Toxic Heart (4 page)

And then there are sharp green rays of mystic energy that shoot into the sky like laser beams.

Some of the women and visiting rebels are fighting.

Now that we’re being raided, there’s no reason for them to hold back their powers. Through a window on the ground floor, I see the figure of a mystic surrounded by smoke. She throws her hands in front of her: razor-thin rays of green energy fly from her fingertips, swirling together into one massive beam and pummeling a soldier in the stomach, knocking him out of view.

“Wear this,” Shannon says as she slips something over my mouth. A mask.

“Shouldn’t we stay and help?” I ask, my voice muffled.

“We’re under attack,” she says, leading me toward the trees. “Your family has found us. We have to go.”

“What about the underground passageway?” I ask.

“Too dangerous. It’s probably sealed up by now anyway,” Shannon says. “Let’s go, Aria.”

I follow her farther into the darkness. Grass crunches beneath our feet as we run, but I know we’re not loud enough for anyone to hear—not over the cries and crashes coming from the house.

“Faster,” Shannon hisses. “Faster!”

Instead, I stop for a moment and turn around. The house is still standing, but not for long—the fire inside is unstoppable, bursts of red and orange and black shooting out of the windows, licking the walls and roof like an angry tongue. Suddenly, a soldier catapults through a wall like a cannonball and collapses on the ground.

The blond mystic Sylvia follows through the hole in the wall, which she must have made with her energy. Backlit by flames, she blasts the fallen soldier with rays of electric green energy. I can hear the crunching of bricks and smell the sizzling of human flesh.

I’m relieved to know that some of the mystics are still fighting.

An image of Frieda strikes me. Did she make it out of the house?

Then, over the battle, I hear it: a child’s voice.
“Mama!”

“Come on.” Shannon’s eyes gleam against the blackened sky. “Why did you stop?”

“Mama!”

That voice—I recognize it. Markus. Sweet face, floppy brown hair. He was so nice to me. And he has no mother to keep him safe.

The right thing to do is to keep running. To escape. But how can I leave him? “Markus is still in there,” I tell Shannon. “I can hear him. And there are others—”

“This is no time to be a martyr, Aria. It’s them or you.”

“This attack is my fault,” I say. “It’s happening because
I’m
here. I have to help.”

“If they haven’t gotten out by now, they’re goners,” Shannon says urgently, grabbing for my arm. “There’s nothing you can do to help. There’s nothing—”

But I can’t hear her anymore.

Because I’m leaving her, running back toward the house.

The mask I’m wearing blocks the smoke as I enter the kitchen. I can barely see an inch in front of me. There’s less screaming—it
sounds like most of the attackers have moved outside and are battling the remaining mystics on the lawn.

“Markus?”

No response. My hands begin to shake, and I move forward slowly, knocking over a ceramic bowl. It makes a high-pitched crash as it shatters on the floor.

Then I hear it.

“Mama! Mama!”

He cries again, and I follow his voice. I feel my way through the kitchen along the cabinets, heading for the dining area.
“Mama!”

I drop to my hands and knees, creeping across the planks until I find a leg of the table. “Markus? Is that you?”

I see him a few feet away from me, curled into a tiny ball under the table. For a second I see a flash of floppy brown hair through the smoke.

“It’s me, Aria,” I say. “Hold out your hand. I’m going to help you.”

The smoke has overtaken us again, and I grab for him. I feel nothing but air—until I make contact with a set of fingers. I clasp his hand and tug. “Crawl. And close your eyes,” I tell him. “Come to me.”

He does, and then I have one arm draped over him, edging him out from underneath the table. “Stay down, Markus. And follow me.”

Softly, I hear him say, “Aria.”

I rip off my mask as soon as we’re outside and place it over Markus’s head. It’s too big for him, but it’s better than nothing.

As we run, I hear a series of pops that sound like fireworks, but I know better. The field echoes with gunshots, with shouts and hisses, as the attackers who have come for me search in vain.

“Burn it all down!” I hear someone call.

“I said
alive
,” someone screams back. “We need her alive!”

I doubt they’ll rest until they find what they’re looking for.

We’re not moving fast enough. I see the apple trees in the distance. No Shannon. Markus is too slow. I stop and lift him onto my back. “Come on, guy. Hold on.”

I hope Shannon is hiding in the trees, waiting for me. “Shannon!” I call.

There’s no answer, and I keep moving. My arms tire. Markus is getting heavier.

Just then, I see glistening white—a pair of eyes.

Only they’re not Shannon’s.

“We’ve found her!” A man who is nearly twice my size and thick as a barrel shoots a round into the sky. “Guys!”

I try to zigzag away from him, but it’s too hard to run and carry Markus at the same time.

A pair of hands grabs me from the side, and I lurch forward. Markus falls off my back, onto the ground. “Run!” I yell.

A sweaty hand covers my mouth. The grip on my shoulders tightens. I think back to my training with Shannon. What did she tell me to do when an attacker came at me from behind?

I bite down and catch one of the man’s fingers with my teeth. I kick back my right leg, jamming my heel into his groin. “Aw, shit,” the man groans, his hand falling away.

I stumble forward, trying to run, but it’s so dark. Where did
Markus go? I don’t dare glance back to see how many men are behind me. I search for the white eyes that were in front of me, but I don’t see them anymore.

Until I do. And a matching pair of smaller eyes.
Markus
.

“Stop!” the man shouts. I look around frantically: I can’t be more than a quarter mile from the trees. Is Shannon watching?

“Help!” I scream. “Someone help me!”

“Nobody is here to help you,” the man says. His voice is husky and terrifying. For a second, there is a flare of green light in the sky. It illuminates the man’s face, and I can see that he’s barely older than I am. Red cheeks, blond hair, skin slick with sweat. A tight silver uniform. His hand is curled tightly around Markus’s neck.

“Let him go,” I plead. I can barely speak I’m so nervous; my heart is beating furiously. “Please.”

“Okay.” He uncurls his fingers, but Markus doesn’t move an inch, frozen with fear.

The soldier raises his gun and aims it at Markus’s head.

My heart stops. “Markus, run!”

The man unlocks the safety and shoots.

It’s a soft sound compared to the chaos going on around us. There’s a second shot and a thud as Markus topples to the earth.

I scream something into the night, barely recognizing my own voice. Tears stream down my face as the soldier shifts his focus. Now the gun is pointed directly at me.
No no no no no no no—

There’s a rush of air behind me and then someone else’s hands are on my shoulders. I struggle with all my might but can’t break his grip.

“We were told not to kill you,” the soldier with the gun says.
“But we’re happy to cripple you if that’s what it takes.” He moves his aim from my head to my leg. The Foster crest—a five-pointed star—glistens on the front of his uniform. “Or to kill everyone around you. Your call.”

The man behind me kicks my legs out from under me, and I drop like a bag of bricks, slamming my head on the rough soil. I stare up at the burning sky, defeated.

“Cuff her.”

My arms are nearly ripped out of their sockets as a pair of metal cuffs finds its way around my wrists. Everything seems lost.

I should have listened to Shannon.

The guards’ voices echo loudly in my head as I’m shoved into a metal chair, my arms yanked tightly behind me. My wrists are raw from rubbing against the cuffs. It feels like we’ve been traveling for hours.

“Stop moving!” comes a high-pitched voice, not one of the men who captured me back at the compound.

The dirty blindfold someone tied around my head in the copter is still in place. There’s a click as the cuff on my right hand is unlocked. For a second I foolishly think they’re letting me go, but then I hear the cuff being locked around my chair.

I leap forward blindly, attempting to pull the chair with me, out of the room, but it’s bolted to the floor. There are a few hearty laughs; then someone strikes me across the cheek.

“I said, stop moving.”

My mouth fills with the tang of blood. I try to spit it out but end up swallowing most of it.

Just breathe
, I tell myself.
In and out
.

I suppose I’m back in the Aeries—judging from the time I spent in the helicopter and the elevator ride afterward—though
really, I could be anywhere. The air around me is cool. I can actually smell the air-conditioning, which I always thought was crisp and clean, like freshly laundered clothing. Now that I’ve been in the countryside, though, I know what truly clean air smells like. This is overprocessed and fake. Much like everything else in the Aeries.

Suddenly, the blindfold is pulled off my face. I blink, letting my eyes adjust to the light after what feels like hours in the dark. It looks like I’m in some sort of warehouse, with exposed piping and cement-block ceilings and floors. There are dozens of windows, but they’re completely blacked out, giving no clues to my whereabouts.

Ten guards—five men, five women—are spread out across the room. They are dressed in silver Lycra uniforms with black stripes running down the sides. Their chests are covered with metallic bulletproof vests, the Foster crest imprinted above their hearts.

Each of them holds a shiny pistol.

Pointed at my head.

An eleventh guard steps out from behind me. He’s holding the blindfold in his hand. His head is shaved, his scalp as pink and smooth as a baby’s. “Hello.”

I stare straight ahead.

He walks around me in a circle. The Foster crest is inked in navy blue on the right side of his neck. “I’m surprised Johnny Rose didn’t teach you better manners.”

“Right,” I say. “Because kidnapping me, handcuffing me to a chair, and beating me up is a sign of a really good upbringing.”

I’m expecting to be hit again. Instead, he laughs. All his teeth are silver.

“Where am I?”

No answer.

I glance over my shoulder and see a long black table set for two—dinner plates, glasses, silverware, and all. Tall candlesticks that glisten with silver etching are positioned in the center.

The silver-toothed guard motions to me. “Tasha, Helen”—two female guards step forward—“take Ms. Rose to get cleaned up.”

One of the guards—Helen—unlocks my cuff from the chair while the other—Tasha—aims her gun at my forehead. “Get up and walk,” she says.

I do as I’m told.

I’m marched past the other guards, past the blackened windows, until I reach a cement wall with an empty space where a door should be.

On the other side are the bare essentials of someone’s sleeping quarters: A bed that seems freshly made with cream-colored linens. Two pillows covered with stark white shams. A tall mirror resting against one of the concrete walls. More wide windows that have been blacked out but that I assume look over the bridges of the Aeries.

On top of the mattress are clothes that are clearly meant for me: a plain red dress and a pair of sandals covered with crushed gems, so bright they look like diamonds.

“Hold still,” Helen says. She removes a razor blade from her pocket and I wince. Is she going to cut me? In one swoop, she slices down my back, opening up the T-shirt I’m wearing and stripping it off me.

Along with my bra. Another quick motion and my sweatpants and underwear are gone.

I’m completely naked now. The cuffs are relocked behind my back. Tasha points to the wall opposite the blacked-out windows, where there is a door that must lead to a bathroom. “Wash up,” she says. “Quickly. When you’re done, we’ll help you dress.”

“Wash up?” I say. “I’m handcuffed. How exactly is that going to work?”

The guards smirk. “Figure it out,” Tasha says.

They leave. Helen presses a touchpad and a door slides into place, sealing me in.

I look around for a way to escape, but it’s all walls and windows. Worse, my body feels like it has taken a thousand-foot fall. I’m bruised and sore all over. For the first time, I wish it were because of Shannon’s training.

Shannon
. I wonder if she saw them take me. If anyone is going to rescue me.

Was she captured, too? Is she still alive? And if she is … will she get word to Hunter about where I’ve been taken?

I walk over to the bathroom door and nudge the touchpad with my shoulder. The door whizzes open and I am in a space that looks like it could be in my parents’ apartment: a glass shower stall, a porcelain self-flushing toilet, a sink like an enormous soup bowl.