I asked her nothing. She was exhausted, and bombarding her with questions seemed mean. Her defenses were down and I could easily read her mind. So, I knew the medical staff here had a limited supply of painkillers, and after the first couple of days she’d begun to refuse medication except at night to sleep. Now all she received on a regular basis were anti-infection injections. I breathed in more of her suffering.
“You don’t have to do this for me,” Cadence whispered. Her words came out garbled, and she was close to drifting off into dreamland.
“Just until you can fall asleep,” I replied.
In a weird way, her pain comforted me. Weaving so much of Cadence’s mind with my own made me feel less alone. For those blissful minutes, her problems seemed to trump mine. Tomorrow’s to-do list consisted of sitting up and eating without assistance. She worried about Randy and whether he was really okay as I’d promised. She regretted that he’d been so close and she hadn’t been able to see him. A part of her was grateful for that too, though. Cadence hated the idea of wearing plastic and gauze for their first encounter since she’d provided the testimony that had damned her brother to Tramblewood. She worried he hated her for that testimony.
“Thanks, Talia.” Cadence’s voice was in my head this time. She didn’t have enough energy to speak the words aloud, but knew that thinking the message was just as good. “For everything.”
Moments later, my hold on her mind began to wane before disappearing completely. I stretched my kinked limbs and let the buzz of mosquitoes serve as a lullaby.
Smoke fills my nostrils, burning my throat and searing my lungs. My eyes begin to sting, and heat crawls over my arms and legs like thousands of fire ants. I want to scream, but the sound sticks in my throat, unable to push past the knot blocking the passageway like hair in a drainpipe. When I pry my eyes open, I discover all the color has been washed from the world. Either that or I’ve gone blind to it. Gray. Everything is gray. I blink my eyes, but nothing changes. The cots and dressers are blobs of darker gray in a sea of gray.
The air is so thick that I think it will take a machete to cut my way through. A throbbing in my head makes it feel too big, and when I try to stand, my equilibrium is off. The room feels like it’s tilting, but I can’t be sure since I am lost in the strange gray clouds. Instinctively I drop to the ground. My knees slam into the packed earth and I wince. Disorientation soon gives way to horror when I realize that I am not only colorblind, but deaf, too. I am surrounded by complete silence. I scream. In my head, the shrieks could crack glass, but in reality they don’t penetrate the blanket of smoke that is now smothering me.
I shot upright in the hospital bed, instantly aware that the nightmare was not entirely in my head. The hospital tent was hazy, as if a giant gray cloud had drifted inside and swallowed us in its thick embrace. Only, the air was sizzling like we were too close to the sun. Frantically, I stumbled over the side of the bed and felt my way to Cadence. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs that blocked my eardrums. When I did, I heard terrified screams from somewhere close by. The earth began to quake and I fell, catching myself at the last second before slamming into the railing of Cadence’s bed.
“Cadence?” I whispered. “Cadence, wake up!” I didn’t want to shake her if I didn’t have to.
“Talia?” she asked. “What’s going on?” Her was voice was groggy with sleep.
“I don’t know,” I started to tell her as another explosion rocked the tent. “Can you move?”
“I can try,” Cadence answered timidly.
She was in bad shape, and I didn’t want to risk moving her until I knew for sure that it was necessary. “I’ll be right back,” I told her.
“Hurry,” she pleaded, now sounding panicked.
I ran to the tent flap and thrust my head out. The air out here was at least ten degrees warmer and filled with a curtain of thick, dark fog in every direction except up. The night sky was alive with blinding light, and I had to squint against the harsh glare. People-shaped blobs hurried past the tent without slowing. When my eyes adjusted and some of the fog had dissipated, I noticed the lights above were from hovercrafts. Large black shapes were dropping to earth like avenging angels, spraying liquid fire as they descended.
Several nearby tents were ablaze with blue-green flames. Chemical bombs, my brain registered after a moment. Not good. Immediately survival instinct kicked in and I covered my mouth and noise with my scrub top. The thin fabric was a poor filter for the hazardous smoke, but it was better than nothing.
“Talia!” a man yelled. His voice was muffled – probably by a crude air filter just like mine – but I was pretty sure it was Crane. “Talia!” he screamed again. I spotted him, running against the flow like a lone salmon swimming upstream. With the two automatic weapons strapped across his chest and the manic expression across his face, Crane looked more like a shark, predatory and out for blood.
“Ian, what’s going on? Are we being attacked? Where’s Erik?” I asked, stupidly. Of course we were being attacked. Gunfire was popping through the air, eliciting more terrified screams from the refugees weaving through the tents. Bomb after bomb rained down from the crafts overhead.
TOXIC had found me.
“We need to go, now!” Crane exclaimed, freeing one of the rifles and offering it to me. “All the critical patients and medical staff have been evacuated. Erik’s already on a transport plane.”
I stared at the gun for a moment too long before accepting it. I was in no shape for another fight.
“What about Cadence?” I demanded, as Crane tried to pull me away from the tent. “We can’t leave her!” Crane looked like he wanted to argue, but I planted my feet and refused to move. She had risked her life for me. She was lying in a hospital bed because of me. There was no way I was leaving her behind.
Crane pushed past me into the tent, and I hurried to follow. He was at Cadence’s bedside, pulling her to her feet by the time I reached him. Cadence looped her injured arm around Crane’s waist and one around my shoulders. I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but my heart was in my throat, and I knew that it wasn’t very convincing.
The three of us stumbled awkwardly out of the recovery tent and began moving way too slowly in the direction that the others were running. We had only made it a couple of yards when Cadence’s nurse and another man joined us. They were wheeling a stretcher. I eyed it dubiously. As a threesome, we weren’t making much progress. But the stretcher was slow and awkward to push over the grass.
“Don’t worry, this’ll protect her,” the nurse said, even as Crane scooped up Cadence and placed her on the stretcher. The instant she was settled, a metal shell sprang up around her prone form, leaving only her head uncovered. “Six inches of titanium,” the nurse added, tapping the top of the shell. And then, the wheels retracted and Cadence was floating.
I nodded mutely, intrigued by contraption.
Bending down to meet Cadence’s eyes, I said, “You’re going to be fine.”
She smiled up at me as best she could as the nurse and her assistant began guiding Cadence away. Crane took hold of my arm and dragged me forward. Together, we wove through tent city until finally reaching a clearing. Twenty yards of chaos separated us from a shallow outcropping of trees, just beyond which sat the escape hoverplanes.
Neither of us broke stride, quickened our pace if anything, as we shot into the clearing. I’d only taken a handful of steps when I heard, “Halt!” screamed behind me. There was no need to turn around to know the command was meant for me. Laser crosshairs pricked the exposed skin at the nape of my neck. Crane’s left boot hooked around my right ankle at the same time the heel of his right hand jabbed me between the shoulder blades. I lurched forward as a bullet whizzed so close to my head it singed a stray curl. Crane caught me before I fell, and was indiscriminately firing over one shoulder as he urged me towards the trees.
“How did they find us?” I asked, practically screaming to be heard over the cacophony of blasts and
shouts.
“They put a tracker in Erik,” Crane yelled back. “Medics did a body scan on the plane and didn’t see one. TOXIC masked it well. Dr. Eicher found it during surgery. The attack began minutes later.”
A tracker? Damn it, why hadn’t I thought of that? Mac had anticipated my rescue attempt. Of course he had, that was Mac – his contingency plans had contingency plans. Even if he’d been 99.9 percent sure I’d fail, he’d have wanted a backup plan. Implanting Erik with a tracker had been that backup plan.
Fortunately I had little time to dwell on my own naivety.
Ten feet in front of me, the earth opened up, sending a cloud of dirt and chemicals flying. In favor of freeing my hands to hold the weapon, I no longer had the makeshift mask of my scrub top secured over my mouth and nose. Immediately my eyes began to sting, and my lungs burned liked I’d swallowed hot coals. I doubled over to retch at the same time the wind was knocked out of me from behind. Those spiky blades of grass I’d noticed earlier sliced my cheeks and arms, impaling me like hundreds of tiny swords.
For a second time in as many seconds, the air raced out of my lungs as something heavy landed on top of me.
“You’re a walking bullseye,” Crane sent.
I had no time for a smartass comeback. No sooner had I started breathing again, Crane had me on my feet and on the move. My knees ached, and my lungs felt like they were going to burst free from my chest. I covered my mouth and nose with the bottom of the scrub top, using it to filter the acrid air once again. Squinting, I tried to get my bearings in the haze of chemical smoke
“Do you know where we’re going?” I sent Crane.
“Keep your eyes shut and trust me,” he sent back.
A zipping sound from above caught my attention. I looked up just as more black-clad operatives dropped from the sky in front of us. My stomach roiled when I realized we were about to be surrounded. I gripped Crane’s hand tighter as a black circle formed around us. Slowly, the circle began to shrink. Like they’d choreographed the routine, the operatives moved inwards as one.
“Calm,” Crane sent. It was a warning of sorts, maybe more of reminder. Crane was reminding me not to lose my cool.
“Always,” I sent back. Grace under pressure was in my skillset, even if I rarely used it.
All around us, muffled voices commanded us to “stop,” “drop your weapons,” and “surrender.” Neither of us moved.
Three large figures materialized directly in front of us as if they’d been conjured by some invisible sorcerer. Crane did move now. He moved his finger to the trigger of his gun and pulled. The operatives’ protective gear bore the brunt of the attack, but Crane was an excellent shot. Three well-placed bullets in their throats had our assailants immobilized, permanently.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“It’s us or them, Talia,” Crane shouted and charged towards the three-man-wide hole in the circle.
I followed without thinking, trusting Ian Crane to lead the way to safety. I had to jump over the dead operatives. Nausea swept through me, and I covered my mouth with my hand and gagged. Thick, blonde hair was sticking out from beneath one of the helmets. No, please not Donavon, I prayed. I crouched to pull the helmet free, but Crane yanked my arm so hard I thought it might dislodge from the socket.
“No time,” he hissed in my head.
Regretfully, I glanced over my shoulder. Not Donavon, I assured myself. Just like with Erik, my mental connection to Donavon was solid. If he was here, I’d feel him. If he were dead, I’d know.
The air was less contaminated in the mini forest of trees. I could see more clearly, and what I saw was a beautiful sight: an operative-free path to escape crafts. I exhaled with relief. The odds of survival just tipped in our favor. Operatives were pursuing us from behind, but the trees afforded us some cover. A rag-tag group of men and women were stationed at the gangplank of the hoverplane, increasing our chances of making it out of this alive by firing on our would-be attackers. None of them were as good a shot as Crane, but their efforts were slowing Mac’s operatives. I could feel the gap between us and them widening.
Fifty feet until we reached the hovercraft. Hope of making it out of this nightmare alive made my feet move faster. Forty feet. Screams of the dying assaulted my ears, and, as guilty as it made me feel, I prayed the pleas were coming from the lips of TOXIC operatives. Thirty feet. I heard the soft hum of a hovercraft overhead, and I braced myself for another earth-moving explosion. Twenty feet. I stumbled forward, fighting gravity to remain on my feet.
“Get on the plane!” Crane screamed.
I glanced to my right, where Crane had been running alongside me, and realized he was no longer there. He’d stopped, and was now taking aim at the newest wave of operatives repelling from above.
“Go!”
I hesitated. I was so close to the escape hover. Ten feet now and I’d be at the gangplank. No, I decided, no way I was leaving him behind. I turned to join Crane.
“Natalia Lyons.” The sound of my name reverberated through the air with physical force, drowning out all other noise.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Slowly, I raised my face to see the TOXIC attack plane looming over me like an alien ship ready to beam me aboard.
“On your knees, Operative Lyons,” the same voice boomed through the loudspeaker. A spotlight snared me in its beam and I fought to breathe.
“We have you surrounded. Surrender now and we will let the others go,” the voice said.
Suddenly images of tents aflame with blue-green fire and bloody civilians pleading for their lives at the feet of uncaring operatives filled my head. Innocents are dying, I thought. I saw a line of men, women, and children lying on their stomachs as an executioner claimed one victim after the next. Guilt twisted my intestines into a pretzel. My fault, I thought, this is my fault.
“Only you can end this,” the voice told me, only I wasn’t sure whether the voice was in my head.
“Fight it, Talia,” a second voice commanded. This one was definitely in my head, and it was definitely Crane’s. “You’re stronger.”
Stronger than what? I thought, as, slowly, I lowered the gun I still held in my hands to the ground in front of my toes. Feet, I now realized, that were sticky with my blood. I almost laughed. I’d forgotten to remind myself not to run around barefoot.
I raised my hands, palms out. Images that I’d seen in Alex’s visions invaded my head. Except they were slightly different than before – maybe from a different vantage point?
“Talia, don’t!” Crane again. He sounded angry. No, not angry, I corrected myself, scared.
I was too numb to be scared. Would Mac torture me the same way he’d tortured Erik? Would I become his newest test subject? None of that mattered. Only I could end this standoff. My freedom for countless innocent lives. Seemed like a fair price.
I opened my mouth to say the words, I surrender.
Chapter Five
Before breath passed my lips, there was an explosion that sounded like cymbals crashing – inside my head. Then, it felt like fingers were digging into my skull, down through bone and muscle to rip my brain in two. Flashes of bright golden lights collided with one another behind my eyeballs, and spilled sparks across my vision.
Cradling my head between my palms, I fought the excruciating pain threatening to consume me. Wave after wave washed over me, and I pushed back harder and harder with each one. More golden lights popped and fizzled behind my eyes. I shoved with all of my will, finally expelling both the pain, and the cause of it, from my head.
I blinked, relieved to find the blinding lights were gone, but alarmed to find myself standing in the middle of a dense, white cloud. I blinked again, and the world started to come into focus.
There was no sea of death or hordes of operatives claiming victims right and left, as I’d expected. Gone were the trees, the hoverplanes, and Crane, replaced by a large sterile room that reminded me of the cafeteria at school.
Young, wide-eyed ch
ildren, clothed in hospital gowns and strange paper booties, formed row after row of perfect lines in front of ten evenly-spaced tables. One by one, the children were called forward and directed to insert their arms into plastic tubes similar to the one Cadence had around her arm.
Instinctively I knew that they were being injected with the creation drug. Not just one injection either. The tubes were lined with needles, each attached to a vial containing a different talent signature. After the injection, each child was escorted from the room by an armed guard. A skinny girl with milk chocolate skin and eyes the color of sunflowers passed in front of me with her guard. When our gazes met, hers began to glow. Her nose and lips appeared to melt before my eyes, and her square teeth became jagged points. Only her head morphed, which alone was odd and unnatural. But the truly disturbing part was that the animal-form was unrecognizable. She had reptilian eyes over an avian beak and her skin was leathery and gray like an elephant. She snarled and spit in my direction, and then vomited yellow goo.
I was nearly knocked off of my feet by the fist of agony that struck the interior of my skull.
Only you can save them. TOXIC will let them go once we have you. Surrender now. Join us.
“Talia!”
My name ripped through me, tearing me from the vision of the children and blotting out the silky voice urging me to capitulate.
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