Catalyst

by Kristin Smith

  “There are three heavily armed guards at the entrance to the cell block. Sienna, you create the distraction. I’ll take point. Trina and Jeb, bring up the rear. Any questions?”

  My heart picks up speed as I shake my head. So far, this has been too easy, and Radcliffe would never make anything easy. I’m afraid of what might await us when we reach the cell block. I keep my thoughts to myself because I don’t want to worry the others.

  Taking a deep breath, I hand the M-16 to Curly, square my shoulders, and walk around the corner. With purposeful strides, I make my way to the metal bars. The three men guarding the gate don’t see me at first because they don’t expect me. One is drinking from a steaming mug, one has his foot resting on a metal rollaway chair, and the other is standing erect, his hand resting on his M-16. He doesn’t see me because his dark brown head is turned, and he’s talking to the one with the hot drink.

  I purposefully shuffle my boot across the floor and watch as the three of them jump and clutch their guns. The mug crashes to the floor and makes a noise akin to a gunshot.

  “What the hell? How did you get in here?” the one with a crooked nose hollers.

  I hear the click of their guns as they move the bullets into place.

  “I’m here for my mother,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

  The one who had his foot resting on the chair laughs. “Someone call the colonel. He’ll want to know about this.”

  I can’t let them call Radcliffe. He will summon the cavalry if he sees me, especially if he discovers I have the leader of the Fringe with me. I picture Trey being whisked away in handcuffs and tossed into a urine-infested cell. No way can I let that happen.

  Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand reaches behind me and grips the gun. The real one. The pistol that can kill a man.

  I aim at Crooked Nose’s face and hold my hand steady, even though I’m terrified. I’ve strayed from the plan, and this could go terribly wrong. In my mind, I hear Trey cursing under his breath.

  “Don’t move or I’ll blow his nose off,” I say.

  The other guard, a bald man who looks like he has a board stuck up his butt, laughs. “I’d like to see you try. We’d take you out before your finger even has a chance to pull the trigger.”

  “I don’t think so.” Trey’s voice speaks up loud and clear behind me. He moves into my line of sight, and I see him clutching the M-16, the barrel pointed at the other guard.

  “You’re still outnumbered. Three to two,” the third guard points out.

  “Not exactly,” Trina’s voice calls out. She and Curly move into view, and I feel something akin to hope. We might be able to pull this off.

  “You’re the ones who are outnumbered. Drop your weapons. Now,” Trey commands. He inches forward, his hands steady, his gun trained on the Bald Man.

  The three guards glance at each other, but they don’t move to put their guns down.

  “I said, drop your weapons. I will shoot you,” Trey warns.

  Crooked Nose is the first to set his gun on the ground, followed by the man with dark hair. The bald man is the last to place his weapon down. They all raise their hands in the air, and we move quickly toward them.

  “On your knees,” Trey says.

  I hurry to the metal bars, but the gate is locked. Glancing behind me, I see my three cohorts pull out their stun guns to immobilize the three guards.

  “Wait!” I say.

  Trey looks up. “What is it?”

  I rush over to the guards. “The key. Where is it?”

  “I’m not telling you,” Crooked Nose spits.

  Trey punches him in the face, then grabs his chin and grips it hard. Blood trickles out of the man’s already crooked nose. “Oh, I think you will. Where is it?”

  The man grins, but he doesn’t say anything. I hear the bullet click into place as Trey thrusts the gun into the side of the man’s head. “Tell us. Now!”

  This is taking too long. I can see the anger surging through Trey; adrenaline mixed with fear has made him unstable. I don’t want him to do something he’ll regret, so I reach out with my stun gun and zap Crooked Nose in the shoulder. He falls to the side like a wet mop.

  “Why’d you do that?” Trey stares at me, his eyes incredulous.

  I shrug. “We weren’t getting anywhere with him.” My eyes shift to the other two guards, and Trey understands what I’m trying to convey. He thrusts the gun into the fleshy area under the dark-haired man’s chin.

  We need to find the weakest link. Then we’re golden.

  “I’ll only ask you once. Where’s the key?” Trey snarls.

  The man’s eyes widen, and he appears to contemplate something. He glances at the body of his military brother beside him.

  “He has it.” He nods to the sprawled-out man at his side. “He wears it on a chain around his neck.”

  Trey reaches into Crooked Nose’s shirt and yanks the chain from his neck.

  “This it?” he asks, holding out the skeleton key.

  “Yep.” He looks up at us with hopeful eyes.

  Trey nods to Trina and Curly, who move forward with their guns.

  Surprise flashes in the dark-haired man’s eyes. “Hey, I thought—”

  Trey shrugs. “Sorry.”

  The two remaining guards collapse in a heap of camo.

  Trey hands me the key. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

  I step over the bodies and hurry to the lock. The key fits easily and the gears click into place. I pull hard on the heavy metal bars, and the gate slides open, the screech of metal against metal assaulting my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  Once I’m in, I sprint down the corridor, past the cells. I hear Trey calling after me, but I’ve abandoned the plan. All I can think about is getting to my mother. Before it’s too late.

  I stop when I realize nothing looks familiar. Turning in circles, I stare up and down the cell block. Gray block walls, uneven and cracked concrete floors, and crude cell chambers with metal bars are all I see. The faint smell of mildew and body odor hangs in the air.

  Knowing it’s stupid, but desperate with frustration, I belt out my mother’s name. I expect to see a hand reach through the bars, hear a small sob—anything, really—but there is only silence. Where are all the prisoners?

  My eyes rest on a cell partway open, and even though every fiber of my being screams at me, I move toward it. My breath catches as I glance inside and see my mother’s silver charm bracelet—the one with the two dangling birds meant to represent my sister and me—resting on the filthy cot. Tears sting my eyes and my throat closes. Where is she?

  I walk into the cell and pick up the bracelet, twirling it between my fingers. My mother never takes this bracelet off, which means that something bad must have happened.

  “I see you found your gift,” a voice behind me says.

  I jerk up, my heart racing like a freight train. Radcliffe stands in the doorway, the claw marks on his face deep and ragged. I should be impressed with the souvenir I left him, but I’m too sick with worry to care.

  “Where is she?”

  “Ahh, Sienna. You didn’t really think we’d let you storm our facility and just hand her over. Did you?” Radcliffe leans close. “Your little hacker may have disabled our main camera system, but we have backup cameras.” He points to the ceiling in the hallway, and that’s when I notice the tiny, digital cameras embedded in the ceiling. They were watching us the whole time. Waiting.

  I pocket the bracelet and move to the doorway of the cell, but Radcliffe blocks me in. I keep expecting to see Trey, Trina, or Curly appear and take Radcliffe out.

  Where are they? They should have caught up by now.

  “I think you and I need to have a little chat.” Radcliffe eyes me for a moment. “Nice haircut by the way. I hope you did it because you found out Zane likes short-haired redheads.”

  I glare at him, but I say nothing.

  “How’s the seduction going?”

  “I
’ve been busy,” I growl.

  His eyebrows rise. “I see that.” He purses his lips and frowns. “Who are these people you infiltrated my building with?”

  I clench my mouth shut. There’s no way I’m telling him who Trey is. No way.

  “You seemed quite cozy with the muscled, dark-haired one.” He grins, and I want to punch him in his crooked smile. “I hope this doesn’t put a damper on our agreement.”

  “Where’s my mother?”

  Radcliffe smiles and his beady eyes crinkle at the edges, reminding me he’s a man well into his fifties. “I thought I made that clear. Once you’ve completed your assignment, she’s all yours.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “She’s safe and doing well. We moved her to a more… comfortable location.” He wrinkles his nose. “The rats were bothering her.”

  I lunge at him, but he’s too quick for me this time. He grabs a fistful of my hair and forces me into a chokehold. I’m helpless against his strength. He may be older, but a life served in the military has made him strong and agile.

  He calls to someone in the hallway. “Bring them down.”

  I hear the shuffling of feet, and Radcliffe tightens his arm around my neck. Moments later, my three friends appear in the doorway, led by one guard. Their hands are tied behind their backs, and their faces are full of anger. They’ve been stripped of their guns, but when I see them, I remember. I still have one. And a laser stun gun.

  The guard has a gun trained on my three friends, but I don’t think Radcliffe is armed. Weighing the options in my mind, I make a decision. I only hope it will work.

  I elbow Radcliffe hard in the ribs and slam my boot down on his toes. He cries out and lets go of me, giving me enough time to reach behind my back and pull out both guns, one in each hand.

  In my haste, I don’t know which gun is which. But I hope the one in my left hand is the stun gun as I aim it at Radcliffe’s chest and squeeze the trigger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Radcliffe collapses to the ground at the same moment Trey throws his head back and head butts the guard behind him. A sickening crack is followed by an inhumane howl. I glance down at Radcliffe and his blank eyes, training the other gun on the guard whose face is covered in blood. I’m fairly certain Trey broke his nose.

  “Don’t move,” I warn him.

  The guard throws his gun to the ground and clutches his nose, the blood pouring through his fingers. I move to him next, pressing the stun gun against his upper arm.

  Trey nods his head in appreciation. “Nice work. I should have a knife in my pocket to cut these ropes. Can you grab it for me?”

  I reach in his front pocket and pull out a blue-handled pocketknife with an engraving on the hilt.

  Our choices define us.

  BGW

  Opening the blade, I kneel behind Trey and carefully cut off the bindings. I move to Trina and Curly’s wrists and watch as the severed ropes fall on the concrete and lay like unmoving baby snakes next to the puddle of blood from the man’s nose.

  “We’d better hurry,” Trey says when I hand the knife back to him.

  Leaning down, I stare into the blank eyes of Radcliffe. I know he can see me, and it gives me great satisfaction to spit in his face.

  “I will find my mother. And when I do, you’ll be sorry.”

  The four of us take off running down the cell block, back the way we came. I’m not sure what we’ll find. The guards monitoring the cameras will be after us in moments, assuming they haven’t already prepared an ambush for the way out. We stop only long enough for the others to grab their guns.

  When we reach the door-filled passage, I try each knob as I pass. I bang on a few and strain for any sounds.

  “Sienna! Come on,” Trey snaps.

  “I can’t leave without my mom.” I try another door.

  Trey runs back to me, and Trina and Curly stop and wait anxiously, their eyes darting up and down the corridor.

  Trey grabs my arm, but I yank it free. “I’m not leaving without her,” I say through clenched teeth.

  Trey softens. “Look, you don’t even know if she’s here. They might have moved her somewhere else.” He lays his hand on my arm, less forcefully this time. “We’ll figure something out. But for now, we need to get the hell out of here.”

  I glance down the long corridor. If I stay to find her, I’ll surely be caught by Radcliffe’s men. And of course, they’ll want to know who helped me break into the facility. The idea of being water tortured again sends a shiver of fear down my spine.

  But if I leave, I may never have the opportunity to return. Short of seducing Zane and killing Harlow, I’ll never see my mother again. Hot, angry tears sting the back of my eyes. I hate that I’ve been placed in this situation. I hate that someone else is controlling my life. For a brief moment, I wish the gun I’d aimed at Radcliffe’s chest wasn’t the laser stun.

  Trey must sense my hesitation. “I promise. We’ll find her.” Grabbing my hand, he pulls me behind him.

  As our feet slam against the concrete and echo down the corridors, Trey whips out his Lynk and checks the data map to make sure we’re heading in the right direction. All the passages look the same. With the dim overhead lights bouncing off the stone walls, shadows are thrust at us, making it more difficult to navigate going in the opposite direction. When we pass the two stunned guards and the oxygen tanks, I know we’re nearing the ramp.

  Near the entrance, we find the four guards, the ones Trina and Curly took care of. Thankfully, they are still stunned, but at any moment, they will gain mobility.

  As Trey presses the buttons to activate the hatch, I glance around with uncertainty.

  Why are they not coming after us? Where’s the cavalry?

  I expected gunfire to rain down on us, but it’s too quiet. Eerily quiet.

  Is this a setup?

  Trina is the first to climb the ladder out of the hatch, and Trey nods for me to go next as he and Curly stand guard at the bottom. Fatigue and disappointment setting in, I climb as if it takes an immense amount of effort, my sweaty hands sliding off the metal rungs. When I finally reach the top, I crawl out onto the dirt and hear a scream that ricochets to my soul.

  It’s Trina. And this time, it’s not part of the plan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Hands grab my arms and force them behind my back as pain shoots through my shoulders. My head slams into the dirt, and a filthy boot presses against my cheek, grinding my face into the grainy clay. I crouch on my knees like an animal, and I am helpless. I can’t see Trina, but I can hear her struggling with her captor.

  “You’re a feisty one,” a voice mutters.

  “Yeah, I see you brought a friend to the party.” Another sneers. “And I like redheads.”

  “You’re gonna pay for what you did to us. Luring us out with your broken-down car and fine caboose.” I hear a smack like he’s slapping her butt.

  “I didn’t know chicks carried guns. Kinda hot.”

  Their faceless phrases mingle around me.

  “What should we do with them?” one asks.

  “I guess we need to call the colonel. He said to tell him if anyone was caught around the perimeter.”

  The other hesitates before speaking up. “Ya know, it’s dark and no one’s around. We could have a little fun first.” The boot on my cheek shifts.

  My breathing stops and I lay completely still, my heart pounding in my ears. The blood rushes to my face and causes white spots to dot my vision. There is no way I will let these men touch me. I’d rather die first.

  “No, we should call the colonel.”

  Where the hell are Trey and Curly? If there were ever a time for a rescue, now would be it.

  “C’mon, man. It’s been like six months. That’s like a lifetime in dog years.”

  The other guard snickers. “Yeah, you would think of it in dog terms.”

  I feel a hand reach into my waistband and withdraw the guns. He snaps the elastic
, runs his hand down my thigh, and grips my rear. I open my mouth to scream and inhale a mouth full of dirt, coughing as the thick dust settles in my chest.

  A gunshot rings out, and two things happen. The pressure on my arms releases, and the boot slides off my face.

  I push myself up, staring at the figure on the ground beside me, and the dark liquid pooling around his head. My eyes sweep through the dark, and I spot Trina kneeling beside her captor. Trey is standing on the top rung of the ladder, gun in hand, while Curly is crouched a few feet away, stun gun raised.

  “Thank God. Is he dead?” Trina asks, rising to her feet.

  I stride over to her, kicking the guard with my foot. His eyes are open and blank, but there’s not an ounce of blood in sight. “Nope, but that one is.” I point to the one who tried to molest me.

  Trey comes to stand beside us, and I turn to him.

  “What took you so long?”

  “I had to wait for a clear shot. He was hovered over you like—well, never mind. But once he started groping, I knew I had to take him out.”

  “You killed him,” I point out. “We weren’t supposed to hurt anyone.”

  “I was out of laser stun. What did you want me to do? Watch him rape you? I wasn’t aiming for his head, but he moved.”

  I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. We have blood on our hands. No one was supposed to get hurt, but now a soldier lies dead on desert soil, a bullet to the brain.

  “What are we going to do? We can’t just leave him here,” Trina says, her voice rising.

  “Yes, we can. And we will,” Trey says calmly, clearly in command. “We are the Fringe, and this is what they expect us to do.”

  Turning his back on us and the dead soldier, Trey lifts his shoulders and strides away.

  And just like that, the mission to rescue my mother is over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Pavilion is a large room inside the Compound with folding tables, makeshift racks, and piles of used clothing. It has an interesting smell too, kind of like a grandma’s closet. Trina promised to help me shop for clothes that actually fit, and true to her word, she dragged me here after dishes duty this morning.