Sanctuary Bay (32 page)

Sarah wrapped her arms around herself and focused on following Ethan. She didn't want to know how she would fare in a fight with trained security guards, and she didn't want to think about being in a dinghy on the giant storm swells. She wasn't even sure what a dinghy was. In her mind it sounded like a rowboat.

“I'm hoping we can put it on the other side of the island somewhere and wait 'til the worst is over,” Ethan said. “If they don't know where to find us, they're not going to come after us in this weather. Then we can escape as soon as it's calm.”

“Do you know how to control a boat enough to get around the island without being pulled out to sea in this?” Sarah asked.

“I guess we'll find out,” he said grimly.

“If you don't, I do,” Izzy put in. “I learned to sail before I could even ride a bike. A little rain doesn't change that.”

Sarah shook her head. Sanctuary Bay had been her ticket to becoming a person like Ethan or Izzy or Karina, someone who knew things like how to sail and how to use the right fork. But now it was a scary, violent place she had to flee. And even running away from it, she didn't have the skills everyone else did.

In spite of the rain pelting her and the dread coursing through her cold body, the thought of Karina made her wonder. “Hey, Iz?” she asked. Izzy turned and looked at her. “Do you remember shooting Karina?”

Izzy raised an eyebrow. She was Izzy-in-the-woods now, Izzy-the-murderer. She had to remember. She had to know what happened to Karina.

“Karina?” Izzy began. She opened her mouth to say more—and then she collapsed.

“What the hell?” Ethan cried.

“Izzy? What happened? What's wrong?” Sarah dropped to her knees next to Izzy in the wet, overgrown grass. “Izzy.”

Her roommate was slumped over in a heap. She didn't answer or even look at them. Her head hung limply, her chin resting on her chest. Ethan knelt next to Sarah. “Izzy, get up. We have to go.”

Izzy didn't move. Sarah grabbed her wrist and checked her pulse. “It's slow, but steady.” She lifted Izzy's chin up. Izzy's eyes stared back at them blankly, like blue marbles. “Oh my god, it's the same thing that happened after her treatment,” Sarah gasped. She shook Izzy, hard. But her dead eyes just kept staring, unseeing.

Dead eyes,
Sarah thought, filled with horror. First Karina's dead eyes and now Izzy's.

“We can't carry her. It's too hard in this wind and rain, too slippery,” Ethan said. “Obviously she can snap out of this, because she did before. You said she was at the cliff when Nate—” He didn't finish. “And that wasn't too long after she collapsed in the treatment room.”

“But we don't know how they revived her. Maybe they gave her something to wake her up after the guard took us to the dean's,” Sarah said. “She was still out when we left.”

“Okay, well, what made her collapse in the treatment room? I had her in a chokehold, but not one tight enough to make her pass out. Suddenly she just went limp. Did you see anything?”

“No. I was trying to get the nurse to give her a sedative, because she was attacking you and that guard. That's all I remember,” Sarah cried, hands still on Izzy's shoulders.

“There must be something.” Ethan took Sarah's hands in his. “Sarah. Try to remember the details. Everything that happened. In the treatment room, Izzy was going crazy before she collapsed, but this time she wasn't. This time she was just talking.”

“All I saw is that she dropped to the floor unconscious,” Sarah insisted.

“There might be an element you're not thinking of,” Ethan said. “You're the one with the amazing memory. Like when we were in the asylum. You said that you cried out because you remembered something and it was like a vision. You said it was completely real, with smells and sounds and everything. Do that.”

“I can't just
do that
!” Sarah cried out. “That's not how it works. I don't control those kinds of memories. I just sort of get kicked into them by something.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. Like a sound or a feeling. In the asylum, it was a flash of light reflected off a piece of glass. It was the flash from the gun muzzle, and suddenly I was right back in the clearing, seeing Izzy shoot Karina.”

“Okay, so focus on something you saw when Izzy collapsed yesterday. Or something you heard or whatever,” Ethan urged.

“I said it didn't work like that!” She jerked her hands away, frustrated. He didn't get it. Nobody did.

“Just try, Sarah.” Ethan wiped the rain off his face. “That's all I'm saying.”

“Her eyes! I thought her eyes looked like marbles then, and just now.” Sarah lifted Izzy's face again. The cold, dead blue eyes stared back at her. She brushed Izzy's hair out of her face, forcing herself to look into them fully. Izzy's eyes stared back lifelessly like two cold blue marbles.

And she was in. The treatment room in disarray. The smell of disinfectant and sweat and blood. Something else, something chemical she didn't recognize. Ethan saying “Give her a minute.” The faint hum of the fluorescent lights. Izzy's skin, warm beneath her fingers. Sarah sliding her hand down to Izzy's wrist. The pulse, strong and steady. But looking in Izzy's eyes told Sarah everything she needed to know. Her body might still be working, but Izzy wasn't there.

Go back
.
To before she collapsed. Was there anything happening like today?
A vague awareness came over Sarah through the memory. For a moment she felt sick, unsure of which time she was in: the treatment room with Izzy? Or the stormy field with Ethan?

Let the memory be, and just watch
.
Hold yourself out of it.

Sarah forced the thought into the back of her mind somewhere, a place she had never known she had, one where present-day Sarah could observe.

The treatment room, the nurse crouching down, holding his abdomen in pain. A grinding, metallic sound filling the air, and then Izzy jumping from the table. The security guard appearing, and Izzy going straight for his eyes, her hands like claws. The security guard and Ethan grabbing Izzy. Izzy raking her nails down the guard's cheek. The coppery smell of blood.

Izzy twisting like a mad thing in the guard's grip, kicking over one of the carts, sending it crashing to the ground. Tinkling, jangling as surgical instruments flew across the floor. Ethan wrapping one arm across Izzy's neck in a chokehold. Izzy sinking her teeth into his arm. Izzy kicking both feet into the guard's chest with a meaty thump. A metallic clang as his head bounced off the tipped-over cart when he hit the ground.

Her screaming, “Stop! Izzy, stop!” The guard bellowing in pain. Ethan's bright red blood soaking into his blue-and-white checked flannel shirt. Ethan still holding Izzy.

Sarah-in-the-treatment-room turning on the nurse. “Do something. Don't you have a sedative?”

The nurse ignoring her, staggering over to the counter next to the computer. He wasn't preparing a hypodermic. He was pulling up a virtual keyboard.

I have to pay attention
.
The nurse never sedated her, but she collapsed anyway.

The guard grunting and bleeding. Izzy screaming and fighting like a cornered cat. A clicking sound. The nurse typing something into the computer, his face grim. Izzy's screaming stopping abruptly.

I have to go back
.
I passed it
. Sarah-in-the-treatment-room was panicking, confused. But Sarah-in-the-field was watching calmly from that place deep inside herself the sensations of the memory couldn't touch. Both there and not there.

She heard a clicking sound.
Look
. Sarah-in-the-field let her attention drift from the guard's grim face to the source of the sound. The computer keys clicking as the nurse's fingers hit them, letters and numbers appearing on the screen.

Xk32R. Standby.

The screaming stopped. Izzy going limp in Ethan's arms. Izzy crumpling to the floor.

That's it.
And she was out. Sarah drew in a deep breath and fell back onto the wet grass. For a moment she was so stunned she barely even noticed the pelting rain or the howling wind. All she could think about was that nurse.

“What just happened?” Ethan asked.

“I saw how they sedated her. Or something. I think,” she answered. “But it can't be right.”

“Thanks for being so clear,” Ethan said sarcastically, then immediately muttered, “Sorry.”

“I told the nurse to sedate her. But he didn't. He just typed something into the computer, and she collapsed.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the whooshing of the wind and the thunder in the distance. Izzy sat hunched between them, perfectly still. Finally, Ethan spoke.

“Are you saying that him using the computer is what made Izzy go catatonic?”

Sarah nodded. “I know it's impossible and I sound like a nut. But I … I paid more attention now than I did when it was happening. I saw what he typed.”

Ethan looked at her appraisingly. “You can pay attention in your memories?”

“Well, I never did before.” Sarah admitted. “But you said to try, so I did. I was there—the way I usually am in one of my freaky memory surges—but I was also here, watching. Is this really the time to be discussing my memory?” she asked, exasperated.

“No. No, it is not,” Ethan said. “What did the nurse type?”

“A string of nonsense, and then the word ‘Standby.'”

“Standby.” Ethan glanced at Izzy, who hadn't moved even though the rain had now plastered her long hair over her face. It was creepy. Sarah reached out and tucked Izzy's hair behind her ears.

“I think the nonsense was a password. And ‘Standby' was a command,” Sarah said. “I know how that sounds…”

“But he did this and she collapsed right away?”

“Right away.”

“So he was controlling her actions with the computer?”

“Ethan, I'm not crazy.” Sarah shrugged. “Why else would she just shut off like that, right at that second? The nurse didn't even try to get a sedative, he just ran for the computer.”

“Yeah, that is weird,” Ethan agreed. “And if it was a coincidence that she shut off the instant he typed into the computer, he would have been surprised. Did he seem surprised?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Okay. So let's assume that the doctors are somehow controlling Izzy,” Ethan said. “Is it the school, or is it that Fortitude Corporation Dr. Diaz talked about?”

“Fortitude. The doctor was from Fortitude,” Sarah said.

“So they turned her off because she was freaking out. And they turned her off right now because…” His eyes met Sarah's. “Because she's running away.”

Ethan jumped to his feet and grabbed Sarah's arm, pulling her up too.

“They know what she's doing,” Sarah said. “Does that mean—”

“It means they can see where she is,” Ethan cut her off. “If they know she's running, they're tracking her. They're coming after us, and we're sitting ducks.”

“We can't leave Izzy here. She saved me. She wants to escape with us,” Sarah protested.

“We have no choice! She won't wake up.” He bent over, slapping Izzy lightly across the face. She didn't move. “Even if she did, she's got a tracker on her somewhere. I doubt she even knows about it. If she came with us, they'd find us.”

“But—”

Her words cut off when she saw a beam of light bounce across the wasteland. A flashlight, dim through the rain, shone in the distance near the hedge. Sarah's heart began to pound.

“These are people who are using a student as some kind of remote-control robot. Do you want to get caught by them?” Ethan asked urgently.

“No.” Sarah took his hand. “Let's go.”

Ethan took off running, and Sarah did her best to keep up in the oversized shoes. She didn't look back. Izzy remained, the cold rain pouring down on her.

“I can't go fast enough,” Sarah panted. “How do we get down to the dinghy, anyway? The asylum is on a bluff.”

“There's a way down through the basement of the asylum,” Ethan replied. He glanced over his shoulder at the flashlights. “We won't have enough time to get there.” He swerved to the right, running toward something dark in the distance.

“Where are we going?” Sarah asked.

“There's an old hunting blind in the woods. I think that's what it is, anyway,” Ethan replied. “It's hard to see, because it's under the trees. If we hide, hopefully they'll think Izzy was alone.”

They ran silently until Sarah thought she might pass out, the wind and rain slapping at her face, her giant shoes bogging her down in the mud.

“Here. It's right inside the tree line.” Ethan slowed as they reached the edge of the woods that covered half the island. Sarah had never been to this part of the forest before, but it was as thick and tangled as the area around the Pine Tree clearing. The rain felt less oppressive here, and for the first time all night, Sarah was able to wipe the water from her face and stay dry under the thick canopy of branches.

“How did you find this place?” she whispered.

“Same way I found every place,” he replied. “There! It's between these two trees.” He led her to a tiny shack entirely overgrown with ivy. Sarah could barely even see it in the dark, but Ethan led her to one end, pushed aside a bush, and crawled inside. Sarah followed.

For a few minutes they sat in silence, completely soaked through, listening to the thunder as it grew louder. Sarah's teeth chattered as she hugged herself, trying to get warm now that they were out of the wind.

“Come here.” Ethan pulled her into his arms and held her against him.

“What do we do now?” Sarah asked.

“We still have to try for the dinghy,” Ethan said. “In the asylum's basement there is a stairway down to the beach where the dinghy is. Maybe when they find Izzy, they'll just take her back to the school. If we wait for half an hour, we can try again.”