Hunted (27 page)

“She’s worried about you.”

Rachel squeezes my hand.
“Thank you.”
Her gratitude and relief fill me.

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Alex clears his throat. “Mr. Temple announced that more troopers are being brought in, and reporters are here to make sure everyone sees the big arrest. No one’s been allowed to leave the school. And Mrs. Vespa heard that another Government Para is coming to hunt you down.” I straighten my shoulders.

This is the end we were running from.

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CHAPTER 41

I heave myself to my feet. I always knew this day would come.

My chest aches like I’ve been stabbed. I know what I have to do, but god, I’ll miss everything—my freedom, my mom, Alex, Rachel, Mrs. Vespa, Netta . . . even this school and that crummy pool at the motel.

“I’m not letting you go out there,” Mom says, blocking the door with her body. “I’m not letting you get captured!”

“You can’t stop it, Mom. They know I’m here. They’re not going away until they get someone. You don’t think we should let them capture someone else in my place, do you?”

“Not unless it’s me.”

I look away, angrily. “I’m the one who got us caught.”

“No! You’re the one who saved us. And you’re my daughter! It is my right to sacrifice myself for you.”

“Both of you stop it!” Alex says. “No one’s getting captured. Rachel and I will help you escape.” They couldn’t save us even if they tried. They’d only put themselves in danger. I shake my head, ignoring the 348

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pain. “I’m tired of running. Tired of hiding who I am. I’m sick of barely existing.” I reach for the door handle with my good hand. “I’m going out there,” I tell them.

“Caitlyn—”
Mom reaches for me.

“I’m old enough to make my own decisions, Mom. Let
me have that freedom.”

Her arm falls to her side.

I focus on Mr. Temple, Becca, and the troopers outside the door. It almost takes more effort than I have, but I manage to hold them in place like painted statues.

I walk out into the school yard, flanked by my mom, Alex, Rachel, and Mrs. Vespa. The trooper helicopters circle overhead. The school yard is blocked off by yellow police tape. Troopers in riot gear block off the yard, but still, people have pushed their way onto the grounds, shoving and yelling. Others surge against the metal fence and spill out into the street. There are anti-Para banners, of course, but I’m surprised to see just as many pro-Para signs bobbing up and down.

Reporters rush toward me shouting out their questions.

Troopers get into firing position, training their guns on us.

I take a bit more of my energy, my legs trembling so hard I can barely hold myself up, and freeze the rest of the troopers in place.

“Are you the Para they’re looking for?”

“Did you turn troopers against each other?”

“Are you Teen Para?”

I hold up my hands and the school yard goes quiet. I can hear the traffic pass by a few streets away, can see the crowd swell as more people gather around. Microphones 349

Cheryl Rainfield

and digital recorders are shoved in my face, cameras trained on me. People in the crowd record me with their cell phones, watching me intently.

I lick my dry lips. “Yes, I am Teen Para, but I’ve never used my abilities to harm anyone. I did
not
turn troopers against each other. I value all life! I know what it’s like to lose someone.” The yard is eerily silent, people leaning forward to hear me. I raise my voice. “I am giving myself up to protect the people I love. My friends are innocent of anything except being good people. They didn’t know my secret.” Tears clog my throat, making my voice hoarse.

People stare at me the way they gape at accident victims. I see Netta in the crowd, nodding at me. My head aches with the strain of holding back the troopers. Blood drips from my nose, but I go on.

“I wish no one had died today—trooper, Normal, or Para—but they did. I did not make this happen—but I beg you to end it, to care about your fellow human beings. I hope that tomorrow, before you begin to celebrate the holiday, you take a moment to think about all those who were murdered, and all the people who’ve lost someone they loved.”

I release my hold on the troopers. They run toward me, rifles pointed at me. More troopers pour out of the school in a steady stream and I know that the only thing stopping them from shooting me on the spot is all the cameras pointed our way.

“Make sure you tell them you didn’t know I was a
Para,”
I tell Alex, Rachel, and Mrs. Vespa.
“You don’t want
to be caught up in this.”

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“Caitlyn—”
Alex protests.

“Do it!”
I send in a screaming thought, their faces blurring in front of me.

A trooper jabs my chest with a black metal stick and my body shrieks in pain. The shock stiffens my limbs, tears at my nerves—it’s a pain greater than anything I’ve ever felt. It stops, and for a moment, there’s relief. But then the trooper tasers me again.

“No! You leave my baby alone!” Mom cries.

I fall to my knees, my body jerking uncontrollably as the jolt grips me, but I will not cry out. I know Daniel endured this many times over the years—Daniel and all the other Government Paras.

“You bullies!” a voice shouts. “Go pick on someone your own size!” It’s a familiar voice—the motel owner. If the pain wasn’t so bad, I’d laugh. Just imagine—a Para-hater defending me.

A torrent of blood gushes from my nose and black spots fill my vision. I’m on my side now, convulsing on the asphalt. I don’t know how I got here, but a trooper begins to kick at me. I raise my arms to shield my head. My lip splits open but I can barely feel the pain; the electroshock from the Taser takes all of my focus.

I can hear my mom screaming at them to stop, can feel Alex getting ready to fight, even against such ridiculous odds, all those guns. Rachel is screaming at reporters to make sure they get all of this on tape, but I know their efforts will only make things worse.
“Please—don’t fight
them,”
I send.
“Just be safe.”
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Cheryl Rainfield

Then I shut myself off from them. When another Government Para arrives, I won’t have him targeting my mom and friends because of me. And I don’t want them to know my pain, even though they can see it.

I lapse in and out of consciousness and still the troopers shock me. They’re furious at what happened to their fellow troopers and they’re scared of me and of every other Para. The fear fuels their hate, making them enjoy my pain every time they shock me—they can’t get enough of it. I wonder if they’d rather kill me than make me a Para-slave after all.

I get to my knees and try to stagger to my feet.

The crowd is screaming, surging forward and throwing things—but not at me.

“Leave her alone!”

“Trooper brutality!”

“Free Teen Para!”

Their cries fade in and out through the roaring in my ears. I’m sure I must be hallucinating—people can’t actually be standing up for me—but when I look up, I see Mrs.

Vespa, Netta, Emily, and the motel owner all in front of the crowd, which is being held back by a line of troopers in riot gear. People I don’t even know hold makeshift signs and shout for my release.

Swaying, I blink sweat and tears out of my eyes, awed by the sight.

Hope flutters and fills my chest, makes me want to smile even as another jolt tears through my body, tightening every muscle into screeching agony.

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I smell burning skin and know it’s my own. But I can endure it if it means that people will see that we’re not the enemy.

“The crowd’s out of control,” a trooper says. “Let’s get her out of here.”

They grab my arms and drag me toward the van.

Mom runs beside me, trying to go with me, but a trooper shoves her aside like a ragdoll.

“I’ll find you, baby!” she shouts. “I love you.” But we both know that once you’re a Para-slave, you’re in the system for good—if they don’t kill you.

The troopers shove me roughly into the van and slam the door, metal clanging on metal, their guns still pointed at me. I hear a lock turn and a trooper motions me to a hard metal bench, then cuffs me to it.

The engine starts, but we don’t move. My body is still spasming in pain and I’m afraid, but I feel hope, too, stronger than I have in years—hope and an almost manic elation. We did it! We got through to people. Even if I’m never free again, the world will be a better place. And the Authority hasn’t won.

The roar outside gets louder and turns into a chant—

“Free Teen Para! Free Teen Para!”

I lean forward, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing, but I know it’s real. And I know it’s for me. Tears slide down my cheeks.

The van starts rocking from side to side and I feel heavy pounding along its walls. “Free Teen Para! Free Teen Para!”

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The guard beside me swears and I peer through the metal grate separating me from the cab. Through the windshield I can see hundreds of people blocking the van, pressing in around it, waving their fists and chanting.

A sob bursts from my throat. I never really thought we’d get here. I’d fought for it, I’d hoped for it with every molecule in my body, but I didn’t really believe that people would let go of their hatred, fear, and prejudice long enough to see us as equals. But here we are, with Normals calling for my release. I wish Dad could see this. I hope Daniel does.

“Free Teen Para!” someone shouts, and a brick hits the trooper van’s windshield, cracking it.

“Just run them over!” the guard beside me shouts to the driver.

“Are you crazy? They’re filming this, you know—at least a dozen separate news stations.” I let my breath out in a trembling rush. I can’t stop the tears.

“Alex?”

“Caitlyn! We’re calling for your release,”
Alex sends, his mind-voice choked.
“We might just pull this off.”

“I told you to go somewhere safe!”

“You didn’t really think I was going to listen to you,
did you? Besides, I didn’t start it. It was some woman in
the crowd. And then the rest picked it up pretty fast. They’re
not used to seeing people brutalized in front of them, Para
or not. Not like what those troopers did to you.”
Alex shudders. “
I think it shook the crowd into action.”
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“Yeah!”
Rachel says, butting in.
“It made a difference,
having it happen right in front of them, seeing you’re just as
human and vulnerable as the rest of us. It didn’t hurt that
your mom ran after you and freaked out like that.”
I grow cold.
“My mom! Is she—”

“She’s okay. A trooper started beating on her with his
baton, but the crowd stopped him. Most everybody’s on
your side.”

This is the change that for years I’ve desperately hoped for. And I’m actually a part of it! No matter what else happens, I’ll never be sorry for this day.

I lean back as the chanting voices calling for my release go on and on.

e

The van doors screech open and a man in a black suit and polished black shoes enters, staring down at me. Not a trooper or Government Para—someone much higher up.

The trooper guarding me stands and salutes. The man motions the trooper out of the van with his chin and the trooper scurries out, shutting the doors behind him.

I swallow.

The man stands there, staring down his nose at me, assessing me with his flat, cold eyes. I try not to look away.

“You’re a calculating little Para, aren’t you?” he finally says.

“What?” I blink at him.

“Setting up that blog, amassing such a huge following, 355

Cheryl Rainfield

turning troopers against each other, giving that touching speech before your capture, allowing the troopers to beat you up—”

I stare at him, my mouth dry and my heart pounding.

He goes on: “Riots—worse than the ones ten years ago. Looting, trooper stations burned to the ground, protests, news stories, exposés, people on strike. And even though their own kind was killed, they’re still demanding your release. I never thought I’d see the day we’d go backward like this,” he says, looking at me bitterly.

I feel like I’m in a dream. But the shrieking pain of my burns and the deep muscle ache from the Taser tells me I’m not.

Then the man uncuffs me.

I stand, wobbling and weak. Hot, fiery needles of pain shoot through my legs. I take in a shallow breath, trying to ignore the ache in my ribs.

“Not so fast,” the man spits.

I sink back to the cold metal bench, my legs unable to hold me.

The man opens the van door and motions a medic in.

“See to her wounds—all of them,” the man raps out. “I’m not going to have people complaining that we used more force on her than we did.”

The medic climbs into the van, shutting the door behind him. He bends over me, his shoulders slightly stooped with an unseen weight, his brown hair thinning in a patch on top of his head. His hands are gentle as he checks me over, an apologetic look on his face.

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The medic clucks his tongue. “Those are some serious third-degree burns you have there.”

“I didn’t ask you to tell her what her condition is,” the man snaps. “I asked you to patch her up. Now do it.” The medic nods tightly and lays his hands on me, closing his eyes. Bright light glows from his fingers as his hands heat up. I startle, but then I see the metal tracker in his tongue and understand he’s a Para-slave, too.

I feel my skin begin to knit itself, the wounds closing over and the pain becoming manageable.

The medic shudders and removes his hands, sweat dripping from his forehead. “You’ll be okay now,” he says quietly.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

His eyes meet mine briefly before he digs into his bag.

He pulls out a tube of burn cream and some bandages, ap-plying them deftly.

“A day or two of bed rest and she’ll be just fine,” he says.

I rub my face, relieved. I feel like I’ve been dropped from a five-story balcony—repeatedly. But I’m going to be okay. More than okay.

“Very good. You can go,” the man says. The medic scurries away even faster than the troopers.

The man stands there, arms crossed, looking at me the way a scientist might look at a rat. I gaze back defiantly.