by Caryn Lix
“Where is it?” Tyler gasped. He clutched my arm tightly enough to leave bruises. “Where?”
“Matt?” Stress laced Cage’s tone, but he managed to make the word both command and question.
Matt fumbled, his breathing shaky. “I can’t sense anything—nothing at all. Either it’s totally jacked up on something, or . . .”
Or it’s not human.
Mia slammed her hand down on a console. “This is ridiculous. It’s an anomaly, you guys. Cage would register the same way on a security screen.”
“I would sense Cage,” Matt retorted.
“Like you said, not if he was jacked up. It’s . . . a prisoner. Someone got out of the sectors, got into something, got . . .” Mia’s voice trailed off as she stared at the screen.
Got out of the sectors? Without me? Without setting off any alarms? I suppose it was possible, depending on their powers. But . . . “We don’t keep hallucinogenic drugs on Sanctuary,” I said softly, still searching for signs of movement. “And the drugs we do have are pretty secure.”
We stared for another minute, but nothing moved any further. At last I gestured toward the screens. “Well, whatever it is, it’s somewhere between us and the medical bay.” I swallowed hard. “Also, the cameras aren’t detecting any other movement outside the prison. Not any of the prisoners from sectors one through four, and not my mom.”
“Tyler,” said Cage slowly, “can you get into its head?”
Tyler half whimpered, caught himself, and answered in a fairly steady voice, “I’ve been trying. I can’t find anything to grab onto. Just you guys.”
“Maybe it’s out of range?”
“Maybe. But I can reach pretty far. I should at least be able to get a feel for anyone on this floor. I’ve never just drawn a blank like this before.”
Which meant he didn’t sense my mother, either. I took a deep breath. That didn’t mean anything. She could be unconscious, or on a lower level. She might even be outside. Wherever she was, she was out of Tyler’s range. That was all.
Another silence had fallen, this one darker, colder. Alexei drew a step closer to Mia, and she stood on her toes to whisper something in his ear. Tyler, Matt, and Cage looked to me like they wanted answers, but I had nothing to offer. What exactly were we dealing with?
As usual, Cage broke the silence. “Then I guess we either wait here and see what happens, or we keep moving.”
I laughed, the sound sharp and bitter even to my own ears. “Moving where? There’s no sign of Mom, not anywhere. No clues as to what—who—this might be, or what they want.” I waved my arm around. Not a drop of blood, not a single sign of Mom besides a half-empty mug of cold coffee on her console. I resisted the urge to hurl that coffee at the wall. Where was she?
“That thing started in medical, which makes it as good a spot as any to look for survivors. Maybe it . . . took them there, for some reason. I don’t know. But I think it’s a better plan than sitting here.”
He had a point. If Mom was on this station, I had to find her, and that meant I had to get moving.
“Except for one thing,” said Tyler, his voice high and on the edge of hysteria. “Whatever’s out there, it’s between us and medical. And I think that makes sitting here a very good plan.”
“Tyler,” I said gently, “whatever attacked my mother walked right into the command center to do it. We’re not any safer here than anywhere else.”
He closed his eyes and moaned.
“Are you freaking kidding me with this?” Mia demanded. “Whatever? I’m telling you, this is a prisoner, someone with incredibly strong powers. I don’t know how they got out of the sectors, but they did.” She rolled her eyes and cracked her neck. “Fine. You children wait here. I’ll go scout things out.”
Cage shrugged. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Mia can move more quietly by herself, and obviously she won’t be seen.”
Alexei scowled, opening his mouth to object, but Mia stifled him with a glare. “Good,” she said. “It’s settled.”
We opened the door and waited. No sound of anything in the distance, but that didn’t mean it had gone. Mia shook out her muscles like an athlete preparing for a race and disappeared. We listened to the sound of her footfalls—soft, but not entirely silent—as she advanced.
A few seconds later, her scream echoed through the hall.
I broke into a run and rounded the corner in a burst of wind—Cage zipping past me, and then stopping so abruptly that I crashed into him. He reached back to steady me, and I pushed into the corridor.
Mia lay slumped on the ground in a pool of blood. My heart caught in my throat, and I stepped toward her.
Something lunged from the alcove. At the edge of my vision, a blur of gray and shadow rushed toward me. It smashed into me, throwing me into the wall. My head smacked the doorway and I collapsed, the world lurching.
I straightened, trying to focus on what had attacked me. Something—a tail?—whipped around the corner.
Alexei released a choked cry, something between a yelp and a sob, and ran to Mia’s side, Cage a step behind. I shook my head, feeling for blood and finding none. A bit unsteadily, I joined the boys. “Come on, Lex,” Cage was saying, tugging futilely at his shoulder. “Let me see her.”
Together we managed to move Alexei aside. Matt and Tyler raced up to us, skidding to a halt at the sight of us crouched on the floor. Their demands for information barely penetrated the haze around us where Alexei knelt staring at Mia, tears streaming down his cheeks, his hands clenched into fists. It was jarring, his normally implacable demeanor dissolving into near hysteria.
“She’s got a pulse,” I announced.
Cage peeled back the torn corners of her jumpsuit to get a better look at the wound on her stomach, hissed, and folded them over her again. “We have to get her to medical,” he said. “Alexei! Snap out of it. I need you to carry her.”
Alexei shook his head, seeming to emerge from a trance. He lifted her with infinite care, cradling her in his arms. Without waiting to see if anyone followed, I set off at a dead run.
“Kenzie!” Cage shouted after me. “Damn it, Kenz, slow down! We don’t know where that thing is!”
I heard him, but I couldn’t make myself stop. I kept seeing Mia, stretched out on the floor with blood soaking through her clothing . . . and then, superimposed over her face, my mom’s. . . .
I reached medical without incident. I’m not a doctor, but with a staff as small as ours, everyone is familiar with every system, and we all possessed first aid certifications. My driving need to excel at everything had made me a little more attentive to Jonathan’s instructions than the other guards, but I’d hated every moment of it. Even talking about blood gave me the shivers.
Only action kept me from collapsing on the floor at the thought. Clearing the medical table with a sweep of my arm—Jonathan had left a smattering of personal belongings when he packed—I scanned my thumb to access the medical closet.
I arranged things we might need—rubbing alcohol, gloves, scissors, thread, a needle, tweezers—on a tray as the others raced into the room. Alexei laid Mia on the table, while Tyler and Matt hovered near the door.
Cage rushed to my side and pivoted on Matt and Tyler. “Look for it!”
Matt gestured helplessly. “Dude, how? I can’t sense it!”
“I don’t need you to sense it! I just need a few seconds’ warning if it’s going to burst through that door!” Matt opened his mouth to argue, and Cage closed his eyes, visibly composing himself. “Matt. I don’t have anyone else to rely on here.”
Matt hesitated, then pointed accusingly at Cage. “I should have walked away the first time you offered me contraband. You know that, right?”
Cage grinned. “Thanks, buddy.” As Matt retreated to the corridor, Cage drew so close that his arm brushed mine and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Any idea what you’re doing?”
“Some,” I whispered back. “Now explain to me how the hell you smuggle
d contraband onto a space station.”
His eyebrow quirked in surprise, and he half laughed. “I didn’t, obviously. We’re talking pieces of food I managed to pocket from dinner, or little items swiped from the workroom. Matt exaggerates.”
The scanner gave a loud beep, and I quickly silenced it. “I just pushed the wrong button,” I snapped in response to his look. “I can work the medical scanner and I know first aid. You?”
“Some street experience. I can stitch her up if I have to, although I’d rather she not wake up in the middle of it.”
We exchanged worried glances, but there was no sense delaying. Cage eased Alexei out of our way while I loaded the medical scanner. I dragged the cart to the table, positioning it over Mia’s face. Then I logged on and set it up the way Jonathan had shown me. The scanner ran the length of Mia’s body with agonizing slowness. At last, we had a three-dimensional look at the wound on her abdomen. The computer found signs of injury on the back of her head, too, meaning she’d probably hit it on her way down.
I breathed a sigh of relief as the scanner spit out her vital signs, which looked steadier than I’d dared hope. But the wound itself . . . “There’s something inside her,” I said to Cage, gesturing at the misshapen lump on the screen.
He nodded. “We need to get it out. Do you have any anesthetic? Anything to keep her under?”
“Nothing I know how to use. Too much might kill her, and I don’t know the dosage.”
“So no messing with that.” We both stared grimly at the wound. “Well,” said Cage dryly. “You want to do the honors?”
My stomach roiled at the thought. “You’re the one who spent all day digging chips out of people. I’ll assist.”
“Great. Thanks for that.”
I shook off my reluctance. Mia could regain consciousness at any moment. I wasn’t sure how she would respond if she woke to find us digging around inside her.
I sterilized my hands and put on gloves, and I made Cage do the same. We were going to do this much cleaner than they’d done in the prison. I cut away the section of shirt and jumpsuit blocking her wound. Bile rose in my throat at the sight—there was a reason I never considered entering the medical corps, and a reason I was making Cage do the cutting, although I wasn’t about to tell him that. Forcing my reaction down, I took a deep breath and cleaned the area with alcohol. It was a lot less gruesome once I cleared away the blood, but also a lot more disturbing: two deep, jagged tears right across her abdomen. “They look like claw marks,” I whispered.
Cage cast a worried glance at the others. Alexei was the only one in earshot, and he was too busy pacing to hear. “Yeah, they do.” He drew in a shaky breath and grabbed the scalpel. “At least I have more to work with than a makeshift chunk of metal this time.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Can you find a light?”
I ran back to the medical locker, returned with a penlight, and angled it at the wound. Cage winced as he slipped the forceps into her flesh. He rummaged around, one eye on the 3-D display, and in a matter of seconds he’d retrieved a long, furrowed claw.
We stared at it. There was no seeing that as anything but a claw. It was about an inch in length, black, and curved. “Oh God,” I whispered. “What are those things?”
“I wish I knew.”
What had they been planning to do with Mia if we hadn’t shown up? And what were they going to do with my mother?
Another thought occurred to me. “Do they bleed? Cage, if she got its blood inside her . . . Who knows what diseases or parasites they carry.”
He cast another glance at Alexei. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I’m going to stitch her up.”
Cage’s hands shook so badly it took him three tries to thread the needle. “I hate doing this,” he said under his breath. He grimaced, examining Mia’s side. “Can you hold the wound?”
“Yes,” I said, but it took all my willpower not to look away when he started sewing. As the only actual authority figure in the group, I probably should have taken responsibility for this. I didn’t care. Blood always made my insides churn. The sight of needle piercing flesh sent my stomach plummeting into my feet, then roller-coastering into my chest. I focused on Mia’s pale, sharp ribs, taking deep breaths to steady my hands.
Cage finished with Mia, and the wound looked about as pretty as he’d promised. It had stopped bleeding, though. I cleaned it once more for good measure. Cage called Alexei over to lift Mia while I wrapped bandages around her midsection. Alexei cradled her like a child, his big blue eyes fixed on her face. “Why isn’t she waking up?” he demanded.
“I think she’s in shock,” I told him. “The wound wasn’t deep. She hit her head, but not hard. She’ll be okay, Alexei.”
He nodded, smoothing her hair back from her face. Matt and Tyler joined us, but unlike Alexei, they weren’t looking at Mia. They were both staring at the claw Cage had deposited on the tray. “What the hell is that?” Matt asked, his voice very soft.
“It was stuck in the wound,” I replied honestly.
Matt drew a hand over his face. “All right,” he said. “I guess we can put a line through the idea that we’re dealing with an escaped prisoner.”
“Yeah? What was your first clue?” Tyler sounded on the verge of hysterics. “The tail ?”
“Dude, calm down.” Matt laid a restraining hand on Tyler’s arm.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! This is a nightmare! What is that thing? Where did it come from?”
Alexei turned from Mia to slam a hand over Tyler’s mouth. “Listen to me,” he growled. “If that thing hears you and comes back here . . . Mia’s helpless. She can’t move. She can’t fight. She can’t run. Do you want to be responsible for her death? More to the point, do you want me holding you responsible for her death?”
Tyler paled. For a moment I thought he’d faint again. Then Matt stepped between the boys, gently prying Tyler loose from Alexei’s grip. “All right, Lex. I think he gets the idea.” He eased Tyler to a nearby chair, rolling his eyes at Cage.
Cage grinned in response. “Cellmates,” he explained to me. “Matt’s used to dealing with Tyler. Lex, can you move Mia to the bed?”
Alexei nodded, gathering her in his arms.
“Why?” I asked.
Cage gestured at the table. “Hop up.”
“What? No.”
“Kenzie, I’m not blind. You hit your head hard, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“We don’t have time. I have to find my mom.”
“I know, but we need to give Mia a few minutes to recover. Let me check for a head injury while we wait, okay?”
I hesitated a second longer, but he wasn’t wrong, and it didn’t hurt to check it out. “All right,” I said. I pulled the scanner over and gave Cage a crash course in its operation. Then I took Mia’s place on the examination table.
Cage keyed in the right buttons, and the scanner passed my head, starting its descent. He leaned over me as it made its painstaking progress. “So,” he said. “Did you see it?”
“Yeah.” Our arms were inches apart. I glanced into his eyes and found I couldn’t quite look away, even though I was laying bare every inch of fear and weakness inside me. “Maybe. I mean, I did see something that looked like a tail.”
He closed his eyes, his head drooping in exhaustion, bringing his face within inches of mine. “I guess there goes any hope Anya was just imagining things,” he murmured.
I sucked in a gasp of air through a suddenly tight throat. Worry lines creased Cage’s forehead, accentuating the sharp lines of his eyebrows. “Yeah,” I managed, as his warmth surrounded me. This must be what people were talking about when they said someone “took my breath away.”
I was losing my goddamn mind. I struggled to compose myself, but drawing in a steadying breath just bathed me in his scent, his warmth.
Maybe my head injury was worse than I thought.
The scanner beeped, signaling
its finish. Cage raised his head, flashed me a wry smile, and pulled it toward him as I heaved myself to a sitting position, still trembling a bit from the proximity.
His smile quickly changed to a frown. “That can’t be right,” he said.
Panic flashed through me. “What?” I demanded. “What can’t be right?”
“I don’t know. Hang on.” He twisted the display, coincidentally shielding it from me.
I choked on a wave of panic. “Cage!”
“Just give me a second.”
“I’m not giving you anything!” I grabbed for the display, which he swung out of my reach. Red-hot fury shot steel through my spine, and I stiffened, bringing my breathing under control. “Cage, you have exactly three seconds to tell me what’s going on, and then I start throwing punches.”
He checked the display one more time and shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know how to tell you this. Kenzie . . . you have a chip.”
SEVENTEEN
FOR A MOMENT I JUST stared at him. My lips worked, but no sound came out. I felt every gaze burning into me, like I was the guest of honor at some kind of horror convention.
A chip? Like a prisoner? It made no sense. None. “How?” I managed at last, my voice verging on hysterical. By now all of the boys were crowded around the scanner, gaping like I was the alien. “How can I have a chip?”
“If you don’t know, the only person who might be able to find out is Rune.” Without waiting for my permission, he stalked to the panel and activated it with a sweep of his hand. “You there, meimei?” In a few sentences, he explained the situation.
By then I’d recovered enough to ask, in an almost normal voice, “Rune. What the hell is going on?”
Rune’s voice answered, hollow and disconnected through the comm unit. “I don’t know. Part of your file requires high-security clearance. I’m trying to access it now, but it’s seriously guarded. The system’s fighting me at every step. I’m going to need to get off the comms and give it my full attention. I’ll let you know what I learn.”
