by Lee French
Scowling, Bobby could easily imagine what kinds of things Privek showed them and told them. “Lemme guess. I’m dangerous and gotta be contained or whatever until I can be talked into sense or something? Privek show you stuff from Hill?” Redhead nodded. Brown Hair watched him, his expression slowly changing from skeptical to thoughtful. “He bother telling you why all that happened?”
Redhead jumped in to explain with all the eagerness of a brown-nosing pupil. “You killed people, they managed to detain you, and you broke out.”
Bobby laughed. He couldn’t help it. As much as he expected it, the answer still surprised him. They both watched him, Redhead with some alarm, and Brown Hair getting more calculating. “I kinda figured he’d leave out details and all. That’s the only way to explain you lot working for him. Them two men I done killed, they were trying to abduct Lily and her boy. I didn’t even mean to kill ‘em, that were an accident. One of ‘em tased me afore I did anything to them, and the dragons got mighty angry about that.
“They managed to get the drop on me, sure, and two girls, too. Took us all to some house, pumped me full up of these drugs. When I woke up, they wanted me to talk, so they started—” Just thinking about that made him angry, really angry. “Let’s just say it was all guys in them suits and they were using a female prisoner against me and leave it at that.” Honestly, he didn’t know if they would’ve actually raped Ai without Anita intervening, but he was mightily glad he didn’t have to find out.
“The other girl managed to get free and them two escaped, but I didn’t. I got shot, they took me to Hill for medical attention. All that mayhem there was the rest of us doing what best they could trying to rescue me from their custody. Killed a guy there, yeah, but only because he was trying to kill me first.”
Redhead blinked and looked up at Brown Hair. “I could actually tell he was being honest with all of that. It’s hard to explain, but he’s not lying.”
Brown Hair nodded to show he understood. “What about Afghanistan? I saw pictures. They were a lot more…disturbing.”
It would be nice if he could turn away and look at something else. Bobby settled for shutting his eyes. The girl from his dream stared back at him. “I…ain’t rightly proud of what all I done there. Some of it weren’t a’purpose or even needful. All I got to say in defense is it were mostly what Privek told me to. Stephen and I was trying to get him to trust us so we could find Jasmine and the rest of you to break you outta wherever he had you stashed. Weren’t no reason to think he weren’t doing to you what he done to me, Jayce, Alice, and Ai. I got stains on me, sure as heckbiscuits, but it ain’t on account I’m just a rabid dog or nothing.”
“What’s a ‘heckbiscuit’?” Redhead squinted at him.
Bobby shrugged and looked up at Redhead again. He tried to, anyway. “Something Momma says. Ain’t polite to use stronger language ‘round folks you don’t know.”
“What will you do if we let you go?” Brown Hair seemed to be taking all of this at face value, which was good, because he would obviously be the one who to the decision.
He didn’t even have to think about it to answer that question. Bobby locked his gaze on Brown Hair, who didn’t flinch away from the intensity. “Bust as many out of here as wants to come, go back to the farmhouse, and get as many as I can to go public so they can’t do this crap to us again.”
Brown Hair grimaced in distaste. “I don’t want to be public. With what I can do, I don’t ever want people to know about it without my telling them on purpose.”
“I can respect that, but it ain’t gonna work for us all to keep quiet.” Bobby heaved a sigh. “I don’t especially want to be DragonBoy or whatever, but if that’s what I gotta do to keep anyone from being able to use Sebastian for a test subject, then I’ll be the first one in line, I’ll answer every stupid question I gotta, I’ll go on TV and make a damned fool outta myself. Ain’t right what I saw, taking a boy from his momma like that. Didn’t you hear him screaming? ‘Cause I sure did.”
Redhead’s eyes went wide. Brown Hair took a step back, looking like he wanted to think. “How did you hear that?” Redhead asked. “You were the first one down.”
“I got one dragon off and tried to warn Stephen, but it didn’t work. Something smashed it when they shot him.”
Redhead looked up at Brown Hair, who Bobby couldn’t see anymore. “I think—” He cut himself off, probably in response to a gesture by Brown Hair, and looked chastised. They stood in silence for maybe half a minute.
Brown Hair came back into view, moving so he could look Bobby in the eyes, face to face. “We’re going to let you out, and we’ll even help you free everyone else, but,” he raised a finger in warning, “you have to prove it first. Privek has been nothing but professional with me and has repeatedly asserted you’re a dangerous maniac. Paul has never sensed any duplicity from him. Your assertions are believable, but you need to prove them.”
Man, this guy used a lot of big words. Bobby had to actually think to understand what the guy said. “What’s ‘duplicity’ mean?”
Redhead got an amused half grin. “I’ve spoken with him several times, and I’ve never sensed him lying to me. If what you’re saying is true, I should have picked up something, something to tip me off he was omitting details or plain lying. But I never have. How someone might do that, I have no idea.”
“But, in spite of that,” Brown Hair smirked, “you seem more reasonable than he gave you credit for, and I know you rescued several soldiers in Afghanistan when you didn’t need to. So, we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Just you, though. Everyone else stays here until we’re sure. Just in case you’re thinking about killing us to eliminate us as an obstacle, I have some more of the drug that makes you unable to use your powers.”
Bobby narrowed his eyes at Brown Hair, mildly annoyed by the threat and the implication. “How d’you know about them soldiers?” It seemed like something Privek would want kept as quiet as possible.
“I healed them.” Brown Hair bent to the task of undoing the straps.
“Huh.” The guy could heal, that was pretty handy. Well, not for him, he didn’t need that, but not many of them could heal themselves. “Are you sure it ain’t okay to grab one other person?” He turned his head, and that felt like Heaven.
“I think it’s in our best interest to only have one of you to keep track of. Besides, it’s going to be hard enough to get you out quietly.”
Oh, his arms, yes, and his chest. Finally, he could sit up. His head still felt a little woozy, probably from the drugs, but freedom was heavenly. “How long I been trussed up?”
“A couple of days.” Brown Hair stood back and let Bobby finish undoing the restraints himself.
Clumsy hands fumbled over the straps, bringing back the memory of Anita leaving him behind, but this wasn’t that, and these guys weren’t her. When it became clear he needed help with the releases, Redhead stepped up and clicked them open for him. “Where are we? Like, what state, I mean.”
“We’re in Washington, DC.”
“You guys got names? Everyone calls me Bobby.” He needed help to get down to the floor, too, and his legs were unsteady. Redhead yanked a tube out of his arm.
“Liam,” Brown Hair said, then he pointed at Redhead. “Paul. We’ll see if it’s actually nice to meet you or not.”
Bobby snorted. “Your girl was in Virginia last I knew. Was paying attention when we got close, figured we’d want to go back there again.” He gave a shot at popping off a dragon. It didn’t work. “I guess we’ll need a car or something. How we getting outta here?”
This room reminded him of a TV show morgue. It had a bank of drawers the right size, and looked sterile and easy to clean. The bed he just got up from was a sliding cot. Paul shoved it back into the drawer it belonged to. This bank of drawers had nine of them, which wasn’t nearly enough to house everyone. Maybe only the ones they were really scared of wound up in here. He’d give a lot to be able to check who was in
them, but didn’t think Paul and Liam would just stand by and let him do it.
“Leave it to me,” Paul said with steely determination. He went for the door.
Behind his back, Liam grinned like Paul was possibly the most amusing thing he’d ever seen. “Lean on me, I’ll help you out.” The guy stood at least four or five inches taller than Bobby, definitely over six feet. Paul was about his own height, five foot nine. All three of them had a similar compact build, not broad shouldered or hulking. Of the three, Bobby had the most muscle, but Liam was no slouch. Paul probably never did any kind of hard work in his life with anything but his brain. “We’ll have to take your car,” he added to Paul. “Mine doesn’t have a backseat.”
One arm over Liam’s shoulders, he looked around, taking in details. They left the small room. The place felt very institutional with cement walls painted white and some kind of stone flooring in red flecked gray, fluorescent panel lighting overhead. A guard sat at a desk just outside the room, but the man ignored the trio completely for some reason, his eyes glued firmly to some papers in front of him.
Much to his surprise, they took the elevator at the end of the hall. An escape seemed to Bobby to be a window or stairwell thing. According to the row of buttons, they were in the second and lowest basement of a building with seven floors above ground. Paul actually looked nervous and stressed now—his eyes darted around as if he could see through the ceiling, and this did nothing to inspire confidence.
“You guys sure about this exit plan?”
Liam coughed lightly. “Let’s not distract the telepath while he uses his mind to clear a path for us.”
“Ain’t that creepy as heckbiscuits.”
“A little, yes.”
“Can I ask you, how’d those guys turn out after you healed ‘em? The ones that were really messed up.”
Liam frowned and looked down. “There’s only so much I can do.”
“Meaning what?” Bobby wasn’t harsh with the statement, he just wanted to know. “Look, I done seen ‘em beforehand. One of ‘em didn’t want to live, another one died on the way to you, I’m just wondering how the ones what survived are doing. I mean, you said you saw pictures of what happened out there. It’s on account of what got done to them more’n anything else.”
Huffing out another breath that spoke of discomfort with the subject, Liam nodded. “I can’t replace lost parts. As for the rest,” he cringed, “we had to cause some damage to heal what was wrong. Each of them had something that healed up horribly in the time they were there. None of them walked away whole again, but they’re all in much better shape than modern medicine could have done. ”
That was both a terrible thing to know and a great relief. “I’m glad to hear that. None of those guys deserved to live crippled up like they been made. Heckbiscuits, nobody does.”
Liam glanced at him, measuring and weighing. “You’re a dangerous man, Bobby.” The elevator doors opened on the ground floor and they walked out into a nearly empty lobby. He didn’t give Bobby a chance to ask what he meant by that. “Keep quiet until we get to the car.”
It made no sense to Bobby at all, given he only wore his pajama pants and still needed the help Liam provided, but no one even gave them a second glance. The guards here—actual uniformed police officers of some variety—looked, then their eyes slid right over the trio and ignored them. They walked boldly out the front door and into sunlight too bright for Bobby’s mood. He didn’t like leaving all the others behind. How he would explain that he did it without everyone assuming he’d gotten back up on the Head Cowboy horse?
They reached the car, a little four-door piece of crap. At a guess, it probably had more years on it than any of them. As soon as Paul shifted his attention away from the building to the car, he froze in the act of pulling out his keys. “Guys, there’s…some…thing in the car already.”
Bobby looked up and saw a person sitting in the back seat. Liam must have been mostly watching the ground as they went too, because he stopped, just as surprised. She turned her head right then, and Bobby recognized her. “Oh, It’s Kaitlin. No worries, then. She’s one of us.”
“Kaitlin? Kaitlin Tremont? What’s she doing in my car?”
“Obviously,” Liam muttered so Paul wouldn’t hear, “it’s because she has no taste.”
Bobby snorted and moved to get Liam to go again. “She sees the future and stuff. Creepy, a little cranky, but harmless.” Before he could reach the car and knock on the window, she saw him and waved with a mildly amused smile. Of course, the doors weren’t locked. Paul probably forgot to do it, since she didn’t have any special car boosting skills he knew of. Then again, he didn’t really know Kaitlin all that well. Maybe she could break into one with her eyes closed. Didn’t seem likely, but it was possible. He reached out and opened the back door while Paul fumbled with his keys.
“Don’t panic,” Kaitlin said with a grin. She wore red, black, and gray in the form of a hoodie, miniskirt, leggings, and chucks, and sat there calmly with an orange and pink striped backpack on her lap, like this wasn’t a clever, daring escape from that giant, unmarked institutional building.
Bobby smirked and tipped an imaginary hat to her as he bent to get into the back seat with her. She scooted over so he could. “Kaitlin, what’re you—” Stupid question. “Never mind. I’m real glad to see you got outta the farm alright. This here’s Liam.” He jabbed a thumb at his rescuer.
“There’s something in the car,” Paul announced again, this time with an edge of panic to his voice.
“That’s Paul.” Bobby leaned back out and glared at the other guy. “She ain’t a ‘something’, she’s a ‘someone’.” He wasn’t inclined to explain anything else right now and just wanted to get out of here.
“Where are we going?” She watched Paul and Liam stand there beside the car and have a whispered conversation.
“If’n I can get Liam his girl back from wherever Privek’s got her stashed, them two’re gonna help get to the bottom of all this and get us all free.”
“Ah.” Leaning forward over Bobby’s lap, she stuck her head out through the door. “Gentlemen, Agent Privek is coming back from lunch in about five minutes. If you want to conveniently miss him, we should get going.”
This pronouncement made both men stare at her. Bobby sat back with a bemused smirk and watched them take a few seconds to come to some kind of realization, then hurry to get into the car. Both kept glancing back at her without saying anything.
Paul navigated them away from the building, waiting until traffic forced them to sit at a light to turn around and look her over with narrowed eyes.“Your mind is weird.”
She shrugged. “So is your nose, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Because it would be rude.”
Paul’s mouth opened and shut twice, then he faced forward, staring out the front windshield. “I meant it isn’t like a normal person’s mind,” he said with a kind of sulk to it.
“Same goes for your nose,” Kaitlin retorted.
“You know, they’re actually helping. You ain’t gotta be difficult.”
Liam, who ignored the exchange up to then, turned around and said pleasantly, “What does that mean, you can see the future?”
“Precognition, the real deal.” Kaitlin shrugged again. “I make a killing on the stock market. I also wind up in the strangest places, sent there by stuff I see. It’s a double-edged sort of thing. I knew you were going to haul Bobby out and take this car, and that it would be unlocked already. So, here I am.”
Liam nodded, his mouth drawing down into that same thoughtful, calculating quirk as before. It struck Bobby as funny how this wasn’t the first time he sat in a car with three others of his kind, escaping Privek and his Suits, off to do whatever it took to get the others to safety. He’d give a lot to have Jayce, Alice, and Ai—or Stephen and Matthew—here with him instead. He knew them and trusted them. These three would have to do.
“Which part of Virginia?” Paul pointed at a sign wi
th too many numbers and unfamiliar names for Bobby to know how to direct him.
“Southeast of Culpeper on Route 3.” Bobby watched Liam pull out his phone and tap on it to get a map. It looked like a fancy one, with all the bells and whistles. His clothes were nice, too, though Bobby wasn’t much of a judge of that kind of thing: slacks and a crisp shirt, a slick watch, nice shoes. Paul, on the other hand, wore jeans and some band’s t-shirt with a soft plaid button down shirt hanging open over it. They got to keep all their own stuff. Must be nice.
“I don’t want to be a pain, but is there any way I could get some clothes?”
Kaitlin shoved her backpack at him. “I brought some of your stuff from the farmhouse.”
“Oh, thanks.” Bobby opened up the pack and fished around in it.
“You were at the farmhouse?” Paul frowned and glanced back. “How come we didn’t catch you? Wait, how come I didn’t notice your mind there?”
Exaggerating her enunciation and drawing it out like she was saying it for a stupid person, Kaitlin said, “Pre-cog-ni-tion.”
“Why is the car making that noise?” Liam looked over at Paul, probably referring to how the engine knocked. It might have been a question only asked to distract him from that discussion.
Paul blushed. “It’s an old car. It does that sometimes.”
“What d’you drive, Liam?” Bless Kaitlin, she brought him jeans and a t-shirt.
“Something newer than this,” he answered smoothly.
Kaitlin rolled her eyes. “Instead of talking about cars, why don’t you all just pull down your pants and compare already?”
Cracking into a broad grin, Bobby chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. We’re all on the same team here, ain’t no reason to get touchy about nothing. Any chance that noise is any different than it ought to be, Paul? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure one of you eleven folks climbed into the car while we was at White Sands, and that’s how you found the farmhouse.”
Paul gulping audibly and Liam shifting in his seat confirmed that theory. “Maybe we should stop to check. It might be bugged.”
