Seer
Page 28
“To the vault off your father’s office,” Pam replies. “But maybe you should stay here and help Kieran guard the doorways. You’re in no condition to climb flights of stairs.”
“Are you sure? Dad told me to go with her.”
“Your father will understand. If you take the main door, you’ll still be keeping her safe. I can take it from here.”
“Yeah, okay.” Laila nods and slows to a limping walk. “I’ll watch the front and make sure nobody comes in.”
“Of course you will.” Pam stops long enough to place a hand on Laila’s cheek. “Stay out of the line of fire, dear, and everything will turn out fine. This will all be over soon.”
Laila smiles, but it looks more like a grimace. Then she’s disappearing down the hallway, leaving me alone with Pam.
I follow her down the various hallways, hardly processing what’s going on. All I can think about is what’s happening outside the building. My stomach knots with worry for Kade, Laila, Tarry. And Piper. What if those men really did take her? I don’t even want to think about what that could mean.
I nearly yelp when Pam tugs hard on my arm, dragging me forward at a faster pace. My shoes squeak lightly on the hardwood floor. That’s when I realize what hallway we’re in, and where it leads. I glance at the wallpapered walls and the row of doors on each side, but like last time I was in this hallway, I can’t get a good look at them.
“Um…Mrs. Blaydell?” I pull back, trying to wriggle from her ever-tightening grasp. “Aren’t we supposed to go upstairs to the office?”
“Change of plans.”
“But I thought—”
Her voice hardens, “It really doesn’t matter what you thought. This is what’s best for everyone.”
We reach the door at the end of the hallway. I know what’s beyond that—a small staircase and the observation rooms, one of which I remember all too well. “But why are you bringing me here?”
Not letting go of my arm, she fishes in her pocket and withdraws a small keyring. “There are manual locks on these doors. I can lock you in, and no one will be able to get to you without the key.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle. My heart beats faster. There’s absolutely no way I’m going to let her lock me in one of those cells. “And you just happen to carry that around with you all the time?”
Pam smiles, and I don’t miss the hard glint in her eyes. “I find it’s always good to be prepared. Situations like this can be so unpredictable.”
My stomach ties in knots. How many situations like this could she have possibly come across where she wants to lock a teenage girl in a cell-like room? Something isn't right about this. Something...
“No. I don't want to go in there."
"Look" —her grip tightens, nails digging in— “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. That's the only choice I'm giving you, so I suggest you choose wisely.”
The words, the situation, the cells…it all rings in my head like bad déjà vu from the SUV and the trip to Evergreen. She even sounds like Mathias, all mysterious and foreboding. Warning bells couldn’t blare louder if I had a speaker right next to my eardrum.
Pam focuses on the keyring, shifting closer to the door to insert one of them into the lock, and I jolt backward a step, pulling against her grip.
“I see you like to do things the hard way,” Pam says through gritted teeth, and before I know what’s happening, her fist strikes out.
I jerk away a millisecond too late. Pain explodes through my jaw.
I whimper, and the night phase flickers like a light burning out, but I can’t let the light disappear. The shock of the change will leave me completely defenseless. Whatever happens, I can’t let go my phase. I focus on trying to bring the light back into full brightness, but it’s like running through quicksand. The harder I try, the more I feel it dimming.
“Why are you doing this?” I gasp.
She shoves me against the wall, so hard my cheek bounces off the textured wallpaper, and pins me there with both hands behind my back. "Someone in the Alliance has to. If your mother had been stronger, maybe the job wouldn’t have fallen in my hands."
"My mom? What does she have to do with this?"
“Oh, please,” Pam scoffs. “You don’t really think she was able to pull off what she did by herself, do you? That takes friends in high places, and your mother was very connected.”
Something fiery latches onto my veins at her implications. “She would never be involved in something like this. How dare you even—”
The side of my head smashes into the wall again with a crack.
“Trust me when I say I know Sarah far better than you, but you're right. She always did get hung up on morals. Such a waste of talent.” Her words swirl and pulse like the pounding in my head, moving too chaotically to make sense. “You can thank your mother for where you're going. She should have protected her family. No matter the cost.”
The phase dims further until the room is a murky haze. “You don’t have to do this. Maybe…maybe I can help you.”
“Oh, you will. I’m afraid it has to be you this time. There’s no getting out of it.”
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head but can’t clear it. “Why does it have to be me?”
Pam laughs humorlessly. “You’re one of two, dear, and I don’t have clearance in Fairview. Besides, you were dropped right into my lap. He will likely graduate before an Alliance member has a chance to get him. So no worries about you helping me. Your very existence took care of the problem we’ve had.”
Has she been planning against me the entire time I’ve been at Evergreen? She’s Tarry and Laila’s mom. She’s supposed to be safe. I’m supposed to be able to trust her.
Laila. Family. I’m grasping at straws, but…
“Laila will know! You told her you were taking me to the vault. She'll know you went somewhere else.”
“Yes, she’s very bright. But far too trusting. She’ll believe me when I say I couldn’t get into the vault and had to take you elsewhere.” Pam pushes me more securely against the wall, but her grip loosens marginally.
My face hurts so badly, but I need to keep her talking. There must be something that will change her mind, that will make her see she can’t do this.
“She’ll still expect you to protect me,” I say, hating how desperate my voice sounds. “Laila will see through your lies eventually; I know she will. You will lose her over this. Is that what you want?”
Pam scoffs, “Not even she would think me capable of fending off a group of agents singlehanded. You being taken during the scuffle is only to be expected. Nobody will blame me, especially not my daughter. I'm done defending myself to you. You'll find out soon enough what our world is really like, and then you'll understand. If you're smart and survive the experiments, we may even end up fighting for the same side.”
Oh no, oh no, no, no. I need to stop thinking and act—now, while I still have the chance. But it’s like I’m frozen. My heartbeat is thrashing so violently it hurts, and I'm not sure I remember how to breathe, much less fight.
Pam yanks me off the wall and shoves me toward the door to the staircase. The keyring she’s holding scrapes my wrists.
No one is here to save me this time. Not Kade. Or Laila, or Tarry, or even Mathias.
Only me.
Pam is fully trained, and I'm not. She has a gun, and I don’t. She even has the upper hand, while I've never felt more powerless or alone.
There's only one thing I have that she doesn’t.
The night vision phase is dim and hazy and flickering, but it's there. I haven't lost control of my sight completely. I can still see.
We're steps away from the door. Stumbling on purpose, I whimper and limp like I sprained my ankle.
Pam tightens her grip but doesn't bounce my face off the door like I expected. “Don't move,” she growls, pinning me against the cool metal surface.
Not saying a word or moving a muscle, I wait while she fu
mbles with the keys, never releasing her hold on me. Our uneven breathing sounds harsh in the silence. Still, I wait, a bead of sweat rolling down my throbbing cheek.
Then it happens—one of her hands lifts from my wrists to put the key in the lock.
I burst into movement, striking upward and out, breaking away and knocking her hand from the lock. The keys hit the wood floor with a dull clink. With a savage snarl, Pam throws herself toward me, and I duck, swiping at the keys with one hand. They scrape and slide along the floor before clanking to a stop against the wall a good ten feet away.
I yelp when a boot clips my chin and my teeth clack together. Sharp nails claw my forehead and scalp, grasping for my hair. On instinct I kick out, catching Pam in the shin with enough force to knock the leg out from under her.
She staggers, and I kick the other shin, too. As hard as I can.
Grunting harshly, she collapses against the door, both hands reaching for my shirt in an effort to catch herself, but I hurl myself away from her with all my strength, scrambling to get up, barely avoiding her outstretched hand.
I stagger and slip and force myself forward. Down the hall. Away from Pam.
She curses. There's fumbling and the stomp of boots hitting the wood floor behind me.
I run.
Zig zag and straight and turning corners as fast as I can, trying to retrace my steps.
I run even when I can no longer breathe and my chest feels so tight I might explode.
And then I run faster, pushing myself like I never have before, until I turn the last corner and the exit is in front of me, and in front of that is Kade, turning to stare at me in wild bewilderment. My heels burn as I press down on them, but I still slam hard against his chest.
His arms immediately come up to catch me, wrapping tight, but I thrash to get free.
“Behind me! She's behind me,” I wheeze, my voice nearly inaudible.
“Clare—”
“Lock me up...agents...her all along.” I gulp for air, pushing at the gun in his hand until it's raised and aimed down the hall. “Shoot. Her.”
Kade tenses, but yields to my trembling hands, not lowering the gun. A second later, Pam rounds the corner, a look of pure fury burning in her eyes.
She lifts the gun in her hand, pointing it directly at Kade.
“Now!” I scream.
It happens all at once. The deafening crack of gunfire. Kade's shoulder recoiling, rocking us slightly. The sharp combination of gunpowder and smoke. A guttural, blood-curdling scream of pain, followed by Pam’s body hitting the floor.
40
I stare in horror at a motionless Pam, unable to look away or tell if she’s still alive. With every breath, I can smell her blood—distinct, mixed with gun smoke, strong enough to twist my stomach.
Is she dead?
Do I want her to be dead?
Kade starts to edge away, his gun aimed down the hall at Pam’s fallen form, and I reach out almost frantically, grasping for any part of him I can reach. My hands shake as I cling to his arm. I don’t want him anywhere near her. She could be pretending, waiting to ambush us the second we get close.
“What is it?” He stops walking, muscles tense under the harshness of my grip. “Who’s down there?”
I mumble something back, unintelligible even to myself, but the twisting in my stomach turns into a heavy, guilt-sized boulder. It’s my fault her body is on the ground, but she was trying to hurt me. No, she did hurt me, she—
“Clare? Clare, answer me. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I say at Kade’s insistence, but I’m honestly not sure. Quickly, methodically, I catalog the pinpricks and aching pain. My face hurts, a sharp ache attacking spots along the side of my head and jaw. Both wrists throb, and it’s hard to breathe, but whether from panic or running, I can’t tell.
“Good.” Relief seeps through his voice before it hardens again. “I need to go check it out. Make sure there’s no threat.”
I squeeze his arm to stop him, but he’s already pulling away, leaving me alone and exposed. Unease pulses through every cell in my body as I watch him stalk down the hall. The closer he gets, the more I want to find someplace to hide.
Upon reaching her, Kade pauses long enough to sweep the handgun away from Pam’s outstretched hand before crouching down and rolling her onto her back. Almost immediately, he lets out a low curse.
Now he knows who’s on the ground. Even though I need to know what happened to Pam, I desperately wish I didn’t have to find out. The unease triples, and I wrap both arms around myself. “Is she…dead?”
“No, but there’s a lot of blood.” His voice is so strained I can’t tell if he’s relieved or not. “I’m not sure—” The words cut off as his head jerks up.
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle at the same time footsteps slap around the corner. My body tenses until I catch sight of swishing white-blond hair.
“Kade, what’s going on? I heard a shot fired…” Laila’s out-of-breath voice trails off, and she gasps, limping footsteps faltering. “Mom?”
She sinks down, the gun in her hand scraping against the hard floor before being abandoned. Her head turns back and forth, and her hands flutter over Pam’s body as she assesses the bleeding, checks for a pulse. A sound between a whine and a sob escapes her clenched jaw.
My heart thuds as I wait for her to say something.
“Who did this?” she finally demands, anger and horror barely masking the pain in her voice.
“Laila, I…” Kade doesn’t finish the sentence.
But he doesn’t have to. Laila slowly raises her head and fixes him with a look of such contempt it makes my blood run cold. Unshed tears glitter in her eyes.
“You shot my mom?” Not waiting for an answer, she leaps to her feet and shoves him hard. He stumbles back, barely catching himself before slamming against the wall. “What were you thinking? How could you do this?”
“I swear I didn’t know—”
“I hate you,” she seethes. “I hate you so much.”
“Wait. You don’t understand.”
Before he has the chance to say anything else, she launches herself at him in a blur of swinging fists and swift kicks. His hands go up, fending her off with downward swipes and forearm blocks, but it’s only a matter of time before one of them gets hurt.
“Laila, stop!” I cry, rushing toward them in an attempt to break them up. “It isn’t his fault. I told him to do it. He did it to protect me.”
At the sound of my voice, her attack falters, and she whips around. “To protect you? Why would he need to protect you from my mom? You’re supposed to be with her. I left you with her!”
My hands go up, palm out, and I take a hesitant step toward her, trying to buy Kade time to recover. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s been her the whole time. She’s the one who’s been leaking information. She was trying to turn me over to some people called the Alliance.”
“You’re lying,” she hisses. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true! I got away, and Kade stopped her. It was self-defense.”
“I don’t believe you,” Laila says again, before turning back to Kade, the coldness in her voice drenching the air, raising goosebumps along my arms. “You were careless. Or maybe you weren’t. Maybe you just have it in for my family.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “He didn’t even know who it was until after he pulled the trigger. I told him to do it.”
Astonishment appears on her face, only to vanish as her eyes narrow. “Wait right there. Let me get this straight. You’re the girl who lost her mom. You cry in your room and have little breakdowns that we all have to put up with, because poor Clare has no mommy, and yet you told Kade, who also has no mother, to shoot my mom? What, do you think I want to be part of your little orphan club?” Voice rising, she gestures wildly at me with both hands. “I took a knife for you! I stood up to my dad and almost ruined my career. And this is how you thank me?”
“We’re not friends,” she spits out, like even the thought disgusts her. “We would have been better off if you never came here. If you had died as a baby, like everyone thought.”
I flinch at the venom in her voice and barely hold back a whimper at how deep the words cut. “You don’t even know what happened. She tried to lock me up. If you would just listen…”
“I don’t need to listen! The two of you tried to kill my mom. End of story. And you know what? If she tried to lock you up, there’s a reason. I don’t need to find out what it is to finish what she started.”
“Back off,” Kade growls, throwing an arm out to shield me.
She ignores him, lunging for her discarded gun on the floor. Her hand closes around the grip at the same time Kade springs into motion, tackling her, sending the two of them sprawling.
Laila growls and smacks Kade across the face with the side of the gun. He lets out a soft grunt of pain but retaliates, striking out and knocking the gun from her grip. The weapon clatters onto the floor, and when she scrambles to retrieve it, Kade doesn’t waste any time getting away from her. He pushes me into a sprint to the exit.
Adrenaline spikes as I fumble to get it open, trying to get my hands down to work the latch release. Kade throws all his weight into the steel, until it yields with the loud crack of the latch breaking.
We stumble into the night air, only to crash into people on the other side.
I yelp and strike out blindly, only to recoil in horror when my fist connects with Tarry’s jaw, knocking him a few steps back.
The muzzle of a long rifle is suddenly right in front of my face, and my blood runs cold when I follow the barrel up to find Mathias with his finger on the trigger. Just as quickly, Kade has his gun raised and pointed at Mathias.
“Whoa, whoa!” Tarry cries, raising his handgun, but clearly wavering on whether he should point it at anyone. “It’s just us. We came to help.”