Revive (26 page)

There's no time to make sure the money is still there or whether we're clear to leave. We book it to the door, but Kyle throws a hand up at me before I can open it. “Let me go first and draw their fire.”

“I'm rescuing you!”

“Yeah, and the reason for that is because I can better withstand being used for target practice.”

I can't help myself. I kiss his cheek. “All right then, mutant. But move.”

Kyle throws open the door. “Don't call me mutant, Hernandez.”

He's right. Being part robot and all, it's probably hypocritical of me.

Kyle fires several shots in the direction of the roof sniper we passed on our way here. He must send the guy ducking because when I bolt out after him, no fire is returned.

Snatching at Kyle's arm, I surge by him, leading him to the nearest cover. Someone yells my name, but I don't know who. I can't look at anything except where I'm going. Can't focus on any sound except the fake ticking of the counter in my brain.

“Kyle!” I skid behind the row of dumpsters by the mess, my arm flailing to grab him but catching only air. He arrives half a second later and falls on top of me as he tries to slow down. “Head down and cover your ears.”

Instead of listening, he presses me deeper into the stinking, wet ground with his torso and puts his arms over my head. The explosion follows. This close, the very air shakes and ripples, and the force seems to tear its molecules apart. The stench it leaves behind is even worse—sulfur and burning plastic and hot metal. My nose burns. Bits of debris roll and clatter everywhere.

One of the pieces is Fitzpatrick's favorite orange coffee mug. It's bizarre, but I know from Bondar's lessons that the oddest things can survive a blast. I grab it as a souvenir.

Breathing heavily, I reach up and pat whatever bit of Kyle I can reach. He gets the message and lets go of me. “You okay?”

He nods, poking at his ears.

“I told you to cover them.”

“Covering you seemed more important. Anyway, it's just ringing, and ringing is caused by damaged hair follicles, and you know—I can repair those in no time. Being a mutant and all.” He smacks his ears a couple times, and his right one an extra few. “It's kind of hard to hear right now.”

In spite of everything, I let out a little laugh. “Dork.”

Kyle smiles, and I'm transported back to RTC, to the times I laid next to him like this and the giddy happiness that enveloped me when he smiled. I think Kyle remembers too because longing flashes over his face. His breath is sweet and his lips so close. For a moment, I believe he might kiss me and all will be back to normal, but the moment passes.

It's too much, too soon. I have no right to be disappointed, but I can't shake the emotion.
Focus,
I tell myself.

I open the backpack, dig down for the hat and pull it open. The money is there. My body sags in relief. “Come on, let's keep going. That'll distract them for a minute.”

Kyle grunts as he gets to his feet. “So you know who planted that bomb?”

I check the path ahead, but people are running to the site of Fitzpatrick's former office. Sirens sound in the distance. Someone needs to put out the fires. “This way, and yeah. You think I could do all this on my own?”

“I don't know what you can do.”

I glance at the gun he's carrying. “I'd say we're even then.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

A lump rises in my throat, and I force it down. Yeah, he's right to doubt. We'll never be even again. The world doesn't contain enough apologies. Yet my mind tries out a few, which is not only stupid but dangerous under the circumstances because I need to focus.

As I turn a corner, sloppily forgetting to check my left side, it becomes a full-fledged mistake.

“Don't move, Seven.”

My heart stutters, and I swear. Kyle, who's right behind me, steps on my ankle as he comes around the corner.

Fitzpatrick is alone except for the gun she's pointing at my head. “Drop your weapons.”

Slowly, I sink to my knees and put down the guard's gun and the coffee mug. Next to me, Kyle does the same, minus the mug. Malone's .38 presses into my back, invisible to Fitzpatrick but useless to me.

“Step away from them,” she says, reaching for her walkie-talkie. Fitzpatrick is no fool. She's aware of how fast I can move. “I should have known you'd be behind something like this, Seven. You might have been able to convince the males around here that you're special, but I've known since you were little that you were a mistake.”

Yeah, yeah. She knows about me, but does she know about Kyle's mutant healing abilities? And, oh shit. I glance at Kyle from the corner of my eye. He's not going to try testing out those abilities, is he? His fingers are twitching, and it wouldn't surprise me.

I nudge the coffee mug with my toe as Fitzpatrick switches on the walkie-talkie. “Give me a break. I saved your mug. Doesn't that count for something?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Why do you have my mug?”

“Because Three and Eleven blew up your office.”

Her face snarls in disgust, an expression I know well, but she doesn't close her eyes like she normally does. Nope, Fitzpatrick is no fool, but it was worth a shot.

Damn it, think! I am smarter. I am faster. I am stronger.

Fitzpatrick is on the radio, informing security she has me and the prisoner cornered. Security is already swarming the area because of the blast. We could be surrounded any second.

“How much would it hurt?” I ask Kyle. “If you got shot, I mean. Do you know?”

Fitzpatrick turns to me in surprise, but Kyle shrugs. “Depends on where she shoots me.”

I want to scream at him:
Is that true? Have you been shot before?
But I keep those questions to myself. “Up to you then, but we're going to have company any second.” I don't intend to let Kyle take a bullet if I can help it, but I need to distract Fitzpatrick.

Kyle flexes his knees, and Fitzpatrick angles the gun back and forth between us. It's working. She's not sure who to aim at anymore.

“He's a mutant, you know,” I tell her. “That's why Malone wants him. Shoot him in the head, and he'll get right back up.”

If that's not true, and I suspect it's not given that it took a couple minutes for his hand to heal at the dance, Kyle is smart enough not to correct me. While I have Fitzpatrick's attention again, he dives away from me. She shoots in his direction. I draw the .38 and fire at her.

Kyle hits the ground, and so does Fitzpatrick. Hoping fervently that Kyle's as tough to kill as I've been led to believe, I ignore him and race to her. Blood oozes from her thigh, but this is Fitzpatrick. She has the gun in her hand, and she struggles to level it at me.

I slam my foot on her arm and kick it away before she can. When she stares up at me with that cold hatred, I want to scream at her until I'm hoarse, but I won't give her the satisfaction. “I hate you. I'm sure you know that, but also know that's why I'm not going to kill you. I don't want to be like you.”

However, I'm not above kicking her in the stomach. She refuses to so much as grunt, and I hate her even more for being less human than me.

While I'm venting my childhood issues, Kyle's peeled himself off the ground. He blinks at me, and I have the decency to feel ashamed for kicking a woman while she's down. “We have a history.”

“And you're not going to shoot her again? Are you crazy?” He grabs his right arm with his left hand. Blood seeps between his fingers.

I snatch my gun and the mug. Having taken out Fitzpatrick, I deserve this souvenir. “No. Are you okay?”

“She grazed me. That's all.” He lunges for his gun, and I decide not to question. Either he's telling the truth and it's no big deal, or he's lying because he doesn't want to deal with me freaking out. Makes sense.

“Come on then. We're really late.”

We keep low, sticking to the sides of the buildings for cover. Snow wets my hair, making it cling to my face, and it melts, running down my nose. Kyle shivers. The bloodstain on his sleeve continues to grow. We need that escape vehicle. Where is it?

When we approach the rendezvous spot and there's no van or truck, I swear.

“What is it?” Kyle asks.

Before I can respond, someone whispers my name. Crouching low by the front guard post are Jordan, Gabe, Lev and Octavia. We hurry over. As I pass the post window, I see someone took out the guard inside. He's crumpled over his phone.

“Where's Summer? I thought we were so late.”

Lev wipes dripping hair from his face. “You are, but Octavia just got here a moment ago too. And no Summer.”

“They finally traced the initiating breach to me,” Octavia says. “They surrounded our quarters. I had to take to the ventilation system to get out. Fitzpatrick found me then, but I got away.”

“Did you punch her?” Gabe asks.

Octavia laughs without much humor. “No. I barely got by her. She shot at me.”

I force a grin. “Well, I shot her. So there.”

Jordan and Octavia let out restrained whoops.

“Seriously?” Lev slaps me on the back. “Sweet. Wish I was there.”

Gabe shifts and adjusts the rifle he's carrying. “Don't we all.”

Kyle looks at me. “
The
Fitzpatrick? So she's real?”

“Unfortunately. You met her—bleached hair, skin like old leather, shot you in the arm.”

Understanding dawns on him. “So that was her. No wonder you call her Bitchpatrick.”

The others seem to notice Kyle for the first time. “You are
the
Kyle?” Gabe asks the same way. He holds out a hand.

Kyle shakes it, wincing only slightly before touching the wound on his arm again. “You guys have a lot of explaining to do.”

I start to give out names when I notice a strange hum. “What's that?”

The other four exchange unhappy expressions. “Sounds like an AAD,” says Jordan. “Security must be coming back online.”

With much cursing, we all turn our weapons outward. Kyle bites his lip. I can tell he wants to ask what an AAD is but is trying to keep quiet.

“Aerial assault drone,” I whisper. “It has facial-recognition software in it and can be programmed to kill any matches. Aim for the camera eye if you can. It's the weakest part of the body.”

And there it is, flying around the corner of the supply shed. It hovers six feet off the ground, perfectly spherical except for the gun on top. Its heat sensors detect us instantly. We raise our weapons in unison when a new noise overpowers its hum.

A white van screeches around the opposite corner of the guardhouse. The driver, instead of hitting the brake, accelerates and whips the van around so that the side hits the drone head-on. It goes flying and crashes into the post window. The glass shatters.

“Summer!”

We make a mad dash for the doors before the drone can recover. Octavia gets the side door, and Gabe throws open the front passenger one. He stops, and I bang into him.

It's not Summer in the driver's seat. It's Cole.

“Hurry up and get in,” he says. “Summer was shot, but I think she'll be okay.”

Numbly, I push Kyle into the van and slam the door behind me. I don't know what to take in first. Summer lying on one of the back seats, bleeding from her left shoulder? Or Cole somehow ending up driving our getaway car?

How did he know? Why is he doing this?

“There are first-aid supplies in the back.” Cole turns the van around and floors it for the gate.

I gape at him, clutching the seat so I don't bang into Kyle.

In the mirror, Cole catches my expression. “I told you I'd always have your back, didn't I?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did.” I want to reach around the seat and hug him, but I can't because he's driving. Because he's driving, and I'm in shock and exhausted, and Kyle's glowering as he looks between us.

I'd rather blame my confusion on exhaustion. The adrenaline levels that kept me moving are now crashing. So I stare out the van windows and wait while Kyle says nothing, and Gabe examines the GPS, and Jordan and Lev put our field medicine training to use on Summer.

It's only a matter of time until Malone's men catch up to us.

Chapter Thirty

Monday Late Morning: Present

They do catch up, although not with helicopters, but with wheels. Cole says helicopters would draw too much attention, and they're going to want to cover up our flight for as long as possible. We're a black-ops research investment over twenty years in the making. RedZone will be in deep shit with the feds.

Octavia suspects the snowstorm is the real reason they don't use helicopters.

I suspect Cole is closer to the truth. RedZone—Malone, The Four—don't want to draw that much attention to their base. The feds don't know about us and have nothing to do with it.

Whichever, it's better for us. We shoot out the wheels of the first team they send, and after that, it's easy to set up an ambush for the next. We leave the men alive but take their weapons and supplies. Then we destroy as much as we can under the hoods so their vehicles can't be easily fixed.

With only three miles back to the camp, they'll either have a crappy hike in the snowstorm, or Malone will send people after them. Since their broken vehicles block the narrow mountain road, no one can come after us on the ground for a while. We have a small head start. But The Four have operatives everywhere and other bases. Our plan was only how to get away. How to hide will be another matter.

Kyle doesn't say much during either the ambush or the cleanup that follows, but he helps out when he can. Already, he's using his right arm again like nothing happened to it. When we pile back into the van, I make sure Cole cranks up the heat for him. By the time we pass the exit for Devor, it's toasty and the snow begins covering the road like a blanket.

I've never been a fan of snow, but today it's like magic. Only magic could cover up the ugliness and evil contained in these mountains and make them sparkle with beauty. I just hope it's powerful enough. It'll take magic to help us disappear.

Around the next bend, the van hits a pothole, jostling us in our seats. Summer hisses, pressing a hand to her wound. I think about what Malone said, about using the secrets in Kyle's DNA to make us unstoppable. Summer could use some of that power now. Soon enough, I suspect, we'll all be in need of it. But not at the price of my newly developing conscience.

Easing my grip on the gun, I brush Kyle's hand with a finger. His face is grim, but he takes my hand and envelopes it in his own. That's enough. It's more than I dared hope for and more than I deserve. The warmth that shoots through me seems to go straight to my heart, and it skips a beat. I curl my fingers around his, wishing I could transfer everything I was feeling through my skin. Wishing emotions made for better data.

Kyle's beautiful eyes are sad when they meet mine, but not without hope. Maybe he can read my touch after all. Maybe he realizes how much falling for him changed my life.

I don't know if he'll ever be able to forgive me, or if I can forgive myself for what I did to him and so many others. And I don't know where we're going, or what we'll do when we get there. But for the moment, that's okay. No one's on our tail anymore. We're wild and free, and I know a few things more now than I did two days ago.

I know I'm Sophia. I know bad people are coming. And I know I'm no longer one of them. Life is looking up.

I always look up.