“What happened to Kendall?” Shaylinn asked. “Where is the RC? Are we going to rescue Jemma?”
“I’m taking you to meet Jordan, who’ll lead you to a safe location,” Mason said. “Levi will meet us there, and you’ll all make plans to free the children.” He swerved over the yellow line and back. “Sorry. I’m not the best driver.”
“What about you?” Naomi asked. “You’re not coming with us?”
“I’m going to stay in the Highlands, so I can have access to the children.”
Shaylinn looked at Mason with a new appreciation; she hoped his bravery wouldn’t be a mistake. “But won’t they know you helped us?”
“Not as long as we hurry so I can get back,” Mason said.
“Bless you, Mason,” Chipeta said. “You’re a good boy.”
Mason drove over to the Grand Lodge and parked beside a large truck. “I’ve got to do a little surgery on each of you before we go farther.” He got up, turned on a flashlight, and removed a first aid kit from under the dashboard.
“Surgery for what?” Eliza said.
“SimTags. The computer chips they put in your hands. Scoot over, Shaylinn.”
Shaylinn obeyed, and Mason sat beside her on her seat.
“I won’t lie to you. It’s going to hurt. I’ll be as careful as I can, but I also need to be quick. We don’t know how long the power will be out.” He held up his flashlight. “Can someone hold this?”
“I will.” Chipeta grabbed the light and held it aloft.
Mason took Shaylinn’s right hand and set it on his lap. He tore open a little package and rubbed something cool over the side of her hand. Her heart skipped a little as he removed the lid from what looked like a pen but turned out to be a little knife. He wiped the blade off and looked into Shaylinn’s eyes.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded. Mason twisted her arm so that the side of her hand faced up, which felt awkward. He squeezed and pressed the knife into her flesh. Shaylinn gasped at the sting and jerked her hand, but Mason held tight while she looked away and gritted her teeth.
“Got it,” Mason said. “Can you hold this?”
Shaylinn looked back. Mason held up his finger, and on the top sat a tiny metal tube, covered in blood. Shaylinn pinched it off his finger, then Mason bandaged her hand.
“Don’t lose that,” he said. “Who’s next?”
Mason worked fast, and soon had removed the SimTags from each of them.
“Don’t tell Jordan I cut you,” he said to Naomi; she smiled.
Mason collected all five SimTags in his hand and took them out of the transport. Then they were off again, moving through the dark city. He had to slow at intersections, as the cars that were out were having trouble deciding who would go first. In some places, enforcers waved traffic through, and each time their vehicle passed, Shaylinn found it hard to breathe.
Finally, Mason stopped again and got up. “Wait here.” He opened the door and descended the steps. “I thought I saw a pair of eagle eyes,” he said to the bushes.
“Just a stampede,” Jordan’s voice answered.
Naomi squealed and moved to the front of the bus.
Mason lunged back up the bus steps. “Okay, quickly now. Let’s go!”
Naomi burst out the doors, with the other women close behind.
“Naomi!” Jordan jumped out of the bush. He looked his wife up and down and set his hands on her belly. “You’re both okay?”
“We’re fine,” she said, though tears coated her cheeks.
Jordan clutched handfuls of Naomi’s hair, kissed her, and said, “Omi, omi, omi,” between kisses. Naomi laughed and cried at the same time.
Shaylinn looked away, embarrassed. Finally, Jordan and Mason led them around the bushes to an open manhole in a paved clearing at the back of the building. Jordan climbed down first, then Mason helped Chipeta onto the ladder.
Once Chipeta was down, Naomi peered down the dark hole. “I don’t think I can bend over far enough to even get my feet on those rungs.”
Jordan called up to her. “I’ll help you down, baby.”
Mason helped Naomi get positioned, then held her hand as he had for his aunt while she descended. “I doubt he’ll ever let you out of his sight again,” he said.
“Give him time,” Naomi said, wincing as she slid her protruding belly past the lip of the hole. “He’ll be desperate for a hunt.”
“Not much to hunt in the Safe Lands,” Mason said.
“True, but we won’t be here much longer.”
Mason waved Eliza forward, then Aunt Mary.
Shaylinn was the last to go. She sat down and put her feet through the hole.
Mason crouched beside her. “Shaylinn,” he said, “thank you for your help and your courage. Is there anything I can do for you?”
There was only one question Mason might be able to answer. And while it embarrassed her to voice it, she forced out the words. “I’d like to know who the father is.”
Mason’s face paled a bit, then he smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll find out.”
CHAPTER
38
Once the women had cleared the storm drain, Mason pulled the cover over the opening, which proved to be nearly impossible for one man. Or maybe he was simply a weakling. He finally managed to push it into place, then ran around to the front of the bakery.
The door was unlocked, but when he went in, someone yelled, “We’re closed!”
“I need a couple cupcakes,” Mason said, inching through the darkness toward a glowing handheld Wyndo. He reached the counter, and his eyes adjusted to the low light.
A tiny man sat on a stool behind the glass case, Wyndo in hand. “Power’s out. Can’t process your ID.”
“I’m a medic. My credit’s good,” Mason said. “Take down my number and process it when the power comes back on. Please? I’ve got a girl with a sweet tooth who I don’t want to cross.”
“What if I run your ID and it’s empty?”
“Then you can turn me into the enforcers.”
The man grunted. “I suppose. How many cupcakes you want?”
Mason set his hands on the glass case. “A half-dozen okay? You have spice cake?”
“Yeah, I’ve got spice cake.”
“How about three spice cake and three chocolate?”
“What kind of frosting?”
“Surprise me.”
The clerk boxed the cupcakes and wrote down Mason’s ID number.
“Thanks!” Mason ran back to the transport and called Levi from the road. “Jackrabbit, this is Eagle Eyes. Come in.”
“Got good news, Eagle Eyes? Over.”
“The cargo has reached the promised land. Over.”
“Any sign of Buttercup?”
“Sorry, Jackrabbit. No sign.” Mason dropped the radio into his lap and used both hands to turn the transport onto Gothic Road. He picked up the radio and said, “You copy?”
“Yeah, I got that, Eagle Eyes.”
“How’s the leg?” Mason wished there was a way for him to be of more help. “Over.”
“He’s still breathing, Eagle Eyes. Over and out.”
Mason said a prayer for Levi’s friend and for Jemma, and for Levi not to lose his mind wondering where Jemma was. The lights were still out when he got back to the Westwall. He parked the transport and walked inside the building, carefully making his way up the stairs to Ciddah’s floor. He raised his fist to knock on her door, but before he could, the door swung in.
Ciddah stood in the doorway, white-faced and red-eyed. She grabbed him in a hug that froze his breath. “Thank Fortune! I thought something had happened to you!”
“The power is out,” he said, inhaling the vanilla-cinnamon smell of her hair to get his lungs working again.
“I know that!” She pulled him inside. Ciddah tugged him past the kitchen, where a bright beam momentarily blinded him.
“What is that?” Mason asked.
“A flashlight I set on the counter. W
hat took you so long?”
“It’s kind of hard to order cupcakes when the power is out. I had to convince the clerk it was an emergency.” A clerk who would hopefully be Mason’s alibi should anyone ask.
Standing in his shadow, Ciddah looked up into his face, her eyes like two crystals. “A cupcake emergency? Did she believe you?”
“He. And yes.” Mason held up the box.
Ciddah grinned. She took the box and sat on the sofa. He sat beside her and closed his eyes, thankful the women were free—or at least in hiding. They’d actually done it.
A gasp from Ciddah caused his eyes to flash open. “You got spice cake.”
“You said you liked it.”
“And you listened.”
He grinned. “Is that so foreign?”
“A man who listens?” Her expression darkened. “You’d be surprised.”
Mason stretched his left arm along the back of the sofa and turned his body a bit, so he could see her face. “Okay, surprise me.”
She cast her gaze to the box of cupcakes. “Mason, most men who live here … are not like you.”
“They’re women, then?”
“No.” She chuckled. “They’re … selfish.”
“Not your father.”
“In a way, he is. When I told him I was going to be a medic, he worried they’d use me.”
“Worrying about your daughter isn’t selfish. It’s a father’s duty.”
“Fine. I said most men.”
He wanted to ask about Lawten, but something held him back. “You knew many men who bought you the wrong kind of cupcakes?”
“One did. He always ordered my food. And when I said, ‘I don’t like my steak rare,’ he’d say, ‘Yes you do, shimmer.’ “
“He called you ‘shimmer’?”
“That’s a word men use for beautiful here. He called me shimmer all the time, but he never made me feel beautiful. He’d say things like, ‘You’re going to wear that?’ or ‘Shimmer, you should probably skip dessert. Walls, skip breakfast tomorrow too. I like my women slim.’ “
“He sounds like a jerk.”
“He was. But I …” She ran her finger through the frosting on one of the spiced cupcakes and licked the end of her finger.
Mason didn’t know how to respond. He wanted to ask why she spent time with a cruel man, but he could tell from her pinched brow that it hadn’t been that simple. And he’d been set up to marry Mia, so clearly he wasn’t one to judge the inner workings of relationships.
“Omar betrayed my people,” Mason said. “He’s responsible for my father’s death and the death of countless others. But he’s still my brother. I hate what he did and the choices he’s making now, but … I love that kid. I always will. Sometimes relationships are complicated.”
Ciddah turned those crystal orbs on Mason. The low lighting made her skin, and even her hair, appear bone white. She blinked, and when her eyes reopened, she was looking at his lips.
Heat crept over him. He wanted to kiss her. Instead, he removed his arm from the back of the couch and gestured to the box on her lap. “Are you going to share?”
She jolted a bit, as if coming back from someplace far away. She glanced into the box. “You like chocolate, I see.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Mason said.
“I prefer spice cake.” She handed Mason a chocolate cupcake with rainbow sprinkles. “Thanks for being my friend, Mason.”
He let his gaze travel her face. The part in her hair … her tiny nose … those thick, impossible eyelashes … the soft fuzz of her pale eyebrows … the curve of her lips. “I like being your friend.”
“But nothing more?”
Her words made him study the sprinkles on the top of his cupcake. Here was the moment he’d been dreading. And how should he answer? Win her love? Lose her friendship?
Ciddah’s voice came cold and detached. “Forget I said that, okay?”
“Ciddah …” Do something! Don’t let her think you don’t care.
“Mason, I didn’t mean it. I mean, I did, but …” Ciddah lowered her voice. “I just didn’t mean to say it.”
He stood and set the cupcake back in the box. And now he was Omar, running away. “I should probably go.” No! Stay, you fool! What was the matter with him?
She popped up beside him. “Can’t you wait until the lights come back on?”
“It might be hours—or days.”
She stepped close, gaze focused on his shirt. “You could sleep on my couch.” She touched one of the buttons on the front of his shirt. “Please?”
He could. But he didn’t think she meant sleep. “Ciddah … It wouldn’t be right.”
She looked up, brow pinched. “Your prudishness drives me crazy, do you know that?”
If she only knew what he was thinking. “It’s not prudishness so much as propriety.”
She reached up and touched his cheek, then brushed her thumb over his lips. “Your innocence is so stimming attractive.”
He frowned at her flawed logic. “And so you want to take it? Then that which attracts you to me would be gone. And I would be at a disadvantage.”
“Mason, what you hold as conventional standards of behavior are foreign in this place. Safe Lands propriety would dictate that you stay the night, because you want to spend more time with me and would find it enjoyable. That is, if you would … like to, I mean.”
“I would.” He closed his eyes, not at all comfortable with the impulses welling up within him, seeking to take control. “I do.”
“Then stay!”
He shook his head then opened his eyes. “What has Safe Lands propriety gained you, Ciddah? You said it yourself. Your men are mean. They lack self-control. They play, but they suffer no consequences for their actions. All in good fun, no matter who gets infected or hurt or heartbroken, correct? And that’s what you want from me? Just another good time?”
She looked deep into his eyes and whispered, “I want someone who cares and won’t leave.”
Oh, how her words tempted him. But he dug down deep. “Believe it or not, Ciddah, my leaving right now is proof that I care for you a great deal.”
CHAPTER
39
Levi shined his light over the ridged pipe until he spotted the purple number two he’d written with the makeup crayon. “One more.” He shone the flashlight at his feet and took careful steps, holding Zane’s waist with his other arm, half carrying him. They were almost back.
“Lonn will help you go after your girl,” Zane said. “Now that he’s free.”
Maybe, but it wouldn’t be easy. “If Bender knew how to break someone out of the RC, he’d have gotten Lonn out long ago.” Levi moved the light away from the dirty water and over the pipe until he saw his number one. “This is it.” He helped Zane stand beside the ladder. “Think you can climb up?”
“If I use my right leg and drag my left.”
“I’ll go up and move the sign. If you need help, I’ll come back down.” Levi put the end of the flashlight into his mouth and climbed. When he reached the top, he slid away the sign, hoping no one was near enough to hear it scrape over the concrete. Once the space above him was free, he climbed another rung and peeked out. The dead-end alley was vacant.
“How you doing?” he called down to Zane.
“I got this,” Zane said.
Good. Levi climbed out and carried the sign toward the grass where they’d left the manhole cover. The wind blew his wet clothes against his skin, chilling him through.
When Zane’s head appeared above the roadline, Levi pulled him up and helped him sit in the grass. Then Levi inserted the manhole hook into the cover to pull it.
“Need some help with that?” a voice from behind him said.
Levi spun around. Three men in civilian clothes blocked the alley’s exit. Omar with his two enforcer friends.
“Hay-o, brother.” Omar pointed a gun at Levi. “Guess this will be three marks for you.”
“If you say so,” Levi
said as he reached for his rifle.
“Don’t bother.” To Levi’s shock, Omar shot first.
For the third time, enforcers led Levi into the Rehabilitation Center and down the narrow pathway between the cells. People shouted at him, but the enforcers dragged him all the way to the end and put him in a cell on the right.
“Looks like you’re here for the last time,” the enforcer said and closed Levi’s door.
Levi fell onto his mattress, face first, and lay there exhausted, trying not to think. But so many thoughts filled his mind. Omar had betrayed him again. Would they liberate him immediately? Would it be on the ColorCast? At least he’d freed the Glenrock women. All but Jemma.
He could hear her voice calling for help. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed at how he’d failed her. What if Levi never saw his love again? What if she were forced to live here forever? The thought made him sick.
“Levi of Elias.”
He sat up and looked into the adjacent cell. A toothless man pointed away, across the corridor. Levi followed his direction to the cell directly opposite from his.
Kneeling at the door, face pressed between the two bars that she clutched with her fists, was Jemma. She smiled. “I thought maybe they’d given you a sedative.”
“Jem!”
He practically flew across his cell to the door and reached out. Jemma reached as well, stretching until their fingertips brushed. Levi twisted so that his shoulder slipped between the bars. Jemma mirrored him, and their palms pressed together.
Levi bent his fingers around her hand and squeezed. She had an X by the number four on her cheek. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine. But I don’t know what happened to Shaylinn and Naomi and Kendall.”
“Kendall had her baby, and they took it from her. Shaylinn and the others …” He paused, not convinced the walls didn’t have ears. “They’re safe.”
Jemma started to cry. “What about the children?”
“Still working on that.”
“But what about you? You have three Xs. Are they going to execute you?”
The look on her face, as if he were dying in her arms, was too much. He couldn’t let her worry. “Maybe. But don’t worry, Buttercup. Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”
Captives Page 36
