The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) (15 page)

Sarah
woke to find herself lying on the floor with her hands tied behind her back.
Her head throbbed. In the background she could just make out Evie complaining
about using gas in the kitchen because it made the place smell for the next
week. Sarah cracked an eye to find both Finn and Boulder sitting up next to
her. Their hands were tied too and they were leaning their backs against the
kitchen cupboard. They still looked a little groggy. Sarah struggled to sit up
and join them sitting on the floor.

“Oh
good, the last one’s awake,” said Nola.

“What
did I miss?” Sarah asked the boys. She sighed. She was getting annoyed with
being the last person awake.

“Aunt
Nola and Bill are actually bounty hunters,” explained Finn. “Like it wasn’t
obvious that those two were fishy as hell. If only it wasn’t for that sweet,
fresh juice and those eggs…” Finn trailed off here, a far off look on his face
as he recalled the food. Boulder picked up the tale.

“Nola
now owes Evie a nice fat lump of money. Apparently there’s a bounty on our
heads. The Accord wants us back. And, er…” he exchanged a weird look with Finn
who took over.

“And
it turns out the Covenant put out a bounty too, but it’s just for you.”

“The
Hourglass Group?” asked Sarah, appalled, jumping to the worst case scenario.

“I
don’t think so,” mumbled Finn, as Nola, Bill and Evie broke up their
conversation and came over. “They would have put out their own bounty to both
sides. No, I think this is military.”

“But
why would…” began Sarah, but she was cut off by Bill.

“Up
you get. Follow Aunt Nola. I’ll be behind you so don’t you try any funny
business.”

They
got to their feet slowly and awkwardly. Sarah gasped. Both Finn and Boulder’s
hands were bleeding.

“What
happened?” she hissed.

She
jumped as Bill clasped a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to whisper. “They
went for a knife when they thought I was distracted.” His whisper was breathy
and it stank. Sarah didn’t bother trying to hide her shiver of revulsion. She
tugged herself out of his grip.

“When
did this happen?” she asked the boys.

“About
two minutes before you woke up,” said Finn. “You’re smaller, you see, so the
gas was more effective on you.”

“Bloody
lightweight,” snorted Boulder.

They
were guided towards an ancient car that took Nola three attempts at starting
before it finally roared into life. All three of them and Bill squeezed in the
back. They were so tightly squeezed in that Sarah’s shoulders were pushed
forward. At the last minute Evie leant through the front window.

“Forgetting
something?” she asked, her good hand held out.

Nola’s
smile in return was so forced Sarah was surprised it didn’t run away from her
face.

“Of
course not, Evie dear,” she said. She reached into her purse and transferred a
wad of cash over through the window. “Buy some new curtains, dear, the old ones
are only fit for dogs.”

Evie
forced a smile of her own back after a quick count of the money.

“Pleasure
doing business with you, although next time, go easy on the eggs,” she said,
with a meaningful look at Nola’s waistline.

Nola
drove off, almost with Evie still in the window. She only just got out in time.
They heard Evie mutter, “you old cow,” as they drove off.

“Where
are we going?” asked Finn after a while.

“Not
far,” replied Bill enigmatically.

Although
unhelpful, it turned out to be true. They barely drove for fifteen minutes
before Nola pulled the car over to the side of the road. Sarah looked out of
the window. There was nothing around them.

“Are
you sure this is it?” Bill asked Nola. “Of course, Bill,” she snapped back.
“When am I ever wrong?”

Boulder,
who was near one of the doors, shifted in his seat. Without really seeing it
move, Bill’s gun was out and pressed against Boulder’s head. “No funny ideas.”

“My
ass was numb,” replied Boulder, deadpan. Nevertheless he stayed completely
still.

Bill
gave him a warning look but removed the gun.

“There
we go,” said Nola with satisfaction, twisting in her seat, “here they come.”

This
time all four of them twisted around. An army truck had appeared behind them.
Nola got out of the car. Bill stayed behind with them. They watched as the
truck pulled over and two men got out. They were wearing Accord uniforms. One
of the men talked with Nola while the other strolled up to the car and peered
in at them through the window. He yelled something back to the other man who
nodded and then handed a bag over to Nola. Nola smiled and signalled to Bill,
who ushered them out of the car. The officer looked them over.

“That’s
them, alright,” he said, uninterested. “Load them up.”

They
were secured to seats in the back of the truck by handcuffs this time. This,
Sarah thought, was much more preferable to the neck straps. Just before the
younger officer snapped the handcuffs over Boulder’s wrist Boulder punched him
in the face. The officer stumbled back as blood poured from his nose. Boulder
jumped from the back of the truck and made it two steps before the officer with
the blood nose crash tackled him to the ground. Boulder’s head cracked loudly
against the road. He tried to roll away but the officer was still lying on him.
The noise had attracted the attention of the senior officer who arrived at a
run. He pulled Boulder up by the back of his shirt and slapped some cuffs on
before dragging him back into the back of the truck. Boulder was too dazed to
resist as his cuffs were attached to the truck wall. His forehead was bleeding
from where he cracked it on the road. The officer with the bloody nose got
himself to his feet in the meantime and came over as the senior officer
finished cuffing Boulder. He hit Boulder in the face. Boulder’s head rocked
back. He was now bleeding from both his forehead and his nose. Both the soldiers
left, returning to the truck’s cabin.

Boulder
groaned, his face a bloody mess. He looked at Finn and Sarah.

“What?”

“You
were going to leave us here,” pointed out Finn.

“I
was going to come back,” sulked Boulder.

“Whatever,
man.”

Half
an hour later the truck pulled up at their campsite from the night before. Boulder
had thankfully stopped bleeding. They were hauled out of the truck to find the
Captain, Lieutenant Wong and Clara all standing there, waiting for them. The
look on the Captain’s face was murderous. Clara was shaking her head at them, a
pleading look on her face. Clearly she didn’t want them to mention that she had
seen them go. That was fine by Sarah. You never knew, they might get another
chance to run, and she didn’t want to turn Clara against her if they did. The
Captain spent a few minutes talking to the officers and then watched them drive
off in their truck until they disappeared from sight. Then he rounded on them.
He strode forward and slapped Sarah across the face. Her head was flung
sideways at the force but she didn’t move. She was proud of herself for that.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Boulder put a restraining hand on Finn.

“If
you ever,” he hissed, his face so red Sarah thought he might have a stroke,
“try and escape again, I will have you beaten to death.” He glared at the
others to make sure they understood that the threat extended to them as well. “Understood?”

They
nodded.

“Get
in the car.”

They
arrived at their next destination in the afternoon. The Captain was out of the
car almost before Lieutenant Wong pulled to a complete stop. Lieutenant Wong
ushered the others out and hustled them into the building after the Captain. As
Sarah disappeared into the building she thought she understood why no one had
bothered to look there for the hidden scientists. The place looked like it had
half-collapsed. A large concrete column leaned dangerously across the gaping front
door, so that they all had to crouch down and shuffled forward to get in. The
roof at the building’s entrance had also caved it. It looked like it had been
deserted for fifty years, not merely twenty or so. There were blast marks
everywhere. It was likely that the building had been attacked by a bomb. Any
sane person would have taken one look at the crumbling cement and exposed,
rusted metal and decided that going in wasn’t worth the risk. They had to
clamber awkwardly over large metallic beams and cement pillars before they
could squeeze through a small gap and get through to the second half of the
building. To Sarah’s surprise, the second half of the building looked almost
untouched.

It
was also empty.

It
looked like no one had stepped a foot in there for a number of years. Lieutenant
Wong bounded over to a machine that looked like an older version of the one he
had found in the last lab.

“It’s
been picked over for parts,” he said. “They couldn’t move the whole thing so
they took what they could.”

“Do
you see anything else?” asked the Captain.

Lieutenant
Wong walked around the room, his eyes darting everywhere. He started peering in
shelves.

“Nothing.
This was a cleaner job. They must have prepared their evacuation in advance.”

“Then
it’s down to Sarah,” said the Captain.

Sarah
felt her heart sink.
“I can’t,” she said faintly. “I just can’t…” she stopped as the Captain pulled
his revolver out, pointing it at her.

“If
you can’t, then there is no point in having you here, is there?” he asked
coldly. He took a deep breath and then spoke in a measured tone. “You’ve had
flashes before,” he said, his voice forcibly paced, “images of a man in a lab
coat. Think back. Concentrate.”

But
Sarah couldn’t think. How could he expect her to do that when he had a gun
pointed at her face? “I don’t-” began Sarah, but she stopped as the Captain
suddenly strode three steps forward and grabbed Finn by the hair, shoving the
revolver in his face.

Sarah’s
words choked in her throat. She felt tears threaten to stream down her face but
blinked them back, knowing she had to stay focused. Finn was staying still, his
position awkward as he tried not to do anything sudden. His breaths came quick
and fast.

“Please,”
whispered Sarah.

“Then
think!” yelled the Captain, spittle flying out of his mouth. “Think about the
man in the lab coat!”

Sarah
thought back to her image. She couldn’t remember anything more. This was it.
Desperately her eyes roamed the room, hoping for something, anything that would
help. The lab setting was so familiar, but at the same time she could never
recall being in a lab. It was the weirdest feeling. She looked back at Finn. He
had his eyes closed now and was trying to pace his breathing. She turned back
frantically to the room. Her heart hammering in her ears, so loud it nearly
blocked out all the noise in the room.

“I
can’t…” she whispered, and then she stopped.

Standing
in the corner of the lab was a metal drum. It was coated in a layer of dust,
but she could still see that the inside of it was burnt black. Her breath
caught in her throat. The image of the man in the lab coat flashed back in
front of her eyes, only this time his back wasn’t turned to her. He was facing
her. He had soft brown eyes and large, comforting hands. He was looking at her
sadly. A couple just out of eye-sight were muttering to each other quietly. She
heard the name Scarlyle, but her attention was brought back to the man with the
large hands as he spoke to her.

“I’m
sorry, sweetie,” he was saying. He came closer and held her in a tight hug,
pulling down the back of her shirt to expose her shoulder, “but it’s the only
way we’ll ever find each other again.” She remembered smiling back up at him
nervously, but her eyes kept on flickering to a man in the background. He was
poking at a fire going in a big metal drum. He pulled out his stick, but it
wasn’t a stick. It had a symbol shaped into the side that had been in the fire.
A brand. Her eyes had gone wide and she had looked back at the man with the
sad, kind face. He pulled up the sleeve of his lab coat to show the same
Hourglass icon tattooed into his forearm. “See? We’ll be the same. And when
you’re old enough, and if you want to find out about the mark, you’ll come find
me. I’ll wait for you sweetie, I promise.” Sarah remembered crying. “You’re
going to go to sleep now sweetie,” said the man, “I promise, you won’t feel a
thing.” And then her tear-blurred vision was obscured even more as a mask was
pulled over her head, and she blacked out.

Sarah
blinked, finding herself back in the room with the Captain. Tears were running
down her face.

“Scarlyle,”
she gasped. She looked up, urgently brushing away the remaining tears. Finn was
still unhurt. She could still save him. “Scarlyle,” she repeated a little
louder. “They went to Scarlyle.”

The
Captain pushed Finn away and strode towards her. “Are you sure? What did you
see?”

Sarah
nodded. “I remember the man, the one in the lab coat. He was getting ready to…”
she gulped, “to give me my scar,” she finally said. “There were some people in
the background. They were talking about evacuating to Scarlyle.”

The
Captain’s face was flushed, excited. “Why did they brand you?” he asked, not
bothering to soften his words.
“He said it was so I could find him again. I don’t know why,” she added
hurriedly, pre-empting his next question.

“Well
then,” said the Captain, “we’re off to Scarlyle.”

The
Captain rushed them back to the car, his excitement palpable.

“Scarlyle…
Scarlyle… Scarlyle…” he muttered under his breath. “I know that name… How do I
know that name?” He dived into the front seat and pulled out a small device
from the glove compartment.  “Here we are,” he muttered after executing a few
commands. “The town of Scarlyle, destroyed… ten years ago in an attack by the
Covenant. Whole town was completely demolished.” He scanned down the page
hungrily. “Here! This says it was the home to one of the largest Hourglass
facilities in the area.”

“The
posterior walls of this lab were reinforced with steel,” said Lieutenant Wong.
“It could be that all the Hourglass labs out there are too. The Scarlyle lab
might turn out to be the same,” he suggested.

“Might
be?” repeated the Captain. He smiled. “I think we’ll find that is exactly the
case.”