Closed Hearts (25 page)

Nothing happened.

I slammed the thought grenade against the frame of the door. Once, twice… on the third hit, something connected and at the same moment, Grizzly reached me, closing one giant hand on my arm, the other on my throat. The grenade sent a wave of nausea through me and Grizzly’s hand reflexively squeezed my throat. I choked and tore free of his grasp as I tumbled to the floor on top of him.

Once down, he didn’t move. Pemberly had landed facedown, five steps behind him.

I climbed over Grizzly, dragging the scrubs and dart gun along. The trembling in my hands made it tricky to find the second thought grenade. Finally, I curled my fist around it. I needed to make sure I had a good strong strike the next time. That had been
too
close.

Had the thought grenade already reached into the control room? Had I given myself away by only blasting half the room? I lumbered down the hall until I was as close as I could get to the center of the shielded area. At the far end was a door, and just as I was thinking about trying it, a guard flung it open. He was surprised to see me, but quickly reached for his gun. Before he could pull it from the holster, I smashed the thought grenade against the wall with all my might.

This time the nausea brought me to my knees, and I almost threw up on the industrial carpet. I had to gulp several breaths of air before I could look up. The guard was down, sprawled in the doorway.

Propping it open.

I staggered to my feet and stumbled to the door, holding my stomach so it would keep its contents. I peeked inside, dart gun at the ready, in case anyone was still up. An orderly stood in the middle of the room, next to a gurney, staring at the fallen bodies all around him.

I hastily shot at him with the dart gun. I managed to hit him, in spite of my hand shaking like an earthquake had struck. He fell on top of the two doctors in scrubs who were already heaped on the floor. They lay next to a gurney with a prisoner strapped to it. Behind a glass wall in back, a bank of computers lined the wall. A guard was slumped over what must be the control center.

I stood in the doorway for a long moment, afraid one of them would pop up again like a zombie, but they were all completely still. I crept in like I was stealing into a graveyard and then tiptoe-ran to the prisoner on the gurney.

It was Sasha.

Sasha lay unconscious on the gurney. He must have been caught in the pulse from the thought grenade like the rest of the jackers in the medical room. I knew better than to jack into Sasha’s head in that state, so I tried to shake him awake, which was stupid, then I searched around for the wake-up meds. I stared at the shiny cabinets of medical supplies. I had no idea what I was doing.

I floundered, then I realized the orderly—the only guy left standing during the thought grenade blast—must have been a reader.

And I’d shot him full of juice.

I sighed and jacked into his head, bringing him slowly awake. He groggily peered up from where he had fallen, then jolted when he saw the doctors’ bodies he had landed on. He winced while I searched his mind for the information I needed. I didn’t care. He was one of the monsters doing heaven knew what to Sasha and the rest of us.

Thankfully, he was a medical orderly, not just a goon for Kestrel, and knew how to prepare the adrenaline doses. I jacked him to get a dose for Sasha out of the locked medical cabinet in the corner. While he lurched up from the floor to obey my command, I counted the rest of the bodies: three doctors on the floor, the command controller behind the glass, the guard at the door, and two other jacker guards slumped in chairs, probably waiting to take Sasha back to his cell. What were the doctors doing to Sasha? I thought it was bad with the tests in my room, but at least I hadn’t been taken to this medical torment chamber with trays of serums and gleaming metal cabinets.

When the orderly had the syringe ready, I injected it into Sasha and jacked the orderly to prepare doses for the other mages. Then I hurried to the control room to find a way to open the gate. I jacked into the control panel mindware and found the switch for the shield just as an urgent message came in from the guard at the gate, the one who had warned me away from the east wing. His thoughts scrolled across the heads-up mindware display, asking if the patient breakout had been contained and saying he had sent for backup.

Just what I needed.

I mentally flicked the switch to drop the gate shield, but my reach was still blocked by the shielded control room, so I hunted for that too. Once the control room shield was down, I reached out of the building, across the parking lot, all the way to the front gate. I could knock out the guard, but the damage had already been done. Did he know we were jackers, not just demens breaking out? It would make a huge difference if he had sent for the local police or the FBI. I probed his mind—he didn’t know anything about jackers, but he had a special number to call, a failsafe in case of a lockdown.

Kestrel would have made sure it was an FBI jacker containment unit.

I knocked out the guard and quickly swept the rest of the facility—the staff were in a full-blown state of panic, trying to contain the demens who were working up to a riot. That should keep them occupied while we made a run for the gate. I jacked back into the controller mindware, searching for the gate release. We would need it open to have any hope of getting out before the backup help arrived. I found it, gave it a nudge to spring open the gate, and hurried back to Sasha’s side.

Red splotches mottled his face, and his eyes were unfocused. “C’mon.” I tugged him up to sitting and he didn’t fight me. “We need to go.”

Sasha worked his mouth, but nothing came out. Probably the juice had parched his throat. Then he croaked, “Traitor!” and shoved me away and fell off the gurney. I tried to catch him, but he thunked hard on the floor, which seemed to stun him, but also helped to wake him up. He batted at my hands trying to help him, so I stepped back and commanded the orderly to get him up.

“Molloy is the traitor, not me,” I said slowly, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. My fists curled up. “Look, I don’t have time to explain everything. Julian is passed out upstairs. We need to go help him. Are you coming with me or not?”

Sasha clung to the edge of the gurney and blinked several times, like he was still fuzzed out from the thought grenade.

“Julian,” he wheezed.

“Yes, Julian,” I said, my fists unclenching. “He sent me to get the adrenaline for him and the rest of the mages so we can get everyone out.” The orderly had only filled about ten doses of adrenaline, which would have to do, because that was all we had time for.

Finally Sasha nodded. As he lumbered toward the door, he said, “Ava? Is she—” He coughed and clutched the doorjamb.

“Ava’s upstairs too.” I handed him my dart gun. He looked surprised, but took it. “And Anna. There’s a whole block of rooms where Kestrel’s keeping the mages.”

I held Harrier’s gun in front of me, leading the way down the hall. The orderly trailed behind us, bumbling to hold on to all ten syringes. I urged Sasha to go faster up the stairs while I reached out to scan the rest of the building. There were a lot of sedated jackers in their cells, and I only had ten doses. Even stopping to unlock the doors would delay us in getting back to Julian and the mages, and I didn’t know how much time we had.

My chest pulled tight. That meant leaving most of the inmates behind, including the changelings.
Again.

I gripped the handle of the gun tighter and resolved that we would at least stop Kestrel. Without him in charge, maybe the others could escape. Or at least the experiments would stop. Sasha hobbled up the stairs, as if his legs weren’t working right, and he was climbing on sheer force of will. The lingering effects of the thought grenade must have been more severe than I thought.

It was slow going, but we finally reached the second floor and the shielded rooms where the mages were kept. The orange scent of the gas tainted the air, but it wasn’t too thick. I tucked the gun back in my pants and took most of the syringe doses out of the orderly’s hands, leaving him with one. I jacked him to head straight for Julian.

Sasha braced his hands on his knees, gasping for breath, his face red.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes.” He straightened and leaned a hand against the wall, then drew it back a moment later when the buzz of the shield rippled through it. A thud sounded from the end of the hall, followed by a clinking, skittering noise. The orderly had reached my cell only to be overcome by the gas.

I huffed out a breath. “Look,” I said to Sasha. “The adrenaline should protect you from the effects of the gas, at least temporarily. Go get Julian out of that cell. I’ll get the rest up and out of theirs. Then you need to do your scribing thing on Kestrel. We don’t have much time. Reinforcements are on the way.” I handed him another dose. “In case you need an extra one for Julian.”
Or Kestrel,
I added in my head. I wasn’t sure if Kestrel had to be awake for the scribing.

Sasha nodded and stumbled down the hall. I waved the passring across the scanner for the cell next to Anna’s, took a deep breath of orange-tinged air, and shoved open the door. I figured I could dash in and out, but as soon as I stepped into the room, the gas burned my eyes. Holding my breath, I sprinted to the form lying on the cot and quickly shoved up the sleeve of his gown. As the injection was going in, I realized I didn’t know him. Maybe I should have saved the doses for the mages, but it was too late now. He thrashed on the bed as he swam up out of unconsciousness. I tried to wrestle him up from the cot, but I was running out of air, so I sucked in a gas-filled breath and reached inside my mind to speed up my heart rate. The gas was already making me dizzy and my heart pounding harder only made it worse. My stomach heaved; I threw up on the cot. I grabbed the edge to keep upright, trying not to drop the handful of adrenaline doses or breathe in any more gas. I didn’t have time to be sick. Wiping my mouth on an unsoiled edge of a blanket, I grabbed the boy’s arm and hauled him up to sitting.

If it took this long to get every jacker awake, I was in serious trouble. I dragged him to standing and braced my shoulder under his. Fortunately, he was a skinny kid like me and didn’t weigh too much. We hobbled to the door.

Once we were in the hall, I closed the door, trapping the gas inside the room. I took several gasping breaths and sprinted to the next cell. I scanned the passring and tore inside. As soon as I reached the cot, I recognized Hinckley. I found a bare spot on his arm and injected him. He thrashed around, and I took a step back. He was over six feet tall. There was no way I could wrestle him up off the cot, much less out the door.

As I stood there, trying not to breathe, the boy I had just awoken stumbled to my side. Together we hoisted Hinckley up from the bunk and dragged him half-conscious out of the room. I gave four of the remaining doses to the boy, whose name I still didn’t know, and kept two for myself. I unlocked the next four doors as I hurried down the hall to Ava’s room.

Sasha had managed to revive Julian and the two of them were dragging Kestrel from my room so they could close the door. The gas in the hall had built up enough that a wisp of orange floated across the dart gun that Sasha had left lying on the floor.

Julian caught my eye and bit his lip. “Thanks for coming back for me, keeper.”

He definitely had some explaining to do about handling me, but now was not the time
.
“I’ve jumped the front gate open and gotten the shield down,” I said. “The whole place is on lockdown and there are reinforcements on the way. I don’t think we have much time.” My breath was unsteady with a strange wheezing sound rumbling in my chest. Julian didn’t look much better, red-faced from the adrenaline and clenching his fists like he wanted to hit something. But he nodded.

I tilted my head toward the still-closed door to Ava’s room. “Ava’s in here, and Anna as well.” His eyes widened. I handed a dose to him. “I’ll need your help getting them out.”

He took it and waited at the ready. I panted, sucking air in and out quickly, to get as much of the gas out of my system as possible before I plunged into Ava’s gas-filled room. I shoved open the door and lurched inside, holding my breath, with Julian close behind. I nearly stepped on Anna, sprawled on the floor with orange mist curling over her. I hopped over her prone body and injected my final dose into Ava on the cot. I didn’t wait until she woke up, just hooked my arms under her shoulders and dragged her across the floor. Julian was doing the same, pulling Anna from the room. Sasha immediately took Ava from my arms and cradled her on the floor. She wasn’t moving—probably still recovering from the thought grenade, or possibly the dose of gas had put her under deep, both of which would be a problem. I pulled the door closed behind us, but we really needed to get everyone up and mobile. Julian was gently shaking Anna, who was already blinking awake.

I looked between Sasha and Ava and the inert form of Kestrel lying on the floor. “Did you do it?” I asked Sasha. “Did you scribe him?” I pointed at Kestrel. Sasha tore his gaze from Ava, unconscious in his arms, and the creases around his eyes made my heart sink. “Did you?” I demanded, leaning my face closer to his.