Unforsaken (8 page)

We caught the el and rode it north. Only after we’d cleared the city did we get out, at the Howard stop. A few blocks away was a tiny park, a triangle of mowed grass with concrete paths and a few scrubby shrubs. Already most of the benches had been claimed by homeless people: some beside carts loaded high with possessions, some lying on their sides asleep, faces obscured by caps and jackets slung like blankets over their still forms.

We found a bench that was unoccupied near the far edge, and I dug the emergency phone from my purse and handed it to Kaz. “They can’t trace this one,” I said, and then I turned my palm up so he could read the number I’d copied.

As he dialed, I leaned in close so that I could hear both sides of the conversation. The phone barely rang before it was picked up.

“Prentiss,” a deep, clipped voice said.

“This is Kazimierz Sawicki.” There was no hesitation or tremor in Kaz’s voice. He sounded sure of himself, even dangerous. “I’d like to speak to the General.”

I heard a dry chuckle. “ ‘The General’? Only Safian ever called me that. Young man, it has been a long time since I wore the uniform of this country or any other. My name is simply Prentiss now. Alistair Prentiss.”

“Where’s Prairie and Chub?”

The man laughed again, a sound that held no trace of warmth. “So you want to get right to business, eh? No time to chat, to get to know one another?”

“All I need to know about you is that you have kidnapped two innocent people and I want them back.”

I put my hand on Kaz’s hard-muscled shoulder. He played lacrosse for St. Stephens High School in the city, and his training regimen had carved and strengthened his body. Despite my fear, despite the danger and uncertainty, I felt my fingers tighten against his skin, and my heart sped up to match the beat I sensed deep in his veins.

Prentiss laughed shortly. “I think there’s a little more you need to understand, Kaz. Okay if I call you Kaz, isn’t it? Since that’s what your mother calls you.”

I felt his muscles tense under my fingers, but when Kaz spoke again, his voice was cold and calm. “That’s none of your business.”

“Tell me, Kaz, you’re doing very well in your AP bio class, aren’t you?” Prentiss continued as though Kaz hadn’t spoken. “I believe Mr. Tanenbaum was quite pleased with your lab report last week. I hope I’m not breaking any confidences when I tell you that you received a ninety-two on it. Enough to bring you up to a B-plus, if I’m not mistaken.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Kaz demanded. “Tap into the Secret Service computers … 
General?
”

I was learning something about Kaz: he didn’t experience fear the way I did. He seemed to skip it and go directly to whatever emotion followed, to the thing I would feel in his circumstances only after I was finished feeling utterly terrified. In this case, it was anger, and I understood that, understood
how violated it must make you feel to have someone finding out the most hidden details about your life.

But in my experience, anger had not served me well. It never paid to get angry at Gram; she’d just laugh her hard-voiced drunk laugh or yell obscenities at me. And it never changed things.

But Kaz was a warrior, like his father. Anna once told me that her husband, Tanek, had passed along a legacy of bravery and conviction—other Banished traits that had died out when the bloodline had been thinned beyond recognition.

“I already told you, my name is Alistair Prentiss. No title—my years in the official service of our great country are, regrettably, over. Now I must operate with, shall we say, sensitivity to the demands of national security.”

“So, what, they threw you out of the army and now you’ve got some sort of grudge? Or is it all about money, selling to the highest bidder?”

Kaz knew as well as I did that if Safian had managed to use Healers to create and sell battle zombies, Prentiss stood to make a great deal of money. Unimaginable amounts.

“I shall pretend you did not say that,” Prentiss snarled. “But I caution you, do not underestimate my convictions or my commitment. Do not make that mistake again.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, Prentiss,” Kaz muttered. “You’re the great patriot, that what you’re telling me?”

“Patriotism takes many forms, young man. I hired Safian because he was a pragmatist. You might call him a point-A-to-point-B
thinker. And he was hungry. I used his hunger for money and affirmation—yes, I stroked his ego and encouraged him. It was easy.”

“He’s dead. Guess he wasn’t the best choice after all.”

“He was weak,” Prentiss shot back. “Weak enough to fall for his subject, after we had set it up so perfectly. If you knew what lengths we went to, to maintain the illusion that your friend Prairie was working on those—those ridiculous holistic health practices—”

He spoke as though it pained him, as though the words themselves were foul. “That won’t happen again. I learned, you see, from my mistakes. Putting one man in charge of the operation was too risky. Now there are several. Hand-selected, my young friend. And if it helps you make your peace with what you are about to do, allow me to reassure you that these … leaders, shall we call them, are most humane. They are not interested in hurting Prairie or Hailey. They will be grateful for the ladies’ service, in fact, and accord them the dignity and respect of a fellow team member.”

“Hailey’s never going to be a member of your so-called team,” Kaz said, his voice low and dangerous.

“Ah yes, we have your young romance to consider, don’t we? How clumsy of me, to forget the illusions of puppy love, the way it makes tender hearts burst with noble thoughts. And hormones, unfortunately, which are a bit counterproductive.”

Puppy love
. To hear Prentiss mock my feelings for Kaz, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he used words neither of us
had yet spoken aloud, drove a spike of hot fury into my mind. But that just cemented my determination: if I hadn’t already been committed to fighting him, I would be now.

But Kaz refused to be sucked in. “You won’t find Hailey. Ever.”

“Really? Consider this, Kaz. If young Chub knew where she was, we would already know. Oh, don’t worry, we wouldn’t use anything so primitive as torture. We have other means. Let’s just say that all our research into the machinations of the human mind has led to some very interesting discoveries. It would be accurate to say that none of the little boy’s secrets are safe with us.

“So what happens when we find
you
, Kaz?” Prentiss went on in his oily voice. “If you know Hailey’s whereabouts—and for the sake of argument, let’s say that you find out somehow—how long do you think it will take us to get the information out of you?”

Kaz’s gaze locked on mine, but he didn’t blink.

“You won’t find me.”

“If you are foolish enough to take that gamble, and, young man, I am betting on you being as smart as your teachers think you are and realizing that the only course that makes sense is to cooperate with us, but if you wish to gamble with the little boy’s safety, then let me assure you that you will also be jeopardizing your mother. Tell me, Kaz, would you like to know what she is doing now?”

Kaz was silent, lips parted, his grip on the phone so tight his knuckles showed white.

“She is staring out the kitchen window, no doubt wondering where you are. She is twisting that pretty brown hair around the fingers of her left hand. That is her habit, yes, when she is worried? And how worried she must be, about you.” He knew exactly how to torment Kaz—and he was
enjoying
it. “I’ll leave you with that thought, young Kazimierz,” Prentiss said softly enough that I had to lean in close to hear. “When you decide to call me back—and you will, my friend, of that you can be sure—you may reach me at this number at any hour of the day. And now I must bid you good night.”

I heard the click that signaled the end of the conversation, but Kaz stayed frozen with the phone to his ear.

“They’re watching your mom,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, but they didn’t follow us here,” he said slowly. “And they don’t know where we’re going.”

Where
were
we going? I thought of the money in my purse. A few twenties—how far would that take us? And then I thought of Prairie and was hit with a wave of guilt—not because she’d given me the money; I knew she wouldn’t care about that. But because she was a prisoner now, unable to do anything but worry.

I could picture her thinking, chewing her lower lip, a habit we shared. I had put her in an impossible position. She was supposed to be taking care of me. She felt responsible.

But it was different for me. I was a kid. I wasn’t responsible for anyone. And neither was Kaz.

That made it possible for us to risk everything to rescue her and Chub.

Kaz handed my phone back, but before I put it in my purse, I had a thought. Prairie had programmed all the emergency numbers. I wrote a quick text message to her, knowing that Prentiss would have had her searched, that her purse and the emergency phone had probably been taken from her first thing.

I LOVE YOU, I wrote. DON’T WORRY ABOUT US.

Then I hit Send, not caring who saw my message. Prentiss’s men could intercept it; they could throw Prairie’s phone away; they could lie to her. But they could never extinguish the feelings that had taken root in my cold, lonely heart.

I
LOVE YOU
.

I had said those words to only one other person: Chub. When he came to live with us, he became my problem, as Gram couldn’t be bothered to feed or change or bathe him. It took only a couple of days for me to know that he and I were linked forever, to learn the curve of his chubby cheeks and the way his little hands felt holding mine.

I didn’t look at Kaz as I slipped the phone back into my pocket. He’d probably said it a hundred times. To his mother. Perhaps even his father, whom he’d known only a few short years.

And … I imagined him saying it to me. Could feel the words on my lips, could easily say it to him. But we had been strangers not long ago. And besides, we had a job to do.

“What now?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

I focused on his question. It was a welcome reprieve from my thoughts. “You could offer to trade me. We could set up a meeting place and—”

“No. Too dangerous. By the time we set up the exchange, it’d be too late. They’ve got all the advantages, Hailey. Technology, weapons, everything. They wouldn’t give up anything and then they’d have you too.”

“They don’t have everything,” I said softly. “They don’t have you. They don’t have Seers.”

“We just need to think about what we’re up against. Prentiss said he’s got more people in charge now, Hailey. Not just one like before, when Bryce ran everything. I bet there’s a lot more people than that at the new lab. More security, for one. And more staff, if they’re trying to rebuild the research in the shortest possible time.”

“I still think Prentiss must be ex-military,” I said. It was the way he talked, as though he was used to being in command. “If he hires people like him, they wouldn’t care where they work; they’d just move to the new facility, wherever Prentiss told them to go.”

“Yeah,” Kaz agreed grimly. “Prentiss probably has contacts everywhere. Contractors who work for governments all over the world, not just ours. Old buddies still on the inside, who are happy to take his calls, listen to his ideas, maybe have an inside track to approving projects or getting funding.”

“And the Seers,” I said. “If they could train people like
you, who could see what the enemy was doing, their movements, their strategies …”

“The visions don’t work like that. I’m a strong Seer, a pureblood, and even I can’t predict when they come or what they’ll reveal.”

“But Bryce was trying to develop ways around that, training Seers to control their visions.”

What if Prentiss found a way to control someone as powerful as Kaz? It was terrifying to imagine Kaz’s gift being manipulated by someone like Prentiss. I prayed that they hadn’t figured out yet that Chub was a Seer. If they knew what Chub could do, they would never let him go.

“So,” Kaz said, “us against the ex-military machine. They’ve got money, weapons, connections. We’ve got, uh …” He shrugged. “Well, we’ve got each other. No problem—ought to be a piece of cake.”

He was trying to joke, but his voice was hollow. The park had emptied as the sky had grown dark. It was just us and the few homeless people who were making their home here for the night.

I shivered, partly from the chill of nightfall and partly from the fear in his voice. I touched Kaz’s face, just a hesitant brush of my fingers against his cheek. I wanted to comfort him, and I moved without thinking.

But Kaz reacted by covering my hand with his and pressing it to his face. He took a shuddering breath and said my name, hardly more than a whisper.

“Hailey … I can’t do this without you.”

He
couldn’t do it without
me
. Kaz was strong and brave, and I was shocked by his admission. He circled his arms around me and I leaned against him and held on, and I could feel his heart beating through his shirt and his warm breath on my neck as he bent toward me, and his eyelashes brushed my forehead.