“Let me in!” I yelled, letting out the frustration welling inside. Just one goddamn door stood between me and safety. Me and Wren. All they had to do was open it and this would all be over. For now.
“Open the goddamn door!”
Another round of bullets pinged off the door, bouncing back and falling to the floor. At least I was getting a demonstration about exactly what the steel door could withstand. Joseph was right to choose the bunker as his hiding place, it was more secure than the troopers’ base.
Finally, the door screeched as it opened outwards.
I raced in without looking and shot down the stairs, pushing past the guy who had finally come to my rescue. The door thudded closed behind me, the locks engaging automatically with a soft pssshhht.
I almost ran straight into Wren at the bottom of the stairs. Her face melted into a smile as she saw me, but then quickly turned into a look of concern when she spotted the blood now coating half my side.
“You’re hurt!” she exclaimed.
“It’s just a nick to the arm, looks worse than it is,” I tried to reassure her. Seeing her safe was one of the best things I had ever seen.
“You need to see a medic, there’s one set up in the central hub. Come on.” She twined her fingers with my hand not covered in blood and pulled me along. She set the pace briskly, weaving through the crowd of people who seemed to have grown since I left.
We reached the central hub in no time. Nearly all the tables were occupied, Defective Clones seated on all available chairs. Members of the Resistance were standing around, some busy with various tasks.
Wren pulled me to the table closest to the far wall where a man – I guessed the doctor – was crouched down, examining a boy’s knee. He had a nasty wound slashed across it, obviously infected for some time judging by the amount of puss oozing from the angry cut.
As soon as the doctor looked up and got an eyeful of the amount of blood caked on my clothes, he stood and hurried over. “What happened to you?” His dark eyebrows were so thick they were almost one complete line of hair.
“A bullet grazed my arm,” I explained, holding out the affected arm and taking my shirt off so he could get a proper look. The wound was raw and angry, still dripping blood like it was determined to turn everything a shade of red.
“You’d better sit down while I get some supplies. Hold your arm up, if you can,” the doc ordered before rifling around in his gigantic black bag.
Wren was almost as white as a ghost. “How many did we get?” I asked, trying to drag her focus away from all the blood. I didn’t want her to pass out.
She looked around. “I don’t know, a lot? Autumn and the others found a few large groups and managed to get most of them back here.”
“How many would have been living in the village?”
“About a couple of hundred.”
“So we got about half.” Considering the circumstances, those were good odds, but I wasn’t going to mention that. Every one lost was one too many. Every one of them was someone Wren had known and had been part of her family. She would be hurting immeasurably from every single loss.
She picked at her fingers, scrubbing at dirt that didn’t exist. I gently took her hands in my good one, stopping her. “Hey, we did everything we could.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“I know.” She didn’t have to say how much it hurt, I could read it on her face. It only added to the anger simmering in my gut, making me more determined to take down Stone and her government.
How could someone issue an order to wipe out the entire population of Defective Clones? The same population that her labs had so coldheartedly disposed of shortly after their birth? They had a responsibility to those they brought into this world, the Defective Clones hadn’t asked for any of this.
The doctor returned and Wren stepped back, trying to look everywhere except at the blood. “This is going to hurt,” the doctor warned before splashing rubbing alcohol onto my gunshot.
He. Wasn’t. Kidding.
White hot pain shot down my arm and covered my entire body, making my head scream for release. I bit down, my teeth clenched so tight they started to ache.
I tried not to look at what the doc was doing, pretending I was doing anything else except being tortured by the guy. I focused on Wren, trying to imagine all that could be running through her head.
Concern, I think.
Worry, no doubt.
If I knew her at all, which I thought I did, she would be worried sick about all the Defective Clones that were still aboveground and subject to the fate dished out by the labs.
She would also be wondering if there was still a way to save them. They wouldn’t be killed immediately. First, their Makers would be contacted. Once they signed the order, only then would the clone be destroyed and their organs frozen.
There probably was still time.
Which meant we had to do something fast.
“Doc, could you work a bit quicker, please?” I asked, wincing as he dragged the needle through my skin to pull the wound tight. He shot me a look that clearly screamed ‘You don’t want to mess with the guy fixing you’.
I shut my mouth but my foot started tapping out an incessant rhythm on the floor. I needed to get moving, start doing something while the kidnapped clones had a chance at survival.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said to Wren. Her eyes widened for a moment as she studied me, working out if I was telling the truth or just fishing for information.
She swallowed. “They need help.”
“I know.”
“We need to get to them.”
“I know.” They seemed like the only two words I could offer her. The doctor continued to stitch up my arm, making each movement burn like a hot poker. It helped to focus on the plan, work out what I needed to do instead of the searing pain lancing down my arm.
Wren shifted, changing the weight on her feet and then realizing her mistake. She sat down reluctantly, like she didn’t want to give into the defect in her foot.
The room rushed around us, everyone seemed to be busy doing something. The injured clones were comforting one another, doing what they could to tend to their own injuries until the medics could get to them. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anything major going on, cuts and bruises definitely, but nobody was critical.
They’d been lucky. If Joseph and his men weren’t watching on the surveillance cameras, they would have been rounded up and picked up one by one. They wouldn’t have stood any chance. Now, they might be hiding like scared rats but at least there was a shot at living another day.
It wasn’t even an option to remain there in the comforts of the bunker and let the others die. While there was still a chance of rescuing them, I wasn’t going to be able to rest.
“Okay, you’re done,” the doctor finally said, straightening up and tidying his supplies. “Don’t do anything strenuous with this arm or the stitches might pop. If they do, there will be little viable skin to sew you back up again. Clear?”
He waited solemnly, looking up at me through those spectacularly bushy eyebrows. How could he even see me through all that hair? It was distracting.
“I understand, thank you,” I replied when I realized he was still waiting for an answer. It wasn’t just a rhetorical question, then. He nodded, accepting my response before getting up to help someone else. I felt a little bad for lying to him. There was no way I could guarantee my arm wasn’t going to be used today.
I turned to Wren, she was wringing her hands together. “It’ll be okay. I’ll go speak with Joseph and we’ll organize a rescue mission. We’ll get them back, Wren.”
“I want to help.”
“You need to stay here and help the others. They know you, they trust you.”
She looked around at the faces, I wondered how many she knew and had grown up with. “I can’t sit by knowing they’re out there, about to be…” Her voice trailed off but I knew what she was going to say.
“You’re not sitting by,” I assured her. “You’re helping the people that need you here. When we get the others and bring them back, they’ll need help too. You can help here to be prepared for the all the others still to come.”
Hope sparked in her eyes and I prayed it wasn’t going to turn into disappointment later on. I couldn’t let her down, I couldn’t turn my promises into lies.
I had to save them.
Otherwise I would never be able to look her in the eyes again.
“Will you bring them back here?” she asked.
“It’s the safest place.”
“Is it, really? What if they get through the door?”
I crouched down on the floor so I could be eye level with her. My hand gently lifted her chin so she couldn’t look away. Her light blue eyes were like looking into the deepest depths of the ocean. I wanted to swim in them and forget about everything else.
One day, maybe.
Now was a time to fight.
“The bunker is secure,” I started. “I saw for myself that bullets can’t get through the door. You’re safe here and everyone we bring back will be too.”
“But, the door—”
“—Will hold. Joseph isn’t stupid, he wouldn’t keep the most important members of the Resistance here if it wasn’t the safest place in Aria.”
She wasn’t convinced, but neither was I.
There was no such thing as safe in Aria.
I somehow convinced her to stay with her people while I went to find Joseph. He was stationed in his office, the monitors still keeping watch on the Defective village aboveground. His head snapped up when I entered.
“Reece, congratulations on the success.” He grinned and it gave me the creeps for some reason. I’d put so much trust and faith in the man since I met him. I really hoped that wasn’t unfounded blindness now.
“We need to get the others, the ones the troopers took,” I replied, getting straight to the point. “They will be holding them in the labs and waiting for the Makers’ permission to slaughter them.”
“They could have received consent prior to their raid.”
“Maybe, but probably not. There was no guarantee who they would bring back. They wouldn’t initiate so much paperwork until they were certain who they would need permission from.”
Joseph entwined his fingers underneath his chin, thinking. He processed everything long and hard before speaking again. “They won’t have much time.”
“No, they won’t. That’s why we need to move now.” Every minute that ticked by was making the urgency that much worse. I was itching to move, I wasn’t trained to sit around when something needed to be done.
I was trained to fight.
And my fists were twitching.
“What’s your estimate on the numbers captured?” he asked. At least he was taking my request seriously. A part of me expected him to dismiss the idea straight away as being too dangerous.
“Wren said there were about a couple of hundred clones living in the village when she was there a few weeks ago. We have about half that amount here which leaves another hundred captured.” I delivered the words as I would to any of my superiors on the base. While Joseph was listening, I wouldn’t be insubordinate. I would toe the line until I got what I needed.
“That’s a lot of people to move.”
“We’ll need several teams to go in for the rescue.”
“It’s dangerous,” he pointed out, needlessly. It was like reminding me the sky was blue.
“It’s vital.”
Joseph retreated into his thoughts again, his eyes calculating and alert. I wanted to tell him I was going anyway but a solo mission wouldn’t save all the captives. I might be able to get a few at most, but I promised Wren more so I had to keep my mouth firmly closed.
The truth was I needed Joseph a lot more than he needed me now I wasn’t spying for him on the base. I was in no position to make demands and we both knew it. His cooperation now was out of courtesy and for the overall mission of the Resistance.
But as every heartbeat thudded in my chest, I felt the clock ticking by. Every minute lost was one where they could have been killing the clones.
Another heartbeat.
Another tick.
Another death?
I needed to move. “Sir?” I prompted.
His gaze settled on me, staring for a few moments more. “We’ll gather a team. Get to the war room and prepare to leave. I’ll send the others. Looks like we’re going into battle.”
They were the only words I needed to hear.
Chapter 16: Wren
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Reece said as he tugged on a new shirt. At least this one wasn’t covered in blood like the old one. It also didn’t have a hole from a bullet.
“I should be going with you,” I replied. I wanted to go with Reece more than anything else.
“No. You stay here and help while I go for the others. That was the deal, remember? I can’t be worrying about you out there, I need to know you’re safe here.”
“My safety isn’t any more valuable than yours.”
He stopped for a moment to look at me carefully. His eyes grazed over all the features of my face until he had them memorized. “It’s more valuable to me.”
My breath caught in my throat and for a moment I couldn’t speak. His gaze was too intense, it made my skin feel like it was on fire. It made me want something that I had no right wanting.
I wanted him.
So, so much.
But he was a human and I wasn’t. It was that simple. Humans couldn’t love a clone, we were unnatural. It was like wishing I could touch the moon and shrink it down until it fit into my pocket.
Impossible.
“Promise me you’ll be safe,” I said when my lips could form words again. “If something happened to you…”
“I’ll be fine, I promise.”
“You make a lot of promises.”
He flashed me a smile and it lit up his entire face. He didn’t do that often enough, denying the world of his beautiful grin. “And I plan on keeping them all.”
I didn’t realize he had stepped closer until the warmth of his body was apparent against mine. He was so tall and strong, but so familiar at the same time. It was difficult remembering how little we actually knew about each other.
My breathing was ragged as we stood there, our eyes locked on each other and having their own conversation. I know what mine were saying, they were begging him to return from the laboratories, to return to me, to keep his promises of staying safe.
His eyes were blazing, covering me with warmth that was too much for the small corridor. I knew we only had minutes to speak before he left with the others and it seemed like no time at all. Now wasn’t exactly a time for standing still, but I couldn’t bear to drag my gaze away.
Suddenly his lips were on mine.
My thoughts all scrambled into nothingness.
As everything else faded away, all that mattered in that moment was Reece and his lips, how soft they were on mine, how much I wanted this when I had no right to.
I closed my eyes and just felt.
Felt his hands holding my arms by my sides.
Felt his heart beating against mine.
Felt my feet feel weightless.
Felt my stomach doing back flips.
And then it was over. Reece pulled back, taking his lips from mine and leaving me stunned. I cried inside for the loss, wishing he would do it again and again until I was nothing but the butterflies in my stomach.
“I promise, Wren,” he said, his voice husky and rough. I didn’t get a chance to say anything before he turned, picked up the gun resting against the wall, and marched down the corridor.
I could still feel his hands around my arms.
It felt like a dream because it was ridiculous to believe a human had just kissed a clone – a defective one at that. It was forbidden and unheard of.
It could only mean one thing.
/> He wasn’t going to keep his promise.
Reece knew he wasn’t going to be coming back.
Why would he have done it otherwise? It was a silent apology, a goodbye, something he never would have considered if he was thinking straight.
I wanted to chase after him and yell that I knew what he was planning. Knew that he was lying to me and that I could see through his fibs to look at the truth.
But I didn’t. I stood there in the corridor with the buzz of the Defective Clones in my ears and the whoosh of the air vents gently breezing over me.
While everything raced on the inside, I looked a picture of calm on the outside. My blood was boiling as the anger rose up. If I was never created, if I was born a human instead of the filthy, defective thing that I was…
Life was cruel.
But it was also something I was fighting for.
And there were things I needed to do. Feeling more like a zombie than a living being, I returned to the central hub. All the clones were still there, unable to go anywhere else. We were stuck there until someone made a decision to do something with us. As usual, we were at the mercy of the humans and whatever charity they offered us.
All the members of the Resistance were huddled together in groups, watching the Defective Clones like they were animals in a zoo. None spoke, apart from the rare few like Autumn who had gone aboveground to fight for us.
Whether they were scared, or just unsure, they were keeping their distance and it wasn’t going to make this work. Just for once I wanted the humans to see us as something other than vile creatures.
I climbed onto a seat, standing taller than anyone there. “We are all stuck here together, we need to get along. Please help those that need your assistance. We won’t bite, I promise,” I yelled out over the din of the crowd.
There I was, making promises now.
The hub went so quiet I could hear the rush of the blood in my veins. At least I had their attention. Now was a good time to say what I needed to. “Defective Clones are just like you. We feel, we have emotions, we care, and we love. Please help us in our time of need. We thank you for fighting for us as part of the Resistance. Help us so that we can fight right alongside you.”
Hundred Stolen Breaths Page 17
