Rage Within (33 page)

He gave her a smile, hoping it looked braver than he felt. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I have a feeling they’re not going to kill me.” Reaching into his pocket, he curled his fingers around the small bottle of sand. He’d carried it such a long way. It was time now to pass it on. He pressed it into her hand. “I want you to have this. Merry Christmas.”

She took the bottle and turned it over, studying the contents. “What is it?”

“The ocean,” he said. “It’s from when I felt the ocean.”

“I have nothing for you,” she said.

“Then get home safe,” he said. “That’ll be the best present ever.”

He reached up and touched her face, feeling the gentleness of her skin beneath the dirt and charcoal smudges. Leaning in, he gave her a soft kiss. He kept his eyes open but she closed hers, and he liked the way her eyelashes brushed against her cheeks.

“Come on,” he said, taking her by the hand. They headed back over to where Daniel was waiting with a sheepish look on his face.

“Take her,” Mason said. “Get her home.”

Daniel nodded respectfully.

Mason let go of her hand, but it didn’t really matter anyway. The way she looked at Daniel, a sharp twinge of jealousy wrapped its fingers around Mason’s stomach.

She preferred Daniel.

He’d just have to live with that.

Aries finally turned around, back to Mason. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Now get going.”

Clementine joined the group, a Taser sparking in her hand. “Right about now is a good time to abandon ship,” she said, and she flashed Mason and Daniel a grin. “Good to see you again. Hope you don’t mind my rudeness, but this isn’t the time and place to have a personal chat.”

“Good to see you, too, Clementine,” Mason said.

“Just one second,” Daniel said. He nodded solemnly at Mason.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Daniel asked. “There might be another way. If we try, maybe at least one of us can get that thing off your leg.”

“I’m positive,” Mason said. “We can’t take the chance.”

Daniel nodded. “Okay, then. You be careful, Tourist Boy.”

“We’re not going to forget about you,” Aries said. “I give you my word. We’ll find a way to get you back.”

“Huh?” Clementine looked around at all of them. “What’s going on?”

But there was no time to explain. Mason turned and walked away. When he got halfway across the compound, he looked back, but the rest of them had already crawled under the fence and disappeared into the night.

ARIES

They ran along the ocean path toward Yaletown. People rushed past them, confused and heading in all directions. Some jumped into the bay and started swimming for Olympic Village on the other side. A woman was pushed in the commotion, and fell into the water, where she splashed around, screaming that she didn’t know how to swim. Aries swerved in her direction, but someone beat her to it and jumped in to rescue her.

The crowd started to dissipate as they hit George Wainborn Park and headed toward the Granville Bridge.

“That was amazing,” Clementine shouted as they ran. “Did you see all that? There must have been a few hundred people in there, and we freed them!”

“Except we didn’t save Mason. Or Casey,” Aries said.

“What the hell happened back there?” Clementine asked. “Why wouldn’t Mason come?”

Aries closed her hand tightly around the glass vial of sand that Mason had given her. Her breathing was heavy and she inhaled deeply before answering. “I’ll explain later,” she said. “But we’re not leaving him there for good. We’re going back.”

Daniel held her hand tightly and squeezed, a bit harder than she liked. He was faster than her and pulling her along. It was hard keeping her feet moving in the right direction. She stumbled over some debris, almost falling to her knees.

“Can we slow down?” she said. “I think we’re safe.”

Finally Daniel slowed enough to stop her lungs from exploding. On a corner, they came to a halt and Aries bent down to put her hands on her knees, breathing in deeply, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating.

“I need a safer hobby,” she said between gasps. “Like quilting.”

Clementine laughed.

“What about the others?” Aries said when she finally managed to bring herself back to an upright position. The ocean was still and silent to their left. “Do you think they made it?”

“I sure hope so,” Clementine said. “We’ve got to get to the bridge. They’re going to meet us there, remember?”

“Aries?”

She turned toward Daniel. He was standing very still, his hands at his sides, and there were too many shadows covering his face for her to read his expression. She stepped forward with a smile on her face. Seeing him again meant everything was okay with the world. She decided that she was going to do whatever it took to make sure he came back with them. No more of this sneaking around. They’d been through so much. Didn’t he realize this? They needed to be together. They would be stronger as a team. She could do anything with him there. She could go back and get Mason. She could face Eve and her intense guilt over Nathan’s death.

She could . . .

Daniel was shaking.

“What’s wrong?”

“Aries,” he said again. “You need to listen to me and not fight. Okay?”

She stepped forward again, trying to bring his face into the light. “What’s wrong?”

“Stop. Stop, dammit!”

She paused, one foot in front of the other. So much anger in his voice. What the hell?

“You need to run,” he said. “Get away from here now. I can’t explain, but you have to leave me.”

“I can’t do that,” she said. She reached out to take his hand. “You have to come back with us. No more of this running away. I’m tired of it. I want to be with you.”

Daniel let out a shout and dropped to his knees. She immediately crossed the gap, bending down to help him up.

Then he looked at her.

And this time she was close enough to see.

The intense look in his eyes.

The black veins.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Run,” he whispered.

Clementine was faster than her. She grabbed Aries by the arm, pulling her backward. Aries fought against her, struggling to return to Daniel’s side, but he no longer seemed to realize she was there. His body shook with convulsions, hair covering his eyes.

Oh God, his eyes.

Her heart had stopped beating. That had to be the problem. She couldn’t feel anything anymore. Except pain. And it crashed through her body, tearing at her insides, turning everything to mush.

And Daniel looked up at her one last time. She saw the pain in his eyes, the shame of being discovered. A secret he’d
tried for so long to hide. Suddenly everything was crystal clear. The refusal to stay with her. The nights of meeting at the beach because he couldn’t reveal his dark desires.

He’d betrayed her.

He’d been the one who gave her name to the Baggers.

“No,” she said again, firmer this time. She broke away from Clementine and rushed toward him, hitting him with the palms of her hands. Again and again. How could he do this to her? She’d trusted him.

Screaming, he suddenly struck back at her, clawing at her face, tangling her hair between his fingers. She went flying backward with him on top of her, his hands grabbing at her face and neck. She could hear Clementine screaming out his name and the growling noises coming from his mouth. Fingers tightened around her throat. Squeezing. Her vision exploded into a million white stars, and his eyes, with all their blackness, bore holes into her forehead.

There was no recognition on his face. Daniel no longer knew her.

Scrabbling about on the ground, her fingers closed around the machine gun that had slipped off her shoulder in the commotion. She gasped for breath but no air came. Clementine continued to shout, but the words were foggy, farther away. She could hear her heartbeat pounding inside her, loud and faster than anything she could have thought possible. Daniel was trying to take it away from her. Remove her heart and leave her a husk.

No.

She brought the gun up, smashing the end piece into his face with all her strength. He grunted and his hands loosened enough for her to pull away. Fire burned in her throat and she started coughing, too much. He came for her again.

She brought up the gun again and swung it like a baseball bat. A loud cracking noise as the metal met his skull.

Daniel dropped to the ground. He twitched twice, shuddering, but his eyes remained closed.

She hit him again and again. His body jolted under each strike, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Crumpled on the ground. Unconscious. Blood dripped from his mouth, small splotches hitting the cement beneath him.

She hit him again for good measure.

Clementine managed to wrap her arms around her, pulling her back, slapping her in the face to try and snap her out of it. The tears began to flow; again, she brushed them away.

“I hate you,” she screamed. “I hate you!”

But Clementine was pulling again, and finally she allowed it. She turned to her friend, nodded, and squeezed her eyes closed tightly.

She realized she was still holding the machine gun in her hands. All this pain. All this death. Designed and used for the sole purpose of killing everything in sight. She no longer wanted to be a part of it. Disgusted, she turned and threw it straight into the water, where it landed with a loud splash.

“Let’s go,” she said, a hardness in her voice she’d never heard before.

They left him on the cement.

She didn’t look back.

CLEMENTINE

She couldn’t look at Aries.

The pain the girl must be feeling. It was too much for her to even comprehend.

Luckily, Raj and Joy were waiting for them back at the bridge. No other casualties. If the others hadn’t been okay, Clementine wondered if Aries would have snapped under the guilt and pressure.

But she also knew her friend was stronger than she could ever have imagined before.

“That. Was. Amazing!” Joy squeaked. She was breathing heavily, full of adrenaline and bleeding from the gash in her arm. Raj didn’t look much better. His nose was swelling from where he must have taken a good hit. Noticing the dark red-and-black patches forming under his eyes, she guessed it was broken.

But they were all alive.

“Never seen anything like it,” Raj wheezed. “It was like the bloody Running of the Bulls in Spain. Rampage! Brilliant!”

“Baggers flying everywhere,” Joy said. “I saw a bunch of prison people chasing after them with wooden spoons and frying pans. It was beautiful! And to think we started that!”

“Wonder how many of them will get rounded back up again?” Raj asked.

“Who cares!” Joy covered her mouth with her hand when she realized how loud and excited her words were. “We’ll just go back and save them again, right?” She finally noticed that Aries was shaking something awful. “Hey, what happened?” she asked.

“Did you not find them, babes?” Raj added.

“We’ll tell you about it later,” Clementine said. “Let’s get home safe first.”

Joy looked at Aries and then back to Clementine, who tried to give her a “trust me, you don’t want to hear it” look.

“Okay,” Raj said. “Let’s go.”

Everything was going to be okay when they got back. She kept telling herself that. She tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, but the image of Daniel’s black-veined eyes kept creeping up on her.

She couldn’t understand how they’d been betrayed. It was a terrifying thought. If the Baggers were capable of having spies such as Daniel, it meant that any of the others in their group might be playing on the opposite side of the game too. She thought about each person, even Michael, wondering if any of them could possibly have such darkness inside of them. But in the end, she couldn’t believe that the friends she’d grown to trust could be Baggers. Even Colin with his obnoxious behavior didn’t strike her as being that twisted. No, he was too much of a coward.

But Michael. Now that made her shudder. She knew that Aries had kissed Daniel. She’d seen it back when they were on the beach. It must be killing Aries inside, knowing that the boy she’d kissed and loved was nothing but a cold-blooded murderer.

How would she react if it were Michael?

No. She shook her head as she jogged along. Michael was on their team. They all were. Daniel in his own way had been trying to protect Aries. It was so clear. That’s why he’d always refused to come by the house or even let Aries tell him where they were living. It made no sense, though. If he was a Bagger, eager to kill them, why did he go to such lengths to keep himself away?

There must have been a thousand chances for Daniel to kill Aries in the past few months; hundreds of times that he could have followed her back from the beach and then sent out for backup to attack them while they slept.

So why hadn’t he done it?

She glanced over at her friend and, from her pained expression, realized that Aries was thinking the exact same thing.

Daniel was a Bagger. But he was still different compared to the others.

The questions remained unanswered.

The street was dark when they finally arrived home. It had to be very late, maybe around two thirty, three in the morning, but Clementine was too weary even to check her watch. Strange how time used to be so important. She had to be on time for school, for cheerleading; she even had to be on time coming home or else her parents would ground her. But time was now meaningless.

They still existed, but time passed them by without stopping to say hello.

“Oh, man,” Joy said when the safe house came into view. “I’ve never been so happy to see this place in my life. I’m going to sleep for a week.”

They all nodded in agreement. Even Aries looked like
she’d be dead to the world once her head hit the pillow. Clementine hoped so. She didn’t want her friend up the entire night, the millions of unanswered questions keeping her awake. Hopefully she’d have a dream-free night and the horrors lurking in her subconscious would stay away for now.