Extracted (3 page)

She lifts the hat off her head and brings it to her chest with a sarcastic bow before stuffing it back on.

Okay. That’s kind of impressive, I admit to myself.

Nearly everyone is staring at us now. Some are wondering aloud if it’s part of the show, while others are threatening to get the police.

She grabs an oil lamp from the wall and hurls it at me. I duck, and it hits the wall behind me in an explosion of light that catches the rug and the bottom of the white screen. The crowd that had been watching us runs wildly out of the theater.

Turning to look at the flames is my mistake, but I can’t help it—the urge to look is impossible to resist. As soon as the flames register in my brain, my legs turn to mush. The Hollows girl is on me again before I can move, her fist meeting my jaw with the force of a freight train.

I fall to my hands and knees. I grasp her ankle and pull. She falls onto her backside. I roll on top of her and draw back to punch, but before I can, she wraps her leg around my neck and pulls me off her. She twists, and lightning pain shoots up my neck.

For a few breaths, I can’t move. Slowly, the feeling returns to my fingertips. When I can sit up, she’s gone, and the room around me is full of rolling smoke. I cough and my chest constricts, refusing to take in air.

I can see the door and the daylight beyond even through the dense, black clouds. I want to run. Every nerve in my body is an electric current, driving me out of the path of the flames. My insides are screaming. Behind me, the screen falls in ragged sheets, sending embers and smoke into the air.

Then, I hear the scream.

I follow the sound, pressing myself as close to the ground as I can manage. In the far corner, a boy is curled into a ball with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Beside me, a piece of ceiling falls, fraying my nerves. I can’t breathe. Can’t move. The fear is paralyzing, spreading, and it clogs my veins like concrete. My body and mind are at war. Suddenly, I’m back in my nightmare. I’m in a bedroom, but not mine. There’s someone there with me—a boy whose face I can’t quite see. He’s yelling something. I’m trying to run to him, but my legs are weak. It feels like running through quicksand. I scream and cry and pound the ground with my fists, but it’s no use.

“Help, please!”

I open my eyes, and I’m back in the theater. The little boy is right in front of me. I can hear and see him. I scream against the fear, and it shatters like glass. I can move again. Relief floods me, driving me forward. I’m not going to die here, my mind tells me. As I crawl toward the boy, another voice echoes in my head.

“Ember. Leave the boy,” Tesla demands.

I shake my head and cough. “I can’t.”

“Ember. Leave the boy. That’s an order.”

I’m still coughing, my body doubled over in convulsions. I don’t have much time before the smoke and flames eat me alive, but I know I can’t leave him. My body is moving on its own now.

“I can save him! I can save him this time!” This time. I’ve had this dream before with another boy. In my dreams he dies—or maybe we both die in the end—but they never seem to get that far. I know the outcome, though, even if I’ve never made it that far in the dream. This isn’t a dream—this is real. And today, here, now, I can save us both.

Tesla’s voice echoes again, louder now. “That is an order. Leave the boy, and get to your team now. They are engaged at the wharf.”

The order makes me pause. I’m so used to following every order Tesla gives me that it’s as natural as breathing. But this feels wrong. “I can’t,” I whisper hoarsely.

“It’s not your job to interfere with this. Get to your team now. Leave the boy.”

I can’t pry my eyes off the boy. He can’t be a day over eight years old, I decide as he reaches up, clutching the collar of his shirt, and begins to chew on the lapel.

The gesture is familiar. Not the same exactly, but something in the back of my mind makes enough of a connection that my hesitation snaps like an overstretched rubber band.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble for this,” I say to myself as I lunge for the boy, wrap my arms around him, and press his face into my neck.

“Can you climb onto my back?” I ask. He nods limply. I wrap his arms around my neck and crawl for the door.

It feels like hours before a dozen pairs of hands grab us, some pulling the boy away from me, some dragging me forward. The hem of my dress is on fire. Someone stomps on it. I hear a loud, piercing whistle. The fire department.

Looking over, I see the boy clinging to his mother’s skirt as she holds him, tears of relief running down both their faces. My eyes lock onto his. The look he gives me isn’t one of relief or thanks. It’s fear. As if, somewhere in his small mind, he knows I’m different. Not right. I look away because it’s true. Even among freaks, I’m a freak.

I struggle to my feet, pushing away the hands trying to help me. Anger boils inside me. Memories of the nightmares hover like ghosts on the edges of my mind, struggling to make themselves clear. But I don’t have time for that now, so I let them fade away. My team needs me. I stumble into a run toward the expo hall, praying my legs won’t give out on me before I get there.

I tap my ear. “Which way?”

“Left,” Tesla responds.

Ethan’s voice breaks in. “Ember? If you aren’t too busy, we could really use a hand here.”

He sounds winded and hurt. I wince, and my concern for my friends—my family—overwhelms everything else. There’s no such thing as pain now. I’m light on the balls of my feet. Around me the air thins, faces blur, and noises blend into one, indistinguishable cry.

I run for them, praying I’m not too late.

The common room in Wardenclyffe Tower isn’t the cleanest place on the planet, but I have come to love the dirt-stained rugs and the ugly, mustard-colored walls. Today is a good day. There’s no sign of any resident rodents slinking across the floor, nobody is bleeding too badly, and there’s a general tone of relaxation in the air.

I sit at a table with Nobel as he plays with his little inventions and experiments. Across the room, Stein is polishing a battle-axe. I take a copper spring from the table of tech and fling it across the room. She doesn’t look up as it bounces off the wall behind her. I grab another and stretch it a little more so that it will make it the distance. I get her right in the shoulder. Perfect shot. She looks up, rubbing her arm, and I flash her a wide, cheesy smile. Stein puts the rag down and heaves the battle-axe over her shoulder.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Stein asks.

I crack my neck. “I’m sure. It’ll get the blood pumping. Help me think.”

She grins. “Your funeral.”

With a wave, she’s off, sprinting toward the other side of the common area.

I chase after her, stopping to grab an axe of my own, and find her waiting for me, perched in a crouch at the lip of the half-pipe. The skaters grab their boards and gravitate toward where a small crowd is forming, and I know why. Stein has stripped off the long trench coat she normally wears, leaving only her black leather pants and tank top. She tips her top hat to me before tossing it aside as well. She looks alert, dangerous, and smoking hot. I adjust my grip and slowly swing the axe. She springs onto the back of an old tattered couch.

All in the common room have now abandoned their activities to come watch us practice. We don’t have any specific room we practice in—it’s kind of a move or be moved situation anytime someone is sparring. The common room wears scars from many such matches; as a matter of fact, the south wall still has a hole the exact shape of Chernobyl’s head.

What’s left of the heavy damask drapes are now moth-eaten and threadbare. Even the steel plates covering the windows are scratched and scuffed, bits rusted and falling away, and the armchair has a gaping hole down the back from the last time we practiced. Around me, familiar faces watch with excitement.

Their eyes don’t bother me—they only fuel me, make me burn hotter. It must be how rock stars feel on stage. Everyone wishing they could be you, just for a moment. I twirl the axe again, drawing whistles and applause from my audience. It’s almost enough to take my mind off the events of the wharf. Some poetic wise guy hits the old CD player and “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC blares through the ancient speakers.

Stein blows me a kiss from her perch. I pretend to grab it out of the air and stuff it in my pocket near a handful of bottle caps. Some couples snuggle or hold hands and take long walks. Not us. This is how we dance.

A cloud of dust rises from the couch as Stein lunges off the edge and runs at me. I swing the axe, knowing it won’t connect. She drops to her knees at the last second and uses a worn Oriental rug to slide past me, the blade narrowly missing the top of her head. On her knees, she punches me in the side of the leg, knocking me off-balance just long enough for her to tuck and roll away.

The crowd stamps its boots to the beat. Some of the kids are slapping their knees and singing along. Somewhere behind me is a shrill whistle, the release of steam pressure from a prosthetic appendage.

“How did that redhead at the Fair ever get a piece of you?” I ask as we begin to exchange blows.

“Please. That chick had zero skills. She just got lucky.”

“I wish I could get that lucky with you sometimes,” I grumble.

That pulls Stein to a stop, and I’m able to kick her in the stomach and send her tumbling backward. For a split second, I’m afraid I might have really hurt her. But when she looks up at me, she’s all smiles. “Is that so?”

Now I stop. “That’s not quite what I meant.”

“Oh, I know what you meant.” She lunges again and kicks the axe out of my hands. It lands with a clang and skids across the floor. “You know, you’re lucky Nobel shoved that spare Contra down your throat, or you never would have made it back to the Tower.”

“Your point is…?”

“My point is, be more careful, or next time I’ll kill you myself.”

I look around at my friends. They’re all cheering, and all eyes are on us. I love this moment.

“Aww, shucks. You really do care.”

Stein turns her back to me, wraps her arm around the long, golden rope attached to the drapes, and uses it to climb her way up the window covering until she is balancing on a thick ledge of crown molding above the main window.

“What are you planning to do from way up there?” I call, unable to keep the amusement out of my voice. “You getting tired already?”

“You wish. I’m just giving you a breather. I’m not even breaking a sweat here.”

“You don’t sweat.”

She laughs, and the sound is smooth and deep, like honey. “True. I glisten. You on the other hand, you look a bit peaked. You sure you aren’t going to pass out again?”

I sigh. “I’m never living that down, am I?”

She makes a face like she’s thinking about it, then brushes her dark hair out of her eyes and winks at me.

I reach over to retrieve the axe and pitch it toward the plaster ceiling above her. A light dusting of white powder rains down on her, making her cough and release one hand from the rod to cover her mouth. I yank the curtain and she falls, landing right in my arms. I’ve almost forgotten the crowd is there until they start cheering and clapping again.

“Nice catch,” she whispers, her face so close to mine I’m sure no one else can hear. I relish in the moment even though we have an audience. She gently touches the scarred sides of my face and neck.

Her fingers take me back to the first time I lay in Stein’s lap and let her give me my first rifting tattoo. We all get chevrons for each mission. Most of us put them down our spine, but Stein convinced me to tattoo my scar—to change it—so that it looks like a hand made out of smoke. Its inky fingers crawl up along my jawline, as if cradling the side of my face. It’s a piece of her that’s always holding on to a piece of me.

I lower my face to hers, and we touch noses. But when I tilt my head to steal a kiss, she wriggles free and runs into the crowd. Soon enough, she emerges from our cheering fans, wielding a blunt-edged broadsword.

“No fair,” I grumble. Something hits me in the foot. I look down to see that someone has slid me a flail. Standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding the sword like a cane, Stein grins. Behind her, the crowd thrusts fistfuls of money into the air as Nobel scrambles to collect the bets.

“Five to one on Stein,” he shouts, winking at me over his shoulder.

Stein lunges, slicing wildly at me. She’s not used to fighting with such a heavy weapon, and the weight of it is throwing her off-balance. I take advantage and press forward. She holds the sword like a baseball player, and I manage to wrap the ball and chain around the blade. Both flail and sword fall to the floor.

“No cheating!” she yells, backing up slowly.

“If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying,” I say.

Stein backs away, and another weapon slides from the crowd of Hollows in her direction. She picks up the sickle. In her head to toe black, I can’t help but think, if that’s what death looks like, he can take me now.

“Guys! Quit being so helpful, okay?” she says with a grin as she takes a step forward.

I expect her to force the advantage, but instead she blows past me and runs down the stairs toward Nobel’s workshop.

“Oh man. I hope you don’t have anything important in there.” The last time we sparred in the lab we almost destroyed a cabinet full of rifting tech. I cringe at the memory of the three-day clean-up duty.

A look of near panic crosses Nobel’s face and he jerks his head. “Go get her.”

I chase her, grabbing two sai from the crowd like a marathon runner grabbing a baton.

“Really, guys?” I say, blowing past them. “Sai against a sickle? Thanks.”

The stairwell is narrow, steep, and empty all the way down. I look back as our audience begins pressing itself into the stairwell.

Slowly slinking down the spiral stairway, I take one step at a time with my back to the outer wall. Stein likes to scale things, so I scan the rafters as I go. Walking down these steps is like entering a tomb that’s been sealed for thousands of years. Why Nobel keeps his lab down here is beyond me.