He runs to the bio-hazard incinerator at the far end of the basement, chucks the computer into the chute, then returns for another.
“We’ve got to go, Robin! We don’t have time for this. They’ll capture us.”
Even as I say the words, we hear a series of battering thuds coming from the ground level. They’re already at the front door. It’s reinforced with a steel core, but it won’t keep them out forever. In another minute, we’ll be trapped.
“We can’t leave this for them to find,” he says, running back for another load. “They can’t find out what we know, or it’ll all be for nothing. Help me, why don’t you!”
“If they capture us, they’ll find out everything we know anyway, trust me on that one,” I retort, but I shove Robin aside to lift the biggest computer box with both hands, hurtle across the basement and heave it into the incinerator. There are another two that need the same treatment. Meanwhile, Robin has opened the zipper of a laptop bag and is sweeping the bottom half of his slinged arm across his and Neil’s desks, brushing external drives, flash disks and thumb-drives into it. I grab the bag from him and run to dispose of it too, when he cries, “No — we need to take that with!”
“Have we destroyed everything important?”
“Yeah, that’s everything, I think. I hope.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
As we run up the stairs, we hear a splintering crash that can only be the front door caving in.
I curse.
“What now?” Robin whispers, his face pale in the dim light of the basement.
“When I say go, run upstairs to Neil’s room and out through the trees.”
I help him put the computer bag on over his shoulders, then crack the door open a slim inch and peep out. Four tactical team members, dressed from head to toe in black and wearing helmets, Kevlar vests and full-face respirators, are in the entrance hall. They crouch in back-to-back formation, scanning all around and above them with their assault rifles at the ready.
I glance up at the landing, but either Bruce and Cameron have left with the others, or they’re well hidden.
Using hand signals, the tactical team leader issues orders to the others. One is to go back out of the front door and check the area front and back of the house. The other two are to investigate the ground floor to the north of the entrance hall. He points one in the direction of the kitchen and the other toward the living area. He’ll check the south side, and then they’ll meet again in the hall and go upstairs together.
They split up. I pull the door to the basement closed silently.
“It’s now or never.” I breathe the words to Robin.
He nods.
I tense and raise my Ruger as the heavy tread of the soldier approaches the door, but his footsteps jog past. I force myself to count to five before opening the door, checking and whispering, “Go!”
Robin and I race up the hall, swing around the bannister, and hurtle up the stairs. We’ve just reached the landing when there’s a shout from below.
“You there — stop!”
I thrust Robin ahead of me into Neil’s room as I drop down. A gun cracks, and a round whizzes over my head. Keeping low to the ground, I leopard-crawl out of the direct line of fire, scramble to my feet, and dart through Neil’s doorway.
Robin is already out on the wooden bridge that leads to the first tree. Bruce waits for me at the balcony. He has his submachine gun in one hand and a black cylinder-shaped object in his other. Can it possibly be a grenade?
“Go!” I yell, crossing the room.
Bruce pulls the pin out of the object, flings it over my head to the doorway behind me, then turns and runs. I’m hard on his heels. There’s shouting from behind us and the honking of geese from below. As I reach the first tree, there’s an almighty bang and a flash of blinding white light from the rear.
“OOH-RAH!” Bruce roars from the tree ahead of me.
“What was that?”
“Stun-grenade!”
There’s no sign of the others as Bruce and I race through the web of interconnected trees. They must already have descended the last tree and be waiting in the bug-out vehicle. I run across the next bridge to the platform where Quinn and I cuddled and cloud-watched, noting with approval that my pirate has done his job — the rope ladders of both this tree and the one ahead have been severed and now lie in useless piles at the base of the trunks.
Gunfire pulls my gaze downwards as I leap onto the small platform of a maple tree. The soldier who was deputized to check the yard is surrounded by a gaggle of angry geese who honk and hiss at him and peck at his legs. He fires off a few more rounds, and two geese collapse in shivering heaps of feathers. He runs ahead to the horizontal monkey-bar ladder which connects the next two trees in the tree-maze, springs up to catch hold of a bar, and starts pulling himself up. I slingshot myself around the trunk of my tree, leap onto the ladder and jump onto his hands.
There’s a crunch of bones beneath my sneakers. The soldier screams and drops his firearm. As soon as I move off his fingers, he falls to the ground, cursing loudly. I scamper through the last few trees and swing-bridges like a fleeing monkey. Quinn is waiting in the last tree, on the huge branch that extends over the electrified perimeter fence. Through the pine needles and branches, I can see Bruce and Cameron standing beside a dark-blue panel van.
“Go!” I yell to them and to Quinn as I approach. “I’m right behind you.”
“You first,” Quinn says. “I need to cut the rope so they can’t follow us.” He gestures to where a single rope, knotted at regular intervals, is tied to the branch at his feet and dangles down to the ground more than ten feet below.
“Okay,” I pant.
I stuff my sidearm into my waistband, seize the thick rope with both hands and half-clamber, half-slip down the rope. It’s only as my feet touch the ground that I realize the obvious flaw in this plan.
“How are you going to get down?” I call up to Quinn.
The trunk of the pine has no knotholes or protrusions for footholds on a downwards climb. And it’s way too high to jump. The rope slithers into a useless pile at my feet, and I crane my neck up to see Quinn replacing the knife into a sheath on his belt.
Quinn meets my gaze. He gives a shrug and a twisted little smile.
“Damn it. Quinn!” I shout up at him. “Bruce, Cameron!” I call them over, intending for us to make some kind of landing net with our hands, but Quinn glances over his shoulder, panic on his face. They’re coming.
“Love you, Jinxy,” he says.
And jumps.
Chapter 25
Out for the count
Quinn hits the ground with a sickening thud that resonates in my chest. His head actually bounces against the hard earth. For a moment, I stand frozen with horror, staring at his unmoving body.
Bruce and Cameron push me aside, scoop Quinn up and carry him, head lolling, arms and legs dangling lifelessly, to the van.
“Blue!” Bruce’s shout shocks me out of my paralysis. And I follow.
Before I’ve even closed the doors of the van behind me, we’re speeding off with a screech of tires and a cloud of dust from the dirt road. I try to grab the handle of the door banging wildly at the back of the van, but Cameron gently sets me aside.
“I’ll get it,” he says, and I drop to my knees beside Quinn.
I’m swamped by a wave of déjà vu.
Again. Again I’m in the back of a van beside someone I love, someone who’s seriously injured. And what was it all for? What did we learn? Nothing.
Beside me, Robin is holding Sofia tight.
“They were suspicious of us from the get-go. Khan said she was gonna check on us. We should never have gone through with it,” Sofia sobs. “And how did they track us back to the house?”
I can’t think about that now. I can’t think about anything except Quinn. I’m trembling all over, and cold with dread — more panicked and terrified than when the soldier pointed his weapo
n at me, more fearful than the moment before they started torturing me. I’m too scared to check if he has a pulse. Can’t imagine what I’ll do if he hasn’t.
“Is everybody okay back there?” Beth asks from up front, where she’s sitting with Neil and Evyan.
I can’t form words. My mouth is as dry as ash. I look a mute appeal at Bruce, who sits on the other side of Quinn’s crumpled body.
“Doc, can you come check him? He fell pretty hard,” Bruce says.
Cameron holds up a hand to steady Beth as, swaying with the wild movement of the van, she clambers between the seats and climbs over storage boxes and bug-out bags. Crouching down beside Quinn, she places two fingers over the pulse-point on his neck.
I wait. For seconds longer than years, I wait.
At last, she nods. Relief shudders through me in a trembling wave.
“How’s Quinn?” Evyan asks from up front, her voice catching as she says his name. I remember that she cares for him, too. “Is he —”
“He’s alive,” Bruce says.
I want to lift Quinn’s head and cradle it in my lap, but I’m scared to move him. What if his neck is injured? I don’t even want to think about what damage might have been caused by lifting and carrying him to the van, by the bumps that jolt us as we speed God-knows-where.
Beth lifts Quinn’s eyelids and shines a small flashlight into first one eye and then the other. Clearly trying not to move his neck, she feels around his head with both hands. And winces.
“What?” I say.
“He’s banged his head badly. There’s a big lump swelling behind his temple here on the right.”
“Will he be okay?”
He’s got to be okay. He’s got to.
“We need to keep him as still as possible. I’ll be able to check him out better when we’re not moving,” Beth says noncommittally, and my heart sinks. She holds Quinn’s head stable as we race through the streets.
“But how did they track us?” This time it’s Neil who’s demanding an answer. “Could they have implanted any of you with something?”
I think back but can’t figure out how they could have done that. Unless …
“Check your hair,” I tell Sofia.
I run my fingers frantically through my hair, feeling for anything that might still be stuck to my scalp, and then do the same with Quinn using as light a touch as I can.
“Nothing. You?” I ask Sofia.
“Me either,” she says.
“Maybe they planted a tracking device on the SUV when that guy came out to check my papers,” Bruce says, sounding guilty.
“Oh God,” Sofia gasps. “They could’ve planted them on our clothes while we were in the MRI!”
She rips off her jumpsuit, and I do the same. Cameron removes the sharp hunting knife from the sheath at Quinn’s waist and slices up the arms, legs and torso of his jumpsuit. He and Bruce very gently roll Quinn onto his side so that I can tug the remains of the garment out from under him, then almost tenderly lay him back down again. Cameron eases a buckled strap from one of the backpacks out from under Quinn’s hip. Bruce removes his own jacket and covers Quinn’s chest with it.
I feel a pang of something, love maybe, for these two friends, kinder than I deserve, who have stood by me, as loyal and steadfast as family. Maybe this is what Sarge meant when he said, “Squad before blood.”
Sofia gathers all three jumpsuits into a bundle and tosses them out of the passenger window, while Evyan asks, “Where to? Just where the hell am I supposed to be driving us to?”
Nobody volunteers an answer. Bruce and Cameron look at me expectantly.
“Where?” Evyan yells, banging a fist on the steering wheel.
I can think of only one place.
“Tallulah’s,” I say. “Take us back to Tallulah’s.”
Chapter 26
Outpatient
Tallulah, looking strained and distressed, makes no protest and asks no questions, even when Beth asks her for a stretcher or a long plank on which to carry Quinn. She directs Evyan to park the van in the back alley, sends a teen boy to fetch an ironing board, and goes ahead to prepare a room on the ground floor.
Bruce and Cameron help Beth strap Quinn to the ironing board by fastening their belts around his chest and hips, then carry him inside, while Beth holds his head stable. I trail uselessly behind, my eyes fixed on Quinn’s white face. I’ve never seen his dark golden skin so pale.
Neil brings Beth’s medical bag to the room where we place Quinn, still on the board, onto the bed, and Beth immediately rolls and folds a towel around his head to keep it still. She extracts a stethoscope, a tiny rubber hammer, and a blood-pressure cuff from her bag and begins examining Quinn — checking his breathing and pulse, squeezing the nails of his fingers and toes.
When I start peppering her with questions about what she’s looking for, and what she’s finding, and what that means, she orders me out of the room. I leave, but I wait right outside the door, gnawing a thumbnail to the quick. It’s the nail that was ripped off when I was tortured at Stapla, and although it’s grown back, it hasn’t been quite right since. A bit like me.
When Beth emerges, looking grave, I ask, “How is he?”
She sighs and rubs a hand behind her neck. “Well, his signs are stable, reflexes are normal, and I don’t think there’s internal bleeding, though I can’t be sure without a CAT scan. There’s no leakage of blood or cerebrospinal fluid at all events.”
“But?” I whisper, because I can hear the unspoken word in her tone.
“But I don’t like that he still hasn’t regained consciousness.”
“What does that mean?”
“Can you contact his family?”
“Why?” I ask, about a millimeter from freaking out. “What for?”
“We need to make a decision about whether to move him to a hospital, even if that means probable capture. And also because … well, just in case he … deteriorates.”
Oh God. I can’t catch my breath. I stare into her eyes, wildly searching for some hope — or for the awful truth that she may be keeping back from me.
“Can you contact someone from his family?” she repeats, speaking slowly and calmly, as though suspecting any hint of urgency would trigger the hysteria that threatens to erupt in me.
I nod several times, not trusting myself to speak.
“Do that now. And see if you can find a cold-pack or some crushed ice.”
I run to Tallulah’s office. She takes one look at my face and enfolds me against the soft warmth of her bosom.
“There, child. That boy is strong. He’ll come through fine, don’t you fret now.”
Her motherly kindness loosens the tight knot of terror inside me, and I burst into tears, sobbing out my fears and my doubts. My guilt.
“I d-don’t know what to do,” I hiccup. “If we take him to a hospit-tal, they’ll seize him. But if we don’t, he might get worse. He might d—”
“Hush, now. He’ll be okay, you’ll see.” She kisses my forehead and rubs my back, wipes my nose on her apron. “Is there anything I can do to help? Can I make you some tea?”
I want to stay in the comfort of her embrace for a while longer — forever — but I fight the temptation. I can’t be weak when Quinn needs me. I can’t give in to the fear and fatigue that threaten to tug me down into despair.
“We need an ice-pack for Quinn’s h-head. And can you get a message to Connor? The doctor wants his family notified.”
“Leave it to me. Y’all go sit with your man and try not to worry.”
I spend the night at Quinn’s side, watching his still form constantly, holding bags of frozen peas and crushed ice against the side of his head until my fingers ache from the cold. Beth pops in at intervals and my answer to her repeated question — “Any change?” — is always, “No.”
Cameron brings me a cup of chamomile tea and some buttered toast. Bruce comes in, paces up and down the room for a few minutes, then gives my shoulder a squeeze and
says, “Sorry, Blue, this sucks,” before leaving with a muttered comment about really needing to shoot something.
Evyan comes in, holding a blanket. “Tallulah said to give you this.”
She offers to sit with Quinn while I get some sleep. When I refuse, she nods glumly and sits beside me silently for a long while before leaving for bed.
Halfway through the night Tallulah comes in to tell me that she’s managed to get a message to Connor.
“He’s on his way,” she says, rubbing a hand over her eyes. She looks exhausted. It must be putting an enormous strain on her to have all these outlaws coming and going from her shelter.
“Thank you for all your help, Tally. And … I’m sorry for all the extra work and worry. I just didn’t know where else to go.”
“You’re far from being my biggest worry, hun,” she says, and leaves.
I talk to Quinn through the night, alternately telling him how much I love him, how I know he’s going to get better, how I can’t wait for us to hold each other again, and furiously ordering him to wake up, threatening him with death if he leaves me. And I pray. I pray like I haven’t for years, begging a God I’m not sure exists to save Quinn.
The black night sky is just lightening to a dull gray when the door opens again, and in steps Connor O’Riley.
“Hi.” My voice is hoarse and unsteady.
I’m not quite sure what to say to him. The last time I saw him, he told me he planned to make it his life’s mission to get and keep Quinn away from me.
Connor walks to the head of the bed and curses as he takes in his brother’s appearance. Then he scowls at me.
“What did you do to him this time?” he demands.
“I didn’t do this — he fell!” I say indignantly. “Actually, he jumped.”
“And was he by any chance trying to save your skin at the time?” He takes in my guilty expression and says, “Aye, I thought so. You’ve brought him nothing but bad luck.”
I bite my lip to keep from giving him a piece of my mind — I know his anger springs from fear for the person we both love.
Connor flings himself into a chair. A muscle pulses in his jaw, and his eyes never leave his brother’s face. I perch on the end of the bed, rubbing Quinn’s feet through the bedclothes. We sit in an uncomfortable silence for long minutes.
The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel Page 61
