Burn (6 page)

Before I reach him, another agent tackles me from behind, and I fall. Knees-hips-chest . . . I turn my head, and my skull hits pavement. Breath explodes from me in a strangled cry as my bones rattle. Graham was the one who hit me; he's on my back, but I buck my hips and jam my foot back, gritting my teeth at the impact of my heel against flesh and bone. He wheezes, telling me I probably got him in the balls. I raise my head to see Congers peering through the launcher's sight. “Please!” I cry. “No!”

He pulls the trigger. A helpless noise winds from my throat as I curl onto my side to follow the projectile. The grenade rockets toward the minivan—

Holy shit what the hell what the fuck is that

A silvery, blurred thing rises above my mom's vehicle, silent and slick. The grenade flies straight toward the thing, but it tilts lightning quick, and the grenade shoots into the forest across the road and explodes. I stare at the obelisk-shaped object hovering about fifty yards ahead of us, maybe thirty yards above the ground.
That
is what Congers and the other agents were firing at, but I've never seen anything like it. It shimmers like mercury in the light of the burning forest, moving like a helicopter even though it doesn't have rotors. Or wings.

A black dot appears on its lower front, swirling and sparkling and growing. Like some sort of hatch. Or torpedo bay. “Grab the boy!” Congers cries. “Get him off the road!”

Movement near my mom's van draws my eyes back to the ground in time to watch both her and Christina dive down the embankment—right as the obelisk thing gives off a low, throbbing
whomp.
The minivan explodes, flying into the air like a Matchbox car. One of the agents wrenches me to my feet and tosses me to the side of the road, where I roll and crash through thorny underbrush. My head thumps against a rock. Blood fills my mouth as I bite my tongue. I land in a trickling stream at the bottom of a shallow hill, on my back, smoke and flames spurting from the mayhem above me.

I open my mouth, but I can't manage to draw in air. My eyes are riveted on the obelisk, which shoots backward suddenly as three more RPGs are launched. Congers and his men are shouting, calling to one another to reload, to fire. The obelisk, its hellish spire pointing at the sky, spins, but only dodges two of the grenades this time. The other glances its side and detonates. Before the smoke clears, the obelisk tilts backward, aiming that sharp nose at the horizon. I wait for it to fall from the sky, but instead, it darts away, moving too fast to track. A moment later, it's like it was never there.

Except for the carnage it left behind.

Two agents plunge down the embankment and grab me while Congers barks orders, instructing the others to mount up. My voice returns to me as they lift me from the ground. “Mom! Christina!” They should be nearby. I saw them roll down the embankment. They couldn't be more than a hundred feet away.

But they don't answer me.

No.
I can't have lost both of them. I shout until the only sounds that come from me are hoarse croaks. I curse at the agents; I kick and struggle; I rage and thrash. The minivan is a twisted husk, overturned in the road, not two feet from the spot where I was lying when that
thing
fired on us. I spew question after question, but no one speaks to me. They're focused on getting me contained, on getting me into the SUV. As they do, I see Leo, strapped into the seat in front of me, pale and scared as he watches me lose my shit. I'm wedged between Congers and Mack, the red-haired agent. The men on either side of me are sweating, tense, their movements abrupt and hard.

“Mute him,” growls Congers, and Mack pulls a black case from the seat pocket in front of him. “He's panicking.” Congers loops his steely arm around my throat and cuts off my air supply. “You have to calm down. Calm down now, or you give me no choice.”

I gulp for air and come up dry. Vision spotting, I buck and elbow until a spike of pain pierces my thigh, and once again, that heaviness swirls in my veins. I fight it, slamming my head back, trying to hit Congers, but he only squeezes tighter. “When you wake up, we'll talk again.”

MY DREAMS ARE MADE OF FIRE. I LOSE MY MOM AND
dad in a hundred hellish conflagrations. Mom always calls my name, and her longing and terror is like a language of its own. Dad is silent and grim, but before the flames devour him, his eyes tell me that he doesn't want to go, that he'd stay if he could, that he's sorry I have to do this without him. I am always bound, unable to move or change things no matter how much I fight. I watch helplessly as the obelisk rises high, moving like a whisper, and opens its sparkling, swirling portal.

Everything after that is death and defeat. And even though the inferno never touches me, it burns all the same.

“Give him another shot. I need him alert.”

“Don't touch me,” I slur, my defiance hardwired even though it feels like I'm swimming in a sea of motor oil and rebar, everything sharp and jagged, the air too thick to breathe. I'm upright, but only because I'm bound to a chair.

Congers is squatting in front of me as I open my eyes. His expression is stern, and his face is paler than it was before. “Cooperate, and I won't.”

It takes effort, but I raise my head. I'm in a windowless box of a room. Buzzing fluorescent lighting above me. Old radiator against the wall. Not a new building, nothing high-tech. I glance at the door, painted metal, covered in nicks and scrapes. I blink, trying to gather my wits.

“I expected your lab facility to be a little swankier,” I say, my consonants a bit more defined this time.

Congers slides his finger along the bridge of his nose. “We thought it best not to flee straight to a top-secret facility.”

“And what exactly would constitute ‘cooperating'?” My hands are cuffed behind the office chair I'm sitting on. My ankles are shackled to its legs. Graham is standing near the door, his gray-green eyes on me. His posture straightens as I size him up.

Congers glances at the young agent before returning his attention to me. “As you are aware, your father had something that belongs to us. We need to reacquire it immediately, especially given this evening's unfortunate series of events. Even more unfortunate, we need your help.”

Fuck you.
Those are the words on the tip of my tongue. But instead, I stay quiet and simply stare at him. Memories are slipping into place like puzzle pieces. We were being taken somewhere for questioning because I'd called too much attention to us in the city. My mom and Christina showed up. And then . . . “Where are they?” I ask.

Congers's expression doesn't change. He's probably an excellent poker player. “They mean a lot to you.”

I try to keep my face as blank as his, but between the pain and the images of Christina and my mom flying down that embankment as that
whatever it was
blew their van to hell, I must give something away.

Congers's eyebrow arches. “I thought so.” He stands up. “We have them. All of them. And their survival is very much dependent on whether you give me the information I need to access Frederick Archer's private laboratory.”

My heart is starting to speed. He could be lying. My mom and Christina could have escaped. Or they could already be dead. And if I give the Core access to my dad's lab, they won't just have whatever H2 artifacts his ancestor might have found—they'll have designs for all his weapons. They'd have access to that satellite controller. They'd have everything they needed to shut down The Fifty permanently, not to mention the rest of the dwindling human population. “I need to see them. Leo. And my . . . Christina.” They would have recognized Christina on the road—but they might not have recognized my mom. And if they don't have her—

“Dr. Shirazi is in our custody, Tate. I don't bluff.”

Shit. “If you want me to believe you, I need to see them.”

“We believe your mother knows how to access the lab, too,” he says. “I wonder which of you will break first.”

Heat spreads over my skin, my anger rising to the surface. He's playing a game. Keeping us isolated from each other, each blind to how the other is doing, hoping one of us will crack out of concern for the other. But I know my mom. If she really is alive, she'll know what's at stake if the H2 get access to Dad's lab. They could hurt her over and over again, and she wouldn't give them what they want. “Probably me. Why don't you give it a try?”

“But your mother came for you. A foolhardy rescue attempt fueled by the same emotion that might lead her to help us if we apply the right kind of pressure. If you don't want that to happen, I suggest you give us what we need sooner rather than later.”

“First tell me about that thing on the road. The ship that attacked us. You knew what it was.”

For the first time, his expression changes, fury hardening every feature. “Distraction techniques won't work, not on me. Tell me how to get into the lab without triggering the countermeasures.”

It's not just distraction. The questions are piling up in my brain, crowding one another as they try to escape my mouth. “Are you guys in some kind of covert civil war? Is that why you need my dad's stuff?”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Tell me how to get into the lab. It has a self-destruct mechanism as well, doesn't it?”

“Was that H2 technology? Who was flying it?”

His voice takes on a razor edge as he says, “How many chances does the entry mechanism give before lethal measures are activated?”

“Where's Willetts?” The professor may be H2, but he's no friend of the Core—he wanted to keep the scanner away from them and was working with George to do it. “Does he have something to do with this?”

“Enough.” Congers clenches his jaw. “Graham, go ahead.” He nods at the agent, whose mouth is tight as he slams his fist into my stomach. Breath explodes from my lungs, and I pitch forward. Congers catches my chair before I topple to the ground. He wrenches me upright.

“Let's consider that a hard reset,” Congers says. “Please stop wasting my time.” While Graham rubs his knuckles and waits for his boss to acknowledge him again, Congers repeats his demands for information to access my dad's lab. I keep firing questions at him, trying to find out what the hell is going on, what attacked us on the road, and what it means for the scanner and the rest of my dad's inventions. Every time I evade his demands, Congers's face gets more mottled. He's angry. Maybe a little desperate. But I don't give in.

The third time Congers gives Graham the go-ahead, the guy punches me in the head. He seems determined to pound information out of me—and also to show Congers how tough he is. The impact of the blow turns my vision white. The iron-salt tang of blood fills my mouth.

“I'm going to go speak to your lovely girlfriend.” Congers's voice rolls through the thick haze of pain in which I'm floating. “Think about what's at stake for you, Tate. You've already lost your father. How much more can you stand to lose?” I hear the door opening. “Come on, Graham.”

The door slams shut. The sound of footsteps fades. Even blinking hurts. But I force myself to do exactly that, trying to organize a few coherent thoughts. I focus hard on any sounds that come to me, but apart from the hum of the light overhead, I've got nothing. From the painted cinder-block walls and lack of windows, I gather that I'm probably in a basement, maybe of some old warehouse or office building.

And if that's true, it's possible that I can get out. Maybe wreak enough havoc to escape. The idea jolts adrenaline through my veins, and I raise my head, moving my jaw to make sure nothing's broken in there. I wiggle my hands—standard metal cuffs. Same around my ankles. My eyes scan the floor, searching for a paper clip or an old ballpoint pen, anything I might be able to use to pick the cuffs. But this chamber's been swept, and they probably expected me to try something like that. I grit my teeth and scoot my chair backward toward the radiator against the wall. Leaning back, I search for loose wires or metal fixtures with the right shape . . . nothing. I'm going to have to find my means of escape outside this room, and I know one place to do it, but I need more information first.

Leo. Christina. Mom. I have no idea where they're being kept or what condition they're in. Or if they're even here. But Congers said he was going to go work on Christina, and the idea makes bile rise in my throat. She was supposed to be safe. But I'm guessing she used my dad's phone and finally reached my mom, and together they figured out where I was. I think hard, trying to determine how they could have done that—and then I remember Leo's phone. He had it when we were captured. Maybe they used Dad's phone to trace Leo's, which is now probably in the pocket of one of the Core agents. Christina could have told my mom he was with us. And then Mom and Christina came after me. I wish they hadn't. My fingernails scrape across the radiator, making an echoing
tink
in the silence.

I freeze. Then I tap—three quick, three slow, three quick. SOS. It's just an impulse, a shot in the dark, but when your hands are cuffed behind you and you're in a windowless room, even the most primitive means of communication are better than nothing.

As I'm musing about this, tapping away, I realize that the sounds I'm hearing aren't echoes of my own taps. I curl my fingers against my palm and close my eyes, focusing on the faint sounds. Quick-slow-quick-quick . . . quick . . . slow-slow-slow.

L-E-O.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised he knows Morse code. Somewhere in this building, he's heard my SOS. He taps out two quick, two slow, two quick. A question mark. He's wondering who he's talking to. I start to type out the first letter of my name . . . and then I wonder if I'm talking to Leo at all. I pause.

I-T-S-M-E,
he taps out.
It's me.
I almost laugh. I tap out my name, and his response comes immediately:
knew it.

Where?
I tap.

Basement. Next to stairs.

And then he taps out something that makes the breath whoosh from my lungs.
With C.

My fingers are unsteady as I tap
hurt?

No,
comes his response. I hunch over in my chair, the relief heavy.

My mom,
I tap.

Unknown,
he replies.

My relief is gone.
H2? How many.

Six.
Suddenly his taps come so quickly I can barely make them out.
Outside,
he taps. Then it's a jumble of noise and I lose the thread and all I can make out is the final words:
more here.
He's maybe trying to tell me something or someone is approaching.

I have to get out of here. I have to get
them
out of here.

I scoot my chair back to the middle of the room. “Hey!” I call out. “Hey!” Each word hurts as my aching stomach muscles tighten.

After a few moments, the door squeaks open, and Graham pokes his head in. “What?”

“I need to use the facilities.”

He stares at me. “Hold it.”

“Seriously, dude? I'm not joking. Whatever you guys shot me up with is hell on my stomach. Oh, and I probably swallowed a lot of blood when you rearranged my face.”

He rolls his eyes, then disappears for a second, but his fingers stay curled around the door. And I smile. He's most likely been left alone to guard me, and he's looking up and down the hall to see if anyone can help him figure out what the hell he's supposed to do. He looks only a few years older than me. I'd bet good money he's related to Congers, too. Maybe his son, because he was looking at Congers in a way that was all too familiar. He's eager to prove himself and doesn't want to mess up. Which means I can mess with
him.

“Please? I swear. I'm going to shit my pants if you don't help me out.”

From the hallway, there's a sigh. Then Graham walks in briskly, pulling the handcuff key from his pocket. He unlocks my feet first, then quickly unlatches my cuffs—but re-cuffs my hands in front of me when I stand up. He pulls his gun and presses it into my back.

“To the right,” he says in a clipped voice. “And, Tate, I can't kill you, but there are at least five places I could shoot that are nonfatal but extremely painful. Please don't fuck around.”

My muscles go tight. He might be green, but he kind of reminds me of . . . me. “Got it.”

I'm a very good prisoner as he escorts me down the hall to the bathroom. For the first several steps, I'm testing my balance, trying to rid my head of the wooziness that comes along with being pounded upside the skull. I'm not at my best, but I can do damage. And I'm going to have to if I want to get out of this. I use my next few seconds to assess my surroundings. Sprinkler system, stairwell six doors from the bathroom. Leo and Christina might be in one of the rooms between here and there. I look over my shoulder at Graham, noting a stairwell far behind him. “Eyes front,” he snaps.

I comply. But now I know there are two points of exit. I wonder if they're locked.

And I wonder if Graham has the key.

He keeps his weapon nestled against my side—probably one of the five places he could nail that would leave me bleeding and broken but not dying—and swings the bathroom door open. It's a dingy little space, and he shoves me inside. “You have five minutes.”

I groan. “It might take a little longer than that.”

“You have five minutes.” He slams the door.

I flick the light on with my elbow and am thrilled when the blower fan comes on as well. I need every bit of cover for the noise I might make. As quick as I can, I shift the lid off the tank and moan loudly as I reach into the water and fumble with the chain and hook that lift the seal cap when the toilet is flushed. Closing my eyes to focus, I operate by touch, using the S-shaped hook to pick my cuffs and blowing quiet relief through my pursed lips when I feel them give. I only want them loose, so that's good enough. I replace the hook and groan again, hoping Graham is too grossed out to hover close. After another minute, I flush the toilet and run the faucet, then dry my hands. I make sure my cuffs look locked, and then I kick at the closed door. “I'm done!”