Grip (The Slip Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

The girl moves her hand up Benson’s arm, past his shoulder and neck, across his jaw, finally resting on his cheek. Her hand is somewhat cold, sending shivers buzzing along his skin. “You
are
real,” she says.

Benson smiles. “Of course.”

“Then you’ll help us, right?”

“I—I don’t know how,” Benson admits, feeling a powerful and sudden swell of inadequacy. He’s been lucky to have kept himself alive so far. Well, it wasn’t
only
luck. Luce had as much to do with his survival as he did. How can he possibly do anything to help all these Slips?

“You’ll do it,” the girl says, retracting her hand. “I know it.”

Benson’s dumbstruck by her innocent fervor. Then he realizes exactly what’s happening here. He’s being played. Jarrod set this whole thing up. He’s been filling these Slips’ heads with garbage about how Benson can save them all, building him up to the point of barely restrained reverence. And then he brought him down here so he can parade him around to his loyal Slip subjects who will do the very thing he’s been unable to do himself: persuade Benson to be the poster boy for the Lifer cause, validating every single choice he’s made to this point. Yeah, he made it feel like Benson’s decision to come down here, but it was really Jarrod’s all along.

“Why me?” Benson wonders aloud, the words coming out in a whisper. He stands, trying to focus on the question.

“What’s that?” Jarrod says.

But Benson’s mind is already clicking through the facts. Jarrod has dozens of Slips he could use to his advantage, to show the citizens of the RUSA that unauthorized births are not as dangerous as everyone thinks. But he wants Benson Kelly. “My father was the face of the Department of Population Control,” Benson says. Jarrod opens his mouth to say something, but Benson cuts him off. “And yet even he broke the law. You think all those people who desperately want children but can’t get authorization will rebel if they see me surviving and even thriving, despite my illegal birth.”

Jarrod doesn’t have to nod to confirm the truth of Benson’s words—his eyes tell all—but he does anyway. “We need you,” he says. “
They
need you.”

He motions to the Slips, who, having realized something is happening, are yawning and rubbing their eyes, dragging themselves from bed to gather behind the little girl. There are boys and girls, most of them young, but several who look to be in their early teens, although none as old as Benson or Destiny. Hushed murmurs susurrate through the crowd—
It’s him!
and
The Saint Louis Slip!
and
Benson Kelly!

Although he feels his face warming under the stares of so many, Benson forces himself to focus on the little girl, to not fall into Jarrod’s trap. “What is your name?” he asks.

“Mei,” she says.

“Where are you from, Mei?”

“Denver,” Mei says.

Benson’s eyes open so wide they start to burn. Denver is hundreds of miles away, a distance that’s unfathomable for a Slip. He’s been within the same five-mile radius his entire life.

“How did you get here?” he asks.

“They led me,” she says, cocking her head to the side like a bird, as if surprised he even had to ask.

“Who?”

“Pointers,” Destiny says, answering for her.

Benson turns and frowns, his eyes darting between Destiny and Jarrod, who’s nodding. “What do you mean?”

“It’s how I got here,” Destiny says. “Someone gave me clues, a sort of trail. And the trail led here.”

“We’re all glad you made it,” a voice says from behind.

They turn as one to find Harrison leaning against the doorframe. Benson knows he’d heard the thick door swish shut behind them after they entered, which means Harrison must have slipped through just behind them. The same with the first door, at the top of the stairs. Which also means he’s seen—and heard—everything Benson did.

More murmurs rush through the crowd of gathered Slips. Harrison Kelly is apparently famous here, too.

“You didn’t receive an invitation for this particular tour,” Jarrod says coolly.

“Didn’t know I needed one,” Harrison says. “So my brother went through hell and back because he was a ‘dangerous Slip’”—his fingers form sarcastic quotes and hang in the air for a moment—“and meanwhile you had an entire army of Slips beneath your feet.”

“I wouldn’t exactly characterize them as an army, but yes,” Jarrod says, not denying it.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” Harrison says. It’s impossible to miss the accusation in the question.

“You think that would
help
?” Jarrod says.

Benson sways from side to side, suddenly feeling dizzy. He feels as if every single Slip is staring at him, probing his every move, his every expression. He’s dimly aware of the argument that continues around him, but it’s the white eyes of his fellow Slips that capture his attention. The room spinning, he folds down into a crouch once more, his brain trying to process what all of this means for him.
Selfish
, he thinks spitefully.
I’m being selfish.
I don’t matter.
The bigger question is: What does this mean for the world?

“If the world knew how many Slips there were,” Harrison says, “they wouldn’t fear them so much. They would realize that there is more than enough food and water to go around. Maybe things would change. Maybe they’d pass new laws and STOP HUNTING MY BROTHER!”

As his brother flings his last four words at the Lifer leader like rocks, Benson holds his head in his hands. Destiny eases down beside him, and whispers, “You okay?”

Benson shakes his head. Nothing is okay. The world has flipped upside down in an instant. Did his father know? Did his father realize that Pop Con never had control of the population, that the very name of their department was a lie? Was that part of his father’s legacy? Turning a blind eye to the greatest hoax the world has ever seen?

All at once, the facts crush together in a blinding hurricane of truth. And he knows.

He knows.

His father knew.

Jarrod snaps something at Harrison, venom in his tone, but Benson is deaf to the words. “What is it?” Destiny says, her eyes as rich and thoughtful as a painting.

“Pop Con wants the Slips to gather.”

“No,” Destiny says. “That’s not right. Why would they? We’re out of reach now. We’re
safe
.” She says the last word—
safe
—with such intensity and feeling that it almost sounds like a prayer. A mantra. A goal and a dream and a lifeline.

“Something’s not right,” Benson says, louder, trying to piece the right words together to explain the conclusion he’s come to.

“What are you talking about, bro?” Harrison says, waving Jarrod, who continues to argue, away. Jarrod, seeming to only just realize that the two Slips are crouched at floor-level, turns his attention to them.

“It’s a trap,” Benson says. A gasp immediately ripples through the crowd, the kids backing away, as if expecting a net to fall from the ceiling, catching them all.

“Shh!” Jarrod hisses. “You’re going to cause a pani—”

“Let him speak,” Harrison interjects, shoving an arm in front of Jarrod when he tries to step forward.

“Get the hell out of my way, you ignorant fool,” Jarrod growls, trying to push through Harrison’s outstretched arm. Harrison forces him back, but stumbles in the process, tumbling into Destiny’s back, knocking her forward. Benson tries to grab her but he’s not quick enough and she sprawls face first, crying out in pain.

“Idiot!” Harrison shouts, regaining his feet and glaring at Jarrod.

“Are you okay?” Benson says, extending a hand to help Destiny up.

She takes his hand and says, “I think so, but—ow!” A flash of pain contorts her expression. “I think I might’ve ripped a stitch.”

Harrison leans down to inspect her back. A distinct circle of red seeps through her shirt, darkening and growing. “Dammit,” Harrison mutters, immediately pulling off his own shirt and pressing it against the blood. “Let me put pressure on it and see if we can stop the—”

Crouching shirtless, Harrison stops suddenly, a frown clouding his face. An expression that means a conclusion has been reached—and not a good one.

“Harrison, what is it?” Benson says.

“Oh, crap,” his brother says.

“It’s nothing,” Jarrod says. “Just a popped stitch. Our doctors can fix it in two minutes.”

“You fool,” Harrison says. “This isn’t about the stitch. This is about the wound itself. No, not the wound, what
came out
of the wound.”

“Shrapnel,” Destiny says.

“Tell me what happened,” Harrison instructs.

Destiny’s eyes are wide and confused, but she complies. “It was nothing,” she says. “I hoverskated away from the Hunters and they shot at me. They missed but one of the bullets must’ve splintered and pierced my skin.” When Harrison’s frown deepens further, she insists again, “It’s
nothing
.”

“Did you test the fragment?” Harrison asks, this time directing the question at Jarrod.

Jarrod sighs. “What are you getting at? There was nothing to test. It was a metal splinter, nothing more. It had the same density as a bullet. We discarded it.”

“We need to test it,” Harrison says. “And then maybe evacuate Refuge.”

“Ah,” Jarrod says, as if something has just dawned on him. “You think she was followed. That the splinter was a tracking device?”

“I think it’s a distinct possibility,” Harrison says.

Jarrod shakes his head and smiles like you would at a child. “We’re not amateurs. We scanned her for all known tracking devices. She was clean.”

“What about unknown devices?” Harrison says.

“Very funny. Hard to scan for something you don’t know about.”

Harrison’s face goes pale, as white as a ghost. “I should’ve realized it sooner,” he says to himself. “I was too drunk to put it all together. How could I have been so stupid?”

“Harrison,” Benson says. He’s never heard his brother be so self-deprecating before, but he knows it can’t be a good thing.

Harrison’s eyes find his, as hard as turquoise gemstones in the dim lighting. “A couple of weeks ago I heard Dad talking on his holo about some new kind of tracker. Something impossible to detect. Just a sliver of metal.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Jarrod says, but Benson immediately notices the change in his tone. Less confident, like he’s forcing each word out.

“I led them here?” Destiny whispers. There’s the distinct sharpness of fear in her gaze now, something Benson hasn’t seen in her since her arrival.

“No,” Jarrod says.

“Maybe,” Harrison says. “But we need to know for sure. We need to do more tests on the bullet fragment.”

Benson’s about to object, his mouth opening to remind Harrison that their own father said that no test would identify the new trackers, but before he can get a single word out, the ground shakes.

Jarrod’s eyes dart to Destiny. Harrison’s eyes meet Benson’s.

There’s a moment of strange, hushed silence.

And then the alarms start blaring and the Slips start screaming.

I
t’s like Janice’s nightmares have spilled into real life.

It started with the ground shaking, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

The darkness she has come to love, to rely on for comfort in the throes of night, has shattered in on itself, pulsating with red flashes of light that make her think of splashes of blood.

Her husband’s blood, perhaps, come to torment her.

His screams, too, shrieking through the guileless night, an ear-rending tear in the fabric of silence and peace. For, yes, sleep is the only time she feels truly at peace.

It’s only when golden-haired Luce grabs her arm at the crook in her elbow and guides her to her feet does she realize the scream is an alarm and the bloody lights a warning.
Run!
she knows it says.
RUNRUNRUNRUN!
she hears Zoran bellow, and his cry urges her feet forward, her slip-on shoes slapping the floor, scuffing on the ground with every third step. Luce keeps her from falling, her arms wielding strength beyond what Janice would expect. She holds her up even when the ground rumbles again, writhing and twisting beneath her feet.

And every time she asks where her sons are, the only answer she gets from Luce is “I don’t know,” whispered with ragged fear.

The corridors are jammed with people, streaked with strobes of red light and wearing gaping black mouths of fear. Some carry weapons—they run toward the lifters—but most are empty handed and pushing toward the stairs. Someone shouts a command—“This is not a drill. Make your way calmly to the stairs and down to level minus-twenty-five.” The instructor repeats the command again and again, until it rebounds around in Janice’s skull, pushing a rogue scream to her lips.

She’s not supposed to scream, she knows that, but her lips are ripped open as easily as a torn piece of paper. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” she shouts at the top of her lungs, her yell obliterating the blaring alarm and the instructor’s commands and the scuffle of feet on the floor.

Luce jerks back to look at her, horror in her eyes, and releases Janice’s arm. She’s scared the poor girl, but it was worth it. She feels better already, like the scream exorcised a demon that was tormenting her soul. “Let’s go,” she says, and she’s glad when Luce doesn’t question her, doesn’t ask if she’s okay, just ushers her forward into the cramped stairwell.

The people on the steps remind her of water. They don’t rush down the stairs as much as
stream
down them, moving as one. She melts into the flow, feeling like an autumn leaf cast into a swift river.

It makes her want to stop, to freeze, to pretend to be a statue with no brain, no heart, and no knowledge of the chaotic world swirling around her.

For once, she manages to slam her teeth shut against one of her impulses. Instead she focuses on Zoran’s grim expression, which glows from the face of the watch around her wrist. She starts down the stairs, watching as Zoran’s image is replaced by the face that her sons share. They call to her and somehow she knows she has to keep moving if she wants to answer them.

Everything goes eerily quiet, just the shuffle of feet—even the alarm stops sounding—until there’s a strange sound. A crack. The sound is distant, like someone breaking a pencil with their bare hands. More pencils are snapped in half—
crackcrackcrackcrack!

“Gunshots!” someone yells, and Janice knows they’re right. She’s heard them before, when the devil, Corrigan Mars, fired at her husband. She didn’t recognize the sound right away, because this time they sound much further away, with walls and stairs and space between her and them.

The people start moving faster, pushing harder, banging into each other like particles in an atom blender. Someone elbows her from behind, and if not for the impenetrable wall of human flesh in front of her, she would’ve flown down the stairs.

Crushed and mangled, she thinks. Crushed and beaten and torn and smashed and
mangled
. She starts laughing at her own thoughts, and she knows it sounds crazy but can’t seem to stop. All those words describe the situation they’re in; but more than that, they describe the whole of her life. Her family is a mangled mess of history, emotion, lies and sadness. With her husband gone, she’s the one who’s supposed to hold them all together.

And that thought makes her laugh hysterically, all the way to the bottom, down hundreds of steps, around dozens of bends, past a number of doors where more and more people flow into the stairwell. People stare at her, gape at her, gawk at her, and a razor-thin barrier of empty space forms around her. No one pushes her. No one touches her. No one bothers her.

And she just laughs.

She doesn’t stop until they reach the bottom and Luce grabs her hand. Her throat is sore from laughing for so long, so she closes her lips and tucks her tongue firmly against the inside of her left cheek. It makes her skin bulge out, which she can see from the corner of her eye. If she can’t laugh to make people stay away from her, maybe she can look weird. At least that’s her thought process, and it seems to work for a while, until they’re forced to stop behind an immovable mass of shouting people. Angry people. Scared people.

Open up!
some of them are screaming.

Let us in!

Damn you!

There’s hollow pounding and cursing in front of them, and the crack of gunshots drifting down the steps behind them. From time to time the ground rumbles, shaking dust from the ceiling and walls, which crack and splinter. Her eyes burn because she stops blinking, even when the dust goes straight into them. She thinks maybe her eyelids have fallen off. A giggle slips out at the thought, but she stifles it because her throat still hurts. Jams her tongue back in her cheek—the opposite side this time.

She forgets about her tongue and her maybe-fallen-off eyelids when there’s a yawning groan. “It’s opening!” someone shouts.

Hinges squeal and groan and then the mob pushes forward again. Janice cranes her neck when they pass through a huge doorway. The way the door had groaned, she expected it to have teeth around the edges. She’s somewhat disappointed when it’s nothing more than a smooth metal hole leading to yet another staircase.

Down the staircase to another door, which is already standing open.

Pushing to her tiptoes to see past the bobbing heads.

Seeing murky faces and beds and surprised eyes and…there!

She sees them. She sees her boys. Benson and Harrison, off to the side, standing with Jarrod and that other Slip, Destiny.

They spot her and Luce and they shout something, pointing at them. Janice tries to push through the crowd, but then there’s a massive BOOM! behind them and Janice is thrown to the floor, Luce tumbling overtop of her.

Janice feels a burst of heat swarm overhead, a tumultuous flash of red and orange, pouring through the corridor and into the room with her boys, where it disappears in a cloud of smoke.

There’s wetness on her arms, but she can’t see through the haze. She hears moans and groans and sobbing, but she can’t see through the haze. Luce feels like dead weight on top of her, but she can’t see through the haze. Until…

The smoke starts to clear, as if driven away by the
ratatatatat
s of the gunshots nipping at their heels.

She sees a hand on the floor, its fingers outstretched, reaching for her. Reaching for it, she relishes the zing of skin-on-skin contact when her fingertips brush against the hand. She squeezes it, but the hand doesn’t squeeze back. She pulls, and the hand comes toward her, leading an arm, and then…nothing.

That’s when she sees the wetness on her skin, splatters of crimson. They’re on the floor, too. They’re on the hand she’s holding, the hand and arm that aren’t connected to anything, severed from its body in a ragged stump that’s leaking blood.

Choking, she throws down the hand only to find other body parts strewn around her. Squirming, she tries to swim away, hearing a moan from close by, and then someone hiss, “What happened?”

It’s Luce, so near that it’s almost like they’re the same person.

“Boom and fire and blood,” Janice says, surprised to hear her own voice. She didn’t mean to speak.

“Yes,” Luce says. “An explosion.”

Janice remembers her boys. “Benson, Harrison,” she says.

“I saw them, too,” Luce says. “We have to get through. Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

Gripping each other, they stagger to their feet. Other survivors are doing the same, struggling to hurry toward the door to the big room with all the people and her boys and—

Jarrod.

His voice rises above the others, practically screaming, a command that’s as powerful as it is frightening. “Close the doors!” he shouts into a device held tightly to his lips. A radio. “Close them now!”

“Oh God,” Luce says, even as Janice sees Harrison try to grab the radio from Jarrod’s hand.

Benson’s eyes meet hers across the hazy space. His mouth forms a single word: “Go!”

Behind her, Janice hears shouts and running feet; she hears the chatter of gunfire. In front of her she sees bullets sparking on metal; she sees Benson and Harrison, the entirety of her life in a single image, burning and smoldering into her memory.

From the upper edge of her vision, she sees the bottom of the door start to quiver, as if preparing to close.

Luce shouts something unintelligible and pushes her forward just as the door drops from above, like an executioner’s scythe. And then she’s inside, the door slamming behind her, muffling the tinny sound of bullets ringing off metal.

There’s pressure on top of her, smashing her tight against the floor, which is cold to the touch. Twisting her head, she lets out a breath when she sees it’s just Luce, her eyes closed, her mouth open.

It’s not until she hears Benson’s scream that she realizes something’s not right.

Luce would almost look like she was sleeping, if not for the curling trickle of red from the corner of her lips.

~~~

Each unauthorized birth costs our country thousands of dollars

of resources desperately needed for our legal citizens to survive.

So we ask you: Is it worth it?

Stopping unauthorized births before they happen saves lives.

If you’re considering an unauthorized birth, talk to someone.

All calls made to the UnBee hotline are anonymous.

This advertisement paid for by the Department of Population Control.

Calls may be traced and population control measures taken, including fines and punishment equal to future crimes.