Domino Falls (35 page)

“Wait,” Sonia said after they'd walked only a few yards. “Slow down. She has to see the faces. Where's a flashlight?”

When Terry gave her a flashlight, Sonia shined the light into the cell closest to them, from face to face, searching for someone.

“I know about the freaks!” Rianne said. “He captures them to find a cure.”

“That's not all he does,” Sonia said. “There—look.”

A red-robed female freak pressed her hollowed cheeks between the bars, teeth gnashing. Blond hair cascaded from her shoulders. Kendra gasped, believing she might be Sissy. She wasn't—this girl had been a freak so long that thin roots anchored her to the dirt floor. But she could have been any of them.

“Ring any bells, Rianne?” Sonia said. “Take a good look. Was she here when you first went into training? Did you know her name?”

At first, Rianne tried to turn her face away, refusing to see, but Ursalina and Sonia held her head still. While Kendra's eyes adjusted to the dark, she watched Rianne's face make a remarkable transformation: it seemed to stretch, then crack. Rianne's mouth opened wide, her jaw trembling. When Sonia and Ursalina let her go, Rianne sank to her knees.

“No!” Rianne said. “No. No. No.” As if she could chant away the sight before her.

“Is that what you want?” Sonia said quietly, tears dripping from the bridge of her nose. “To help Wales recruit more people to come here and end up like this?”

“That's what it's all about,” Kendra said. “Wales was never trying to find a cure. He's trying to help them take all of us. To
create something beyond an ordinary freak. I talked to one of them. He told me everything. They need us. We're their only hope for a future.” Her nose stung as she talked about Harry, tears threatening. As terrible as he was, he'd been valuable too. A treasure lost forever.

But there would be others soon. Probably many more. Harry didn't need tears.

Rianne reached out toward the blond-haired freak, and the freak reached back with an eager moan. Their fingertips came within an inch of touching before Kendra, Sonia, and Ursalina wrestled Rianne away. The girl crumpled into sobs, clinging to them. Kendra knew that terrible cry well; it was always hidden inside her too.

“That's not your friend anymore,” Kendra said. “She's not here, but you are. And you have a home. You have people who care about you so much, they were willing to risk everything to bring you back.”

“Yeah, and other people who need to get the hell out of here,” Piranha said. “Like us.”

J
oseph
Allen Wales was unconscious, dreaming he was wrestling the frayed strands of a web that fell apart beneath his weight. Then the web freed him suddenly, and he was pitched into a terrifying free fall, plummeting toward . . . what?

Knocking. At his door. Yes, his room. A Taser. The girl!

With a gasp, Wales opened his eyes. He was relieved to find that Sonia was gone. She could be anywhere telling her tale by now, if anyone would believe her.

“Mr. Wales?” His bodyguard's voice called through the door. Vladimir, who had been with Wales for twenty years. Thank God!

“Yes, I'm here—come in!” Wales said.

He cringed at the idea of being found tied to his bedposts in his robe. Before his coming-of-age after the Change, he'd forced his staff to sign nondisclosure agreements about anything they saw while on duty—and they had seen plenty. But much more than Wales's ego was at risk now that he'd been so damned stupid with that little tease.

Tonight, at least, it was the hulking Ukrainian, and not one of the new recruits who might rush to the Threadie camp bonfire to gossip about what he had seen. Vladimir had been with Wales in Lost Angeles, as he'd always called tinsel town, and the nickname was truer than ever now. L.A. was a wasteland nearly beyond description, he'd been told. Awaiting rebirth.

Grief and shame seized Wales. God have mercy on him. What had he done?

Vlad's jaw set hard when he saw Wales, and he rushed to untie his binds. He avoided Wales's eyes, sparing him the disapproving gaze he'd perfected in Hollywood.

“The bitch?” Vlad said. Thirty years stateside had softened his accent, but not the ring of judgment. “Are you safe?”

“Safe enough. Get me out of these.” His throat was dry, his voice stripped to dust. His muscles still jittered from the Taser.

Why had he told her so much? Why hadn't he endured in silence?

“Bring me some water, Vlad. Please. Then we must have a long talk . . .”

As his senses sharpened, Wales realized he had changed while he slept. Or
something
had changed. He felt like a human husk. The burning resolve that had raced through his spirit was gone.

Had the girl been clever enough to kill the Other too? Had the future he'd sold his humanity for always been fragile enough to crumble at the hands of a mere child?

He was alone now—utterly and irreparably alone, with nowhere to hide from the unfathomable memory of what he had done.

Wales trembled, barely able to prop himself to a sitting position on unsteady elbows. Vlad glanced at him but kept his thoughts silent. Vlad believed Americans were weak, to
have been overrun so quickly. Wales hadn't yet established communication inside Ukraine, but Vlad had assured him that any freaks who tried to penetrate his hometown of Borodianka would quickly learn their mistake. His grandmother, Vlad always said, could fight freaks off with her garden shears.

Wales hadn't told Vlad everything, saving the more distasteful truth for acolytes who would not question him. Vlad had always been loyal to Wales, carrying out his duties, but he had loathed the Change. He read the Thread literature but had never embraced it. Now, as daylight reached hidden corners of Wales's mind without interference from the Other, he wondered how he could have believed it himself. He hadn't merely betrayed a nation or world, he had betrayed all of human history.

Tremors shook Wales in waves again. He had been dreaming even while he'd believed he was awake. And what now? Was he left with only this waking nightmare?

While Vladimir poured Wales a glass of water from the decanter in the bedroom's bar, his radio suddenly beeped the emergency code.

“Someone's found her,” Wales said, full of hope.

“Vlad,” he identified himself to his radio, impatient.

The voice was Finn's, from the security room. “I've got footage of five unknowns in the tunnel. Looks like Rianne is with them. They overpowered Warren, took his shirt.”

“When?” Vlad said.

A long pause. “I've got a visual in the east tunnel now, but don't know how long ago they penetrated.”

The Other had been one miracle, and perhaps Wales had just been presented with another—it wasn't too late! Wales struggled to make his limbs work properly, climbing out of bed. He had to lean on his mattress for support, to catch his breath, but he was on his feet.

“Intercept them,” Vlad began, but Wales cut him off, hobbling to snatch the radio from his hand.

“No,” Wales said, breathless from exertion. “This is Wales. Wait.”

He flung perspiration from his brow with his palm as his thoughts raced. What to do? Without guidance from the Other, where would he find it now?

Vlad waited and wondered, staring at him with icy blue eyes. They had faced this same moment only two nights ago, when Finn radioed to say that Brownie was at the gate, demanding to see Sissy. And when Wales had given the order to do what he must, he had seen the quiet shock in the large man's face, the same look Wales had seen from his guardian many times since the Change:
I don't know you anymore.

Until now, in Vlad's mind, Wales's good acts far outweighed everything else. But, of course, Vlad had never met the Other.

“They did us all a favor, Vlad,” Wales told him quietly, his radio button off. “They did what I should have done.”

“You'll let them go?” Vlad said, intrigued. “What will they say to the town?”

“They will say . . .”

His evening with Sonia unfolded in his memory. What had possessed him to let the toxic truth spill from his lips? Only the whiskey, or the weight of the secret? No matter how outlandish her tales would sound to Van Peebles and the townies, she might have seen the Other. Maybe all of them had seen it, to have killed it. They had seen more than enough to destroy Wales's influence, to vilify him.

As long as he preserved his standing, the acts of kindness he performed in the future would one day erase everything else. He would welcome the camp refugees to the town, regardless of age or infirmity. He had years to redeem himself . . . and perhaps
salvage his legacy. But not if the terrible secret escaped with the girl and the other intruders. Could he ask his men to bloody their hands one last time?

“Mr. Wales?” Finn's uncertain voice crackled. “Should we intercept?”

“No,” Wales said, licking his parched lips. “Open the entrance and ring the dinner bell. Flood the tunnel.”

Vlad's eyes widened with something beyond disgust, but Wales was undeterred. In quiet moments of clarity in previous days, when the Other slept, Wales had wondered if he was insane. Perhaps he saw the answer in Vlad's eyes.

“Sir?” Finn said, to be sure.

“You heard me, son,” Wales said. “Let the freaks take care of them.”

Darius cursed, adjusting his night-vision binoculars against the sudden
burst of light. A patrol! A large white pickup truck was racing toward the tunnel entrance on a winding path, driving with an urgency that couldn't be a coincidence.

Something had gone wrong.

Darius realized how right his cousin had been. He hadn't pondered the idea of true losses, and now his stomach felt stuffed with bricks.

“We're gonna have to take them out,” Dean said matter-of-factly.

“More will come,” Darius said.

“We'll take out the first crew. Change our position. Take out the next ones.”

Darius's heart pounded against the soil where he lay propped on his stomach in his ghillie suit, his binoculars pressed to his
face so hard he was digging grooves in his skin. Was it only one truck, or was another behind it? Dean was talking about Gold Shirts like they were freaks or pirates, expendable without a thought.

Jackie's brother, Sam, might be on that truck. These were the men who scavenged with Terry and Piranha, who built fences and shared beer with them.

Dean knew his thoughts from his silence. “Only way, man,” Dean said. “Even that probably won't be enough. We don't know what's going on inside. If you can't do it, let me know.”

“I can do it,” Darius said, gravel in his voice.

“You might have to. I don't know if I'm ready to go there.”

Darius raised his rifle, tracking the truck's motion through the scope. High brush and the truck's speed would make it impossible to make a shot until the truck got closer to the tunnel. But by then, his accuracy window would be next to nothing.

Maybe Darius had just lied. Maybe he couldn't do it.

The truck lurched to a sudden stop and two men hopped out, moving like lightning. Damn! The tunnel entrance was on the far side, and the truck blocked his shot.

“Relax,” Dean said. “Once they pull that tunnel door open, they'll be clear.”

Darius sucked air through his mouth, his finger sweating on the trigger. He saw flashes of the yellow shirts as they tugged on the door, was ready to fire . . .

But instead of running inside the tunnel, the men were climbing back into the truck, doors quickly slamming. The white Reverse lights flared as the truck backed up.

“What?” Dean said, confused. “They're not going in.”

“Are they trying to let our guys
out
?”

Maybe they were Jackie's brother and Sonia's friend, or
other rogue Gold Shirts enlisted into their mission somehow. Whatever they were up to, they were in a hurry.

While the truck turned around, Dean had a clear shot at the driver. “Take it?”

“No,” Dean said. “No threat, as long as they keep driving.”

The truck raced away on the path, its lights clouded by rising dust. Darius felt dizzy and sick. He might have almost killed those men for nothing—or he soon might regret sparing them.

A high-pitched, deafening horn sounded, so loud that it seemed to come from everywhere. An alarm! The tone was steady at first, then it came in bursts at intervals. That was followed by the clear sound of an old-fashioned bell. The sound was hard to pinpoint, but it might be coming from the tunnel.

“We should've shot them,” Dean said.

But at least the door was open and unguarded, and the truck was gone. If Terry and the others were in the tunnel, they still had a chance to escape.

Premonition tickled the back of Darius's mind. Before a coherent thought could surface, he saw movement in the shadows beyond the tunnel entrance, from the woods.

“D?” Darius said.

“Yeah, D?”

“When does it make sense to raise a racket so close to nests of freaks?”

“Doesn't,” Dean said, “unless you're calling them.”

As soon as Dean spoke, a male runner flew out of the darkness, racing straight for the open tunnel door. Then another, a female. Also fast.

If Darius had blinked, he might have missed the shot that sent the lead freak flying face-first to the ground only ten yards from the tunnel entrance. Dean spun the female freak with
his first shot and smashed her head with his second. Almost immediately, a half-dozen other runners followed.

As if they'd been waiting.

As if they'd been
trained.

Dry leaves crackled and hissed, betraying motion far too close to them from another hidden nest. Ghillie suits would do only so much good if freaks overran them.

“We're gonna have to switch positions,” Dean said. “Too much noise.”