Sloane (21 page)

“Uh…” I turned away from Axel. “No, there’s no one
here. It’s, um, it’s nothing.”

Axel touched my shoulder. “Who are you on the phone
with? Is it someone from the lab?”

I glared at him.

“I heard that,” said Christa.

“Don’t worry about it, Christa,” I said.

“Even if you do have someone there, you could use
me,” she said. “Trust me, Sloane, when push comes to shove, you’d
be surprised what I can do. I know you think that I’d freeze at the
first sign of trouble. But it’s not like that for me. The worse
things get, the more focused I get.”

Freeze at the first sign of trouble.

I rubbed my forehead. Christa didn’t freeze, but I
did. I hadn’t frozen when I was facing Leigh, but maybe that was
only because there had only been one person I was fighting, not a
swarm. Was I really cut out for this? Could I really do this on my
own? I sighed. “Can I, uh… can I call you back, Christa?”

“Actually, I’m trying to tell you something,” she
said.

“Well, you can tell me in a minute.” I hung up the
phone.

Axel raised his eyebrows.

“That was my brother’s girlfriend,” I said. “She
wants to help. Generally, I’d say no, but I feel like I’m in over
my head here. Thing is, if I tell her to come, she could end up
hurt. Hell, she could end up dead. And if that happened… Silas
would never forgive me. Neither would Griffin for that matter—she’s
Griffin’s sister.”

Axel just looked at me.

“Well,” I said. “What do you think?”

“You’re asking my advice?” he said.

My phone rang again. It was Christa. I hit ignore. “I
feel like I don’t know what to do. Even if Christa’s here, I don’t
see how it helps us much. I don’t know what happens if we go back
into that place. Do we end up fighting brainwashed versions of the
people we’re trying to save? What if Griffin or Silas kills
Christa? How would either of them live with themselves after
that?”

“Yeah, it sounds too complicated,” said Axel. “Tell
her not to come.”

“On the other hand, I’m not sure if I can do this on
my own.”

“Well, you’ve got me,” he said.

“Yeah, but you’re so much easier to kill than I am.
I’m the one who should be doing this. This isn’t your fight.”

“I’m helping,” he said. “That’s all there is to
it.”

“If I wasn’t so fucked up, I wouldn’t let you,” I
said. “But I could always freeze up again. You remember what
happened in the hotel room with Armstrong?”

“I don’t really,” he said. “I just knew you were
shot. I thought you were dead.”

I licked my lips. “Sometimes that happens to me.
Sometimes I freeze up, and I can’t move. It always happens at the
worst times.”

My phone rang again. Christa. I hit ignore again.

Axel looked me over. “I don’t get that. Why do you
freeze up? You’re the most capable woman I’ve ever met. You can
handle anything, Sloane.”

I shook my head. “Not anything.”

LEIGH

The next time they came to the door and ordered us
all to put our hands up against the wall, we had a plan. We knew
that if we broke out and tried to fight all of the guys, we
wouldn’t be successful. But Griffin thought that if maybe all three
of us tackled one of the guys, that at least one of us stood a
chance of getting a gun away from the guy. Once one of us had a
gun, we could shoot the others, and we could get away.

We stood tense as the guards entered the room,
waiting for Griffin to signal that we start moving.

I could hear the footsteps of the men behind us. If I
peered around, I could see their black boots and gray pants. Behind
them was the sea foam green color of the wall.

They filed in. The door shut behind them, booming and
echoing through the big room.

The room smelled heavily of our own sweat, with a
faint undercurrent of urine. I supposed I was only noticing because
the men had come inside, and I was waiting to move. My senses were
heightened.

One of the men started forward. He poked Griffin.
“You. Hands behind your back.”

Griffin turned to look at me, and then to look at
Silas. “Now,” he whispered.

I moved right away, flipping around from the wall and
rushing for the man that had poked Griffin.

Silas moved too, and Griffin whirled.

Griffin punched the man in the face—a loud smack.

The man grunted, going for his gun.

Silas wrapped his arms around the man from behind,
trapping his arms.

I dove in for the gun, which was just hanging off his
holster.

But there was gun fire from the other guards.

Silas’ head jerked back, and his grip loosened.

My fingers were inches from the gun, but the man
stumbled backwards as Silas fell away from his body.

I dove after him, colliding with his body.

I wrapped my hands around the gun, tugging it free
from the holster.

In the background, I could hear guns firing like a
scattered drum beat, but I paid it no mind. I had the gun, and that
was all that was important.

Even when I saw Griffin go down, blood pouring out of
his throat as a bullet lodged there, I didn’t stop to look at
him.

I had the gun.

This was the plan. Now, I needed to shoot.

I flipped off the safety and leveled it at the man
I’d stolen it from. I shot him in the head.

And then I whirled to face the other men. There were
only three more. I took aim at one.

But they were all aiming at me.

The bullets tore through my body in quick
succession.

One in my leg.

One bursting into my chest.

One in my shoulder.

The pain was like fire, spreading everywhere.

I wavered on my feet, unable to focus.

I squeezed off another shot, but I couldn’t tell if
it hit anything. Everything hurt so much.

And then there was the last bullet, ripping into my
face just under my cheekbone. I felt the agony of it searing into
me, and then—

Blackness.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

I sat down on the bed in Axel’s guest room. I was
still only wearing a towel, and I toyed with the edges of it. “I’ve
never talked to anyone about what happened. Even Silas and I don’t
talk about it too much.”

“Something happened?” Axel was concerned. “Does it
have something to do with your parents?”

My face twitched. “Silas and I killed them.”

Axel took a step backwards.

“We
had
to,” I said. “You don’t understand.
They were horrible. And they were going to…” I swallowed. I didn’t
know quite how to talk about this.

“What?” said Axel. “What were they going to do?”

I got up and put my hand on his chest. I pushed him
backwards, back towards the door. “If I’m going to talk about this,
I want to be dressed.”

He sputtered.

I pushed him out the door and closed it in his face.
“Give me a minute.”

“You know,” he said from the other side of the door,
“it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked already.”

I glared at the door. I wished he hadn’t felt the
need to remind me of that. I opened my suitcase and yanked out a
pair of jeans, a shirt, and some underwear. “It’s not about whether
you’ve seen me naked.”

“You can’t talk and get dressed at the same
time?”

I didn’t answer. I tore the towel off and stepped
into my panties. Then I put on my bra.

“Sloane?” said Axel.

“Just wait.” I shimmied into my jeans.

My phone rang. I looked at it. It was Sloane again.
Jesus Christ, I told her that I’d call her back. Why couldn’t she
have a little patience?

“What could your parents have done that was so bad
that you had to kill them?”

I tugged the shirt over my head. “I told you what
kind of people they were.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You said they were drug addicts and
that they neglected you. But killing people just because of
neglect—”

I yanked the door open. “That wasn’t why.” I put a
finger in his face. “Don’t you judge me, Axel Whitman. You haven’t
been through half the shit I’ve been through.”

He hesitated. But then: “Yeah, I guess you’re
right.”

I took a deep breath. “Well, the first time that I
froze up was when it was happening.”

“When what was happening?” said Axel.

“When we were…” I swallowed. I crossed the room and
picked up the towel. I went into the bathroom to hang it up.

“What?” said Axel, following me.

I looked up, seeing him in the doorway, seeing him
blocking the only way out of the bathroom, and I felt panicked.
“Move.”

“Sloane, you’re not talking to me. When
what
was happening?”

“When we were killing them, okay?” I said. “And it
wasn’t just my parents that we had to kill. There were other people
there. They were all part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“Please let me out.”

He sighed, but then he moved.

I fled past him, drawing in deep breaths now that I
was out here in a larger space. I wrapped my arms around myself.
“It’s hard to talk about. You can’t push me.”

“Well, you can’t just drop a bomb on me like you
killed your parents and also a bunch of other people and not expect
me not to want to know more.”

I dug my fingers into my own flesh, pushing against
my rib cage. “I’ll tell you, but I need to take my time.”

“Okay.”

And then we were both quiet.

I turned to look at him.

His expression was hard to read. He didn’t look
disgusted or angry, but he didn’t look concerned or worried either.
What was he thinking of me?

“I didn’t start it,” I said. “Silas started it, but
he had to. He thought he had to.”

Axel took a step closer to me. His voice was soft.
“Why did he think that?”

“He thought it might kill me,” I said.

“What?”

“Well, they were gonna take out one of my kidneys,” I
said.

“What?” Axel looked completely confused. “Who was?
Why?”

“These people that my parents brought in to do it,” I
said. “They had equipment and stuff. Knives and chemicals to knock
me out with. But when I was down there in the basement, and they
were getting ready to do it, I looked at all the stuff, and it
didn’t look clean. And Silas said that operations like that don’t
go very well. He said that I probably would have gotten a bad
infection, and the infection might have killed me. Or he said they
could have screwed up and damaged something else inside me. Maybe I
would have bled out or maybe they would have caused some other
problem inside me. Or maybe they wouldn’t have sewed me up properly
afterward. So, you see, he had to do it. He said he did, because he
was afraid I was going to die. And Silas always protects me. He
always has, so that’s why he what did it. He did it for me.”

Axel moved even closer to me. “Sloane, why were they
going to operate on you? Was there something wrong with one of your
kidneys?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Then?”

I twisted my hands together. “I remember when my
mother told me about it. I got home from school one day, and she
told me that I’d be taking some time off. She said that we all had
to make sacrifices for the family, and that she would have used
hers or dads, but that they weren’t… healthy enough. My parents
were falling apart at that point. They were both so skinny and
strange. They spent most of their time sleeping and the rest of
their time scoring junk. They never talked to us—to Silas and me.
We were on our own all the time. It was weird that she was even
saying anything to me. And part of me wanted to do it, maybe, a
little bit. Because she made it seem so important, and I wanted to
do something for her. I wanted her to think that I mattered. I
wanted her to…” I laughed a little. “To love me, I guess. But she
didn’t love me. She only loved one thing at that point. She loved
heroin, that was it.”

Axel took a deep breath. “Sloane, what does that have
to do with your kidney?”

I shook myself. I walked over to the other side of
the room and began pulling clothes out of my suitcase and folding
them. “They were going to sell it.”

I heard him let out air, but I didn’t turn back
around.

“For drugs,” he murmured. “For money for drugs.”

“Yeah,” I said.

It was quiet.

“Organ harvesting?” said Axel. “People do that?”

“People will do anything when they’re desperate.” I
set down a now-folded shirt and looked at him. “She didn’t say it
was for drugs. She tried to tell me that they’d use the money for
food and for a place to live and stuff.” Now I was starting to cry.
Damn it. I didn’t cry about these people. They weren’t worth it.
“But I knew she was lying. They hadn’t taken care of us in years
and years. There was no way she was starting now.”

“Sloane, that’s…”

I looked up at him. He was shaking his head.

“Anyway, we tried to run away. Silas and I did. But
we didn’t do it soon enough. We didn’t know how quick it would be.
And so Silas went out to try to sell some stuff that we had. Things
we’d been hoarding for emergencies. He was going to try to get us
bus tickets so that we could get out of there. And I knew he felt
bad, because we should have already left. See, Silas and I had been
saving up money to run away for years, but just when we were
getting enough, Silas had this girlfriend, and she got pregnant,
and he had to help her pay for an abortion, and that really wiped
us out. Silas always thought that was his fault. So, I don’t know,
maybe he overreacted. Because he was so mad at himself, but… but I
never blamed him for that, because I would have… If I could have
had a boyfriend back then, I would…” I paused.

Axel was staring at me, and he looked horrified.