Flame (23 page)

“Brought water. Some fruit.”

Waverly spied the man for half a moment, and her breath caught in her throat. It was Mather’s Justice of the Peace, the one with the iron jaw and the insignia on his shoulder. His gaze skirted over the interior of the container, but Jacob slipped between him and Waverly, blocking his view.

“Hiding something?” Tom asked.

Jacob sniggered.

“Because some people would be interested to know if you’ve run into anyone.”

“Nope,” Jacob said.

There was a pause. Waverly looked from the door to Ginny, to the knife she held. Ginny shook her head at Waverly, slowly, meaningfully.

“Waverly Marshall went missing,” Tom said. “I thought you might want to know that.”

“Oh really?” Jacob said, feigning slight interest. “When?”

“It’s been about twelve hours now.”

“Haven’t seen her. Wish I had. I’d like to get my hands on her.”

“Yeah,” Tom said, stretching the word out.

Through all of this, Waverly’s mind raced. If she opened her mouth, Ginny could stab her right now. If she kept quiet, she might live longer, but …

“Help!” she called, almost before she’d decided.

With lightning speed, Ginny darted to a crouch over Waverly and pressed her blade against her neck. Waverly nearly fainted from fear. The room turned orange, then gray.

“You have her,” the man said. “I knew it.”

She heard the door sliding open, a brief scuffle, and suddenly Mather’s big guard was standing over her. She stared at him, panting like an animal.
Please
.

“What are you going to do with her?” Thomas said. The way he looked at Waverly, with complete detachment, deepened her terror.
He’s as bad as they are.

“None of your business, Tom,” Ginny spat. “She’s ours, fair and square.”

“I don’t care,” Tom said, holding up his hands. “I’m just telling you. If you’re planning on trading her, you won’t get anything from Anne. The Pastor hates her as much as you do. So you may as well…” He drew his thumb across his neck.

“We’re not trading her,” Ginny finally said. “That’s not why we took her.”

“What for, then?” Thomas lifted one corner of his mouth in a confused sneer.

Ginny stood and pointed a finger at the big guard’s chest. It was almost comical, seeing a tiny woman trying to push around a huge man, but something about her scared Thomas, because he took half a step back. “It’s none of your concern, Tom.”

“Anyway, you guys are safe here for a while yet,” Thomas said. “But it would sure help me protect you if I knew what you were planning.”

“Oh, you know,” Ginny said casually. “We’re just trying to help the Pastor out. Get back in her good graces. Show we can be useful, you know. For the mission.”

Waverly was confused by this, since Ginny had just avowed her hatred for Mather, but she knew not to contradict.

Thomas nodded. “Well, anything you need from me…”

“Food is all we need,” Ginny said briskly.

“Any news?” Jacob asked.

Thomas rubbed his chin as though trying to recall. “Oh! We found that kid.”

“Seth?” Jake asked eagerly.

Waverly froze.

Thomas nodded, and Jake punched the air and laughed. “I told you he’d get out of the brig, Ginny!”

“Yeah,” Ginny said and rolled her eyes.

Waverly felt as if the life had gone out of her. Mather had Seth. Kieran was Mather’s pawn. She’d won. There was no point in fighting anymore.
Except Mom,
Waverly thought as fresh tears came.
What will happen to Mom?

“He’s hurt,” Thomas said, watching Jacob’s expression. “Want to get a message to him?”

“Hurt how?” Jacob asked warily.

“His hand. Bad infection.”

Waverly remembered Seth’s mangled fingers and the dirty bandage he’d had on his hand. She hadn’t even asked him about it.

“You can’t do nothing for him?” Jacob asked. “Get him a doctor.”

“Pastor didn’t say to.” Thomas pulled a sloppily rolled cigarette out of his breast pocket, tapped it against the back of his hand, and picked up the Bunsen burner to light it.

“Did she say
not
to get him a doctor?” Jake asked. “Specifically?”

Waverly looked at Jacob. Genuine concern had softened his features, making him look boyish and strangely kind. When she looked at Ginny, the woman glared at her. She dropped her gaze to the wheel of the landing vehicle and tried to go to a place inside herself.

“Anyway.” Thomas set the Bunsen burner back under the tin of oatmeal and took a long drag on his cigarette, eyes shifting lazily between Ginny and Jacob. “I’ll be off.”

“When will you come back?” Ginny asked gruffly.

“Don’t know. You’ve got food for a few days.”

“Yeah,” Jacob said.

“I’ll check back with you.” Thomas stepped out of the container.

The couple glared silently at each other as they listened to Thomas’s footsteps fade away, then Jacob sat back down on his box. “I don’t like lying to him.”

“Jake, sometimes you’re so stupid I can’t even believe it.”

“We can
trust
Tom. He and I used to play together in grade school.”

“He’s not a kid anymore, unlike you. He’s loyal to Mather. He’d try to stop us.”

“Maybe not,” Jake offered, “if I promise to make him my right-hand man when I’m captain.”

Ginny sneered. “He’s just keeping an eye on us for Mather. He thinks we’re stupid, that we don’t know he’s working for her. And we’ll let him think that until the time comes to make our move.”

“You’re wrong about him,” Jacob said, staring into the flame of the burner. “You’ll see.”

“Right,” Ginny said grimly, then glanced angrily at Waverly. Without warning, she kicked Waverly in the leg with the toe of her boot.

“When I say quiet,” she growled, “you keep your mouth closed. Understand?”

“Yes,” Waverly whispered.

“
Understand?
” Waverly felt a handful of her hair being grabbed and her head wrenched backward. She could smell the woman’s sour breath as she sobbed. “Because you don’t seem to learn very fast.”

“I’m learning,” Waverly pleaded. “I am.”

ALLIES

“Thank you for seeing me,” Kieran said to the ancient man sitting at the mammoth oak desk. Dr. Carver rested his knobby hands on the handle of his beautifully carved cane and stared at Kieran with pinpoint eyes as he worked his jaw around a prune. He picked up a cup and clumsily spat the pit into it, then leaned back in his chair. So this was the evil doctor. He looked to be at death’s door.

“I was curious to meet you,” the man said, lifting his chin. “Mather’s little friend.”

Kieran squirmed in his chair, which squeaked embarrassingly. He heard a movement behind him and glanced back to see that the doctor’s assistant stood with his arms folded over his chest, looking at Kieran coldly.

“You are concerned about Waverly Marshall, I gathered from your text,” the doctor said.

“I think Jacob Pauley might have found her,” Kieran said.

“That’s what worries us,” the old man said thoughtfully with a glance at his assistant. “That’s why we’re using all our resources to find her. But I’m afraid I must tell you, young man, we are not holding out much hope.”

Kieran’s heart sank. This man didn’t seem remotely concerned about Waverly. “Where have you looked for her?”

“We’ve given the ship a thorough going over.”

“She was last seen in the storage bay,” Kieran said slowly. “So if Jacob Pauley came across her there, he could be hiding her in a shipping container.”

The doctor laughed. “So all we need to do is search every container. There’s only, what? Ten, fifteen thousand of them … We’ll find her within the year.”

Anger surged through Kieran. “What about surveillance? They must be coming and going for supplies.”

“Mather won’t let us near the video system.”

“We could set up cameras of our own.” Kieran turned to look at the assistant, who was watching him. “Hook them into a computer network wired separately from the central com system. Mather won’t even know about it.”

The old man pulled on the end of his nose a couple times. “All right. Jared, will you see to it?”

“Of course,” the assistant said quietly. The old man turned toward his computer screen, shooing Kieran away.

“There’s one other thing,” Kieran said in a rush. “Waverly told me you’re a neurologist? That you might be able to cure our parents?”

The old man squirmed, but he arranged his withered features into a regretful smile. “I made no promises.”

“Can you help?” Kieran said with barely controlled rage. “My mother is very … damaged.”

The doctor lowered his eyes in a dim imitation of sympathy. “I’m sorry. I have been … unsuccessful.”

“What have you tried?” Kieran pressed. “What kind of drug did the damage?”

“It’s all very technical,” he said with a wave of the hand. “I couldn’t explain it.”

“I’m very smart,” Kieran said slowly. “Why don’t you try?”

“I haven’t explored all the avenues,” the doctor replied. “I’ll know more soon.”

Kieran watched the old man’s nose twitch once, twice.
He’s lying,
Kieran suddenly knew with murderous certainty.
He doesn’t care about helping our parents. He doesn’t care about finding Waverly. He’s been lying to her all along.

“I can understand the Pastor’s interest in you,” the doctor was saying to Kieran, nodding toward the door. “You’re an intelligent, passionate young man.”

Kieran stood, eyeing the doctor with unvarnished hatred, but immediately the assistant moved next to him. Jared was slightly taller than Kieran, and light on his feet. He looked wiry and strong, but his subservience to this weak old man was puzzling. Jared gestured toward the door and Kieran followed him through it. Jared kept his pace even with Kieran’s, and when they reached the end of the corridor, he opened the door for him, cocking his head toward the stairs.

They walked down a flight together before Jared finally spoke. “If we want to help Waverly,” he said quietly, his head turned away from the camera, “we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

Kieran stopped, but with a glance at the security camera over them, Jared pulled Kieran down to the next level. Kieran didn’t see a microphone attached to the camera and guessed that Jared had taken him here so they could talk without anyone else hearing.

“The doctor doesn’t want to find her?” Kieran asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jared said. His voice was gravelly with fatigue, and he rubbed at his red eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Anyway, he’s not too concerned.”

“So he
was
using her.”

“Like Mather is using you,” Jared said out of the side of his mouth.

Kieran was silent as they descended the next flight. When they reached the level where his apartment was, he turned to face Jared. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want Waverly back,” the man said.

“Then what are you going to do about it?” Kieran challenged, choosing for the moment to ignore Jared’s odd choice of words.

The man’s face hardened. “Can you get out of your apartment tonight?”

“Probably. I’m not under guard.”

“Wait for my text.” Jared opened the door for Kieran. “We’re finding her tonight.”

“How?” Kieran asked.

Jared looked surprised. “Your plan. It’s a good one. I’ll set up the cameras. Be ready.”

Kieran went home with butterflies in his stomach. The apartment smelled of fresh rolls, but when his mother served him one, it tasted as though it had a pound of salt in it. He spat it out and watched, astonished, as his mother ate her own roll eagerly.

“Mom,” he whispered.

She looked up, surprised. Crumbs from her roll clung to the corners of her lips.

He couldn’t speak, so he wrapped his arms around her and held on. She laughed at first, tried to pull away to look at him, but finally gave in to his embrace and held him.

Still my mom,
Kieran told himself.
Even if there’s no cure.

Later, they read in companionable silence, an ancient recording of the Bach piano inventions playing over the com system. Kieran looked out the porthole just as a shooting star whizzed by. It wasn’t really a star—that was just what the adults called a stray particle that was ignited in a collision with the hull. It happened very rarely, so whenever anyone saw one, he or she’d always call out, “Make a wish!”

“Let us find her alive,” Kieran whispered under his breath.

“What, honey?”

“Nothing.” What point would there be in telling her? So Anne Mather could interrogate her later?

Lena smiled absently and went back to her reading.

At bedtime, Kieran went to his room to wait. His com screen showed a short text from Felicity asking,
Any word?

No,
Kieran wrote back, choosing not to mention his plan with Jared, for her protection.
How are you?

Worried,
she responded almost immediately.
Scared.

Me too,
he responded.
Don’t take any chances, okay?

You neither,
she wrote back. And that was the end of it.

It was getting late when Kieran lay down on his bed, the crook of his elbow over his eyes, waiting for Jared’s text. He was in a light doze when he jerked awake to the
ping
of an incoming message. He sprang to his feet and clicked the message icon.

Storage bay, central stairwell, now
was all it said.

Kieran crammed his feet into his shoes and ran out the door, relieved that Mather still hadn’t posted guards on him. Once in the stairwell, he slid down the metal handrails, holding his arms out for balance, swinging around as he hit each landing. He hadn’t gone very far before his heart started beating madly, and he had to stop to catch his breath to keep from fainting.

Running down the stairs would be even worse, so he kept sliding and swinging around, his heart pumping painfully, his fingertips tingling. “Thank God,” he cried aloud when he saw he was nearing the storage bay level. He was swinging around to the final landing when a dark shape whirled at him.