The Mod Code

by Heidi Tankersley

When I pushed through the door, I didn’t find Finn alone. Jack hung from one of the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room doing pull-ups. His shirt was off and sweat rolled down his torso to the waistband of his cut-off cargo pants. I wondered if perhaps he’d gone shirtless just to insult me.

  The wrongness of seeing him here, shirtless and exercising, right after I’d discovered my mom had died—I couldn’t put my rage into words.

  “Why did you lie to me?” My voice was cold, hard.

  Jack increased his speed and didn’t look down. He towed himself up, one pull-up after another. My anger grew while he did twenty-nine more before dropping to the floor, landing entirely on his good right leg.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  Jack picked up his t-shirt off the floor and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “So what if I lied to you? What difference would it have made? Would you have trusted me sooner? Or maybe you wouldn’t have kissed me? Is that it?”

  “How dare you.” The indignation surged through me, flowing through every muscle, every cell, every fiber of my being.

  I was angry at Jack for not facing up to me. Angry at Beckett for lying. Angry at my mother for dying. Angry at Finn for changing. Angry at my father for starting this entire mess in the first place.

  Without giving myself time to think, I dove into Jack. My fists started pummeling his chest. I felt fiercer than I had in my entire life. I had no semblance of skill—my movements were powered only by the fury built up inside of me. I wanted to inflict the pain that I felt inside, and I punched him over and over, without letting up.

  Jack didn’t step back. I just kept punching, punching, punching … until a sob escaped my throat, and my fists slowed down. Jack placed his hands on my shoulders. After I delivered a few more half-hearted punches, his arms encircled me and pulled me to him. My forehead pressed against his chest, my tears flowing freely.

  My mother was gone.

  Jack said nothing. He held me there as my body wracked with sobs, his skin wet with my tears. The anger slowly ebbed, and only one thing remained. Raw pain.

  We stayed that way a long time, Jack’s arms holding me, steadying me. And then the door at the top of the stairs pushed open, and Beckett stepped inside.

  46

  SAGE

  I pulled away from Jack, my mind whirling as I wiped away tears from my eyes.

  Beckett stood frozen as the door clicked shut behind him.

  Finn growled from his cage, and I knew the exact moment when Beck caught sight of him, because he pressed his fist to his mouth, blinking like he tried to keep from crying. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep my own tears from coming again. I remembered what it felt like to take my first look at Finn, and Beckett considered Finn his brother, too.

  Finally, Beckett turned to Jack, a look of resentment on his face. The two brothers stared at each other.

  “I should have known from the very beginning you would be here,” Beckett said. “Never underestimate the incredible Jack Adamson. Why haven’t I learned that by now?”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed, the muscle in his jaw twitched.

  Beckett glanced between me and Jack, assessing. “Did he show you all his magic powers, Sage? Did he show you how he made girls swoon back home in the city?”

  “Shut up, Beck.” Jack glared at his brother.

  “What? Did I say something wrong?”

  I didn’t recognize the Beckett that was in front of me, and I don’t know which hurt worse—thinking that Beckett had flipped so drastically in such a short amount of time, or that maybe I hadn’t known the real Beckett at all.

  “Why are you here, Beckett?” Jack said.

  “I came to get Sage and Finn out.”

  Jack snorted. “And why do you care, when you’re the one that gave them up in the first place? You were supposed to be in Alaska. What in the hell where you doing in Kansas?”

  Beckett walked straight up to Jack, closing the space between them. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Jack. And you’re the one who shoved me into that car.”

  “You compromised her family’s location!”

  “We didn’t have a choice!” Beckett shouted back. He shoved Jack in the chest, and Finn growled in response.

  Jack froze—only for a moment—then responded with a shove of his own, forcing Beckett backward a step. Beck caught himself, and the two of them locked eyes. There was an excruciating pause before Beckett lunged at Jack’s waist and slammed him against the wall.

  In my head, it all looked like slow motion.

  Jack wrapped Beck’s legs and they crashed to the floor, rolling like wolves. There were not trained, articulate movements—no calculated hits—just an all-out street brawl speckled with raw punches and grunts. Some similar fight probably happened when they were ten, only this time, they were grown up, and it was for real. Real hits, real pain.

  Get them apart. You have to get them apart.

  They crashed into the cleaning bucket and sent it rolling across the floor toward Finn’s cage. Jack was on top of Beck, his legs wrapped around Beckett’s hips. Jack tried to pin Beckett’s arms back, but Beck kept punching at Jack’s chest, grabbing at his face.

  I moved in close enough for both of them to hear me.

  “STOP!” I yelled and reached my hand in between them, grabbing at Beckett’s arm. Jack’s weight shifted in response, giving Beckett a window of opportunity. He pushed Jack to the left, toward me. I jumped out of the way, but not before my foot caught under Beck’s shoulder. I tripped and fell backward, catching myself with my hands and crab-walked out of the way.

  Now Beckett was on top, both oblivious to my fall. I shook out my hands to relieve the tingling in my wrists.

  Then came the clang.

  All I saw was the cleaning bucket and a few remaining supplies hitting the wall—right on the button that opened Finn’s cage.

  I didn’t have time to marvel at the miracle, to wonder if Finn had done it on purpose, or if hitting the button had been purely accidental.

  The cage door slid open, and fury contorted Finn’s face as he loped toward the boys.

  “Finn! No!” I screamed. I tried to step in his way, but the glazed look in his eyes narrowed in on the boys. I had to dive out of the way or be trampled.

  Beckett was frozen in place, watching Finn approach. Jack shoved Beckett off himself, and both boys got halfway up before Finn lunged at Beckett, encircling his neck with one of his hands. Beckett’s hands flew to Finn’s swollen fingers, trying to loosen the grip.

  “Finn!” I screamed. His eyes were glassed over, unreachable in a way I’d never seen before. He was choking Beckett to death.

  Jack jumped on Finn’s back, and his arms wrapped around my brother’s neck. Finn started twisting, swiping at Jack with his free hand, but he didn’t release his hold on Beckett.

  Beck’s face was turning blue.

  Do something!

  Without thinking, I moved in and wrapped my arms around Finn’s waist. His belly was too swollen to encircle him completely.

  “Finn. Stop. Please.” I hugged him tighter.

  Finn’s grip on Beck loosened, whether from my hold or Jack’s, I wasn’t sure, but Beckett broke free and dropped to his knees coughing.

  Both Finn’s hands went to his neck. I was crying again as I released my brother. Finn dropped to his knees on the ground, Jack still gripping his neck from behind.

  I let out a sob.

  Jack only released Finn’s neck once he’d fallen to the ground, unconscious.

  Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead. He didn’t look at Beckett, who had pulled himself to standing and looked warily down at Finn’s body, still rubbing at his neck.

  “Help me get him to his cage.” Jack spoke to me.

  After we dragged Finn over and laid him inside, I pressed the button to close his door.

  Jack didn’t make eye contact with me. Instead, he picked up his shirt and strode to the door of the old medical w
ing. “We leave in three days,” he said over his shoulder as he reached for the door handle.

  “They’re dead, Jack. Jeff and Peg are dead.” Beckett’s words froze his brother.

  Jack lowered his hand from the door knob. He turned. “What?”

  Shock ran through me, echoing the sound in Jack’s voice. Jeff and Peg were dead? I hadn’t been able to think beyond my mom and my feelings of betrayal long enough to even ask about them.

  “And Dad said he’d kill you if we didn’t go. That’s why we weren’t in Alaska.”

  Air hissed between Jack’s teeth. Guilt ran through me at what I’d said to Beckett earlier.

  “I don’t think three days is soon enough,” Beckett said. “We need to go now. I’m not sure what’s going on, but in the lab just a few minutes ago, one of the doctors came in and told Dad that he needed to take a look at Sage’s bloodwork.”

  The two brothers held a long look with each other, an entire conversation playing back and forth between their eyes.

  Finally, Jack broke the silence by speaking into his ear bud.

  “C,” he said, “can you confirm?” There was a pause. Then Jack looked over at me. “They’re in the lab now. Caesar can’t hear their conversation clearly, but they are looking at your blood.” Jack glanced at Beckett again. “We leave tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I cried. “But Finn’s not ready!”

  “C.” Jack spoke into his ear again. “Find out if Dr. Cunningham can get a helicopter to the west side of the island by tomorrow morning.”

  Beckett shook his head. “That’s not soon enough. We don’t know what Dad will do. He’s unpredictable. We’ve got to go now.”

  “This is the best we can do,” Jack said. “I still have to go in the woods and mark out a path to the north to detour the guards away from our actual direction. Besides, Sage and Imogen will be missed anytime until after dinner. We can’t afford not to get a few hours head start. If we leave before then, we’ll be noticed missing within minutes.”

  “But Finn’s not ready!” I repeated.

  Jack turned to me. “I’m not sure how it will work, but my initial idea was to use part of a sedative pill—not enough to knock him out, just to subdue him. It’s ten miles through the woods, and then we hide in a cave. I’ll get up here just before midnight to give him the pill.” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out two ear buds. He handed me one, and I slipped it into my waistband.

  This was happening too fast. The whole thing felt risky, too much room for error. “One more day. For Finn,” I said.

  “Tonight,” Jack said solidly. He handed a second ear bud to Beckett. “To listen for my mark.”

  They paused, staring at each other again. Then Jack grabbed the inside of Beckett’s right forearm and squeezed. For a half-second, I thought Jack was instigating another fight, but when Beckett mirrored the action, I realized this was their way of making up. I was catching a glimpse of their life as brothers before things had gotten so complicated. No words, and less than three seconds, and they were on the same team again. They released arms, Jack returned to the door, opened it up, and disappeared down the hall.

  My world began to jumble. I felt distracted. Jack said we were leaving tonight. And traveling ten miles. Where did that really leave Finn? I wouldn’t go without him, and the sedative sounded risky. Jack had to know that, but I was afraid to ask more questions. There were glitches in this plan. Was Finn even physically capable of making it through the woods? Of running that far? I didn’t want to know what Jack was really thinking—because he’d likely tell me things I didn’t want to hear.

  Eventually, vaguely, I felt Beckett watching me.

  I sighed. “You should probably go,” I said without pulling my gaze from the door Jack had just disappeared through.

  I felt Beckett’s gaze boring into me. “I wanted to tell you everything from day one,” he said softly.

  I fingered the ear bud in my hand and nodded to avoid answering, because right now, that was the last thing on my mind.

  Beckett nodded in response. But like water flowing through a broken dam, the gap between us widened, the space filling with more questions and more unspoken words.

  Jack hadn’t known Beckett was in Canta after all. Beckett had been forced to stay there, for fear of Jack’s life. The whole thing was some twisted web, and I found myself caught in the middle, trying to separate truth from lies, trying to decide who to trust and how much. I wanted to curl into a ball and disappear.

  My brain felt like it would burst. My body sagged with exhaustion from the last twenty minutes. From the last few days. Waves of emotion rolled through me, and hope was nowhere to be found. This was all too much to handle. Part of me just wanted to give up.

  Instead, I found myself pulling the hallway door open.

  I clenched my jaw, not making eye contact with Beckett. “You should go,” I said again.

  47

  SAGE

  Jack didn’t look over at me when I entered the old medical wing. He stood in front of the window, gazing out at the helicopter pad. The lack of recognition at my entrance snapped something inside of me. I was fed up with Jack not caring about other people’s feelings.

  “What in the hell was that?” I said.

  Jack turned. His expression was dark, closed off. I could tell by the look on his face he had no intention of replying.

  “Answer me, Jack.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You haven’t seen your brother in three whole years, and that’s how you treat him?”

  Jack looked back out the window.

  “Talk to me, Jack. You can’t just shut me out.”

  He spun suddenly and slammed his fist into the wall. “What do you want from me? What do you want to hear?” He spoke with such aggression that it stunned me into silence. “That I’m happy my dad keeps lying to me? That I’m glad Beckett is here?”

  I couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe.

  “He shouldn’t be here, Sage. People around me die. They die. You think it’s some sort of coincidence?”

  He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing before he dropped his hand. “My dad likes to remind me of how I took all the nutrients in the womb. He never wants me to forget that I almost killed off Beck. Or that I’m the reason why Mom delivered early and got so sick. I killed her.”

  “That was not your fault, Jack.”

  “Yes it was. You’re not safe with me, Sage. You’re not safe around me. Because of who I am, what I represent to them, and because of how much my dad hates me. If he knew that I actually cared about—”

  I waited for him to say more, perhaps to mention the pull, the tension that passed between us whenever we entered the same room. Instead, his unspoken words hung in the air. Coward.

  “What, Jack? Just say it! Because you actually let yourself care about someone for once?”

  He didn’t reply.

  My voice rose. “You can’t keep going on like this, Jack. You can’t keep people out. At some point, you’ve got to let someone in.”

  “I don’t have the luxury. Not with what I’m trying to accomplish.”

  “Screw you!” I said. “You don’t want the luxury! You’re too scared of what it means to feel anything that matters! You’re scared to love, and you hide behind this mission to destroy the code. I’m sorry Jack, but code or no code, the world will go on, and at the end of it all, you’re going to be alone.”

  “At the end of all this, I’m destroying every version of the code.”

  I reeled. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the only way to end it.” Jack clenched his fists and rested them on the window sill. “I’m not supposed to be here, Sage.”

  “You can’t be serious. So, that’s it then? You’ll just end your life? Just like that?”

  Jack’s eyes were far away, taking in the ocean, or maybe something beyond it. “It’s the only way,” he said.

 
; “No, it’s the easy way,” I replied. “It’s the cop-out. You do that and you’re considering no one else but yourself. It’s selfish.”

  “Selfish? You think I want to die?” He took a step toward me, closing the gap between us, pointing somewhere out the window, into the oblivion. “You know what keeps me up at night? The idea that my dad will mess with my cells until he unravels the code. That he’ll use the blueprint to make others—and this time, they won’t be sterile. And then he’ll take my sperm and use it to make more embryos, just like they did with me. And that first person—and the next one after that—all those people will endure hell, complete hell, like I did for the eleven months they tested me. And then they’ll be sold off. They won’t even own themselves, Sage. And when does it end? They’ll just keep repeating it, over and over again.”

  He dropped his arm. “I’m not going to let that happen. And if the only way to stop it is to burn myself up and have someone scatter my ashes across the ocean, I will. So you can call that whatever you please, but don’t call it selfish.”

  I blinked back tears. What I really meant was that it was selfish because Jack wasn’t thinking about me. I didn’t care about what other embryos his dad would create. Those people didn’t even exist yet. I wanted Jack to care about not leaving me. I wanted him to miss me. I wanted him to feel the same insane pull that I felt toward him. I wanted him to think about what it would feel like for me if he died. Not anyone else. Screw everybody else. If Jack wasn’t such a martyr, he’d realize what I meant.

  It was self-centered to feel this way, I knew it. And ludicrous. What right did I have to him? But in that moment, it somehow felt justified.

  Jack strode across the room to the vent he’d slid down earlier when Beckett first arrived.

  “Jack,” I said, trying to get him to stop for a minute and listen to himself.

  “I’m going to the woods. We leave at midnight. Wait for the lock in your dorm to click open and then go for the bathrooms. Imogen will meet you there, and then we head to the forest.”

  “Jack! Will you listen to me? Whether you’re dead or not, they’ll keep on trying. They’re never going to stop trying.” My voice sounded desperate, and I didn’t care. I guess I was desperate.