by Caryn Lix
I shot to my feet and paced back and forth, shaking off any attempt to placate me. I had a chip. I did, like a prisoner. “Run the scan again.”
“Kenzie, you know that won’t—”
I grabbed his sleeve, yanking his face down to mine. “Run the scan again,” I seethed. The world swam in front of me, and I groped for the table and got back into position. With a sigh, Cage reset the scanner and slid it over my head.
There was no intimate brush of his arm this time. He stood back, waiting, as I ground my teeth and clenched my fists through the scanner’s interminable progress. “Well?” I snapped, when at last it completed its journey.
Cage turned the screen toward me in response. I grabbed it, nearly wrenching it off its hinges in my rush to see for myself. Sure enough, there it was: a little white blip in my arm, right where the prisoners’ chips rested. “It’s something else,” I protested weakly, searching my memory. “I broke my arm when I was five. It must be a bone fragment or—or something.”
“Kenzie, it’s not a bone fragment.” Cage pulled up the accompanying text on the scanner. I gaped at it in disbelief. Serial number. Coding.
He was right. It was a chip.
“How did it get there?” I demanded. “When?” I clawed at my arm as if I could physically remove it. “I want it out.” I could feel it under my skin, a foreign presence as much an intruder as the creatures on Sanctuary. How long had it been there? How had I never noticed? “I want it out.”
Cage grabbed my wrist, preventing me from actually tearing my skin. “Absolutely not.”
I turned on him, my stomach heaving into my chest. “Excuse me? Everyone in this room gets to cut out their chips, including you, but mine has to stay?”
“It’s not like that,” Matt said, glancing at Cage for support. “When your powers first manifest, they’re sometimes hard to control. If you do have powers and you’ve never used them before, who knows what will happen if we yank that chip out of you?”
“On top of which, I’m kind of tired of people screaming in pain while I cut into them,” added Cage.
“Oh!” I shouted, ignoring Tyler’s attempts to hush me. “Well, if you’re tired, I guess that’s all right, then!”
“What’s all the yelling about?” came Mia’s weak voice.
“Mia!” Alexei shot to her side. “Don’t sit up. Don’t—”
“Get off me, Lex.” Mia swung unsteadily to her feet, almost collapsing. Alexei threw an arm around her waist, helping her hobble to where we were gathered. She sagged against the table and examined her abdomen. “That looks like Cage’s work.”
“It was a team effort,” said Cage, ducking behind me. I glared at him, swallowing down the sarcasm itching to escape my throat. Not the time.
Mia poked at her wound and winced. “Yeah, maybe don’t do that,” I snapped, too staggered to be afraid of her.
Matt offered a wry smile. “As for the yelling, it turns out Kenzie has a chip in her arm. She wants it out, and we’re explaining why that’s a bad idea.”
I opened my mouth to release the surge of arguments battling for supremacy on my tongue, but to my shock, Mia interjected. “How is that any of your business?”
“What?” Cage’s jaw dropped. “If I’m the one who has to do the cutting, it is my business.”
Mia shrugged. “Then let me do it.” I glanced at Mia’s shaking hands and bit my lip, but she pushed on. “It’s Kenzie’s body and Kenzie’s chip, and if she doesn’t want it—especially if someone stuck it in without her knowledge or permission—she has as much right to get rid of it as we did.”
Cage swung and kicked the wall, making everyone jump. “When did I become the official surgeon around here? And don’t you think we have more important things to worry about right now?”
“Kenzie’s power might tip the scales in our favor. We don’t know.” Mia closed her eyes, obviously in pain. “And no one said it had to be you. I already told you, I’ll do it if I have to.”
I faced Cage, my chin jutting out in defiance. This chip had to go. Wherever it came from, whatever it hid, I wanted it out. Yeah, I’d rather have Cage’s hands—experienced and not shaking from pain—handle the procedure. But I’d take Mia if he made me.
Cage groaned. “You can’t scream,” he said, leveling an accusing finger at me. “Not if there’s any chance that thing will hear us.”
“I won’t scream.”
“You will,” said Matt grimly. “You’re underestimating how bad this is going to be.”
“I’ll help,” Alexei volunteered.
“Let’s get this over with, then.”
“Mia, please lie down.” Alexei took her arm and urged her toward the bed. “I need to focus on Kenzie, and I can’t do that if I’m worried about you.”
“Well, maybe just for a minute.” She hesitated, glancing at the claw on the tray. “So that . . . thing was inside me, huh?” She smiled thinly. “All right. It’s definitely not an escaped prisoner. I was wrong.”
“Mark the calendar,” said Cage dryly. “Mia admitted a mistake.”
It was a sign of Mia’s exhaustion that she didn’t reply, just let Alexei half carry her back to the bed. I grabbed a bottle of painkillers off the tray. “Hey, Alexei,” I said, tossing them in his direction. He barely even glanced up, snatching them out of the air, and handed them to Mia.
Cage slammed something on the table. “Wow,” I said. “What happened to ‘keep it quiet’?”
He shook his head in frustration. “Are you sure you don’t have any anesthetic? Something that’ll numb the pain?”
“I’m not going to start injecting random medication into myself without knowing what it does.”
“Kenzie, I get how you’re feeling, I really do. When they put that chip in my arm, I scratched at it for days. But it’s not hurting you, and removing it will hurt you, and beyond that, the results could be . . . dangerous. It’s better to wait. I know people in Taipei, people with medical training and . . .” He looked into my eyes and shook his head. “I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”
“No. Whatever’s going on with me, I need to know now.”
“Fine.” He sighed. “I’ll try to be quick.”
Alexei returned and hopped on the medical table, scooting back to make room for me. I ignored my stomach, which was trying to claw its way into my mouth, and let him pull me up to sit between his legs. “Sterilize,” I ordered Cage.
He nodded and scrubbed the forceps with alcohol wipes.
Alexei closed his arms around me, not tightly. Not yet. “I may have to cover your mouth.”
I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice. Now that I wasn’t arguing with Cage, I doubted myself. Why was I putting myself through this? Was I still just angry at my parents—about their separation, about Mom abandoning me? They had to have known about the chip. There was no way it had gotten into me without my parents’ involvement. So not only had Mom tried to kill me, she had somehow, at some point, chipped me.
Did that mean I had a power? Was I an anomaly? I refused to go another minute in the dark. That chip blocked something essentially me. Just a few days ago, my world had been this straightforward, clear-cut place. Now, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. My mom had been willing to kill me, Omnistellar had sentenced a child to prison for flying, and the anomalies were far more human than I’d been led to believe. Nothing made sense anymore. This, at least, I could resolve.
Cage wiped my arm with alcohol, taking longer than strictly necessary. “Last chance to change your mind.”
I shook my head, surprised to find myself steady and firm—at least on the surface, which meant that the illusion would last as long as Tyler didn’t go prying into my mind.
“All right.” Cage closed his eyes as if steeling himself.
“You’ve got this,” said Alexei. “You’ve done it half a dozen times, and with much less equipment.”
“Uh-huh.” He wiped his hand over his face, analyzing me with an inscrutabl
e expression. “Sorry, Kenz.”
I nodded and looked away. Pain I could handle, but the sight of Cage’s trembling hand, the scalpel slicing into my flesh . . .
I sucked in my breath at the first cut but managed to stay otherwise silent. Alexei’s grip tightened over my wrist as my hands clenched into involuntary fists. I ground my teeth together, wincing as Cage prodded the corners of the wound. “Okay,” he said. “This is the part that’s going to hurt.”
He inserted the forceps and I gasped at the sharp sting. I twisted my head into Alexei’s shoulder, locking my hand over his.
A second later, agony like I’d never known tore through my arm. A scream escaped my lips but Alexei was ready, clamping a hand over my mouth while his other arm wrapped around my elbows, pinning me against him. I jerked involuntarily, every instinct working to wrench my arm free of his grasp. Excruciating pain assaulted me, like a hot poker through my flesh. I screamed again as the torment crested, black surging at the corners of my vision. . . .
The agony retreated, leaving me trembling, my stomach churning. I slumped in Alexei’s arms, struggling to maintain consciousness. I was dimly aware of a new pain in my arm, a burn with pricks of more intense sensation. Alexei removed his hand from my mouth. He winced, rubbing at the imprint of his fingers in my flesh. “Sorry,” he said.
His touch was surprisingly gentle for someone so big and powerful. I nodded and leaned against him, exhausted. A somewhat hysterical giggle bubbled up inside me. Just yesterday, I’d thought he was a monster. Now he was holding me, supporting me, and I had volunteered to have Cage cut me open. The difference a few hours—and a total upheaval of your world—could make.
I glanced over to find Cage snipping the string; he’d dropped a few stitches in my arm. “How come we didn’t get stitches?” Mia demanded from across the room.
Cage ignored her, wrapping a bandage around my shoulder.
“She’s right. You should all clean and rebandage your wounds,” I said, surprised at the shakiness of my voice. I glanced at Alexei over my shoulder. He still had his arms wrapped firmly around me. “You can let go now.”
He nodded. “In a minute.”
Cage finished with my arm. He removed his gloves, cleaned his hands, and pressed what looked like a small white bean into my palm. “There you go.”
“Thank you,” I said. I held it to the light. It was so innocuous looking. . . . I slipped it into my pocket and slid off the table. Cage caught and steadied me. “Thank you,” I repeated, this time to Alexei. He nodded, already on his way to Mia’s side.
I looked at Cage expectantly. “So . . . what do I do?”
He frowned. “I don’t really know. I mean, for most of us, the power just sort of . . . shows up.”
Tyler was slumped against the wall, hiding from the sight of blood—and maybe from my pain. I hadn’t considered whether his powers would make him suffer alongside me. Now he eased to his feet, carefully avoiding the gore-spattered medical tray. “For me, I started hearing everyone’s voices in my head all at once,” he said. “I was in the fourth grade. They thought I was having a nervous breakdown.” He laughed shakily. “So did I. It took me years to get it under control.”
“How did you?” I asked.
Tyler flashed me a guilty grin. “Mom was a cardsharp. She figured she could use my power, so we spent days, weeks, practicing. I learned that focusing on one person blocked all the background noise. From there it got easier. We went through every casino on Mars before I got caught.”
“You’re from the colonies?” I asked, surprised. There were almost three million people living on Mars and Jupiter’s moons, so I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked. I’d never met anyone actually born there before, though. Jupiter’s moons were mostly mines, but Mars was a little more advanced, and often even attracted tourists with its gambling, flashing lights, and relaxed laws. “Were you with Mars Mining?”
He smiled sadly. “Corporate citizens don’t usually wind up on Sanctuary, Kenzie. I’m from a mining family, but we were Mars citizens.”
I supposed he was right—corporations would provide better legal assistance to their citizens than any national or planetary government. Even Anya hadn’t been arrested until her family renounced their corporate citizenship.
Tyler’s story unnerved me. I didn’t relish the thought of a million minds crashing in on me all at once. “Something should be happening by now, right?”
Cage shrugged. “Not necessarily. We don’t know what your power is, or even that you have one. It might show up when we least expect it.”
I paced back and forth, nervous energy having driven me to movement. “Why would someone chip me if I didn’t have a power?”
“Kenzie, I don’t know. None of this makes any sense.”
I searched inside myself, looking for something that felt different but coming up blank. I couldn’t be an anomaly, could I? But if not, then why would I have a chip I didn’t know about? Did my parents know? They must. It would have come up on medical scans.
A cold hand closed around my chest, and I felt the physical weight of every eye on me. I forced myself to stop pacing, to lean against the wall and steady myself.
“We should get out of here,” interjected Matt nervously. “Get back to the prison. Rune can take a look at Kenzie’s file, and we can make an escape plan. Because the longer we stay . . .”
As if timed by some evil force of nature, an unholy scream split the room, sending all of us crashing to our knees.
EIGHTEEN
I CRINGED, HANDS PLASTERED OVER my ears. “Is that it?” Tyler cried. “Is that the monster?”
“Time to go,” said Cage as the shriek faded, leaving us with ringing ears and pounding hearts. “Matt?”
He shook his head, frantic. “I don’t know! I told you, I can’t sense it!” His face twisted in concentration. “I’m maybe getting something, but I can’t tell you where.”
“Not helping!”
Mia staggered over, Alexei behind her, his face twisted in a scowl. She pointed at him. “Stop trying to carry me! I’m fine. Listen, I’m pretty sure that thing is blind.”
I shook my head, struggling with the abrupt shift in topic. “What?”
“Obviously it didn’t see me before it attacked. I assume it heard me. But I got a pretty good look at it. Its eyes were milky white, like cataracts. It didn’t even turn my way before it lunged.”
Blind. “It’s possible,” I said.
“But let’s not bet our lives on it,” Cage replied sharply. “In fact, let’s try not to encounter it at all. Everyone stay here—I’m going to check the hall.”
“Alone?” I demanded.
“Let me,” said Mia at the same time.
Cage gaped at her. “You think you’re going to move quieter than me with that wound in your stomach? Faster than me?” He softened his voice. “Listen, I know waiting around drives you up the wall, and you’ve been my right hand since we started planning this disaster. But for now, I need you to stay put.”
Mia scowled but nodded, and now Matt spoke up. “She’s your right hand? And here I thought Alexei and I backed you up against every challenge.”
“We don’t have time for this right now!” Cage managed to nearly explode without raising his voice above a whisper. He brought himself under control with visible effort, squaring off against Matt. “I’m going. You’re staying. We can talk about it later.”
His face twisted in annoyance, Matt looked away. But when Cage made for the door, I followed. He spun on me, eyes flashing. “No.”
“I’m not your dog, and you can’t tell me what to do.” I glared at him. “Get moving.”
For a moment he looked like he might argue, but then he shook his head in disgust. We both drew stun guns, flicked the safeties off, and stepped into the hall.
Sanctuary’s empty corridors stretched in either direction. “Coast clear?” I whispered.
“Let’s check a little farther. Tyler’s slow at his be
st, and Mia’s going to have trouble running. I can’t carry them both.”
We crept onward. Sanctuary’s familiar corridors seemed ominous now, their bright, whitewashed sterility more like an oddly threatening hospital than the home I’d come to love.
We peered around the corner, and there it was.
It had its back to us, its legs bent like reverse knees, its body glistening in spite of Sanctuary’s dry air. Its skin—pale and fleshy, but mottled with black—clung across its body, so taut I made out each individual rib. The row of spikes along its backbone and its pronged toes gave it a reptilian appearance, but the way it stood made me think of something more human. It craned its neck, listening maybe, or . . . thinking.
The creature reared up, doing something with its three-pronged hand. I couldn’t see its face, but its broad back hunched in the hall, blocking our escape. No way to sneak past it, that much was clear.
Cage and I had frozen in horror. Now I gathered myself and caught his attention, beckoning him.
We withdrew around the corner just as the shriek sounded again—from somewhere behind us.
Oh my God. Another one.
An answering scream echoed nearby, sending me and Cage involuntarily to the ground, hands clamped over our ears. Seconds later, another creature tore through the hall, coming so close the wind of its passing ruffled my hair. It didn’t even seem to notice us, lending credence to Mia’s blindness theory. I had the briefest glimpse of its face—a narrow, skeletal visage with huge white eyes and a single curved fang.
Cage and I retreated without so much as a look to confirm our plans, hugging the walls. Around the corner, a series of hisses and growls chased us. Talking? Communicating? I didn’t want to find out.
We almost reached the med bay before Cage’s foot struck the wall. The soft reverberation echoed down the hall.
The hissing stopped.
Our eyes met, and Cage gestured frantically. I scrambled into the med bay, Cage on my heels. We slid the door shut behind us and I engaged the lock.
