Forged (7 page)

Emma is screaming for us to run, but there are two more men already bearing down on Blaine. I wish I had a knife, or a gun, or
anything
other than a worthless flashlight. All that's left is my fists, and I don't even have a chance to use them. When I pivot to face Gage, his arm is already swinging, a club barreling at my head.

The world snuffs out like a candle.

I THINK WE'RE ON WATER
.
It feels like the floor beneath my feet is moving separately from me. My hands are bound in my lap, but I'm able to reach back and check where I was clubbed. I find a massive welt and wince.

I'm lucky it's not worse. I'm lucky I'm not dead.

“How are you feeling?”

Gage.

We're in a cramped bedroom with an extremely low ceiling. I'm on one bed, and he's on another, both feet planted on the skinny patch of floor that separates us. No longer in the dimly lit factory, I can see he has a black eye and wonder if Bree managed to clock him last night. The thought almost makes me smile. Then I hear the unmistakable sound of
waves against a hull. We must be on water after all. Going who knows where.

“You're a snake, ratting us out like that.”

“You act like it was easy,” he says, “but you've seen how Nick operates. He had me deliver your lodging instructions in
code
, for God's sake! It took months of eavesdropping before I even caught wind of his vague plans to infiltrate some Order facility, how the infamous Gray Weathersby and a few Expats might play a part. So I passed along what I heard, and that pretty brunette got planted in town as a lure.”

Gage draws a smoke from his jacket pocket and lights it.

“But then,” he continues, “this is the best part: I was sent to meet your team! No one was very forthcoming with information—Nick's got everyone worked into a paranoid frenzy—and the chopper had exactly zero useful information stashed onboard, but I wasn't concerned. The team was finally in town. I knew you'd be moving soon, so I had the lure transferred closer to the docks. And when that blond fireball showed up at the Wheelhouse last night, I figured she'd spill everything if I buttered her up enough, showed her a good time. But she turned out to be quite the bitch. Called me a pig and everything.”

“I'm sure you deserved what she dished out and then some.”

He leans closer, blows a cloud of smoke directly into my
face. “Let's remember who's tied up and who's calling the shots. Show a little respect.”

“Right, because you're clearly so deserving of it.”

“Your brother and the brunette are above. If you want them to stay alive, you'll watch your tongue.” He smiles at my newfound silence, the expression wicked. Why did he seem so likable yesterday when I first met him?

“Nick and his codes,” Gage muses. “The funny thing is he thinks they'll save him, but whether it was the first, third, or
thirtieth
option your team decided on, it would still have been one of his hideouts: the restaurant, the bookshop, his sister's, that new post he's working to set up above the Wheelhouse.” He taps his smoke against the rim of a near-empty glass between his feet. Ash swirls into the liquid. “But thanks to your brother spouting off about getting
back to the bookshop
, I don't even have to visit Nick's places one at a time. That twitchy moron won't suspect anything until it's too late, leaving the perfect window for me to visit the shop when I get home and finish the job. You will be back in Order hands, the man they know as Badger will be dead, and I'll retire a rich man of twenty-two.”

“Why?” It's the only thing I can manage to get out. “You're from AmWest. Why would you
help
the Order?”

Gage stands, hunched slightly on account of the low ceiling. “I'm not helping anyone but myself. Nick ran me out of
business and then had the nerve to act like he was doing me a favor by taking me on his crew. Bossing me around. Paying me next to nothing. Acting like I was too stupid to handle anything important. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realizes I worked against him. His last thought before I squeeze the trigger will be that I pulled this off right from under his pointed, greasy nose.”

I see everything in that moment: Gage talking about clientele falling to the Order, because he is the leak. Badger being so skittish and on edge. How he stepped out immediately after we arrived so that he could visit one of his crew. Armed. Ready to stop the leak.
It was uneventful. Probably could have skipped the whole thing
. Badger went after the wrong guy.

“He knew something was up,” I spit out. “Badger knew someone on his team was defecting.”

“Ah, but look who's on a boat about to hand a fugitive to the Order, and look who's still back in Pine Ridge with a slightly smaller crew.”

The boat's motor slows before Gage visits me again. He secures a blindfold over my eyes and hauls me above deck.

We are shoved and shuffled to the edge of the boat. I assume
we
, but it's possible Emma and Blaine aren't heading where I am. Or that they're already dead. I strain to hear
anything of use, but only Gage's voice is audible over the wind. Mist from the Gulf blows onto my front, icy pricks against my nose and neck.

“I'll report back when Badger's taken care of. If the others are with him, do you want them alive?'

An answer I can't make out.

“No, that's fine. I have no problem wiping the place clean. Happy to be of service.”

Something mumbled.

“Tonight,” Gage says sternly. “I'll do it as soon as I'm back. And then I get the rest of the pay? Good, good.”

I'm shoved over the edge of our boat and hauled onto another. My shin bangs something. Hard. I keep waiting for the blast of a firearm, but it never comes. That would be too easy. They didn't go through all this trouble just to kill me.

Gage's boat roars to life, then fades out across the Gulf.

In the darkness beneath my blindfold, I picture Charlie complaining about eggs, and Aiden chasing Rusty, and Clipper's blushing face at the mention of Riley. Sammy cracks a joke about my tardiness, saying Blaine and I can find our way through a forest but manage to get lost among marked streets. Bree is unamused. She turns to Badger, scowling, and says something is wrong. Adam agrees.

They sweep the town and find the dropped crate of water. At Mercy's, they learn Blaine and I never arrived. When they
get back to the bookshop they put an armed watch at the door and start weighing their options, discussing what might have happened, devising a plan.

These are the things I tell myself to dull the twisting sensation in my stomach, to ignore the bile scratching at my throat.

Their executioner is coming, but they'll be prepared. They have to be. I repeat it, over and over, not sure if I'm lying to myself.

We're moving again. I crouch on the deck to shield my face from the frigid air. Nearby, someone laughs, shrill and in tune with the clawing wind.

Far too soon the engine slows, then dies out completely. I'm lugged to my feet, off the boat, toward whatever—and whoever—is waiting.

I CAN'T SEE A THING
, but the rhythmic lull of the water and the soft thump of our boat against an unseen structure tells me we are in some kind of port. The strain of pulleys and the clank of cargo suggests a large one. Surrounded, somehow, given the echo. By mountains? Rock? Someone shoves me between the shoulder blades, forcing me forward. The ground beneath my feet is sturdy. Not dirt or mud like the streets of Bone Harbor or Pine Ridge, but man-made. Even and level. Slick with a sheen from the ocean.

“No, that one's going to Lode,” I hear someone shout. “To Lode, you idiot! Dock 3B.”

“What about the Haven shipment?”

“It went out yesterday, with the other cargo for Taem and Radix.”

Radix
. Another domed city? I tuck the name away and breathe deep. It smells different here than the other gulfside ports I've been in. There's the normal salty air and the lingering stench of diesel engines, but there's also something cool and sharp about the place. I'm tugged along by an escort I can't see, and I start to feel like we're walking into the belly of a cave. A cave with damp, bloody walls, if the metallic tinge to the air tells me anything.

The
swoosh
of a door sliding open reminds me of Union Central, Frank's base of operations in Taem. The commotion and smells are cut off as the door closes behind us and the lighting—even from beneath my blindfold—changes. It is bright here.

I try to keep track of my path, but there are too many turns, plus a few levels. My escort pushes me—hard—and I fall to my knees. A door slams. It's pitch-black now. Even after I use my still-bound arms to pull the blindfold off I can't see much. I feel my way around the room. Maybe two wingspans by another two. Windowless. One door, locked.

Not a room. A cell.

I shout for a while, but no one comes. I wait, and that does no good either. I sit with nothing but my thoughts and the welt on the back of my skull.

I should have listened to Blaine's warning, should have known Emma being in Pine Ridge could mean nothing good. But I couldn't walk away. That was the beauty of her as a lure. Frank—the Order—knew this. After seeing Emma, I couldn't
not
investigate.

I rest my head against the wall. I wonder if Gage has made it back to the bookshop yet. I wonder if the team is ready for him.

My throat clenches.

The worst part is not that I am alone and terrified, but that I am helpless. I understand why Bree broke down when she was isolated in Burg's tunnels. Helplessness weighs on a person, and in tight quarters, it's downright suffocating.

I fall asleep leaning against the wall, and the unadorned room is lit when I wake, pale on three sides, a mirrored wall opposite me. I look far less tired than I feel.

“Morning, Gray,” my reflection says.

I flinch, knocking my head against the wall. There's no mirror, just something—someone—far worse.

Forged Me stands.

“Where are the others?”

“They're safe,” he says. “And they'll remain that way so long as you cooperate.”

My insides curl. Blaine. The last thing I said to him. The
way we spent the past few days fighting.

Forged Me plucks at a fraying thread along the cuff of his uniform. An
Order
uniform, which means we're likely in an Order facility.

The Compound.

I wasn't on either boat for long, certainly not long enough to travel across the whole of the Gulf or get to any domed city. The place we docked, the way the noises echoed and boats were loaded—that must have been the shipping center, the channel of water cutting inland and slipping beneath the Compound itself. I feel foolish for not putting it together sooner.

I assume I slept through the night, that it is now Wednesday, two days prior to the first Friday of March, the day of our planned inspection. If Gage didn't get to the team, could they be on their way to me right now?

“Now I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Forged Me says. “Gage gave us some disturbing news. He said Badger was planning to infiltrate an Order establishment and that you would be involved. He believed the strike would happen this week. Do you know anything about that?”

He looks so much like me. Identical. Down to the shape of his nose and the shade of his hair and the way his colorless eyes are veiled in shadow from being so deep set. The last time I saw this Forgery, our team was fleeing from Burg.
He slit Jackson's throat and then went crazy when our team slipped free. The image of him screaming as our car tore away from Burg's wall—back arched and arms outstretched—is seared into my memory. There is nothing I can do to sway his beliefs. Unlike Jackson, he is a newer model, an F-Gen5 like the Forged version of Emma we encountered. Forever loyal to Frank, a slave to his orders.

“It would be ironic if your goal was
this
establishment,” he says, “seeing as you'll never leave it.”

I keep my face as blank as possible.

“I will get answers from you,” he snarls, “and it won't be pretty. Are you sure you don't want to speak up while you're still in possession of all your limbs?”

Is this what I sound like when I speak? Harsh? Emotionless? Threats bound to every syllable? I stare up at him, attempting to appear indifferent. I can't let him see that I'm terrified or he's as good as won.

“Fine. Just remember that you picked this.”

He winds up and kicks me in the stomach. I'm still coughing when he leaves.

Someone reblindfolds me so that I can be moved. We ascend two levels, but I can't keep track of all the turns before or after the stairs. Now, with my legs and arms strapped to the corresponding parts of a chair, the blindfold is torn off.

The room is excruciatingly bright, but windowless. One wall is made of mirrored glass, and overhead lights glare, bouncing off it and the honeycombed floor tiles. I blink a few times, adjusting to the brightness. Behind me, I can hear someone shuffling through cabinets, and when I glance at the mirrored wall, I see the back of a white lab coat, its wearer hunched over to study something on the counter. A tray of menacing-looking tools waiting beside my chair catches my attention next. The restraints holding me in place seem suddenly tighter.

Directly in front of me, my Forged counterpart sits with one foot resting against his opposite thigh. A notebook is propped against his bent leg.

“Let's try this again,” he says. “I want the details of whatever mission you were about to attempt with Badger, and I want the names of everyone involved.”

I say two words to him, one of which is a swear.

“Now really, Gray. There's no need to be so hostile. Here, I'll even compromise with you and table that question for now. Fair? Let's start with something smaller: the location of the press that keeps printing papers with our face on the covers.”

For once, I'm happy Adam kept so much information from me. I can't answer this question even if I wanted to.

“Nothing?” the Forgery continues. “How about one measly
name? An Expat or insurgent AmEast citizen. Anyone you want. High ranking or low. You give me the name, and I'll jot it down.”

He is so smug, so relaxed. I can tell he's not going to drop the interrogation.
Interrogation
. I'm in an interrogation room. The tray of tools at my side becomes much more ominous.

Delay him
, I think.
Just keep him talking
.

“You're not actually in charge of this place, are you?”

“Of course not. We just thought I might intimidate you most.” He writes something down in his notebook, only to glance up at me in a manner that makes his eyes look like slits beneath his brow. “It's working, right?”

I grunt, worried that if I speak the truth will be evident in my voice.

“I'm waiting,” he says.

“Well, keep waiting! I'm not telling you crap.”

He waves a hand to whoever is behind me. “Gray's going to need a little convincing.”

I hear footsteps, the snap of gloves being put on. The bindings on my limbs feel like they are tightening. My fight-or-flight instincts are screaming and yet I can't even lift my wrist off the armrest.

The white lab coat appears. Sits on a stool on wheels. Slides in front of me. And time slows.

I know this man.

His glasses are different—wired rims instead of thick black frames—but his eyes are the same: dark, a bit vacant, chilling. It's him, from his brittle-looking build to his slouched shoulders to his gaunt, hollowed cheeks.

“Harvey?” I say, and there is not an ounce of recognition on his face when he looks into my eyes.