Listen (Muted Trilogy Book 2) (16 page)

“Good. There shouldn’t be too many people around the subdivisions this time of day.”

Jemma hadn’t eaten all that much at lunch, but assuming he hadn’t been getting the extra snacks, she’d been eating more each day than Jack had, hadn’t she? She watched him navigating, brushing against trees more than was strictly necessary, and decided that he probably hadn’t been just trying to be nice when he’d said neither of them were in good shape. It wasn’t just her having trouble.

She wasn’t sure whether that made her feel better or worse. Maybe it was a little of both.

Jemma shook her head.

“You all right?” sent Jack.

“My focus is a bit off. Not myself.”

He ran a hand through his hair again. “I think we’re going the fastest way to the nearest houses. How are you feeling as far as walking?” He slowed some, finally, and Jemma took a deep breath.

“A little wobbly.”

“I can’t really offer a shoulder, not as fast as we need to try to go if we want to make sure we’re in a house or past a house before school lets out,” he sent before holding a hand out to her, “but I can offer some support, at least.” Jemma gripped his forearm, and he did the same to her, rotating grip and angle until he could continue forward comfortably. “Good?”

Jemma sent an affirmative, and he sped up again, increasing pressure for a second and sending a burst of reassurance. She turned her attention inward, letting Jack lead while she conserved what little energy remained. If they were going to try to push through up to ten miles, she was going to need everything she had.

***

It took her nearly a full minute to register the fact that they’d come to a stop. They were near the outskirts of the woods, looking into an upper-middle class subdivision, definitely fancier than anything she’d ever lived in, but not so fancy as to feel like a foreign world. The houses were all two stories, and most had fruit or palm trees in the backyards. There were pools at more houses than not, judging by the curve of metal ladders that peeked over the top of some of the privacy fences, the sounds of pumps emitting from others. Dogs barked, not in alarm, but in the way that they seem to feel they needed to in neighborhoods, as a way to fill the silence.

“We’re looking for unwashed windows,backyards with uncut grass, maybe dirty water in the pool,” sent Jack. “If someone officially moved out, the homeowners association would’ve taken over. We want abandoned. Preferably not for long, or they’d have found a way to take it back over anyway. Probably someone who had enough in savings to set their mortgage to automatically pay while they gave up their jobs.”

Jemma got the impression Jack was giving her a moment to catch back up with their surroundings. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been walking, but her legs were rubbery, her mouth dry. “What about that one?”

The house she pointed to was actually one of the closer ones. There wasn’t much of a clearing between the edge of the woods and the fence line, but they’d still have to hope no bored homeowners happened to be looking out their back windows when they went for it. On that particular house, the windows did look a bit grubby, and there was a hint of greenery poking its way between the slats of the fence.

“Good call,” sent Jack. “I don’t see any others, not from here, and it doesn’t seem worth risking working our way around the neighborhood when this one might work.”

He sounded exhausted, and Jemma finally noticed that he was leaning heavily on a tree. They weren’t exactly going to be able to go in through the front door of the house.

If they were able to get in at all. “Jack… These houses are gonna have alarms.”

“They are. Good point.” He slid down until he sat at the base of the tree. “We can try anyway and hope they didn’t bother setting it, or we can keep going.”

She took stock of her own condition, and she looked down at Jack. They had to try to get in. “We’ll need to go over the fence, and we have to be fast. Can you make it?”

Jack nodded and closed his eyes. “Just need a sec.”

Jemma eyed the house again, watching for signs of movement and not seeing anything. She didn’t see anything obvious in the houses nearest to it, either. She heard rustling as Jack shifted, and she reached down a hand to help him up, mirroring the grip he’d used to lead her through the woods. “Ready?” she asked. He nodded.

They moved confidently across the open area, people who knew where they were going, stopping when they reached their target in the middle of a section of linked privacy fences. Jemma hooked her hands over the top of the wooden fence, wincing as the rough surface dug into her palms. She looked at Jack, and he nodded. She looked back at the fence and pulled down as hard as she could, pulling her shoulders back and her feet up to get traction with her shoes. She felt Jack give her a slight boost with a hand under her thigh, and then she was over.

Loud scraping noises followed, and Jack came over the top a few seconds later, landing heavily at the bottom.

“All right?” she sent.

“Yeah.” He leaned against the fence for a solid minute while Jemma rubbed her palms and studied the backyard. It looked like the pool had been drained, but the backyard still held lawn equipment that was nearly hidden in foot-high grass. “Okay.”

They made their way over to the house. The back door had eight small panels of glass. Jack found a rag by the lawn mower while Jemma peered in through one of the larger windows in the back wall, into what appeared to be a living room. There wasn’t any movement.

“As long as the police don’t show up, I don’t actually feel guilty about this,” sent Jemma as she joined Jack at the door and watched him wrap a decorative rock so it was securely fastened at one end of the rag. “I’m not sure how I feel about not feeling bad about this.”

“Funny how being locked up for a few weeks can change your perspective on things, hmm?” Jack winked, then took aim, using the momentum of the rag to bring the rock around with controlled force into one of the panels near the handle. There was a clatter of broken glass, but no other immediate reaction. “Let’s go quickly so we can check the alarm. We need to get back out fast if we set something off.”

He reached in carefully and turned the lock, then the handle, and they were inside. They walked through to the front of the house, finding the alarm panel next to the door, a message across the top.

System Disarmed
.

Jemma closed her eyes as she let out a breath of relief, and she opened them again to see Jack grinning at her. He gestured for them to move away from the door, which had almost as much glass as the back door had, then held out his arms.

“Celebratory hug?”

She stepped into his embrace, and he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face against the side of her neck. She did the same, leaning into him, letting down her barriers, letting him feel what she’d been through and accepting what he’d had to handle, letting him feel things she didn’t even want to deal with herself, letting herself revel in the fact that she was no longer isolated in a cell in a research facility, until it all became just a bit too much.

“I’ll stop with the sappy stuff now, promise,” he sent, pulling his face from her neck to press his lips against her hair.

“Thanks,” she sent back, stepping away when he loosened his grip. “I mean, not that—”

He interrupted her with a wave of understanding, and she smiled. “All right,” he sent. “Let’s see if we can find a computer in this place.”

SEVENTEEN

Survival

The alarm panel was powered by either battery or some sort of back-up reserve; nothing else in the house would turn on.

They had to pass through the kitchen to get to the living room. The refrigerator had been emptied, but the pantry still held canned foods and several boxed meals, and Jemma grabbed a box of crackers to take with them on their search of the house. Jack shoved three in his mouth before they made it out of the room.

The living room had a desktop computer and an entertainment center, neither of which would function without power. The downstairs bedroom had been emptied completely.

“They definitely planned ahead,” sent Jemma. “I don’t think they left a fully-charged laptop.”

“If they had enough of them, they might’ve left a spare behind,” sent Jack. “I’ve got three, and I’d guess these people had more cash than me. Even if we can’t find a computer,” he continued as they made their way up the stairs, Jack taking the lead, “we’ve got some food. That’s more than we had before we stopped.”

“A place to rest, too.” Jack had opened the door to the master suite, which held a large, stripped bed. There were two doors in the room. Jack opened one while she opened the other. Jemma’s door revealed a bathroom that nearly dwarfed the bed. The closet just inside released a burst of artificial-flower scent, and she saw stacks of clean towels on the lower shelves, clean sheets and a comforter near the top.

“Just clothes in here,” sent Jack, and Jemma joined him, glancing at the walk-in closet, empty hangers mingling with clean clothes.

“Bathroom over there,” sent Jemma. “Is it safer to stay the night here or to hide somewhere in the woods?”

“I don’t think we left anything for them to follow,” he sent. “There aren’t exactly lights for us to turn on to get attention. We stay away from the windows, nobody thinks to look in the back yard, we should be safe enough, I think, but…” He sent discomfort. “I’m just still not sure about being so close to where they were keeping us. What if they look for abandoned homes near them? I’m sure we’re safe for a few hours, and probably even for the night, but beyond that…”

Jemma touched Jack’s arm. “We’ll find somewhere different. We both need food and rest, though, and we still need to make a plan. I guess this is me trying to get us started on making the plan.”

Jack covered her hand with his, then nodded. “We have a couple more rooms to search for some way to make contact. Let’s finish that first.”

“Right.” Jemma followed him. What would they do, though, if they didn’t find any means of contact? Did they still want to risk trying to get to their families? And how were they going to find someone who would be able to help the people still in the facility? What about the rest of the world and the research needed to save it? She watched Jack as he led the way into the next room, bypassing another bathroom. How could he be so calm with so many questions unanswered? Just because they might still find a working laptop didn’t mean they couldn’t make plans, just in case.

Before she could starting working through ideas on her own, her mind moving at a frustratingly slow speed, Jack’s mental voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Here we go.”

They’d entered what could only be a home office. There were two more desktop computers set up at individual desks, and there were two closets, each open and brimming with a random assortment of electronics.

Electronics that looked like they included laptops.

Jack and Jemma again split up, each taking a closet. Jemma found two computers, one laptop and one netbook, and she brought them to the desk closer to her, glancing at the window to make sure the blinds were drawn. Jack brought over another laptop.

They tried the netbook first.

Nothing happened.

Next was Jack’s laptop, but again, it seemed to be fully out of battery. Jemma held her breath as she pressed the power button on the last laptop, and she let it out as she was rewarded with the illuminated logo on the screen.

“Excellent!” sent Jack, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. She rested her head on his shoulder while the startup finished, then straightened.

“I’m guessing safest contact in your family would be Jill?” sent Jack, his fingers flying across the keys faster than the computer could keep up with. Jemma felt a surge of anger that their captors had kept this man out of his element for so long.

“Yes. Are we doing the email thing?”

He sent an affirmative. “In a way, but not directly. If they’re monitoring our families, it will be in person, like their clumsy attempts with us, or they’ll be watching public Facebook feeds. They were able to access the city system, but they mentioned asking the police for help, so that might not have been technical knowhow. Still, they might be able to get into email accounts or Facebook if they’ve got people who are good at acquiring passwords. I think phones might be safe, though. They’re harder to access, at least. We should still be smart about what we say.” Jemma watched while Jack found an unsecured WiFi network, then logged in to an email account. “There’s no way they have this account information. I haven’t used it in years, and it isn’t under my name. It is, though, set up with a digital phone number that I can use to text.” He navigated to another page, then angled the computer toward Jemma. “I hope she has the phone on her during class, or we’ll have to try again later. We’ve only got about thirty minutes of battery.”

Jemma thought for a few seconds before typing, trying to figure out how to let her sister know it was her in a way that wouldn’t make sense if the wrong person intercepted it.
It’s not a plane; it’s a JET!
she typed, using their shared initials.
It’s trying to land but needs a runway.