”
“Was it the Agency? Is that why you’re here, with them?”
“No. I’m here because I’ve escaped from the Agency and I’ll never go back. That bullshit serum and their mind-control techniques. It’s inhumane, unjust.”
“About that,” he said, his tone earnest. “Do you know why your friends think that I of all people know something about a memory cure? A treatment that will restore the memories erased by the Agency serum?”
“It was in a journal we found.”
“A journal?”
“Yes, with information about you, and an Agency scientist named Eudrich.”
Bellington grew quiet, then contemplative.
“What is it?” I asked.
He looked toward the door and pressed his lips together.
“The thing is,” he confessed. “I do know some things.”
“About an antidote?” I asked.
He nodded, but lifted his chained hands to place a finger on his lips.
“Why wouldn’t you tell us?”
“Would you talk to someone who had abducted you off the streets, placed a bag over your head, and took you to god knows where?”
“Listen,” I said, “even they regret having to do that. But the Agency won’t leave us alone. They hunt for us constantly. We’ve lost dozens of people just this year alone in Agency raids. They killed some, they took others back. Chase and Ruby—they’re not bad. We just want to remain apart from the Agency and taking the occasional prisoner seems like the only way we can stay a step ahead of you.”
“Did you ever hear of just asking nicely?”
“You would have told us?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have this horrendous crack on my skull and a pounding headache.”
We were quiet again. The lamp had burned low. I stood up and adjusted the wheel and it was brighter in the tent.
“It’s David, right?”
He looked up and nodded.
“I’m Alison.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said with a smile.
“Likewise,” I said.
I went to him and put out my hand. There was a soft metallic clatter as he raised his hands to take mine. We shook hands.
“Well, David,” I continued, “listen to me. If there’s anyway you could help us out on this, I’m begging you, please, consider it.” Tears formed in my eyes and my voice cracked. I was asking him not as an enemy soldier, but as a mother. It was th
e only thing I could do.
Bellington looked at me for a moment, but then looked away.
“Please? Neighbor to neighbor?”
“It’s not a cure,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily bring back all your memories.”
“But it’ll bring back some?”
He nodded. “Some, most for some. It’s different for everyone, seems like. They’re still working on it. Refining it.”
“Oh, gosh, even just that would be a miracle for me, for us. To even just get a glimmer of memories back. You understand that, right?”
He nodded again. “There’s a reason I was working with Eudrich. You must remember those of us in the Agency lost our memories, too.”
But how many times had the Agency continued wiping the minds of citizens when it was no longer needed? I wanted to ask him, but knew I wouldn’t be able to control my anger if I did so.
“So, David, will you help us?”
“My friends call me Davey.”
CHAPTER 12
Chase whistled a lot. While he was fishing, while he was walking or working. Chase whistled while he worked. And not just idle, disconnected notes—anything but. He was actually really good, and he’d whistle entire songs, start to finish. He had great pitch, too, a great range, and he could whistle a seemingly endless number of tunes. I could almost always pick them out—the tunes he whistled—and I’d sing or hum along, or, if I didn’t know the song, it was nice just to listen. Old rock tunes, opera arias, folk tunes. All very clear and sweet. He was the closest thing I had to a radio.
And so I heard Chase before I saw his headlamp bobbing along through the trees. He was a whistling the refrain from a classical piece I recognized but didn’t know.
When he came into the lantern light, I was sitting cross-legged outside the command tent, just where he had been when I approached him. The lantern was on the ground at my side, glowing warmly. His headlamp was turned to a low setting, and he had a mug, which he sipped as he approached. It was probably coffee to help keep him awake or maybe it was tea.
“Sorry, hon,” he said.
“What for?”
“Didn’t mean to be away that long. Guess Chester’s hooch knocked me out for a bit. You all right? You still don’t have a coat on. You must be freezing.”
I stood up, and he unzipped his coat and I slid my arms inside again.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Everything’s okay.”
Chase leaned away from me and looked me in the face. His headlamp made me squint.
“What’s going on? What’s up with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You seem—different. Not mad. Not worried. Something else, something weird. Satisfied? Content?”
I grinned into his headlamp, my head lolling, eyes lidded. I knew there was trouble ahead, but I’d gotten what I wanted.
“Oh my god. Why are you content? What’s happened?”
“Chase,” I said. “I know how to get the antidote.”
Chase immediately set his mug on the ground, pushed past me, and went to the front flap of the command tent. He ripped it aside and looked into the dark void, shining the beam of his headlamp this way and that. Then he looked back at me.
“Oh, Al,” he said. “What did you do?”
CHAPTER 13
“We’ve got to go get him,” said Chase. “Where is he?”
“I gave him the keys to the red car,” I said.
“The red car? You mean the Honda? You gave him a vehicle?”
“No, he’s just borrowing it. He said he’d leave it for us to pick up outside the Zones.”
He was pacing furiously around the command tent. On his face he wore an expression I couldn’t exactly describe. He looked like he might be sick.
“Are you angry?”
“Angry?” Chase spluttered. “I’m—I’m—I’m—.”
But he didn’t say what he was. He just grabbed his hair as though he might pull it out and emitted a high-pitched growl.
“But Chase, Davey told me about the antidote. We’re going to get our memories—”
“Davey?” Chase’s eyes were wide, wild.
“We kinda got to be friends.”
“You set me up, Alison. You used me to get your way!”
“No, I—”
“—used me. You tricked me into leaving and you let our prisoner go without even a thought of talking to me or Ruby or anyone else. Ruby will have your head for this. Shit, she’ll have my head for it.” He rubbed his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I moaned. “It’s just I knew you’d never let me talk to him.”
“And there’s a reason for that, Al. Did you ever think about that?”
I looked at the ground. “I’m sorry; I am.”
Chase groaned. “Ugh, what do we do?”
“We could go after him,” I suggested feebly, though I didn’t want to. Bellington had only given me the information about the antidote on the condition of his release.
“In the dark? When he’s had a head start? In a car? We’d need a whole team for that.”
“He won’t tell about us,” I said. “He promised.”
“And you believed him?” The tone of Chase’s voice was cutting. My stomach fell.
“Chase, don’t be mad.”
He looked at me, his jaw muscles bulging.
“I’m hurt, Alison,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said. “I was trying to help.” I hugged him, but he stiffened and didn’t hug back. I dropped my arms from around him and began to cry.
“No,” said Chase. “You don’t get to do that right now. Not after what you did.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “I didn’t think about how you’d feel about this. I want that memory antidote so bad.”
Chase sighed and his face slackened. Then he set his jaw and his eyes narrowed and he gave me a hard look. But then he sighed again. “Come here,” he said at last. I went to him and he hugged me. “What am I gonna do with you?”
“Love me,” I whimpered.
“No, I’m serious. What am I actually going to do with you—hide you in camp? Take you to another camp? Because you know you can’t stay here—Ruby’s gonna go ape-shit on you. I wonder if I could drop you off at an Agency depot and just drive away.”
I jerked away from him and pounded his breastbone with the heel of my fist, and he hugged me closer. Something in him had shifted at that moment. He was still angry, probably would be for a long time, but in that moment, I could tell, he had decided to forgive me.
I sniffed. “Should we wake Ruby?”
Chase took a deep breath and released it slowly. I looked up at him. He was thinking hard. He always got a certain occupied look when he was puzzling over a hard problem.
“Just go to bed, Al,” he said finally, a weary edge in his voice. “Just go. I’ll take Larson’s shift so he won’t know, and we’ll just have to figure it out in the morning.”
He wouldn’t say anything more. Every time I tried to speak, he only shook his head and pointed toward my tent.
It’s difficult to say if it was my biggest victory or my biggest mistake. It resulted in a lot of suffering—for me, for the others. But it also changed absolutely everything. I’d have to work hard to avoid getting lost in musing about that night and the days that followed, wondering if I should have done things a different way. Was there an easier way? Was there a smarter way? Was that night a fork in the road that led to two entirely different places, or was it one of those forking roads that ended up at the same place?
It was so wrong to set Chase up that way. He trusted me implicitly, and I know he was probably as hurt about that as he was angry about Bellington. But what is a mistake, really? In the middle of a fight, in the middle of a struggle to win back the person you used to be, can there really be what is known as a right and a wrong way?
CHAPTER 14
I awoke to someone shouting. And someone was blowing a whistle. Within a sec
ond or two I realized it was lots of people shouting. I heard distant vehicles starting up. I got up from my cot and fumbled for my shoes, and I was too groggy to puzzle out right away what was happening, but there could be no mistaking that it was directly related to what had happened the night before. Or, I should say, what I did the night before.
I opened the tent door and stepped out. People were hustling up and down and across the camp. Tents were being pulled down. People were wearing backpacks. I saw the big cargo truck parked in the middle of camp. An older woman named Maria hurried by, but I stopped her.
“Maria, what’s going on?”
“A prisoner escaped,” Maria said.
“Oh.”
“I didn’t know we even had any prisoners,” she said, eyes wide.
“Well, so what’s going on? We’re bugging out?”
“Yeah, Ruby said so. We gotta evacuate.”
Maria continued on without saying more. I sprinted for the command tent.
I didn’t know how Chase had broken the news or when Ruby found out. I didn’t want to know.
Before I ever got near the command tent, I heard Ruby yelling, haranguing. Then I saw Chase. He had his hands on his hips, and his head hung low. Ruby was shouting at him, waving her arms. Woolly and Arie were nearby, too. Her voice carried throughout the camp and echoed off the nearby hills.
“Who was it?” She was practically shrieking. “Who done it? Huh? One ’a you knows somethin’ I just know it.”
The three men all tried speaking at once, holding out their hands, trying to calm Ruby, trying to quiet her. Her voice rose above theirs, cut them off.
“It was you, wa’nnit?” Ruby jabbed one of her stubby index fingers at Arie. “You let him go so’s we’d hafta take action, didn’tcha! Alla your talk about the Zones and alla the people. You’re tryna force my hand, aint’cha!”
Arie was protesting, his face splotchy red with rage, but he could only just be heard over Ruby.
I never in a million years thought she’d pin it on Arie.
“You can’t just accuse me that way, Ruby! You can’t just say, ‘Oh, well this guy’s got a different opinion, so he must have done something idiotic!’”
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 7
