Hardwired (10 page)

nineteen

The harsh fluorescent lighting in the room seared through my eyelids, intensifying the headache threatening to split open my skull. Now that we were finally inside, warm and relatively safe, the adrenaline that had kept me moving disappeared, and I began to comprehend exactly what I had gotten myself into.

“I thought you said the storm knocked the power out,” I said, fishing for information on the generators. We were sitting in a room I'd never been in before, in a part of the building I didn't even know existed. And the lights seemed to be working fine to me.

“It did,” the guard who'd been assigned to us replied. “Backup generators.”

“There's more than one?” I said, hoping Chris had also caught that distinction.

“There are three,” Ms. Tremblay replied, not even turning to acknowledge me. She'd sent for the Bake Shop's only medic and was watching over his shoulder as he assessed Carly's injuries. Chris had a gash on his head and some nasty-looking cuts where he'd literally dug shards of glass out of his leg. I was exhausted and seriously contemplating slicing my toes off rather than dealing with the pain shooting through them as they thawed out. But as usual, Ms. Tremblay didn't seem overly concerned about us. Carly first.

She'd actually taken the time to find Carly some dry clothes, had scoured her own closet looking for something comfortable and warm for Carly to wear. Not for me and Chris. The girl whose only injuries were a dirty face and scratched-up knuckles got pampered while the two guys who'd earned their way out of that place were left sitting in their own blood.

If I dug deep enough, part of me understood Ms. Tremblay's concern. After our hike here, Carly actually looked the part of a girl who'd escaped a car crash. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with tears, and she was huddled into herself, shaking. But still, a little concern focused in our direction would've been nice.

“So,” Ms. Tremblay started, finally satisfied that Carly's injuries were superficial at best. “Tell me what happened again.”

“Let's not,” I spit out, praying Carly would keep her mouth shut. Chris had gone silent, hadn't chimed in or said a word since we'd walked through the front door. And Ms. Tremblay seemed hell-bent on launching the world's most miserable game of Twenty Questions. The three of us needed to regroup. Fast.

I turned toward Chris, trying to figure out where his mind was. “You got anything to say?”

“Nope,” he said with a quick shake of his head.

“It's important that we—”

“We've already told you everything,” I said, cutting Ms. Tremblay off. “We can't make it any simpler. Car smashed into van. Big cliff. Fire. Everybody dead. There, is that clearer now, or do you need me to draw you a picture?” I was half tempted to grab the pen out of the medic's hand and do it. The images of the bodies, the shattered glass, and the blood-stained seats were right there at the forefront of my mind, begging to be sketched out.

“Ah, that hurts.” Carly groaned, and everybody, including me, swung our heads in her direction. The medic was cleaning the scrapes on her knuckles and, from the smell of it, straight rubbing alcohol was his preferred antiseptic.

The medic hesitated for a moment before tossing the bloodied strip of gauze into the trash, apparently deciding the wound was clean enough. Either that or her little-girl-in-pain act had actually worked. “Sorry about that,” he said, “but that accident banged you up pretty good.”

Chris smirked, and I kicked him beneath the table. Asshole thought this was funny.

“What?” He held his hands up in the air, feigning innocence. “I'm not allowed to feel bad for the poor little girl and her teeny weeny scrapes?”

There was a loud rap on the door. The guard opened it a crack, barely enough for him to see out, then visibly relaxed and opened it wider.

I recognized the guard who entered. He'd been assigned to our block of rooms, was the guard I'd had that little conversation with about the locks and the weather the other day. The one who'd warned me not to try anything. Murphy. And Murphy was now back in uniform, his Taser gun in full view.

His gaze roamed over Chris and me before resting on Carly. A flash of pity crossed his eyes, a crude assumption that we'd done something vile to her.

“I'm sorry to bother you,” he finally said, addressing
Ms.
Tremblay. “But I'm trying to straighten out the sleeping
arrangements for tonight. Where, exactly,
are you intending to house her?”

“In the girls' quarters,” Ms. Tremblay answered, waving him away as if it were the dumbest question in the world. “Each facility has one. We're required to have a minimum of three spaces devoted to female residents. I assume, since we were evaluated last month, that we're still within compliance of that mandate.”

“I'm well aware of their location,” Murphy replied. “And yes, under normal circumstances, the quarters are in functioning order. But housing her there isn't feasible right now.”

“Why not?”

“We have enough fuel on site to keep the generators going for three days, but even that is pushing it,” he said, and I did the simple addition in my head, then glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. We were in the morning of day two, 11:00 a.m. to be exact.

“In an attempt to stretch the fuel out, we cut power to those areas currently not in use,” Murphy went on. “That includes the girls' quarters.”

“Then reconnect the power,” Ms. Tremblay suggested.

“Absolutely,” Murphy said. “And what part of the building should we take that power from? Perhaps the hall that currently houses the boys? Or maybe the keypads that secure your personal quarters from the rest of the building? Or better yet, the security camera we have on the Denton kid?”

There it was—the confirmation that Carly's brother was still in there, still alive. I'd suspected it, Chris had assured me of it, but until I heard his name pass the guard's lips, I'd wondered, or maybe even hoped, that he wasn't there.

Carly gasped and straightened up at the sound of her brother's name. She inched to the edge of her seat, away from the medic and closer to the door in an attempt to better hear the conversation. I shot her a look, one that told her to stay in character.

Ms. Tremblay sighed as she glanced at Carly, the look of pity in her eyes making me physically ill. “There's no way to draw power from somewhere else? Even for one night? Until the roads have cleared and we can move her out?”

Murphy shook his head. “Not if you want the external doors locked and the isolation cells to stay secured.”

“We can't house her with the boys,” Ms. Tremblay thought out loud. “It's not safe.”

“Why, afraid one of us might crack and take it out on her?” Chris asked, unprompted. “You afraid I might do that? Because I got news for you. We had plenty of time alone with her outside this place and I never touched her, did I, Lucas?” He shifted his position, giving both Ms. Tremblay and the guard his back. He was up to something, and knowing him, I doubted it was good.

“Well?” Chris asked again. “Did I touch her even once?”

“No,” I said, completely confused as to what he was getting at. He'd barely said three words to me since we'd entered this room, and now he was getting all worked up for absolutely no reason. “You wouldn't do that.”

“Nobody is suggesting that—”

“That's exactly what you're suggesting,” Chris said. “That's what you thought, what you pretty much accused us of when you first saw us outside. You think I don't see the way you're looking at me now? The way you and that medic are fawning all over her while Lucas and I sit here half dead?”

Chris was up and out of his seat, his fists balled as he walked toward Carly. He mouthed something to her, something so quiet nobody else in the room could make it out. Her eyes briefly slid to me before she gave Chris a quick nod.

“Tell them the truth,” Chris demanded. “Did I hurt you? Did I ever once lay a finger on you?”

Carly hesitated, her entire body sinking into the chair she was sitting in. Her eyes caught mine and she mouthed a quick “
sorry”
before she turned to Ms. Tremblay and said, “No, Chris never touched me.”

“Are you saying Lucas did?” Ms. Tremblay asked.

Carly brought her hands to her face, trembling like some traumatized little girl.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I stood up, knocking over the chair I was sitting in. I'd risked everything for this girl, and she was screwing it all up with some fake story about how I'd hurt her. “I never touched you. Neither of us did.”

Carly was sobbing now, her tiny body shaking in time with her whispered words as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Stop yelling at me,” she hiccupped before turning to Chris. “How could you? How could you just stand there and watch him?”

Before I had a chance to even process the absurdity of what I was doing, I launched myself at her. I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and choke the truth out of her. Accusing me of hurting her, in any way, would get me locked up forever. No going home. No seeing Suzie. No college or friends. No future. “Have you lost your mind?”

Murphy came out of nowhere and wrapped an arm around my throat, tightening it into a chokehold. I struggled against him, hurling every curse I could think of at Carly as he wrestled me face-first into the wall. I'd risked my life to save her brother, convinced Chris to do the same, and here she was, lying.

I twisted against Murphy's hold, landing an elbow to his ribs. He doubled over and groaned, letting go of me in the process. He backed up and widened his stance, bracing himself for my next move. I lowered my head and surged forward, intent on tackling him to the ground.

Light streaked across my vision. A crackling sound hovered in the air, milliseconds before a sharp pain shot through my chest and lodged itself at the base of my spine. My entire body tensed. My knees buckled and I tried to scream, but nothing came out. Nothing but a painful gasp of air. Someone lowered me to the ground, the arms around me tightening as every muscle in my body seized up
.

Twenty

I'd never been hit with a Taser before, but I knew damn well what a concentrated shot of electricity could do to your system. Knew it could leave a person shaking uncontrollably as they lost control of their muscles. And thanks to Chris and Carly, I was now sitting in a glass cage in the isolation unit, trying uselessly to still my tremors.

Chris was in the same glass room as me; Carly was in the next one over. My focus wasn't good enough to make out the shadow in the cube across from us, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was the coveted Cam Denton. And after everything that happened in the past hour, I was more likely to leave Carly's brother behind to rot than try to save him.

“What the hell just happened?” My mind realigned with my body just long enough to get those five words out, and even that took a painful amount of energy.

“Keep your voice down,” Chris said, wincing as he massaged his temples. “I've got a welt on my ass the size of Texas, and my head feels like it's about to explode.”

I wasn't sure if he was referring to being quasi-electrocuted or the injuries from the accident, but I got what he was saying nonetheless. “They got you too?”

He nodded. “Yep. I took a swing at Murphy. Bastard had no business tasing you.”

“And what about her?” Carly was the last person I'd expected to find down here in the bowels of hell. The way they'd coddled her upstairs, I figured she'd be safely tucked away in Ms. Tremblay's room, drinking tea and eating cookies.

“She went for the second guard's gun. Of course, Ms. Tremblay tried to convince the guards that Carly only reacted out of fear and to leave her in her care, but that didn't fly.”

I quickly glanced at Carly. From the looks of it, she hadn't received so much as a slap on the hand for her actions upstairs. Figures. Electrocute the boys and leave the batshit-crazy girl unharmed.

“They left you some clean clothes,” Chris said, pointing to the jeans and T-shirt sitting on the cot next to him. “I'd turn my back to give you some privacy, but these walls are glass, so what I don't see, she will.”

“Screw you,” I said as I literally crawled my way over to the cot and pulled the clothes down to the floor next to me. Let Carly look all she wanted; it'd be the first and last look at me she got.

I pulled the shirt over my head, enjoying the feel of clean, warm clothes. It felt good to change, to sit in something that wasn't covered in vomit and dirt.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked, quite sure Chris had orchestrated the little stunt upstairs.

“Got us down here, didn't it?” Chris said, a smug smile playing across his face.

“You did this?” I asked. “You actually planned this?”

“Not
this
, exactly,” he said, his hand fluttering to my half-naked state and the pile of soiled clothes sitting next to me. “But getting us down here, in plain sight of Cam, yeah … that was my plan all along. I figured inciting the guards was the quickest way to do it. Carly playing along … well, that was just an added bonus.”

Anger set in and I didn't know who I wanted to get my hands on more, him or Carly. “When were you gonna clue me in?”

“I wasn't.” Chris shrugged his apology. “You know, she never actually accused you of anything. You came to that conclusion all on your own, and it worked.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘it worked'?”

“We needed you to snap, for all three of us to go after each other so that we'd get tossed down here close to Cam. And that was the first idea I came up with. If it's any consolation, the guards and Ms. Tremblay don't believe you did it either.”

“Not good enough,” I growled out. “Not even close.”

“I don't know what to tell you,” Chris started. “I agreed to help you, but I'm not gonna log any more time here than I have to. I want out of here, and you snapping was the quickest way I could think of to get us down here.”

I kicked at my dirty clothes on the floor. Shit, I couldn't deny that his messed-up plan had worked. We were now within feet of Cam.

“So that's Cam,” I said, tilting my head toward the shadow of a person in the cell across from ours.

“Yup. Or what's left of him anyway. He hasn't so much as moved, didn't even raise his head when they dragged us down the stairs.”

Fantastic. That was just what I wanted to hear. I'd risked my life to save someone who was pretty much gone to begin with.

My gaze shifted back to Carly. She was staring at her brother, her shoulders hunched and her entire body curled in on itself. Despite her little game upstairs, I felt bad for her. I'd been where she now was, staring at the shell of my brother, wondering what had gone wrong. Difference was, her brother might still have had a chance.

“She all right?” I didn't know why I'd asked; it wasn't like either of them deserved an ounce of my consideration.

Chris nodded and shifted his position on the bed so he could see Carly through the glass wall. “Yup. She's been watching him like that for the last hour. I don't think he's looked back once.”

“So what now?” I reached down, yanked off my sneaker, and pulled the stupid flash drive from my sock. Every single piece of proof Joe had collected, the key to our freedom, was stored on that tiny stick. If I'd been smart, I would've tossed it at Ms. Tremblay through the fence and walked away, hiked the forty miles to the reintegration facility, and finished out my time in peace. But no, I had to get sucked into Carly's stupid plan to save her brother.

“Ms. Tremblay isn't going to believe a word we say, not after this.” I threw the flash drive across the room, doubting it would be any use to me now. It bounced off the glass wall and landed at my feet. “Any idea how to get us out of this fish bowl?”

“Weren't you paying attention upstairs?” Chris asked.

I snorted. “No, I was too busy writhing around on the floor to listen to Ms. Tremblay's incessant ramblings.”

“Well, they have enough fuel to keep this place secure for three days.”

“I know that,” I barked. “What else did they say?”

“We're in the middle of day two, and according to the argument upstairs, the one you missed while you were ‘writhing around on the floor'”—he paused only long enough to air-quote his words—“they're trying to decide which section of the building to pull power from to secure these two additional cells we now call home.”

“And … ” I fanned my hands out for him to continue. Lower security was better, would make our job easier.

“They're running on the bare minimum as it is.”

“Which means?”

“They're diverting power from that other section to these cells down here. Being that we're so dangerous and all,” Chris said. “Using more power will cut the generators' run-time, and my guess is that the fancy locks on these doors and the cameras above our bed suck up a crap-load of power.”

“Which means the time frame for the generators just got cut way down,” I reasoned, a flare of excitement building inside me. For once, something was going in my favor.

“If I'm right, which I usually am, those doors are going to unlock all on their own tomorrow morning when the generators fail. If not sooner,” Chris said.

“And we're supposed to just sit here and wait until that happens?”

“Sounds good to me,” Chris said as tucked his hands behind his head and lounged on the cot.

I stood up, bracing myself against the wall for support as I eased myself toward the door. I tested it, pushing the full weight of my body against the six-inch-thick glass, wishing I could just shove my way out.

“Twelve hours,” Chris called out from behind me. “Give it twelve hours, and I guarantee that door will slide open all on its own.”

“And then what? We grab Cam and stroll up those stairs and out the front door?” Sitting in the cell, locked up with nothing to do but wait, I began to realize just how bad our plan was. All we'd hammered out as a group was the lie we would sell to get us inside. After that, we had absolutely nothing figured out.