Project Paper Doll: The Trials (33 page)

“We could have found another way,” Ariane said, her eyes bright and overflowing with tears.

Ford shook her head, her face a mask of pain, blood trickling from her mouth. “Your human is right. There is no other way for me. And I couldn’t let him go.”

I didn’t know who she meant by “him” at first, until I realized that Laughlin was no longer standing. A quick glance at where he’d been showed him on the ground, gun
still clutched in his hand. Ragged red circles now decorated his forehead and his cheek.

I grimaced and looked away.

Ford had done it deliberately, knowing Ariane would protect us the only way she could. It was a testament to Ford’s character that I wasn’t sure if she’d used Ariane or
protected her from the guilt of doing what needed to be done.

“You will make sure that it
never
happens again,” Ford said, her gaze seeking Ariane’s for confirmation. “If we are all one, all of us who suffered and died and
hang in display cases for the humans’ pleasure and advancement, then someone must stand for us.”

Ariane shook her head with a bitter smile, tears leaving bright tracks down her face. “It should never have happened at all.”

“And yet we are here….Here you are.” Ford coughed, spraying blood in a fine mist.

I swallowed hard. Ford had made our lives more difficult, unquestionably, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see her die.

Slowly, Ford sat on the floor and then lay down, curling up on her uninjured side, like she was preparing to go to sleep.

“Ford.” Ariane reached for her hand, taking it into her own, the same slim, long fingers entwined. “I can’t…I don’t know if…”

But Ford’s eyes were now fixed at some point beyond Ariane, beyond this room, perhaps. “I wish I could have seen the mountains,” she said, the words barely understandable over
the liquidy sounds of her breathing.

I had no idea what that meant. Maybe nothing, a product of whatever dying vision she was seeing. But Ariane’s shoulders bowed in grief, as if she understood.

And when Ariane rose to her feet a few moments later, I knew Ford was gone.

“Are you all right?” Emerson asked from his corner of the room. I looked over to see him standing up cautiously.

I nodded, resisting the temptation to pat my arms and legs to confirm their bullet-free status.

Rachel pushed herself up to her hands and knees, and then curled in a ball with a half sob.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She glared at me wordlessly.

Guess that meant she wasn’t hurt. Or not shot, at least. “Do you think—” I started to ask Ariane, only to realize she’d moved away.

She stood over Dr. Jacobs, who was now lying on the floor, next to the injured and unconscious guard.

Uh-oh.

She stared down at him.

“Help me, please.” Blood coated the side of his face and ran down his neck. He’d been shot somewhere. From where I stood, it was hard to tell the exact location and severity of
his injury; there was so much blood. “107.”

I felt the faintest return of panic, watching her watching him. It would be so easy for her to finish off what Ford had started. And to destroy the gift Ford had given her.

But before I said anything, she turned away from him, leaving him to his fate, whatever it would be.

She headed straight to me, and as soon as she was close enough, I grabbed her in a hug, lifting her off her feet for a moment and squeezing her tighter than I probably should have.
“You’re okay,” I whispered, as much for her as for me, because in that moment it was true and I was still having trouble believing it.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and let out a long shuddering breath that I could feel.

“Rachel?” Jacobs tried, his breath rattling in his throat.

But Rachel ignored him, the pallor of her face and tightening of her mouth the only signs that she’d even heard him. She stood slowly, her balance wobbly, and then moved past us toward the
doors. “Can you open these now?” she asked Ariane. “I want out. I want to go home.” She was trembling, but her gaze was focused on us as she steadfastly ignored her
grandfather on the floor. She was very clearly done with him, and when Rachel made up her mind, there was no changing. Stubbornness was a family trait, it seemed.

“Rachel is right. We can’t stay in here forever,” Ariane said against my shoulder and over the sound of the police shouting to be let in. “I have to open the doors, and I
don’t know what’s going to happen when I do.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.” My voice was muffled by Ariane’s hair, and I didn’t want to let her go, not even long enough for
her to let them in. Technically, she could do it just as easily without me putting her down.

But she pushed against me gently, and I released her, setting her on her feet.

“No matter what happens, it was worth it,” she said. Then she pushed me out of the way, and the doors opened slowly out into the hall.

And that should have been my first clue that even if she wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, she had a better idea than I did.

The floor shook with the boot steps of black-uniformed men in tinted face shields and unmarked body armor as they poured through the doors. Not the police anymore.

One of them pulled Rachel out into the hall, “rescuing” her presumably. “Get down, get down, get down!” Their shouts overlapped one another, making it hard to understand
the individual words, but the gist was clear.

Ariane knelt on the ground, her hands raised above her head, offering no resistance. She looked so small and vulnerable. And they didn’t seem to care, surrounding her and blocking my view
of her until I caught just flashes of her pale hair in the gaps between them.

“It’s not her. You’re looking for that one,” I shouted at them, pointing at Ford’s body.

But that caused only more angry shouting and more guns pointing at me until I sank to my knees as well.

“That boy is my patient. He’s in my care. Do not harm him,” Emerson shouted from his position near the wall.

“I’ve got three dead and two injured,” one of the men in the center of the room said into his radio. “Hostiles are contained.”

Did he mean Ariane and me? I guess, considering we were the only ones currently being threatened with weapons, three guys on me and about six on her.

“She’s not hostile,” I snapped. I couldn’t say the same for myself; I was feeling a little angry and misunderstood at the moment.

The lights sputtered overhead.

“Zane. Don’t.” Ariane’s voice came through loud and clear.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Don’t—”

But I didn’t get to hear what she was forbidding me to do because as quickly as the strike team had flowed in, the six surrounding Ariane had her up on her feet and moving out of the
room.

“Hey!” I protested. “Where are you taking her?” I tried to stand, but the business end of a rifle suddenly two inches from the end of my nose convinced me otherwise.

A familiar figure came through the doors then. Justine, looking much thinner in a dark suit, her dark-red hair sleek and smooth in a knot at her neck. It took me an extra second to recognize her
without her “hassled average mom” disguise.

“Justine.” I sank back on my heels in relief at the sight of a familiar and theoretically friendly face. “Where are they taking Ariane?”

She ignored me, listening to the man reporting in to her and surveying the room and the damage.

“Justine!” I bellowed.

And this time, she glanced in my direction, her forehead wrinkling with annoyance, as though I were the neighbor’s puppy left unattended and barking on the porch all night long.

“Where are they taking her?” I demanded.

She stared at me, as if she’d never seen me before. “Taking who?” she asked.

Cold seeped into my skin. She’d set this up. She’d gone to my mom to orchestrate that news story, to push us out of hiding and to make the Committee/DOD run. She probably
wasn’t even “here,” officially. And if this wasn’t official, then that would make it even easier for Ariane to disappear. Forever. “You know who!” I shouted.

She returned her attention to the man on her team, as if I didn’t exist.

No. Just no. Not after all of this. “Justine! You have to tell me. You can’t lock her up. You can’t just take her away! She has rights!” Except…did she? Did any of
us these days, let alone someone who wasn’t entirely human?

“If I may?” Emerson approached the guys guarding me, who were getting a little twitchy with my shouting. Not that I was going to stop. They wouldn’t, most likely, shoot me just
for being loud. The paperwork would be a bitch. “I’m his physician,” he added.

Justine gave a nod, and they let him approach, though they didn’t withdraw. None of them even asked why I would have a doctor here, which should have struck at least one of them as
odd.

“Not now.” I glared at him. “They took Ariane!” As if he hadn’t witnessed it himself. But I certainly hadn’t heard him protesting.

“Zane.” Emerson squeezed my shoulder and then handed me a wad of tissue from his pocket. “Wipe your nose, calm down, and listen.”

I hadn’t even realized my nose was bleeding again. Damn it. I snatched the tissues from him and cleaned up my face.

“You’re not going to be able to help her if you’re dead or tucked away in a cell that they’re doing their best to forget exists,” he said quietly.

He smiled placidly at the armed men surrounding us.

“These gentlemen are just doing their job,” he said in a louder voice. Then he muttered, “So just shut up for now and wait for your moment.”

He was, unfortunately, right. And I had to figure he knew what he was talking about, as he was the only one who’d successfully struck a deal with Justine. And he’d survived.

With an effort I gritted my teeth and swallowed my protests, even when Justine, after a final look around the room, walked out, followed by the men guarding me.

Before I could get to my feet, though, EMTs were rushing in to tend to Dr. Jacobs and the injured GTX guard, and there were lots of angry Chicago police officers with them.

Better to stay down, then. I wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

So, I waited, impatience burning in me, for the right moment, the one that would be mine.

Six hours later—after I was mysteriously released from police custody to my mom—I realized that Emerson St. John’s seemingly sound advice made a rather large and risky
assumption: that there would ever
be
a more advantageous moment.

And there were no such guarantees. Ever.

“Z
ANE
! C
OME ON
,
MAN
,
YOU
’
RE
going to make me
late for class!” Quinn pounded on my bedroom door impatiently.

“In a minute,” I said, not bothering to look up from my laptop. I had time for one more e-mail. The best thing was that once you figured out the Homeland Security address
formula—[email protected]—you could e-mail any DHS employee whose full name you knew.

Last month, after I got back from my treatment and recovery at Emerson’s lab, I’d started out looking for a reference to Justine, any Justine. When I couldn’t find her,
I’d begun e-mailing every valid address I could find at that domain with a condensed version of the story, then asking if the recipient knew anything about Justine or Ariane.

Most of the e-mails went unanswered. Some of them came back with very carefully worded threats. I’d even gotten several “anonymous” phone calls, warning me to stop.

Right. I’d taken those as signs that I was getting closer than they wanted me to be. That, or I was just annoying them. Which was fine. If I had to be the irritating mosquito and risk
getting swatted to get their attention, so be it.

It was December now, and I’d last seen Ariane over two months ago. With every day that passed, it felt more and more like I’d never see her again. Life had returned to almost normal,
and sometimes it seemed like I’d made her up. I didn’t even have a picture of her.

“Now, asshole!” Quinn said with an extra thump on the door for emphasis. “Let’s go, or you can find your own way.”

The funny thing was, even with the irritation in his voice, I could tell he wasn’t really angry.

Since Quinn had come back to live in Wingate after the incident with GTX and Dr. Jacobs, he’d mellowed considerably. We’d talked a little about what had happened, but mostly he
seemed to be trying to forget it and move on. He was taking classes at New Century Community College and working at Dick’s Sporting Goods in his spare time. His arm had healed, but his
scholarship to Madison was long gone. And he actually seemed much happier. It had occurred to me that as hard as my dad had ridden me as a “failure,” Quinn probably hadn’t had it
much easier as “the success.” No room for mistakes. No room to breathe. No wonder he’d flunked out. The pressure alone must have sucked.

So we were getting along a lot better. That, however, did not mean I wanted to push him too far. It was a long walk to school, and Trey was on Rachel duty this week. She needed someone to drive
her since the bank had repossessed her car.