by Aella Black
“Are you okay?” Phoebe’s eyes were filled with worry. For me.
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “But we have to go. It’s gotten crazy out there, and it may be our one shot to make a break for it.”
Phoebe’s dad looked at her. “The SCC will move in if your mother’s lost control. You two need to go without me.”
“No—”
“You know about the SCC?”
Of course he did. I should have known. It seemed every adult in our lives was part of an organization that was hellbent on hurting us.
“Yes, and they tried to kill him,” Phoebe defended. Then she turned and asked her father, “Why did they try to kill you?”
He began pulling out what I was fairly certain was an IV. “Because I was going to expose them, and they knew it. The money and power behind all of this is more than you can imagine. And once you’re in, you don’t get out.” A pause, and then, “I wanted out.”
Okay, so he was one of the bad guys, but now he’s one of the good guys. It still didn’t tell me why they’d all gotten involved in whatever this was in the first place. But at least I now knew I was right to not jeopardize my parents’ lives.
“And Phoebe,” he continued, “your mother is in as deep as it gets. She’ll never stop searching—”
“Uh, sir.” I hated to interrupt, but we were running out of time and they had to know. “I need to tell you both something. It’d be best if you hear it from me.”
Phoebe and her dad looked at me expectantly. “Well, warden… she…”
“Xander, tell me what happened,” Phoebe said.
I looked her in the eyes. “Fang killed your mom. She was going to shoot him, and he kind of lost it. I-I’m sorry.”
It felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. In the void, I watched warring emotions play out on both Phoebe and her father’s faces.
Then she turned to him, and a silent exchange took place. Finally, he shook his head. “Not if she’s already dead,” he said strangely.
She looked at me, “Are you sure she’s dead?”
I nodded. Even if I didn’t understand what that was all about, I knew for sure she was dead. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“It’s okay,” Phoebe said.
No disbelief that her mother was gone. No despair. She was probably in shock.
And her father didn’t seem too upset either. “We can process this later,” he said. “Right now, you two need to get out of here.”
Phoebe’s head whipped around. “We’re not leaving you,” she said fiercely.
“There’s no time.” He was right about that. “You can—”
“No,” she said, “Xander’s strong, Dad. He can push the bed, and I’ll push the machines.”
“Sweetheart, I’ll be fine.”
I hated stating the obvious, but it had to be said. “Sir, if the SCC is coming, and they tried to kill you before… you can’t stay here either.”
Phoebe’s eyes grew wide. Then determined. “Okay, let’s—”
The familiar sound of heavy boots stomped in this direction. I put a finger over my lips. Phoebe grabbed her father’s hand.
A minute later, the threat had passed. We all exhaled audibly.
“I have to warn you,” Phoebe’s dad whispered while unhooking himself from another tube. “Alexander, your parents… they’re involved as well.” Tell me something I don’t know. “The program was supposed to do good. Obviously, it’s gotten out of hand.”
Obviously.
“You can tell us everything once we’re out,” I said, peeking out of the crack in the door. The coast was clear.
“I’ll do that. Just know that you kids were the future. You were supposed to save us all.”
I didn’t have a clue what he meant by that, and right now I didn’t care. We needed to go.
“Let’s do this,” I said, opening the door wide. Then I moved to the head of the bed.
Phoebe placed her hand on my forearm. “Thank you. I couldn’t do this without you.”
Smiling, I said, “Don’t thank me yet.”
I looked down at her dad. He was looking up at me and had a small smirk on his face.
“Ready, sir?” I asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
I began pushing the bed toward the door, and Phoebe scrambled to the foot of the bed. Mr. Atkinson had already unhooked himself from the machines, so that was a few less things we had to worry about.
My biggest concern as we moved out of the room was how we would get out of here undetected. Even if all of the guards were otherwise occupied, we still didn’t know where the garage was in this place—or if there even was a garage. Then, once we located a vehicle large enough to hold a hospital bed, how would we start it? Phoebe and I had received a fairly solid education, but we’d never covered how to jump-start vehicles.
Phoebe led us around the corner in the opposite direction of all the noise. We passed a set of stairs.
“Phoebe, we need an elevator,” I whisper-shouted.
“I know,” she said, her head swiveling back and forth as we hurried down the hall. Then we hit a dead end.
The elevator must have been in the other direction.
Phoebe grabbed her end of the bed, and together we spun it around in the opposite direction. We took off running again, and as we passed by the stairs for a second time, that’s when I heard it.
Or rather, them.
“Stop!”
“Halt!”
“Don’t move!”
We screeched to a stop just as a pair of guards and a man who looked like he was somebody important emerged from the stairwell. Then they came to an abrupt stop.
“Marcus?” the official-looking guy said, mouth gaping open. “I thought you were dead.”
“James Bowman. It’s been awhile,” Mr. Atkinson said. “And yes, it seems that was the plan.”
Bowman. I recognized that name. And now that I got a good look, I recognized him. He was the one who took me to Leavenworth. He knew my parents.
The guy looked Mr. Atkinson up and down as if his eyes were still playing tricks on him.
But he recovered quickly.
Pointing to us, he said, “Get those inmates back to their cells.”
I don’t think so.
Pushing the bed against the opposite wall, I rushed at the guards. There were only two of them, and as long as they didn’t have powers, I could take them.
I threw a punch at the guard who’d lunged for Phoebe, and the contact sent him tumbling back against the wall. The sound of his body hitting the cement reverberated throughout the hallway, and when the guard landed with a thud, he didn’t get back up.
The second one, with his full attention on me, wasn’t going down so easily.
But neither was I.
Pulling out a baton, he moved to strike, but I pushed off the wall and soared out of reach. Then I braced my hands against the other wall, and when he approached again, I kicked him in the stomach. It was his turn to go flying.
I was briefly distracted by Mr. Bowman calling for back-up, so I didn’t see the baton make contact with my leg. But I sure felt it. As bad as it hurt, at least he hit muscle instead of bone, or I wouldn’t be walking anywhere—much less, out of this prison.
Pressing his advantage, the guard struck another painful blow. I tried shaking it off, and we circled one another as best as we could in the narrow hallway until the sound of more heavy footsteps approached.
The guard smiled, and then he lunged forward. I was ready. Grabbing the baton with my left hand, I landed an upper-cut with my right.
Before I could claim victory now that he was down for the count, more guards arrived.
“Xander, don’t—”
Filled with adrenaline, I failed to heed Phoebe’s warning and rushed head-first into an undoubtedly hopeless fight.
But we couldn’t quit now. Not when we were so close.
And Phoebe had just gotten her dad back. She coul
dn’t lose him again, especially after just losing her mom.
Plus, he was in more danger than we were if they’d already tried to kill him once before. At least they made an attempt to keep us alive.
The irony of that thought as I was being beaten repeatedly by fists and batons was far from laughable. One particularly nasty blow to the head sent my head spinning, and that’s when a taser struck my side. My legs fell out from under me, but no sooner had I hit the ground than I was hauled back up to my feet again.
“No!” I heard Phoebe screaming. “Dad! Please, let him go! He didn’t do anything!”
Several of the guards closed in on her father’s bed. He really couldn’t do anything—not in his condition—but I saw him reaching for Phoebe just before a guard hit her with a taser.
I lurched forward with a growl but was tased again. I fell backward, and this time I couldn’t catch myself before my head hit the ground.
Black uniformed guards surrounded me. Even blacker spots were crowding my field of vision.
It was over.
Not one but two escape attempts had crashed and burned. And for all I knew, they would kill us this time. We’d certainly caused the SCC enough trouble.
But I didn’t have any regrets.
Except one.
I wished I’d told Phoebe how I’d felt about her.
Now she would never know.
20
Phoebe
I’d screamed until my throat was scraped raw.
Not from torture. Not the physical kind anyway.
No, this was much crueler than any form of punishment I’d endured thus far.
Hours upon hours, all I could do was lie here and stare at the clock on the wall.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I thought about the day in the not-so-distant past when I sat in class, watching a clock not so different than this one.
Except this time, I wasn’t waiting for the school bell to ring, rather to find out the fate of my father. And maybe mine as well.
Lucy watched me from where she lounged on her bed. She didn’t talk to me, and I didn’t talk to her. But she didn’t have to say anything for me to know she was as hungry and tired as I was.
There had been no dinner last night and no breakfast this morning. Were they going to starve us to death?
Worse than the lack of food, they’d left the garish fluorescent lights on. All. Night. Long. If it weren’t for the clock on the wall, I would have no idea what time of day or night it was. And with nothing else to do, I’d watched the clock, knowing every minute that passed might have been Dad’s last one here on earth.
I had only just found my father, and now he was gone again. Who knew when I’d see him again—if I’d see him again. The SCC had already tried to kill him. Now that they knew he was alive, would they finish off the job?
He knew too much. If this massive science project was such a big secret, he would be a liability.
I turned over and growled into my pillow. Thinking of what he and my mother told me yesterday made me almost as crazy as worrying about my dad. They’d admitted that the teenagers here at Lansing had all been genetically altered, resulting in our supernatural abilities.
But for what purpose? And who else knew? My parents and Xander’s obviously.
I glanced at Lucy, who now had her eyes closed, most likely creating a hallucination to temporarily escape from this hell we were in. Did her parents know?
My mother had said it was their choice to have me altered. If that were the case, then it seemed reasonable that every single kid here had been experimented on with the consent of their parents. Did the other inmates know?
It made me sick.
You kids were the future, Dad had said. You were supposed to save us all.
Save us from what? Every statement led to another question, and the endless questions were infuriating.
Instead of answers, I was pulled out of my cell for more questions. A welcome break from the endless waiting and worrying.
I was led through an empty waiting area into a small room with only two chairs and a table between them. An interrogation room.
I’d barely sat down when another guard entered the room, followed by a man dressed in a suit and tie, his balding head shining beneath the overhead light. The same man who recognized my dad yesterday.
My heart lifted. I watched while he sat carefully in the chair opposite me. Before he could say a word, I leaned forward in my chair. “Where’s my dad?” I demanded.
He leaned back in his chair. “Good morning,” he said. “We met yesterday. My name is James Bowman. Phoebe, we are disturbed by what happened here and have a few questions for you.”
It was as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Where’s my dad?” I repeated.
The guard behind me grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back. I cried out in pain. Mr. Bowman held up a finger in the air. The guard released me, but my scalp still throbbed.
“My apologies,” Mr. Bowman said. “After yesterday’s fiasco, we are taking extreme and forceful measures to ensure it does not happen again. Please do not speak unless I ask you a direct question. Are we clear?”
I ground my teeth together, but I nodded.
“Right, then. Let’s get started.” He smoothed down his tie and crossed his legs. “Phoebe, were you ever conspiring with your mother against the SCC?”
What kind of stupid question was that? My mother was the SCC. “No,” I growled.
“And were you aware of your father’s presence in the building before yesterday?”
“No. And if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to get to him.”
His eyes lit up, and I realized I’d said something wrong. “So you were part of the insurrection?”
“I’m sorry, the what?”
“The riot,” he said. “What part did you play in the riot?”
“I didn’t play any part in it. No one did.”
“Excuse me?”
“Saul killed Titus. We all saw him. Things, uh… got out of hand after that.”
“So, what? You thought you’d just take that opportunity to go look for your father?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“How did you know he was in the building?”
My first reaction was to conceal that information. I was no snitch. But Saul killed Titus. He deserved whatever was coming to him.
“Saul told me.” Then I added, “One of the guards.”
“I know who Saul is,” Mr. Bowman said coldly. Then he shifted in his seat. “And what about Alexander Aldrich. Did he know about your father?”
“No.”
“Then what was he doing in the hallway?”
I paused. I couldn’t outright lie, because we’d been caught red-handed. “I’d asked him to help me.”
“Did he start the riots?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
I wanted to hurl insults at this man who sat there as casually as if he were conducting a job interview.
“I was standing right there when it started.” Were you? I wanted to add. But my head still hurt, and I was no masochist.
Mr. Bowman nodded, as if what he’d suspected all along had been confirmed. I didn’t know why he bothered asking these questions. It seemed he already had a picture in his mind of what had went down before he even walked in here.
I put my bound hands on the table, the picture of supplication. “Look, you obviously know my dad. You called him by name yesterday. Please, will you just tell me where he is and if he’s okay?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?” My voice, still brittle from all the screaming, broke in pieces. “Why can’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry, that’s classified.” Then he pushed back his chair, stood, and walked to the door.
My head fell forward, too heavy to hold up another second. The tears I’d fought back throughout the long night finally fell too.
I listened as the door opened and Mr. Bo
wman whispered to the guard that he would return after getting a glass of water. I began sobbing, figuring I had at least a few minutes before I needed to pull myself together.
“Let’s go!” a guard yelled from behind me. I’d forgotten he was there. “You’re not the only one being interviewed today.”
I looked up.
That was it? I didn’t know what I expected, but a beating or torture was definitely involved. Without turning around—he’d seen me cry, but I wasn’t letting him see my tears—I stood and walked out of the room.
My heart leapt into my throat when I saw Xander sitting in the waiting area. His hands were bound in front of him like mine, but his were in metal chains.
The guard forced me into the only other chair in the room. Fortunately, it was right next to the one person I wanted to be near.
One of two, anyway.
“You’ll stay here until he’s done,” the guard said, “and then you’ll join the others to meet the new warden. Lucky you.” The smirk on his face told me we were anything but lucky.
I already knew that though.
My eyes tracked the guard as he joined his buddy just outside the doorway. We didn’t have long before Mr. Bowman came back.
I turned to Xander. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “You could have gotten away if it wasn’t for me. And you did all that to help my dad, and you never would have been beaten like that if we’d—”
“Hey.” He gingerly touched my face where the tears had yet to dry. Already more were on the way. “I wanted to help. And I’m so glad you found your dad,” he said, then his face fell. “I only wish I could have done more.”
“No, you did everything you could,” I said fiercely. Because it was true. No one could have—or would have—done more. “I-I’m just scared for him, you know?”
He took my hands in his, and with unconcealed compassion, he said, “I know. I’m so sorry, Phoebe.”
I averted my eyes. Even now, I still saw hope in his. Despite the fact that one of his had been beaten shut. Another tear fell for the hurt I’d caused him.
“I don’t think we’re ever getting out of here,” I said.
“Don’t say that. And please don’t cry,” he pleaded. “I’ve heard people talking between the cells. They’ve had a taste of freedom, and they want it again. Remember before? No one really thought escape was possible so no one tried. Now they’ll work together, I just know it.”
