Alliance

by Leigh, Trisha

  That said, now isn’t the time.

  I stick out my chin. “Let’s go in. I’m fine.”

  My response does the opposite of what I intend, and relief sparks in his gaze, along with something more that takes me a few moments to decipher. Hope.

  I push the moment out of my mind as we move forward, but it burns inside me, making the path clearer. Safer, maybe.

  The woman behind the front desk is dressed in a version of a nurse’s uniform. She’s plump and angry, if the scowl on her face is any indication.

  “One minute,” she huffs in a thick accent. She must be the same woman who answers the buzzer, since she speaks to us in English.

  The lady may be pissy but she’s not a liar. Less than a minute later, a man in a lab coat exits a heavy metal door to the right of the desk, hand extended.

  Dane shakes it, displaying a smile of thanks. “Dr. Popov, I’m Randolph Spitz. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Yes, of course. You’re the attorney accompanying the children come to visit their aunt Nadia.” He glances down at his chart, a frown tugging on his lips. “I’m afraid nothing has changed since we spoke. She has not regained the ability to communicate coherently. She can speak, but the words are random. Without purpose. Based on the scans of her brain and its current activity, this most likely will not improve.”

  “I understand.” Dane motions to the rest of us with a wave of his hand. “We all understand, but she’s the only family they have left and would like to let her know she hasn’t been forgotten.”

  “It is unlikely that she will be able to process your words, but of course, medicine does not tell us everything, yes?” His teeth are yellow, like kernels of overripe corn on the cob. “Come along.”

  The hallway on the other side of the metal door is lined with what appears to be painted cinder block. The floors are also white, giving me the impression of walking through a sterile tube. There are rooms through the dirty windows on both sides of the corridor, all empty. The sounds of our shoes on the peeling linoleum, our lungs expelling breath from our bodies, echo off the bare walls. We reach the end of the hallway and turn left, then left again, before Dr. Popov pushes open a door that leads to a small, sad courtyard. It’s freezing and there’s dirty snow on the ground, but a single woman sits on a lone bench by a string of holly bushes.

  I glance around, feeling uneasy. There are probably security cameras in a place like this, for legal purposes if nothing else. If someone’s loved one escaped and the hospital didn’t know how or where to find him or her, there could be trouble.

  On second thought, no one leaves a loved one in a place like this. This is where the government puts people they want to get rid of because they can’t pay. Or for other reasons.

  The doctor nods toward the woman, and Dane whirls on him with all the indignation of an angry family representative. “Why is she sitting out in the cold?”

  “State regulations. Everyone who is able gets one hour outside every day. It doesn’t seem to bother her.” He turns and bangs back through the door, inside where it’s warm.

  “Like she would be able to tell them if it did,” Geoff mutters, shaking his head. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “You and everyone else with a brain between their ears,” Reaper snorts.

  “Nice. That’s a really appropriate thing to say at the moment.” My teeth have ground together so hard I might be relegated to eating ice cream for the rest of my life.

  “Whatever, Norah. It’s not like she can hear us.” Reaper rolls her eyes and stalks over to the woman, flopping onto the bench at her side. “What’s up, Auntie Nadia?”

  The woman doesn’t respond. She’s younger than I expected, maybe not even forty. Someone’s tied a kerchief over her bird’s nest of blond hair but it’s barely hanging on in this wind. Even though it churns my stomach to go so close to her, I sit down and adjust it, tightening the knot below her chin. Then I close her coat where it’s flopped open, fastening the buttons.

  Geoff sits on her other side. “Aunt Nadia, do you remember anything about what happened to you? Or why someone would want to hurt you?”

  Nadia’s eyes are cast on the ground, then on the sky, then on the trees. They seem to sweep over each of us in turn but it doesn’t take a trained scientist or shrink to realize she doesn’t see a thing.

  “Let’s go. We knew this would be a waste of time, Dane. That’s why Marlow told us not to come here.” Reaper’s gray eyes are filled with accusation as they stick to Dane’s face.

  He gives her no reaction, if she was looking for one. “It’s Agent Lee. And this is my operation. I’ll run it how I see fit and you will fall in line.”

  I’m taken aback by the exchange, by their dislike for one another. It wasn’t apparent until now and I have to wonder whether we would have ever guessed had Reaper not challenged him in the open.

  I also have to wonder why we’re here at all if Marlow advised against it.

  Nadia’s lips move continuously, a quiet flow of mumbled words clawing free and dribbling down the front of her coat. Some hit her knees, others drop onto the concrete, but very few splatter close enough to pick up. Something catches my attention and I shove my questions about Dane to the back of my mind.

  We lean in closer to the broken lady like we’re one body, until most of the words are clear, though they still don’t seem to make sense. They’re connected by nothing except language, and they’re in Russian, anyway, as far as I can tell.

  She mutters and scoffs and minutes go by. Nearly an hour passes, but we are all transfixed. I’m not sure why we’re not leaving. Why I’m not bored, not cold, but there’s something about her. As though the words do make sense somewhere in the back of my mind, and in that place, I understand they’re important.

  Nadia Dimitrov was born in the mid-seventies, toward the end of the period of common residence between the victims. But she lived up near the Cosmodrome, where so many of the victims lived. If they are connected, and that’s why the hackers chose them as the first victims, maybe it was because they saw something.

  “Did something happen to you when you lived in Siberia? Did you see anything weird?” I try.

  “Baikonur,” the familiar word slips off her tongue, then again. “Baikonur. Dyatlov. Pervyy raz v proshlyy raz vse vremya. Dyatlov.”

  “Did you hear that?” I breathe.

  Geoff’s eyes are wide. “Yes. She said Baikonur. The name of that base or research facility or whatever it is up in Siberia.”

  My mind spins, dots suddenly connecting with synapses working overtime. “No, the other thing. She said Dyatlov twice.”

  “So what?” Reaper asks, still bored. Her fingers are pale as she stuffs them in her armpits.

  “It’s where those kids were found. The cross-country skiers in the fifties.” Everyone returns blank stares, which forces me to recall that none of them were present when I stumbled across the research that day. “There was a group of college kids found dead under really strange, suspicious circumstances that were never explained. In Dyatlov Pass.”

  Reaper looks stumped. Dane appears to be mulling it over. Geoff blows out a huge breath, rustling the shaggy hair on his forehead that needs a cut. “What do you think that means? That they’re connected somehow—the dead kids and the people who were targeted by the virus?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s tenuous, at best, but what if the people who lived there somehow found out what happened back then? Or that something’s still going on? “I guess we’ll have to file it away for later.”

  “Well, there’s no way to get into it now, that’s for sure.” Dane checks his watch again, an annoying habit he’s picked up since we met at the airport earlier today. They drilled the importance of being back there on time into all our heads, but we’ve got alarms set on our phones and the sun in the sky—it can hardly be past two.

  He seems annoyingly unimpressed by the connection, as if maybe it’s dumb to be excited about it. It’s probably noth
ing.

  “It’s two-thirty. Anyone hungry?” Dane asks.

  “I am.” Geoff puts hands over his stomach as it growls, punctuating his statement. “If you think we have time to stop and still make it back to the plane.”

  “We have time. Eve here knows some workable lunch spots, I’m sure, since she’s been on the ground for a good ten days now.” Dane waits for her to respond.

  It’s reluctant when she does, as though getting rid of us as soon as possible holds the highest slot on her to-do list for today. “Sure. There’s a great little café down by the canal. On the way back to the airport.”

  For the second time today, which is two times more than I prefer, I find myself trusting Reaper in an unfamiliar town. It’s not like there’s much of a choice, but getting back on that plane and back to the other Cavies is at the top of my list.

  Along with getting ahold of another damn computer. Because I don’t care what Dane says, this is a clue. It has to be.

  The café is cute, and the location charms me as best it can in my current mood. My bowl of soup—potato—manages to warm me up and the accompanying sandwich on pita bread fills my belly. Everyone else seems in a better mood after some food and coffee, and even Dane’s shoulders have fallen from where he’s had them hunched around his ears all day. We’ve got about forty-five minutes to get back to the airfield, now, and I’m itching to go.

  “Did the others have any luck?” I ask, sucking down the rest of my coffee.

  Dane’s been typing away on his phone since we got here, so I figure he’s been updated on progress.

  “Yes, they did. Haint was able to get into a restricted area, and with the help of one of the Olders, they retrieved some files that could allow us to triangulate the exact location of the origination point for the virus. We’re working with the Russians to check its veracity out now.”

  This trip might actually turn out to be worth it—they’ve got the location, we’ve got a lead as far as how victims were being targeted, at least in the beginning, and maybe Mole’s group had success, too. And none of us are hurt or captured. Major bonus.

  I get up and toss my trash in the receptacle, then grab everyone else’s, too.

  Dane flashes me a hint of his old smile. “Are you ready to go or something, Mary?”

  “Ja,” I reply in a horrible imitation of a German accent. If I were in charge of my genetic engineering, I’d ask them to give me something cool and helpful, like being able to speak any language I hear.

  At least that might help me get a real job one day.

  He snorts. “That is about the worst German accent I’ve ever heard.”

  “Not all of us have secret training in these kinds of things.”

  The banter almost makes me forget why we’re here. That we’re not Norah and Dane. We’re Agent Lee and Gypsy. The cold blast of air outside the café helps smack me back into reality. We all trek back to the car, rubbing our hands together to keep warm. Reaper’s halfway in the backseat when a spray of something hot splatters my face.

  I reach up to touch it. My fingers come away slicked with bright-red liquid—blood.

  My heart kicks into overdrive when I see Dane standing by the back of the car, blood gurgling from his neck. There’s skin missing, like someone ripped it off. The shock on his face, the way he pales and presses a hand over his wound, shoots cold fear into my chest.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It happens again, tearing flesh from Dane’s cheek this time. Exposing bone.

  I scream. Geoff whirls around, his eyes popping wide at the blood flowing from Dane’s neck as another piece of skin peels off his forehead. I see an object flying toward us and throw myself forward instinctively, knocking Dane to the ground.

  The window in the open car door behind us explodes, as though it’s been shot out, but the object I saw was shaped more like a pipe or an arrow. Glass falls from my hair and slices my cheeks and the backs of my hands, stinging, as I push to my feet. Dane struggles to stand up behind me, blood pumping out around the fingers he clamped on his neck as more random objects rain down on us.

  Trash. Bottles and newspapers. Rocks and what looks like someone’s cane.

  A chunk of skin rips off the back of my hand as though the blood underneath exploded outward like a volcano. It spills, covering the pavement with crimson dots, and the searing pain rips a screech from my lips.

  From inside the agony, all this makes sense.

  It’s Reaper. Betraying us again. No one but her can rip blood out of people’s veins like this, with so much force it tears flesh off in the process.

  Except Reaper is screaming at us to get in the car. Horror paints her face and flecks of blood splatter her skin, which means she got hit by the glass, too.

  Why would she hurt herself?

  Who else could do this?

  I look at Geoff. Think of his telekinesis.

  He tugs Dane into the car, and Reaper shoves me in behind them as a lamppost dives through the open restaurant door, leaving a hole the size of a watermelon in its wake.

  That could have been my back.

  “Why are you doing this?” I shriek at Geoff. “Stop!”

  “I’m not doing anything!” he screams back, face white as a ghost’s beside me in the car.

  “Drive, goddammit!” Dane shouts at the driver, his whole hand bright red now.

  The tires squeal as the driver complies, and frigid air swirls in through the open door. Blood continues to flow between Dane’s fingers as he curses, blanching whiter with every beat of his heart. Instinct tells me the wound is nowhere near deep enough to kill him, but it still gives me an uncomfortable burning sensation in my gut.

  “What the hell? There are people following us.” Geoff’s turned around, staring out the back window, his eyes huge. “Get down!”

  I obey without a second thought and so does Dane, ducking his head below the window as it shatters. The glass bites into the back of my neck and sticks in my hair. An object thuds into the partition—a piece of a park bench, I think, though the metal is twisted and half-buried, making it hard to identify.

  There are people out there who can do what we can do, I think dumbly. Grab on to blood, telekinesis…

  “What do we do?” Geoff asks, panic creeping up his face like mercury in an old thermometer. He’s almost screaming, and for some reason, it shatters the wall of hysteria cutting me off from my higher brain function.

  “You can do the same thing!” I yell. “Throw shit back!”

  My suggestion hits him like a brick in the chest as his eyes widen, and he gets on his knees facing backward, hands facing palms out like he’s surrendering. I know he’s not.

  I hear it happening before I see it—the swirl of wind, the screech of metal ripping away from the bolts that secure it, and then cars from the sides of the streets are in the air, hurtling toward the black, government-issue town car racing up behind us. People lean out the windows, hands raised in our direction. More Cavies?

  They deflect the cars, which smash into the curbs with the howling protest of twisting metal, but Geoff’s got parking meters and signs flying toward them, too. Their driver has to swerve to miss them. I hold my breath, trying to staunch the flow of blood from the back of my hand for a second before giving up. There are too many cuts and none of them are going to kill me. Instead of doing nothing I reach under the seats and find a first aid kit, tossing the roll of gauze at Dane.

  Reaper stares at Geoff for a second, then looks down at her own hands before climbing onto the seat next to him. I want to open my mouth, to tell her she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to, but something stops me. It could be my anger, or my fear, but maybe we do need her.

  I have no idea who’s chasing us. Trying to kill us. I have no idea how they know we’re here or whether we’re kidding ourselves that we can fight back and get away, but the look on Dane Lee’s face suggests he might know the answers to all those questions.

  My anger over being
led into this situation blind, being kept in the dark, helps me ignore the shame in my gut that’s burning hotter than anything else. While Geoff and Reaper face the threat, try to keep us safe, I’m peering over the backseat like a toddler watching tigers fight in the zoo, totally helpless. Worthless.

  Before I can implode, both of the people hanging out the windows of the town car behind us duck back inside in a spray of blood. The windshield is painted with it and the car swerves again, smashing into a city bus and spinning to a stop.

  Reaper and Geoff turn, slumping onto their butts. Their faces are pale and sweating, blood-smeared.

  “Are they gone?” I ask, voice trembling.

  “For now.” Geoff shakes his head, loosing chunks of glass onto the seat and carpet.

  “How many were there?” Dane asks. “Just two?”

  “I think so.” Suspicion darkens Geoff’s features. I realize that’s become his default. “How did you know that?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “They’re not going to be down for long,” Reaper mutters. “Call ahead. Get the plane running. I’ll be able to hold them off for a while, along with the others.”

  “What others?” I ask, realizing it might not even be the right question.

  “The other Cavy Assets.” She says it like it’s the most obvious, natural response ever and for the first time, I’m forced to really face the fact that she’s one of them.

  An Asset. Not my Cavy any longer, and despite her funky attitude when we were alone for a moment at the internet café, she seems comfortable in the role.

  Dane nods, looking down at his phone as he sends a text, not seeming to notice that I’m struggling not to throw up. “Fine. But you won’t be able to hold them for long. Figure out an extraction plan.”

  Reaper nods. “Mist is here. He can get us out after y’all leave.”