Take Me Tomorrow (17 page)

Anthony’s jaw opened slightly, and then, he covered up his surprised expression with laughter. “What could you possibly gain from knowing where that useless kid is?”

“What could you get out of knowing what Noah is
up to?” I tested.

Anthony’s cheeks flushed with frustration. “I wouldn’t test me, Ms. Gray,” he leaned back, exposing his gun again. “I have other means of getting information from you than just deals and bets.”

“I was raised by one of the best investigators in the State,” I spat back. “I think I know how to hold back information, even in pain, Mr. Tomery.” I used the last name with little confidence, but Anthony flinched as if he had been slapped.

He moved his head as if he did it on purpose. Noah did the same thing when he was trying to gain control. They were alike, and I could use it against Anthony. “Noah cares about his family a lot.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Anthony spat. “His family − my family − was executed in Phoenix, and he let it happen.”

They even had the same weak spots. As much as Anthony was older, he was still a vengeful kid.

“Noah cares—”

“All I care about is revenge,”
Anthony spat, his brow furrowing above his nose.

I swallowed my nerves, “
So, make a deal with me,” I said, “and you can get it.”

“I shouldn’t have to make the deal.”

I fiddled with my handcuffs to keep Anthony from realizing how hard I was beginning to shake. “Then, Phelps won’t get the information he’s looking for,” I threatened, “and I’m betting you’ll be sent back to Phoenix. The records were destroyed under your watch, after all.”

Anthony’s hand shot to his gun, and he pulled it out faster than I was able to comprehend.
He pointed it directly at my face, and I froze like an animal about to be killed. My palms filled with sweat, and I wondered if Noah’s blood would run down to my wrists from the condensation. The thought consumed me as I stared down the barrel less than a yard away from me.

I sighed like it
was my last breath, like it had already happened, but Anthony lowered it. His high cheekbones caused shadows to drift down his face, but his eyes weren’t hollow. They moved from side to side, filled with thoughts I couldn’t guess. His emerald irises traced every inch of my expression. He was reading me, and I hoped that my face was unreadable, that I looked as if I had stared down a barrel a hundred times when my father taught me how to be silent. I hoped Anthony saw a girl who didn’t mind dying without a few last words. I prayed he would let me go.

“You ha
ve a deal.” His voice dropped just like his cousin’s did. “Talk.”

Ignore the Blood

My hands remained cuffed
. They didn’t even remove them when they put a sweater over me. Backwards, of course. The hood was pulled over my eyes, and the edges tugged at the back of my ears. The only thing I could make out was the strong fingers that dug into my right shoulder. Pierson’s grip.

After I had told Anthony information, he kept me in
Phelps’ mansion in a backroom. Hours passed. Once the sun disappeared, he pulled me out and directed me into a car. Pierson drove us somewhere, but we had left the truck minutes ago. We were walking, and I had no perception of where we were.

The air smel
led like oak trees, and my nose tingled at the familiar scent of a forest. My feet stumbled from concrete to a dirt path. Why Anthony was taking me into the woods was something I didn’t want to ask myself. I fixated on my senses instead – the cool air, the loose ground, the waving trees. If I had to run, I would. If it came down to it, I wondered if I would kill.

“Take it off,” Anthony’s
whisper was hoarse.

Fingers grazed my nose through the cloth hood as it was grabbed and yanked down. My hair swished in front of my eyes as my pupils adjusted to the night sky. It was late
− much later than I thought − and stars scattered across the atmosphere. We weren’t close to the city, but I recognized the large oak tree in the middle of the clearing.

We were on my father’s land. I was almost home.

Anthony walked forward. “We have a ways to go.”

Pierson pressed his fingertips to my back, and I sprung forward, following the blonde through the trees.

“Step over,” Pierson directed me, pointing at a pile of stones, but I already had lifted my leg. I knew the piles of stones. I had nearly broken my ankle on them when I was surveying the land last summer. I wouldn’t forget they were there, even though it was almost too dark to see them.

Anthony didn’t bring a flashlight, and I
severely doubted the two boys knew the woods like I did.

“There’s a river right there.” I lifted my cuffed hands to point.

Anthony’s blond hair glittered in the moonlight as he turned to look. When he saw it, his eyebrows rose. “Go first, then,” he dared.

I shook my handcuffs.
It was a deep river, and I was clumsy without my hands to balance me. Even though I memorized the creek like the forest, the creek changed. Stones were constantly moving. Trash could cut me easily, and it would be hard to get up if I fell.

“Follow me,” Pierson muttered as he walked
forward. He leapt onto the exposed stones, and water grazed the toe of his boot. When he looked back, his face hardened.

The river was rushing past us at the same speed that it was during the Homecoming Party. Noah had tossed me in, and
I had almost drowned. I gulped.

“Can I take my cuffs off?” I squeaked at Anthony.

He shook his head. “You can make it.”

I bent my knee, ready to kick him in the groin, but Pierson cleared his throat. “Swallowed a bug,” he dismissed once he gained our attention.

Whether he had done it to warn me or not wasn’t my concern. Neither was Anthony. I was too close to home.

I sucked in a breath before I jumped to the first stone – round and shiny
, but ridged. My feet landed on it, and my body swayed. The momentum carried me into my next leap. Louder than the rushing water, Anthony laughed at the torturous show. I drowned him out as I hopped from one stone to a log, nearing the two-foot embankment on the other side. Getting above the dirt wall would be impossible.

“I go
t you,” Pierson muttered as he grazed past me. He hurdled over the embankment before leaning down to grab my upper arms. Once his fingers dug into my biceps, he lifted me like he spent his days picking up one hundred pounds. “You good?” he asked, steadying us on the bank of the river.

My breath was heavy with adrenaline. I couldn’t speak. My body was exhausted from
running, questioning, and Anthony’s gun escapade, but I had to concentrate. As foggy as my mind was, it still focused on Anthony as he crossed the river. I only had a moment to look at Pierson in private.

He had
cerulean-colored eyes, bright and alert, and auburn hair cleanly cut against his ears. A thin, pink scar stretched from his scalp to his right eyebrow, but I hadn’t seen it before. He may have even been younger than me. Phelps used minors for his dirty work just like Noah’s father did.

Anthony’s foot squished against the mud as he hopped onto the embankment.
“This way,” he ordered as he pulled his foot out of the wet ground. He walked off of the trails and into the trees.

Pierson dragged me
after him. Twigs cracked, and branches smacked against my exposed arms. I winced as leaves skimmed my face and bugs crawled up my legs. My ankle throbbed. We were immersed in trees, but Anthony walked as if he knew exactly where to go. That’s when I saw it – large
T
’s carved into the trees we passed. They were too deep to be deer sharpening their antlers or other animals looking for food. Humans made them.

When we burst through an opening,
Anthony flailed his arms about. I stumbled as Pierson yanked me backward. His calloused fingers moved across my wrists, and then, my handcuffs clicked. I was free.

I pulled my hands forward and rubbed the raw skin.
“Thank you,” I muttered, trying to ignore the blood that stained the lines in my palm. Noah.

“As promised,” Anthony spoke up,
but he wasn’t looking at Pierson or me. He was facing a thick brush of darkness. The trees moved, and a boy pushed out of the branches, the thorns digging into his brown curls.

I rushed past Anthony, but no one tried to grab me. “Miles,
” I squeaked, latching onto his coat as tightly as I could.

Miles
’ arm tightened around my shoulders, but he didn’t speak.

“Let’s go
,” Anthony instructed Pierson.

I peered back, watching as the boys turned to leave.
Anthony had what he needed – information − and he didn’t need me after that. At least he had kept his word. I was free.

The trees shuffled around for what seemed like hours before I relaxed at the silence.
I buried my nose in Miles’ shoulder, and my eyes burned beneath my eyelids.

“We thought you—” His voice cracked as he struggled to continue, “y
ou might have been killed. Lyn’s a mess.”

I leaned back. Miles looked years older.
His dark eyes that once danced were now soft and weary, his heavy eyelashes dragging his eyelids down.

“What about Broden?
” I asked, “The others? Where are—?”

“We’ll talk later,” Miles interrupted as he gestured to the black sweater they forced me to wear backwards. “Ditch that thing,” he said as he shook his own jacket off. “You look awful.”

“They didn’t exactly let me shower,” I mumbled as I pulled the black sweater off. I dropped it on the ground and accepted Miles’ heavier jacket. My hands were shaking, and I stuffed them in the thick-padded pockets before Miles could see.

He lifted his chin toward a wooded trail. “Your
house is close,” he said as we started walking. We left the carved trees behind us. Miles must have made the carvings for Anthony to follow.

“We’re in trouble,” he
said it like I didn’t already know, “and we need to get back to the others now.”

Ten minutes lasted hours as we stumbled through the rest of the darkened forest. We reached my backyard, and I sighed, feeling as if I had breathed for the first time since the initial explosion. Reflexively, I took off running. My twisted ankle didn’t complain as I rushed o
ver the three yards to the backstairs and flew up to the wrap-around porch. The gate smacked the green wall of the house, and I tugged open the heavy, white door to get inside.

The air-conditioning slammed into me, and my chest heaved at the sudden temperature change.
Lyn was the first person I saw.

She
stood up from a couch in the living room. Her dark eyes were bloodshot, and her bottom lip was bleeding from excessive biting. “Baby girl,” she whispered, opening up her arms as she rushed over to me. Her tattooed arms wrapped around me, and the scent of Falo’s baby powder swallowed me whole. “I was praying this was why Anthony called Miles.” Her hands moved up to my face. “You’re alive.”

“I’m okay,
” I promised, but tears dripped down. “I’m safe.”

Her thumb moved over my ash-stained cheeks.
“Lily and Falo are sleeping in the other room,” she answered my unasked questions, but her lips twisted into a grimace. “Broden was caught.” I held my breath. “He was arrested. We don’t know much more than that.”

“What about Noah?” The name
tumbled out of my mouth like a foreign language. His blood was still on me.

A series of small bangs erupted around
the living room, and we jumped. When Lyn turned around, she exposed the entrance hallway. A small pile of weapons − two guns and a collection of hand-made knives – had toppled to the tile floor. The carrier had dropped them, but the boy wasn’t even looking at the mess. He was just standing there, his blond hair glowing beneath the entryway lights.

“Sophie,” Noah spoke up, his voice low and quiet.

I nodded, unsure what to say, and he hurried over before I could react. He bent down from his height to wrap his arms around my ribs. His tight hold made me gasp, and his chest sighed against mine.

“Hi,” I managed to whisp
er against his neck.

He dropped me only for his
eyes to skim over every inch of my body. Breath escaped him when he focused on my hands. He grabbed my fingers and flipped my hand over to see my palm. The dried blood wasn’t mine. The realization crossed his face in a pale wave.

“I’m okay, Noah,”
I said as I moved away. His eyes followed my stained skin. “Are you?”

“I’m alive,” he muttered, laying his hand on his shoulder where Lyn had already sewed him up. Noah was wearing one my father’s white t-shirts, but Lyn had cut off the sleeve where he had been shot. A large
, tan bandage stretched over his bicep to his neck. It wrapped around the collarbone. “Lyn had good medicine to help.”

“I stole it from the hospital a fe
w weeks ago,” Lyn informed us, exposing more of her skills.

The patio door squealed as Miles walked in, and Noah
stepped away from me. His green eyes turned into a solemn information seeker. “Any news?”

In the light, d
ark bags hung from Miles’ eyes. “Tony didn’t say anything to me,” he said, his fingers running over his watch. “Pierson was there.”

Noah’s
bottom lip hung open.

Miles nodded as if he knew no one could respond to it
, but I did, “Pierson was with Anthony the whole time.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Noah’s head moved side to side.
“He’s on our side.”

“He still is,” I interrupted, thinking of the blue-eyed boy. “He helped me. He told me to lie to Anthony. I don’t kno
w why, but he did,” I stuttered, “and Anthony let me go.”

“Lie?” Noah’s brow crumbled
. “About what?”

“Anthony wants the new synthetic drug,” I told them. “Another version of tomo.”

“What?” Noah’s voice rose. “There isn’t a new version.”

“I know that,” I said, unable to hide my smirk
.

Noah’s crumbled brow rose before he leaned back and laughed.

“What just happened?” Miles asked, looking from Noah to me.

Noah was too busy laughing to answer, so I spoke up, “Anthony wanted to know what Noah was after, so I told him there was a new version,” I explained, recalling how Anthony had interrogated me. “Pierson told me to lie, so I did. Anthony believed me, and I got out.”

Miles lit up. “I told you he was good.”

“Di
d I miss something?” Lyn asked.

“Pierson,” Miles
started to giggle like his sister would, “He’s my guy. I brought him in on this years ago,” he explained. “He was studying chemistry with the military school. He’s the one who introduced us to Gigi.”

At Gigi’s name, Miles’ eyes shot to the ground. “We don’t think she made it out.”

I hadn’t even seen her. Not once. I had no idea how old she was or what she sounded like. But we had shared a mission, and she hadn’t made it out.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Noah mumbled, leaning his back against the wall
, only to spring forward. Breath hissed out of his teeth. His injury wasn’t painless.

“Don’t lean on anything or pick anything up,” Lyn lectured.

Noah’s green eyes wavered when he looked back at her. “Like that is even possible.” No one argued him. He didn’t have time to be hurt. “Looks like Pierson works for Phelps now,” he stated. “He must have been hired immediately after he exposed the drugs at the Homecoming party,” he theorized. “Amazing. Just amazing. We have an inside guy.”