by Debra Driza
They didn’t even uncuff us to take our fingerprints. A guard just came up behind us and ran our fingers over some handheld scanner.
Absently I pushed against the cold metal that caged my wrists, feeling the chain tauten between them.
Tensile strength: 495 lbs.
Instead of reassuring me, the information only intensified the uneasiness gnawing at my stomach. Any escape attempts would put Mom in danger. I couldn’t chance it.
One guard left, while two guards remained in the room, with four more outside. The longer we went unquestioned, the harder the pounding in my ears. Not even bothering to talk to us had to be a very, very bad sign.
With the two guards there, we risked only minimal, bland conversation over the next few hours. Waiting. And waiting. Finally the door opened. One look at the dark-suited man who cautiously rounded the corner, his gaze sweeping over our positions and the room methodically, told me we were in trouble. This guy acted like a professional, much more so than the airport security. But who was he?
Target: Located.
I clenched my hands behind my chair. Stop it. Stop, stop, stop.
Mom’s entire body stiffened as the man pulled a CIA badge out of his suit pocket. Then her head fell forward. I turned to comfort her at the same time as the man said, “Hello, Nicole. We’ve missed you.”
We’ve missed you.
My head jerked back to the man, while my balled hands started to tremble. Mom . . . Mom knew this man. Which could only mean one thing.
The government had found us.
The man’s brown eyes swept from Mom to me, and our already slim odds of escape shrank to almost nothing.
“Nicole Laurent, you are wanted on the grounds of espionage and theft of military property. You and the MILA are to board a plane back to U.S. soil, effective immediately.”
Mom slowly lifted her head. Her lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. She just stared straight ahead.
He smoothed his fingers down his navy tie. “Did you really think you’d get away with it? You’re a scientist, Nicole, not an agent. Too much lab time, I guess.” His gaze shifted back to me, and he shook his head. “If you were having difficulties with the project, you should have asked to be reassigned.”
Mom’s laugh rang hollow. “Right, Frank. Like General Holland would have allowed it. Besides, it wouldn’t have fixed anything. What we’re doing—what you’re doing—is wrong. Look at her. Look. Tell me what you see? A machine, or a scared teenage girl?”
The discomfort caused by Frank’s thorough inspection made me squirm. I wanted to cross my arms over my chest, but the handcuffs prevented me.
“It doesn’t matter what I see, you know that. It’s not my decision either way. Just like it’s not yours.”
“You realize how illegal this is, Frank? We’re not on U.S. soil,” Mom said.
He shook his head and retreated to the door. Just before he opened it, he turned back to Mom. “I’m sorry it had to go down this way, Nicole.”
When the door shut, the lock clicking behind it, Mom glanced at me. “Remember what I said,” she whispered. “When we get to the compound, no emotions.”
I looked away, at the plain white wall to my left. Otherwise, the tears welling in my eyes would have revealed the truth: we weren’t at the compound yet, and here I was. Already failing.
Twenty-One
The CIA agent had been gone for one hour. Mom had wanted to talk, but I shook my head, nodded at the camera. Even though, statistically speaking, our chances of escape continued to plummet with every minute ticking by, even a slim chance was worth keeping silent.
We’d had no bathroom breaks, no offers of food or water. Artificial thirst stirred in my throat. I was fine, but I calculated that Mom had to be uncomfortable by now. Undoubtedly intentional on the part of our captors.
My thoughts drifted to Hunter, and the excitement in his voice when we’d talked on the phone. He had felt the same as me, but ultimately it didn’t matter.
“Promise you’ll call when you get to wherever you’re going.”
My breath hitched. Call him . . . if only that were a possibility. Where we were going, I was pretty sure I’d need all the reminders of my human side that I could get.
An echo of footsteps drew my eyes to the door. The precision, the uniformity.
“They’re coming,” I said.
The footsteps pounded out an ever-closer rhythm. Five feet away. Then one.
The door burst open, followed by six swiftly moving men in military camo fatigues, their guns drawn.
Frank was absent. In his place was a tall, narrow-faced man with copious acne scars. His voice was deep and clipped. A voice accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. “Resistance will not be tolerated,” he said, drilling me with his unwavering gray stare. “Davis, Rogers!”
The commander nodded at the two impassive-looking young men up front. As a unit, they surged forward, one clasping my arm, the other Mom’s, their hands cold and dry. The leader jerked his head toward the door.
And despite how much the waiting had worn on me, despite how much I hated the tiny, empty room, suddenly I wanted to stay put. At least this room was a known entity. Whereas wherever they were leading us . . . the compound . . . based on Mom’s aversion, I could only imagine the worst. A place where terrible things happened.
A place where they tortured “girls” like me.
I shuddered just as the soldiers jerked us roughly to a stand. And then we were moving.
The cuffs, the men with guns, the narrow hallway—it all combined to crush me with that trapped feeling from Clearwater High, except one hundred times worse. Only Mom’s presence kept my feet moving. As long as we were together, I could handle this. As long as they didn’t take her away. Over and over again, I craned my head just to double check that she was still back there.
Moving swiftly, we headed the opposite way down the hall than we had come, through a labyrinth of uninhabited, narrow corridors, our footsteps echoing around us.
GPS.
The green map in my head pointed out which direction we switched to every time—east, south, east, north—but that was relatively useless information in the scheme of things.
We arrived at a heavy, white metal door and burst into the brisk outside air, the roar of an airplane in early takeoff vibrating just ahead. The thick odor of burned gas drifted our way.
Four more soldiers stood at attention, forming two lines of two on either side of the door. Just beyond them three plain white vans awaited, engines whirring as they idled.
I wondered briefly what lies the military had concocted to explain us and their presence. I’d probably never know.
With a roar of its powerful V-8, our van took off the second we were shoved inside, and it headed onto a narrow, empty strip of a road that led away from the main terminal. Five minutes later, we’d reached a guarded gate, which opened and admitted us to a separate runway, where a few long, squat buildings sprawled on the left side. A private terminal, surrounded by open stretches of asphalt and grass.
Nowhere to run, even if I could possibly escape without endangering Mom. I stared out the window, took one last long look at Canada. My halfhearted wish from the border crossing came back to haunt me, and even though I knew it was illogical, I couldn’t quell the feeling that I’d brought this upon us.
That somehow my qualms about leaving the United States and Hunter had backfired and landed us in this horrible mess.
Twenty-Two
Less than three hours later, Mom and I sat next to each other on a plane after all. But not one bound for Germany. The soldiers wouldn’t release a single detail, but I was relatively certain that Mom, who placed one shaking palm on the window and stared into the clouds, had a good inkling as to our ultimate destination.
Mom shifted away from the window to lean close to my ear. “Mila, don’t give up,” she whispered. “I’ll figure something—”
The guards behind us kicked our
seats forward. “No talking!”
I focused on the cockpit. I couldn’t look at her. Not right now. Not with guilt twisting me into a knot. Because not even the terror of the girl and the drill could suppress the traitorous curiosity that snaked through me. Somewhere, beyond the blue sky and patches of white, was the place I’d been created. A place that would still exist in my memory if Mom hadn’t wiped that portion clean.
Right or wrong, a part of me desperately wanted to recover that lost information about my past. Real information, not implanted lies.
Maybe once there, I could find something that would help mesh the two parts of me into a whole—a challenge. I was constantly failing that challenge on my own.
The plane angled down for its descent. The soldier across from us sat up straighter, gripping his hands tightly in his lap, while the others shifted in their seats.
I sat up straighter, too. Where were we?
GPS.
This time, when the green map materialized before me, I almost welcomed it. A replica of the U.S. unfolded, with our plane as the tiny, blinking dot somewhere in the east.
The barest hint of a desire to get a closeup crossed my mind, and instantly the map stretched out in front of my eyes. States elongated as I zoomed in on our exact location. West Virginia. We were flying over Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Our dot was headed right for D.C.
I gaped, saw the soldier across the way nudging his partner and pointing at me, and snapped my mouth shut. Were we landing at Dulles?
The D.C. area enlarged, showing me a private CIA airport in Langley and another called Davison Army Airfield.
Current trajectory: Manassas. Whitman Strip.
A tiny private airport.
The logic behind the choice hit me immediately.
Private.
Of course it was. This was a secret group, after all. A private airstrip assisted with deniability if something major went wrong.
That thought sucked away all my curiosity in an instant and sent an uncontrollable chill through me. Mom pressed her shoulder up against mine to reassure me. “It’s okay,” she mouthed.
I really, really wanted to believe her.
Around us, the soldiers buckled into their seats, finally settling in for the landing.
The plane bumped down onto the narrow landing strip, smacking the ground three times before rolling. Around us, nothing but grass and a cluster of trees. I saw streets off in the distance, what looked like open space, and beyond that, buildings.
The airport itself appeared deserted.
While we were still rolling, the soldiers across from us jumped out of their seats. They formed a line in the walkway toward the cockpit. The solider who’d shushed us from behind—a short, stocky brute of a guy—and Davis from the detainment room stopped right in front of our seat, blocking us in with thick, khaki-clad thighs. After the flight with so many men, the airplane had started to smell, a really unfortunate blend of sweat, dirty socks, and spicy deodorant. Lungs or not, I was more than ready to get some fresh air.
The leader, the narrow-faced man who’d spoken to us back in Toronto, stood at the front. He turned to watch us just as the plane shuddered to a stop, legs shoulder-width apart, body tense. Definitely not at ease. “We’re opening the door. Follow directions, and we’ll get along just fine.”
Two men grabbed my forearms and guided me down the steps while three more soldiers fell in several yards behind us.
We were ushered at a brisk pace down the runway, toward stretches of grass and a tiny parking lot. The air was heavy with unseasonal humidity, bringing a sheen of sweat to the leader’s neck, a dampness to my captors’ hands that made me feel slimy and in desperate need of a shower. Plenty of lush green trees, but not an outsider in sight—just three dark Suburbans.
The leader stopped ten feet away from the middle Suburban, and we jerked to a halt behind him. He executed a neat about-face, pulling his hands apart and pointing at the first and last Suburban. “Load the SUVs.”
Tension gathered in my limbs. Surely they didn’t mean to—
Behind me, I heard Mom being dragged in one direction, while my captors tugged me the opposite way. No. No, no, no. They couldn’t separate us.
While my escorts pulled, I craned my head over my shoulder, frantically seeking out Mom’s tall, sleek figure. What I saw made my entire body go rigid. Two guards were already ushering her toward the first Suburban.
“Mom!” If they separated us now, would I ever see her again? What if they took her to an entirely different location?
What if they killed her?
Human threat detected. Engage?
Yes.
A quick jerk up and back released my arms. My left elbow whipped behind me, delivering a brutal jab to that soldier’s throat. I let momentum spin me around, and when the other soldier lunged, my left foot rammed him hard in the gut.
Before he even hit the pavement, I was up and running. Preparing to take on the next closest soldier. And the next. And the next.
“Mila, stop! You’re only making it worse!”
I didn’t even hesitate at Mom’s frantic words, not with this power surging through every limb, every cell. I didn’t care how many men I had to fight. I’d litter this entire parking lot with bodies if I had to—whatever it took to reach her.
“Fall back with Laurent! Fall back!” The leader screamed commands from somewhere behind me. Right as my fist lashed out and caught the closest soldier in the nose with a crunch of buckling cartilage.
Blood spurted as he flew backward, while two more rushed me from both sides. I sent them both crashing to the ground with minimal effort. My gaze swept past the remaining men and locked onto Mom, whose newly dark hair whipped side to side. “Mila, no!”
I hesitated. Then I advanced another step.
“Don’t even think about it,” the soldier holding Mom warned, but his voice wavered as he took in his fallen partners. Camo-decked bodies sprawled out around me, some groaning, some out cold. It looked like a bomb had gone off. And now only one man was keeping me from Mom. Once I took him down, I’d grab her. We’d steal one of the Suburbans and—
Just as I went to swoop in and grab him, I heard a click of metal that made my phantom heart stop cold.
The leader stood behind me. And his gun was pointed at Mom’s head. “You move again, she’s dead.”
His steely voice, his steady stance. I didn’t doubt him for a second.
I didn’t resist after that. Not when Mom craned her neck over her shoulder and yelled, “Don’t trust anyone,” or when they loaded her into the first Suburban, even though it felt my entire life ended on the spot when she left without me. Not when they put a bag over my head, blinding me.
Not even when they shoved me into the last Suburban and the pock-faced man laughed and said, “Forget about your GPS—it won’t work in here.”
No, the realization that my impulsive attack could have cost Mom her life drained every last bit of resistance out of me.
Not to mention the second realization that was shredding my phantom heart with iron claws—I’d never told Mom I’d forgiven her.
I knew from their occasional throat clearing, fidgeting, and coughing that three soldiers accompanied me in the SUV—two up front, one in the third seat behind me. They remained silent. No music, no talking. Nothing except the drone of the wheels against the road. Their silence felt more ominous to me than anything.
Where were they taking me? And was Mom going there too?
After traveling on highways and then in stop-and-go traffic, we made a turn and went over a bump before heading down. Our wheels echoed now, making me think we’d entered an enclosed building of some kind.
“You can pull her cover off now. She’ll be clueless anyway.”
Behind me, a rough hand yanked the cover off my head. Just in time for me to see a sign that said NO ENTRY: CONSTRUCTION WORKERS FOR MALLORCA UNDERGROUND MALL COMPLEX ONLY.
The driver rolled down
his window and stuck out a badge. The security guard scanned it, then waved him through, the outline of a gun showing under his untucked shirt. Overhead, two video cameras recorded everything.
As we passed through, the soldier in the passenger seat said, “Why do you keep calling it a her? You know that’s not a real girl, right, Jennings? I know you’ve been hurting for dates lately, but this one’s strictly prohibited.”
The guy behind me guffawed, then leaned forward, so close I felt his breath on my ear. It smelled like the bottom of the coffeepot after Mom left it out overnight.
“She looks pretty girl-like to me,” he said before reaching over the seat to trail his fingers down my cheek. “Damn, she feels girl-like, too. All soft and stuff.”
His thick fingers squeezed my skin. I went very, very still, keeping focused on the tan headrest in front of me to fight off the revulsion. Everything unmoving except my own fingers, which curled together in my lap. Where they were safe from temptation.
I couldn’t give them any excuse to say I’d caused a problem, not when they had Mom.
If it weren’t for that, I’d turn around and see how much he liked being touched without permission.
“Jennings! Sit back and keep your hands to yourself. That machine’s worth way more than your entire life’s salary.”
I never thought I’d be so happy to hear the leader’s curt voice. Or to be referred to as a machine.
Down we went, making a left and then following dim lights into a cavern of concrete. Another left led us behind a wall, to a parking bay with six other cars. The driver turned off the gas, jumped out the door, and immediately yanked mine open. I hopped out, searching behind me for even a hint of the other SUV that carried Mom. No sign of it anywhere.
My escort grabbed me with a viselike grip, leading me away to a plain metal door. When we reached it, I shot one last look into the garage, even though I knew what I’d find. Empty. She still wasn’t there.
The soldier entered a pass code, and a moment later the door slid open—revealing yet another pass-code-protected door. Someone was obviously serious about security.
