Sloane

by V. J. Chambers

  I banged on the trunk. “Jeff?”

  A shriek from inside.

  “I’m going to open the trunk now, okay? I’m going to tie you up. If you try anything, if you try to run, I’m going to shoot you. You got that?”

  Another unintelligible noise of misery.

  “I need a ‘yes’ here, Jeff.”

  “Yes,” came the reply, muffled.

  I unlocked the trunk, training the gun on him.

  He slowly sat up. He’d been crying, at least I thought so. He was still shaking. His lower lip trembled as he held his hands out to me.

  I moved forward. “I’m going to put the gun away and tie you up. But if you make one false move, I’ll have it back out in a second. And I will shoot you. You understand?”

  He nodded, cringing.

  I put the gun into the waist of my pants, and I quickly tied his hands together. Then I hauled him out of the trunk.

  I made him sit on the ground, propped up against the car. Tears were leaking out of his eyes. He’d really sort of lost it.

  I felt bad. Jeff was a good guy. He didn’t deserve this. But I had to do what I had to do.

  “Why are you doing this?” he whispered.

  “I need to ask you some questions,” I said.

  * * *

  six years ago…

  I was tied up in the basement, and they were all there. My parents were there. My mother was brushing my hair away from my forehead and telling me that it wouldn’t be so bad, that what I was doing would help out the whole family, that they needed me, that I should be proud.

  But all I felt was ice cold terror.

  There were four of them, and they were wearing dirty jeans and too-tight t-shirts. Cigarettes dangled from their yellowed fingers. They had dirt under their nails.

  I was afraid.

  I had struggled when they tied me down. I had sobbed. I had begged my mother not to do this to me. My voice full of tears, I had told her just how frightened I was, and how much I didn’t want to do this. I had pleaded with her to stop it all.

  She didn’t stop it, though. She told me it would be over soon.

  The door burst open then, and I saw Silas coming in. His chest was heaving, and he looked so angry.

  My mother went to him. “Silas, what are you doing? We talked about this.”

  And Silas picked up a knife off of one of their tables. It didn’t look very clean either. It looked old and stained. But it was sharp.

  Silas didn’t say anything to her. He made a slashing motion, right across her throat.

  His face was drawn, his eyes narrow, his teeth clenched.

  My mother couldn’t make a noise, because her throat was cut. She stumbled around, looking down in amazement at all the bright red blood that was gushing out of her throat.

  My father yelled.

  And that was when the rest of them noticed that something bad had happened. They looked up from their cigarettes and conversation, looked up to see Silas across the room, the bloody knife in his hand.

  And it was chaos.

  They were all running, running for the door.

  But Silas had locked it, put a padlock on it, and only he had the key. And they couldn’t get out.

  Silas came to me next. He cut all the ropes that bit into my skin, and he helped me stand up. There was blood on the knife he used. There was blood on Silas. On his skin. On his clothes. Our mother’s blood.

  I stood up, but I couldn’t move.

  I wasn’t even trying to stop him. I couldn’t.

  Even though I didn’t want it to happen, even though I was terrified of it—more terrified of anything than I’d ever been in my entire life—I was just standing there, letting it happen. I kept trying to will my limbs to move.

  But I couldn’t. I was frozen.

  And they were coming for Silas now, all of them. And they had knives too. Knives and needles and scalpels and… so many sharp things.

  But Silas moved in a blur. He stabbed and slashed and screamed.

  And there was more blood. It was spattered up on the ceiling. It was dribbling down onto the floor. It was gushing and spraying and flowing. The smell hit my nose, sharp and sour.

  And I still couldn’t move.

  I was frozen, watching it all happen, watching them all die, watching them all bleed out. Not just my mother, who had started all of this, but all of the rest of them too.

  I tried to take a step, to make a noise.

  Nothing happened.

  And then there my father was. He was stabbed in the leg, and he was limping towards me. There was blood all over his hands. And he was saying something, something about how we never should have been born, how we were more trouble than we were worth, how we’d ruined everything, how much he hated us.

  And I saw it glittering in his hand. Something sharp and metal and small. But he was going to try to stick it into me. I could see that.

  Silas was busy.

  That was when I could move. I found one of the other knives. I tore it out of the hand of one of the others, one of the dead ones, and when I stood up, I brought it up, right into my father’s gut.

  He sputtered. He groaned.

  I twisted it. I pushed deeper, and I twisted.

  His blood came out over both of us. It was a hot fountain, a wave of red. It gushed over my hands, sticky and warm.

  I looked into his eyes. He was shrieking, but I kept twisting. And eventually, his eyes went blank, as if someone had reached in and pinched the wick of his spirit, snuffing him out.

  He was quiet then.

  * * *

  For a second, I couldn’t move. I felt like all I could see was red, that blood was creeping over my vision, obscuring everything, blocking it all out.

  Jeff groaned. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything. But please don’t hurt me. Please, Sally.”

  I peered down at him, and then my limbs worked again. “Anything?”

  He nodded furiously. “Anything. Please.”

  “What do you know about the men who broke in today?”

  “About them?” He was hysterical. “Nothing. Why would you think I knew anything?”

  “Did you see them?”

  “I saw them when the guards took them out,” he said. “They were sedated. I couldn’t tell anything about them. I don’t know who they are. I really don’t.” His voice was getting louder and louder, his words tumbling over each other.

  Well. I had a feeling things weren’t going to have to get so bad after all. I thought that I’d have to torture Jeff, hurt him in some way to get him to give up information. But he didn’t seem to need much of a nudge at all. I was relieved. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have done it—if I had to—but overall, it was much nicer this way.

  I knelt down so that I was eye-level with Jeff. “Okay, I believe you.”

  “You do?” There was so much relief in his voice.

  “But let’s talk about this secret lab of Armstrong’s.”

  Anguish flicked over his face. “But I don’t know anything about that either. All I know is that he’s got one. Come on, Sally, when we worked together, you were the one who got access to that place. They wouldn’t let me in.”

  That was true. They’d let me in pretty much anywhere. French was right about me. I was practically invisible. I was quiet and unassuming. People at the lab talked in front of me freely, never thinking that I was listening in. They let me accompany them all over the place, and only seemed grateful when they saw me, because I was there to do whatever menial task that they needed done.

  I got closer to him. “But that lab burned down, Jeff. I lost my job because there was so much damage, and they couldn’t fit all the staff into the replacement space while they made repairs. So, is Armstrong’s secret lab still in the same place?”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s off site. He moved it someplace. Everyone in the building knows that he leaves and goes there, but no one knows where it is. No one knows what he does there, not re
ally. We all guess.”

  I stood up. “Damn it.”

  He let out a mewling sound. “Don’t be mad. Please. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

  I glowered down at him. “You really don’t know anything, do you, Jeff?”

  “No.” His voice quavered.

  “Then you’re goddamned useless.” I stared up at the sky. “What am I going to do with you?”

  * * *

  I had to get a new room. I couldn’t stay in the hotel where Griffin and I had been, not with Jeff in tow. I had to check in to a motel somewhere, because the doors opened out onto the parking lot. It was a lot easier to get him inside without anyone seeing him.

  That didn’t mean it was easy, though.

  I sat in the parking lot until after midnight, waiting for the coast to be clear. Jeff was still in the trunk. He was gagged now, but I could still hear him making moaning noises.

  I knew that it would have been easier to kill him. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. But I couldn’t handle doing that. He didn’t deserve that. And I didn’t think even Silas would have done that.

  Of course, Silas sometimes did things…

  But only if he had to protect me. Or maybe Christa. Or maybe Griffin and Leigh. He wasn’t cold-blooded. He was my brother. If he did bad things, it was only when he had no choice.

  And I had a choice. I could hide Jeff in my motel room.

  I’d go back to the other hotel tomorrow and officially checkout. We were all registered there, under our names and with our credit cards and everything, which was bad, now that I’d kidnapped someone and was holding him against his will. I needed to be flying under the radar as much as possible. So, I’d paid for the motel room in cash.

  Once I got him inside, I took him to the bathroom, and I locked him in there. I didn’t take the gag off, because I was afraid he’d start making a lot of noise and drawing attention to me.

  That done, I sat down on the bed in the room. It was a pretty crappy little hotel. The bedspread was was this horrible puke green color. The TV was like something from two decades ago.

  I lay back and looked up at the ceiling. There was a brown water stain spreading out over it. Great.

  My phone rang.

  Silas? Had they managed to get free?

  I answered it.

  “Sloane, where is he?” said a female voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Christa, damn it. Now why the hell isn’t Silas answering his phone?”

  Shit. I rubbed my face. “Um, Christa, we might have a little bit of a situation here.”

  “A situation? What does that mean? I’ve been trying to call him for hours. He promised me that he would check in. But every time I call him, it just goes right to voicemail.”

  “Yeah.” I shut my eyes. “Um, the thing is, Silas and Griffin sort of got… captured.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “We were following up on a lead about where Leigh might be, and something happened. I couldn’t see, because they were in a locked room with the blinds drawn. But I saw them taking their bodies out of the room, but I couldn’t get there fast enough and—”

  “Bodies? They’re dead?”

  “No, they’re not dead. I don’t think they are.” I swallowed. Silas couldn’t be dead. If my twin brother was dead, would I be able to feel it? They sometimes said twins could tell stuff like that. But that was usually identical twins, who had the same DNA, and Silas and I were fraternal. “We’re all really hard to kill.”

  Christa was starting to cry. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Where are they, Sloane?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t really know. But I’m going to find out. I just haven’t figured out how yet. But I’m going to get them back. I’m going to get them all back.”

  “By yourself?”

  “There isn’t anyone else,” I said.

  “But Sloane, I mean, is that something you can really… do?”

  She didn’t believe in me either. I sat up. “Look,” I snapped, “I got the same assassins training that Silas did, okay? I can do this.”

  Christa didn’t say anything.

  Geez. I was snapping at her? I sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

  “It’s okay. You’re worried about them.”

  “I’m going to get them back. After everything Silas has done for me, I can do this for him.”

  “Maybe I should come up and help out.”

  “No,” I said. “No, Silas would want you to stay where it’s safe. Griffin would too. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”

  “There’s got to be something.”

  “No.” I stood up. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything else.”

  “Wait, Sloane, you can’t just hang up on me.”

  “I’ll be in touch.” I hung up the phone, cutting off her next protest. I definitely did not want her here. There was no way that I could rescue everyone and babysit her at the same time. It would be much easier if she stayed out of harm’s way.

  A muffled moan came from the bathroom.

  I stared at the bathroom door.

  Damn it.

  I needed to pee.

  * * *

  Jeff was out in the room now. He was sitting against the wall, right next to the TV stand. The toilet was still flushing.

  “Do you have to go?” I asked him.

  He made a noise through the gag. I went over and pulled it out of his mouth. “Do you?”

  He shook his head. “I already did when I was locked in there. I could still get my zipper down, even though my hands are tied, and I propped myself up—”

  “Spare me the details.” I sat back down on the bed, facing Jeff. “You are a colossal pain in my ass, you know that?”

  “Why don’t you let me go?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I wouldn’t tell anyone about you. I swear.”

  Yeah, right. I massaged my temples. What was I going to do? How was I going to get Silas, Griffin, and Leigh back?

  “I’d just go home and go to bed, and I’d pretend like it never happened. I promise you. Please let me go.”

  “Jeff, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to gag you again.”

  He clamped his lips closed.

  I sighed. I got up and walked over to the other side of the room. There was a chair here with a plastic green cushion, and a rickety little table covered in brochures for Boston attractions. I began idly sorting through them, not really looking at them, just happy to do something with my hands. “So, he’s got a secret lab, and no one knows where it is. No one knows.” I paused, my fingers still flipping through the brochures. “Except him, of course. He knows where it is. So that’s who I need to talk to. Armstrong. But how the hell am I going to talk to Armstrong? He managed to take out Griffin and Silas. How’d he even do that?”

  “He has really powerful sedation formulas,” said Jeff.

  I turned to look at him.

  “He keeps them in his office. I know because he showed them to me once. This whole drawer full of syringes. He said he had enough stuff there to knock out an army of elephants.”

  “Not in his office, then,” I said. “Maybe I could talk to him at home.”

  “I don’t know if he ever goes home. I think he sleeps in the office a lot, or maybe at his lab. When I was in his office, he had a whole closet full of clothes in there.”

  I turned back to the brochures. “He’s got to go home sometime.”

  “Maybe,” said Jeff. “But maybe not for a long time. If those guys he brought in were new subjects, then he’ll probably be excited enough to spend a lot of time in the lab with them.”

  I dropped the brochures and went back over to the bed. “Well, he’s got to go someplace. He can’t live at work.”

  Jeff shrugged. “He kind of does.”

  I squared my shoulders. “Okay, well then I’ll just get in there. I can do that. I’ll go at night. I can get aroun
d the security.”

  Jeff didn’t say anything.

  “What?” I said. “You don’t think I can get around the security?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe so. But it seems like a lot of risk just to try to get Armstrong to tell you where the lab is.”

  “I’d make him take me to the lab,” I said. “I’d force him at gunpoint.”

  “He has all those syringes,” said Jeff.

  I glared at him. “You want to try to talk me out of it. You think if you can make me give up on it, I’ll let you go home. But you don’t understand. One of those guys that got taken to the lab today was my brother. And I won’t give up until I get him back.”

  Jeff bit his lip. “Your brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” He looked away.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Listen, Jeff, I’m sorry about this. You deserve better.”

  He turned back. “You’ll let me go eventually, won’t you? You’re not going to… to…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Of course.” But I didn’t know how I was going to manage that. If I let Jeff go, and he turned me in, I could have the police after me. I really didn’t want that.

  “You’re trying to get your brother back, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, the Shepherd Foundation is having a benefit this weekend,” said Jeff. “I know for a fact that Armstrong’s going to be there. I overhead him talking about it in the elevator. Maybe you could talk to him then.”

  “A benefit?” I said. “I guess that would have low security.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “The only problem would be getting in. It’s invite only, and the guest list is full. The guests are all really rich, really snobby people there.”

  Shepherd Foundation? Where had I heard that before?

  It was sometime recently, since we’d gotten to Boston. Someone had said something about it to…

  Oh yeah.

  Axel Whitman.

  * * *

  Axel Whitman was sprawled out an a circular couch in the middle of the floor at The Golden Key. There were two women hanging on him—one on either side—and he had his arms around both of them. He was gazing up at the stage, where two of the strippers were helping each other remove their corsets. Music blared over the speakers, something pulsing and repetitious.