Closed Hearts (20 page)

I paused in the parking lot and did a quick scan of the west wing. The guard was telling the truth—not that I expected anything different from a reader. It was filled with orderlies, several doctors huddled in their offices, and almost a hundred demens. Their minds were like a witch’s brew of peppermint-scented thoughts—fear, anxiety, panic—and even the light brush on their minds was disorienting. I pulled back and scanned the east wing. It was more of the same, only worse. Many of the demens there were sedated, but the ones that weren’t had violent,  murderous thoughts. There were more orderlies and locked cells and fewer doctors. I drew back before their thoughts could make my stomach churn.

I scurried down the center of the parking lot, past a fleet of electric carts and a couple of shiny hydro cars, and reached for the north wing where Kestrel probably kept his jacker prisoners, but I was stopped cold by a disruptor field that surrounded the entire building. There was no gate controller in the other wings, and it made sense that he would be secured behind the shield. The trick would be getting in. I searched the perimeter of the shield as much as I could stand without the clamminess overtaking my brain, then pulled back to scan the tunnels that connected the east and west wings to the north wing. I brushed against a mind as hard as a rock in the access tunnel, and jerked back before he was alerted to my presence.

A jacker guard.

And not just any jacker guard. I hadn’t felt a mind barrier that strong since I’d tangled with the jacker guard at the Great Lakes Hospital, back when I was liberating the changelings. If this guy was the same Granite Guard that had nearly choked me to death then, it was a good thing I was armed. There was no way I would get past him otherwise.

The dart gun strapped to my ankle was reassuringly heavy as I approached the main entrance of the east wing. Hovering by the door, I scanned the minds ahead of me. If I was going to take on the guard, I needed access to the tunnel at the far end of the building. Most of the demens rattled in their locked rooms on upper floors, while the main floor held a large grouping of demens together. Some were sedated, others awake but confined to their beds. I slipped through the door and tiptoed up the three marble steps to the interior double glass doors that walled off the ward. A stale stench of sweat and antiseptic filled the air. A large orderly in terrifying pink scrubs like mine waved at me from behind a glass-enclosed nursing station that guarded the ward. I linked into her mind.

What’cha doing there, girlie, standing around like you’ve got nothing to do?
she thought.
My lord, I swear the people they send me. Get your butt over here, child.

I jacked her to open the door to the demens ward. Her thoughts echoed my command and she buzzed me in. When I opened the door, the smell of antiseptic grew exponentially stronger. I started breathing through my mouth and searched the orderly’s mind, but she didn’t have access to the restricted area at the back of her ward.

No matter. I was pretty sure the jacker guard did.

I crept through the ward, keeping an eye on the demens. I brushed their minds very lightly, trying to not soak up too much of their madness. It caught me off guard when one of the minds I swept was a jacker.

His withered body was strapped to a cot, eyes shut and mind barely conscious, but awake enough to push back. Why was Kestrel keeping jackers sedated in the demens ward? Didn’t he worry about them escaping? I made a mental note to check on him on the way back out, but I had to find Kestrel and get him immobilized before I could worry about coming back for inmates in the demens ward. Still, I slowly checked each mind as I passed by, searching for more jackers hidden among the demens.

I stumbled to a stop when I saw a shock of red hair lying on a pillow. The inmate was younger than the other jacker, maybe mid-twenties, and asleep. His fitful dreams were like any demens’ waking nightmares, filled with needles and voices and nightmarish creatures. I couldn’t tell for sure if he was a jacker, but the resemblance to Molloy was unmistakable: wild red hair, body too large for the cot, meaty hands flopped over the edges.

I jacked him out of his sleep, speeding up his heart, but it took him a long minute to come to. As I probed around in his mind, I found the soft dead spots that were the result of Kestrel’s heinous experiments. The man’s name should be popping up by now, as it did for even the demens, but his thoughts were too jumbled. I wasn’t sure if
he
knew who he was. The man held tight to a floating image of Molloy, like it was a life raft in the stormy seas of his mind.

That was all the confirmation I needed.

Molloy’s brother was fully awake now, which was still a confused state for him. I ordered him to come with me, and he was as compliant as a dove, offering no resistance whatsoever, in spite of being a jacker. I needed to keep him close—I wasn’t going to take any chance of losing him in whatever craziness would happen when it was time to get out of here.

I stalked toward the back of the ward, Molloy’s brother stumbling behind me. The connecting tunnel was on the second floor, so we climbed the steps and to my surprise, my badge worked to swipe us in. I quickly knelt down, pushed aside the extra fabric of the scrubs, and unstrapped the gun from my ankle. Holding it forward, I pulled open the door. The hall was close to a hundred feet long between the two buildings, and at the far end was Granite Guard. Same military-grade haircut and fatigues, and apparently still doing Kestrel’s dirty work. I knew it would be futile to try to jack in, but I surged against his mind barrier anyway to test his reach. He pushed me away, but his reach wasn’t as far as mine, and at its limits he wasn’t so strong.

He started sprinting toward me.

I aimed my dart gun at him and fired, the pop echoing off the hard walls of the hall, but he kept coming. I let out an exasperated breath and aimed again. He had covered almost a third of the distance between us already, and the intensity of his mind on mine grew.

He also had a gun.

I fired again and twirled behind Molloy’s brother, using him as a bulky and confused shield. The guard cursed, but his footsteps kept coming, so I peeked under the hairy arm in front of me. Suddenly the pressure on my head ceased, and Molloy’s brother knocked me to the ground with his massive arm. Granite Guard was in his head! Rather than trying to fight him in Molloy’s brother’s head, I twisted on the cold tiled floor and fired again. Granite Guard stumbled, the shot went wide, but he fell and slid to a stop. I wasn’t sure which shot had gone in, but I’d used up three darts taking him down and I wasn’t even inside the north wing yet. Molloy’s brother’s shoulders went slack, and he stared at me as if I were a curious bug he had just found lying on the floor.

I got up before he decided to squash me.

The clock was ticking now before someone discovered what had happened. For all I knew, there were security cameras that had already taken in our little scuffle, and more guards with guns were on the way. I snagged the badge off Granite Guy and noticed that the gun lying near his hand wasn’t a dart gun. I hesitated, then picked it up and tucked it in the back of my pants. Jacking Molloy’s brother to follow me, I hurried down the hall toward the north wing.

Granite Guy’s badge granted me access through the checkpoint scanner. As soon as we stepped through the disruptor field, I lightly swept the building, searching for Kestrel. If I had any chance of taking him by surprise, I had to do it fast.

The north wing looked just like the hospital it formerly was. We dashed down a sterile white hall with speckled industrial carpeting while I scanned all three floors. There were patches of disruptor-shielded rooms interspersed with unshielded rooms that held sedated jackers. Several of the orderlies were jackers, but most were regular readers. I couldn’t find anyone who was in charge of the gate at the entrance. Dead center on the bottom floor was a square shielded room that seemed centrally located enough to be a command center.

I found a concrete stairway at the end of the hall and Molloy’s brother’s bare feet padded behind me. On the first floor, I creaked the stairwell door open, dart gun held at the ready. We jogged through the main hallway toward the center of the building. The shielded section had a door with no markings and no one nearby. In fact, we hadn’t seen a soul since we entered the north wing, even though jackers and orderlies filled the rooms and floors around us.

I swiped Granite Guard’s badge, but of course it didn’t work. As I reached to find a jacker guard who might have access, the door swung out fast, clipping me on the chin and sending me reeling into the lumpy chest of Molloy’s brother. He held me up, with an odd look on his face, like he had just woken from a dream and found me there, crumpled against him.

Coming from the door, I saw another flash of red hair.

Molloy!

I tried to jack him and swung the dart gun his way, but he pushed me away from his mind and batted the gun out of my hand. It tumbled down the carpeted hallway. I reached for the gun tucked behind my pants, but Molloy’s brother grabbed my wrist and painfully twisted it, holding the gun high in the air and nearly lifting me off the ground. I tried jacking him to let me go, but Molloy’s presence was firmly in control. Molloy’s brother looked down at me, like a giant teddy bear that was confused why his owner was playing with guns.

Molloy wrenched the gun from my grasp, but his brother didn’t let me go, just left me dangling there. The door swung closed behind Molloy as he studied me with a crooked smile.

“Ah, lassie,” Molloy said. “It’s about time you showed up. Kind of you to save me the trouble of rounding up my brother Liam, as well.”

Molloy was here, in Kestrel’s facility. Jacking his brother Liam to hold me captive.
Waiting for me.
My body buckled under the weight of a thousand lies.

I wasn’t the bait. I was the prize.

Molloy banged on the control room door with the handle of Granite Guard’s gun, while holding my hands behind my back in his other enormous hand. His brother Liam stood limply next to us. The door swung open. I should have completely expected it by now, but my heart still sank.

Kestrel.

I struggled against Molloy’s hold, but he just tightened his grip until I gasped. The pain nearly brought me to my knees.

“Bring her in,” Kestrel said.

Molloy shoved me through the doorway, still clutching my hands. His brother Liam followed, Molloy’s presence in his mind driving him forward and providing a sort of comfort that I would have found heartwarming if Molloy hadn’t just delivered me into Kestrel’s hands. The door clicked behind us. Kestrel crossed the room to sit on the corner of a pale metal desk. I tried to slow my breathing and keep calm. What did Julian say?
If you get caught, don’t panic.

I wasn’t panicking, but keeping the anger at Molloy under wraps was more than I could do. “What did you do with Raf?” I wrenched around to throw my accusation into Molloy’s face and shoved into his mind as well. The surge of my thoughts into his summoned up an image of Raf lying on the floor, like a broken doll, his limbs poking into the air. I only saw it for a split second before Molloy pushed me out of his mind, but all the air went out of me with it.

“Easy there, little Kira.” Molloy’s lips curled up into a cruel smile. “Your pet is dead, so you needn’t worry about getting him back now.”

All energy drained out of my body with his words.
Raf is dead.
A dull roar of protest filled my mind.
No!

Molloy was saying something, but not to me. “She’s no doubt still armed, Kestrel.”

“Well, go ahead and pat her down,” Kestrel said with a bored expression, like this was the least of his concerns.

Molloy slid open a drawer on Kestrel’s desk, placed the gun inside, and shut it. His hand was now free to pat me down while keeping a vise grip on my wrists. He found my phone and tossed it on Kestrel’s desk. Molloy’s rough hands kept up their invasive search, nearly toppling me over, but my mind was seized by that image of Raf, crumpled, lifeless. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe Molloy was lying…

All of a sudden, Molloy was lifting the hem of my scrubs up and over my head and dragging my arms up with it. I struggled against him, desperately searching for the thought grenade capsules, but the smooth pink fabric slipped through my fingers. I was left standing in my t-shirt. Kestrel tore his gaze from the screens and raised an eyebrow.

“She has more stashed somewhere,” Molloy said. “I’m sure of it.”

Kestrel nodded and returned to studying the screens. Molloy discovered the patches in my sock, so I kicked him. He growled, yanked my shoe and sock off in one painful scraping motion, and tossed the patches on Kestrel’s desk.

“Come on now,” Molloy said. “Off with the rest.”

My body stiffened. There was no way I was taking off my clothes for Molloy. I eyed the crumpled scrub shirt he still held in his hand, wondering if I could find the capsule and crush it fast enough if I lunged for it. I decided I had to wait for the right moment, so I slowly took off the other sock and shoe. There wasn’t anything in there anyway.