The Trial (The Tree House) (7 page)

“W
here's Allison!” he yelled at Ben.

“That's what we want to know,” my brother replied in a much calmer tone. Maybe he was used to having guns pointed in his face. I wasn't though so I only felt a little bad that I wasn't the one staring down the barrel.

“She was supposed to call me last night and she never did,” the man said now a little less angry. “Who are you guys?”

“We've been staying with her the last few days,” I said shakily.

Now they both looked at me, Ben's eyes telling me to keep my mouth shut. Then he turned back to look at the man. “She didn't come home last night,” he said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” he shook his head lowering his gun only a little bit. “She sounded scared though when I talked to her last.”

“Are you David?” I asked getting another look from Ben. He narrowed his eyes at me confused.

“Yeah,” the man said and dropped his arm down by his side. I followed suit but Ben kept his gun trained on the guy. “How do you know my name?”

I glanced at Ben for just a second. “I heard you talking to her the other night on the phone. She sounded scared.”

“She was.”

My brother turned to look at this David guy again. “What was she scared about?” he asked, his voice not wavering for a second.

David started explaining what Aly had been doing; what I already knew. Ben though was hearing this for the first time and didn't seem to be taking it well. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced out the window. Whoever had been in that black car was now getting out. He was wearing a suit like the one the other guy had been wearing. I watched him straighten his jacket as he made his way across the street. Something metal in his hand caught the light.
A gun.

“Ben,” I said interrupting the two as they argued. “We need to go.”

“You're Ben?” David asked.

My brother ignored him and came over to look out the window. He cursed under his breath and trained his gun on David again. “Who sent you here?” he
asked, his voice no longer steady.

“What?” David sou
nded surprised. “No one sent me. I was looking for Allison.”

“Well
, someone has been looking for us too,” Ben spat. “And thanks to you, I think they found us.”

I pulled Ben away from the window just as the suited man looked up
in our direction. “We need to go, now.”

“What about the fire escape?” David asked heading for the hallway.

Aly had said “I love you” when she'd talked to him last. Of course he'd been here before. Probably several times.

“We think they have someone waiting for us down in the alley too,” I explained as we followed after him.

My brother pushed his way past both of us. “I have an idea.”

The three of us got out onto the fire escape and, to both David's and my surprise, Ben started heading up the ladder toward the roof. “How is
this a good idea?” I called up to him, slipping on the wet rungs. Glancing down, I saw that we had been right. A second black car was parked in the alley below and now another suited man was out and pulling the ladder down to follow after us.

“Just trust me!” Ben yelled.

We made it up onto the roof just as the first guy popped his head out of the spare room window. Now what? Ben broke into a sprint across the flat rooftop and David and I followed close behind. I only looked back for a second and saw that both suited guys had reached the top of the fire escape.

Right when my brother ran out of roof, he pushed off, clearing the eight foot gap and landing on the adjacent roof below. I didn't have time to even think about what I was doing before I was pushing off and flying through the air after him and David. I landed hard and fell forward onto my knees but managed to scramble back up as we raced toward the next building. We made it onto the next roof just as the bullets started to fly.

What was I doing? A week ago I was getting up around this time to get ready for work, go for a run or veg on the couch all day. But now I was running across rooftops and getting shot at like Neo in the Matrix.

“This way!”
Ben called and veered hard to the left, heading straight for a ladder leading down into the alley.

We hit the ground running and shot out
onto a main street. The traffic was heavy and the rain was still coming down in sheets so the cars were going pretty slowly. It was easy for us to slip between them and make our way down the sidewalk on the other side. Ben had slowed to a fast walk and I was finally able to catch up to him. The gun in my front pocket bounced against my stomach with every step making me feel even sicker than I already was. This whole situation – the panic, the hangover, everything – was making it hard to keep from vomiting right there on the curb.

David turned to me. “So
, you must be Jack then,” he said breathing hard.

I could only nod for fear of losing my lunch if I opened my mouth. Breathe through your nose, I told myself. No matter how much I tried to flare my nostrils, I felt like I couldn't breathe in enough air. Finally I felt I could open my mouth with
out throwing up. “Now what?” I asked my brother.

“I haven't figured that out yet,” he replied. The rain had plastered his hair to his head and now it was dripping down his face and rolling off his nose. I'm sure all three of us looked ridiculous walking in this downpour.

“I know where we can go,” David said causing both Ben and I to stop. “Actually, it's pretty lucky I ran into you guys.”

“Why?” Ben asked
, his mouth set in a solemn straight line.

“We've actually been looking for you.”

My brother narrowed his eyes as more rainwater dripped down his face. “Who's we?”

Chapter SIX

The three of us were able to get a taxi and we ended up at a diner across town. David had told us there was someone he wanted us to meet. The only thing I wanted was to know why we were being hunted. When David told us we'd get answers, I started wondering how big this whole mess really was. How did these people, who we'd never met, know about our situation?

The place wasn't very busy or well lit. David took us back past the counter, past the first room of tables and to the back of the second room. In the farthest corner booth, a man sat with his palms pushed against his eyes, an almost empty cup of coffee sitting in front of him.

I thought for a moment that he was asleep until the sound of our approaching footsteps caused him to look up. The guy looked to be the same age as David, maybe early forties. His tired eyes met mine for a second before I looked away.

“This is Sy,” David said to us as we stood there awkwardly
, then he turned to the man. “This is Ben and Jack Morgan.”

Sy's mouth dropped open for just a second before he closed it again and straightened up. “Well, that was easy,” he said in a tired, gravelly voice.

“What was easy?” Ben asked sitting down across from him. I slid in next to my brother and David took the seat across from me.

Sy clapped his hands together in front of his face and stared at both of us for a moment. “Do you boys want anything to eat first?” he asked
cheerily.

Ben shook his head. “No thanks.”

“I'll take a cheeseburger and coke if you're offering,” I said. I saw my brother's jaw clench out of the corner of my eye but he didn't say anything. I didn't care what he thought. After living off food from a can for the past three days and running for my life, I was starving for something cooked not in a microwave.

Sy flagged down a waitress and ordered me my food and then more coffee and water for himself and the other two. Once she had disappeared back into the other room, he pulled a folded envelope out of his coat pocket and slid it across to Ben.

“What's this?” he asked unfolding the envelope carefully.

Sy brought his coffee cup to his mouth and emptied it. “Answers,” he said setting the mug down on the edge of the table.

I watched my brother's eyes skim down the page quickly. As he read, his lips moved to silently form the words. Then when he was done, he turned his hand so the piece of paper was facing me. “So what does this have to do with us?” he asked with a little irritation in his voice.

I had to cock my head to the side to be able to read the small typed words. Finally, I took it from him. It was a letter addressed to Sy.

“That chip the letter speaks of is in the two of you as well.”

Certain words jumped out at me.
Medical condition…unsterilized…Neonatal Tetanus…electronic chip…implanted…fused…survive…one hundred patient trial…
What did this all mean?

“What do you mean it's in us? We never got a letter like this,” Ben said narrowing his eyes. Then he turned to me. “Did you get a letter?”

I shook my head and let the paper fall from my fingers. It drifted down onto the table as my brother continued to get more irritated and confused.

“Of course you didn't,” Sy shook his head. “By the time your group should have gotten yours, things were going wrong with my group.”

“What group?” I asked. “We're part of a group?”

The man nodded. “You two were part of the one hundred patient
trial.”

I looked down at my hands which were now quivering. “I'm an experiment?” I whispered.

Just then, the waitress returned putting a plate down in front of me with a big, delicious looking burger and a mountain of fries on it. None of us said a word as she took drinks off her tray and set them down in front of each of us. She asked if we wanted anything else and Sy responded with a polite “no”. I kept my eyes glued to the table; at the letter sitting in the middle of all of us. My brother did the same and I could feel my seat vibrating as he bounced his leg up and down nervously. When the waitress finally left, I looked down at my burger again. It didn't look very appetizing any more.

“So why are we being hunted?” I asked after the waitress was out of earshot.

Ben leaned in. “I thought it had something to do with what I was doing in London.”

Sy's eyes shifted to him. “What were you doing in London?”

My brother told Sy and David the whole story. How he'd been blackmailed into hunting people down on this list and working with Aly. The entire time I kept my eyes on the two of them and watched as their faces became more and more pale. Finally, Sy held a hand up like he'd heard enough.

“Did all these people look like they were around your age?” he asked pushing his palms against his eyes again.

Ben shifted his eyes to me for just a second. “I guess,” he said. “I didn't really pay attention to what any of them looked like. I was just trying to get the job done.”

Sy kept his hands on his face and let out a groan. “This isn't happening.”

My brother and I looked to David. “What's wrong?” Ben asked.

“Well, besides our situation here,” I muttered and picked a fry up off my plate. My brother glared at me.

“Looks like Eli was using you to do his dirty work,” David said.

Ben hit his hands on the table. “Who's this Eli? Would someone just tell me what's going on?”

It was about time my brother was in the dark just as much as I was. Sy finally took his hands away from his eyes and let them fall on the table in front of him. “It seems Eli has branches of his company all over the world. According to Allison–” David made a sad noise at the sound of her name, “–he was doing trials, like the ones we were a part of, in all his facilities.”

“What are you saying?” I asked sticking the tip of a fry in my mouth and biting it off.

Sy picked the letter up off the table and stuffed it and the envelope into his coat. Then he leaned in close. “David and I are the only two left from the first trial.”

Ben and I leaned in too. “What happened to the others?” he asked
, though both of us knew the answer even as the words left his mouth.

Sy went on to tell us about everything that had happened leading up to David finding us at Aly's apartment. Apparently that had been pure coincidence. Aly had been staying in constant contact with David so he and Sy had found out about Eli's plan even before any of the other patients knew the chip was causing them to die off. She'd
also apparently known that Ben wasn't just killing random people for some unknown mob man. He was actually covering Eli's tracks and making fellow patients disappear before anyone could find out about the screw up and file any lawsuits.

“There were a hundred in the trial in London too, right?” I asked Sy then turned to Ben. “How many did you kill?”