“Looks like she cut too deep,” said Abel. “Someone probably told them to.”
“Sully?” said Jenny.
“Or whoever he's hooked up with,” said Abel.
Another girl met them at the bottom of the stairs. She was crying so hard she could barely stand. Trix pushed her out of the way. Trix saw Jenny looking at her.
“What? I don't like crying.”
The basement was just that. A regular basement. Dim light shone in through tiny windows set near the ceiling around the large cellar. Something furry grew on the brick that made up the walls and the floor was dirty concrete. It was oddly tidy. Usually it was hard to walk ten feet without tripping over a body or a skeleton or piles of rubbish or weeds, but this room didn't have any boxes stacked or old furniture. It was completely empty. One wall was windowless, and had a metal door set into it. Jenny looked at the others before walking over and putting her hand on the knob. She gripped her knife in the other hand. She saw Trix do the same with Declan's ax, and Abel pulled two wicked-looking hunting knives out of his belt, holding one in each hand.
Jenny turned the knob. It wasn't locked.
It wasn't blood that filled the room, but a dozen heartbeats. Jenny could feel the living even as she opened the door. She could feel the blood, could still smell it, but it wasn't as strong. She gripped her knife tight as she shoved the door open, but what she saw was not what she expected.
“Fuck me,” said Trix. “Was there a fucking sale on virgins today?”
The women here were tied up, unlike the willing bleeders from the halls. They looked up, eyes wide and quaking with fear. A few started sobbing. They were all bound together in the corner. There were close to a dozen of them, all sizes, different hair colors, but all young.
The office itself was clean and orderly. Jenny imagined that it looked much the same as when her mother had worked here. A desk on one side of the room, a large whiteboard on the other, some kind of scientific diagram still faintly visible. There were file cabinets across from a large, wooden bookshelf.
“So where's the lab, do you suppose?” said Abel.
“That's your question?” said Jenny. “Not, 'What are all these women doing here bound and gagged'?”
“One crisis at a time,” said Abel. “At least we know we're in the right place.”
Trix was eying the women, her jaw clenching and unclenching. “We should let them go,” she said.
“To do what?” said Abel. “To run out and get ripped apart by rotters?”
“To have a choice,” said Jenny. She stepped forward. The women shrank back as one when they saw the knife. Jenny lowered it slowly and slipped the blade between a blonde woman's wrists, quickly slicing the binds. The woman blinked at her, the rest of the hostages going silent and still. Trix stepped over and helped her until they were free. Three ran out of the room as soon as they were able, streaking past Jenny. The girl who had been tied up on the end frowned at them.
“I don't understand,” she said, her voice soft and high. Just a girl, Jenny realized. All of them were little girls. Younger than she had been when she had been forced into a lab with Casey. And they had been left to die.
“Nothing to understand,” said Jenny. “You're free. You should probably hide out in the building until the rotters ease up outside.”
“But,” the girl said, her hands shaking as she rubbed her wrists, “you're dead, aren't you? You're all dead.”
“We're special,” said Jenny.
“Like snowflakes,” said Trix in a sarcastically upbeat voice.
“So,” a girl with curly red hair said, seeming very confused, “you don't eat people?”
“It's a gray area,” said Abel. “Where's the lab?”
The girl shook her head. “I don't know. We drank some tea and woke up like this.”
“You didn't volunteer?” said Jenny.
“Why would we volunteer to die?” said the girl on the end.
“Just stay put,” said Abel. “Run when the rotters leave.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” said the girl. “We don't even know where we are. How do we survive?”
“Just like everyone else,” said Trix. She nodded to the bookcase. “What about that?”
“What about it?” said Jenny.
“The lab is probably somewhere else in the building,” said Abel. “We need to search every room in this place.”
“I don't think so,” said Trix. She moved forward, touching the books, sliding a finger along the shelf. She showed it to the others. “No dust. You know who doesn't like dust?”
“Those books shouldn't be there,” said Jenny. “Casey said they were in a pile on the floor when he was here. It's where he found the list.”
“Look, there are tracks,” said Abel, pointing to the floor. Trix tapped them with her boot. Then she stepped to the side and pushed. The bookcase slid aside easily and Jenny had the feeling of not being able to breathe again. In front of them, was a metal slab. And on top of the slab was Casey.
He was lying face down and naked. And he wasn't moving.
THIRTY-NINE
Jenny stood in the doorway trying to understand what she was seeing. She took a step forward. The lab was big, bigger than the office. Candles lined the counters, giving off a flickering light. There were other, empty slabs in the room, too. The candlelight was catching a reflection on Casey's back and Jenny took another step forward.
Something was wrong about Casey's body. As Jenny's eyes adjusted to the light, she saw black marks on his body. Cuts welled up with blackened blood on his legs, his buttocks, his arms and...
“Oh my God,” said Jenny. She put a hand over her mouth, stifling the sobs. She stumbled up to the slab, a rushing sound in her ears. “No,” she moaned thickly. “No, Casey, no. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”
Casey's back had been opened up, his midsection lying in black sludge. It dripped off the slab. Protruding from the inside of Casey's back was what appeared to be chaos. But as Jenny stared at it in horror, unable to look away, she realized there was something metal that looked like a small car jack that was propping up his ribs on one side. Jenny could see where the rib bones had been cut. But that wasn't the strangest part. It looked like Casey's spine had been replaced with something Jenny couldn't fathom. Something that looked like a spine but wasn't. Something made of metal. Wires burst from the metal, sticking out from Casey's body like a firework had gone off and then frozen in mid-explosion.
Jenny remembered the clicking sound after Lucy had shot her. The steady click, click, click of metal on metal. “What?” she said, unable to understand. “I don't...What?”
“Is he...is he gone?” said a weak voice behind Jenny. She looked around to see Trix standing still in the doorway. She blinked at Trix.
“You're crying,” said Abel, stepping past Trix into the room.
Jenny shook her head and looked down at Casey. She reached down and touched his hair and drew her hand back. His face had been cut, both cheeks sliced open in a ghastly black grin, the Glasgow smile spreading his face open.
“It doesn't end like this,” she said, her voice surprisingly hard, even to her own ears. She thought of Lucy back at the museum. Saying it couldn't end that way. Jenny understood now. “This isn't right.”
“Jenny,” said Abel, touching her arm. Jenny slapped his hand away.
“NO!” she screamed suddenly. “It does not fucking end like this!”
“Casey,” whispered Trix. Her eyes were dry, but emotion was plain on her face.
“Jenny,” Abel said again. “You're not supposed to be able to cry.”
“Fuck crying,” Jenny said, wiping her face with her arm. “Fuck it all. All of this was for nothing. If Casey's dead, really dead, what the fuck was all this for? What did it mean?”
“We have to get out of here,” said Trix woodenly. “Something's wrong.”
“I'm not leaving him,” said Jenny. “I'll never leave him again.”
“S
omething's wrong,” Trix said again.
“Fucking right something's wrong,” said Jenny. “What was your first clue?”
“They're gone,” said Trix.
“Who's gone?” said Abel.
“The girls,” said Trix. “The girls are gone.”
Abel looked out past her and nodded. “Maybe they went to hide.”
“So why can I still feel them?” said Trix.
“What?” said Jenny. She looked at Abel, but he had closed his eyes.
“They're gone,” said Trix. “But can't you feel that?”
“I feel them,” said Jenny. “But it's not the girls.”
“No,” said Abel without opening his eyes. “I'm guessing they're much more dangerous than a bunch of scared teenage girls. They probably motioned them out of the room while we were occupied.”
“All this just to kill us?” said Trix. “What kind of idiots are they?”
“They're here for me,” said Jenny. “You two should go. Hide somewhere. They're not going to kill me.”
“Fuck you,” said Trix, her usual vitriol seeming to return. “It's not about you anymore. It's about us. All of us. We're fucking family.”
“Enough of us have died,” said Jenny. “Fisher and Grayson and...” she glanced behind her and quickly away. “I don't want you and Abel to die, too.”
“That's cute,” said Abel. “Fuck off.”
“If it makes you feel better, it's for Casey. You just happen to be his bitch-sister,” said Trix.
“He killed your brother, Jenny,” said Abel. “He needs to die. And you need help.”
“Get angry,” said Trix. “And then get even.”
Trix didn't need to tell her, though. Even as Trix was talking, Jenny could feel the rage filling her up, the quiet, soft, furious comfort of red wrapping around her, focusing her, making her understand what needed to be done. She flexed her fingers around the knife.
“We need to kill them all,” said Jenny.
Then the door burst open.
The men looked like the two who had been guarding Zeke: big, burly men in long sleeved shirts. There must have been ten of them. Each held a gun in one hand and something small and white in the other. Jenny frowned. Syringes.
“My brother is dead,” Jenny said, the words coming out in a growl. She could feel their hearts beating, almost in unison, but not quite. She licked her dry lips.
“He was already dead,” said a tall fat man with a short beard.
“Where's Sully?”
The fat man looked at the other men. They all looked at the three of them with disdain.
Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.
“He'll be here later,” said the fat man. “Get down on your knees. All of you.” He leveled the gun at her.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
“And if we don't?” said Abel. “You're going to shoot us?”
“Not to kill,” said the fat man. “Just to incapacitate.” He waggled the syringe. “Daniel wants you alive. Or as close to alive as evil gets.”
“We don't argue with thumpers,” said Trix, stepping forward. She hefted the ax on her shoulder.
Thumpthumpthumpthump.
Jenny barely saw Trix move before she'd lodged the ax into the side of a man's neck. He screamed, something raw and high-pitched, and shot his gun in the air. Blood spurted from his neck, drenching Trix in blood. She opened her mouth. And then chaos erupted.
Jenny felt a bullet shred through her thigh as she shoved her knife into the fat man's throat. He gurgled as he tried to scream. He fell hard. Jenny spun away from a gray-haired man who was trying to stick his syringe into the back of her neck and slashed him across the stomach, making him lurch back, holding his guts. She grabbed the next one from behind, her knife nearly slicing his neck down to the bone.
Shots were being fired all around her. Jenny felt a few graze her, but she ignored it. Blood was everywhere. She saw Trix take a man's head off with the ax. Abel stabbed a large man in the neck, one knife on either side, sinking his teeth into an apple-sized cheek as the man fell. The meat came away with a wet ripping sound and Abel screamed a primal scream. Jenny plunged the knife up under someone's ribs. She heard laughter and whipped her head to see Abel grabbing at the back of his own neck, blood and gore dripping down his chin. His eyes were wide as he met hers. He went down, his chin bouncing on the concrete office floor. Jenny screamed as she lunged at the man laughing over Abel. Before she could understand what she was doing, she was on the man and her teeth were biting down onto flesh and then the red disappeared. Everything disappeared just for an instant. For one instant, she was invincible. She stepped back, blood dripping down her chin and blending into all the other blood soaking her clothes.
There were only three men left, and they were scared. Jenny smiled at them. The man she had bitten was having convulsions on the floor next to her and she drove the knife under his chin, far into his brain. Trix glanced at her, then turned to look.
“Abel!” she screamed, just as a bullet hit her in the back. The force sent her flying face-first, the ax clattering as she dropped it. He had the needle in the back of her neck before Jenny could even scream. She ran across the room and slashed at him, fast and hard, giving him cut after cut until he dropped his gun and fell, bleeding and crying. Jenny turned to face the last two but she felt the cold metal of a gun on her temple. The hand holding it was shaking like he had palsy.
“Can you shoot me before I slice you open?” she said.
“He doesn't have to,” said a voice behind her.
Without looking Jenny shoved the blade back behind her and felt it sink into something solid, hot sticky blood covering her hands. She pulled the knife out and felt the man's breath on the back of her neck before she felt him collapse onto the floor. She pulled the knife around so it was in front of her.
“No,” said the man. He was young. A boy, really. “I have a gun.”
“My brother is dead. Do you think I care that you have a gun?”
“That was nobody's brother,” he said, his voice shaking nearly as badly as his hand. “That was a demon.” And then he fell, too, Jenny's knife lodged in his stomach. Jenny stood over him.
“He's not the worst monster in the family,” she said. She bent over him, smiling. “Where's Sully?” The dying boy shook his head.
“Behind you,” said a whisper in her ear. There was a sharp pain in the back of her neck and her head exploded in agony for a long moment. She felt the strength go out of her body and she went down, her legs refusing to hold her up. She tried to move, but she couldn't even raise a finger. All she could do was look and listen. She tried to move her mouth to form words, but everything in her body was frozen. She was facing Abel, looking right into his eyes. Footsteps walked around her and stopped at her head. A face bent over her own and Sully's grizzled beard came into view. He smiled with gray teeth.
“Hello, Jenny. Thanks for meeting me here. We're going to have such fun together. It's already been more entertaining than I had hoped.” He stroked her face with a rough hand and Jenny couldn't move away. She couldn't punch or bite or scream or cry. Sully stood up and disappeared from her view. Two more steps and she saw his boots stop at Abel. He crouched down and she saw Sully was holding her bowie knife. He bent over Abel until he was right above his ear.
“They are never going to get her back,” he said. “She's mine now.”
As the blade disappeared under Abel's chin, Jenny watched the life disappear from his eyes. And a single tear rolled down his cheek and mingled with the blood.
“Time to go, cupcake,” Sully said, looking at her. “We're going for a little ride.”
FORTY
Strapped to something cold, straps tightened. Being carried through the basement and out a back door. More men jostling her, laughing, telling jokes. Doors slamming, metal on metal. The sound of an engine and then movement. Darkness.
Jenny was in the back of a van but there were no windows and no way to kn
ow where she was going. Declan would look for her, but how long would it be before he even knew she was gone? He was probably still sitting in his car looking at the rotters.
Trix, Jenny realized. Trix is still alive. But was she? Jenny tried to remember seeing her after she'd been injected, but everything had been so chaotic. And Abel. Poor Abel. He'd been so brave.
But Trix is alive, thought Jenny. She has to be. But then another voice in her head whispered, She doesn't know where you are. You don't even know where you are.
It was hard to tell how long they drove. It could have been an hour or a few minutes, Jenny couldn't tell. The inside of her head was muddled, confused. But after a time, the movement slowed, then stopped. There was a sound like a chain and then the van inched forward. It felt like it was going down a steep incline and the sound of the tires changed to something quieter, like the road got smoother. A parking garage? It felt like they were going underground, but Jenny didn't trust her instincts. They could be anywhere. Chicago was a big city.
They stopped again and this time she heard the engine turning off and the doors of the van opening and closing. Footsteps. Muffled voices. Then the back doors opened and Jenny was being pulled out again, carried by two men who stank of sweat. She could hear Sully's voice off to the side.
“Put her where I told you to. No more arguing. Daniel wants her to stay below for now.”
“You're not gonna like it,” said the man carrying the gurney above her head. “There are cobwebs and dirt.” There was a sarcastic tone to his voice.
“Don't worry about me,” said Sully. “Just do as you're told.”
The hinges squeaked as Jenny's slab was carried inside and placed down carefully. Sully sent the two men away and she heard them close the door behind them. She was in darkness with Sully. After a moment, there was a sound of a match striking, and a flickering light filled the room. Then another match and the light intensified. He was lighting candles. Jenny tried to move, put all of her will into moving a single finger, but nothing. When Sully lit the third candle, she could see a shape painted on the ceiling directly above her. A sloppily-done cross in white paint. The edges had run and dripped, giving it an extra dose of creepy.
Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) Page 24
