Jamb (The Cornerstone Series)

by Misty Provencher

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Sean!” Garrett shouts, whipping open the closet door to reveal the adjoining door to Sean and Teagan’s suite. There is a loud thud on the other side, as if something huge has fallen. Garrett throws his shoulder at the door as I try to kick it in. The door flies open and we throw ourselves into the room.

  The courtyard door is wide open and Sean is lying on the floor, a severed end of the rope dangling from his wrist. Garrett reaches him first, tapping his face and calling his brother’s name.

  “I told her the truth…” Sean moans, “and they took her.”

  “What truth?” Garrett asks. “Where’s Teagan and the baby?”

  But Sean wilts, passed out cold in Garrett’s arms. Garrett curses and jumps to his feet. I do the same. My instincts are yanking me toward the door, into the courtyard—but Sean, our next Addo, is here. I am paralyzed by the fear of what that means. There is only one reason that I could abandon my Addo: if he does not need my protection any longer. My field bursts. I focus with everything I have to reform it, screaming for my father as it deploys.

  Go! he answers.

  Is Sean dying? Is he dead? I return. I want to believe this is a mistake. That my feet are moving away from Sean for some other reason. But my father shouts so loud that my field ripples with his command, Go now!

  I can’t hold myself back. I shoot out the door, leaving Garrett behind me. The tears sting my eyes, blurring the darkened courtyard, but I’ve got to go where I’m being drawn. Shouts come from all directions. The trees move, people move, and while no one is coming directly at me, my eyes jump from distraction to distraction. I’m disoriented.

  I’ve got to focus. Like Garrett taught me, in the library. I focus and the courtyard appears, the shadows rubbed away. People are shouting and when I look in their direction, they dart away. Others are moving the mirrors—the ones we put out as a distraction—using our own plans against us.

  I spot Robin across the courtyard, beating off a short man with dark hair that is trying to get to the door behind her. It’s the door to her suite, but we are supposed to protect all the doors as if the Addo is behind them. Zane jumps on the man and takes him down, right as someone else streaks toward Robin. My impulse is to get to them, to help my friends, but my legs aren’t moving.

  Wait to be shown, my father’s voice is solid and definite in my head. Just wait, baby, wait for it. Keep looking. You’ll know which way to go when you see it.

  Just tell me! I shriek.

  I can’t. I don’t know yet. He says. He’s keeping his calm, but I hear how thin it is, layered over the top of his desperation. But he holds it together and encourages me, Just look. You’ve got to see it for yourself.

  I scan, over Carducci, Larson, and Sasu, who are trying to staunch the flow from the emergency staircase. The control room must’ve been compromised, since the staircase door isn’t locked and the elevator doors spit open and more people flow into the courtyard. Everyone seems confused. People point and scream and small fights break out. Someone shouts Over here! They’re taking the Addo! and Contego fall upon Contego, until someone realizes no one is taking the Addo. No one knows who they’re supposed to fight.

  Then, from under one of the canopies, the Addo appears. He lifts his hands and says, “Whoa! Everybody needs to calm down!”

  A shadow charges him, and the Addo steps backward, beneath the canopy. Two Contego charge in after the shadow, and I can tell by the way they move that it is Zane and Mrs. Neho following the shadow in after the Addo. Zane shouts Got him! We got him!

  And the suddenly Addo re-surfaces, but this time, he is across the courtyard, beneath another canopy. He lifts his hands again and waves.

  “I’m a tricky bugger!” he shouts. A crowd runs toward him. There aren’t enough of us to take them all on, but we don’t know who are the loyal Contego and who aren’t. We have to protect the Addo against everyone.

  But then Addo pops up in a canopy closer to me. He shouts again, “These Veritas tunnels are the oingo boingo!”

  And there’s something wrong with him. I can tell instantly that he’s not using tunnels. He’s flickering. But then a dark body sails sideways from behind a tree and drops right through the Addo’s body, right before the Addo disappears completely again.

  The Addo isn’t the Addo. He’s a hologram.

  Carducci is on the attacker in a snap, like I should’ve been, lifting the figure up like a rag doll as he yells, Got one!

  But Carducci suddenly sinks and the attacker he was holding, wiggles out of Carducci’s arms as our huge Contego hits the floor. Someone’s fired something into his back.

  Then, the word drifts up. The neon EXIT sign blows into my eyes a letter at a time: E-pop!-X-pop!-I-pop!-T-pop! It takes me a moment to understand that I’m Tralating and it’s not just any of the exits, but the actual one with the sign over the top of it that I should go through. My father shouts in the back of my head: Go! Go! Go!

  No! I have to guard the Addo! I shriek back. As I cross the room, I send my thought to the Addo, hoping they will reach him: Addo? Are you okay?

  I’m safe, but get yourself out of there, pronto! the Addo sends back. He must be on his way to a new, safer hideout, since his voice is fuzzy and small in my head. He’s got to be at a distance already, but I still feel the pull to protect him, hard and heavy. I don’t know how he can be so far away and still affect me like this. Unless the need to protect is emanating from a bunch of Alo.

  I run in a straight line for the EXIT, stumble on someone lying on the floor, and fall. I get to my feet and draw back to strike, I’ve got to get out that door.

  “Come with me,” a familiar voice says. It’s Milo.

  “No, you come with me,” I tell him. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  The magnetism is making my head swim. Milo clamps onto my wrist.

  “You’re coming with me, Nalena!” I shake my hand to get loose, but Milo hangs on.

  “Last chance—get off me!” I roar in his face, but Milo doesn’t let go. I can’t play games with him. The EXIT letters are blasting in my face and as an Alo, I’m responsible for getting Milo to safety. Even if I have to knock him out to do it.

  I twist back to break his hold, but Milo twists with me. What? I drop and dart again, breaking his hold this time. Then, I swing up with my free hand, my open palm aimed right under his nose. I brace to hear him scream once the heel of my hand makes contact, but the scream doesn’t come.

  Milo jumps aside. Easily. I miss my target and Milo gets hold of me again.

  “What are you doing?” I growl. And what’s wrong with me? I should’ve been able to bust his nose and drag him out of here. The Alo don’t know how to fight…

  I shift my weight, focus on his field, and try to search for a Cavis. But Milo’s field is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It is a crystal color and as I move close to it, all I see is my own field’s reflection shimmering in it. I move my Cavis and then, Milo moves his. Like an expert.

  “You’re not Alo,” I gasp as Milo swoops in on me. Our bodies flash, near miss after near miss, but then his fingers wrap around my wrist and he’s got me. His smile is harmless on his lips, but it pierces me with a razor spike of pure fear.

  “I’m like you,” he says and I shudder. Like me? He’s a child of the Cusp? “You’re Contego?”

  My father breaks into the back of my skull, hissing, Go with him! Now!

  I should be screaming. I’m in trouble. Big trouble. Milo’s Contego. He didn’t tell us, so he’s got to be a traitor. But my vocal cords are frozen and my body won’t move away from him. He’s still compelling me to protect him, like some messed-up, Contego-Alo hybrid. It’s got to be a set up and my father, who I was stupid enough to accept as my own Connection, has got to be in on it. I believe I’m as good as dead, until Milo growls in my ear.

  “Listen to me,” he says, jerking my arm to snap me to attention. “This is an ambush and they’re going to kill you if you get in
their way. If you want to help, come with me. It’s the only way we can find out what’s going on and where they’re taking Grace.”

  “Grace?” I ask, even as Milo drags me toward a different exit, across the room. He ducks his head to mine, dodging bodies that shoot across our path.

  “Teagan’s taking the baby to The Fury and Sean’s with her.”

  “Sean’s passed out!”

  “Then Garrett’s with her,” he says. He throws open the door and we burst through as Robin’s shout rises up behind us. I glance over my shoulder to see her barreling across the courtyard, straight at the door, just as Milo lifts his foot and kicks it shut. He throws a latch a second before I hear Robin hit the door on the courtyard side.

  There is a crowd in this hallway. Faces I don’t know. I try to wrench my arm free from Milo’s grasp again, but Dai grabs my other arm.

  “I will get rid of this one,” Dai says. “She is from their inner circle.”

  Milo lurches sideways, one hand still holding me and the other clasps Dai around the throat.

  “She’s mine. Hear me? MINE!” Milo shouts, slamming Dai against the wall. The crowd turns and stares.

  “We have to get out of here,” Teagan’s voice is clear, from the middle of the crowd. I get glimpses of her, more than half way up the hall, jiggling Grace in her arms. Iris’s new teddy bear, Willow, is in the crook of her elbow. “They’ll collapse the hallway on us! They can do that, you know. That’s what they did to Addo Chad!”

  I’m shocked, watching Teagan spilling our secrets, but then my visions widens past her and I see Garrett, standing beside her. His eyes pierce through the throng of people, to me, and then to Milo. His frown deepens slightly and the tiny curve of his lips is how I know he is devastated that I’m in this hallway with him. He looks away just as Teagan tilts her head back to look up at him.

  “Right, Sean? Isn’t that what you said? They can collapse any hallway?”

  “That’s right.” Garrett nods to Teagan. Oh my God. She thinks he is Sean. And he’s letting her believe it. I should be relieved, I should want this, but my stomach does a sickening flop that I can’t let show.

  “This way, while they’re still confused!” Another familiar, female voice shouts from the front and we all move behind her, like a stampede in a chute. Whoever she is, she knows her way out. We snake through the labyrinth of halls until we finally reach a metal door. A hand reaches up and fires a tiny, red laser beam from a keychain-sized laser, out the peep hole drilled in the door.

  “Hold!” the woman shouts and everyone lurches to a stop.

  There is a loud crack and an explosive boom as the door at the end of the hall flies off. It literally blows backward, out of the brick, tangles of locking mechanisms going with it. The night air rushes in.

  “This way!” the woman shrieks and we flow out, into the parking lot beside the hotel. Two semi trucks are parked on the concrete. The mangled door, with bars that used to be fastened into the wall poking from all its edges, is chained to the back of one truck, although both trucks were used to tear the door loose. A man is busy unhooking and throwing off all the chains, abandoning the hotel door in the parking lot.

  Both trucks have their doors swung wide open, ready. The Fury climb over each other, knocking one another down to jump into the back of the trucks. Milo drags me toward the truck on the right and I lose sight of Garrett, Teagan and Grace.

  “Hurry!” shouts the same woman who led us down the hall and I finally see her.

  It is Ms. Fisk, the woman I’ve only known as a librarian and a faithful Alo. Until now.

  ***

  “Be quiet and keep your field down,” Milo grumbles as he jerks me away from the truck Ms. Fisk is in and toward the truck that had the door attached. I can’t find Garrett in the crowd. “We’ve got to fight our way on.”

  As we are swallowed up by the stampede trying to make it into the truck, Milo is whisked away from me and my nerves shoot up. I fight across the tide of shoving bodies toward him and step on a body, fallen on the pavement. I dive down and try to haul the person up, but the arm I grab is lifeless. Someone kicks the body, another is standing on the legs. I let go. Whoever this was, they aren’t any longer.

  A man backs into me, nearly knocking me flat, but I grab onto a woman beside me. She tries to shove me off, but I hang on and right myself. Back on my feet, I glimpse Milo four people away, as he yells, “Get in!”

  I don’t waste my energy yelling back, letting him know that I’m not leaving without him. I might be able to run away, but I’ve got a job to do and Milo knows The Fury and how they work. This might be my only shot at making it wherever these trucks are going and uncovering where The Fury are hiding. But all I really know right now is that I need Milo with me and I fight against the heaving mass of flailing bodies and screaming faces, to get to him.

  As I grab him, we’re pushed to the outer edge, near the back wheel. Exhaust suddenly sputters from the tailpipe.

  “We’ve got to get on!” he shouts to me. But it’s worse than that. The trucks are backing up. If we don’t get on, we’re going to be smashed under the tires. Over one shoulder, I see the other truck backing up. The Fury are climbing over each other to jump in. One slips on the edge and falls, getting an arm caught between the bed and the back bumper. But the truck doesn’t stop. I look away as the other truck continues to roll backward, over the screaming people on the pavement.

  “Come on!” Milo shouts. He grabs the chain hanging from the back door and hauls himself up. There is not enough chain dangling for me to grab, as a woman falls in front of me. The wheels are moving back. I see the woman’s hand reach for help and then it disappears under the bumper. Even as I spring backward, the wheels are coming for me and the bumper is nearly at my chest.

  And then the truck pitches. Milo’s made it into the box and the chain swings free, right at my face. I grab it as the truck lurches to a halt, slamming the opposite door closed and jerking me off balance.

  Don’t let go! Focus and run up the ramp! My father’s voice explodes behind my eyes and just the sound of him blinds me with its force.

  But there is no ramp. There is only a pile of bodies.

  I focus and I run as the truck starts moving again.

  I stumble up the squirming ramp that shakes uncontrollably beneath my feet. I hop on shoulders and as the truck begins to really move, I push off someone’s head like a spring board. The screams of those left behind follow me through the air. I land hard on the wood floor of the truck bed. The door slams shut behind me.

  Someone tears the chain I’d been holding from my grip and fastens it across the doors. It’s only then that the screams really flood my ears as the truck driver smashes the rest that didn’t make it, right under the wheels.

  ***

  Inside the truck, Milo grabs me by the forearm and drags me across the dirty floor to him. He pushes me against the side of the truck and stands next to me. The Fury line the walls, most of them tending their wounds, some talking, some whispering. One, straight across from me, crooks his finger into a fishhook and smiles as he wiggles the hook, motioning for me to come to him. Fear rises up from the back of my throat, until I see Garrett.

  Garrett is on the opposite wall, standing over a seated Teagan. Grace is crying in her arms and Teagan is dancing Iris’s teddy bear in the baby’s face, trying to soothe her. As we make eye contact, Garrett holds it for a hard second and then breaks it by squatting down and running his hand over the baby’s head as he murmurs something to Teagan. She reaches up and runs her fingers along his jaw. Slowly.

  It’s a caress. Garrett grins at her, the kind of grin that he’s always kept for me. I push my feet under me to stand, ready to bolt across the bed of the truck, but Milo’s hand clamps down on my shoulder and he shoves me back onto the rumbling floor.

  “Stay,” he growls. The man who was signaling me to come to him, grunts at Milo.

  “Give her to me.”

  “She’s mine,�
�� Milo turns his growl on the man, but the man seems unaffected by any threat. He just sits back, stroking the inside of his own thigh.

  “I could give her back when I’m through,” the man says. Garrett looks up, and although his expression is flat, his eyes dart from me, to the man, and then over to Milo. But Garrett remains where he is, running his hand over Grace’s covered head, the muscles jumping slightly near his ear.

  The man across the truck lunges for my ankle. In one swift movement, Milo and I kick at once. I shriek as my action releases the man’s grip, but Milo’s kick lands square on the man’s jaw, sending the guy reeling backward. The man drops against the opposite wall, holding his face as I pull my legs in close to my chest, but Teagan’s voice suddenly rings through the bed of the truck.

  “What is she doing here?” Teagan shrieks, pointing at me. “She is one of them. Get her out of here! Throw her off the truck!”

  There is a commotion until Milo drops a foot in front of my folded body on the floor, towering over me.

  “She is mine!” he snarls as he points an accusing finger at Teagan. “And who are you to talk? You brought one as well!”

  “I brought Sean! He’s Simple and he’s mine!” She holds up her empty wrist. “He found me in the ambush! He loves me and wants to be with me!”

  My mind flashes back to the Totus, when she kissed Garrett. She has no idea which Reese brother she’s with. Milo must realize it too because he falters, but recovers quickly.

  “It doesn’t matter if he’s Simple! He’s still one of them! If you can bring one, so can I! Otherwise, we throw them both from the truck!”

  “No!” Teagan shrieks, clinging to Garrett. But one of the men near the doors gets up, his hand ready to release the chain. Teagan shakes her head violently and stabs a finger toward me. “She’s different! She is from the last Addo’s inner circle! She’s dangerous!”

  The alarm in Garrett’s eyes never makes it to his face, but he whispers something in Teagan’s ear. Teagan shakes her head. “No! I said, throw her off!”