“No, honey. I’ve got it. I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Don’t be surprised if I let the machine get it.” He gave her a quick kiss. “But I’ll be listening, just in case it’s a real emergency.” The last two alarms had been a result of raccoons finding ways into the compound’s ventilation. Modern technology and state-of-the-art construction meant nothing to the furry little thieves.
“Get some rest. Love you.” She kissed him back and climbed into the car. It was only a half mile to the main entrance of the facility. The official entrance. Tom waited until she’d backed out and was starting the actual drive before he went inside. She smiled, loving him as much as anyone had ever loved another person.
She never saw him alive again.
Subject Seven
SEVEN GOT LUCKY WITH the fourth door. It opened into a long concrete tunnel that led to the Other’s house. The hallway was called a “shaft”—a word one of the technicians had taught him. That long corridor led to a place that was frighteningly familiar, even though he had never seen it.
It was a house. A one-story ranch house, with a lovely yard and a white picket fence. His mind swore to him that he had been inside the place before. “Bleed over”—that was another word he’d learned from the techs when they didn’t think he could hear them. Bleed over was what got Four and Nine killed. He knew they were dead because he could no longer hear their thoughts. They were gone now, silent, like all of the other subjects. He was the last of them. He was the strongest, the closest to a success. Bleed over was what they called the strange thoughts that he’d heard in Four and Nine’s heads, memories of things they had never experienced. He hadn’t understood that notion until he too began to be haunted by images that shouldn’t have been there and memories of happiness that he had never felt.
He shook the thoughts away and climbed up the long ladder built directly into the concrete tube. At the end of it there was another door, a heavy steel contraption that he knew was there to keep the outside world safe from the likes of him.
The door was not locked. All he had to do was wave a hand in front of the motion sensor and the thick metal slid to the side, opening to the floor of the house’s living room. There was a couch, exactly where he knew it would be, and a television facing it, just past the coffee table that he had never touched but knew just the same.
“No!” He shook his head and tried to force the memories away. They weren’t his memories. They belonged to the Other. He hated the Other, hated everything about the one that they loved and catered to. His heart pounded in his chest and he tried to calm down, but the anger was there growing like a burning fire.
Through the living room door, out to the sidewalk. Once on the sidewalk, he could go anywhere he wanted to because there were roads that led to different places, different houses and cities filled with more houses and more people. All he had to do was move through the house and he could have everything the Other had: friends and a real life, with sunlight and the wind and baseball and McDonald’s Happy Meals. It was like a promise of heaven. The Other knew about heaven. The Other went to church on Sundays. He went to Sunday school and to the Hillandale Montessori School. The Other had Mommy and Daddy and little Gabby and Toby the Puppy and G.I. Joe action figures and—
“NO!” He flinched as surely as if Dirk had swung the damned metal club at his face again. That was the Other’s world. He didn’t want that world. He wanted a better world, one that was his and his alone.
Seven reached out and touched the leather of the sofa with his hand. It was cool and soft under his bloodstained fingers. When he pulled back, there was a streak of gore to show that he had touched, had marred, the world of the Other.
That thought made him smile and want to scream at the same time.
The rage won. He grabbed the leather and hooked his fingers into claws and then tore at the leather as hard as he could until it split with a loud purring rip and revealed the soft stuffing inside.
He liked the feeling so much that he did it a second time and then decided he would destroy other things. TV was something the Other enjoyed, so he lifted it over his head and threw the two-hundred-pound set into the wall, where the pictures of the Other and his family rested. The impact destroyed the pictures too, and that only added to Seven’s joy.
He forgot that he was supposed to be escaping. For just a few moments he forgot everything but making the Other suffer for daring to live.
He might have stayed there and destroyed everything, but the man who came into the room looked at him and held up his hands and said, “Seven, you’re being bad. You know you aren’t supposed to be here.”
Seven looked at the man and growled low in his chest. The man was nervous. He could smell the fear sweat that came from the man’s pores. That simple fact was thrilling because he had never smelled fear on the man before. Certainly not when the man had been cutting Seven’s skin with the scalpel and peeling it back. Oh, the pain had been so very large, bigger than a house, bigger than Seven, to be sure, so large that Seven had screamed and begged for the man to stop.
The man had not laughed, not like Dirk, but he hadn’t stopped either.
“You . . . um . . . you aren’t supposed to be here, Seven. You need to go back to your room before you get in trouble, okay?”
The voice of the man was wrong. Normally it was calm, almost without tone. Normally the man was in control of the situation. Normally he had nothing to fear.
Seven looked at his hands, at the blood that coated his skin and at the cuts that were slowly healing, wounds that he’d received while getting here. Sometimes when he hit someone hard enough, their bones broke and cut his skin, but that was okay, really, a necessary pain to help him steal control from the man in front of him.
“Seven? Did you hear me?” The man was starting to sound more sure of himself. Probably because Seven had not answered him or attacked him. Yet.
Probably because he thought Seven was scared of him. Or because he thought he was still in control of the situation . That had always been one of the man’s favorite terms. He liked to tell people he was in control and could handle everything.
The man had a name, didn’t he? Seven tried to remember the name. It was close. It was on the tip of his tongue.
The man came closer, trying to take command. “Come on, Seven. Let me take you back to your room.”
Maybe he did fear the man. Maybe he did because, really, the man had hurt him many times over the years. He couldn’t hope to count the number of times, because almost every day that he’d been alive, the man had been causing him pain.
What was the man’s name? The loss of that name was like a bee buzzing in his head; it distracted him and made him angrier than ever.
The man’s hand touched Seven’s shoulder. The touch was tentative, gentle. Seven looked up toward the man’s face. The man was so tall, and he was so tiny in comparison.
“Come on, Seven. Let’s go home.”
“Home?” His voice was raw. He’d been screaming so very much and his throat felt hot and scratchy.
Home. The room. The place where he stayed when the man was done with the cutting and the lights and the sounds and the needles that made him sleep or made his heart race so fast he feared it would explode out of his chest. Home. Where the pain is.
The man grew bolder as Seven looked down at the plush carpet under his bare, bloodied feet. Why was the carpet so familiar? Why did the place where he stood smell of comfort and feel so safe when he had never been here before? Bleed over. The Other’s world was haunting his mind again, making him see the Other’s happiness and his own pain, making him compare the two.
“Yes, Seven. Home.” There was a softness to the man’s voice now, and a confidence that had not been there a moment before. He reached into his white lab coat and pulled out a syringe, even as he moved in closer to Seven’s side. “Everything’s going to be all right, Seven. You’ll see.”
Time slowed down. Seven felt the adrenali
ne kick into his system. The world around him oozed. He could see the man’s arm lifting, could feel the man’s body turning slightly as he looked down at Seven and decided where the needle should go. The warm light from the living room lamp gleamed off the stainless steel needle of the syringe, off the yellowish fluids inside. Yellow was the color of sleep. The yellow liquids always helped Seven rest when the pain was too great.
Home. Pain.
His eyes widened and he moved, shifting his body as his hand caught the man in the lower part of his back and pushed. The man grunted, surprised, and staggered forward, losing his balance even as Seven backed up a bit and bared his teeth.
And then he remembered the man’s name. The Other had a special name for him, an almost magical name. Finally the word came to him. “No, Daddy! No home! I go away!”
Seven understood words. Words were power.
The man, Daddy, let out a low noise of surprise and ran toward the door. Before he could reach it, Seven moved forward, lunging and letting his hatred loose. And oh, how he hated. His fingers grabbed Daddy’s neck and back and sank into soft flesh. Daddy screamed from the unexpected pain.
Seven’s body was changing every day. The man said so. Seven could have told him that. He felt stronger than he ever had before and he felt something else that gave him strength.
He felt hope.
Daddy’s head and face smashed into the wall as Seven pushed with all of his might.
He would be free.
Daddy let out a grunt and shook his head as he tried to break free, denying what was happening, trying to escape from the fury that Seven had held inside for as long as he could remember.
He would be free.
Daddy’s head crashed into the wall again. The paint changed color, splattered with the red that hid inside of Daddy.
Seven would be free.
Even if he had to kill everyone he saw, he would be free.
Evelyn Hope
EVVY PULLED UP TO the gate and the guard waved her through. From outside there was no sign of trouble, but she didn’t trust that. She’d tried calling the central security office four times and gotten no answer. No answer. That never happened.
She couldn’t very well call the police either, now, could she? That wouldn’t go well at all. The police wouldn’t understand the importance of their work, of their lifelong ambitions.
That meant they were on their own.
She climbed from the car as soon as she parked and pulled out the pistol Tom insisted she carry with her. She was glad of its weight, grateful for the destructive power. If any of the subjects had gotten out, if Seven had gotten loose, especially, God help them all.
Would a bullet even stop Seven? She didn’t know and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
As she approached the security doors at the front of the large warehouse, she paused and listened. For a moment there was nothing to hear—not surprising when you considered the soundproofing they’d had installed—but after a second she could make out the faint sound of the alarms.
Fear caught at her insides and sent wintry chills lashing through her heart and stomach alike.
They had done tests, of course, but Seven was only ten years old. He wasn’t fully matured. They had no idea exactly how strong or how fast he was. He was so much more than human.
Subject Seven
DADDY WAS DEAD. HE lay on the ground unmoving. Mommy would be so very angry.
Seven looked around the bloodied room and saw the front door that went out into the Other’s world and shook his head. No. He would not be in the Other’s world! He wanted his own world without the Other.
More guards were waiting for him when he left the house the way he had entered, but he barely even noticed them.
Much as part of him wanted to hurt all of the people in uniform, he had to leave. He had to get away before they could stop him with the yellow liquids. And they would. They had before.
He could not go home again. Not now, not ever.
He ignored the primal desire to hurt them and ran as fast as he could.
They barely even saw him before he was past them and pushing through to another part of the building, knocking everything he could find down behind him to add to the obstacles they would have to get over to get to him.
There were more doors to his left, to his right, but he didn’t bother with them. He knew the door he was looking for would be bigger, stronger, meant to keep him inside and maybe to keep others out.
A man stepped in front of him, wearing a guard’s uniform. He spread his arms wide as if he meant to hug Seven, but Seven knew better. He jumped and smashed into the man, knocking him backward. Both of them fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Before the man could try anything else, Seven used his hands and crushed the guard’s face into a new shape.
Finally, there was a door that looked like it must be there to stop him. He moved toward it, wishing with all of his might that it would open for him and let him free.
And to his surprise, it obeyed his wishes. The double doors split apart and the air temperature changed in an instant; a much colder wave of air washed into the hallway as he charged down its length and a new series of smells revealed themselves to him. Some scents were familiar and others completely alien. One of the familiar ones belonged to the woman. The woman who sometimes talked to him and other times studied him from behind thick, dark walls of glass as if he couldn’t smell her, hear her behind the shiny surface.
He hated the woman almost as much as he hated the man. But now was not the time for her. Now was the time for escape. More guards were coming for him. He could hear their footsteps past the sound of the alarms. There were so many of them, so many more than he expected.
The door and the darkness beyond it were ahead of him and so was the woman, holding something in her trembling hands. Her eyes were wide and she stank of fear. Her heart beat so fast, twice, maybe three times as fast as usual. She pointed the barrel of her weapon at him, and her hateful voice called out: “Seven! Stop right now!”
He did not listen.
He charged instead, screaming his rage at her, a battle cry, a call for blood that she answered with fire.
Evelyn Hope
SHE’D BARELY OPENED THE doors before he was there, her worst nightmare come true. Seven, broken free and coming right at her, his entire body painted in blood and gore, as if he were a wild animal. And, really, wasn’t he? Hadn’t they almost guaranteed that he would be little more?
Experiments in sensory overload, long endurance tests, food and water deprivation, tests in every sort of extreme, just to see how he would react and whether or not what he experienced would carry over.
“Oh God, Seven! Stop before I shoot you!” She barely even recognized her own voice.
Seven came at her even faster, screeching like a wounded chimpanzee. She took aim at his chest and fired again and again.
The first bullet missed him. The second grazed his calf and the third hit him in his side, plowing through flesh and bone as he came for her, his face a mask of hatred and blood.
And before a fourth bullet could escape the muzzle of her pistol, he was on her. His body burned with the heat of an oven and the stink of sweat and blood was all over him, then all over her as Seven grabbed her by her hair and hurled her aside, his body smaller than hers, his strength so far beyond what they’d expected it would ever be.
The pain of her scalp separating from her skull was staggering. Still, there was a part of her, the scientist beyond the woman who was worried about her job and projects, that rejoiced. They had succeeded! If the others were anywhere close to Seven—
She struck the ground and felt the skin scrape from her hand and the side of her face. Before she could recover, Seven grabbed her and lifted her up in the air. She had only a moment to gather her breath for a proper scream before the wall took that breath away and knocked her senseless.
She would wake up to find that most of her world had been destroyed by th
e very thing she had struggled to create. Subject Seven had killed her Tom and stolen away her Bobby and so many of her dreams.
She had done it to herself, really. She might as well have killed her husband with her own hands, and as for her son? Well, that thought was enough to leave her crying.
In time she would get stronger. She would make herself be strong. There was no other choice, not really. Someone had to carry on her dreams, Tom’s dreams. Their legacy.
Subject Seven
THERE WAS ONLY A single fence between him and freedom. He cleared the fence with ease, only hesitating when the razor wire caught his skin. He was bleeding when he struck the grass on the other side of the fence.
He would heal. He always did.
The air smelled cold and fresh, and the night was filled with stars and a breeze that caressed his bare skin and chilled him.
He had felt the cold before and far worse than this.
Limping, bleeding and bruised, he moved away from the only home he had ever known. Yes, he was afraid. He could admit that.
But he would survive. He had been designed to survive.
He made a vow to himself. He would do whatever he had to do to make sure he stayed free from the hell that was his home. Even if he had to kill the entire world to stay free.
Time would prove him a boy of his word.
Chapter One
Four years ago
Subject Seven
HIS LIFE HAD CHANGED a lot in the year since he escaped. He’d learned to speak properly, learned to read—words were still powerful, more so now than ever before and he loved learning their meanings. He’d found his way in the world, a small boy, yes, but also powerful and capable. There were people who paid him for his services because no one else his size and age could do the things he could do. He had money. He had respect. He was in charge of his own world. Sometimes, at least.
Seven looked around the city and sniffed the air. He preferred cities to small towns. People in small towns liked to ask questions about why an eleven-year-old boy was on his own in the big bad world. And sometimes when they asked questions, Seven had to kill them. Murder didn’t really bother him, but it was inconvenient.
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