Sloane

by V. J. Chambers

“Well, they were gonna take out one of my kidneys,” I said.

  “What?” Axel looked completely confused. “Who was? Why?”

  “These people that my parents brought in to do it,” I said. “They had equipment and stuff. Knives and chemicals to knock me out with. But when I was down there in the basement, and they were getting ready to do it, I looked at all the stuff, and it didn’t look clean. And Silas said that operations like that don’t go very well. He said that I probably would have gotten a bad infection, and the infection might have killed me. Or he said they could have screwed up and damaged something else inside me. Maybe I would have bled out or maybe they would have caused some other problem inside me. Or maybe they wouldn’t have sewed me up properly afterward. So, you see, he had to do it. He said he did, because he was afraid I was going to die. And Silas always protects me. He always has, so that’s why he what did it. He did it for me.”

  Axel moved even closer to me. “Sloane, why were they going to operate on you? Was there something wrong with one of your kidneys?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Then?”

  I twisted my hands together. “I remember when my mother told me about it. I got home from school one day, and she told me that I’d be taking some time off. She said that we all had to make sacrifices for the family, and that she would have used hers or dads, but that they weren’t… healthy enough. My parents were falling apart at that point. They were both so skinny and strange. They spent most of their time sleeping and the rest of their time scoring junk. They never talked to us—to Silas and me. We were on our own all the time. It was weird that she was even saying anything to me. And part of me wanted to do it, maybe, a little bit. Because she made it seem so important, and I wanted to do something for her. I wanted her to think that I mattered. I wanted her to…” I laughed a little. “To love me, I guess. But she didn’t love me. She only loved one thing at that point. She loved heroin, that was it.”

  Axel took a deep breath. “Sloane, what does that have to do with your kidney?”

  I shook myself. I walked over to the other side of the room and began pulling clothes out of my suitcase and folding them. “They were going to sell it.”

  I heard him let out air, but I didn’t turn back around.

  “For drugs,” he murmured. “For money for drugs.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  It was quiet.

  “Organ harvesting?” said Axel. “People do that?”

  “People will do anything when they’re desperate.” I set down a now-folded shirt and looked at him. “She didn’t say it was for drugs. She tried to tell me that they’d use the money for food and for a place to live and stuff.” Now I was starting to cry. Damn it. I didn’t cry about these people. They weren’t worth it. “But I knew she was lying. They hadn’t taken care of us in years and years. There was no way she was starting now.”

  “Sloane, that’s…”

  I looked up at him. He was shaking his head.

  “Anyway, we tried to run away. Silas and I did. But we didn’t do it soon enough. We didn’t know how quick it would be. And so Silas went out to try to sell some stuff that we had. Things we’d been hoarding for emergencies. He was going to try to get us bus tickets so that we could get out of there. And I knew he felt bad, because we should have already left. See, Silas and I had been saving up money to run away for years, but just when we were getting enough, Silas had this girlfriend, and she got pregnant, and he had to help her pay for an abortion, and that really wiped us out. Silas always thought that was his fault. So, I don’t know, maybe he overreacted. Because he was so mad at himself, but… but I never blamed him for that, because I would have… If I could have had a boyfriend back then, I would…” I paused.

  Axel was staring at me, and he looked horrified.

  I sniffed, and I realized I wasn’t crying anymore. Maybe if I kept talking, the tears wouldn’t come. “So, anyway, he went out, and he told me to keep my door locked. We were squatting in this old abandoned house, and I had a room there, and that was where he told me to stay. I should have gone with him. I wanted to go with him. But Silas was always really protective, and the places he went to sell stuff were sometimes dangerous, and he never wanted me to go. So, I didn’t. I stayed. And they came for me while he was gone. They took me down into the basement, and I thought they were going to do it. And I couldn’t…” I stared down at the carpet, and my voice deserted me. “I couldn’t stop them,” I said hoarsely.

  Axel’s face twisted. He started to speak.

  I didn’t let him. I started talking again, and my voice came out clear and strong. “And Silas came in, and he started just going crazy on them. There was blood everywhere. So much of it. And I just watched and watched. Didn’t even help.” I shook my head, still unable to fathom why I’d been so useless. “It wasn’t until the last second that I did anything. But I was lucky, because all that time that I wasn’t moving, they could have killed me.”

  “Sloane—”

  “No,” I said. “In the hotel room, the same thing happened. I froze up, and I couldn’t do anything. If you hadn’t been there, I’d be locked up and brainwashed just like the rest of them. So, for me to think that I can stop this, that I can save them… I’m being an idiot.”

  Axel crossed the room to me, and he took me by the shoulders. “Stop.”

  I looked up into his eyes.

  He took a shaky breath. He cupped my cheek with his palm. “Stop talking.”

  I bit my lip. I’d disgusted him, hadn’t I? He couldn’t stand hearing any more.

  Axel rested his forehead against mine. “You are not an idiot. You are incredibly strong.”

  “No,” I said. “No, I’m not. I’m weak and pathetic and I can’t—”

  “Shh.”

  My phone rang again.

  “God damn it, Christa.” I pushed him away and went for the phone.

  He grabbed me by the wrist. “Wait a second, okay?”

  I hesitated.

  “God.” He clenched his jaw. “That story, Sloane. That whole story, that’s crazy.”

  I pulled my wrist out of his grasp. The phone was still ringing.

  I picked it up. “Christa, I said I would call you back.”

  “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I’m in Boston.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Well, it’s like I said. You can’t do it alone. And I want to help. So I got on a plane and I came. But this is a big city, and I don’t know where you are. So, can you tell me where you are?”

  I dragged a hand over my face.

  Fuck.

  * * *

  The elevator opened, and Christa stepped into Axel’s apartment. She was carrying a suitcase, and she had a backpack flung over one shoulder. She surveyed the surroundings with wide eyes.

  “So, I don’t get it,” she said. “Why aren’t you in a hotel?”

  “I don’t get it,” I said, glaring at her. “Why aren’t you in Austin?”

  Axel cleared his throat. “Hi there, let me introduce myself. I’m Axel Whitman.” He offered Christa his hand.

  Christa set down her suitcase and shook hands with him. “Christa Fawkes.”

  “This is my apartment,” he said.

  “It looks more like a small country.” She rounded on me. “What the hell is going on? I thought you were trying to rescue my brother and your brother and Leigh.”

  “I am,” I said.

  She pointed at Axel. “So, who’s he?”

  Axel turned to me. “Sloane, your friend is even more rude than you are.”

  Christa’s jaw dropped. “What did you just say?”

  Axel smiled tightly. “Don’t say things like that to Sloane.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t imply she’s not doing everything within her power to save the others. Because she is. And she’s been in danger, and she’s been shot at, and she just showed up back here covered in blood a few hours ago, and it’s tearing he
r apart that she can’t fix this.” Axel’s voice was even, with just a tinge of displeasure. He eyed her boredly. “I don’t know who you are, love, but I thought you were here to help, not to level stupid accusations.”

  Christa was taken aback.

  I ran a hand through my hair. I felt like I was falling apart. “Don’t yell at her, Axel.”

  “Yell?” said Axel. “Me?”

  Christa eased her backpack off of her shoulder. “I’m really, really confused right now.”

  I pointed at Axel. “He’s an old friend of Leigh’s. He’s been helping me out. He’s not bad with a gun, and if it wasn’t for him, I’d have already gotten kidnapped too.”

  “Oh,” said Christa. “Well, why didn’t you just say that? Geez, there’s a lot of tension in this room.”

  “That’s because Sloane and I were in the middle of a conversation before you showed up,” said Axel.

  “No, we weren’t,” I said.

  He let out a disbelieving laugh. “Yes, we were.”

  Christa raised her eyebrows. “So, you guys are fucking?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No,” said Axel.

  She nodded slowly. “Right.” She walked across the room to one of the windows and peered down. “Well, I know that having a lover’s spat seems perfectly reasonable when you’re in a luxurious apartment way up on the twentieth floor, but can I suggest that we all try to focus on—Hey!”

  “What?” I hurried over to her.

  She was pointing. “You see that car down there?”

  Axel was behind us, peering over our heads. “There are hundreds of cars down there.”

  “That black one,” said Christa. “I saw that car at the airport.”

  I drew back. “You did?”

  “I don’t see how you can tell from all the way up here,” said Axel.

  “They followed you,” I said in a quiet voice.

  “What?” said Axel. “There’s no way.”

  I looked at Christa. “They must have been watching you. When you showed up in Boston, they knew something was up.”

  “I led them here?” said Christa.

  “There’s no one here,” said Axel.

  “I didn’t mean to,” said Christa.

  “Guns,” I said. “We need guns.” I darted into my bedroom, yanking guns and ammunition out of my suitcase.

  “Sloane, there’s no one here!” Axel called after me.

  I ran back into the living room, shoving weapons and clips into each of their hands.

  “They would never break into my apartment and try to shoot any of us,” said Axel. “If my father found out, he’d—”

  The elevator dinged.

  We all turned.

  “I didn’t buzz anyone up,” Axel muttered.

  The door opened.

  I saw their guns first—large semi-automatic weapons with gaping barrels. As they opened fire, I made out that they were in the same kinds of uniforms as the guards at the lab, and as the men who’d broken into my hotel room.

  “Down!” I screamed, diving behind the couch and pulling the other two with me.

  We all fell down in a heap, Axel beside me, Christa on top of me.

  Bullets rat-a-tatted through the air, blowing a long line of holes through the back of Axel’s white couch, shattering his glass coffee table, and exploding the potted palm he had by the door.

  Christa shrieked.

  I looked up to see her clutching her shoulder. Blood was pouring out of the wound.

  Damn it. She was already hurt. She’d been here for less than ten minutes, and she was hurt. If Silas wasn’t brainwashed, he was going to strangle me.

  I shoved Christa back behind Axel. “Get her to the kitchen,” I yelled at him. I had to yell to be heard over the gun fire.

  Axel was looking at the back of his couch with wide eyes. “They just ruined—”

  I grabbed him and pointed. “That way. Stay low. Take her with you. Hide her.”

  “They can’t be in here.”

  I peered around the couch to survey what was going on.

  The guards weren’t exactly in the mood to conserve ammunition, because they were blowing everything sky high. They were spraying bullets everywhere, all five of them grinning like kids playing in an arcade.

  I took quick but careful aim at one of them and planted a bullet in his skull.

  He fell backwards, still shooting as he screamed.

  But that meant the other four saw me, and they peppered my side of the couch with gunfire.

  I yelped, scrambling backwards.

  Axel was still there.

  “Kitchen,” I screamed.

  Christa cringed, still holding onto her shoulder.

  Axel looked at her, and, seeming to realize what I was saying, scooted over to her. I saw him talking to her, but there was too much noise to hear what he was saying.

  Bullets were still punching through the couch, blowing out stuffing and fabric.

  I lunged to the other side, popping my head and my gun out just long enough to get a sense of where they were.

  They were pretty freaking confident. Even with one man down, they hadn’t started moving further into the apartment. They just stood their ground, guns at their hips, spitting out bullets.

  I pulled my trigger, and my shot got one of them in the chest.

  His face went white, and he stopped shooting to look down.

  But I didn’t waste too much time watching, because I was using that moment to take aim on another one.

  Bam. Another head shot. This guy didn’t even know what hit him. He hit the floor right away.

  Three down. Two to go.

  To their credit, the other two were starting to realize I was a threat.

  They started walking towards the couch.

  I ducked back behind it. I didn’t see Axel or Christa anywhere.

  Good. Hopefully, he’d taken her to the kitchen, like I’d asked.

  The men were getting closer.

  I saw one of them coming around the couch.

  I reached out to grab his ankle. I yanked.

  The man lost his balance and went sprawling, face down.

  I crawled over his body and guessed that his buddy was right behind him. I aimed where I thought he should be and shot.

  I hit him, but not anywhere lethal. He was doubled over. Stomach wound.

  And the guy that had fallen? He was moving now.

  I switched my attention back to him.

  He’d lost his gun, and he was reaching for it.

  I scurried over and kicked it out the way, sending it skittering across Axel’s polished hardwood floor in the direction of the kitchen.

  Then I shot the downed guy in the head.

  Pain in my side. I screamed.

  God. Two shots had gone clean through my rib cage. The pain was agonizing.

  I stumbled, turning to face the remaining guard. He was still clutching his stomach. His fingers were stained red. He managed to keep his gun up with one hand, though.

  And I was staring right into the barrel.

  I raised my gun.

  His finger moved on the trigger.

  I dove out of the way, which meant that he didn’t hit me, but that I lost a good aim on him.

  I landed painfully on my side, and my ribs groaned in pain.

  He was adjusting, swinging his gun around.

  I struggled to sit up, get both hands on my gun to steady it.

  And then I pulled the trigger.

  There.

  The shot burrowed into his eyeball. He let out a guttural sound and toppled over.

  I stood up, struggling to catch my breath.

  Had I really gotten all of them? I surveyed the room. Yeah, there they all were. Five bodies. All of them were down. None of them were moving. Okay. Okay. Good.

  I stumbled over to one of Axel’s easy chairs. It was completely destroyed, absolutely riddled with bullet holes. I sank down into it, gritting my teeth. My body was already
at work healing the shots in my side, but it wasn’t quite there yet. That hurt like fuck. I let out painful breaths.

  “Sloane?” came Axel’s voice from the kitchen.

  “Yeah?” I called back.

  “You okay?”

  “Uh huh,” I managed. “I will be in a minute.”

  He appeared in the doorway.

  “How’s Christa?”

  “She’s bleeding,” he said. “A lot.”

  I grimaced. “We’re going to have to get her to a hospital. And we can’t stay here. They know where we are now. We’re going to need to—”

  Wait a second? Was that guy near the door twitching?

  Shit. They probably all had the serum, didn’t they? Why wasn’t I thinking? I needed to be on my feet, cutting these assholes’ spines. Slowly, I pushed myself to stand. “Axel, I need a knife. A really fucking sharp knife.”

  “Why?” he said.

  I pointed out at the men. “They’re coming back. I need to kill them for real, got it?”

  God, I was in so much pain. Every time I moved it blasted through me. I could hardly stand to breathe. I couldn’t heal fast enough.

  I kept my eyes on the guys by the door.

  But then I heard something behind me.

  I whirled.

  The guy that I’d just shot, the one I’d shot last, was starting to get to his feet. But—how was he healing so fast? I wasn’t healing that fast, and I hadn’t gone dark. Going dark always took longer to heal than a wound that wasn’t mortal.

  I swung my gun around at him, pulling the trigger again.

  He fell down, dead. For the second time.

  “Axel, where the fuck is that knife?” I yelled.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t actually cook in here. I don’t know where they are!”

  Damn it.

  The guys at the door were moving now too. Could they be healing so quickly because French’d had time to supercharge the serum and make it even better at healing people? Did I have Serum 1.5 and they have Serum 2.0?

  Motherfucker.

  I started to raise my gun to shoot them.

  And then I heard someone behind me moving.

  You fucking twins should never have been born!

  My father’s voice.

  But he wasn’t here. He was dead.

  Except for the fact that it was just like before. Here I was, surrounded by people who were trying to hurt me. They were all coming at me from every direction, and I could smell their blood, the way I’d smelled it in that basement. The sharp, metallic tang, like a slaughterhouse.