Rifter (The Survival Project Duology Book 1) (19 page)

She was jealous.

He moved a little closer and put his arm loosely around her shoulder. She thrust it away, twisting her whole body. There was disgust in her expression.

“No, we can’t. I won’t let you cheat on her,” she said.

“We’re not cheating on her. I was cheating on you, but now that’s over.”

“No, Leo.
My
boyfriend died.”

“I didn’t. I wanted to come back.”

“Don’t lie. If you’d wanted to come back you’d have found a way to get there in time.”

He couldn’t resist it. Why not tell her more? She was going to be left here to stew about it. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t affect his life.

“I’m not lying. Look, they did know about the disruptions before I landed. When I got back to the site I hadn’t left myself much time, because I had a wobble. I’d considered staying. But when I got there they had the place surrounded by guards, many more than there are in the park. I wasn’t prepared. I couldn’t get past them. They took me away. I watched the light go red in a concrete cell with no windows. I didn’t have a choice.”

It was as close to the truth as he could go, if a little embellished for dramatic tension. It didn’t help. She picked on one stupid sentence that he’d meant to make him sound vulnerable, and twisted the knife.

“You had a wobble? What, you liked the fresh air too much? Got high on the coffee, did you?” It was clear she wasn’t going to bend and he’d possibly made things worse. “Are you going to do the same to me? Stop me from getting back?”

His voice went cold. “I told you, that’s not under my control.”

“No? Then what am I here for, if not to pay for my safe passage?”

“You think …? No.”

A hotel bedroom had been a bad choice.

“Liar.”

There was no point in softening the blow any more. She wasn’t going to give in to him. He needed to take decisive action or he was going to lose the advantage.

“No, Mara, that’s not it, but it is true that you’re not going back. You got that right.”

With all his strength he rolled over onto her body and knocked her back on the bed so that she was lying flat. He could see she was taken by surprise, but she kicked him hard in the groin. Prepared for the move, he bit back the pain and grabbed her wrists. He tightened his grip until his knuckles went white. She rolled, hard. They ended up side-by-side. He forced them back, her underneath. He might not have been as heavily muscled as he was when he left her back at The Facility, but he was still stronger than she was, and bigger. This time he consolidated his position quickly. He knelt across her legs, letting his full weight pin them to the bed and held her torso down with his. He still had her wrists. He shifted so that he had them both with one hand and whipped the telephone cord out of his pocket. Her eyes grew wide as she started to realise what was happening. She screamed, but his weight on her chest dulled the sound, she couldn’t force enough breath into her lungs. She began to struggle harder, but he was quicker. He wrapped the cord around her wrists five or six times, making sure to overlap the rounds to keep it taut. She began to buck beneath him, just how they’d been taught to throw someone off. Unlucky for her that they’d also been taught the aggressor’s role. She couldn’t break free. She wasn’t strong enough, or forceful enough.

He pushed her bound hands up above her head and leaned in over her face. She spat at him. He shook the splattering of liquid away and smiled.

He had her disabled enough that he could do what he wanted, but why stop there? He yanked on the cord and rolled her body onto its side. He grabbed one ankle and then the other, tying her four limbs uncomfortably behind her body. Trussed up and incapable of freeing herself, she grunted and writhed. He sat back up, his legs still scissored over her.

“The trouble was, Mara, they took my brac away from me. They tested it this way and that. They subjected it to all sorts of hacking and deconstruction in an effort to try to find their own way to travel the rifts, but they couldn’t work it out. They didn’t have anything like it and I didn’t tell them that I knew at least some of the answers they were looking for. They have no idea of my skills in that respect. The concepts were too alien to them. They still haven’t worked it out, because they’re missing pieces of the puzzle.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell them?”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Then, what was the point of you working for them?” Her voice was cold and hard. He needed to be quick, but he also wanted her to know. He wanted to say the words to make them real, because up until now, everything had been in his head.

“Self preservation, or that’s what I thought when I started. Anyway, in the end, the brac stopped working. And when it stopped working, I had no way back. That was one hell of a problem. I tried to pretend that it didn’t matter but, you see, pretending that something doesn’t matter just makes the anger build up inside, until it reaches this crescendo where the only thing that’s important is your objective. Nothing else.”

“Your objective?”

“Yes, Mara, you always have to have an objective. A motivation.”

“All this is just so you can get back?”

“In part. It’s true that in some ways I didn’t want to return to the life we had back then. Who would? Thunderous skies. Rationing as a normal way of life. Fresh air only through a filter mask or an air conditioning system. No, I didn’t want that after living in this, but I would’ve taken it that day when Gordon shut down the rift and stopped me having any chance of getting through. Yes, the guards played a part, and there will be payment for that, but if the rift had stayed open for longer, I might have found a way. Back then, this scared me. It felt unnatural.”

Mara’s voice quietened to a whisper.

“You’re angry with Gordon?”

He leaned over, pressed the release clip on her brac and it snapped open. He placed the device around his own wrist, clicked it closed and pulled down his sleeve so that it was completely covered.

“That was what affected me the most. The betrayal. He stopped me from being with you. I did love you back then, in my own way, but you’re right, I don’t any more. Not really. Gordon is going to pay for what he did to me, and you, well, you’re going to have a nice life. It’s not so bad here. Maybe, I’ll see you again some day. Although,” he sighed, “you probably won’t want that.”

She thumped her head back onto the bed. “You want to go back for revenge? That’s what this is all about?”

Leo shrugged.

“You can help this world more than me, because you care.” He pushed himself off her and walked toward the door. “It won’t take you long to get free. I know that. I’m guessing Kerry is just along the corridor somewhere. But don’t try coming after me,” he pulled out his gun, “Or I will use this.”

With nothing left to say, and in possession of what he’d come for, he grabbed his jacket and hastened out the door. As he reached the lift he heard her shout out.

“Help! Kerry!”

He turned to see Kerry run toward the bedroom door and try it. Then his gaze rested on Leo. The lift pinged and Kerry began to run toward him. Leo turned to enter the lift, and as he did, his arm bashed against the door and he dropped the keycard onto the floor. He went to bend down to retrieve it, but the doors began to close. He jumped back. Nothing he could do about it.

He had what he wanted. The rest would have to be left to chance.

Twenty-three

Mara struggled with the bindings around her wrists and ankles. They were beginning to come loose, but as she couldn’t see what she was doing, and her arms were virtually bent backwards, it would take a while to free herself. She hadn’t been sure Kerry would hear her screams, as he was hiding behind the fire doors in the stairwell, but she’d heard someone run along the corridor and try the knob. She assumed that was him. She doubted that he would tackle Leo straight on, seeing as he didn’t know what her situation was, but it would take him time to get someone to open the door for him, especially as he wasn’t the person who’d booked the room. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t try to break the door down. That meant that Leo would be long gone by the time she was free. He was probably already outside the building. She grunted in frustration. She was more annoyed with herself than anything. Kerry had said this was a mistake and she’d ignored his warning. She’d thought, after her success in tackling the man the night before, that she was capable of dealing with whatever Leo threw at her. Kerry had been right. Leo wanted to go back, and the only way he could do that was with a working brac. Without it, Gordon would close the door on him before he reached the other end of the rift. It had created an urgency in him. He had wanted the brac, that had been his focus. She had wanted him to be the man she used to know.

She heard the click of a keycard in the door. For a moment, she froze, thinking that Leo had returned and that perhaps he’d decided to knock her out or to gag her — it seemed far too soon for Kerry to have obtained a card. It also ran through her mind that Leo had disabled Kerry in some way and was going to throw him into the room with her. She steeled herself for whatever it was. She was sure it wasn’t going to be good.

But she was wrong.

When she saw Kerry enter, unbound, on his own, with no member of staff in tow, she found it hard to reconcile with what was going on in her mind.

“How did you get that?” she asked, nodding at the keycard.

“He dropped it as he got into the lift. I thought it was better to get you out first before going after him.” He looked at her lying helpless and flustered on the bed. “Seems like I was right.”

He sat down next to her and gently unravelled the cord. She flexed her fingers as the blood began to return to them.

“Thanks.”

Mara’s mind was such a jumble of thoughts. She’d never considered Leo to be the vindictive type, he’d certainly never shown that side to her when they were together, but clearly he was, and he was dangerous.

“Damn him!”

“Hey, stay still.”

She felt empty, her emotions drained. Her hope gone.

She was at a loss as to what to do.

“He took your … thing?” Kerry pointed at her wrist.

“My brac? Yes.”

“So, he’s intending to go back? Instead of you?”

She nodded.

She stood and brushed herself down. It made her feel better, but made little difference to her crumpled appearance. He hadn’t roughed her up that much. It wasn’t anything like they’d practised back at The Facility. All he’d done was hold her down for a few minutes and given her one or two bruises. But he’d got the best of her so easily.

She had to fight back, for herself if nothing else. She needed to prove to herself that her training had been worth the effort. If she gave up now, she was letting him win and she was betraying her friends.

What did revenge mean? Killing?

“Not if I can help it,” she said.

There was one thing of which she was certain. Whatever she’d once felt for him was most definitely gone. He’d extinguished any flame that might have lingered, any hope that her heart had clung onto.

The nature of his words had been unequivocal. He blamed Gordon for everything that had happened to him from the moment that rift had closed. What was it? Eight years ago.

Eight years.

For her it had only been six months.

She shook her head. No time to analyse the whys and wherefores.

A plan.

She knew where he lived and where he worked. She knew where the disruption was. She knew him better than anyone else. He would slip up. She would stop him, somehow.

“I thought he loved you. Why would he do that?” said Kerry.

“I thought he loved me, too. Seems I was wrong. I’m sure I don’t love him anymore.”

Hearing herself speak those words out loud sounded strange. Saying them made it sound permanent, made it real. She didn’t love Leo any more. She blinked back an errant tear.

No tears. She had to be practical and she had to work out what to do. She couldn’t let Leo go back, not with a murderous mind. But she didn’t know this world well enough to do it on her own.

She looked over at Kerry. Poor, sweet Kerry, who’d got himself mixed up in something he didn’t understand. She had no choice.

“Will you help me stop him?”

Kerry looked at her helplessly. He was a practical man, she already knew that, but this was a long way removed from his experience and probably way out of his comfort zone. He didn’t even live in this city. He’d only just arrived. He wasn’t exactly local. There was no one else. She didn’t know anyone else.

“But, what are we able to do?”

He hadn’t dismissed it.

Mara clasped her hands together and thought. There wasn’t time to do much of anything at all, considering the time constraint. They had a day and a half, at best, before whoever was going to return had to be through the disruption, or Gordon would close it. It was both too little time and too much.

She had to think of The Project, not herself.

“Worst case scenario, we try to delay him until the last minute so that he can’t go back. Best case, we get the brac back, and I can return.”