“He did this?” Jim barked a laugh. “Well. Screw him, then.”
“Jim, no! You’ve seen what they do to people.” She glanced meaningfully at Lux. “He’s not my favorite person either, but—all of this is my mom’s doing. I can’t help but feel guilty. If I can save him and Lux . . .” She bit her lip. “Maybe I can undo some of her wrong.”
“Sophie.” He took her shoulders in his hands. “It’s not your job to atone for your mother’s crimes.”
“But I have to do something.” She tilted her chin upward, her gaze unflinching.
“We can leave now and send help. We’ll tell someone what we’ve seen and let the government or somebody handle it. They’d do a better job than us, anyway. Leave Nicholas.”
She faltered; he could see his argument swaying her. Finally, she gave a curt, resentful nod, and he sighed in relief. “Let’s go,” he said gently.
He led them along the wall, ducking when they passed open windows. If a guard walked around the corner now, they’d have no chance of hiding. The grass was tall, but there were three of them, and he knew he was running out of what miserable luck he had left.
“Just a bit further,” he said. “Once we reach the trees we can run.”
To their left the land dropped away to the sea; there was no beach below, only rocks. The span of grass grew narrower between the bluff and the building, until they had to walk single file.
When Jim turned the corner, he came face-to-face with an armed guard. The man looked as stunned as Jim felt, and for a moment they stood and blinked at each other. Then the guard reached for the Beretta on his hip.
“Go back!” Jim yelled, turning and pushing the girls the other way, keeping himself between them and the gun. “Run!”
Would the guard fire on all three of them?
He got his answer when a loud crack sounded, and at first he thought it was something else, like a tree falling. But then he saw Sophie stumble and fall, and he felt his heart implode. Blood rushing in his ears, drowning out the shouts of the guard, he bent, snaked his arm around her middle and helped her up, and ran as fast as Sophie could manage. He saw Lux glance back, and he yelled through gritted teeth for her to keep running.
Sophie was conscious but groggy. The shot had only winged her, nicking her left shoulder. Still, blood stained her shirt and dripped down his arm, hot and crimson. She mumbled something, her face white with shock, and he told her to hush.
His gallant rescue was crumbling around him. More guards appeared ahead of them, their rifles raised warningly. There was nowhere to run, unless he jumped off the cliff and threw himself onto the rocks below. For a moment, he did consider it. At least with the rocks he might have a slim chance.
Jim slowed, dropped clumsily to his knees, and set Sophie on the grass. Lux stood beside him, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to them both.
Sophie’s eyes rolled and then shut. She had fainted, probably from shock.
A group of people rushed across the grass toward them—a woman in a white pantsuit, several doctors in white coats, and a man in golf attire flanked by two suited bodyguards.
“James Julien?” said a small woman with dark hair and blue eyes. Moira Crue. She’d changed little since he’d last seen her a decade ago. She saw Sophie and let out a small cry. “What happened?” She looked up to the guard approaching them from behind. “You shot her, Dobbs?”
“‘Shoot on sight,’ that was the order,” Dobbs replied gruffly.
“The pilot, not my daughter!”
Jim wondered if he should be surprised that the mother of his childhood friend had tried to have him killed, but it seemed his threshold for astonishment had reached astronomical limits lately.
“Michalski, help me!” Moira said, and one of the doctors came forward and picked up Sophie. She moaned in his arms, her bleeding shoulder immediately staining his shoulder.
“It just nicked her,” Jim said wearily. “She passed out from shock.”
“I am the doctor here, Jim,” Moira said with a withering glare. “I’ll make the diagnoses, thank you.”
Jim lifted his hands in surrender. “So what now? You going to shoot me?”
“This is Victoria Strauss,” Moira said as the pantsuit came forward. “You’ll be turned over to her.” She faltered, wincing slightly as she whispered, “I’m sorry, Jim. But you shouldn’t have come here.”
“Take him to the cliff,” the woman said, “and shoot him. He’s just in the way. Then get rid of his plane; scatter some pieces of it offshore. His death will be credited to a crash.”
Jim’s heart froze over. He felt the blood drain from his face and he leaned forward, grabbing fistfuls of grass, on the verge of vomiting. It was so quick, so final. She spoke the words as if she were instructing someone to clean up spilled milk. He fought to control his breathing, his mind stalling when he tried to think of something to say that would get him out of this.
Two guards grabbed his arms, hauled him to his feet, and marched him toward the cliff. When they reached the edge, they shoved him back onto his knees and he stared down at the rocks below, barely comprehending what he saw. His ears were filled with the rush of blood and surf and wind, and he felt himself detach from his body, as if his soul were abandoning ship.
One image consumed his mind, and it surprised him: not his mom’s back as she walked out the front door the final time, not his father in one of his rare sober moments when they could have an actual conversation—but Sophie’s eyes as they rose above the clouds; the sun staining her hair gold.
He was shaking all over, and he hated himself for being such a coward. But he couldn’t deny the truth: He didn’t want to die. Especially not like this, not balancing on the edge of a cliff on a godforsaken island with a bullet drilled through his brain.
He braced himself, trying to focus on the cool wind against his face, on the distant sparkling horizon, on the memory of flight, the pristine sky.
I’ve never even seen real snow.
The sounds around him were vague and distorted in his ears, as if he were hearing them through a long tube: a word, a shout, a thump, a blast of the gun. He toppled forward, thrown off balance by a sudden weight against his back, and desperately he threw out a hand and snagged a tuft of grass. He dangled over the cliff by one hand, and he felt the roots of the grass beginning to give way. Sand and dirt rained down on him, blinding his eyes, but he grappled with his free hand for something to hold on to.
Suddenly the grass broke loose and he began to fall, his stomach rising up his throat; then a hand closed around his wrist—Lux. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him, but he managed to grab the grass and pull himself up, and just in time. The two guards who’d been about to execute him were lying unconscious, but three more were charging at Lux. Everyone was shouting and running around.
Lux dispatched the first guard with a graceful arcing kick to his jaw that snapped his head back. He collapsed noiselessly. Jim noticed she’d improved in her movements by half since the tussle with the Vitros that morning. The next two came at her with their rifles raised, calling for her to stand down, and Jim tried to yell at her to stop but he was so shaken by his near death that his voice came out as a whisper. Lux spun, avoiding the guns, and collared each with a chop to the throat. When they doubled over, dropping their guns to clutch at their windpipes, she struck at the back of their heads, dropping them cold.
Lux didn’t stop there. She went after Strauss with silent purpose, streaking past Moira and Sophie. The man in the golf clothes fell back, his bodyguards glued to his sides. Strauss called for more guards, but Jim knew they were probably still scattered across the island looking for him.
His mind leaped into overdrive, his senses heightened, perhaps, by his near extinction. He stumbled to his feet and ran to Moira; before she could react, he snatched
Sophie from her arms. The woman may have been Sophie’s mother, but she didn’t seem to be doing Sophie any good. She wouldn’t bleed out, not with the graze the bullet had made, so he had no qualms about getting her off the island. As far as he was concerned, this was their one shot at escaping; Lux was distracting Corpus, and he wasn’t one to let an opportunity go to waste.
On a mad whim, he made for the small yellow excavator parked down the slope by the restaurant. He had no way of knowing if the keys were still in it, but he had to try. He couldn’t carry Sophie across the island, not fast enough anyway.
He reached the excavator just as a triplet of guards came running out of the jungle; they must have heard the shots. He recognized them as the same ones who had chased him and Lux across the island. They saw him and began shooting without hesitation. Jim dumped Sophie into the cab of the excavator and jumped in behind her; bullets pinged off the heavy metal exterior and ricocheted in every direction.
“Lux!” he yelled, but she wasn’t in sight. Had they gone inside? Had they taken Lux? He looked everywhere but there was no sign of her. Sophie stirred beside him; she blinked her eyes open and tried to sit up.
“No, no, stay down,” he murmured. “Bullets.”
She looked disoriented, but she nodded vaguely and lay still. Jim fumbled at the ignition; there were no keys. His heart pulsing faster, he searched the cab frantically, running his hands over the dash, along the seat, even on the floor. Damn. The guards were now approaching the excavator with their rifles raised. All they would have to do was open the door and shoot him where he sat, and Sophie too. He slammed his head into the steering wheel in frustration.
Sophie groaned and rolled over. “This what you’re looking for?” She held up a set of keys she’d been lying on.
With a wordless growl, Jim grabbed them and began shoving key after key into the ignition. Finally one fit, and he cranked it and stomped on the gas at the same time. The engine rattled and roared like a waking dragon, and they began to roll laboriously forward. The guards had to leap out of the way to avoid being crushed, and their bullets pounded harmlessly off the dozer. One of them jumped onto the side and tried to wrest open the door; Jim helped him out by shoving it open—right into the guy’s face. The guard fell backward, his mouth open in a shout that Jim couldn’t hear over the engine.
He flinched when he heard a thump from the opposite window, expecting to see another guard. But it was Nicholas who was pounding on the glass, yelling to be let in.
“Take me with you!” he cried.
“Let him in,” said Sophie. “Please, Jim.”
“There isn’t room!”
“Let him in!”
He growled and held his door open long enough for Nicholas to scramble around and crawl in, awkwardly lunging across Jim to wedge himself between Sophie and the window. He was carrying an old blue JanSport backpack, which he held gingerly in one hand. She had to half sit on his lap for all three to fit. The little cabin was really only meant for one person.
He looked around for Lux, but she was still nowhere in sight. Feeling like the worst kind of traitor but left with no other options, Jim floored the gas pedal and drove the excavator over everything in its path; it crushed flower beds and sidewalks and wore deep tracks into the freshly clipped grass. Soon the ping of bullets faded and stopped. Either they had outdistanced the guns or the guards had given up on penetrating the metal plates that covered the vehicle.
“They’ll come after us in their trucks,” Nicholas warned.
“Not if I can help it,” Jim murmured as he headed for the road that led to the northern end of the island. When he reached it, he drove a hundred feet and then pulled randomly at the controls to the giant claw hanging in front of him. When he found the lever that lowered the arms, he yanked it all the way down and the heavy metal claw crashed into the concrete. A network of cracks spread out from the point of impact. He raised the claw and then smashed it down again until the pavement was reduced to rubble. No truck short of an off-roader could navigate across the chunks and piles of cement, and the loose sand and trees on either side of the road allowed no means of passage around it. Jim sent the excavator rumbling over the broken road. It roared appreciatively.
“Well,” said Nicholas drily, “suppose that should do it.”
Sophie laboriously sat up and pressed a hand to her wounded shoulder. “We can’t leave Lux,” she rasped.
“We don’t have a choice,” Jim snapped, immediately regretting the edge in his tone when Sophie’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” he said more gently, “but the only help we can give Lux now is for us to get away. We’ll come back with someone who can actually put a stop to this place.”
She said nothing, just stared out the window with her jaw clenched, partly from pain, he guessed, and partly with anger at him. He reached over and covered her left hand, which she had pressed into the seat. “We’ll come back, Sophie.”
She refused to look at him.
TWENTY-FOUR
LUX
This time, she held nothing back.
They were going to shoot Jim. Her brain churned with words and images, things she’d never seen but were in her mind anyway: Guns have bullets and bullets kill. Kill means dead—they will make Jim dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
This was intolerable.
Her blood roared in her veins. She trembled with anger, with fury at the ones who would make her Jim dead, who would dare hurt him.
This time, she let her body do all the thinking.
And she became powerful.
She moved with speed and grace she’d never felt before. Heady with her own strength, she marveled at how easy it was to make them fall, to drop them one by one.
Chop.
Kick.
Duck.
Sprint.
Her brain picked out target points: this chin, that stomach, this chest. Her body followed through with deadly precision. She melted from one attack to the next, flowing across the grass, her muscles hardening into steel at the right moments, then relaxing so she could spin away and pursue the next target.
Eliminate the threat.
And there were so many threats.
She kept an eye on Jim. He and Sophie were running away—good. Go, she thought. Get away.
She’d identified the leader: the woman in white. Much like the girl Mary on the beach, this one gave orders. She was the most important threat, and Lux had to eliminate her.
She sprinted across the grass, and leaped for the woman’s throat.
But then the woman was gone. Lux hit the ground hard and rolled, landing in a crouch. The woman was quick; she had stepped aside just in time to avoid having her throat punched. Lux tightened her fist and tensed, but before she could spring again, she felt a sharp jab of pain in her neck: Moira Crue and her needle.
Immediately a warm sensation spread up her neck and enveloped her skull. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, but her vision blurred and darkened. She lurched forward blindly, reaching for the woman in white, but she was helpless and weak. Her strength melted away, abandoning her; she landed in a crumple on the grass, tried to crawl, couldn’t find the strength.
As she lay there, fading from the world, one last thought managed to surface and swirl across her mind before she lost her grip on consciousness:
Jim said don’t fight them.
But I fought them anyway.
011101110110100001100001011101000000110100001010 Drowning water all around no air cannot breathe Jim where are you help me please oh what what what am I? What is happening to me please stop stop stop! Falling darkness must protect must protect011101110110I must protect1000011000010111010000100000I must01100001011011010010000001001001 . . .
When she woke, she was lying on her back, on something soft, and she was soaked with s
weat. She jerked upward, only to find her hands and feet were stuck.
Groggily, she blinked away the static in her eyes and looked around. She was inside. In one of the rooms. The light above her hummed; it was too bright, scalding her.
She groaned, her voice sludge in her throat.
Her head was a riot of numbers and words, nothing making sense, all scrambled up, all jumbled out of order. And it hurt. Her skull throbbed, her eyes throbbed, and she felt a swirling in her stomach that kept surging into her throat.
“Lux,” said a voice.
Moira Crue’s face appeared, flickering and out of focus.
“It’s okay, Lux. You’re safe.”
“Jmmm.”
“He’s okay. You did your job. You protected him.”
“Moira . . .” A different voice. Lux rolled her head to see who it was: another woman with dark hair, dark eyes, white coat.
“Her primary concern is protecting her imprintee,” Moira said. “She needs to know he is safe or she’ll go into shock. I’ve seen it happen before, when we were testing Clive.”
“She looks like she’s going to throw up.”
“It’s a combination of stress, sedatives, and overstimulation. She’s been exposed to too much too soon. They normally need several days just to acclimate to their own bodies. Lux has been forced into a maelstrom of completely new experiences and sensations. Remember, everything she is seeing and hearing, she’s seeing and hearing for the very first time, with nothing but her chip’s limited data to interpret for her. If she’d been awoken properly, she’d have plenty of time and therapy to help her along. As it is, she’s had to largely fend for herself.”
“If Strauss catches that pilot and—”
“Sh. You’ll spark another anxiety attack in her. If they catch Jim—the pilot—and . . . if that happens, we’ll have only two choices. Put her in an induced coma until we can find a way to reverse the imprinting, or . . .”
Silence fell. They both stared down at her.