Taken (27 page)

“Well, that’s as dumb a plan as any.”

“Gray,” he says simply, “it is a worthwhile sacrifice, one life for many, and you will be a fool to waste it. Don’t do anything stupid when the time comes. I will not be angry with you. This is the way for you and Bree to make it back. Do this final deed, and then, as they celebrate my demise, when they trust you, bring the vaccine back to Crevice Valley so this battle can continue.”

I sit there and shake my head in disbelief. Before I can find peace in my thoughts, the guards are leading us from the room.

Union Central is quiet again. The alarms have been turned off, the Code Red cleared. Harvey and I are pushed into a car, which drives us downtown to the same public square where Emma and I witnessed the water thief’s execution. Here, it is busy, citizens and Order members alike buzzing through the space. Frank stands on the raised platform and quiets the crowd. He speaks into a tall narrow contraption that amplifies his voice through the square.

“This is Harvey Maldoon,” Frank says. The wall behind Frank illuminates with the visuals from Harvey’s wanted posters as the guards drag him onto the platform. They secure him to a wooden post. He doesn’t struggle. In fact, he willingly participates, arranging his arms so the Order can more easily bind him.

“This man is no stranger to us,” Frank continues. “We have seen his face strung up around the city, but I think it is worth reiterating the evils he has committed. This is a man who has no desire to live by laws that are just and fair. He is a snake and a coward, a murderer and a traitor, a filthy disease that Taem will be cleansed of tonight. Harvey has traded information and knowledge to AmWest, and in doing so he has betrayed us all. He has clearly proven that he wishes every one of us dead, and so tonight, this man will die!”

The spectators erupt in cheers, lifting arms above their heads and urging on the execution. Frank continues talking, working the people into a frenzied rally, but I am not listening. Where is Bree? I whisper to her through my mic, but she doesn’t respond. I look around, but we are surrounded, trapped. City towers bear down on us from all angles, and the crowd is a swarming sea of anger around the platform.

“Blaine Weathersby has brought Mr. Maldoon back to us,” Frank continues. Suddenly I fill the wall behind Frank, and not just a static image but a moving one. Wall me blinks when I blink, moves as I move. Video. It must be. “Blaine has shown honesty and faithfulness to Taem. He has shown us respect for law and order. He has returned Harvey to our city, and now, before you all, Blaine will eliminate this threat forever.”

The crowd proceeds to cheer. I search the angry faces, looking for Emma, but she’s nowhere to be found. I never should have walked away from her. A guard leads me onto the stage and positions me across the platform from Harvey. The wall shows it all, both Harvey and myself now filling its surface. The guard hands me a rifle and Frank presses a finger to his lip, smiling.

The weapon feels heavy in the approaching twilight. I could kill Frank. This is my chance if I want it. He is standing right there, but then what? I would certainly be shot dead by the Order or trampled by the crowd and the vaccine would never make it back to the Rebels. Frank would be dead, but would his Laicos Project? Would Marco step in and fill Frank’s shoes? Continue Heisting for Forgeries? Send the virus to Mount Martyr? Would killing Frank now even matter?

I look down at the gun and then back to Harvey.

Don’t do anything stupid when the time comes
.

Those were his words, and maybe he is right. Maybe this really is the only way. Harvey is sacrificed for the greater good, the survival of the Rebels and the hope that the Rebellion can continue after the vaccine is administered. Tonight is not the night to defeat Frank. That battle waits but in a much different future.

As I ready myself for the actions I am still hesitant to take, I see a flash out of the corner of my eye, movement on a nearby roof. I look up and there she is, Bree, crouched behind a chimney of an adjacent building with her rifle in hand. She nearly blends into the dark stone structure, her hair disguising her. I can’t quite tell, but I think she nods at me, urges me on. This is the path she and Harvey agreed upon behind closed doors. This is the path that I have had no say in. I am part of a plan already set in motion. I can refuse to play by the rules and everyone will lose.

Or I can pull the trigger.

I raise the rifle, position the butt against my shoulder, and look down the barrel at Harvey. His face is peaceful when he mouths,
I’m ready
. He closes his eyes, and I take aim.

My blood rushes; my hair stands on end; and, as my finger reaches toward the trigger, as I am about to pull it, I hear a gunshot.

This is when Bree shoots me. This is when I fall to the ground. And this is when the world around me goes up in flames.

THIRTY-FIVE

FEET RACE ABOUT MY BODY.
I can hear the gunfire erupting, but in a distant way, my ears ringing so intensely that everything simply hangs in space. I clutch my stomach, the place where I felt the bullet strike. I ache. I burn. I squint through the smoke. Harvey is gone. Flames lick across the platform, racing up the stake that held him just moments earlier. Someone has started a fire in the madness—as a distraction to help Frank escape the now violent square, perhaps. Or maybe it was Bree. But why?

The crowd is a slew of panicked shouts.

“Rebels are here! Undercover!”

“No, it’s AmWest!”

“They’re trying to kill the boy.”

“They’re trying to save Harvey.”

Not a single accusation is true. And there are certainly no Rebels in the square. None other than Bree and myself, although perhaps it is possible she was trying to take me out. But why? Was
this
the plan devised behind closed doors? That
I
should die so Harvey and Bree could return? Or maybe it is just another diversion, Bree making things up as she goes.

I continue to hold my stomach, but the heat is intensifying quickly. I’m pretty sure my arm is on fire, but I am too stiff to shed my shirt. The platform is empty. I am alone, burning. I’m trying to come to peace with it, trying to accept that this is where I will die, when a pair of arms hook beneath my shoulders and drag me from the flaming stage. I can’t see who they belong to, and I don’t care. I let them pull me down a deserted alley and to safety. Hands rip the canvas bag holding the vaccine from my back and strip me of my shirt. Strong feet stamp out the flames that eat the material. I lie there, my back slumped against a stone wall until my senses return to me. The stinging in my eyes fades, my lungs cease screaming for air. And then my rescuer comes into view.

“You?” I mumble. “Why are you helping me?”

“You think you’re the only one who’s in on what’s happening here? You don’t think there have been others helping your crazy mission?” Bozo stands before me, his body hunched at an awkward angle as if he’s forgotten how to stand up straight.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a lot of people on the Rebels’ side in Taem. Just because we didn’t know about the virus doesn’t mean we weren’t ready to help when Ryder made the calls.” He seems stronger out of his cell, his voice more steady, his limbs looser. His fingers still race in odd, twitching patterns, tapping at the wall he leans against, but without his tattered prison garb, he could almost pass for a civilized member of society.

“But . . . why would Ryder call on a crazy prisoner for help?”

“Ryder and I grew up together. We tried to run from Frank together once, too. I was stupid and got myself hurt. Had to tell Ryder to go on without me.”

“You!” It’s suddenly so clear. He knew about the test groups the first day I met him, I’d just thought he was talking about something else. How had I not seen it? He’s not crazy, not Bozo at all.

“You’re Bo Chilton!” I declare.

He shoots me a wild grin. “Guilty.”

“How did you get out of the prison?”

“Bree had her own set of orders from Ryder, and she paid me a visit while Mozart was playing, broke me out on the spot.”

I should be happy about this. This plan helped me avoid shooting Harvey. This plan led to my being saved from the fire and yet I am furious. Livid.

“She kept me in the dark. That lying, back-stabbing, stubborn . . . And she shot me!”

“Oh, quit your whining,” Bo says. “She shot you with a rubber bullet and it was necessary. The others Ryder called on are fighting right now, keeping the Order busy so that you can get out of here. It’s a cover, don’t you see? A fight breaks out, the square goes up in flames, and you guys run in the thick of it.”

I look down at my stomach, the place I had been clutching in pain. There is blood, but not nearly as much as I expect. Beneath my sweaty palm is a nasty welt, red and raised and already blossoming into a bruise. Painful, yes, but not deadly. If anything, the wound I should worry about is my burned left arm, blistering from the shirt I have since shed.

“Nothing is more convincing than authentic shock, and you wouldn’t have acted the same if you knew the true plan,” Bo continues. “We only get one shot at this, and Ryder thought this was the best chance at getting all three of you out alive.”

“Harvey!” I exclaim, looking back toward the square. “Where is he?”

“He got hit by some crossfire—I saw that much. And then someone dragged him off the stage. I was told to get you both, if I could, but I think we’ve lost him. And if you and Bree want to get out of here, we have to move. Now.”

And right then, when her name is not included, I know I can’t leave without her.

“We have to go back for someone,” I say.

“Yes. Bree,” Bo agrees. “She is meeting us back at Union Central. We’ll hop a car from there.”

“Of course Bree. But Emma, too. I have to go back for Emma.”

He smiles a crooked grin. “Emma. She spoke about you.”

I pause, confused. “You know her?”

“We were cell mates for a few days, until they discovered that she was handy with a scalpel.”

“And she talked about me?”

“Wouldn’t shut up. I had to launch into real dark stories to keep her quiet. Stories about the Laicos Project and Claysoot and Frank’s Heists.”

So she knows. Emma knows everything. I picture her now, somewhere in Union Central, walking around with that burden of knowledge. Knowledge she can’t share with anyone. Her only proof is the word of a crazy man; if she spoke up, she’d be deemed as insane as him. Emma is free of her cell but still locked in a prison. I may not be ready to forgive her, but I love her too much to leave her stuck in that state.

“We have to get her. After we meet up with Bree.”

Bo taps his fingers frantically against the wall. “We can try.”

And in that moment, trying is enough.

I am on my feet quickly, ripping an undamaged section from my discarded shirt and wrapping it around my burned arm. I sling the bag holding the vaccine on my back, Bo hands me his rifle, and we take off down the deserted alley.

Union Central is once again in an uproar, the alarm jarring people into action. Workers who had vacated the shelters since the previous Code Red now scurry to get back in them. Order members race to organize troops and head downtown. It is not hard for Bo and me to blend in among them. People are too panicked to really look at anyone’s face.

We meet up with Bree near the dining halls. When I see her, a million thoughts fly through my head: relief, hatred, betrayal. It’s confusing, and not knowing which one to act upon, I simply glare at her. She, on the other hand, runs to me and throws her arms around my neck with such force that I stumble backward.

“You’re okay,” she gasps, as if she doesn’t believe it’s possible. Her mouth hangs open, as though there is something important she wants to say, but she settles on an emotionless command in the end. “Let’s go. The garage is this way.”

But I can’t. Not yet. “I have to make a detour first.”

“We don’t have the time,” she argues.

“There is time for this.”

Not waiting for her answer, I take off down the hallway. I hear Bo and Bree fall in line behind me. Given the panicked state of Union Central, someone has overridden the access panels so that workers can run freely between corridors and rooms. Taking the stairs, I sprint until I get to Emma’s quarters. Her door is already open. She runs from the room, and I collide with her.

“Gray!” Emma exclaims. “I was just heading to the hospital. What are you doing here?” She holds a medic bag in her arms. My eyes connect with hers and I lose myself in their color. I forget what I had wanted to say.

“Who is this?” Bree erupts behind me. “And why does she know who you are?”

“It’s okay,” I say, without turning around. “I know her. She’s from Claysoot. I left her here when I ran to the Rebels.”

Bree steps between us. “Was this your motive when you volunteered for the mission?” she asks. “Are you risking all our hides right now for some girl none of us have ever heard of?”

“I can’t leave Emma again. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to get her out of Taem, and I wasn’t going to ignore my chance when it finally arrived.”

“Please, I want to come,” Emma says. “Take me with you. I can’t stay here any longer.”

Bree snorts and steps closer to me, so close I can feel the warmth of her breath as she exhales. She presses a finger into my chest. “She can come if she’s that important to you, but we are not spending another moment bickering in this hallway.”

I look over Bree’s head at Emma. “She’s coming.”

Bree scowls, but then motions for us to follow her. “This way.”

Bo tails Bree, and as I move to do the same, Emma grabs my arm. “Thank you,” she says. “For my second chance.”

For a split second I contemplate kissing her, grabbing her face and pulling it to mine. But then I think that the last hands holding her face were likely Craw’s, that his lips were the last to press against hers. Something hardens in the pit of my stomach.

“Second chances are not the same as forgiveness, Emma.” I shake her hand from mine. “Don’t slow us down.”