Rebellion (17 page)

“I was afraid of needles when I was younger too,” she says, turning to toss the wipe in the trash. She grabs the syringe from the counter. “But it’s just a pinch, really. You won’t even feel it.”

When she steps back toward me, the long, thin needle reflects the light from the overhead lamp into my eyes.

I blink and I see Karum again: I see the doctor sticking a needle into my arm to draw blood; I see him injecting that blood into Fred; I see the lights blurring as I awoke on the table after another operation.

“Please, I really don’t think I need this,” I say, scooting off the table.

I need to make a run for the door.

“You do, sweetie,” Dr. Piper says, smoothly blocking my path. “Everyone needs it. And if you don’t cooperate, I’m gonna have to give you something to help you calm down. Can you calm down on your own, Brea?”

She takes a step toward me, and I move back, bumping into the table. There’s only one of her. I’m sure I could overpower her, but there are guards waiting right outside. All she has to do is scream and they’ll come running.

“It’s just a little prick, okay?” Dr. Piper says, smiling that stupid smile of hers again. She grasps my shoulder with one hand and holds the syringe out with her other, guiding the needle toward my clavicle. “Nothing to fret about.”

I knock away her hand holding the syringe and grab her arm in the same motion. I twist it back as far as it can go.

Her face contorts with pain, but she recovers immediately. “Code A!” she yells. “I need help!”

The door zips open and two guards rush inside. The first grabs hold of me, but the second halts three feet away.

I know him. He’s Joe, Sam’s friend. He stood up for me after we played a simulation game in the Core and I had the luckiest win of my life, but he hasn’t been kind to me since. He’s been a mindless soldier working for Charlie. Beechy shot him on the hangar deck a little over a week ago, but clearly he survived.

Recognition sparks in his eyes that are clouded over like the eyes of all Charlie’s mindless soldiers. Joe remembers me too, though I tried to disguise myself with different hair.

I’m done for.

“Clem—” he starts.

I scream as loud as I can, to drown out his voice. He slaps a palm over my mouth with a growl.

Dr. Piper moves at a fast pace over to the counter to prepare a fresh syringe, since I knocked the last one out of her hand.

I’m an idiot. I should never have fought her.

“Give her the shot, quickly,” Joe says. “I need to take her to Lieutenant Sam. Commander Charlie wants her in custody.”

“What does he want with her?” Dr. Piper asks.

“She’s Clementine,” he says. “She’s one of the fugitives from the Core.”

Dr. Piper stares at me as she takes in this new information. “I see. She lied about her name.”

She steps forward, gripping the syringe tightly in hand. The guard I don’t know the name of digs his hands into my shoulders, pinning me against him. There’s nowhere for me to run, even if I could break away. These three will tell everyone I’m hiding in the camp.

As Dr. Piper pushes the needle into my neck, a booming sound reverberates through my ears. I don’t have time to realize what’s happening, or brace myself in any way.

The wall behind me rips apart. The force sends me flying forward and slamming into something hard.

Darkness.

15

When I come to, my ears are ringing. My body is stiff with shock, and I’m coughing. My temple’s pounding like I rammed headfirst into a fighter jet.

I remember what happened: There was an explosion. I can still feel the tremors in my arms and hands and legs.

Dr. Piper was in the middle of giving me the shot. I reach a hand to brush the tender spot on my neck. When I pull my hand away, there are drops of blood on my fingers. I don’t know if she had the needle in all the way, if the plunger had released the serum yet.

I lift my head, wincing from the pain, and blink until my eyes adjust to the darkness. The ceiling lamp is dead, but there’s a little light coming in from somewhere. Part of the roof in the room behind me collapsed, I think. But the wall in front of me seems mostly intact. We must’ve been on the edge of the explosion’s reach.

The hallway outside is quiet, like everyone evacuated the building in case of another explosion. It felt like I blacked out for only a few minutes, but maybe it was longer.

The syringe is lying a few feet away from me. The blue serum has leaked out onto the floor—the plastic must’ve cracked.

Relief floods me. Dr. Piper didn’t administer the shot.

Joe is also lying near me, to my left, on his side. His chest slowly rises and falls. His lips are slightly parted, and a thin layer of dust covers his hair and uniform.

He’s still alive, and that means he can tell Sam where I am when he wakes up.

Setting my palms on the ground, I push myself to my feet. Pain shoots up every inch of my body, but I ignore it.

Almost everything around me is in pieces. Smoke and dust cloud the air, rising from the debris beyond the blown-out hole in the wall. The sink and cabinets are buried under chunks of gray building.

So is Dr. Piper’s body. I can’t see her face, but her arm and the sleeve of her lab coat stick out from beneath the rubble. Her arm’s hanging at a wrong angle like it fell out of its socket. The limpness of her body is what makes me lose my composure. Cady’s body was limp too, when the rescue crew pulled her out of her hovercraft.

This is too much. I want to turn away and run, and let someone else deal with this mess. But I need to know if she’s still alive, so I do what I have to do. I pinch the bridge of my nose to fight the nausea, and scoot close enough to reach for Dr. Piper’s wrist. I count to twenty as I feel for her pulse.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

Nothing. The second guard is buried even deeper under the debris too deep for me to reach. I’m going to have to trust that he’s gone too, or at least too injured to tell anyone what happened.

Turning away, I wipe the blood on my pants. This was too close a call. Not just Joe finding out who I am and almost giving me up to Sam, but the fact that I would be dead right now if the other guard hadn’t been standing behind me. I would be buried beneath this pile of rubble with no pulse.

I thought I was okay with dying. I accepted the idea when I was on the spaceship with Oliver, and I knew it might be coming when I agreed to go undercover in the work camp. Death would let me leave all the pain in this world behind.

But now that I’ve barely escaped it again, I’m not sure I want to leave the world yet. Not until I’ve had the time to fight for the things I care about. Not until I’ve said good-bye to the people I love.

Death might turn out to be worse than everything I’m running from, and there will be no waking up.

Somewhere far away, there’s a booming sound that makes the walls shake. Another bomb.

It makes sense that the Alliance would’ve targeted this facility, since the kill chambers are one of Charlie’s biggest weapons. But I don’t understand why no one—not Mal or Skylar or anyone—told me they were planning this. They must’ve known there’d be people from the work camp in here for inspection. Why would they risk killing us too?

Unless something went wrong with the plan. Someone could’ve screwed up the bomb timers, set them off early.

Whatever’s going on, I need to get the vrux out of here. Another explosion could happen any second.

But first, I have to deal with Joe. He’s still lying on his side, his soft breath turning to mist when it touches the air. I’d think he were fast asleep if I didn’t know any better.

Maybe he’ll wake up and he won’t remember he even saw me, but I don’t think he’s going to forget. He’s going to wake up and tell the other guards I got away, and tell them where to find me.

I can’t let him wake up.

I take a slow step forward, lean down, and slip the gun out of his holster. It’s a copper like the laser gun I used in the Phantom war simulation game, the day I met him. The day he was almost my friend.

I wrap my palms around the barrel, aiming at his head. My hands are slippery with sweat, barely holding the weapon steady.

I’m not sure I want to do this. It’s not Joe’s fault Charlie made him a mindless soldier. It’s not his fault he ended up here.

But this is about protecting myself. And I can’t risk letting him go.

Don’t think.

I’ll imagine someone else’s hands are squeezing the trigger. I’ll pretend Joe is Charlie, and I’m beating him at last. That will make this easier. But even as I make the decision, Joe’s head moves a little. He’s waking up.

I have to do this fast.

I slide my index finger through the trigger. Joe’s eyes flutter open and he blinks slowly.

A small sound escapes his throat, like he’s trying to say something, but he starts coughing instead.

Now. Do it.

“Wait,” he chokes. “Please don’t.”

My fingers are glued to the gun, but I can’t squeeze the trigger.

He was my friend once. How can I shoot him?

“I won’t tell anyone I saw you,” he says between coughs. “I’ll let you go.”

I am frozen, my heart hammering in my chest, my arms impossible to move. But I have to shoot him; I have to.

I can’t trust him. I don’t have a choice.

“No,” he says, almost whimpering. His eyes are watering. “Please, please don’t shoot me.”

He’ll say anything right now, but he’s still going to follow Charlie’s orders. He isn’t like me and the others in the Alliance; he can’t fight the serum.

But when I start to squeeze the trigger, my hands falter again.
What if I’m wrong?

Joe’s watering eyes seem clearer than they were a couple minutes ago, not hazy like the eyes of the mindless. Almost like he hit his head hard enough to wake up.

“Please let me go,” he says again.

“Why should I believe you won’t hand me over to Sam?” I ask, snapping the words. “Tell me.”

Please give me a good reason. Please don’t make me shoot.

“Because I’m on your side,” Joe says quickly. “I want to join the Alliance. I’ve been trying to contact one of you, to let you know. But I didn’t have a chance until now.”

That makes me pause. I haven’t heard anyone on Charlie’s side mention the Alliance before. Maybe he’s telling the truth. But one thing still doesn’t make sense.

“Then why did you tell the doctor my real name?”

“I couldn’t control what I said. I didn’t want to tell her, but my lips moved and I couldn’t stop them.”

He was subdued. And now he isn’t.

My hands still won’t unfreeze. Even if I wanted to shoot him, even if I was sure I had no other choice, I’m not sure they would let me squeeze the trigger.

But he’d better be telling the truth; he’d better not hand me over to Sam.

Slowly, I lower the gun.

Joe struggles to his feet, using the wall to help himself up.

“Thank you,” he says.

“You owe me for this.” I wipe my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand. “If you get the urge to tell anyone where I am, remember I could’ve killed you.”

“I will,” he says.

“Good.”

I double-check over my shoulder that Dr. Piper’s body hasn’t moved. She’s still buried underneath the rubble, along with the other guard. I silently thank whoever set off the explosives for taking care of them for me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Joe’s hand slipping behind his back. Going straight to the second gun all officials carry with them, the one I forgot to remove from his belt.

There’s a split second where panic grips me, where I’m not sure what I’m going to do. But rage hits me with full force, overpowering everything else.

He lied to me. He is not my friend.

I can’t let him give me to Charlie.

He draws his gun. I spin around and strike my copper sideways at his head, knocking him off balance.

A shot goes off from his gun, sending a laser beam into the rubble behind me.

As Joe regains his footing, I hit him with the barrel again, yelling through my teeth. Twice more I bash his head, until he slumps, silent, onto the floor. Blood trickles from his hairline.

I stare at him, my hands frozen again, my legs immobile. The bloody gun slips from my fingertips and hits the floor with a clang.

He lied to me. I had no other choice.

I’m sorry,
I think.

And then I run.

*   *   *

I limp down an empty corridor, moving as fast as I can with my legs still aching. The pounding in my temple hasn’t subsided yet.

My hands have Joe’s blood on them.

I don’t even know if I killed him. But I hope I did. Otherwise, he will wake up and tell Sam exactly where to find me.

There are distant cries from corridors behind me, and the sound of boots pounding somewhere up ahead. A rescue crew must be on its way, if it isn’t here already. I don’t know where the explosions were centered, but they were close enough to the exam rooms that plenty of other people could’ve been injured. How many kids were trapped under the rubble? Hopefully Hector, Evie, and the others got out of here alive and Logan wasn’t anywhere near this place.

Around a corner, the facility entrance comes into view. Three guards stand talking with guns in hand, their backs to me. Behind them, a medical crew carries an empty stretcher through the door, and two more guards follow them. They must be gearing up to begin the rescue mission.

I’m trying to decide what I should do—limp past them and hope they don’t notice, or pretend I’m more injured than I really am?—when one of the guards spots me. He says something to the other two and starts jogging toward me, signaling two male medics with a stretcher to follow.

One of the other guards is Sam. There’s some distance between us, so maybe I’m wrong, but he’s the only one not wearing a helmet, and I’d know his blond hair anywhere. I’m pretty sure he’s staring at me.

Pretend you’re hurt.

“Help!” I double over, clutching my belly. At least when I’m standing like this, I have an excuse to keep my face down.