New Sight (8 page)

Chapter 9

As the
dust settled, Lys saw Brady holding up the slumping figure of Mark. They both wore the same plain, white outfits that she did, although someone had wrapped Brady’s cut arm.

“What are you doing?” Lys asked, stepping forward to help Mark get through the opening. It was a hole at least four feet around.

“Busting you guys out of here,” Brady said, supporting Mark from the other side. “Kamau is here, isn’t he?”

“I’m here,” Kamau said.

“Good, just let me get these doors open and we’ll be on our way,” Brady said.

Brady left Mark with Lys. As he stepped away, Lys noticed that Mark could barely stand. He leaned heavily on her, and Lys tried not to stumble. Fresh bruises adorned Mark’s face and arms. Lys’s eye traveled down to his hands, which were encased in what looked like bright yellow hair gel. Solid hair gel.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Don’t touch it, mate,” Mark said, slurring the words together.

“Come on,” Brady said, pulling the bars of her door apart like Superman would. “I’ll grab Kamau and we’ll get out of here.” He looked back toward her with a grin.

“How did you do that?” she asked, shaking her head. Brady winked at her.

Lys stopped, noticing his eyes. They were the black, oily clouds again, just like when they got out of the basement of the hospital. But now the swirling vortex only filled in where the color of his iris should be.

The Need poked a hand out from under the pile of blankets.

Lys pulled her eye away from Brady’s. He didn’t seem to know (or care) that his eyes looked like pools of oil.

“Where are we going to go?” Kamau asked as Brady stepped through Lys’s door and pulled the bars on Kamau’s cell apart.

“Out,” Brady said. “I heard some of the guards saying that only a few people are on duty tonight. A company party or something.”

“And you think we can get past them?” Lys asked. She sent Kamau a grateful smile when he came over and pulled Mark’s other arm over his shoulders.

“Brady can get us out,” Mark said. “We have to go now.”

“Why?” Lys asked as they started to follow Brady to the far door. “Who are these guys?”

“They’re bad guys,” Mark said. His head lolled around as if it might fall off any second. “They kill users.”

Kill? Lys looked over at Kamau, who frowned down at Mark.

“Kill us?” Kamau asked, voicing the question before Lys could. “Why?”

“Because we can kill them. Don’t worry, Brady will get us out,” Mark said. “Just follow him.”

The words garbled together. Mark’s shirt came up as Kamau readjusted his hold. A dark, ugly, purple bruise, bigger than Lys’s hand, covered his stomach.

Before she could ask what happened, Brady pulled the door at the end of the hall off its hinges and set it gently back on the floor.

“See,” he said, looking back at Mark. “I told you I could be gentle.”

“Good job,” Mark muttered. “Now get us out of here.”

Brady grinned. He seemed to be enjoying this a little too much.

They followed the younger boy out of the dungeon and into the more normal hall. The dim lights bathed the corridor in twilight. Brady waved them to follow as he crept along, keeping one hand on the wall at all times.

“How did he do that?” Lys asked, eying the door as they came through. Had Mr. Mason given him super powers?

“He’s a chaos user. He can get through the field,” Mark said. He jerked in their arms, and Lys almost lost her grip.

She exchanged a worried glance with Kamau. He shook his head—he didn’t understand Mark’s words either.

Brady waited for them at the next intersection. “There are a couple of people pretty close. I’m assuming that’s the way out?” He directed his question to Mark.

“Dunno. I was out when they brought me in.”

“I was awake,” Kamau said. “The entrance they brought us through is that way.” He pointed to the left.

Brady reached down and touched the floor with the palm of his hand. “There are a few people that way, too, but they’re much softer.”

“That is the way out,” Kamau said.

“Then we’ll go that way,” Brady said with a grin as he stood. “Follow me, and stay close.”

Lys always imagined soldiers or action heroes saying things like that. The words seemed cheesy coming from a fourteen-year-old kid from Great Britain.

The implications of their flight started to sink in as Lys and Kamau dragged Mark through the hallway. They might escape, but where would they find themselves? And what would they do once they got out? Not that she wanted to stop and have a discussion about these things—she kept on Brady’s heels as much as she could—but the questions kept surfacing.

Questions like, how could Brady suddenly bend metal bars like Superman? Or rip doors off their hinges? Put holes as big as her through walls? And what did Mark say? Chaos user? Field? What in the world was going on? The super power theory was starting to sound sane.

And this couldn’t be a hallucination. No way. Lys had dreamed some horrible things at the hospital when she’d taken the tonic, but this was different. More real, more sensory. Part of her wanted this to be a bad dream, but the realistic part of her knew better.

Each time they came to an intersection, Brady would squat down and touch the floor with his hand. After a moment he would stand and lead them the direction Kamau indicated. Lys lost track after two turns. She spent most of her energy trying to keep Mark upright.

The next time Brady stopped, Kamau spoke. “The entrance we came through is at the end of this next hall.” He pointed. “But it opened up into a garage. I bet we can get out right here if you wanted to avoid the guards.”

Mark raised his head and he and Brady seemed to have a silent conversation. Brady nodded and looked back at Kamau. “Sure, I can get us through. No problem. You might want to move for a second.”

Lys pulled Mark back as Brady stepped up to the wall. He closed his eyes and placed his palms on the concrete. He started to move his hands around like a mime, touching the surface in different spots.

“There we go,” he muttered. Lys watched in amazement as Brady brought his hands back a few inches, and shoved them into the wall.

Shards of concrete shot out from around Brady’s hands. Craters appeared beneath his touch. He curled his fingers under, and they sunk into the wall like it was made of sand.

Brady took a small step back. He pulled. As soon as the wall started to moan, Brady shoved forward, pushing a section ten feet long away from him.

Bricks broke apart, and metal screamed. A chunk of the wall, at least six feet wide, shot forward, still in Brady’s hands. Shards of rebar stuck out of the edges, and bits of brick cascaded to the floor.

Mark, who had raised his head to watch, said, “Not bad.”

“I know, right?” Brady laughed, shoving his hands apart, ripping the chunk in two and tossing the pieces away.

“Stop right there!” a voice said from the end of the hall.

Lys turned her head to see two men in black coming toward them. Only these guys weren’t in black suits, they were in black body armor. Just like the guys she remembered seeing outside the hospital.

Chapter 10

“Go!” Brady
said, pointing at the hole. “I’ll hold them.”

“Hold them?” Lys asked.

“Trust me,” Brady gave her another grin. “I’ve got this.”

Mark shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. You remember what I told you about the suits.”

“Just so we can get away!” Brady said, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a boxer warming up. “Now get going.”

Kamau started pulling Mark over to and through the giant hole in the wall. Lys had no choice but to follow. Well, she could have let Mark fall flat on his face—there was always a choice—but she didn’t think that would be very nice. Or smart. So she kept going, trying to get them moving as fast as she could.

“Who are these guys again?” she asked no one in particular. She didn’t expect an answer; she just wanted someone to validate the situation for her. The black body armor looked like something right out of the movies. It creaked like leather, but her fuzzy memory told her that they could take a beating. Their helmets resembled black bug heads with large, glossy eyes and pointed noses.

“The New,” Mark said. “And they don’t like us very much.”

The dust settled and Lys saw that Kamau had been right. A small parking garage lay before them. Four cars and two vans occupied six of about twenty stalls.

“Where do we go?” Mark asked.

A blast sounded from behind, and Lys turned to look. More dust rolled at them, and she could hear Brady laughing hysterically.

“I told you to stay back!” his enthusiastic voice said. “I tried to warn you.”

Two more figures ran toward them from the opposite direction Brady had gone. “Brady!” Lys cried. “Watch out.”

An alarm started to squawk, and strobe lights began to flash. The two figures ran at the hole. Brady arrived in the same instant they did. Both parties stumbled to a stop. Through the strobing lights, Lys could see that the two figures weren’t men in black. They were kids.

Well, not little kids, although one of them wasn’t even as big as Brady, but teenagers like her.

The taller figure grabbed the little one and got in front of him.

“Whoa,” Brady said, holding up his hands.

“Who are you?” a girl’s voice, accented in Spanish, demanded.

“I, uh . . .” Brady stumbled over the words. Between strobe light assaults, Lys finally got a good look at them.

The shorter figure, a boy probably only twelve or thirteen, studied Brady through long, scraggly blond hair. The other figure, a taller girl with skin the color of caramel and dark hair that hung in loose curls down to the middle of her back, glared.

“Inez, look at him,” the younger boy said, working his way out from behind her to get a better view of Brady. “Check out his eyes.” He pointed.

“Who are you?” This time Mark spoke. He managed to use an imposing voice, and both figures turned to see who had addressed them. The girl grabbed the younger boy by the collar and shoved him behind her again.

“Cut it out!” he complained.

“Who are you?” Inez asked, glaring at them through the dust. She kept her eyes moving back and forth between Brady and Mark. “Are you with them?” She jerked her head back down the hall toward the last place Lys had seen the guys in black. Now the hall stood completely blocked by rubble.

“No,” Mark said. He tried to stand up, but it didn’t really work. “We’re not with them.”

Inez continued to glare. Her angry, haunted eyes seemed out of place on her beautiful face.

Lys felt the Need kick a foot loose and looked away. Why had it felt so repressed before, and why was it coming out now?

“That one is using,” the kid said, pointing at Brady.

“Shut up, Peter,” Inez said although she did glance over at Brady, looking at his face for a moment.

“We need to get out of here,” Mark said. “Before they bring reinforcements.”

Inez glanced at Lys, Kamau, and then back at Mark. When her eyes came to his hands, they widened, and she muttered something in Spanish. Lys had no idea what she said.

“Inez,” Peter said, tugging on her arm. “They’re coming.”

“I can get you out of here,” Brady said, finally regaining the use of his tongue. “We were just leaving.” He shot Inez a crooked grin; Lys thought he was going for charming.

Inez gave him a hard glare. “We don’t need your help.”

“We’re all going to get caught if we don’t move,” Peter said. Lys noticed that he kept breathing deeply and looking back down the hall.

“You’re on your own,” Inez said to Brady, grabbing Peter by the arm.

“Wait!” he protested, pulling free. “We can’t leave them here.” He pointed at Brady, who stepped through the hole toward Lys. “He’s using. You’re always saying that we’d help anyone who—”

“Forget what I said,” Inez said through gritted teeth. “We have to get what we came for and go.”

“We can’t go back,” Peter said. “They’re coming from there.”

“We have to go,” Mark said. “Now.”

The tone of his words left no room for argument. He started to stumble away, pulling Lys and Kamau with him.

“You can’t get out that way,” Peter said.

“Maybe you can’t.” Brady looked back at them. “But I can.” He shrugged. “You can follow us if you need to.”

Kamau, who had been silent during the exchange, whispered, “There should be a door leading to the lobby in that corner. If I’m not turned around, there are a number of buildings right next to this one. We should be able to take cover.”

Brady nodded, moving past them and into the lead.

“But Inez,” Peter protested, “they’re both using, and check out that guy’s hands. Isn’t that the stuff that you said we should—”

Inez shushed him. Lys glanced back just in time to see Inez dragging Peter down the hall.

“Do you think they’ll be alright?” she asked no one in particular.

“We don’t even know who they are,” Kamau said. “Just as long as they don’t draw attention to us.”

Brady led them across the small parking garage. They wove through the vehicles, and no other people appeared. She could hear shouting, but she couldn’t tell how close they were. The sound echoed between the walls, bouncing back and forth like a racquetball.

“There,” Kamau said as they came around a large van. “The door is behind that wall.”

“How did you know that?” Brady asked.

“Someone came in the door when we pulled in.”

“If you were awake, why didn’t you try to escape?” Brady asked.

“Escape is difficult when your hands and feet are cuffed.”

Brady shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

The door grew ever closer, but before they got there, a pair of armored men charged through.

“Don’t move!” one of the men yelled, pointing a large gun at them.

Lys didn’t know much about guns, but the barrels on these were huge. The bullets that came out of them must be the size of oranges. Lys did
not
want to find out what it would do to a person. She didn’t move.

“Yeah, right,” Brady said, reaching out for the car next to him.

One of the men aimed his gun at Brady and pulled the trigger. Lys couldn’t help it, she screamed.

A flash caused Lys to flinch, and then something the size of two baseballs stuck together came flying out of the end of the gun. It quickly spread out, revealing itself as a net. Before it could reach Brady, he grabbed the bumper and pulled part of it away from the car with a shrill screech of metal. He threw it and caught the net before it hit him.

The metal and the net flew back and hit the man in the armor, causing him to go sprawling on the ground. His helmet clattered off revealing Jed. He glared at them.

The other man fired his gun before Brady could do anything about it. Kamau pulled Lys aside just in time to avoid being buried in the net. The edge of it scraped her arm, and she cried out. A cold chill, not unlike when Brady had touched her in the woods, started up her arm and toward her shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said, her words slurring like Mark’s.

“Can you move?” Mark asked.

Lys tried. She could move everything, but her right arm responded slowly.

“Missed again,” Brady said, laughing at the two men with guns. He kept tossing bits of concrete, car parts, and whatever else he could get his hands on in their direction. How
was
he doing that?

“Come on,” Kamau said, “if we can get out that door then we can get to the street.”

Lys nodded, and started to move.

“Hold it!” a voice said, sounding metallic coming through the helmet.

“You hold it,” Brady said.

Lys didn’t look back. She heard more grinding metal and a loud thump. Brady laughed again just as Kamau got them through the ruined door.

The short hall beyond led to a small lobby. Lys didn’t much care about the furnishings. Her focus landed on the wall of windows and the door that led outside.

“Out,” Kamau ordered.

Lys did her best to keep up, heaving Mark along beside her and hoping that Brady would come after them.

The lobby sat void of people. Beyond the windows, night had settled. Maybe they would actually get away.

She kept thinking back to the woods behind the hospital. These had to be the same guys. So why did Mr. Doyle try to convince her that he just wanted to help? The more people who came at them, the less Lys believed anything Mr. Doyle said. Who attacked kids with net guns? For that matter, who ran around in black combat armor, or whatever that stuff was?

“Brady!” Kamau yelled over his shoulder as they reached the front door. “Come on.”

“Coming,” Brady said, skipping through the door and into the entryway. His eyes still swirled black.

Just as they reached the exit, a net flew from the opposite end of the lobby. Brady didn’t see it, and in mid skip it hit him, flinging him to the floor.

“Don’t move!” a metallic voice said.

Lys looked into the lobby and saw Peter and Inez sprinting down the hall, heading straight for them. Another two figures in black chased the duo. Lys caught a glance of someone coming in from the garage. They were in trouble.

Kamau looked around, taking in their surroundings. “Cover your ears.”

“Why?” she asked as she covered one of her ears and one of Mark’s.

Kamau closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

A rumbling seemed to come from Kamau. It started in the air and then moved into the ground. The floor beneath Lys’s feet began to buckle and shake. The air itself started to hum, vibrating her brain through her uncovered ear. She stumbled and almost went down. The windows of the lobby spider-webbed, and Lys had to turn her face as the glass shattered. A wave of tile rose behind Inez and swept toward her pursuers. Peter looked back, but she grabbed him and they kept running.

The wave, now a foot tall, hit the figures in black and they scattered.

Peter and Inez ran through the broken window. She kept going, but Peter paused, looking at Kamau in awe. Kamau shut his mouth and the rumbling stopped.

“Dude, that was awesome!”

“Peter!” Inez said, coming back and grabbing him by the arm.

He slithered out of the hold and went over to Brady. “We can’t leave them here!” He gave her a puppy dog look. “They saved us.”

“They screwed us,” Inez muttered under her breath. However, she ran to where Peter knelt next to Brady. She took a black, wicked looking knife out of her boot. Before Lys could object—why did she feel like the other girl might plunge the knife into Brady’s heart?—Inez cut the net. It sizzled and flared, like a light bulb, and then went out, going from hard cords to slack. She then reached out and pulled it off Brady.

“Come on,” she grumbled, tugging him to his feet.

Brady looked groggy, but he smiled when he saw who had a hold of his arm. “Hey,” he said, nodding. “I told you we could get you out.”

“Stupid,” Inez said. She turned her fierce gaze on Lys and Mark. “Listen, you follow us and keep up. If you fall behind, we leave you.”