by Jackson Ford
It doesn’t make sense. Why not just have one of the soldiers dose me? Or better yet, dart me from a sniper rifle, like an elephant from a chopper?
The answer comes before I’ve even finished asking the question. Sure, they could dart me, but it’s hard to get the dose right. Too little, and I could fight back. Too much, and my heart stops—not ideal when your mission is to capture not kill. Plus, no matter what movies and video games show you, sedatives aren’t instant. They take time to work. Better to subdue me—give them this, the spider cord is clever—then dose me up. Right into a blood vessel.
If they do put me under… that’s it. It’s over. I’ll take the fall for both Bryan Hayden and Steven Chase. By the time whoever killed them does it again—if they do it again, because we still know nothing about who they are, or what they want—Tanner’s bosses will have made sure that I’m in a five-star suite in a government black site. And by five-star suite, I mean a padded cell where they put me after they’ve finished their experiments. Maybe they’ll release me after it turns out I didn’t kill anybody. Then again, would they risk it? Now that they know how strong I am?
I can’t let that happen. I won’t.
I try to go nuclear. Try to pull out some of the energy that saved me this morning in the alley, because if there was ever a fight-or-flight situation, it’s this one. I feel the objects in the room, my PK wrapping around the pots in the sink, the lightbulbs in the ceiling sockets, the metal lighter in Burr’s pants pocket.
Which doesn’t change the fact that all Burr has to do is pull hard on the cord: the one thing I can do nothing about. At the very first sign of PK, he’ll choke me to death. It won’t even take much—the wire is that tight around my throat, my air supply shrunk down to a tiny pinhole. And even if I do start throwing shit, I don’t know how much control I’ll have. Enough to stop Carlos or Nic or anyone else getting hurt?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
“Burr, listen to me,” I say, my voice harsh and papery. I don’t even know what I’m doing—getting him talking is the only thing I can think of.
“Shut up.” He sounds bored.
“We got something. OK?” I turn my head a little. “A connection between the victims. If you do this, I’ll never—”
“Please. Pretty sure that if you could find it, won’t be an issue for us. You’re going back where you belong.”
“Burr.” It’s greybeard, and he’s not happy. “I told you to stow it.”
“Come on, boss,” Burr says, eyes never leaving me. “You want me to be nice to this freak show?”
Freak show?
Reggie is struggling. She’s breathing faster, her shoulders shaking. And the sounds she’s making: those groans, with a tiny, hitching cough at the end of each one.
Something’s wrong. She shouldn’t be doing that.
“Yeah, I heard about you.” Burr’s voice is soft, too soft for his commander to hear. He tugs the wire around my throat. “You’re going back in a hole, freak show.”
Buddy, you are so lucky I am out of juice right now.
“What’s wrong?” Greybeard has noticed Reggie. “Hey.” He nudges Paul’s shoulder with his foot. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s an incomplete quadriplegic,” Paul spits back. He has to twist his head to look up at the man. “Her diaphragm’s weak.”
Greybeard gives a jerk of his chin, and he and one of the others haul the coughing Reggie upright, plant her on the couch. She’s still shaking.
I turn my head a little, just as another soldier come through the door. He’s dressed in much the same way as the others, all in black. I can’t see his face from my position on the carpet, but he’s carrying a black case, like one you’d use to hold a microphone, and his boots are polished to a mirror shine
He makes his way over, squats down next to us, placing the case in front of me.
“’Bout time,” Burr mutters as the soldier flips open the case, revealing a syringe nestled next to three vials of liquid, all of them held in shaped slots cut into the interior foam. The wire tightens again. “Little reminder,” Burr hisses in my ear. “I’ll be watching that syringe. I see it move in any way it’s not supposed to…” He gives the wire another tug.
“She’s heavier than we were briefed on,” the doc says.
Oh, fuck you, man.
“She’ll need a couple of doses.”
“Just get it done, doc,” says Burr.
“Burr…” My mouth is too dry. “Take me if you want. Just let them go.”
“Teagan, no.” Nic twists to face us and gets a foot on his neck for his trouble.
The doc fills the syringe. I still haven’t seen his face, but his hands are that of an older man, lined and calloused, speckled with liver spots. “They aren’t involved. They can’t do what I do. Please.”
“Sorry,” Burr says, not sounding sorry at all. “Orders are clear: capture if you can, kill if you can’t, but everybody gets brought in.”
“She’s getting worse,” Greybeard says. Reggie is jerking now, the weak coughs coming more and more frequently. “Doc, need you over here.”
“Just a second.” The syringe is full. He taps it, squirts a little out the end. I twist away, only to be forced to stop as Burr leans into my back with his knee. I almost grab the syringe with my PK on instinct—the syringe, and everything else in the room. Just wanting to lash out, throw anything, go fucking bananas. I don’t. I can’t. Desperately, I try to grab hold of the wire at my throat, hoping against hope that it’ll listen to me. Nothing. It’s like trying to reach out and pinch the air.
“Doc!”
“What?” He’s pulled up my overall sleeve, fingers hunting for a vein. The tip of the needle is just, just touching my skin.
“She can’t breathe, for God’s sake,” Paul shouts.
The doc growls. “Watch her,” he says to Burr, getting to his feet and striding across to the couch. I get a look at the back of his head, his salt-and-pepper hair. There’s an ugly fold of skin at the back of his neck.
“C7?” he says.
“C6,” Annie says. “She gets neuropathic pain—stress makes it worse.”
“Any breathing issues?” The doc bends over Reggie.
It doesn’t make sense. Reggie doesn’t have breathing issues. Her lungs work fine. Colds can be dangerous—her diaphragm isn’t as strong as it should be, which can be an issue if she has a cough. She’s coughing now, but she wasn’t before. What…
She’s faking.
I don’t know how, or what she thinks is going to happen, but she’s trying to distract them. Trying to get them to stop looking at us and start looking at her, getting them to drop their guard. Maybe she doesn’t understand—she won’t know what the wire at my throat is made of, won’t know that I can’t manipulate it.
There must be something I can do. Reggie’s giving us a chance, and I am not going to waste it.
I scan the room with my PK, tracking over guns and metal buttons, the pots in the sink, the kettle, the zippers on the couch cushions. Nothing—nothing that won’t make Burr slice my head clean off with a single tug of the wire. Nothing that—
Oh.
Oh, Burr.
You stupid motherfucker.
The wire is crossed once at the base of my neck, the ends held in Burr’s hands. And on his left one: a metal wedding ring.
He probably didn’t even think about it. Probably doesn’t even remember it’s there. He was so focused on the organic wire, on capturing and/or killing the freak show himself, that he didn’t stop to think about his ring.
“Hey, Burr,” I say.
He leans in close, his breath hot on the back of my neck.
“Till death do us part.”
Then I grab hold of the ring and break his finger.
THIRTY-TWO
Teagan
Burr howls, jerking back as he tries to strangle me. Which he can’t do because I’ve pulled his left hand all the way over to the right, and
I’ve already twisted out of it.
I don’t waste time taking a breath. I twist sideways, bucking Burr off me.
Then I let go.
The flash-bang made me fuzzy, but I’m not aiming for precision. I am pissed and motivated and grabbing everything I can get my hands on. Pots, pans, pictures, knives, forks, coffee cups. The bowl of chips flips through the air, cascading Doritos. Every single rifle and knife and sidearm gets ripped away, slammed into the ceiling, out of reach.
I don’t worry about direction. I just throw everything I can, upending the contents of the apartment over greybeard, the doc, Burr, the other two members of the tac team. I make it happen at head level, way above everyone on the floor, way above even Reggie. She’s not shaking any more. She’s looking right at me, a delighted, almost evil smile on her face.
The fuzziness starts to fade. It’s like a car starting on a cold morning: takes a while to catch, but once it gets going, you can put foot to floor. The walls start to come apart, the individual panels of synthetic drywall ripped out through their layers of paint, whirring through the air. Less than a second later, there’s a huge, crunching smash as a plant pot from the courtyard explodes through the window, filling the air with flying soil, terracotta shattering.
Holy fuck. I didn’t even know I’d grabbed hold of that.
And while all this is happening—and all of it only takes about four or five seconds—I’m reaching down, wrapping my PK around the plastic cable ties binding everyone’s hands and snapping them in two. My own included.
“Let’s go!” I yell. Or try to. It kind of comes out as “Let’s grrrrk” because that’s when Burr manages to get the wire around my neck again.
Broken finger or not, he’s still special forces. I reach out for the ring only to find that it isn’t there. The son of a bitch actually managed to rip it off his broken finger. It’s behind him, discarded in the kitchen.
This time Burr isn’t playing. He yanks me backwards, my head banging on the tiles, a burning line of agony around my throat. I can’t get air. Not a single atom of it. I claw at the noose, the one thing here I can’t touch with my PK, my fingers scrabbling at it, unable to get a grip.
Which is when Carlos kicks Burr in the face.
It’s a championship-winning, full-run-up, top-of-the-foot fifty-yard-field-goal monster. He could try out for the Rams with that kick. When his foot whips past my face, I actually feel the blowback.
There’s a wet crack, and the wire goes loose. I rip it away, scramble to my feet. I’m losing energy fast—hardly surprising, given what I’ve been through today. There’s still stuff spinning through the air, but it’s sluggish now, not moving with nearly the same speed as before. And the weapons: they’re still held against the ceiling, but I’m not going to be able to keep them there for long.
Not that it matters. The door’s right there, and once we’re out, we can lose these assholes. Nic grabs me, pulling me down the hallway, Carlos and Paul just behind him. Annie bringing up the rear, swearing, hands covering her head, like she’s the one I’m trying to beat to death. And—
“Reggie!” I yell. “Where’s Reggie?”
Nobody’s carrying her. Not Carlos, not Nic. I turn back, feet stutter-stepping as I switch direction. She’s still right where they put her, on the couch.
Her eyes lock on mine. And with what looks like every ounce of strength she has, she bellows, “Run!”
I’ve lost control of the weapons on the ceiling. Most of the other stuff too. I’m running out of power fast, losing my ability to move things, and if we go back for Reggie now…
The rational part of my brain knows it’s a bad idea. The rest of my brain tells that part to go fuck itself, and sends my body sprinting back towards Reggie because like hell am I leaving her with these douchebags.
If Nic hadn’t been there, I would have run right back into the middle of it. He pulls me up short, hauling me along with him.
“Reggie!” I yell.
“Come on!” Annie barrels into Nic and me, accelerating us towards the door. We explode out onto the balcony walkway, her name still on my lips. I get one last look at her, collapsed on the couch, and then we’re gone.
I twist away from Nic. “We can’t just leave her!” Knowing we have to. Knowing we can’t go back in there. On the one hand, I’m furious with them for not picking her up; on the other, what were they supposed to do? Risk getting brained by whatever shit I was throwing around? Fight their way past the soldiers?
I don’t get a chance to think too hard about this, because that’s when Paul crashes headlong into another member of the special forces team.
It’s a younger guy with a Mohawk—probably left behind to make sure no neighbours interfered. He comes roaring round the corner, slamming right into Paul. They go down in a tangle of limbs. I use the last dregs of my PK to grab the guy’s rifle, tearing it out of his hands and smashing it against the wall.
After that I’m not really sure what happens. I just put my head down and run.
I blink, and we’re in the courtyard of the complex, surrounded by cars and plant pots.
“Where’s your ride?” Nic says.
“Don’t have one,” Annie replies. She’s out of breath, her words run ragged.
“What do you mean you don’t have one?”
“It broke down.”
“Are you serious?”
“Forget that,” Carlos says. “Where’s your car?”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t have the keys.”
“Are you serious?”
“They’re up there.” Nic points back towards the apartment.
A gunshot splits the air, the report ricocheting off the buildings. We don’t see where the bullet goes, but all of us hit the deck anyway. Gravel grinds into my hands as a second shot rings out. It’s greybeard, silhouetted in the window of Nic’s apartment, rifle in hand.
So much for taking us alive.
Hands on my back. Nic. We take off across the courtyard as greybeard fires again. This time the bullet digs a chunk out of the ground, sending up a drifting spray of dirt. I reach out for his rifle, but it’s too far away. I could push it, extend my range, just like I did for the helicopter. Of course, if I do, I’m pretty sure I’ll pass out again.
Why aren’t they hitting us? This isn’t an action movie—the good guys don’t get away because the bad guys can’t hit anything. Then again, they’re aiming at moving targets in low light. All the same, if we don’t get out of this courtyard soon, they’re going to find their range.
There’s a grey Prius parked on one side of the courtyard, next to a six-foot wall. Carlos barely breaks his stride, vaulting onto it, running up the windshield and onto the roof, touching the top of the wall as he flies over it.
Paul and Annie aren’t quite as graceful. She makes it OK, just, but he has to actually clamber up right as a second rifle burst joins the first. Bullets puncture the engine, dinging off the car’s paintwork, the front lights shattering. About three feet from us.
Looks like they found their range.
“This way.” I grab Nic’s hand, and we tear across the courtyard, heading for the exit to the street. Annie shouts my name from the other side of the wall—she probably thinks I’ve been hit. “I’m OK!” I yell back.
We hit the narrow alley leading to the security gate, meaning we’re out of the line of fire—for now. Fortunately, these kinds of gates don’t need a key to open up—you can just push right through them from our side.
“Come on!” I grab his hand, bolt across the street—just in time to see Annie, Carlos and Paul emerge to our right.
“You OK?” Carlos says.
“Fine. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Up there.” Annie points. “Onto Wilshire.”
“Wh—”
“Traffic. People. Cars.”
She’s right. Wilshire is right at the top of the block, a fifteen-mile-long street that bisects Los Angeles, east to west. Burr and his bu
ddies might think twice about firing at us if there are other people around. Or at least, I hope they’ll think twice.
We bolt up Westgate. Halfway there, I look back over my shoulder, knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself.
Burr is chasing us.
The rest of the squad are nowhere to be seen. It’s just him. His face is a bloody ruin, his left ring finger bent at a strange angle. It’s like he doesn’t even notice—and despite his size, he’s fast. He’s sprinting to catch up with us, head down, rifle slung on his back and arms pumping. He’s gaining, and I yell at the others to hurry. What the hell are we going to do when we reach Wilshire?
The street isn’t gridlocked, but there are plenty of cars whooshing past: ten lanes of traffic, vehicles moving in both directions. A giant billboard looms over one corner of the intersection, Ryan Reynolds’ shit-eating grin towering over us.
Paul gets there first. He comes to a halt on the sidewalk whipping his gaze left and right. I barrel into him from behind, shoving him onto the tarmac.
“The traffic!” he says.
“Just keep moving!” Burr is closing fast, barely fifty yards away now.
“Teagan,” Nic yells. “Watch ou—”
A car screeches to a halt, the driver slamming the horn. I don’t bother apologising, slaloming past it into the next lane of traffic. The cars around me are going nuts, horns dopplering as we pick our way through.
The surface of the road isn’t flat—it’s pocked with potholes. My foot catches in one of them as I reach the halfway point, and I drop to one knee, cursing.
Nic is a few feet away, just ahead of me. He half turns, trying to double back—and a car zips between us, hooting like crazy. Then another one. An unbroken line of traffic whizzing past. He can’t get back. He tries to dodge through, but there’s no space.
I turn my head, looking down the street, trying to find a gap, which is when the car ploughs right into me.
THIRTY-THREE
Teagan
It’s an old Nissan, green paint, rust on the bumper. I know this because I get a real good look right before it sends me flying.
