Payback (14 page)

“Got it,” Anthony answered. He floored the gas, went through a yel ow light, then double-parked in front of the chapel.
Is this total
ly insane?
he wondered as he jumped out of the car and led the charge to the main doors.
Maybe Emma and what’s-his-name
should
be getting married.

Mandy darted ahead of him and pushed open the doors. “Emma!” she shouted.

“There’s a wedding going on in there,” a woman in a white suit snapped.

“I know!” Mandy snapped back. “Emma!” she shouted again. Then she burst through the double wooden doors on the left. Ant hony went after her, feeling like an idiot as he, Jesse, and Rae fol owed Mandy down the aisle with the minister, Emma, and Ze ke-that was his name-staring at them. “Did you do it already?” Mandy demanded.

The printer stopped, and silence fil ed Sam’s bedroom. He rol ed his desk chair over, retrieved the freshly printed sheaf of pa per, stuck one of those clamps on the top, rol ed back to Yana, and handed it to her. “This is everything I’ve been able to find out about the agency.”

“What are al these maps?” Yana asked, flipping through the pages.

“Most of them show locations of the other G-2s,” Sam answered. “I don’t think it’l be too long before they’re rounded up. Poor bastards.”

“Rounded up?” Yana repeated.
Rae,
she thought. The name screamed through her head. Was something going to happen to Rae?

“Yeah, you and me, we’re just guinea pigs since we were stupid enough to walk into the agency and volunteer,” Sam told her.

He twisted back and forth in the swivel chair, then spun himself completely around. “But it seems that they’ve perfected the N-Tet ran. Or perhaps it would be more fair to say that
I
perfected it since I’m the lucky, lucky boy who got to try out al the earlier versi ons.” Sam did another spin.

“N-Tetran?” Yana said.

“The drug you got to sample today,” Sam answered. “I heard from my good friend Dr. Kessler how wel it worked. Cascone’s kept the development of N-Tetran a secret from everybody. Control is very important to our Layla Cascone. I suspect she didn’t want to inform her superiors until she could give them a drug guaranteed effective. By tomorrow or the next day at the latest, I’m sure that one of the samples they have left wil be being analyzed in a lab. Then it wil be produced in larger quantities. And they’l need lots of G-2s to test it on. There are going to be families al over the country reporting their teenagers missing. The police’l probably never put it together. Teen runaways are too common.”

“Cascone’s going to keep them-us-prisoner. Is that what you’re saying?” Yana demanded, her throat getting tight. Two words re peated in her brain. Rae. Mandy. Rae. Mandy. And so many others…

“Now that they’ve figured out how to boost our powers, yeah. It wouldn’t be safe for humanity to have al of us wandering free-not unless they could al be fitted with blocks,” Sam answered. “And once we have boosted powers, I’m sure they’l find tasks for everybody, not just the one, whoever that turns out to be. Of course, I’l be dead, so…” Sam shrugged.

“That’s it? You’l be dead, so screw the rest of us?” Yana muttered. She sat down on Sam’s bed, and the guy actual y blushed.
I
bet I’m the first girl who’s ever set foot in his bedroom,
she thought.
And probably the last,
she couldn’t stop herself from ad ding.

“Cascone and company, as I’m sure you figured out, found a way to block our powers,” Sam answered. “If they hadn’t-” He shrugged. “Wel , let’s just say things would be a lot different.”

“So you gave up just because you couldn’t use your powers?” Yana demanded. “It’s not like powers are the only way to deal with people. I’m thinking a big can of gasoline and some matches. I’m thinking tonight, while they stil think I’m a good little gu inea pig. The center can burn, can’t it?”

“I don’t see why not,” Sam answered. “But you’l get caught, you know.”

Yana felt like she had a volcano in her chest. Seething, bubbling. Ready to erupt. “So what they did to our moms, that’s okay.

Just, oh, wel .” She shrugged, the way Sam had about forty times since she’d met him. “And what about al those other G-2s who are going to get yanked from their homes? What about them? My friend Rae’s dad, I don’t think he’d survive if she disappeared, but-” She shrugged again.

“Agency very big. Guinea pig very smal ,” Sam answered. “Guinea pig fight agency. Guinea pig end up splotch on ground.” He stood up and stepped closer to her, close enough for her to smel the decay, the stench of his sick body rotting. “Did I make it simple enough for you to understand, Yana?” he asked quietly.

She looked away, not wanting him to see any pity in her eyes. “Gas. Match. Tonight. That’s even simpler. Worst-case scenario, I can destroy the N-Tetran samples. That’l slow Cascone down, at least. And best-case scenario, I can do a lot more than that,”

she told him. “You could come with me. For your mom. For al of us.”

“I’m trying to keep breathing until Christmas. My dad’s big on Christmas,” Sam answered. “In case you need it more plainly, that means I’m out.”

Yana turned and headed for the door without another word. What else was there to say? As she reached for the doorknob, so mething hit her back and then dropped to the floor. She turned around and saw a plastic bag of… she wasn’t sure what. They lo oked kind of like silver buttons.

“Stick them on the security cameras. It’l scramble the signal,” Sam said. “Of course, when they start seeing static on the moni tors, they’re going to start checking the place out. They’l probably figure out someone’s broken in, but they won’t know exactly where you are.”

Yana knelt down and picked up the bag. “Thanks.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me. You should be forgetting your whole insane plan,” Sam told her. He shrugged. “But since you’re not, I suppose you’d like the security codes for the doors, too.”

“What are you doing here?” Emma cried, throwing up the veil that had been covering her face. “Have you been spying on me?

Did you tel Dad that-”

“Did you do it already?” Mandy asked again. “Did you actual y marry…
that?
” She flicked her fingers at Zeke.

Probably not the way to go, Mandy,
Rae thought. Emma at least thought she loved the guy. It was only going to make her angri er to hear Mandy bad-mouth him.

“Who are al of you?” the minister asked, his gaze flicking from Mandy to Rae to Anthony to Jesse, then back to Mandy.

“I’m her sister.” Mandy pointed at Emma. “What are you doing letting her get married? She’s stil in high school.”

“I’m eighteen,” Emma protested. She turned to the minister. “I showed you proof. So did Zeke. And we paid our money. She-”

Emma jerked her head toward Mandy “-doesn’t have any say in whether we get married or not.”

“Emma, you don’t want to be doing this,” Mandy pleaded, her voice cracking with emotion. “What about UCLA? What about al your plans?”

“Plans change, Mandy,” Emma said. “Look, you’re here. Why don’t you sit down and watch me get married and be happy for me?”

Rae glanced at Zeke. He had the same blank stare he’d had at the music store-eyes glazed over, no visible emotion. It was like the Mandy-Emma drama was something he was watching on TV.
Is he stoned right now?
she wondered.
At his own wedding?

“I can’t be happy for you,” Mandy answered. “You can’t expect me to be happy for you when you’re throwing away your life.” She paused, and Rae could tel she was struggling over her next words. Suddenly Rae knew what they would be. “Em, do you think Mom would be happy for you?” Mandy asked softly.

Tears fil ed Emma’s eyes. “How can you bring up Mom? This is supposed to be my best day ever.” She turned toward the minis ter, her back to Mandy. “Please keep going. We were almost to the part with the rings.”

The minister’s answer came too softly for Rae to hear. Mandy shot Rae a pleading look.
What does she want me to do?
Rae thought.
What
can
I do? I barely know Emma. Or Zeke. Why would they listen to me?

“Rae,” Anthony whispered, his breath warm against his ear. “Two o’clock?”

“What?” she whispered back.

“I must ask everyone but our witnesses to leave the chapel,” the minister announced, his voice gentle but firm.

“Fingerprint stuff, in the pew up ahead to the left,” Anthony explained. “Maybe you can-”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Rae answered, understanding him without needing to hear al the words, the way she so often did. “Try to buy me a little time.” She hurried forward and slipped into the pew.

“Mandy, I think you should stay,” Anthony said loudly. “I think you’l end up wishing you’d seen your sister get married.”

Rae tuned out al the voices speaking around her. She ran her naked fingers over the straps of Emma’s purse-get awaydress/love him/UCLA/start my life/bridesmaids
forever
gotta pee/what job wil
forever
-and the buttons and col ar of Zeke’s jean jacket.

/before she’l do it/smarter/get some/col ege guy/kids/don’t want kids/

Hope I got enough,
Rae thought. She stood up. Anthony had somehow gotten Mandy and Jesse seated in a pew. Emma was just about to pul her veil back over her face.

“Emma, um, I know that we hardly know each other,” Rae began. “And there’s no reason you should listen to me. But, uh, my sis ter got married when she was around your age.” Big lie. Good cause. “It didn’t end up that great. It turned out that she wanted kids and the guy didn’t and they’d never even talked to each other about it. And he was assuming that she’d live with him on cam pus at, uh, Columbia, but she didn’t want to leave California at al . But you guys, you two, have probably talked about al that, right?”

“We don’t need to talk about every tiny thing,” Emma answered. She reached out and took Zeke’s hand. “We’re in love. We want the same things.”

“Like kids?” Rae pressed. She’d gotten a lot of anxiety off Zeke’s thought about kids.

“We definitely want kids,” Emma said.

Zeke didn’t contradict her, but Rae thought she saw a flicker of panic in his eyes. Genuine feeling for the first time.

“Good, that’s good,” Rae went on. “Because marriage… it’s forever, right?” She looked at the minister, who nodded. “And that’s a long time.”

Forever was the thing that Emma seemed the most agitated about. That and the bridesmaids and dress thoughts. “And since it’s forever, and you’re only getting married once, don’t you guys want the whole deal-the dress, the bridesmaids? God, you won’t even have any pictures for a wedding album.”

“We’l have a big wedding later, with al our friends. And family,” Emma said, talking directly to Mandy.

“Who’s going to pay for that?” Zeke asked.

“We wil ,” Emma answered. “I’m going to be working ful -time now-”

“You’re not going to find a job that’l pay you that kind of money,” Zeke protested.

“If I went to col ege, I-” Emma began.

Knew you still wanted to go. Knew you didn’t want to drop out,
Rae thought. She smiled at Mandy, and Mandy smiled back.

“We talked about that,” Zeke interrupted. “There’s no money for col ege, either. That’s why we decided there was no point in you staying in school.”

Emma pul ed her hand out of Zeke’s. “If we asked my dad, if we could live with him until-”

“No way. No way can we be having sex with your dad across the hal ,” Zeke told her.

“And her sister,” Mandy piped up.

“God. That’s al you ever think about,” Emma accused him, her cheeks flushing a deep pink. “It’s like it’s al you want me for.”

Keep going, you guys. Keep on going,
Rae thought.

Yana put on her Happy Burger uniform, complete with its Have a Happy Happy Burger Day pin and the dorky little cloth visor.

She studied herself in the mirror inside her closet door. “Just a happy, happy Happy Burger delivery girl,” she told her reflection, then she picked up a big cardboard box with smiling lips al over it, one of the ones used for delivering big orders. There were no burgers or fries inside it, though. Just big bottles of lighter fluid. “We are happy to offer free delivery anywhere in Atlanta.” She plastered a happy smile on her face. It looked fake-fake and scared-to her, but she thought it would work on the upstairs security guard at the Wilton Center.

She closed the closet door and glanced around her room. The bed was made. Her clothes were put away. Her desk was orga nized.
It looks like nobody lives here,
she thought. But that was how it always looked. That’s how she liked it. When she was yo unger-actual y not that much younger, like a couple of weeks ago younger-she used to imagine it was a hotel room. She’d lie in her bed, making up stories about the city she was sleeping in that night. Was she ever going to see her room again?

Don’t even go there,
Yana ordered herself. She checked the clock. God, she was ready way too early. Why had she thought it would take this long to buy some squirt bottles of lighter fluid and get dressed? She wished she could just go now. She’d been waiting so long. Almost five years.