Death Thieves (35 page)

In the background of the picture they’d taken of the accident, I could see Winter with her head buried in her hands. I traced my finger over her picture. “I should have stayed in school like you asked, Wineve. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I sniffed and blinked back the stinging in my eyes, and flipped over the newspaper to uncover the papers behind it.

I blinked again, but in confusion this time. It was a report on Winter. I read through it entirely. The report listed a series of dates with boys’ names and the level of infections they carried next to them. It listed her blood type, her physical health stats. There were words like
low ovarian volume
,
low antral follicle count
,
PID
, and the words
fatal ectopic pregnancy
with a date.

Fatal ectopic pregnancy.

I looked down to find the next paper in the file was her coroner report.

The paper seemed to be shivering as a result of my shaking hands. “She dies!” I started pacing, having entirely forgotten my reason for being in Raik’s office, having entirely forgotten everything.

What else mattered?

I’d done enough studying over the last year on STDs and STIs. I knew what PID meant—pelvic inflammatory disease. Chlamydia caused PID and had the potential for ectopic pregnancies. My sister died as a result of the same thing that was slowly weeding out all of mankind.

“She can’t die!” I yelled. “Not her!” If Jay was getting Jen and the twins out of this time zone, he was taking me with.

I was going home.

I still searched for the information Jay needed but couldn’t find it anywhere. There was nothing on the regent apartments. I took out the files on Jay and Jen and was starting to read them when the light glowed green at the door. I stood up—puzzled. Had it already been forty-five minutes?

The puzzlement drained into horror when I saw Professor Raik’s surprised expression. He took several awkward steps into the room. When his eyes fell on the open files on his desk, his surprise turned to anger. His face contorted into rage.

Three soldiers came in behind him—one of them the redheaded general. They, too, looked surprised to see me there, but none of them looked as surprised as Tag.

“What is the meaning of this?” Professor Raik shouted.

His anger alerted the soldiers that my presence here was unwelcome and the first two snapped their weapons to attention. They were like fine-tuned machines answering the push of a button.

I stood frozen to the spot, a few errant papers still dangling from my fingers. From behind Professor Raik and the soldiers, I caught a glimpse of Maggie’s pale face before she turned and sped away from the scene. I hoped she got her family moved and hidden before anyone realized how I’d gotten in.

“What are you doing here? Who sent you?”

I didn’t answer. My legs were tight and ready to spring into action. My heart pounded so hard that the blood rushing past my ears almost drowned out Professor Raik’s question.

Professor Raik didn’t wait for an answer. “Tase her.”

I should have been grateful he didn’t say, “Kill her.” But before I could even duck, I felt two tiny impacts—one at my chest, and another one at my collar bone. My body seized up like a huge single cramp. My arms curled inward, and I was on my toes as the shock arced through me. Pain coursed up and down my spine, but I couldn’t cry out. My forehead felt like it was being squeezed like a lemon, and my shoulders hunched into my ears. The whole moment felt like an eternity before my seized-up and cramped muscles released and I was on the floor, breathing hard. I yanked the Taser clips off me.

Professor Raik was shouting something and there were other shouts, too. I crawled out from behind the desk so I could see and know where to run, my muscles rapidly getting over the shock of the tasing effects. None of the soldiers had their guns anymore. Tag had a fistful of the general’s red hair and was using the general’s head to ram the other soldier in the chest. The one being rammed was knocked to the ground. The one doing the ramming toppled over, apparently knocked unconscious by the blows. The soldier on the ground pushed the general off and kicked out at Tag’s legs. Tag almost missed jumping the kick and danced back several steps to avoid another swipe. The soldier jumped to his feet and swung at Tag’s face. Tag ducked the punch and came up with two successive blows to the chest and one to the face.

Raik grabbed my ankles and pulled me back behind the desk. He was sitting on me now, pinning my legs to the ground. His hands reached out to try to pin my arms down, too. “Always trouble with you. I should’ve sent you back.”

Instead of answering, I grabbed the lapels of his shiny black suit and used his weight to roll him. I got my leg out from under him and slammed my knee up in between his legs. I straightened my leg and brought it in twice more before daring to try to stand and get away. Raik grabbed for my leg, but I pulled myself up to the desk for leverage and slammed my foot into his nose. His head hit the floor, and he stopped moving.

Tag still fought the soldier, dodging as many punches as he caught. His face had several cuts. The soldier pulled a knife from one of the many pockets in his jacket and Tag punched the soldier’s wrist. With a terrible snapping noise, the soldier’s hand flopped to the side, the knife falling to the ground. Tag turned so his back was to me, swept up his leg and kicked the soldier in the face with his boot, knocking the soldier to the ground.

His chest heaved as he stood over them. His back rising and falling as he struggled for breath.

Raik woke up, moved to his feet, and dragged his hand across his nose, smearing the blood over his cheek. He glanced at the blood on his hand and growled as he lunged for Tag.

“Look out!” I screamed.

Tag turned in time to be caught by the sheer force of Raik’s momentum. They both fell to the floor in a tumble. They rolled and struggled, Professor Raik gaining the advantage, using his hand to keep Tag’s head against the floor so Tag couldn’t roll him the way I had. Tag bit into the fleshy part under Professor Raik’s thumb. Although Professor Raik screamed, he didn’t release Tag.

I grabbed the paperweight of the beetle and, using Tag’s example, in my other hand grabbed a fistful of Raik’s hair. I slammed the beetle paperweight into Raik’s face several times before he released Tag’s head and caught my hand, saving himself from another crunching blow. He twisted my arm, forcing me to cry out and drop the beetle. Pain shot through my shoulder.

Tag maneuvered out of Raik’s grasp, brought his hands together and slammed them into Professor Raik’s chest. Professor Raik buckled under the blow. Tag punched him hard in the face, knocking Professor Raik unconscious.

Tag jumped to his feet and grabbed for one of the guns in the process. He then grabbed my hand and said, “Are you okay?”

I nodded dumbly, my hands running over my body to check to make sure I really was okay.

He kept the gun trained on Professor Raik in case he decided to get up again. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Winter dies!” I said, my voice the horrible shriek of the inconsolable.

“Everyone dies sometime, Summer. Did you get what you needed for Jay?”

I’d forgotten about Jay—forgotten about Jen and their babies. I shook my head.

“What are you looking for; I probably know where it is.” He went behind the desk, still keeping the gun trained to where the soldiers and Professor Raik lay unmoving on the floor. “We can’t stay here; there was a housedresser out there, and she’s likely called for help by now.”

“She’s running by now. She’s the one who let me in.”

Tag nodded. “We still need to hurry. What do you need?”

“I need to know where the regents are. The one who recently adopted is staying in town. And I need two Orbitals.”

“Why two?”

“One for Jay and one for—”

“One for you. So you were going to leave me?” His jaw muscles flexed as though he were grinding teeth.

I shrugged lamely. “You said you wouldn’t help me.”

“Well, I’ve obviously changed my mind.” He handed me the gun. “We need to get these guys tied up. If we leave them, they’ll be able to sound alarms and cause trouble. If they move while I work, shoot them.” He removed the rings from all three of the unconscious men and put the rings in his pocket. He tied them up, grabbed the other guns on the ground, and said, “Let’s go.”

“But we didn’t—”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re in the wrong place. The soldiers are given orders to guard the regents when the regents are in town. We have a schedule in the barracks, and any of us who’ve pulled guard duty . . .” Tag pointed at himself. “Knows exactly where we’re going, because we’ve been there before and won’t even have any trouble getting in.”

“What about the Orbitals?”

“Kept in Raik’s office at the barracks.”

“Oh.” I felt stupid. I broke into the wrong place. All this drama and Tag had all the answers. I also felt angry. If he had all the answers, he should’ve helped me yesterday when I asked for help.

But I didn’t regret coming into Professor Raik’s house. I grabbed my file and stuffed it in my backpack. “Then let’s go.”

Tag tased and knocked out the driver of Raik’s car and dragged him off into the bushes before we could leave.

“I’ve always hated that guy,” Tag said as we got in the car and he lifted it from its parking place by the house. We tracked on the rails near the barracks and Tag pulled to the side. He turned to me. “You have to stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because you kind of stand out, and there are more than two soldiers in the barracks. We’d be dead before you could say, ‘bad idea.’ So stay here. I mean it.”

“I’m not a child. You don’t need to repeat yourself.”

He made a face at that and got out. He leaned his head back in. “And stay down. If anyone sees you, they’ll wonder why Raik left you in the car.”

I agreed and slid down to the floor, where I scrunched in a ball to keep myself out of sight.

Tag was back relatively quickly with three Orbitals. He threw them in my seat and hurried to track the car and get us moving. He didn’t even glance at me beyond a quick verification to make sure I was still there.

“I don’t know where to find Jay.” I hated the admission. It made me look stupid and disorganized. But Jay had said he’d meet me at the dorms and I didn’t think we could go back there. That would be the first place searched when Raik woke up and got himself out of his office.

“Don’t worry. I know where to find him.”

“How?”

“I looked up his IDR location.”

“Oh.” Again I felt stupid. “You know you could have helped me yesterday and saved me a whole lot of trouble.”

“Yes. I could’ve.”

“Why didn’t you. Why today and not yesterday?” I climbed up into the passenger seat, no longer able to stand being curled into a ball on the floor.

“Yesterday, you weren’t getting shot at. It made a difference.”

“Oh. Well, I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.”

I wanted to hit him for that. Instead, I stared out the window to the beauty suit of San Francisco. It was beautiful. A whole lot of beautiful hiding a whole lot of ugly. I opened my mouth to try to apologize for being willing to leave him, to yell at him for making me make that choice, to tell him once and for all that I loved him.

But he was braking.

And I looked around to see where we were. We were at a little restaurant. Jay was sitting at a seat by the window staring out into the world.

“Stay!” Tag ordered again.

“Yeah, ’cause you ordering me around’s going to make it happen. I don’t think so.” I got out to the sound of him cussing under his breath.

I tapped on the glass, startling Jay to attention. He saw me standing with Tag and jumped out of his chair, nearly toppling it over to get to us. He rushed out of the restaurant. As the door of the restaurant closed, the computer voice thanked Jay Savage for dining with them today.

“Get in the car,” Tag said, pointing to the car we’d stolen.

Jay stopped short. “That’s Professor Raik’s car.”

“Yes, which is the best vehicle to be approaching the regent’s apartments in, don’t you think?”

Jay nodded and moved to get in the car.

Tag stopped him. “Ditch your IDR. If anyone watching sees you going near those apartments, you’ll be ex-ed before you can blink. Regents don’t mess around.”

Jay took off his ring and tossed it in a recycle bin.

We got in the car, Tag lifted it from the tracks, and flew us down the coastline until we reached a place where the housing areas were all on the ground. He tracked and turned to Jay. “Getting babies from the arms of a woman who has loved them for the last several months is going to be impossible. All she knows is that she is the child’s mother, and you are coming to kidnap her kid. Moms fight for their kids.”

I snorted. “You never met my mother.”

Tag shot me a look that made me shut up all other sarcastic remarks.

“Dads fight for their kids, too.” Jay’s level tone of calm anger left me with little wonder who would win this battle.

The car braked. “We don’t have much time, Jay. I don’t how long Raik and the guys will be out. They’ll know where his car has gone. They can see where I’m at, even if the two of you stay in their blind spots.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

“No, I didn’t kill him. Do you have a problem with my method of help, Savage?”

Jay looked like he’d bitten off what he’d plan to say and gave his head a single, sharp shake.

“When I say this woman is the mother of these children, I mean it. She loves those kids.”

“So will their real mother.”

“You mean like she loves the ones she’s got?”

Jay glared at Tag. “Those aren’t hers.”

“But they’re still babies. They’re still babies needing a mother and father and someone to love them and show them how to grow up normal. When you go, what will happen to those babies? Will you just leave them there?”

Jay’s anger turned to shock. “Of course not! We’re not going to leave helpless babies to die!”

“Then what will you do?” Tag whispered the question.