Torn (20 page)

“I have friends who have,” Jan clarified. “Actually, my friend Peter is there right now. You remember Peter Sloan?” She turned to Mercer again, dismissing Davis. Davis flushed, fighting the urge to stand up and move on without Mercer. She needed his connections to make this work—she couldn't do it alone.

“I've been gone for a few months, not years,” Mercer reminded her. “My short-term memory is a little better than you give me credit for. And anyway, from what Davis has told me, Columbus sounds great. They have these competitions every year called the Olympiads—”

“Peter's cousin is competing in the Olympiads in a few days! I guess the city is making a huge recovery after the riots and … well. The disease.” Jan paused awkwardly. “Anyway. They're supposed to be the best Olympiads in years. They're going to be covered all over the New Atlantic.”

“The Olympiads are happening?” Davis's body was stock-still. She couldn't believe the city was moving forward with the events. What else had happened in her absence? Every part of her longed to be back with her family, a cure in hand, Narxis obliterated.

Jan nodded with enthusiasm.

“Is there any other news from Columbus? Have any deaths been reported?” Davis knew it was a stretch, given that the city had always fought to conceal the disease's existence. Still, anything—any little crumb of news—would be something to go on.

Jan shrugged. “Nope. Just the Olympiads. That's pretty much dominating inter-Atlantic news right now. Oh!” she said, her voice bubbling over with enthusiasm. “That reminds me, though! There's a party tonight. In Raleigh. It's a huge gala thrown by the Research Triangle Institute. A bunch of research kids will be there.”

“That's what we call the kids we know whose parents are scientists,” Mercer clarified.

“Mercer,” Davis reminded him quietly, “we have to find Dr. Hassman. Remember?”

“Dr. Hassman? Why do you need him? He'll be there,” Jan said.

“That's great!” Mercer exclaimed. “Can you get us in, though?”

“Already taken care of,” she said with a grin, producing three tickets from her bag. “It's a huge event. But we'll know people there. And you guys can ask questions if you want. It won't seem weird—the whole event is centered around young donors. We're ‘the next generation of research,' and all that,” she said, rolling her eyes and using air quotes around the phrase. “Basically they just want to take our inheritances.”

Davis tried not to cringe at the reference to Prior wealth. She'd been just like Jan only a few months ago. But now this all felt foreign to her. She looked at Mercer, trying to gauge what he was really thinking behind the cloak of his enthusiasm for being home.

“We need to find Dr. Hassman as soon as we can,” he told Jan, reading Davis's expression. “Like Davis said. It's super important.”

“He'll be at the gala for sure,” Jan assured him. “He's so rarely in town lately. He's coming back from a conference in China just for this. It's your chance. Care to explain?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Nah,” Mercer said. “Long story. We'll tell you everything later.” Whether or not he meant it, Davis wasn't sure. But Mercer looked relieved, making Davis wonder just how confident he'd actually been about their plan from the start. “Give it just a couple of days,” he told Davis, when Jan excused herself to the bathroom. “We're almost there.”

“I can wait,” she told him. “It'll be hard, though. This mission—Dr. Hassman, getting the cure—it's all we have. It's all
I
have. I need to get back to Columbus with an answer.”

“And you will. But you need to be patient, play it cool until the gala.” His expression was earnest. In the look they shared, Davis's worries about Jan fell away, as did her anxieties and her impatience. He was right. The stakes were too high; she had to wait just a little while longer. In order to enter Columbus safely again, she had to find a cure. And the gala was her only chance.

14

COLE

It was a full four hours before Worsley returned. And in that four hours, Cole's blood had run from hot to boiling. When he heard the key in the latch, he leapt up, palms clenched. Vera was still asleep—deep asleep. She didn't even move when Worsley walked in. She was sleeping far more than was normal, and her face was sweaty and pale.

“What the fuck kind of operation are you running, here?” Cole demanded of Worsley, who looked startled to find him there, and then slightly ashamed.

“I'm not usually gone this long, I—”

“I don't care what your bullshit reason is,” Cole said, crossing the room toward Worsley. He knew Thomas was intimidated by his physicality, so he drew himself to his full height and squared his shoulders, flexing his forearms as he clenched his fists. If he was made to fight, he'd fight.

Thomas didn't back down, as Cole had expected.

“You'd better stop whatever it is you're doing here,” Cole told him, his voice low. The last thing he wanted to do was wake Vera and frighten her. “She's worse, not better. She
fainted
today. She was coughing up blood. How often has that been happening?”

“Back off,
Cole.” Worsley folded his arms. “Maybe you weren't aware of how bad she was when she came in here. She's improved dramatically. All the tests are coming out positive. The experiments are working. I'm close. So close.”

“But is she close, too?” Cole hissed. “Close to death?”

“Maybe you've just been a little too distracted to notice her progress,” Worsley snapped. “Out there in the woods with … what's her name? Braddock's daughter. Mari? Maybe your vision's been a little cloudy lately. And maybe that's understandable. You're sparring with a pretty girl all day long, isn't that right?”

That was all it took. Cole swung at him, knocking him to the floor. Worsley had no right to accuse him of those things. No right to imply anything about him and Mari.

“Hypocrite,” Worsley muttered from where he lay on the floor, nursing his face. “You act like you care. You're nothing but a common hypocrite.”

Cole resisted the urge to kick him, punch him again, anything—because he knew his next punch could kill Worsley. Instead, he moved for the door before he could do anything else he would regret.

“You can forget my help with the Olympiads,” Worsley called after him. “That was a stupid idea from the start. Go ahead and get yourself killed. Just don't bring me down with you.”

Cole slammed the door on his way out. He was fucked, truly fucked. Now he had no chance of entering the Olympiads and no control over what happened with Vera. He'd never be able to go visit her, to check on her progress, unless he staked out the lab and snuck in while Worsley was away. There were no more options.

By the time he got to his hideaway, he was panting from exertion. He'd jogged from Worsley's lab, but he was still feeling furious and keyed up about Worsley's accusations about Mari and about the state of Vera's health—not to mention his own total loss of control. Worsley's words had struck a nerve. But he should have been able to keep his temper in check.

The second he entered the shoebox of a room, he instinctively knew someone had been there. It was as if the air were different—heavier somehow, and carrying the scent of someone else. What else could go wrong? He wasn't normally so skittish, but each time he'd been caught in the past—up to the day he and Davis were torn apart—he'd felt this same sense of dread in his gut. It wasn't something he could ignore. Now Cole leaned against the door, calculating his next move. He needed a clear head.

The room was small enough that he'd have seen someone already, if they were still there. As he took a quick survey, though, his suspicions were confirmed. Distinct footprints—at least a size bigger than his own—made slight impressions in the dust that had collected on the floor in his absence. The books he kept stacked in a neat pile next to his bed were scattered about. He didn't have anything in the room that would reveal his identity. But the thought of someone invading his space—and potentially returning—made his whole body stiffen in fear.

He dragged a bag of rice from the opposite corner—stored provisions, just in case—and moved it in front of the door. The rice weighed about twenty pounds but clearly wouldn't be enough. There were some old cans of paint thinner, long expired, lining another wall, and he hefted these over, one by one, creating a strong barricade. When he was done, he jiggled the knob and gave the door a hard wrench toward himself. It didn't budge. Still, there was the matter of the back window.

Its shade hung open from a loose latch, exposing an empty, gaping hole where there should have been a windowpane. Cole swore under his breath—he'd thought about fixing it since Michelle had led him to the abandoned hideaway a few months ago, but he'd figured fixing it might draw attention to the hideaway. Now he saw it was practically an invitation for unwelcomed visitors. He might not be able to completely block off the window, but he could at least set a trap to alert him of any intruders and slow them down.

Cole filled a plastic tub with flour from his makeshift pantry and strung a long rope through the handle of the tub, hanging it from an electrical cord that snaked across the ceiling. Then he tied the free end of the cord to the dangling shutter, pulling it tight so the shutter was partially closed. Just to be sure, he tested it, tugging the shutter open. The cord pulled the tub's handle and the tub tipped over altogether, spilling flour all over the floor. Cole smiled.
Success.
If someone was after him, at least the sound of the trap being activated would give him time to react.

Now for some sleep.

Cole lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to drift off. He wanted to be back in the barn behind Mari's house, where he felt safe and comfortable. He wanted to curse Worsley, throw another punch, knock him down cold this time.

Cole sprang out of bed, grabbing his boxing gloves. He was just keyed up. His fight with Worsley had messed with his head. Cole threw a few air punches, moving in a circle as he did so. Then he dropped to the ground for push-ups, pushing his fury further away each time he lifted his body off the ground. He took more of the flour and rice and filled a burlap sack with it, then strung it from the ceiling with a cord. His makeshift punching bag was lumpy and uneven, but it was good enough. With each punch he took he found himself relaxing a little. As much as he resented the FEUDS and his role in them, he had to admit he missed fighting. He missed the power of it, the opportunity for emotional release. He missed his old life.

Then a long scraping sound emanated from the other side of the room, followed by a big poof of flour, far denser than the soft tufts spraying out of his punching bag with each hit.

Cole leapt back, heart pounding. The shutter swung open. Someone
had
been following him! Cole let out a low, guttural growl and lunged toward the trespasser, pulling his right elbow up and back for a punch. The guy was covered in flour, hacking. He seemed to be trying to say something.

“Wait!” the intruder's voice called, just as Cole was about to swing. There was something about the voice that was familiar, and Cole paused. He couldn't make out any defining physical features beneath the flour …

“Cole! It's me, Brent.”

Brent.
Cole gasped in relief.

“What the hell, man? What are you doing here?” He moved toward Brent, drawing him into a one-armed hug.

“It
is
you,” Brent said, his voice filled with awe.

“It's me,” Cole whispered. “But lower your voice and get in here. Man, is it good to see you.” He pulled Brent in and partially closed the shutter, looking out before he did so to make sure no one had seen them. It was great to see Brent—really to see anyone from his life before he went into hiding. The fact that most of his friends and family thought he was dead was weird, unsettling. There were so many times he'd wanted to sneak over to Brent's and tell him the truth, but it had been too risky—he didn't want to implicate anyone. With Brent standing in front of him now, he felt a surge of elation coupled with terror.

“You can't tell anyone.” His voice was urgent. Brent gaped around him at Cole's hideaway, and Cole saw it for the first time from someone else's eyes: the sink that didn't even have working water, the stockpiles of provisions, the filthy mattress. It was worse than even the poorest parts of the Slants. It was a hovel.

“Cole. Are you okay? Jesus. I'm so glad you're alive. But what are you—”

“How did you find out?” Cole interrupted him, his pulse hammering. “Who else knows?”

“Relax,” Brent said. “Just me. Michelle told me. She tried to play it off at first … but I know her well enough to know when she's lying. She explained everything. She told me not to tell, and I haven't.”

“God.” Cole ran a hand through his hair. If Michelle had told Brent, who knew who else she'd told? “Why is Michelle randomly telling people? I thought I could trust her.” He began to pace the room, but he didn't miss Brent visibly bristling.

“It's not like that,” he started. “Like I said, I could just tell. I know Michelle. She can't lie to me.”

Cole paused, turning to him. The way Brent had said it … and now he was avoiding his eyes.

“Why is that?” Cole asked, his tone guarded.

“Michelle and I have been spending a lot of time together.” Brent paused, tugging on the neck of his gray T-shirt, as he allowed Cole to absorb the full significance of his words.

“A lot of time,” Cole repeated. “Are you guys.…”

“We're together,” Brent confirmed. “She didn't tell anyone else. She wouldn't. I needed to see it for myself, though. Listen, I know you two have history. But I didn't think—”