“C is active,” the man in back said. The guard pushed my cot toward the wall, into its slot. The empty cot above me was only six inches from my nose.
“What’s this?” a guard said, holding up my cell phone.
“I got it off him,” the other said. “It’s dead. Take it back to the lab.”
They stowed the phone in one of the cabinets. My mind was still racing, trying to figure everything out. Breathing was a challenge. Escape was impossible. Almost everything in the back of the truck was coated in plastic or rubber, which I figured was so we couldn’t short things out.
Wade and Ostin were secured next to Abigail and Jack on the long bench across from me, their hands strapped over their heads. Taylor was brought in next and bound to the cot above me. I could hear her crying as they tied her down. The sound of her in pain hurt as much as the machine I was connected to.
“B is connected,” the guard said.
Taylor moaned.
“B is active,” the man in back said.
“What about them?” one of the guards said, walking up with McKenna and Grace. “They’re electric.”
“They’re harmless,” the voice said. “Put them on the bench.”
McKenna and Grace were strapped to the bench, their arms lifted above their heads like the others’.
When we were all secured, the overhead door was brought down, leaving the truck illuminated in an eerie, greenish glow. Two guards were still with us, one sitting on a short bench across from Ostin while the other walked to the front of the cargo hold and disappeared through a door to the cab. The engine started up and the truck shook, then lurched forward, swinging everyone on the bench to one side.
I felt drugged. It took effort to maintain consciousness.
“Taylor,” I groaned, the effort taking almost everything I had.
“Shut up!” the guard shouted, which, in my state, seemed to echo a dozen times between my ears.
Taylor never answered. I could hear Zeus breathing heavily below me. No one spoke. I felt like we were being driven to an execution, which was possible.
After a few minutes of silence, the guard stood up from his bench and walked over to the cots, squatting down next to Zeus.
“Hey, stinky. Remember me? It’s your buddy Wes? I used to be on the electric children detail. I bet you’re glad to see me again.”
Zeus said nothing.
“Well, I’m excited to see you. I’ve waited a long, long time for our reunion—to catch up on old times. Maybe you remember when you and Bryan thought it would be really funny to shock me when I was in the shower?”
Zeus still didn’t speak.
“Yeah, I’m sure you remember. How could you forget something that hilarious? Unfortunately, I almost forgot about it because of the concussion I got from hitting my head on the tile. And then I got distracted by the surgery it took to fix the slipped disk in my back. Not that they really fixed it, I still have chronic back pain. But no big deal, right? Everyone had a good laugh.” His voice dripped with venom. “I guess we just don’t go well together, stinky. That happens, you know? Some things don’t go well together. Like, say, oil and water. They just don’t mix.” He turned around to the cabinets and brought something out. “Or should I say Zeus and water.”
I caught a glimpse of what he’d taken from the cabinet. It was a child’s plastic squirt gun.
“I brought this especially for our time together. Our special reunion. Oh, look at you. You look scared. What are you, a baby? It’s just a tiny, little squirt gun. What harm could that do?”
He pulled the trigger and a stream of water showered on Zeus. I heard the crisp sparking of electricity. “Aaaagh,” Zeus groaned.
“Oh, come on. It’s just water, stinky. It’s about time you bathed. You smell like an outhouse.” He sprayed again. There was a louder snap, and Zeus cried out this time. He was panting heavily and moaning in pain.
“Ah, the stench. How do you live with yourself? Or don’t pigs smell themselves. Maybe you like your own stink.”
He sprayed again. Zeus sobbed. “Please . . .”
“Please? You want more?”
“Hey, be cool,” Ian said.
“Shut your mouth, mole boy, or I’ll turn up your RESAT.” He leaned in toward Zeus. “Do you remember what you said to me after I got out of the hospital? You said, ‘C’mon, Wes, where’s your sense of humor?’” He began pulling the trigger over and over.
Zeus let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“C’mon, Zeus, where’s your sense of humor?”
Zeus’s screams rose higher still.
“Not so funny now, is it?” he shouted over Zeus’s screams.
“Stop it!” Abigail yelled.
The man looked back at her. “Stay out of this, sweet cheeks.”
“Please,” she said. “Please. I’ll take away your pain.”
“What?”
“I’ll take away your pain, if you’ll leave him alone.”
Wes stared at her, wondering if she was telling him the truth. “If this is a joke . . .”
“It’s what she does,” Ostin said. “She stimulates nerve endings. She can take away pain.”
“I’ll help you,” she said. “Please stop hurting him.”
Wes turned back to Zeus, then spit on him, which also elicited a sizzling spark. Then he walked back to the bench where Abigail was sitting.
“If this is a trick, I guarantee you’ll wish you were never born.”
“I can’t hurt you,” Abigail said. “I wouldn’t if I could.”
He studied her expression, then sat down next to her. “What do I do?”
“I need to touch you. If you unlock my hands . . .”
“That ain’t gonna happen, baby face.”
“Then put where it hurts next to me. Anywhere.”
“Your knee?”
She nodded.
He crouched on the floor next to her, his back pressed up against her. After a moment he sighed. “Wow. I’m going to have a talk with Hatch about keeping you around.”
Zeus was still whimpering below me, but Abigail had probably saved his life.
The truck continued on, but with few stops, which made me believe we were on the freeway. I turned my head as far as I could to look at the others. McKenna and Jack were shackled directly across from me. What was this thing I’d been hooked to? My body and my mind ached. My heart ached too, but that was my own doing. What did I get my friends into? How could I have been so stupid to believe some stranger on a cell phone?
Suddenly McKenna seemed to blur. It may have been sweat running down my forehead into my eyes, but something about her was different. Her skin color was changing. Was I hallucinating? Ostin looked at me, then he glanced over at McKenna. He got a strange expression on his face, and I wondered if he saw it too.
Ostin looked over at the guard, then suddenly began singing. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall. Ninety-nine bottles of beer. Take one down. Pass it around. Ninety-eight—”
“Shut up,” the guard said.
Ostin swallowed. “Just thought . . .”
“Shut up.”
Ostin clenched his jaw. He looked down for a moment as if thinking, then he said to the guard, “Those new gizmos you have rock. What do you call them?”
The guard didn’t answer. But he didn’t tell him to shut up either.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize they don’t tell you these things. Probably top secret. For the important guys . . .”
“It’s a RESAT,” the guard said.
Ostin nodded. “RESAT. Cool.”
I looked back over at McKenna. I wasn’t seeing things—her skin color really was changing. She was now almost glowing red. Ostin must have seen what she was doing and was trying to keep the guard distracted. I looked back at Ostin, who was nodding, carefully manipulating the guard.
“Clever. Clever indeed. RESAT is ‘Taser’ spelled backward.”
The man suddenly scratched his chin. “I never t
hought of that.”
“I’m sure you would have,” Ostin said. “If they didn’t work you so hard. I bet they work you like a rented mule.”
“You got that right, cheeseball.”
At that moment McKenna’s arms melted through the bands. She was free.
“But I bet you get great health benefits with all those Elgen doctors around.”
“You kiddin’ me?” the guard said. “The dental plan has a five-hundred-dollar deductible.”
“You’re pulling my leg,” Ostin said loudly. “Why even have it? That’s a whole head of cavities.”
“It’s a joke,” the man said.
McKenna slowly reached over and grabbed Jack’s bands, immediately melting through them. Jack slowly lowered his arms, rubbing his wrists. Suddenly the guard started to look back. Jack put his hands up again.
“Hey!” Ostin shouted.
The guard stopped.
“Do you have kids?”
“What?”
“Kids. Rug rats, spawn, you got them?”
“No.”
“Sorry, of course not. I’m sure you’re married to your job. If you had kids, the dental thing might still be worth it.”
“Family isn’t allowed,” the guard said. “It’s a regulation.”
“They regulate that, huh?” Ostin said. “You know, there’s something I can’t figure out.”
Jack reached down and unclasped his legs, then slowly inched down the bench toward the weapons cabinet.
“What?” the man asked.
“I can’t figure out how you’d go about getting hired for a job like yours. It’s not like you could post it in the Help Wanted section.”
“I can’t talk about that,” he said.
“I mean, what kind of ad would that be? Wanted: ugly, mean, smelly dudes with below-average IQs to kidnap and abuse teenagers.”
The guy’s mouth fell.
“What section would that be under anyway? Creepy Dudes?
The man scowled. “You watch it, you smart-mouthed little—”
“Actually,” Ostin said, “you should watch it.”
“What the—”
Jack cracked the guard over the head with a truncheon, knocking him out with one blow. The guard slumped to the van’s floor.
“Man, that felt good,” Jack said, stretching out his arms like a baseball player at bat.
“Not to him,” Ostin said.
McKenna walked over to Ostin, who looked at her with admiration. “That was cool,” he said.
“Careful, don’t touch me,” she said, kneeling on the bench next to him. “I’m still pretty hot.”
“Yeah, you are hot,” Ostin said, sounding smitten.
McKenna grinned a little as she grabbed Ostin’s armbands and melted through them. “There you go.”
“Like buttah . . . ,” Ostin said, stretching his arm. He bent over and unclasped his stomach and leg belts. “Let’s free Michael.”
“We’ve got to take care of this guy,” Jack said, standing above the guard, with the club.
“Let me loose,” Wade said. “I’ll help you.”
Jack unloosed his bands, and they lifted the guard up and strapped him to the wall while McKenna and Ostin unfastened my collar. The intense pain immediately stopped, and I groaned with relief, though I still felt as dizzy as if I’d just ridden the teacups ride at Disneyland for an hour.
“Well done, McKenna,” I said.
“Thanks.”
As I climbed out of the cot, Ostin and McKenna unstrapped Taylor, then Ian and Zeus. I helped Taylor climb out, then Ian. Zeus hadn’t moved. He was still in a lot of pain from the guard’s torture. “Can I help you?” I asked.
“Just give me a minute,” he said, rolling over in the cot.
“You okay, buddy?” I asked.
“Been better,” he said. His skin was blistered where the guard had sprayed water on him. “I don’t know what that new dart thing is,” he said. “But it’s like Nichelle in a can.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Ostin said. “The Elgen must have found a way to replicate her powers without her weakness.”
“How’s your vision?” I asked Ian.
“It’s back,” he said.
Across the aisle Jack unloosed Abigail. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”
As Jack freed Grace, Abigail knelt at Zeus’s side. She put her hand on him and closed her eyes. After a moment he relaxed and stilled. “Thank you for stopping him,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
I was leaning against the opposite wall, holding my head and trying not to throw up.
Taylor laid her hand on my back. “You okay?”
“Alive. How about you?”
“Me too,” she said hoarsely. “I wonder where they’re taking us.”
“We just passed a sign for the airport,” Ian said.
“What’s our situation with guards?” I asked.
“There are two guards driving this truck, one Escalade in front, two behind us.”
“How many guards in the Escalades?”
“Four in front, five and four in back.”
“We need to take charge of the van,” I said.
“Then what?” Ian said. “We can’t outrun the Escalades. Not in this whale.”
“We don’t need to,” Jack said. “We’ll crush them. I saw this in a movie once. But first we need to commandeer this bad boy.”
“That’s a good word,” Ostin said. “Commandeer.”
Jack looked at him. “What? You don’t think I know any big words?”
Ostin withered. “Sorry.”
“Anyone got a plan?” I asked.
“I say we just storm the cab,” Jack said. “Commando-style.”
“Too risky,” I said. “They’ll crash.”
Ostin’s face lit up. “I have an idea,” he said. “A good one, with three parts.”
“Three parts?” I said. “That was fast.”
“Yes. This is going to be epic,” he said.
A couple of minutes later McKenna casually opened the door to the truck’s dark cab. “Excuse me, guys. Can we stop to use the bathroom?”
Both men glanced back, their eyes wide with surprise.
“What are you—”
McKenna shouted, “Now!” All of us covered our eyes as she flashed to her full extent. A brilliant light filled the entire truck. Both men shouted and put their hands over their eyes. Jack and Wade rushed the cab, bringing clubs down over the guards’ heads.
Jack knocked the driver out, but Wade only succeeded in dazing the other, so I put my hand on the guard’s neck and pulsed, which took care of him. Wade and I climbed over the seat, and I held the wheel while Jack pulled the unconscious guard out of the way, then climbed behind the wheel.
“That was easy,” Jack said, pressing down on the accelerator.
Zeus, Taylor, Ian, and McKenna dragged the men to the back of the truck and I used the van’s passenger-side mirror to watch the two cars behind us. I hoped the other guards hadn’t noticed the flash, but I was certain they had to have noticed our change in speed. This was confirmed ten seconds later when a voice came over the van’s radio.
“Elgen Two, this is Elgen One. Are you having mechanical problems? Over.”
I looked at Jack. “Don’t answer.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said. “Time for phase two. We’ve got an exit a mile ahead of us, I’m going for it.” He hit the gas, moving up quickly on the Escalade in front of us. I climbed back over the seat to see what was going on in the rear.
The two guards had been strapped to the wall, next to the guard Wes, who was now awake. “You’re gonna pay for this!” he shouted angrily.
“Shut up, Wes,” Zeus said fiercely. Then he blasted him. The guard’s head jerked back so hard against the wall he knocked himself out again.
“Everyone, buckle up!?
?? I shouted. “We’re going for phase two!”
“Phase two!” Ostin shouted. “Everyone in place!”
Everyone sat down, strapping the waist belts around themselves. I went back up front and buckled myself into the passenger seat. “Ready,” I said.
“Half mile,” Jack said. “If this doesn’t work, prepare for some crazy driving.”
“Better work,” I said. “We’ve only got a few seconds to hit phase three, so be ready. Everyone’s strapped in.”
“There’s our exit,” Jack said. “Hold on tight.” He hit the gas. In spite of the van’s size, it lurched forward, and Jack swerved into the lane left of the lead Escalade. We pulled up to the car’s side, and I could see the guards looking at us with surprise.
“Here goes,” Jack said. He spun the wheel to the right, forcing the moving van into the side of the Escalade. His timing was perfect as he pushed the car directly into the barrier between the exit and the freeway. The car smashed into the railing at nearly seventy-five miles per hour, flipping the car end over end.
Jack was grinning. “Just like Grand Theft Auto. Only better.”
I unbuckled and climbed to the back. “Ian!” I shouted. “Are we good?”
“They’re thirty feet behind us!” he shouted.
“Now, Taylor.”
Taylor put her head down and concentrated on rebooting the driver of the car behind us.
“You got him,” Ian said.
I braced myself against the wall. “Jack, now!’
Jack slammed on the brakes as hard as he could. There was a big jolt as the Escalade plowed into the van, followed by a second hit, when the rear Escalade plowed into the first. The force of the wreck jarred us, pushing our van partially sideways. All the lights in the back went out. Jack hit the gas again, pulling ahead of the collision.
“The first car is toast!” Ian shouted. “It’s crumpled!”
“How bad are we?” Jack shouted over his shoulder.
“Not sure,” Ian said, looking down. “But I see sparks.” The truck was vibrating and there was a sound of something scraping. “Something’s dragging. I think it’s the lift.”
“What about the second car?” I asked Ian.
“We’re good . . . wait.” His expression changed. “No way.”
“What?” I asked.