Disrupted (17 page)

My eyes landed on the upturned desk. Whatever a Xylex was, could it fit under the desk? Better not take the chance, as tempting as it was to divert both his hands in that direction. “Um, lying around here somewhere.”

I slowly drew myself forward. He came with me. A little more slack at my wrist. I jerked hard, straight into a lunge for the doorway.

So close. My wrist slid free. Not close enough. My head flipped back as he grabbed a handful of hair. A large patch near the nape of my neck burned as if I’d been partially scalped. I wouldn’t have minded. He could have had the hair with pleasure if I wasn’t still attached to it.

“Willow?” came Chris’s frantic call from down the corridor. “Willow, hang on, I’m coming.”

Damn. Had I cried out?

By the time Chris skidded to a halt at the open door, the Razok had thrown his arm over me, somehow managing to strap me firmly to his body and handcuff both my wrists in his hand at the same time. And he still had one hand free. That was wrong, in so many ways.

Chris looked from the Razok’s face to mine. He didn’t ask if I was okay. From the white-strained grimace tensing his jaw, we both knew how very much I wasn’t.

“You shouldn’t have come,” I said hoarsely.

“I wouldn’t leave you here alone.”

Stupid, silly tears welled up inside me. Somehow, I’d known he wouldn’t. Genius boy or not, I’d known Chris wouldn’t do the smart thing. I also knew I shouldn’t be nearly as relieved or grateful as I was. There was no way for this to turn out good.

“Christian Wood. We meet again.”

Chris’s eyes flicked up. He totally ignored the weird greeting. “You don’t need Willow. Let her go.”

“How intriguing. Do you honestly believe that’s an option I’d consider?”

Chris balled his fists in front of him. Hot fury flushed the white from his cheeks.

My relief was short-lived. I knew that look. I knew I was about to get Chris killed. Again. “Chris, don’t. Please, you have to run while you can. We need Drustan.”

Chris didn’t spare me or my pleading a second thought, not even to tell me to shut up.

“Gale has already left for help,” he told the Razok. “This place will be swarming with reinforcements in a few minutes.”

“Then we must depart at once.” Despite the words, the Razok sounded unconcerned.

My feet lifted from the ground as he hefted me up and moved toward Chris and the door.

“We’re not going anywhere,” said Chris heatedly. He shifted slightly so that he blocked the doorway.

“Don’t make this difficult.”

“Or what? It’s not like you can kill us.”

The Razok stopped short.

My heart did a triple leap. Jesus, Lord, God, please let Chris be right.

Chris was glaring at the Razok with a deep frown. I had no idea what the Razok was doing. I hoped he was frowning as well. I really hoped he wasn’t smiling.

“Chr— Chris.” I swallowed down the thick grunge in my throat. “Chris, he’s stronger than he looks.”

“I just need to hinder him for a few minutes, Willow, then the others will be here to box and tag him.”

That was such a lie, I don’t know how Chris kept that furious, serious expression. It would take hours for Gale and Clarrie to hop over to Ni London and back again.

But Chris was sticking to his single, extremely slim threat. His eyes never left the Razok. “A couple of years in a lab, being pricked and scabbed and dissected. Hell, you might even get a tan under the strobes, on the bits of skin you get to keep.”

The Razok sighed.

“Let Willow go,” said Chris, “and I won’t stand in your way.”

“I have a better idea,” drawled the Razok.

I felt his icy fingers crawl over the top of my hands. A caressing, fondling crawl that sent a shudder to my spine. I strained and twisted, but I couldn’t get away from his creepy touch. My wrists were still locked together with his other hand.

I looked down, to see those long fingers grazing mine, singling out first my thumb, then my index finger, then the middle finger... I curled my hands into tight balls. Fear and disgust curdled in my blood.

“Stop that,” growled Chris. “Stop doing that.”

The Razok worked the rigor mortis loose from my pinkie, stretching it out. I heard the snap of bone rather than felt it, a sharp reverberation in my gut. A roar of red fuzz crowded my head. And my small finger stood up at an ominous angle. I stared at my hand, unbelieving. I felt no pain. I felt nothing. There was only the roar inside my head.

“What the…!” Chris’s yell came from far away.

It took me an age to look up at him, to see him charging us. Less than a second, probably. It felt like long minutes.

Chris threw himself into the left side of the Razok, knocking us off-balance.

The floor edged closer, then fell away again as the Razok steadied himself and spun us about. Chris had bounced to the ground, was springing up again into another lunge. The Razok kicked out and hit him mid-riff.

Chris grunted and rolled into a ball. But he didn’t stay down. He lurched to his feet again, and brought a half-smashed chair up with him. He swung the chair high as he came, aiming for Razok’s head.

Now was my chance, I thought through the buzz in my head. I should help Chris. But as slow as my world was moving, frame by single frame, my brain and body reacted even slower.

I never saw or felt the Razok move. I did see the chair shatter into flying pieces of splintered wood. One pointed edge pierced Chris’s shoulder and went deep like an arrow. His face spasmed as he reached across and ripped the thick splinter out. Blood spread in a jagged circle against the white of his shirt.

Hot sick gurgled up from my tummy, scorching my throat.

“That’s enough,” said the Razok.

I clamped my lips, holding in the sick.

Chris advanced in a slow stagger, now pointing the sharp end of the bloodied splinter like a sword. “You crazy son of—”

The Razok was faster. He put a good few metres between us and Chris’s lumbering steps. And then he was doing something with my hands again, holding them up, smoothing- the crack of another bone thundered through my skull with the white heat of lightening.

“Eight more to go, and that’s only the fingers. It’s amazing how much torture the human body can suffer before the heart finally stops beating.”

The words swirled into the flashes spiralling inside my head and exploded into blackness.

Chapter 19

T
he light was wrong, a yellowish glow that cast shadows without illuminating. The air was wrong as well, musty and stale and almost too thick to breathe in. There was a heaviness pressing down on my eyelids, coercing me into snuggling deeper into the warmth wrapped around me.

“Willow.”

The strained whisper brushed my ear. I flinched, trying to shake it off.

“Willow?” More urgent, just as hushed. Chris. “Can you hear me?”

My eyes stretched wide against the weight, gaining focus, bringing in the ghoulish shadows. And the monsters that wouldn’t stay put. The Razok grabbing me. The crack of knuckle- A shuddering spasm unzipped my spine. I was instantly wide awake.

My four fingers were strapped together in layers of thin white cotton that twined all the way past my wrist. But there was no pain. No nothing.

Chris’s arms tightened around me. Skin on skin heat. He’d torn the sleeves from his shirt to bandage my hand. “Shhh, you’re okay.”

“My fingers are completely numb.”

“Maybe I bound them too tightly. I wasn’t sure...” He started picking at one end of the bandage. “I didn’t really know—”

“Leave it.” I covered his moving fingers with my good hand, stilling him. Numbness had to be better than pain. “And... thanks.”

“I’m sorry, Willow. I shouldn’t have tried to outwit him. I shouldn’t have allowed that bastard to hurt you.”

“You tried to stop him.” I extracted my hands from his. “Where is he?”

“In the front somewhere, driving this thing. We’re in the cargo hold.”

“Land hopper?” I asked as my eyes roamed the metal cave we were in. The concave walls were low and black, closing in on us. The yellowish glow appeared to seep out of them.

“More like a fighter jet without the cockpit.”

There was a little space to move, and I suppose I should have. I was lying up against Chris’s side, my head resting in the curve of his shoulder, both his arms tucked loosely around me. But Chris didn’t seem to mind, and my bones were just not up to it.

If I thought I’d fit, I jump inside Chris’s shirt and stay there until this nightmare was over. That was me, either hiding or passing out at the first sign of trouble. All the heroines in my favourite books carry a pepper spray in one back pocket and a spare dose of attitude in the other. I needed to carry a vial of smelling salts just to keep me conscious.

“Gale found us before Clarrie left,” said Chris quietly. “I sent them for Drustan.”

See? Clarrie hadn’t passed out. I was surprised she was still willing to help us.

I rolled my head to look up at him. “Did you talk to her about, um, you know, before Gale got there?”

Not the most pressing topic of the hour, but I was lying in the arms of a guy I think I really, really liked and I wasn’t entirely sure I still had five fully attached fingers, so shoot me.

Chris was staring at nothing in particular, or maybe just particularly not at me. After a moment, I felt him shrug against my side. No answer. None of my business.

Fair enough.

I frowned at his impassive jaw.

No, not really. I was the most recent addition to his kissing habit. That made it at least partially my business.

I shifted out of his arms and went onto my knees, facing him. Amazing what anger does for sluggish bones.

My eyes caught the rusted stain on his white shirt and stuck. “Your shoulder,” I gasped. “Is it still bleeding? Does it hurt?”

“No and no. Don’t worry about me.”

I narrowed my gaze on him.

This time he met my eyes. “It was just a prick, Willow.”

He said it in that ‘Shut up, Willow’ tone.

My eyes hardened on him.

His eyes softened on me.

And then his arms came around me again, sliding me off my knees and into his side. I could have fought it. I didn’t. More important things, you know. Like a hole in the shoulder.

“Chris, what are we going to do? Even if Drustan comes—”

“He won’t know where to find us,” finished Chris.

In my own world, that would have been kind of cute. Finishing off each other’s thoughts, that is. But Chris and I were nowhere near to being a couple. It was just the way of this world, most thoughts had only one way to go, usually the place you least wanted to be.

“We’re Razok bait,” I said dully.

“I won’t let him hurt you again.”

Right, because that had worked out so well last time. Not that I blamed Chris. I swear if you peeled back a Razok’s skin, you’d find diamond plated steel.

“Don’t go being a hero on my account,” I said. And I meant it. Sometimes a weakness really can be your strength. “I have an extremely low shock threshold. I promise to pass out before he does any real damage.”

Chris released a heavy breath that grazed by forehead. “That’s not funny, Willow.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Not much more was said after that. Chris reckoned we’d been travelling for about twenty minutes and I attempted the math of “x miles per hour * 20 minutes = y miles” and gave up on “y = a lot” and growing by the minute.

We could be anywhere in England by now.

Anywhere on the planet.

And then I remembered the Razok was alien and amended that to anywhere in the galaxy. Although a short tremor along the hull of the cargo bay and a small bump later, we landed, so maybe not the galaxy.

Chris scrambled to his knees and pushed in front of me just as the yellow glow faded to deep blackness.

“Chris?” I called nervously, putting my hands out. My palms struck his back.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said. “Just follow my lead.”

Some of my panic receded. “You have a plan?”

“Hell, yes. We’re going to do exactly as the bastard says. We’re not going to give him a reason to hurt you. That’s the plan.”

Sounded like a good plan. For the space of a heartbeat. I’d been close, but so totally wrong.

We weren’t Razok bait.

I was Chris bait.

Because, let’s face it, none of this was about me at all. I was merely the bait, hook and the sinker that would probably get Chris deader than he already was on paper.

That flipped the switch. Not total outage, more like a dimming of the lights. An excess of hysteria hummed through my veins, coating nerve endings in tar as it went. My spiking pulse flattened, my senses (and probably sensibilities too) dulled. All the fear charged particles scattered, finding a shadow to hide in. Not exactly Joan of Arc, but this was me. My version of brave meant shutting down the parts that screamed inside my head.

I was bruised and battered. Bones had been broken!

Things were only going to get much, much worse and there was nothing I could do about it. Except get through the next couple of hours with as many body parts as I could hold onto while keeping Chris’s altruistic stupidity as tightly leashed as possible.

A panel stripped back from the wall and harsh neon light rushed in. I blinked hard a couple of times, adjusting to the sudden contrast as I stepped out after Chris. It really was a step rather than a jump. The aircraft had landed with its belly flat on the ground, right inside a brightly lit room that had four solid walls and one bog-standard door.

“Move,” issued the Razok.

I felt a tug at my hand. It was Chris, pulling me toward the door. I glanced back to check on the Razok. He was right behind. And behind him, the sleek onyx craft that could fly, apparently, through solid wall. It was an elongated triangle with a sheer metallic shine, and it sat low enough that I could look over the top. Long, low, sleek, a predator of the milky way.

Chris never let go of my hand. We filed through the doorway and stumbled into a freakishly normal living room. Thickly piled speckled carpet and two matching leather sofas the colour of burnt toffee. The walls were alive (and I mean actual 3D movement alive) with a rain-sweet forest scene. Soft orchestral strains misted through heavily laden green boughs and filled the room.

I looked at Chris, caught a glimpse of rigid jaw and glinting silver before he spun me behind him in a startling move that had me backed up against the nearest wall. I peered over his shoulder and saw the reason.

The Razok’s buddy was here, minus his shades. Good news for Gale and Clarrie, not so much for us. As he came further inside the room, a shudder of grit turned my tummy. His eyes were two slits of black nothing. Absolutely nothing. Wherever Razoks came from, they were beasts without a soul.

“Gow zen delli fres iu z gu,” said the new Razok.

At least, that’s what it sounded like. A melodious flow of Japanese Greek in a deep timbered voice.

“Cugu fres ishuowan thyldoom z gu trendew Xylex,” replied the other.

“That’s what he came looking for at the institute,” I whispered at Chris’s ear. “What is a Xylex?”

Chris gave my hand a warning squeeze.

Okay, shutting up.

The Razoks exchanged a few more sentences and then the one who’d brought us here returned to the room we’d landed in.

That left us and the naked-eyed Razok. He addressed Chris. With a heavy hand on his arm and a rough jerk. “Come.”

I held onto Chris’s hand as if my life depended on it (which it might well have.) We were marched across the room and shoved through another doorway onto a landing. A short flight of stairs went up. At a right angle to that, a seemingly endless flight descended into darkness.

We went down, of course. Each step taking us closer to whatever waited at the bottom. I didn’t even try to guess. My fear had dulled and my mind had blanked, and I didn’t feel any need to jumpstart either.

When we came to an abrupt halt, it was too dark to see what the Razok was doing. There was a black denseness in front of us, a door or a wall. Beside me, Chris was staying true to his plan. We were the meekest lambs that had ever gone to slaughter. I don’t know if that made us incredibly clever or incredibly stupid. I don’t know if we even had a choice.

The dense blackness was a door. A slither of light cracked up the stairway, then bathed us in a fluorescent semi-circle as the Razok pushed the door all the way in. The Razok flattened himself to the wall and prodded Chris and me inside ahead of him.

The room was a cross between a home office and a sterile computer lab.

One half was serious high-tech stuff that belonged only in big-budget movies and, well, I suppose the 22
nd
century. A giant LCD screen took up most of one wall and coming out of that was a bank of horizontal glass consoles that doubled as touch screens over transparent monitors.

The other half was a cluttered desk and one of those uncomfortable hardback chairs guaranteed to keep you from falling asleep at your desk. A precarious bookshelf looked close to toppling, books crammed to bursting out of each narrow shelf and even piled on the top in unbalanced stacks.

And in between, backs to the wall and sitting flat on the floor, a thick chain wound around their ankles and looped through a steel pillar below one of the glass consoles, a man and woman stared up at Chris as if he were the second coming of mankind in a bottle. And they were waiting for the cork to pop any second and for him to go splat. Or splosh.

Chris moved over the threshold and further into the room. I didn’t. Our arms stretched to the max and then, just before our hands could slip their link, I scooted forward.

“Christian Wood,” said the Razok from the doorway. “Meet your father, Callum Jade.”