“I’ll be right back, okay?” He stares at me for a moment like he thinks I might disappear the second his back is turned – proving that his instincts are better than I gave them credit for – then hurries up the stairs. I listen to the sound of his fading footsteps and reach idly for the cooling mug in front of me. I take a sip of the liquid and grimace. How did I drink this all the time? It’s so bitter. Oh, wait. I get up and hunt around the kitchen until I turn up some sugar, and toss a generous spoonful in. Better. Much better. I lean back in the chair and let the rich fluid trickle down my throat. I can feel Pearce’s disapproval from here, but for once I just don’t care.
“Not bad for instant, is it?”
I jump. I didn’t hear Ollie come back into the kitchen. The doc was right. Coffee is a distraction I don’t need. I put the mug back onto the table and abandon it there.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. Let’s take a look at those stitches, shall we?”
He comes round in front of me with a green medical bag in one hand, and some folded clothes and a pair of trainers in the other. He unloads everything onto the table.
“I thought you might appreciate a change of clothes.”
He’s not wrong. My t-shirt is in tatters and soaked in blood, and my jeans have a few dark red stains of their own. My feet are still bare. No way I’m passing for a member of the public like this.
“They belong– belonged to my wife. I think they should fit.”
I don’t miss the way his voice catches, so I stare awkwardly at my hands. There was a time I’d have known what to say. I’m out of practice at this. Social skills weren’t important in the basement.
I keep staring at my hands until the awkwardness passes, and he opens up the medical bag and pulls on a pair of gloves. His hands are gentle as he probes at the stitches, cleaning away the small amount of blood that’s leaked from them. The muscle twitches under his touch, but I keep my face impassive.
“I’ve got some paracetamol for the pain if you want it. Nothing stronger, I’m afraid.”
I guess there are some things you can’t hide from a doctor, no matter how blank your face. I shake my head anyway. The pain keeps me sharp.
“If you change your mind, they’re in that drawer over there.” He nods to a drawer in the corner of the room and carries on examining my stitches. His thumb runs over the newly-formed scar tissue from the last few times I’ve pulled them.
“I don’t suppose there’s much point in telling you to take it easy while this heals?”
He takes a dressing and bandage from the bag and wraps it around the wound, his latex-covered hands quick and precise. Soon my upper arm is swathed in neatly layered white bandage, secured with a small metal clip. He adjusts a slight crease in the top edge, and as he does, the back of his hand brushes lightly against my collar. I stiffen. He moves his fingertips closer to it, watching me as I watch him. His fingers trace the collar, his eyes flicking between it and my face. His thumb runs over the latch and I jerk away from him.
“What is this?” he asks. I shrug, moving away from him irritably. It’s not like he can’t have seen it before, it’s been sitting round my neck the whole damned time. I don’t know why he’s taking such an interest in it now.
“Do you…” he swallows and then continues gently, “do you want to keep it on?”
Of course I do. It was a gift. Except… Except it’s hobbling me. I can’t shift thanks to the failsafe kicking in. I’m helpless with it on. No, not helpless. Never helpless.
But more vulnerable. And surely the doc will give me a new one if– when I go back to him. He’ll understand. Yeah, because he’s always so understanding.
I clench my jaw and shake my head violently, both to silence the argument inside my head, and in answer to Ollie’s questions. I need it off.
“Okay,” he says, closing the gap between us slowly, cautiously. “I’m just going to take a look at it.”
I turn to stone as he comes closer, and lays his hands on the leather band again, examining it closely. I’ve never seen it properly – no mirrors in the basement – but my hands explored every inch of it, before the doc caught me touching it and set me straight on the rules. There’s no buckle like an ordinary collar, just a metal clasp that locked with a loud ‘clink’ when Doctor Pearce put it on me. There’s no release on the clasp, as Ollie is discovering now, running his fingers over and under it.
“Who put this on you?”
“A friend.” At least, I thought he was a friend. Now I’m not so sure. Why didn’t he come looking for me?
“Well he never meant for it to come off,” he says, and his eyes flash with the closest thing to anger I’ve seen from him.
“I told you,” I snap, “you don’t know anything about my world. Quit judging.”
I take a breath and try to settle my warring emotions.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he says, raising his hands. I follow his gaze to my right hand, wondering why he’s staring at it, and realise its resting on the taser. Oh. I move my hand away and let it hang limply by my side.
“I’m going to try to cut it off, if you still want me to.”
I give a curt nod and he moves across the kitchen and when he returns he has a pair of scissors in his hand. He steers me back to my seat and slides the blades gently against my neck, pushing one of them behind the collar, and closes them. Or tries to. The tough leather resists and he uses both hands to try to force them – to no avail. His biceps bulge and suddenly something gives – but it’s not the collar. He removes the scissors, now in two pieces and sets them on the table. I should have known Pearce wouldn’t use ordinary leather. He probably made the compound using some sort of metal, most likely to boost its EM disrupting capabilities, not to mention prevent something like this. Good to be trusted. Especially after everything I’ve done for him. Come to that, why did he feel the need to hobble me at all? I did everything he asked, I trusted him with my life, and–
“I think I’ve got some shears in the shed, I’ll take a look. Why don’t you take a bath and get changed? There are towels upstairs.”
“Thank you.”
I wait until he goes into the garden before changing clothes. Pearce used me. That’s what this all means. Why he put the collar on me, why he sent men after me with tasers. Scott was right. I was nothing but an attack dog to him.
I can’t stay here. Ollie seems… nice – and I didn’t think nice even existed anymore. Didn’t think I cared about that sort of thing. But I do, and my being here is going to get him killed. I pick up the taser, check I’ve still got my locket, and slip out of the front door. He doesn’t belong in my world.
Chapter Seventeen
I’m back on two feet – with my borrowed car still being at the drop in centre – but at least those feet have trainers on now. I couldn’t risk Ollie being seen with me, it would have been too dangerous for him. If Pearce found out, he’d have had him killed or tortured to punish me. I frown. He still might. After all, Ollie helped me escape from men who were probably working for him. I shrug the thought off. The medic’s in no danger. Before long Pearce will either be placated or dead – with dead being most preferable but least likely. I won’t let him break me again. I can see it now. Pearce, Gardiner, Ephraim, Scott – I was nothing but a pawn to any of them. A tool. A weapon trapped inside an inconvenient human form, always with one finger or another on my trigger. Not anymore. I’m making my own decisions now, and if all of them have to die for me to finally be free, so be it.
I hurry along the pavement, head down and hands thrust deep in my pockets. I have no idea where I am, but there’s nothing new about that. It’s not important. When you have no place to be, it doesn’t much matter where you are. I focus on putting some distance between me and the medic, just in case he’s foolish enough to come looking for me. It’s broad daylight in the middle of a residential area, so stealing another car’s out. I need to find somewhere to hole up until dark.
Easier said
than done, of course. I cover about two miles and three dead ends before I’m clear of the residential streets, ducking through alleyways and cutting across a playing field that’s deserted – all the kids are in school and the parents enjoying the peace at home, or slaving away at their jobs. It’s weird to think of the world going on around me, ordinary and domestic, the same way my life had been just a year ago. Not anymore. I’ve been head-hunted, trained, betrayed, hunted again, chased, exiled, allied, exiled again, allied again, captured, caged, brainwashed and turned into a walking weapon. And dammit, I’m. So. Fucking. Tired.
I need somewhere I can think, and work out what the hell I do from here. And then I’m going to find a way to annihilate everyone who’s ever done me harm: starting with Pearce. Savage Anna hums with glee and I don’t bother to silence her.
A rusty old metal barred fence marks the edge of the playing field, and a gate set into it leads into another alleyway. I hesitate. I could lay low in the field, and hope that with the overcast weather no-one comes this way before dark. If they do, I’ll attract far too much attention, even without my bloodstained clothes. No contest. I have to avoid anyone spotting me and reporting me to the local authorities – Pearce has people everywhere, and I have no intention of letting him see me coming.
I swing open the gate and step through, then look up and down the alley. Which way? In the distance a bike engine snarls, sending a shiver through me. I frown at the hairs raised on my arms… my body has a very peculiar reaction to that noise. I try to pinpoint why, but as with all the BTD memories it’s like staring up at the sun, and frankly it’s not worth the headache. I hurry in the opposite direction – it’s a fair bet that away from traffic also means away from civilisation.
I take in everything as I walk – the soft breeze scattering fallen leaves across the dirt track under my feet, the smell of cut grass and wild flowers, the endless blue-grey expanse high above my head, the chirping of birds as they dart in and out of the hedges. Life going on, all around me. No sterile concrete beneath my feet, no windowless walls trapping me in perpetual pre-dusk, or dark ceiling looming above me. My world isn’t a hundred square feet anymore.
I’m so caught up in the unexpected beauty of my newfound freedom that I don’t know how long it takes me to realise the sounds of the motorbike are growing louder. Too long. By the time my brain catches up with my senses, the sound is all around me, bouncing off the walls.
I start to run for the mouth of the alley, but the bike’s already there, blocking my way out. I look round, eyes wide and hair flying as I try to find the best way out – back through the park, or along the alley and hope the other end leads some place the biker won’t dare chase me? Too risky, plus he – and it’s got to be him – could easily run me down in the wide alleyway. I grip hold of the fence, already feeling my arm protesting as I prepare to haul myself over it and put the physical barrier between me and my would-be captor, buying me a few essential seconds.
“Anna, wait!”
I obey through habit, and by the time I shake the thrall irritably, the biker’s killed his engine and pulled the helmet from his head. Scott. He sets the helmet carefully on the floor and raises his hands as he stays straddling the bike.
“I won’t come any closer. Please, I just want to talk.”
Talk. Right. And I was born yesterday.
“I’ve come alone,” he says.
I stay rooted to the spot, assessing my options. If I vault the fence, he’s just going to follow me. Can I outrun him? Can I outfight him? I know the answer to that. Slowly, I unpeel my hand from the bars.
“I won’t go back.”
“You don’t have to. Come with me somewhere safe and we’ll talk. Just talk.”
I shake my head violently. Again with the not being born yesterday.
“You want to talk? We can talk here.”
I jerk my head at the field on the other side of the fence. Scott looks across at it and gives a slow nod.
“Okay.” He climbs from the bike and I take an automatic step back before I steel myself. Scott slows his approach.
“After you,” I tell him. I don’t trust him at my back. He makes no comment and we walk through the alleyway to the gate, with me following a few feet behind. I must be losing my mind. So much for lying low… but if I don’t deal with him now, he’s just going to keep tracking me. That’s all there is to it, and whatever feelings might happen to be stirring in my gut played absolutely no part in my decision.
I swing the gate shut behind us with a loud creak and my anxiety triples until my stomach’s churning. There was a time I’d have been struggling to hold myself in one place, but not anymore. I guess my time with Pearce wasn’t completely wasted.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” Scott says. “We – I – should have trusted you. I’m sorry. No more cages, I promise.”
I touch my fingers meaningfully to the collar around my neck. Pearce’s rules be damned.
“Not all cages have bars.”
He reaches into his pocket and slowly draws out a remote, holding it up for me to see. He flicks a switch and immediately I feel the disrupted EM field smooth out and flow more easily. I take a deep breath and release it slowly, basking in the lack of pressure buzzing inside my head. Scott holds the device out to me.
“Here, it’s yours.”
I look at it briefly and shove it in my pocket.
“Thanks,” he says. “For not shifting.”
“Talk.”
“I thought you might want this,” he says, holding up a silver chain. “For your locket.”
He’s pleased I took the heart shaped necklace with our photo in it. He’s probably reading something into it, instead of realising I just grabbed it on a whim, I don’t even know why.
“You didn’t track me down just to give me a chain.”
“I want to help you remember who you were before Pearce locked you up.”
“Except it didn’t start there, did it?” I demand, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “It started the day you came barging into my home.”
The words ‘my home’ leave a strange taste on my tongue, and somewhere in my mind they’re inexplicably tangled with this man.
“Do you remember what I said that day?”
The BTD memories are getting easier to see, now that I know what Pearce really was.
“You told me you could help me. Bang up job you’ve done of that, by the way.”
His face spasms with pain and then smooths out.
“I asked you to tell me what I could do to show you I was on your side. So tell me.”
I shake my head.
“It’s not that simple anymore.”
“Why not? I love you, Anna. You love–”
“–loved–”
“–me and I don’t care how many times you deny it, Pearce can’t just take that from us. I won’t let him. Please.”
He reaches out and takes my hand, and though I command it to move, it stays in his gentle grip. A surge runs through me, pulsing through my hand where our skin touches. A thousand images flash through my mind, brighter than the sun. His hand on my face, my hip. My lips touching his. Our bodies pressed together beneath the sheets. Laughing together at the lake. Facing Gardiner. Facing Pearce. Facing the Ishmaelians. Together. Not master and slave. Not controller and weapon. Friends. Lovers. Soulmates.
I gasp. There are so many memories, so many emotions, flooding through me that I think my head is going to burst. And this man in front of me, he’s in every one of them. Guiding me. Protecting me. Loving me. I remember every single thing he did for me. And with a stab of anguish, I recall everything I’ve done to him. And still, he’s trying to help me.
“Why are you still here?” I ask when I can breathe again, but my voice is barely a whisper.
“Where else would I be?”
“I hurt you.”
He shrugs lightly – impressive, because I know broken ribs don’t heal that quickly. You don’t wa
nt to know how.
“A flesh wound.”
“I was going to turn you over to Pearce.” My voice is flat as the pain of it punches through me. I sacrificed myself to save him – and then put him right back in danger.
“Anna, I’d go in a heartbeat if it meant you’d be safe.”
I shake my head violently.
“Neither of us is going back to Pearce.”
He searches my face, and when he speaks, his voice is full of barely repressed hope.
“Then, you’ll come with me?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. I don’t care. We don’t have to go back to the others if you don’t want. We’ll run together, just the two of us.”
There’s only one thing I can say to that.
“Okay.”
I don’t let go of his hand as we slip back through the rusting gate, keeping my fingers entwined in his as we walk the dusty alleyway back to where his bike is waiting. His helmet is still on the floor where he left it, and he stoops to retrieve it, then leans over the machine and unclips something from the far side. My mouth turns up into a lopsided smile, though it feels alien, as though the muscles have forgotten how.
I take the spare helmet from him, letting go of his hand reluctantly to pull it on over my head. Scott tugs his on, then hops on the bike and fires it up. The throaty rumble makes the hairs on my arms stand on end again, and I climb on behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist. The bike trembles with anticipation beneath us, and Scott revs the engine then looks back over his shoulder.
“Ready?”
“Always.”
The bike roars as Scott twists the throttle, and within minutes we’re away from the town and ripping through the back roads, and now I know why my body responded that way to the bike’s noise. I laugh with sheer delight and Scott pushes the machine harder, faster, tighter through the bends. I feel his laughter rumble in reply deep in his chest beneath my arms. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel free. At peace. At home.
I don’t know how long we ride for – time is as meaningless here as it was in the ba– Basement. I won’t shy away from that word. I won’t shy away from what I became. Never again will I forget who I am, not any part of it. I sigh and tap Scott twice on the shoulder. He glances back at me, and immediately slows the bike, pulling us over on the side of a deserted country road.
Unleashed (TalentBorn Book 4) Page 12
