A Raging Dawn (37 page)

He obeyed, and I leapt into the driver’s seat, fastened my seat belt, and prayed for decent air bags as I rammed the SUV into drive and floored the accelerator. I aimed for the solid brick wall away from the reinforced entrance.

Old building, soft brick, weak mortar…it should work, I told myself. But I couldn’t help but close my eyes as the SUV crashed.

The sound was deafening and the recoil jolted through my entire body, but I kept my foot on the gas until we were through. The SUV skidded through the bunk beds, the air bag snapping my head back. Thunder sounded, and the SUV shook violently. I pushed the deflated air bag out of my way and hit the brakes. The SUV continued sliding across the concrete floor, a wave of collapsing bricks falling behind us.

The lye shower had ended, but smoke remained, dangerous in its own right. I turned on the SUV’s headlights, realized the futility of finding Flynn and Devon in the haze. Best I could do was provide them with a clear path free from the building. The SUV responded, although sluggish. At least one tire had blown. I steered the truck to the staircase on the far side of the bunk beds, where I’d last seen Flynn and Devon. Two figures appeared through the smoke, looking more like alien astronauts than humans. Of course, the biohazard suits!

They opened the doors and jumped into the backseat, closing them before the fumes could contaminate the inside of the SUV. I gunned the engine again and steered the SUV through the rabble around the opening I’d come in through. The broken bricks had formed a small mountain at the base of the opening, more falling sporadically from above, but the SUV gamely maneuvered over it.

A minute later, we were back outside in the snow. Devon and Flynn climbed out and shucked their suits, but I sat in the driver’s seat, trembling. The windshield was starred and chipped, the snow fell heavily enough to make the world outside appear as if I was trapped inside a snow globe.

Flynn opened the driver’s door. “Nice timing,” she said with a grin. The only time I’d ever seen Flynn smile was when either she’d just killed someone or someone was trying to kill her. The thought made me laugh. I choked it back, forcing my body to obey my commands to climb free of the SUV.

Devon held a gun on Tommaso, but it was hard to say which of them was more banged up. Tommaso cradled his right hand in his left, wincing in pain. Devon’s face had blood smeared all over it, but his teeth flashed white in the night as he raised the pistol. “Let’s go,” he ordered. “Time for answers.”

FLYNN TOOK CHARGE
of Tommaso and led the way through the tunnels as I helped Devon. I hated being back inside the tunnel complex, but it was the safest place. Plus, it would give us privacy while we figured out what to do with Tommaso.

“Tommaso destroyed their computers. If he doesn’t talk, we’ll never know who they were or what they were up to,” I told Devon as we trudged through the maze. At least this time there was light. Last time I was down here, it had been in total darkness. “What did you see?”

“I saw enough to piece together some of the puzzle. Obviously, they’re behind the fatal insomnia outbreak. But who are they? And what do they have to gain from a group of children dying? From what I overheard, I’m not sure they have a cure for it. In fact, they sounded a bit desperate. To find you.”

Me? I had no cure or answers. “So the cure the man told me about isn’t for fatal insomnia?”

“No. Probably to reverse PXA overdoses. There was a ton of PXA there. I think it was part of their research, maybe a treatment like Louise said?”

I was silent, thinking of Jacob. Could I have saved him if I’d called the man in black instead of letting Devon chase after them?

He followed my thoughts effortlessly. “Those guys never would have given you the PXA reversal agent in time to save Jacob. You know that.”

I was silent for a long moment. I did know that. Wasn’t sure if knowing could ever be the same as believing. “We should still try to find it. It could help others.”

“Don’t worry, I grabbed a dose. Hope it’s enough for you to analyze.”

Flynn was a good twenty feet ahead of us. We’d reached the area beneath Good Sam—at least, I thought we had. I didn’t recognize the anonymous metal doors painted an ominous shade of red.

“Where to?” Flynn asked Devon, gesturing with the gun she aimed at Tommaso. He didn’t make eye contact with us, appeared to have totally surrendered. But Flynn obviously wasn’t taking anything for granted.

“Room D-22,” Devon answered. Flynn nodded and disappeared around a corner. “Wait here,” he told me. “I’ll be right back.” He followed more slowly behind Flynn.

I slumped against the concrete wall, barely able to stay on my feet. If Tommaso and his people were willing to beat Jacob nearly to death, to go to that extreme merely to test how far my fatal insomnia abilities extended, what would they do in revenge for me destroying their lab?

Who would they target next? My family? Ryder?

I shook my head. No. No one else was going to die because of me.

“We’re ready.” Devon beckoned me down the hall to the room where he and Flynn had taken Tommaso. “Just follow my lead.”

He swung the heavy door open. Inside was a dental clinic. Most of the equipment dated back to when the tunnels had been built as a fallout shelter during the Cold War, but it was all clean, shining under the bright exam light that glared on the man strapped into the chair.

Wide leather restraints encircled Tommaso’s chest, ankles, wrists, and forehead. Flynn stood behind him, watching and waiting, gun still in her hand.

Devon strode in, an aura of command surrounding him, making his injuries seem trivial. He looked at me over his shoulder as I followed him in. “There’s only one way to get him to talk. I need your help to do it.”

I glanced up, confused. Me? The leather straps restraining Tommaso creaked as he strained against them. Devon lifted a towel from an instrument tray. On it was a glass bottle and a syringe. He used the syringe to draw clear fluid from the bottle.

I marveled at the fact that he’d had this ready, waiting. Doubt clouded me as I wondered why Devon would be ready to host a prisoner and interrogate him. I opened my mouth to protest, but one look at the expression chiseled into Devon’s face stopped me.

Esme.

He was doing this for her. He’d do anything for her—even kill a man in cold blood.

How far would I go to save her and the other children?

“You know what we call PXA on the street?” Devon asked Tommaso as he casually tapped air bubbles from the syringe. “Death Head.”

Tommaso appeared frightened for the first time as he fought the thick leather restraints that held him in place. “No. Please. I have a family.”

Devon sat down on the dentist’s stool, wheeled it so he was in the man’s field of vision, right beside him. “So do I. Her name is Esme. She’s ten years old. And you’re going to tell me how to cure her.”

He was bluffing. I hoped. The light sparked against the shiny metal syringe.

“I don’t know anything.” Tommaso’s words were laced with acid bitterness.

“I think you know a lot. Like which drug will save you from an overdose of PXA. Like what a drug like PXA has to do with fatal insomnia. Like who is behind all this.” Devon lowered the syringe until the tip of the needle pressed against a vein in Tommaso’s arm that bulged even without a tourniquet as he strained to escape. “Like how we save our children.”

“No. Please. Don’t.” Tommaso’s voice rose and broke.

Devon pierced his skin with the needle, his finger hovering over the syringe’s plunger. “Tell me what you did to my daughter. Tell me how to cure her and the others.”

Tommaso’s eyes went wide with fear. It wasn’t Devon or the syringe that he focused his gaze on, but me. “You’re a doctor. You can’t let him do this. You have to stop him. Please.”

He was right. But oh so wrong. I’d already killed. And now I was also trying to save twenty children from the horrendous death I faced. Twenty children facing that danger because of Tommaso and his partners.

Decision made, I straightened my spine as I stared down at Tommaso. “I’m not a doctor. Not anymore. Tell him what he wants to know and this is all over.”

His panicked expression softened at my words. He appeared calm, almost serene. “I can’t.”

“Then I’m sorry.” I’d barely said the words when Devon thrust the plunger down, injecting the man.

His gaze remained locked on me. “You look so much like him.”

I stepped toward him, confused. “Who?”

“Your father.”

There was no way Tommaso had known my father. He would have been a child when Dad died. “Tell me what you mean,” I urged. “Give us what we want, and we’ll treat you with the reversal agent. Now, before the drug takes effect.”

“Too late.” His tone was one of regret.

He arched up, his entire body straining. The restraints gave off the creaking noise of leather being stressed to its limits, but they held. Devon pushed away with the stool and stood.

“It’s barely even begun to take effect,” Devon said as the man writhed below him. “Tell me, how do we cure the fatal insomnia? Save my daughter. You know you can. Save all those other kids. Be a hero.” His voice was hypnotic, compelling.

Devon pulled a vial from his pocket, held it up for Tommaso to see. “I stole some of your reversal agent. Tell me what I need to know and this all stops.” He paused. “If you don’t, then Dr. Rossi is going to take the information from you. You know she can.”

Tommaso closed his eyes, jaws clenched tight, fighting the drug and the restraints. The sight made me sick, my stomach revolting at the idea that I was part of this…torture. The only word to describe it, no matter how good our intentions.

Suddenly, he began choking. His lips parted, releasing a gush of blood.

“What the hell?” Devon grabbed the man’s head, forcing his jaws apart.

I rushed forward, reaching for the instrument tray. The blood was burbling like a stream, spraying us both, covering Tommaso’s chest. Worse was the blood filling his airways, choking him to death.

“He bit off his tongue. Damn it. I need to clamp off the vessels.” A plume of arterial blood hit me in the eye as I strained to find the blood vessels in the pool of red. I clutched at the dental suction catheter, but the vacuum wasn’t engaged, so it was useless.

Tommaso stopped struggling. His eyes fluttered open, fixed on me. Fear filled them. I wasn’t touching him directly, so I had no idea what he was thinking in that last second, but I do know the last thing he saw was my face.

And then he was gone. Even if we’d been in my ER instead down here in the tunnels, I probably couldn’t have saved him. But still I tried. I turned the vacuum suction on high, jammed the catheter down his trachea, trying to clear it of blood. I rammed clamps into his mouth, blindly grasping at any piece of tissue that could have been a blood vessel. I did everything I could, but it was all useless.

Finally, Devon pulled me away from the man’s lifeless body. I whirled on him, both of us covered in blood. “What did you do? He was our last chance!”

Flynn stepped between us, separating us. “Dr. Rossi. He didn’t do anything.”

I frowned, shaking my head, not understanding.

“I didn’t give him any PXA,” Devon explained. “It was sterile water. I couldn’t risk accidentally killing him. But I figured since his people knew PXA overdoses opened a person’s mind to your gifts, then all I needed was you here and the threat of the PXA.”

Flynn threw a towel over Tommaso’s body. “Why didn’t he tell us what we want to know? Rather than go through the hell of both a PXA overdose and having a stranger invade your mind and steal your memories?”

“You used me,” I accused Devon. I hated it. It was logical and perverse and was something his father or half-brother would have done.

“To save Esme, damn right I did. But I didn’t kill him.”

I stared down at the corpse strapped to the chair. “He bit his tongue off. He killed himself rather than expose his secrets.”

“Rather than have you inside his head,” Devon said. “Which means this is a lot bigger than we thought. To instill that kind of loyalty in a foot soldier—”

“Foot soldier?” The term seemed odd. Especially for someone dedicated enough to attend medical school, go through years of rigorous post-grad training. For what? To throw away his gift of healing to keep a secret that endangered dozens of children?

Who the hell were these people? What did they want? And what did my father have to do with them?

“He was just a soldier. Disposable.” Devon turned to me, his face tightened into a determined mask. “Angela, don’t you get it? Things are only going to get worse. We’re at war. And we have no earthly idea who the enemy is or what they want.”

RYDER UNLOCKED THE
back door of his house and grabbed his brimming bags. “I’m home,” he called out in a jovial tone, feeling like Santa Claus. He’d texted Rossi while he was wrapping things up at the station, told her the danger was over, that he’d meet her here.

“The guy who owns the health store owes me one. I got him to open up.” He plopped the bags onto the counter and began unpacking them. “I’ve got you the best tryptophan and melatonin they make, plus organic protein powder, high-dose stress vitamins, this great berry called acai—turns everything purple but tastes good, so no more yucky green-seaweed-grass shakes. They even had vegan doggy biscuits for when Ozzie visits.”