As we move through the window Dalton has created, a shiver passes through me and my body tingles. Once we’re through, the feeling completely passes.
I watch Beth follow us through, and Dalton who comes behind her. I desperately hope Aiden will make it in time. But, the moment Dalton is no longer touching the empty space his hand stops glowing and the wall slowly reappears, speck, by tiny speck, until there’s no opening at all.
‘He can’t leave it open?’ I ask Beth.
She sadly shakes her head. ‘No, his talent doesn’t work that way I’m afraid.’ She rubs my shoulder. ‘Don’t stress about him. Aiden has survived working in that place for a long time. He will be fine until we can send someone to get him out.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like in there. If he’s been caught chances are he won’t.’
She looks away and focuses behind me on the wall we just came through. ‘I know more about that place than anyone should.’
She doesn’t let me question what she’s said and immediately continues talking. ‘This way,’ she says, moving to the door at the other end of the room. ‘Prepare yourself. It’s not pretty out there. Make sure you keep close to me. If we come across trouble I’m your best chance of protection.’
I pick Kelsey up in my arms, uncertain what exactly it is we’re preparing for. When Beth opens the door though, it’s clear.
The hallway is lined with bodies on the ground. They are all clothed in the black recruiter’s uniform, the same as those I’d seen in the hospital.
A man stands just outside the bridge room doorway. He’s short with skin so pale it’s almost blue and eyes as black as midnight. As soon as he sees us he raises his CommuCuff to his lips and talks quietly into it.
‘That’s Soren,’ Beth says, nodding at him. He looks over at the sound of his name and catches me watching. I quickly look away.
I pull Kelsey close to me, hoping she doesn’t see all the men lying stilly on the ground. As much as I want to, I doubt I can protect her from all of this. There are just too many of them.
‘Are they dead?’ I ask Beth.
‘No, but I’m sure they wish they were.’ She glances at the man talking into his cuff.
‘What’s his talent?’ I whisper.
‘You don’t want to know,’ she replies.
I shudder and make a mental note not to go anywhere near the guy. Beth starts moving down the corridor and I follow her closely, being careful not to step on any of the sleeping men. ‘Will they wake up?’ I ask.
‘Eventually. None of them will be the same though.’ She grimaces before turning to lead us down another corridor, which is thankfully free of bodies. Even Beth’s steely exterior is shaken by what Soren can do. She’s not the only one; the sight sent shivers down my spine and I even caught Dalton’s face whiten when he got a look at all the men Soren had affected.
‘Is there anyone else coming to help?’ I ask Beth.
‘No, it’s just us, but we’ll be fine.’
I want to ask if the people she’s with are somehow connected with Ryan, but I’m not sure whether Dalton and Soren can be trusted. I’ll have to wait until we’re alone.
We quietly move through the hospital. There seems to be little difference to the hospital on this side of the bridge, it looks exactly like the wards I’ve spent the last weeks in.
We don’t come across anyone, though I suspect Beth’s friend Soren has a lot to do with that. I want to believe the recruiters deserve what Soren did to them, but after meeting Aiden and knowing for a fact there are good people working in this place, I find it hard.
A smile works its way onto my face when I see a large glass door up ahead, through which the moonlight shines inside. My thoughts are immediately propelled to thinking of being outside again, and it takes a whole lot of self-restraint to stop myself from running towards the door like a maniac.
Beth pauses before she opens the door outside.
‘Everything okay?’ I ask.
She nods. ‘Just waiting for Soren.’
Dalton stands right behind us and I have to move to look around his massive form to see the space behind him. Soren approaches us at such speed and with such stealth I would’ve thought he were a ghost if I didn’t know better.
When he gets to us he stops and nods for Beth to continue. She turns back to the door and opens it, sticking her head out to check the coast is clear.
One-by-one we leave the building and when I take in my first breath of fresh air I feel a rush of emotions. I’m so happy to be free of the hospital, but I still feel trapped by what they’ve done to me. The experience wraps around me like a dark and heavy cloak I can’t remove, no matter how much I wish I could.
Kelsey hugs me tighter, a smile lighting up her face. I can see she feels the same relief I do to finally be outside again.
‘Elle, come on,’ Beth hisses.
I hadn’t realised I’d stopped walking and the others are all way ahead of us now. I rush to catch up with them, feeling silly for being overwhelmed by the outside world. It’s hard not to be after so long locked away from it.
I take one last look at the hospital that has held me prisoner for such a long time and feel an overwhelming sense of release as it disappears behind another building. We’re free.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Once we’re several blocks away from the hospital Beth stops outside the front of a clothes depot. It’s not nearly as large as the one I’d been to in East Hope and the windows out front are covered in a thin layer of dirt and grime.
Beth glances at Dalton and nods in the direction of the door. He walks up to it and steadily traces his finger along the door’s frame, he places his hand just inside the outline, against the hard wood of the door and the area within his tracing disappears. He steps through the gaping hole he’s created into the store and once his hand is removed from the space the wooden door reappears. A moment later he unlocks the door from the inside and swings it open to let us in.
‘You guys need to change out of those hospital robes,’ Beth says, motioning for Kelsey and I to go inside. Kelsey nods eagerly, rubbing her hands over the goose bumps that have appeared on her chilled arms. I don’t even feel slightly cold, just tired and nauseous.
‘Shouldn’t we get rid of Kelsey’s cuff? Surely they’ll be tracking us on it now?’ I ask, as we enter. The air in the place smells stale and I sneeze as the floating dust tickles my nose.
Beth takes a look at the cuff around Kelsey’s wrist before shaking her head. ‘No, it looks like they swapped hers out for a dud in the ward. I doubt this can even comm someone, let alone track her. There’s no harm in ditching it though, just to be safe.’
I catch a flicker of concern in her eyes, before she masks it. ‘You should change.’
I look down at the blue hospital gown. It’s conspicuous as hell and I can’t wait to be rid of it. ‘Give me a minute,’ I say, as I set off into the store.
I wander through the racks, quickly picking out a pair of jeans, a black tank and a sweater. I’m making my way to a change room when Kelsey dives out at me from under a rack of clothes, causing me to jump back and gasp.
‘Got you!’ she squeals, delightedly.
I laugh awkwardly and try to remember how to breathe again. She scared the hell out of me. I nervously glance at the front door, worrying she’s made too much noise.
‘Yeah, you got me, but now you need to get some clothes Kels.’ She nods and looks back at the racks of clothing determinedly. ‘Don’t forget shoes and socks, and a jacket,’ I call after her as she disappears into another rack.
Once I’m changed I meet the others by the front door. My body tingles with nerves. We’re still close to the hospital and this place feels way too quiet. I want to put as much distance between that place and myself as quickly as possible.
‘Where’s Kelsey?’ Beth asks.
‘Here I am!’ she squeals. She’s wearing an old princess costume and standing in a pair of women’s high heels w
ith a man’s fur coat draped over her shoulders.
Beth and I burst out laughing when I see her. Dalton and Soren, however, look thoroughly unimpressed.
‘I’ll fix this,’ I say, to the others.
It’s difficult to explain to Kelsey her outfit is impractical. I manage to budge her on changing the shoes and jacket, but she absolutely refuses to get out of the princess dress.
When we leave the store, Kelsey is beginning to drag her feet and rub her eyes tiredly, so I pick her up in my arms to carry her.
‘Where’s Will?’ she asks, her mouth pulling wide in a yawn.
‘I’m not sure, but he’s with Ryan so I’m sure he’s safe. We’ll see if Beth can help us find him once we’ve stopped.’
Kelsey nods and closes her eyes. I walk slightly faster to catch up with Beth who is a few feet in front of us. ‘Where are we going?’ I ask her.
‘I can’t tell you the exact location, but it’s somewhere you’ll be safe from recruiters and those crazy doctors in the hospital.’
‘Do you know what they were doing to us in there?’
She nods. ‘Yeah, we know what they are up to, but I sure as hell didn’t know you were involved. One day you were there, the next you were gone. I didn’t know what to think.
‘We couldn’t get a read on your cuff. We tried to check for any trace of you at the hospital, but there was nothing. I even checked with our contacts to see if you’d been taken to the farms, but that was a dead end too. It was like you vanished into thin air, like you never existed.’
She sounds sad as she says this and I wonder if maybe she has cared about me all along. Maybe she’d been pushing me away because she wanted to protect me? I swallow tightly and struggle to push back tears.
‘I’m sorry you had to worry,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad to have you back in one piece.’
I smile warmly back, though I don’t feel like I’m in one piece. Not anymore. I feel like I’ve been broken, shattered into a thousand pieces of the person I once was. The things they did to me in there changed me and I feel like a shadow of the person I used to be. I don’t even have control of myself without this band across my wrist. I can’t tell Beth any of this though. I can barely admit it to myself.
Glancing at the inhibitor, I am filled with despair. The experiments the doctors performed on me have produced the wild talents that course through my body. The few I’ve managed to use have only hurt the people around me, and I’m terrified to find out what else might be lurking beneath my skin. Maybe Dr. Wilson’s cure can stop my mutations from getting any worse? If so, we can’t waste any time in finding it and we’ll need Aiden out of the hospital to do so.
‘How did you get involved in all this?’ I ask Beth, trying to ignore my fears, which so easily rise to the surface of my mind.
She looks over her shoulder at Dalton and Soren who walk together several metres behind us, quietly talking to each other, before turning back to me. ‘When I was taken I was only in East Hope for a matter of days before I was moved to the talented dormitories in the north. Back in those days, talents were still a relatively new concept and Hope was chaotic and a lot less ordered than it is now.
‘There was still free movement between the different areas in Hope and I spent most of my time ditching classes trying to find Mum. During my search I met a man named M who knew things no one else here seemed to know. One of those things was Mum was dead.’
‘I heard. I’m so sorry Beth,’ I whisper, my throat closing up as I think of the same fate that awaits Kelsey, Will and me if we can’t find a way to make the mutations stop.
‘You can call me April,’ she replies. ‘We’re among friends.’ She clears her throat, focusing back on where we’re walking. There are no lights on the street, but under the glow of the moon shining brightly above I can see her eyes are wet with unshed tears.
I look away from her face to the dilapidated townhouses that stand before us forming two long rows down the sides of the road. Their small front gardens are overgrown with weeds, no lights emanate from any of their windows and there’s not so much as a whisper of sound on the street. This place feels truly abandoned and I feel like we could be the only people walking the surface of this earth right now.
‘Once I found out she was dead, and how it happened because she was brought to the surface too soon, I was so angry,’ April continues. ‘I felt an unrelenting rage at the government here, with the council in the ARC and towards anyone who has ever had authority over me and has abused it. It felt like all these people ever did was take our choices away from us and I’d had enough.
‘M could see how passionately I felt the injustice of Mum’s death and he told me about his movement. It was small at first, but we’ve grown bigger and bigger. He showed me we didn’t have to just sit by and do nothing. He showed me the truth about what Joseph and his government are doing.’
‘What are they doing?’ I ask.
‘Joseph was never elected to be in charge,’ April says, lowering her voice. ‘He was given temporary control during the establishment of Hope, but he has taken matters into his own hands. The city was supposed to be a fresh start for everyone, but all he cares about is the talented.’
‘Why?’
‘He wants to control who is talented and who isn’t. He’s obsessed with heightening talents by making them stronger and more dangerous, but he also wants the power to take them away.’
‘That’s where the experiments come in,’ I add.
‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘He has the patients in the hospital and most people in West Hope being experimented on. He has even begun taking people from the ARCs prematurely because of his sick obsession. They are his guinea pigs.’
I think back to my trip to West Hope with Lara, when we saw how sick and helpless the people looked. How can he think it’s okay to make people sick in such a way?
‘We’re different though,’ April continues. ‘While he’s looking for a way to make himself more powerful, we’re simply trying to get everyone above ground safely. But we won’t be able to do that with him in charge.’
‘How is he still in charge after the things he’s done?’
Her eyes glint with silent anger. ‘Because no one has stood up to him and with the recruiters following his every order, no one wants to.’
I shake my head. ‘One man shouldn’t have the power to determine how we rebuild our world.’
‘No,’ she agrees.
I fall silent as I allow her words to sink in. She’s been through so much since coming to the surface. I had no idea the secrets she kept when I first arrived in Hope.
‘What about the Masons? Is there a reason you’ve been living with them?’ I ask.
April slowly nods. ‘Paul Mason is Joseph’s number two in charge and I’ve been placed with him to get inside information.’
‘But they treat you like you’re their daughter.’
‘To Paul and Cathy I really am their child.’
‘How is that even possible?’ They act like a real family. I find it hard to comprehend how she could infiltrate a family at that level.
‘Because of my talent,’ she explains.
‘Which is?’
She hesitates before she responds, like she worries I will judge her for what she is about to say. ‘A form of mind manipulation,’ she replies, quietly. ‘I can manipulate people to believe whatever I want them to believe. With the Masons, I’ve manipulated them to the point where they believe I am their child.’
‘Do they even have a daughter?’
‘Yes, but the real Beth is still in the ARC. It was easy to slip into their family, to make them believe I was Beth and I had recently been taken from the ARC and brought here. I look pretty similar to the girl and am the same age.’
‘Are things up here so desperate for you to pretend you’re someone you’re not and live as an imposter in their family?’
‘Are you really asking me that after w
hat you’ve just been through?’ April falls silent and stops walking. She holds her hand out to the two behind us for them to stop too.
‘We have to be quiet now, we’re nearing the wall.’
I follow the direction of her gaze to the huge wall that stands at the end of the street. As I stare at the formidable structure, I notice how incredibly quiet it is—unnaturally so. I look over my shoulder before moving to follow April. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and my skin seems to crawl with each step I take. Something tells me we are being watched.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My eyes narrow as I watch the still street behind me, searching for anything prowling in the murky night. There’s not even a wisp of air running through the tall grass that coils around the rusty fences of the houses on the street, and no movement to indicate someone might be there. It’s as though the city is holding its breath in anticipation, like it can feel something is about to happen.
I turn and try to focus on the wall before us, but looking at it doesn’t make me feel any calmer. It is foreboding in the darkness. It stretches far into the distance and reaches up high into the sky. It is all that separates us from the east of the city, but for most in the west this concrete barrier could be an ocean for all the luck they’d have at getting past it.
‘Come on,’ April whispers, motioning for us to follow her into its shadow.
Kelsey is sleeping in my arms and her body is growing heavy after carrying her for so long, but I refuse to let someone else take her. She’s been through so much tonight and April is the only one I trust in this group of strangers.
When we get to the last building before the wall, April motions for us to hang back while Dalton continues towards it. When he gets there he draws a glowing outline on the thick concrete surface, just as he did in the hospital and the clothing depot.
When he presses his hand against the wall the concrete within the outline dissolves and a window appears through which we can see the glowing lights in the east of the city.
The ARC 03: Fractured Page 10
