Pestilence Rising

by Lea Ryan

  Chapter 18

 

  My fingers curled around a plastic card the next morning. I remembered the presence of the security camera and the glass panel and turned toward the wall behind me to see what it was without revealing it to my various observers. The sight of it sent a chill through my veins.

  It was a plastic key card security badge with Helen's smiling face on it. Celeste had come into my room. She wasn't a hallucination or a dream. She had really been there. She told me to be ready to run.

  I jumped up from bed, pulled on the shirt that was waiting for me there. If only I had shoes. The paper pill cup and the glass of water were on the table.

  The doors will unlock. Her voice replayed through my mind. Do not take the medicine. I looked over at the door. It stood impenetrable as ever. What if it was already unlocked? I didn't want to try the knob, especially if they were watching. They would ask what I was doing. They would put me in high security containment. If the door was already unlocked, if I had missed my cue, I was wasting time.

  I wanted the key card in my pocket. I sat on the bed, near the pillow and tried to look casual. I lounged awkwardly.

  If my shirt had longer sleeves, I could have slipped the card up into the shirt. The light in the glass panel room came on. Reginald sat behind the mic, the other two doctors having skipped this visit.

  “Mr. Tomlinson.”

  I rose to approach the panel, “Morning, Doc. How is everything?” Beads of perspiration formed on my face. I resisted the urge to wipe them away for fear that I would look nervous. Tick, tick, tick. I refused to look at the door.

  “Please take your medicine.”

  They were watching me. If they observed me that close while I slept, had they seen Celeste?

  Do not take the medicine. She had seemed so adamant about it. There was going to be a fight.

  “I'm getting to it. I just wanted to get a bit of a stretch in first.” I stuck my arms into the air and twisted to get a peek at the door. I wished I could tell if it was unlocked just by looking at it.

  “Now, Mr. Tomlinson. The deprogramming class begins in ten minutes. If I have to send someone in to force-feed it to you, I will.”

  “Say, why do you call it medicine anyway? It doesn't exactly fix a health problem.”

  “Think of it as preventative medicine for the people who come into contact with you. Pick up the glass of water.”

  I walked over to the table very slowly.

  Come on, Celeste. Give me a sign you're here. Anything. I glanced back toward the bed, where my pillow concealed Helen's key card. She was probably searching for it at that moment.

  “Did you make sure the dosage is right? I had some really weird dreams last night. I think I might have actually been hallucinating. I don't want to have another reaction.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose under his retro glasses, “Quit stalling. If those pills aren't down your throat in the next five seconds, I'm sending in security.”

  I let the pills roll around in my palm. I could fake swallowing them.

  The door made a clicking sound. Reginald heard it too because he turned to look with me. Time to go. I grabbed Dr. Helen's security card on the way out and then threw open the door to glorious sunlight. It shone across every reflective surface, like I was stepping into Heaven.

  A guard at the gate to my right reached for the gun in the holster he wore. I put out my hand and sent him a taste of the power I wielded, the power that was about to save my life...or end it, definitely one of the two. He dropped the gun to hold his stomach as he doubled over.

  I ran over to grab it. The heft of the weapon in my hand felt good. If only I had some shoes. I put the lanyard holding the security badge around my neck and tucked it inside my shirt. Then I practically tore off the guard's requisite combat boots. They were big, but I would make them work. I clutched them to my chest with the arm that wasn't holding the gun.

  Gasping, Dr. Reginald lurched out of the door next to me, the one that led to the glass panel room. He halted when he saw me and the unconscious guard on the floor. He backed clumsily into the booth again, tripping over his own feet. His mouth dropped open as if he wanted to say something, but terror and the sickness had stolen his voice.

  “I won't be taking my meds this morning. Don't come out if you value your life.”

  An alarm sounded throughout the hall, a grating tone that echoed. Lights on the walls flashed. Any second an army of enforcers would tackle me.

  I checked the gun. It was loaded. No time to yank on the boots. I'd have to tote them along until an opportunity presented itself.

  I couldn't tell where I was in the building, exactly. It was a big place, and I had never really gotten the lay of the land. I ran to the window. Outside was the front lawn, the city streets with cars driving by like nothing happening in the building mattered. I estimated that I was on the third floor.

  I knew from my previous experiences that the front door was barred by a metal gate someone had to buzz people through and a door with the same type of lock. The side door to the parking lot was easier.

  A stampede of boots in the hall interrupted my thoughts. I bolted to the junction of hallways nearby to wait for them to go by. If I was lucky, they wouldn't see me as they ran past. My heart hammered in my chest.

  A burst of white rounded the corner.

  “Celeste!”

  She skidded to a stop next to me, “Hunter!”

  She threw her arms around my neck and kissed my face all over. Her clothes were the same type she wore the last time I saw her - an enforcer uniform. A guy and a girl I didn't recognize were with her, dressed in the same way she was.

  “This is Tina. She can see a minute or two into the future. And this is Jason. He's a healer. The Center planned to use both of them in the field.”

  Jason snorted, “I agreed to get some gym time. You tell these assholes what they want to hear, and they'll believe anything.”

  Tina adjusted her ponytail, “This is nice, but we need to get out of here. We have about forty five seconds before the guards show up.”

  Celeste asked, “Why are you not wearing shoes?”

  Everyone including me looked down at my bare feet.

  “They didn't give me any. I had to -”

  “Just put on the boots.” Tina snapped.

  I handed Celeste my gun to yank them on, “What's the plan?”

  Celeste said, “A van is waiting in a parking lot on the west side of the building. We will escape that way.”

  “We have to get everyone else out before we go.”

  “Everyone else who?” Jason asked.

  “The others. I'm not leaving without them.”

  “Twenty seconds.” Tina updated us.

  Jason said, “We'll be lucky to get out of here alive ourselves. There's no way we can break everyone out.”

  “We don't know where the holding cells are.” Celeste was worried, but she was already on board with the plan; I could tell.

  Security had the doors locked again before we hit the first gate, but lucky for us, it opened with a swipe of Dr. Helen's key card. A handful of guards appeared in our path.

  “Stop right there!” A guy in a black hat bellowed at us in his best cop voice.

  Fat chance.

  They fired their weapons as they closed in. We ducked into an adjacent hallway.

  I wanted to ravage them, but I was afraid Tina wasn't immune to it like Celeste and I were. Jason was a healer, so he could handle whatever bad mojo I put out.

  I turned to him, “Hold on to Tina and help her if she starts to get sick.”

  He grabbed her hand.

  I gathered my concentration, and as the guards arrived, I hit them with a wave of the sickness. They collapsed into a heap, groaning, a couple of them vomiting. Tina regained her color quickly with Jason's help.

  “Wow, that's awesome.” Jason stood. “I've heard what ravagers do, but seeing it,” He turned to Tina, “I told you he would co
me in handy.”

  She wasn't listening, “Doctors come out of that door.” She pointed ahead of us at the end of the hallway. “They have tranquilizer dart guns.”

  I trained my pistol on it and waited. Sure enough, Folder Guy and another man in a lab coat emerged. The guns in their hands looked like rifles.

  Jason and I shot without hesitation. I shot to wound, sending a pair of bullets into my target's arm. Jason, not so much. He hit Folder Guy in the forehead. The doctor's head snapped back, and he fell to the floor, an awkward bundle of corpse.

  “We should get those guns.” He jumped up and ran to the heap of ravaged enforcers, unfazed by the senseless murder he'd just committed.

  I bypassed the enforcers for the tranquilizer guns the doctors had. Celeste went with me, leaving Jason and Tina a couple of steps behind.

  “You didn't need to kill him.” I told him as I grabbed the rifle from the dead scientist. I slung the blood-stained strap across my back. “They're doctors, not fighters.”

  “Enemy doctors.” He angled his pistol to end a wounded man, “More like mad scientists. I can't even tell you how many times they drew blood from us to try to find the cure to whatever ailed them. They don't deserve any more sympathy than the ogres.”

  Celeste stopped him, “No unnecessary deaths, please.”

  To my relief, he acquiesced, “You're no fun.”

  A murderous healer. And I thought the child Michael was bad.

  “If we can get down to the main corridor, I can direct us to the low security wing. That's where they kept me for a while before transferring me into the program.” Tina offered.

  “We're really doing this?” Jason said. “You people are nuts.”

  “You can go off on your own if you want, but I recommend you stick with us.” I ran ahead without looking back to see if he followed.

  We went through another security gate, then made a right toward the stairs. Tina advised us to skip the elevators.

  The cavernous interior of the stairwell amplified the sound of the alarm. However, it was miraculously devoid of hostiles in the immediate vicinity.

  Tina said calmly, “Shots from above,” and pointed up.

  Bullets rained, pinging the rails and embedding themselves in the wall. We moved faster, tried to keep to the wall as we descended and went around to the next flight of stairs. The door on the second floor opened.

  Jason slammed it into the face of the man trying to come through, then opened it again. He shot the guy in the chest to repel him permanently.

  “Dude!” I yanked him back into the stairwell by the back of his shirt. “We're focusing on leaving, not generating a body count.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  We encountered another set of guards at the ground floor. The man who had accompanied Dr. Helen during my interrogation was with them. Commander Fox stood at the front of their group, ready to lead the charge.

  “Halt.” His command boomed over the alarm. The enforcers with him took aim at our group like a firing squad. “Nowhere to go, Mr. Tomlinson. Surrender and we may allow you to live.”

  We were trapped, enemies in front of us, more closing in behind from the stairs above us and the second floor door swinging open.

  Before Jason could initiate a gun battle we would most certainly lose, I pushed Tina toward him. He seemed to get my drift, took her by the hand and pulled her back to stand against the wall. Celeste turned a pair of guns toward the flight behind us.

  I had always worked to hold the ravaging at bay, never wanting to cause anyone harm, especially after the various cruelties I'd suffered at the hands of my brother and the Center. The ease with which I wielded it scared the shit out of me. The Center had turned me into this thing, capable of making the decision to use violence in an instant.

  The sickness coursed through me on a current of anger. I let it rupture from me into the air. It infected the men below with a quickness that caused the command to fire to lodge in Fox's throat. He choked, as did the men around him, and their guns clattered across the cement.

  The hunting party descending on us collapsed, tumbling down the stairs, over each other, dropping their own weapons or discharging them erratically. They wheezed. Some had seizures. They lost all will and ability to fight. Skin tones morphed to that shade of gray that told me I was going too far, and yet, I had trouble stopping myself.

  Veins beneath the skin in Tina's neck ran black, up her jaw and her face to her mouth, which had shifted to a blue color. Dark tears surfaced, trickling down her cheeks, her body expelling the poison. She went limp in Jason's arms.

  Celeste broke me from the trance with a hand on my arm, “Enough.”

  Jason's healing brought our friend back almost as soon as I relented. Raspy breathing became normal. The way she looked at him reminded me of Bree, and I missed her all over again.

  “Let's go.” I said.

  I tried not to show the others, but the attack left me breathless. I hated how right using the ability felt, like a release of all that was wrong within me. That feeling made me dangerous.

  Some of the afflicted, who somehow remained conscious, reached for us as we stepped over them or walked past them to reach the door. I was happy to leave that scene behind for the more serene first floor hallway.

  “Ugh, shut off that damn alarm.” Jason shot the flashing light nearest us. As if on command, the alarm stopped. He grinned, “Would've done that up on three if I knew it was going to work.”

  The intercom system clicked on, “Anomalies located on the ground floor, hallway two.” The voice belonged to Dr. Helen, and she sounded pissed. No doubt she knew I was using her card.

  “That's not better. Where to, Tina?” I asked.

  She grimaced, concentrating.

  “What's she doing?”

  “Running scenarios in her head.” Jason said, “Part of her ability. She can make a decision and see into the future based on that.”

  “Nice. I see why they wanted you out in the field.”

  “We're clear for the next 30 seconds. Ahead and to the right.”

  We rounded a corner and hit a security gate. Behind a window, in a booth, sat an unarmed doctor who tried to stop us by planting his hand on the glass and shouting. I swiped the key card. Nothing happened.

  Jason said, “They deactivated your card.”

  “Bastards.” I aimed a gun at the doctor, “Open the gate.”

  He smirked, “Bulletproof glass, hotshot.”

  Jason lost his cool, “I'm about to get this snide mother -”

  “Wait.” Celeste stopped him.

  She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the gate and yanked. It popped free of the electronic lock with a discontented sizzling sound.

  “That works.” I patted her on the shoulder. The others followed me into a section with open rooms lining the sides of the hall. Two beds per room, but no one was inside any of them.

  “Tina. What's going on? Where is everybody?”

  “I assumed they'd be here. I only looked for guards. The anomalies are...in a common room. That way.” She pointed farther down the hall. As we ran, she added, “Guards behind us. Duck.”

  A mix of bullets and tranquilizer darts closed in.

  “Left.” Tina ordered. We turned.

  Jason and Celeste stopped at the corner to shoot at our pursuers from cover. A dart stuck out of the back of her arm but didn't seem to affect her. I plucked it from her skin, “Guess you're immune.”

  “Good to know.”

  This batch of enforcers consisted of only three guys and no commander. They opted for an out-in-the-open approach despite the fact that they had several rooms in which they could've taken cover, evidence of poor training or desperation to contain us. Either way, Celeste and Jason made short work of them. There wouldn't be any enforcers left by the time we escaped, if we escaped.

  Behind us, in a room several yards down, a male voice ordered people to form a line. They were moving the low security
anomalies.

  “I hear them.” I said.

  Jason tossed aside his rifle, “I'm low on ammo. I'm going to grab a few weapons. Celeste?”

  “I will accompany you.” They dashed back down the hall.

  I could barely keep myself from bolting in the direction of the voices. Michael was probably with them, maybe Bree if they determined she wasn't a threat. Ahead, with one more security gate between us and it, a door stood ajar. Lights reflected on a wooden floor. It looked like a gym.

  Jason and Celeste returned bearing gifts.

  My angelic partner handed me an Uzi, “This is better.”

  “Like Christmas on the farm.” He cocked a black shotgun. A bandolier of shells hung across his chest.

  “Scary farm.” I said.

  “Anomalies, hallway five.” Dr. Helen's voice strained, seemingly with panic. I wondered then how close to us she was.

  We continued, through the gate with Celeste's assistance.

  “Anyone who gets out of line or delays our departure loses yard privileges for a week.” A firm voice announced on the other side of the door.

  In my eagerness to get to my brother and the others, I burst in without giving Tina time to do her thing. The anomalies, probably fifty of them, were lined up against the wall opposite of us, all dressed in gray jumpsuits. Guards were stationed every ten feet or so. They turned on us as they heard my not-so-subtle intrusion and opened fire. Jason grabbed me, yanked me back out into the hall and pushed me aside.

  “Real stupid.” He fired into the common room.

  “Hustle!” A guard shouted over the screams. He pushed the line of prisoners through a door to only God knew where.

  Jason and Celeste went in first. Tina and I were next. I tried the trigger on the Uzi, almost losing control. The damn thing practically jumped out of my hands. I aimed toward the end of the line, where a guard stood by himself, and mowed him down with more bullets than needed.

  Jason pumped his fist at me, “Yeah! That's the way we do it.”

  Our group took out several guards to clear the way just as the last anomaly disappeared into the exit door. I ran past tables set up for games and a television blaring a game show. The air smelled of bacon, gunpowder, and blood. I caught the door just before it latched closed.

  Fluorescent lights flickered in a utility corridor with pipes mounted to the walls. The floor reflected their halfhearted illumination on puddles of water which had gathered in dips in the rough concrete. The group was out of sight, having already made a turn.

  I asked, “Tina?”

  “Left.”

  We caught up to them pretty quickly. The anomalies were fleeing just as the guards were, thinking we must be a threat to them. I slung the Uzi strap over my shoulder to switch to the tranquilizer gun I'd liberated from the scientist on the third floor. We weren't in a good spot to use a machine gun anyway, unless I felt compelled to kill the people we were attempting to rescue.

  A pair of guards at the rear of the line turned around to repel us. I hit one with the tranquilizer dart. He fell sideways, banging his head on the way down.

  Gunfire from the second guard pinged off metal pipes and valves. I knelt next to the wall. Tina and Jason followed suit. Celeste plowed through, taking hits to her shoulder and her thigh. The guard's aim was all over the place, but one doesn't have a killer angel rush them every day. He was dead before she got close.

  “Ok?” I was too out of breath to ask the full question as I joined her once more.

  “Yes.” Silver blood streaked her forehead below the place where a shot had grazed her scalp. She appeared unfazed, otherwise.

  The anomalies ahead of us made a corner and then another. Some of them were crying, others panicking and asking how far behind them we were or where they were going.

  “Stop running, goddamnit.” Jason shouted after them.

  “I don't think cursing at them is going to gain their trust.” I said.

  “Armed workmen, next junction.” Tina called from the back of our group.

  Dirty mechanics in coveralls stepped into our path. One wielded the biggest pipe wrench I'd ever seen. The other two had dart guns. They never stood a chance. I shouldered into pipe wrench guy who had doubled over when Tina got him in the stomach with her pistol. Jason and Celeste handled the other two with the efficiency of trained killers. The workmen didn't delay us long, but those seconds gave the group a lead big enough for us to lose them at a T-shaped junction.

  Tina said, “Left. They're heading for a boiler room.”

  We followed Tina's direction down a set of four steps and another set farther down to a landing. The boiler room door was a reinforced steel model with an oversized, locking lever. I pulled. It wouldn't budge.

  “Let me try.” Jason started to push me out of the way, but Celeste moved him instead.

  She grabbed the handle with both hands, yanked downward. The lever protested with a metallic squeal. At the edge of the door, the latching mechanism broke apart. Celeste pulled back and the door opened with a rush of humid air.

  We stepped onto a catwalk that was, aside from us, empty. Lights in the room were low. With the exception of the rumble of machinery and the occasional hiss of steam, the room was quiet. I ventured a glance over the rail and detected no movement on the floor below us.

  “They're hiding.” Tina whispered behind me, “Only two guards remain.”

  “Hello?” I called out to them. I received no reply, so I tried again, “We're here to help you escape. Michael? Are you down there?” I swallowed my anticipation, “Bree?”

  “Hunter?” Michael's voice responded.

  “It's me. You all might want to hurry.”

  “Halt. No one is leaving.” A guard commanded somewhere out of sight. Sounds of a struggle reached me, men grunting and growling. The conflict ended with a sickening thump. They ran up the stairs, my people in their hideous gray jumpsuits.

  Michael came first. He hugged me and slapped me hard on the back and tousled my hair. In his hand was a pistol he had apparently obtained from a guard they left downstairs.

  I told him, “Don't get too excited. We aren't out of danger yet.”

  The ragtag group was comprised of people of all ages from kids to a lady who was probably someone's missing grandmother. I recognized several people from the compound, some from my days of working for the Center. I could tell who knew who I was by the way they looked at me. Luckily, no one called me out for my crimes against my own.

  I spotted Bree toward the rear of the group. She refused to make eye contact with me, but I didn't care. She was alive.

  “They're coming.” Tina's eyes widened with fear.

  A posse of about ten men greeted us in the corridor as we prepared to leave the boiler room. They positioned themselves, a trio on each level of the floor and their leader near the back. His black hair was slicked back, and he wore a suit, which signified a rank higher than the run of the mill enforcer commanders. He was likely the same hierarchy level as Gideon, a supervisor or a position of the like.

  He spoke with authority, “You will relinquish your weapons and allow yourself to be taken into custody. Those of you who did not break the rules of your own volition will be permitted to return to your rooms with no consequence.”

  “He talks too much.” Jason, who had just stuffed shells into his shotgun, shoved into the door and began firing. Celeste, Tina and Michael backed him up.

  I was forced to use the Uzi again. The unruly thing never would have been my first choice as a weapon in the confines of the corridor. I sent out a spray of bullets, which proved very effective but short-lived. I concentrated my fire on the supervisor, mowing him down on my second pass and exhausting my ammunition in the process. I hurled the gun into the hall out of frustration.

  “I'm out.” Celeste fell back.

  Tina cried out in pain. She handed her gun off to the guy behind her. Blood seeped between her fingers over the wound on her bicep as she pushed back through
the crowd. They would have her healed in no time.

  Jason was running low on shells. We were going to be in a bad spot if we couldn't eliminate the remaining three guards outside. Their Kevlar vests weren't helping, neither was the fact that they had more guns than we did.

  “Suggestions?” I asked the group behind us.

  I got nothing. They shook their heads. Some of the younger girls wiped tears from their eyes.

  Tina, who was being healed, raised her head, “More are coming.”

  “Shit.” I gripped the catwalk railing, listening to the sounds of our last bullets being blasted away.

  Make them count.

  Celeste walked up to me, “What are we going to do?”

  “They didn't bring the anomalies down here to keep them safe. They chose this room, so they could corner us.”

  “This is why I didn't want to rescue other people. We could've been out of here.” Jason shouted to be heard over gunfire.

  The pace of the shooting on both sides waned. The enforcers would wait until they eroded our defenses, and then they would move in.

  I told Celeste, “I'll have to ravage the remaining men. Pair each anomaly that could be affected with a healer. Putting Jason with Tina worked before.”

  “That didn't go well last time.” She reminded me.

  The second ravaging Tina was exposed to had done more damage than the first, despite Jason's healing. Repeated exposure caused more damage. Gideon experienced that particular unpleasantness at the farmhouse during his fourth exposure in a matter of days. However, that concern wouldn't affect the majority of our escape party. We would have to worry most about Tina.

  “Forty seconds,” Our resident psychic warned.

  I addressed the group, “How many of you aren't healers or ravagers?”

  Twelve people raised their hands, including a pale girl of about eight years old. I ran my hand through my hair at the sight of her. I suddenly didn't feel good about the plan, but it was all I had.

  “I'm going to ravage the guards outside. It's going to affect anyone who isn't a healer or a ravager. It's the only way we're getting out.”

  “Is it going to hurt?” A lanky teenage girl with braids asked.

  I nodded, “Yes. But the choices are minutes of pain and sickness or a lifetime in this hellhole. We have healers who can tend to you right away.”

  A chorus of static from radios and heavy footfalls reached us. Enforcers kicked aside the bodies of their fallen comrades for optimum positioning. They made a wall of gun barrels on three levels of floor, hurled demands and warnings in our direction, competing with each other as if whoever made the most compelling argument for our surrender won a prize. Then came the time limit.

  A baritone voice rose above the others, “Ten seconds.”

  The girl with the braids nodded, “Do it.”

  “Carry her.” I pointed to the little one. “We're going out running. If anyone doesn't want to go or feels like you won't make it, you can stay here.”

  “Five seconds.”

  I added, “Pick up their weapons. The more armed we are, the better.”

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. The sickness was always there, always waiting to get out and wreak some havoc. I only needed to call upon it and hope it didn't break loose. I sent a controlled burst into the hallway. Most of the enforcers collapsed, some of them convulsing and rolling down the stairs they'd just been kneeling on. I hoped I never lost my ability to be disturbed by what I could do.

  “Go.” I said.

  Jason led the charge. He rushed forward, over the dead and the ailing to grab their weapons. Others followed his lead, arming themselves and suddenly, we were a force to be reckoned with, a mob.

  We wound our way back through the corridors, to the stairs and up into the common room from which we'd come. No one met us along the way. In fact, our path was weirdly devoid of resistance. The Center security forces were dwindling. The thought sent a fresh wave of euphoria through me. We could be free. We were free, almost.

  “How are we working the rescue of the high risks?” Jason asked. “We can't take all of these people with us.”

  “Good point.” We stopped near the hall leading to the front door.

  A voice came over the intercom, “Hunter Tomlinson? You are so very dead. Anomalies, hallway two.”

  The voice gave me a chill. I knew it well. I'd heard threats from him more times than I could count. Gideon. No matter how many enemies we defeated in battle, he would always be the most intimidating. I associated him with all the negativity the Center had to offer. He was a crony, a bully. He represented everything they could do to me.

  “Come and get me!” I taunted the speaker mounted to the ceiling. I turned to my people and raised the rifle I'd commandeered from my oppressors, “They have more of us locked up in the high security wing. You have a choice. Leave if you want. Come with me if you're ready for a fight.”

  A cheer went up among all parties involved. Those who were affected by the ravaging were already recovering, including the little girl.

  I said to Michael, “Head for the front door. I want them off the property. Keep the ones who need help nearby. Stash them somewhere they'll be safe - a park or maybe an empty building. If we don't come out, make sure they get home. Celeste, help them with the gate and the door. They should be ok once they're in the lobby.”

  Michael asked, “What about you?”

  “Let's hope I get some volunteers.”

  We split into two groups - the liberated and the rescuers. Jason stayed behind, claiming he had nothing better to do. I think he just enjoyed having the opportunity to shoot people. Tina also refused to leave. Her bullet wound was ancient history. I was glad to have her. A ravager named Caleb joined us, as did Bree.

  “I'm not sure this is the right choice for you,” I told Bree.

  “They said my brother was dead.” She locked eyes with me, “I know you killed him.”

  We didn't have time for drama, but I also didn't want to make light of her brother's demise.

  “It was him or me. I had no choice.”

  She nodded, “Well, I'm not here for you. I just want to make that clear.”

  She hadn't made up her mind whether to hate me. I wanted to remind her that she had wronged me, too. In fact, she almost got me killed by ratting me out to Llewyn and Vic. Her action directly led to my confinement and the subsequent attempt on my life.

  “Where's the high security area?” I asked the group.

  My cohorts shook their heads and/or shrugged.

  “Fan-friggin'-tastic. No one knows where we're going?” Jason let a burst of laughter, “Maybe we should just wander around or ask directions.”

  “Tina?”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated, “It must be too far for me to see from here.”

  “We need a computer. I can find out where it is.” Bree offered.

  The only computers I had seen were in the security stations. We went to the booth closest to us. Celeste returned a couple of minutes later to find us unsuccessfully attempting to gain entry. She smashed the lock off with ease.

  Bree sat into the office chair and put her hand over the mouse, “This isn't even password protected. Cocky bastards, aren't they?”

  She opened a window to search by patient name.

  Jason snorted, “Patients? That's what they're calling us now?”

  “That's what we are to the rest of the world. We are in a mental asylum.” I said, “Whose name are you using?”

  “Mitchell Wills. He was a guardian at the compound. I saw them take him alive, but he never showed up in our area. They must've put him in high risk.”

  “Shouldn't you be in the high risk area?” I asked Jason. “I'm no shrink, but you seem like the type they might want to keep an eye on.”

  “No one ever sees a healer as a potential threat. They assume we're all sunshine and moonbeams. I like when they make assumptions.” He grinned.

  Bree linke
d the patient file to a location on a map and hit print. The printer on top of the filing cabinet next to Celeste sprang to life. She snatched the paper when it finished.

  “This is on the other side of the building.”

  The map didn't have blueprint-level detail, but it would get us to the right area. Security stations were marked. Rooms were displayed as empty rectangles with no labels.

  “Do you think the fact that no one has attempted to apprehend us in the last few minutes is weird? There was no one to stop the others from escaping, either.” Celeste noted.

  “They're running out of men.” I guessed. “Or they're waiting to ambush us with whatever firepower they have left. Probably both.”