Cheating Time (38 page)

"You know you're an abomination. You know
you shouldn't exist. Why don't you just let us end all of this
right now? I'm sure there's a place reserved in hell just for you
and your kind," he taunted.

"Alongside your friends," Jayden said,
waving his hand toward the woman and man he'd already eviscerated,
dishing out his own form of mental torture.

The man didn't even glance their way. "I-I'm
not loyal to them. I'm loyal to the cause. We're Outcasts who've
been shunned by our nation. We refuse to have MicroPharms inserted
into our women, to let Barone's fledglings decide if our people
live or die. A perfect society isn't the one God meant for us to
have. Sometimes the flawed are our greatest assets."

The man might not have risked a glance
toward his fallen friends, but when he mentioned the flawed and
took a quick look over his shoulder, I suspected his speech was
meant as much for us as it was for the hooded person behind him. I
had no idea if it was a woman or a man. I only knew the person was
standing by like me and watching the scene play out before
him/her.

When the hooded figure lifted a powerful
fist and pounded it against his or her chest, the man before Jayden
bellowed the now familiar battle cry and dove toward Jayden's legs.
Faster and more lethal than the avenging angel I suspected he was,
Jayden jumped up and came back down, embedding the machete firmly
into the back of the taunting man.

This time I was ribboned with blood. It
dripped from my face and joined the sweat soaking my clothes. A
scream bubbled from deep within me and burst out.

Jayden glanced back just long enough to see
I wasn't in any real physical danger and flipped his attention back
toward the hooded figure who stood by watching. Waiting.

Jayden crouched. He was ready for the next
battle, one that wasn't about to come to him based on the gun that
was suddenly revealed from beneath the black robe. Jayden ran
toward the figure, purposefully keeping his body between me and the
armed person. There was a click that told me Jayden would have been
shot if the gun had been loaded properly.

An instant later, Jayden was on top of the
person, rolling across the forest floor and wrestling for the gun
until he had full control of it. With it in hand and while waving
it toward the person who was now curled up into a ball and sobbing,
Jayden, not sure what to do, shouted, "Get up and show your face!
Get up now!"

I almost gasped when the hooded figure
crawled to its knees and lowered the hood. Before us knelt a boy
who shared several similarities with Rorie. They looked to be the
same age, they both had Down syndrome, and he was every bit as
intelligent and loyal. He also shared something with Jayden. His
eye color. He was a Genetic Anomaly
and
a Surrogate.

Holy heck!

"Who are these people to you?" Jayden
shouted.

Scared, the boy jerked his stare to the
ground and remained quiet. Jayden—ignoring any special needs he
might have—snatched him up by the collar of his jacket and shouted,
"I said for you to tell me who these people are to you."

The boy was sniffling when he said, "They…
they took me in." Suddenly, the boy stared Jayden directly in the
face, and recognition that said he knew exactly who Jayden was sank
in. "Oh my God! You're… you're…"

He was shocked, confused, and—dare I say
it—awed. Jayden awed him. His words were every bit as thick as
Rorie's as he glanced toward the heap of bodies. "My brother… He's
sick. He needs medicine. You can help. You're the only one who can
help."

Jayden looked around. "Where is he? We can
help him. There was no need for all of this. We would've helped
him."

I watched Jayden and tried to decide if he
was telling the boy the truth or if this was one of those moments
when he was manipulating the boy—
much the way
he manipulates everyone
—in order to make his way to
their camp and kill the boy's sick brother. I hoped he wasn't
lying. I wanted to believe Jayden would give the sick boy the
benefit of the doubt.

The boy before us, the one who'd just been
with the people who were just trying to kill us, instantly trusted
Jayden. As quick as a flash, he jumped up and ran toward the
deepest part of the forest.

"He's this way," he shouted over his
shoulder.

Jayden glanced toward me. I swear he wanted
to check on me, see if I was okay. Instead, he said, "Carlie, go
back to camp."

I shook my head. "No, I'm coming with
you."

He planned to argue with me and demand I do
as I was told, but the boy was fast. If Jayden stood by ordering me
around for another minute, he'd lose the boy and his chance to find
the boy's brother.

He was pissed, but he didn't say anything
else. He just took off fast and hoped I wouldn't be able to keep
up. Fortunately for me, the battle royale had sent a surge of
adrenaline through me that might have me up for days. With it
pumping through my veins, I had no trouble at all keeping up with
Jayden. Much to his irritation.

Before long, we were scaling the side of a
steep hill that was so eroded the roots and vines making it up
protruded from the soil, offering me the rope I needed to pull
myself up and behind Jayden and the boy. When we were almost at the
top of the hill, the boy disappeared, ducking into a dark black
hole.

Jayden looked back at me. Again, he wanted
to demand I go back to the camp, and again, I ignored his unspoken
orders. I stood next to him outside the cave entrance with every
intention of following him inside and letting the chips fall where
they may. No matter how much he'd hurt me, I would not abandon him
here with people who might actually kill him.
Us.

Machete in one hand and gun in the other,
Jayden stepped into the cave first, making sure to keep himself
between whatever and whomever we might encounter and myself. Like a
two-year-old who was afraid I was about to be left, I reached up
and grabbed the back of his T-shirt and followed close behind
him.

The contrast between the bright, sunny day
and the dark, dreary cave was temporarily blinding. It took several
seconds for my eyes to focus and for me to take in what was before
us. Confirming for me that we'd just walked into a trap bigger than
the Gulf of Mexico, Jayden reached back and slipped the gun into my
hand. He'd forced me to spend hours at target practice during our
survival training. He knew I was nearly as good a shot as him. What
he'd not expected was to find my hands shaking convulsively.

In my opinion, and if the four giant black
panthers staring back at us were any indicator, we were about to
die.

Jayden's machete and my gun would never be
enough to take on the wild creatures that were already hissing,
growling, roaring. Two of them had their backs arched while the
other two hugged the ground of the cave in a position that told me
they were about to pounce.

As if the animals were not wild and
ferocious, the fearless boy clapped his hands once. "Sasha, heel!"
Clap.
"Vixen, heel!"
Clap.
"Jadbalja, heel!" With a
final clap, he said, "Bagheera, you heel, too!"

With each command and clearly against their
better judgment, since we looked like their next meal, the animals
dropped to their bellies and ducked their heads into their
paws.

Rewarding each of them, the boy threw a
single strip of jerky near the nose of each animal. None moved.
None looked toward the meat sitting before them.

"Eat!" the boy ordered, and instantly the
four beasts swiped a paw and pulled the treats to their mouths.

As if the scene before us was everyday and
normal, the boy glanced over to us and said, "Follow me. Sean's
this way."

He led us down a tunnel that seemed to go
deeper and deeper and get smaller and smaller and tighter and
tighter. At some point, I wondered if we were being set up. Sitting
ducks. Finally, the claustrophobic tunnel opened into a giant
cavern, one complete with stalactites, stalagmites, and a pool of
water that looked like it was lit from below by radioactive
creatures.

"Simon!" Someone weakly bellowed before
surrendering to a fit of coughing.

The boy who'd tried to kill us ran toward
one of the cave's natural columns. "Sean! I've brought people who
can help you. You're… you're not going to believe this."

Jayden and I stepped toward the crumpled
bundle of blankets, and at the same moment, we sucked in a shocked
breath.

Holy crap on a
cracker!

Jayden cursed under his breath at the same
time the boy before us uttered the same words, using the same tone,
lilt, and cadence. I'm not sure why I was surprised since the boy
crumpled in a heap on the floor might well have been Jayden's
identical twin.

Sean may have been sick and curled up before
he laid eyes on Jayden, but the minute our presence registered, he
was up with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other. His back
was against the wall, and he was edging his way toward the boy
who'd led us to him.

"Simon, what the hell have you done? No one
is supposed to find the cave," he shouted over his shoulder, and
his words echoed through the cavern.

Jayden's movements mimicked Sean's. It was
eerie just how much alike they were. I wasn't sure if identical
twins born and raised together could have been more similar in
their looks, actions, and reactions.

"Who are you?" Sean asked Jayden with the
exact same bewilderment we all felt.

It took Jayden a long time to respond.
"Look… we don't want to hurt you. In fact, I think the two of us
have lots to talk about," Jayden finally said, waving his hand
between them, alluding to the fact that they were too much alike
for it to be coincidence. "Let's put our weapons away. Then you can
tell us what's wrong with you… why you're hiding out in this cave
and dying."

As if I were his mortal enemy, Sean glared
my way.

"I don't trust a Surrogate in the presence
of a Procreate,"
—cough—
"and
pretending as if Procreates don't want to keep us down."
Cough.
"They treat us like shit and
expect us to lap it up like it's a gourmet meal."
Cough.
"I'm done living like that. If I die in
this cave, at least I'll die a man who refused to compromise his
morals"
—cough—
"and his ethics. A
man who refused to pretend as if I were not born a"
—cough… cough… cough—
"slave."

It took everything in me not to run to the
side of this man and see if there was anything I could offer him.
He looked too much like Jayden for me not to care that he was dying
before my very eyes.

"I-if I leave, will you talk to Jayden? Let
him know what's wrong with you so we can go back to camp, get you
some medicine, and see if we can save your life?" I asked, peeking
my head around Jayden's arm.

Jayden had stepped between Sean and me,
shielding me as much as possible from the man he considered a
threat.

"You'll never leave here"
—cough—
"if I have anything to do with it."
Cough.
"If I let you do that,
you'll bring every Surrogate you can find back
here,"
—cough—
"and they'll murder my
brother and me in cold blood for treason."

"What would make them do that?" Jayden asked
calmly, tucking me farther behind him.

Sean shrugged. "I am Surrogate Sean Serkis.
I left my post. I didn't tell anyone where I was going."
Cough.
"I had to get to Asylum to
save my brother. I'd heard Barone was going to begin a targeted
attack there."
Cough.
"He planned
to rid the nation of as many of the genetically mutated as
possible."
Cough.
"I may not be
anything more than a Surrogate in their eyes, and they may have
kept me away from my brother as much as they possibly
could,"
—cough—
"but I-I couldn't let
them do that do him."
Cough.
"He
didn't deserve"
—cough… cough…
cough—"
that."

Never skipping a beat, Jayden asked, "How is
it your brother got mixed up with a bunch of Outcasts?"

Simon's laugh was wet and wheezy. "Who the
hell would be better?"
Cough.
"They
hate everything to do with Barone and our government. As long
as…"
—cough—
"as long as I kept
hidden, they'd"
—cough—
"protect him
with their lives."

"So you've been holed up here. How
long?"