Fear My Mortality (12 page)

I shot to my feet, head down, and catapulted through the door to the living room. Drones hummed as I made it through. They’d take a couple of seconds to assess any risk to the incoming Hazards. Seconds I could use.

Halfway through the living area, a flicker of movement at one of the windows made me leap behind the kitchen table. There was a guard standing to one side of the dining room window, but he seemed to have been placed there to survey the street because he kept looking out and around, rather than inward. Through the gaps in the blinds, I could see his wasp floating at the top right of the window. I plotted a path to the bottom of the stairway directly opposite Mom’s study.

The sound of crunching glass in the laundry told me the Hazards were inside the house. A wasp sailed through the laundry door, facing outward. As soon as it turned, it would see me.

I had to move. Now.

Ducking my head, I zipped through the galley kitchen and rushed around the corner to the base of the stairway. This time, I didn’t stop to hear whether I’d been spotted. I took the stairs two at a time, grateful that I was barefoot—until I saw the trail of blood spots I left behind.

My whole being sank to meet the smears on the floor. I vaguely registered the glass in my feet. The cuts in my arches and toes. I didn’t have time to check them. The humming drones drew closer, the sound rising and falling as though they were flying in and out of rooms, checking each one, and I hoped it would buy me precious seconds.

Making it to my room, I snatched up my sneakers. Then I ran over to the window ledge and placed my bloody fingers on it, hoping they’d think I’d gone down the fire escape, before I yanked the shoes onto my feet. Ignoring the pain and avoiding the blood spots, I raced back into the hallway.

The drones were flying up the stairwell and the Hazards would see the blood trail and know that I was in the house.

I ran right, tearing toward the retreat at the back that opened out onto the deck. Once there, I turned the lock on the sliding door and let it close, locking myself out. It wouldn’t delay them for long, but it would stop the drones for a moment, and even a second could make a difference.

The guttering at the corner of the house, at the edge of the deck, was attached to one of the steel pilings used to support both the deck and the roof over it. Josh and Aaron used to shimmy up there when they were in second grade, dangle their legs over the edge of the roof, and dare each other to jump.

I wasn’t even half sure that the pipe would hold my weight, but I’d rather fall to my death than let Reid take me in to run more tests.

Taking hold of the pipe, I levered up onto the balcony railing. Between the railing and the roof, there weren’t any other footholds or anything to push off. I’d have to use my legs and arms to wriggle the six feet upward. I couldn’t afford to have sweaty palms right now. I tried to calm myself, picturing myself in the dance studio, mimicking the climbing of stairs. It was an act, a dance move, something to carry out with strength and elegance, something I could control and achieve. Holding the image firmly in my mind, I forced my body upward. It was harder with sneakers on my feet, but I couldn’t afford to leave a blood trail.

They were probably about to rush into my room to find the smears all over the carpet leading to the window and the fire escape.

Right on cue, a shout rose from deep inside the house. They’d tear apart my room, trying to find me, expecting me to be hidden in a cupboard, under the bed, even leaping from the window. They wouldn’t look out this end of the house. Not yet, anyway.

I glanced down once to check that there were no men patrolling the garden underneath me, but I couldn’t see any. That didn’t mean they weren’t there. If I made it to the roof unseen, I’d consider myself lucky. I sought purchase on the edge of the roof, scrabbled one hand on the steel roofing, trying to find a notch—anything—that I could use to latch onto when I released my other hand. It was smooth and impossible to grip.

The pale green roof blurred and I realized that I had tears in my eyes, or sweat, I couldn’t tell which, but either way it made me mad. I wasn’t going to get this far and then fail.

Then, to my surprise, I found it. Right there in the perfect place to lever my hand—a hollowed out crescent with a soft pad around the edge. I used all my strength to wrench the rest of my body up and onto the safety of the roof.

I rolled away from the edge, panting, the sun beating down on me, burning steel under my back, and the deep pressure of a glass shard that I’d forgotten about. I jerked upward and yanked it out, crunching my jaw to stop from crying. As the relief of having made it onto the roof flowed through me, so did the pain.

Once I was safe, I’d find out how badly I was hurt. For now, my wounds would have to wait.

There were voices, closer below, standing on the inside of the door to the deck. They’d be trying to decide whether to come out, and I wasn’t about to give them any reason to. The neighborhood watch drone never traveled this high, but it would only take one curious Hazard to direct a wasp skyward and I’d be discovered.

I crawled along to the main roof, where there was a crevice formed between two decorative peaks—a place to hide and wait for them to leave. I couldn’t hear their voices anymore so I didn’t know what they were saying. I hoped they thought I’d gone down the fire escape from my room and through the garden. That would make sense, especially as my bloody footprints stopped there, although the guard on that side of the house would swear I never got past him.

Sinking into the only shady area of the crevice, I felt around for the coolest place to sit and, as I did so, I touched a flat portion of roof, only a hand width high and wide. I pulled back to study it and found that it appeared to be a small door with a lever.

The mechanism clicked and the opening released. I ran my hand around the rubber edging that would seal tightly against all kinds of weather.

There was something inside, and I reached in to pull it out: a box marked with a big red cross. I racked my memories for a moment, wondering if I’d seen it somewhere before, coming up with nothing. All I knew for sure was that somebody had been coming up there from time to time. They’d carved out the handholds on the deck roof to make it easier to climb up and they’d left the box there.

As I levered open the lid, the items that fell into my hands were as strange as the red cross on the lid.

Thin rolls of soft white material, small strips of perforated plastic, needles labeled as hygienically sealed, spools of thread also sealed in plastic. Then there were things I did recognize: safety pins, tweezers, and syringes. Last of all: two vials of black liquid that had to be what Reid had called nectar.

There were rough drawings made in gold marker on the outside of each, and I frowned at them, realizing that they were pictures of scorpions. Gold like the one I’d seen when Reid gave me nectar.

I rocked back on my heels with the objects clutched to me.

It was some kind of medical kit.

There was only one person that it could belong to. Only one person who could come up there regularly—who would have something to hide—something that needed needles and, of course, bandages, that’s what the rolls of material were.

This stuff belonged to Josh.

He knew.

Josh knew he could die.

I remembered Josh’s face that night at the Terminal, the way he’d looked at Michael—intense, on edge, as though he was fighting for his life, as though it meant so much more to him to win. Michael hadn’t cared; he’d known he couldn’t die. But Josh knew. He knew his life was at stake.

The day he died, he’d pointed to his temple and told me:
The only war we fight is the one in here.
He’d told me he’d rather kill than watch me be killed.

Sobs rose up in me as I clutched the bandages to my chest.

Josh knew that I could die, too.

That’s why he’d snatched me away at Implosion. That’s why he wanted to take me somewhere safe. He’d said he was a Basher because he had to be, and maybe being a Basher was the only way he could figure out to interrupt Implosion and stop my death.

He’d saved me.

But how had Josh survived his own Implosion? Michael had told me that Josh healed almost as fast as he did, which was impossible, unless … I stared at the little vials of black nectar in the medical kit. When Reid injected it into me at the recovery center, the cut on my forehead had healed immediately. He’d called it a dose of immortality. If Josh had carried nectar with him, ingested it somehow, he could have survived the Implosion wound. It was the only way he could have healed so fast.

I ran my thumb over one of the scorpions, wondering if Josh had seen the same crazy things I had when he took nectar.

There was a sudden concentration of sound at the corner of the house. Footsteps battered the ground and I pictured the soldiers gathering at the side of the garden. I wanted to scoot to the edge of the roof and see for sure, hoping they were going away. Instead, I lay still, trying to quiet my own breathing so I could hear their voices and listen for the approaching hum of drones.

“Why would she run? Doesn’t she know she’s in danger?”

“She’s hurt now, too.” That was the officer who’d questioned Reid. “Well, at least we know the Bashers haven’t got her. That blood trail was fresh.”

I sucked in a breath at the mention of the Bashers. I was the weakest of the weak and unlike the slow healers, I’d be easily erased. I clutched the vials of nectar harder, pressing the scorpions to my chest. How careful Josh must have been to fool the Bashers. I shuddered at the risks he must have taken. But he’d had an advantage that I didn’t have. The Bashers already knew the truth about me.

The men at the side of the house sounded like normal Hazards. Like they really had been sent to take me somewhere safe and they had no idea why I’d run away from them. If only Reid wasn’t with them …

I shimmied toward their voices, ready to call out. Maybe they could help me. Maybe I could tell them about Reid. I paused because if Reid was Black Ops, then I couldn’t predict what kind of control he had over them. He’d said he was in charge and the other officer had obeyed him.

I had no choice. I couldn’t trust them. I couldn’t trust anyone.

I lay still as Reid’s voice cut through the conversation, pausing directly below me in the side garden. “Get me a list of all the places she frequents and get the surveillance drones out there. We need to find her before the Bashers do.”

Their voices dimmed, vehicles roared to life and sped away, but I still couldn’t move, clutching the medical kit to my chest, shaking from the pain in my back. Too scared that someone would see me climbing down, I waited until nightfall.

Finally, the sun descended and shadows and pockets of night grew. I opened my eyes, my body stiff and unbending, a headache pounding from the back of my head forward into both of my temples. I rolled onto my side, expanding my lungs with air for long moments, knowing I had to get inside, find food, and rest, even though the thought of falling asleep, being vulnerable, made me shudder. My home wasn’t safe anymore.

I tied the medical kit inside my shirt and made it down the pipe, using the hand-holds that I now knew belonged to Josh, and dropped to the balcony. I’d locked myself out, so there was no use trying to get in through the glass door. I took a moment to rest and then made my way over the railing, holding on with my hands and working my legs around the top of the steel post until I was sure I had a good grip. Shimmying down it was somehow harder than climbing up. My legs kept tugging, my clothes jamming, my arms shook, and I dropped the last few feet and crawled along, grateful for the simple feel of ground beneath my feet.

The back door hung on its hinges, standing in a bed of glass. I supposed that at least anybody trying to get in that way would make a lot of noise. When I rounded the corner into the kitchen, I set the medical box on the table and grabbed the tweezers out of it, ripping off my sneakers and dropping to the floor, twisting my feet toward me.

With the blinds open, there was enough light to see without turning on a lamp. It took forever to tug each splinter and shard out. A couple from my arms caused me trouble and I finally plucked a stubborn one from my hand. I eyed the needle and thread but couldn’t bring myself to use it. I couldn’t reach the wound in my back anyway.

I considered the vials of nectar. If I used them, I could heal straight away, but when they’d given it to me at the recovery center, I’d burned so hot, I’d started a fire. That would be the worst way to draw attention to myself. I put them away and left the kit on the kitchen table.

Climbing the stairs was easier than before, and I headed to the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water, hoping it would bring some sense back to my world. A dark patch of blood spread across my right shoulder when I looked in the mirror, and I tried to shake off my dread as I dressed in clean clothes.

Despite the risk, staying in the house for the night seemed like the best option. If I ran for it, I’d be out on the streets and who knew where Reid would look for me, not to mention all the usual CCTV drones. If the Bashers were looking for me too, then chances were high that they’d hear my family was gone, that the Hazards had found my home empty, and they wouldn’t look for me at home. But I couldn’t stay there any longer than one night. I’d have to take off tomorrow.