Burn (8 page)

Leo. Christina. Mom. I have no idea where they’re being kept or what condition they’re in. Or if they’re even here. But Congers said he was going to go work on Christina, and the idea makes bile rise in my throat. She was supposed to be safe. But I’m guessing she used my dad’s phone and finally reached my mom, and together they figured out where I was. I think hard, trying to determine how they could have done that—and then I remember Leo’s phone. He had it when we were captured. Maybe they used Dad’s phone to trace Leo’s, which is now probably in the pocket of one of the Core agents. Christina could have told my mom he was with us. And then Mom and Christina came after me. I wish they hadn’t. My fingernails scrape across the radiator, making an echoing
tink
in the silence.

I freeze. Then I tap—three quick, three slow, three quick. SOS. It’s just an impulse, a shot in the dark, but when your hands are cuffed behind you and you’re in a windowless room, even the most primitive means of communication are better than nothing.

As I’m musing about this, tapping away, I realize that the sounds I’m hearing aren’t echoes of my own taps. I curl my fingers against my palm and close my eyes, focusing on the faint sounds. Quick-slow-quick-quick . . . quick . . . slow-slow-slow.

L-E-O.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he knows Morse code. Somewhere in this building, he’s heard my SOS. He taps out two quick, two slow, two quick. A question mark. He’s wondering who he’s talking to. I start to type out the first letter of my name . . . and then I wonder if I’m talking to Leo at all. I pause.

I-T-S-M-E,
he taps out.
It’s me.
I almost laugh. I tap out my name, and his response comes immediately:
knew it.

Where?
I tap.

Basement. Next to stairs.

And then he taps out something that makes the breath whoosh from my lungs.
With C.

My fingers are unsteady as I tap
hurt?

No,
comes his response. I hunch over in my chair, the relief heavy.

My mom,
I tap.

Unknown,
he replies.

My relief is gone.
H2? How many.

Six.
Suddenly his taps come so quickly I can barely make them out.
Outside,
he taps. Then it’s a jumble of noise and I lose the thread and all I can make out is the final words:
more here.
He’s maybe trying to tell me something or someone is approaching.

I have to get out of here. I have to get
them
out of here.

I scoot my chair back to the middle of the room. “Hey!” I call out. “Hey!” Each word hurts as my aching stomach muscles tighten.

After a few moments, the door squeaks open, and Graham pokes his head in. “What?”

“I need to use the facilities.”

He stares at me. “Hold it.”

“Seriously, dude? I’m not joking. Whatever you guys shot me up with is hell on my stomach. Oh, and I probably swallowed a lot of blood when you rearranged my face.”

He rolls his eyes, then disappears for a second, but his fingers stay curled around the door. And I smile. He’s most likely been left alone to guard me, and he’s looking up and down the hall to see if anyone can help him figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do. He looks only a few years older than me. I’d bet good money he’s related to Congers, too. Maybe his son, because he was looking at Congers in a way that was all too familiar. He’s eager to prove himself and doesn’t want to mess up. Which means I can mess with
him.

“Please? I swear. I’m going to shit my pants if you don’t help me out.”

From the hallway, there’s a sigh. Then Graham walks in briskly, pulling the handcuff key from his pocket. He unlocks my feet first, then quickly unlatches my cuffs—but re-cuffs my hands in front of me when I stand up. He pulls his gun and presses it into my back.

“To the right,” he says in a clipped voice. “And, Tate, I can’t kill you, but there are at least five places I could shoot that are nonfatal but extremely painful. Please don’t fuck around.”

My muscles go tight. He might be green, but he kind of reminds me of . . . me. “Got it.”

I’m a very good prisoner as he escorts me down the hall to the bathroom. For the first several steps, I’m testing my balance, trying to rid my head of the wooziness that comes along with being pounded upside the skull. I’m not at my best, but I can do damage. And I’m going to have to if I want to get out of this. I use my next few seconds to assess my surroundings. Sprinkler system, stairwell six doors from the bathroom. Leo and Christina might be in one of the rooms between here and there. I look over my shoulder at Graham, noting a stairwell far behind him. “Eyes front,” he snaps.

I comply. But now I know there are two points of exit. I wonder if they’re locked.

And I wonder if Graham has the key.

He keeps his weapon nestled against my side—probably one of the five places he could nail that would leave me bleeding and broken but not dying—and swings the bathroom door open. It’s a dingy little space, and he shoves me inside. “You have five minutes.”

I groan. “It might take a little longer than that.”

“You have five minutes.” He slams the door.

I flick the light on with my elbow and am thrilled when the blower fan comes on as well. I need every bit of cover for the noise I might make. As quick as I can, I shift the lid off the tank and moan loudly as I reach into the water and fumble with the chain and hook that lift the seal cap when the toilet is flushed. Closing my eyes to focus, I operate by touch, using the S-shaped hook to pick my cuffs and blowing quiet relief through my pursed lips when I feel them give. I only want them loose, so that’s good enough. I replace the hook and groan again, hoping Graham is too grossed out to hover close. After another minute, I flush the toilet and run the faucet, then dry my hands. I make sure my cuffs look locked, and then I kick at the closed door. “I’m done!”

A moment later, the door opens, and Graham ushers me into the hall, pausing to look into the bathroom to see if anything’s out of place, but not looking
too
close because he thinks it would stink to high hell. His weapon is holstered, so I guess I’ve convinced him I’m not a threat. While he does his cursory inspection, I peer up and down the hall to confirm we’re pretty much alone in this corridor full of closed office doors and stairs on either end. Leo said he was next to the stairs, but that doesn’t help me too much.

All it tells me is that I need to move fast. “So,” I say. “What’s it like to work for your dad?”

Graham doesn’t answer, which tells me that I’m totally right. He’s Congers’s son.

“I bet he’s a hard-ass. Difficult to please. Maybe impossible to please.”

No answer. But he does press his weapon against my ribs, a warning. I’m getting to him.

“Seemed like you were trying to impress him earlier. Especially with that roundhouse shot to my head. Did it earn Daddy’s approval?” I glance back to see Graham’s jaw become rigid with tension. “I guess not.”

I’m braced and ready when he swings at me, and I duck beneath his arm and jerk my right wrist free of the cuff, leaving the other hanging from my left wrist. I strip him of his weapon before he has a chance to fire a warning shot. It clatters to the floor as I elbow him across the jaw. As he staggers, I spin behind him and loop the short handcuff chain around his neck, then pull it tight. With me on his back, he slides to the floor, his knees hitting hard. He tries to arch and knock me backward, but I use all my strength to push him facedown on the ground. Saliva shoots from between his lips as he tries to gasp for air. He struggles like a wild man, but I press my chest to his back and flatten his cheek to the linoleum while his face turns purple.

I totally get it,
I almost say to him.
I wanted to impress my dad, too.

That’s going to make this doubly painful for Graham, who made one simple mistake, the same one his dad did when he left only his son to guard me—he underestimated me. As soon as he loses consciousness, I drag him into my interrogation room. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to cuff him to the chair. I rip a wad of fabric from my T-shirt and shove it in his mouth to muffle the sound of his shouts when he wakes up. I only have a few minutes before that happens, so I steal Graham’s keys and scramble into the hallway, where I scoop up the gun and lope in the opposite direction of the bathroom. “Leo,” I call softly, the weapon at the ready.

Just before I reach the stairwell, there’s a scraping sound from behind one of the closed doors, and I pause. “Tate?” Christina’s voice calls from inside.

My hands are against the door in the next second. “Here,” I say, touching my forehead to it as I begin to check the keys. I’ve just found my first likely candidate when Leo’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Get away from here!”

“What?”

“They’re coming! I can hear them on the stairs!”

I freeze, halting the jangling of my keys in time to hear the footsteps and voices echoing in the stairwell. For a moment, I’m paralyzed—Leo and Christina are still locked inside, and I’m out in the open.

Then I realize what I have to do. My heart simultaneously pounding and aching, I slide the handcuff key under the door, knowing the two of them will be able to find a way to help each other out. And then I back a few steps down the hall, seeking partial cover against another closed office door, and aim. It’s a Glock 19, so assuming Graham is operating with a full magazine, I have fifteen shots plus the one in the chamber. If this is it, I’ll take as many out as I can and hope that Christina and Leo can take it from there.

My finger closes over the trigger as my first target swings the door wide.

Race Lavin, his face severe and cleanly shaven but bruised, his eyes bloodred, jerks to a stop when he sees me there. The corner of his mouth twitches. “I told you,” he calls over his shoulder.

My mother appears behind him. “So did I,” she says to the man at her side.

Congers frowns. “So you did.”

SEVEN

I DON’T LOWER MY WEAPON AS MY MOM EMERGES
from the stairwell, flanked by Congers and Race. I look her over for signs of injury. Her arm is in a sling and she’s streaked with soot and dirt, but she seems okay otherwise. Except she looks really unhappy.

“There is research to show that physical abuse and torture is an ineffective means of interrogation,” she says, glaring at Congers.

He doesn’t answer. He’s got something behind his back, maybe a weapon, and he starts to bring it out but freezes as soon as my finger tightens on the trigger. I’m sorely tempted to shoot him out of sheer aggravation and hatred.

Race raises his hands. “We’ve come to negotiate.”

I ignore him and look at my mom, waiting for a signal. Her gaze is steady on mine. “Tate, we have new information. Things have changed.”

I’m still aiming at Congers’s head. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“We need to help one another,” Race says. “And if we don’t, the outcome will be catastrophic.”

Congers’s nostrils flare. “You are, for the time being, no longer our prisoners. We need you as allies.” Each word seems to heighten the bad taste in his mouth. “If you’ll permit me to move, you’ll see I am holding the scanner, not a weapon.”

“Show me.”

Slowly, he brings his arm out to the side, revealing the sleek, black scanner, which he switches on. It reflects red off his leg, then blue as he angles it toward my mother, then red as the light crosses Race’s chest. I move my finger off the trigger.

From behind me comes a muffled shout. Graham’s awake. Congers’s eyes flick toward the closed door where his son is shackled, and then back to me. He gestures toward the room where Leo and Christina are being kept. “I assume you’ll want to free your friends before we talk.”

Leo pounds on the door. “Already done. Just let us out.”

I lower the gun and pull the keys from my pocket. As I unlock the door, I say, “You might want to let your son out. He’s probably uncomfortable.”

Race looks down the hallway, concern shadowing his features.

“He deserves whatever you’ve done to him,” says Congers in a clipped voice, and for a minute, I feel bad for Graham. Then I remember how many times he punched me.

As soon as I open the door, Christina flies into my arms, knocking me back against the wall. Her face is pressed to my neck as she says, “I didn’t know what they were going to do to you,” in a strained whisper.

“I’m fine,” I say, trying to keep my focus on Race and Congers even as her scent fills me up. I wrap my arm around Christina’s waist and edge her to the side, keeping my body between her and the agents. “You?”

She’s pale, and her eyes are red. So are her wrists, which makes my skin heat with rage. She’s been through so goddamn much, and it’s my fault. She touches my face. “I’m all right, Tate.”

There are so many things I want to say to her.
You shouldn’t have come after me
is the first one. But this is not the time, especially because Congers is moving forward, scanner raised. Race steps away from my mother, his hand near his waist, where his weapon is holstered. I tense, but as soon as the scanner’s light flashes blue over me and red over Christina, both agents relax. I give my mom a questioning look, but her focus is on Christina.

Leo is standing in the doorway of the room, and he winces as Congers waves the scanner over him, making him look cyanotic for a moment. Behind him are two chairs, cuffs hanging from the sides and legs. His wrists are red, too—and swollen. The too-big soccer jersey is dotted with blood, though he doesn’t look badly hurt. He squints at the agents and my mom; he must need those glasses pretty badly.

My mother takes a step forward. “We need to talk.”

Leo backs up and sinks onto one of the chairs in the room where he and Christina were being held. I keep my weapon ready as I back into the room, and Christina sticks close by my side. Race and Congers come in and stand against the wall, and my mom enters and closes the door behind her.