Edge Walkers (25 page)

She didn’t know if Temple, or Gideon, could see her thoughts, but she sent the image anyway—one of both men standing next to her and crossing through the door with her and the others. Back to someplace safe.

Jakes told you no goddamm heroics.

She kept thinking that as she set to work, her chest burning and her fingers shaking. She dragged Temple’s crystal pillar from the bag, set it up as she’d seen it in her mind. It sat on the floor, a dark, silent low tower. Frowning, she pushed it closer to the image of her lab, centered it. Still nothing. It should be pulling power from her lab—it should be balancing the flow so they could get bidirectional movement. Frustration welled and she wanted to kick the damn thing, but she forced herself to squat down and check the settings again as she’d seen them in those brief flashes of thought from Temple.

Panic welled, tightened into a knot in her stomach. This wasn’t going to work. She took in a breath, though of the weekly Saturday lectures, her and her brothers lined up for inspection, orders being laid out for the week.
Discipline—won’t get anywhere without it.
Dad’s favorite saying and she’d grown to hate it after her mother had gone into the hospital. Discipline hadn’t slowed the cancer. As far as she could tell, it hadn’t been what her father turned to at the end.

Clenching a fist, she wanted to pound on the device—or pound it against her head. She hated this kind of helplessness.

“Why won’t you…?”

Think of Temple.

She closed her eyes, worried over Gideon instead, shivered in the cold and tugged her tunic tight. She pushed past that, to Temple, to his memory of his lab and how it had once looked, clean and fresh and…The image flashed in her mind, the device as it’d had been configured, plugged into its base, glowing just like the walls of the caverns.

Crystals…glowing crystal.

Of course—the glow. That chemical power source. Eyes snapping open, she pulled the cord off over her head and stared at the soft light from the vial. This had to be it. Temple’s device must need to be primed, like an old fashioned pump that needed water poured through it before it would pull up water from an underground well.

Mouth pressed tight, she dug her fingernails into what looked like the seamed opening of the vial. Her fingers slipped and she cursed. Loud pops of gunfire outside the building jerked her upright, and she stared at the door, her lower lip caught tight between her teeth.

Was that Gideon? Jakes and Shoup? What if she got the door to her lab open and they weren’t here? What if they got here along with Walkers? Pushing to her feet, she ran to the door.

Wind gusted stinging rain into her face. She squinted into it and saw only darkness and slanting rain. Fear tightened into a deeper worry, hard in her chest. “Get here. Get back here,” she muttered. “I’m not going anywhere without you, so get your ass back to me.”

The words were for Gideon, and Jakes, and Shoup, and Temple. She was tired of seeing people die. She didn’t want to lose any of them. Gunshots rapped again, closer, louder, and darker shapes moved in the rain. She took the risk and yelled, “Here! Over here!”

She’d be dead if those shapes were Walkers.

They weren’t.

Shoup stumbled into the room, dragging Zeigler with him. She grabbed Zeigler’s arm. Her trembling smile froze when he didn’t react. And why was he blindfolded? She started to reach for the bandana covering his eyes, but Shoup grabbed her arm, shook his head. He left Zeigler half slumped against the wall, half braced on her. Turning, Shoup took aim out the door.

Carrie shouted at him, “Gideon’s out there. Temple!”

Shaking her off, Shoup took aim, and Carrie flinched from the reports. Shoup threw a lopsided grin at her over his shoulder. “Only shooting the bright whites of their eyes.”

She clenched a fist and wanted to thump him for being so damn careless. “That doesn’t mean you won’t hit Gideon or Temple if one of them is in front of that glow.”

Jakes staggered in, shook himself, and glared at Shoup. “Nice shooting, Sparky. Goddamm near hit me.” He reached up to rub an ear, winced, and pulled down red-slicked fingers.

Shoup lifted a shoulder. “Better than letting what was right behind you catch a hold. We ready to go? ‘Cause we so need to.”

Both men glanced at Carrie. Vial gripped tight in her hand, she left Zeigler braced against the wall, walked back to Temple’s device. She forced herself not to run, not to rush this—they couldn’t afford any mistakes. She glanced at the doorway once more, wet her lips, and went down on one knee. Adrenaline pumped fast, left her stomach churning with its urgency. Pulling out the knife Shoup had given her, she dragged out a blade and fit the edge to the vial’s seam. Her hands kept shaking, so tightened her focus onto just her hands.

The discipline of science. She could do that.

Noise faded—the pound of the rain on the roof, the echo of shots behind her. She shut out the smells—wet clothes and the acrid bite of blood in the air. Slowly the vial’s lid lifted and detached. She studied the device, found a spot that looked about right on the side. It had to be a place to pour something inside. Tipping the vial, she poured in half the phosphorescent liquid. Nothing happened. She added the rest.

Nothing.

Damnation.

With a huffed breath, she stood and gave into her frustration. She kicked the thing. Not hard, just enough to rattle it and set it swaying. A soft hum lifted. Okay, shake before using, and how about that—brute force could work. The glow spread from the base to the top of the crystal pillar and out in a halo of light that grew brighter. Stepping back, Carrie’s nerves lifted with the luminosity.

Stepping back, she watched the device, the empty vial clenched in her hand. The jagged line on her chest was burning again, bleeding again from her movement. She took another step back as the device gave a pop and shuddered. Was that a good thing?

Striding over to the image of her lab, she touched the shimmering doorway—this time it gave to her. She jerked her hand back, and glanced over to Jakes and Shoup…and to the empty doorway behind them.

Jakes had been watching her, and now he yelled, “Shoup get those two through.”

Carrie braced her feet wide. “Gideon?”

“Don’t think I won’t have Shoup carry you through.”

She glanced at Shoup and back to Jakes. “I’m staying until—”

Gunfire from outside cut off her words. Jakes and Shoup whirled to face the sound. Throat clenched tight, Carrie took a step forward, but Zeigler started to sink to the floor. She ducked over to his side, pushed his shoulders against the wall. Twisting, she tried to see out the door. Hard reports from the guns echoed again. Temple burst into the room at a run with Gideon behind him, gun in hand.

Breathless, Gideon slammed his back into the wall next to the open doorway. He rasped the words out. “I think it’s every Walker in this city out there.” Looking up, he held Carrie’s gaze. “Go. We’ll cover you.”

“With what?” She pulled Zeigler’s arm over her shoulder, shuddered from the deadweight of his limp body. She dragged him in front of Gideon. “You stay, you both die.” She glanced at Temple. Heart thudding, she knew she didn’t have time to convince Gideon of anything. Mouth pressed tight, she glanced out the door, glimpsed a flash of light. The ache from the gash Walker had given her sharpened.

Gideon glanced once over his shoulder at her. She met the weight in his stare and knew he wasn’t going to come with her—he couldn’t, and she couldn’t blame him. But she couldn’t leave him to die, either. She looked behind Gideon to Jakes, met his stare, willed him to get with it—she wasn’t saving her own ass at the cost of others.

Lips thinning, Jakes swapped a stare with Shoup and made some sort of gesture Carrie knew had meaning as a silent hand signal.

The blare of static from outside lifted. Carrie braced herself, but Jakes grabbed her. He wrapped his arm around both her and Zeigler, dragging them both toward the doorway to her lab. She yelled at him, tried to hang back. An explosion just outside the building shook the rattled the beams overhead, cracked one and sent it slamming to the floor. Rain poured in through the hole in the roof, and Carrie yelled for Gideon.

He was there, behind her, shoulder to shoulder with Temple and Shoup, the three of them edging back from what had been a doorway and what now was rubble and fallen beams and hands clawing at the chunks of wall that filled the space.

Shoup had blown up the front door to try and seal it.

Jakes yelled at Shoup, who dropped his weapon and pulled a square block of something from a vest pocket. Carrie guessed it wasn’t anything safe in his hands. Shoup tossed the block in front of him. He turned and she saw the detonator in his fingers. She yelled Gideon’s name, but the flash went off, the shock wave from the blast hit her, swept her back, slammed her into a wall—one that gave to her falling weight.

She fell, and kept falling. She remembered this sensation of being ripped apart, of being pulled so thin she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything other than fall into nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

If ever there was a time I needed to keep on being that overachiever who really does know better, it’s now. — Excerpt Carrie Brody Journal

Noise.

Banging and voices. She was rocked—something soft cradled her head, and she thought of Gideon holding her, but he couldn’t, could he? Light stung her closed eyes. She wished the voices—urgent, loud—would go away, leave her alone, and they did. She wished Gideon would hold her a little longer.

She muttered his name on a breath and shifted.

Pain lanced through her—sharp agony sawed on her bones. She stilled against it and wanted to sink back into Gideon’s hold. She’d be safe there. But urgency nagged at her. What was it…? Gideon, that was it. He wasn’t…wasn’t what?

Licking dry lips, she pried open sticky eyes. A narrow strip of gray appeared and…okay, that really wasn’t right. Panic fired, flared, faded back into that haze of aching bones. She let out a complaint that made it to a soft moan that scraped her throat.

Who the hell kept yelling at her?

Pushing at the fog, she got her eyes open. She licked her lips again, blinked, and turned her head.

She lay in a hall. On something. Squinting against flickering overhead lights, she recognized the gray walls of EnraTech. But this wasn’t her lab. Relief flashed through her, and fled as fast, because this wasn’t the sane homecoming she’d imagined.

The corridor seemed crowded with people, rushing past or huddled in small groups. She tried to push up onto her elbow for a better view. Her head spun. Her arms wobbled, and her muscles cramped and gave out. She fell back onto hard softness. Chest burning, she put a hand up to a bandage that crinkled under her fingers. She had gauze wrapped around her arm and an IV dangling. She glance down and saw a gray blanket over her and steel railings. Ah—she was on a stretcher. That had to mean someone was at least looking after her.

So why was her blood singing with the sharp edge of fear?

Maybe it was because she couldn’t see Gideon—or anyone else who’d been with her.

“What…?” The rest of the sentence tangled on the fluff in her mouth. She tried something else and mumbled, “Getting old.”

She wasn’t sure if she meant herself, or this pattern of waking up and not knowing what had happened. Or maybe she meant Kerrou.

He stood next to her. She could see the wrinkled leg of his suit trousers. He was doing some of the shouting. Overhead, lights flickered, blacked out and came up with the green glow of emergency exit signs, and Kerrou kept yelling, desperate, fear-soaked words. Kerrou never lost his cool, but he had now. That set Carrie’s pulse hammering in her throat.

In the shadowy lights, Kerrou snapped on a flashlight and the backwash showed lines cut deep around his mouth. He’d lost his coat, and his tie hung loose. His had his shirt unbuttoned at the top, the white linen rumpled like he’d slept in it. Or maybe he hadn’t slept, going by the dark smudges under his eyes. It seems she had—but for how long?

Memories swam up and lifted in a surge of shattering clarity.

Someone grabbing her—her and Zeigler. Falling across the Rift. Guns…guys in lab coats… She remembered the crossing. Kerrou, had been yelling then, too, amid confusion and the heavy stink of ozone.

He was saying something now, “…generator on. We can’t carry every damn stretcher up fifteen flights of stairs.”

“Every?” she muttered.

She wasn’t the only one hurt, and she glanced around but still didn’t see Gideon. Three other stretchers blocked the hall and one guy in a blood-spattered lab coat seemed to be trying to patch up the worst injuries.

Pushing up, she got to one elbow. The world spun and her arm shook. Blood pounded in her throat, and the need to lay down again dragged at her. But she reached out and grabbed Kerrou’s pant leg.

“How long?” she yelled at him. She heard the slur in her words, mouthed the dryness slowing her tongue.

He stared at her as if he didn’t understand. But he bent down, put his hand on her shoulder. “Carrie…lie down. We’ve got it handled.”

“Like hell—what’s…how long?”

“A few hours. You’ve got a severe concussion, and you were missing even longer. Now stay put. They’ve got a special op team coming in to run a sweep, and I want you out before then.”

She shook her head—and that was a mistake. The room swam. She had to tighten her hands on Kerrou to stay upright. Bile burned her throat, but she swallowed it and threw off the blanket. Panic sizzled under her skin—this was all wrong, and she wasn’t done with trying to fix things. The worry twisted inside her chest that maybe it was too late—maybe there wasn’t anything anyone could do now.

But she could hear her father in her head—
You don’t know what you can do until you’ve done it.

Yeah, yeah—well, let’s hope you were right about that.

Biting her lower lip, she forced herself to straighten. The shaking moved from her arms into her chest, jabbed pain into her. She pushed herself up and slid her legs over the sides of the stretcher. She had to sit still and pant for breath.