The End of Tomorrow (11 page)

“I can’t—run for—five minutes—Jack, let alone fifteen.” I could barely speak. My rib was killing me and my feet were a ragged mess.

“Well, you have to, so suck it up.”

I growled my response as I kept running. My thighs were getting heavy when I heard the train braking for the crossing. Somehow I found a little extra inside me. It was a reserve I had never used before. I pushed and grunted until I was there. The front of the train went past me about fifteen feet in front of my face. I dug in, knowing I could throw up once I was on board, but I had to make the train no matter what.

I steered myself left along the rocks at the sides of the tracks and leapt with every bit of strength I had in me, grabbing onto the doorway I had aimed for and swinging between the cars.

Gasping for air, I clung to the train, letting my legs collapse as I dropped myself down into the gap between the doorways, and heaved. The broken rib and cut feet were one part of the mess I was. The other was the sound of Servario screaming my name, thankfully not my real one. I had nearly killed him and that was killing me.

I heaved my guts onto the rocks below as the train started to pick up speed again, leaving behind the screaming and shouting.

“Thank fuck, Evie!” Jack sighed.

I nodded my head, not really needing to say anything else. Thank fuck about summed it up.

Ambush #757—can I say it’s getting old now?

Luce helped me from the car and into the cottage. I winced, seeing the doctor tied up and muzzled in a chair. She growled when she saw me.

“She seems nice,” I muttered as I hobbled to a chair.

“A real peach.” Luce snorted. “She’s the fucking Queen of England if you ask her.”

I didn't waste time on her or anything else; I looked straight at Jack. “Who is Isla?”

“You.” He grinned. “Servario must have known we were late and would be caught so he created an identification for all three of us, just slightly different looking than we are. I mean, very slightly, and he gave us names and aliases. The MI6 system has us as agents who have gone rogue.”

“That's not good for getting out of the country.”

He grinned wider. “We aren’t exactly riding economy.” He nodded his head to the right. “We have someone to bring with us. So we need our own plane.”

“Fitz?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“Okay.” I got up and hobbled to the couch, gingerly lying back as Luce lifted one of my feet. “Dude! These are bad. This is like
Twelve Years a Slave
bad.”

“I know. It was bad.” And that was an understatement. I turned my head and snarled at the doctor, “I am going to kill you in one hour. In fifty-five minutes when I am not in seizing pain from Luce cleaning my dogs, I am going to take that muzzle off and then I am going to ask you one question. If the answer is silence, rude, or not what I want to hear, you are dead.”

Luce opened her mouth, but I lifted a finger. “Fix my feet.”

She backed away slowly as Jack got up and grabbed a case from under the sink. He handed it to her and they exchanged a holy-shit look.

She sat at the end of the uncomfortable couch as I gripped a pillow and she proceeded to pick splinters and debris from my feet. She then washed them with warm water and of course sanitized them with vodka. With each step my feet got less and less sensitive but the pain somehow got worse and moved up my legs.

I cried out one last time as she started to wrap them.

“That was bad. Never make me do that again.”

“Deal.” I cried and winced as she tied the huge bandages off. Blood seeped through so she dragged two thick socks over the dressings.

“This is going to have to do.”

“Okay.” I turned on my side, losing my breath in the agony of my thighs and broken ribs. It took everything I had in me to get up and stagger to the doctor. I sat on the floor in front of her, wincing through the short breaths I was taking. There was no patience left in me. None. I reached up and ripped the duct tape from her lips, waxing her face for her.

She screamed out but I didn't hear it. I was too full of my own self-pity to hear anyone else’s. I leaned in, possibly looking creepy but not caring, and whispered, “How many people could your research and invention kill?”

She opened her mouth to protest but snapped it shut, perhaps frightened of the madness lurking in my eyes. It took her a second to answer, “Billions.” She had clearly already realized the danger in the invention, and yet had pursued it anyway.

“So you understand that your invention is insanely dangerous in the wrong hands?”

She nodded, not speaking.

“Then why should we keep you alive?”

She swallowed hard, battling herself and her response and clearly avoiding a selfish answer, as I was seconds away from a real hissy fit and possible raging tantrum. “I believe that the world needs to save the sick more than it needs to worry about the government. Cancer patients alone would be cured. The strain on the countries from medical systems is outrageous.”

“Surely you see that the drug companies are banking money and don't want cures, right?”

Her gaze hardened. “Do you think any of the people with cancer give a fuck about what the drug companies want?”

She had spunk and her accent was cool, but I didn't see how it was possible we could do anything beyond give her to the Burrow, a death sentence. Actually death was nicer. The Burrow was a rattrap. I myself couldn't imagine a fate worse than being surrounded by people who had never actually seen their life’s dream come to fruition. A whole colony of unsatisfied geniuses. It was terrible.

A cell phone rang, making us all turn and look at the desk where Jack was sitting. He rolled his eyes. “It’s clearly a burner.” He lifted it to his face. “Hello?”

His back tightened as he nodded. “I know but we decided—okay?”

It was Coop and he was pissed. I didn't need to hear the conversation. I knew exactly how it would go. Jack spun back in his chair and handed me the phone. “It’s for you.”

I gulped at first, but then I remembered I had just done something incredibly badass, and I wasn't in the mood to be scorned by the little boy pretending to be my superior. Instead of acting like it was fine, I listened so as to get a scope of the situation.

“Evie, that was fucking irresponsible. You went off grid on our fucking off-grid mission? You had no support and no backup and no weapons? Really? I never imagined you were this fucking stupid!”

He paused as if waiting for my excuse, but I offered nothing.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Again I listened, waiting for him to blow his wad.

“I cannot believe you went against my orders and didn’t listen to me! This is exactly why you aren’t the agent in charge!”

“Are you done?” I asked softly.

“NO, I FUCKING AM NOT!”

I nodded, regardless of the fact he couldn't see me.

“You went to England to fuck Servario—let’s be really honest about that fact. You went there to be fucked by that scumbag piece of shit. Fuck you!”

I sighed, starting to feel a little anger boiling in me. It was a slow burn, not a rager, but it could build fast if he continued.

“You really have nothing to fucking say for yourself?” He was spitting mad.

“Did you find your sister?”

“HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR ENDANGERING YOUR LIFE AND THEIRS?”

I hung up the phone and looked at Jack, clearing my throat. “So he’s pissed.”

“Yeah, I did mention he would be.”

I nodded again. “Yeah, you did.”

The Aussie gave us all a look. “Who the fuck are you morons? What kind of badly hatched plan was this?”

The slow burn ended there. Maybe it was petty. Maybe I took my anger at Coop and Servario out on her. Maybe. Whatever. But I snapped. “You better shut the fuck up, you little bitch! We are here, saving your stupid ass from a league of terrorists who wanted your fucking experiments and science projects for their evil! They were planning on taking horrible diseases into countries using your nanorobots and killing off a huge chunk of the population! You are actually the dumbest bitch here! So don't even think about joining in on the shit-on-Evie brigade. I will literally kill you for no fucking reason other than I can!”

She flinched but came back from it fast, “Fuck you, Evie! I was doing my job—”

“AND I AM DOING MINE!”

She looked into my eyes, maybe comparing the rage before she backed down. She didn't say another thing, God help her if she had. I was snorting breaths from my nose like a fiery dragon might have when the phone rang again. “WHAT?” I answered.

“DON’T YOU THINK—”

“Shut up, Coop! Just stop! I did my job! You’re out with your family putting out the amber alert for your fucking sister, who by the way is a spy—” The words left my lips like strangers creeping out. I didn't know them, and yet I did. “She’s a spy.” I whispered my next thought, “She’s the one who sold us out to James. She was what was on the phone Servario had traded me for. She sold my kids out to James.” I swallowed and realized what I had been told, what I had seen.

“That is a lie!” he snapped, but I lifted my gaze to Jack, ignoring Coop’s rant.

“She sells the secrets from her family and from us. She’s corrupt.”

Jack nodded. “It makes sense.”

Coop fell silent in my ear. I knew a thousand images or memories or doubts were filtering through his mind as he realized how much she had actually told and how much she had actually risked.

“She is how Steve found my house and my kids.” The words in my head had memories too. Ones of me and Servario in a hotel in Dubai. Me and Servario in a car. Me and Servario in the elevator in Belgium. He hadn’t made me forget because of the brothel. He made me forget so he could deal with Coop’s sister on his own. And so that I wouldn't know about the confession he had whispered in bed with me. The one about changing the world to be with me. He loved me.

A lump grew in my throat. “Servario has your sister, Coop. I doubt she is alive. I doubt she is anything more than ash.” I hung up the phone without saying sorry. I wasn't. That evil bitch had sold my kids’ location. If it hadn’t been for my mom and Fitz, my kids could have been in grave danger.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “You knew all along?”

“I did.” I nodded. “But Servario gave me a drug to make me forget the extent of my time in Dubai and Belgium. I don't believe he ever intended me to remember this.”

“How have you?” Jack looked confused, not nearly as confused as I was.

“I don't know.” And that was the truth.

Luce sighed. “So you remember the brothel and everything?”

“Yeah.”

“You people are bonkers,” Janice whispered.

Luce chuckled nervously. “You have no idea.” Jack and I joined in on a nervous laugh.

“Does your iPad work for the Internet, Jack?” I asked.

He handed it to me. “Yeah, it fell off a truck and has been rewired to reroute to a hundred and seventeen different servers and create a ghost trail that no one could follow.”

Janice gave him a look. “Oh, so
you
are actually intelligent? Like the brains of the operation?”

He cocked an eyebrow as he handed it to me, not answering her. It was a better choice.

I searched the Saudi bombings and found the news channel I wanted. It was Fox, a little sensational for my liking, but it would do the job to show her exactly how extreme her work had become. I limped over to her and squatted on the floor until I was sitting next to her chair. It was not an attractive series of movements, but I was actually dying.

I pressed play as the story started and the Fox newscaster, one of the sensationalist morons I hated, started to speak, “Two days ago Saudi Arabia suffered an attack so violent some are calling it the start of World War Three. All the hospitals in Riyadh, over three hundred of the government run and nearly two hundred privately run, suffered in what is being called the most deliberate attack the world has ever seen. This is Pearl Harbor times a thousand. The obvious destruction of a major city’s hospitals is now being called the cleverest way to cripple a country in one day. How will the Saudis treat their wounded when the war against them starts? It’s clearly coming. Whatever those bombs were, they are the modern-day Trojan horse. The bombs, all of them fairly small, have been rumored to come from Yemen. A country known for its political crisis and ties to al-Qaeda. They are screaming innocence. It’s a waiting game now as the Saudis have asked for aid from every free nation and the dust settles. The death toll is in the tens of thousands.”

I pressed pause and looked at Janice. “Any idea how easy it would be for your little drones of doom to cause a major breakout of, let’s say, Ebola in that country tomorrow?”

She gulped. “My—my work caused this?” Her eyes filled with tears.

“We don't know. What we do know is that it is likely being done as a means to ending the Saudi reign and getting the oil from them without going to war.” I nodded my head at Jack. “He saw your research and predicted this would be the outcome and the next day it was.”

Squeezing her eyes shut she shook her head. “I didn't know he would use it so badly.”

My insides dropped and my eyes met Jack’s. We shared a momentary panic attack. “You have given your research to someone already?” he asked, almost whispering.

She sniffled and nodded. “Dr. Drusack. He’s a—a scientist I have long admired. He’s a leading robotics engineer and his wife had cancer. He’s been a huge supporter of my—”

“Oh fuck!”

We all glanced at Jack who flashed a photo from his laptop. It was of Dr. Vincent Drusack, a face I recognized immediately. “He was at the—” I didn't say Burrow. I didn't need to. We all knew that face. He was one of the people who was there for our swearing in, one of the people who made us agree that we would stop the threat against the Burrow before we could have our lives back.

“That's him.” She sniffled again.

I squeezed my eyes shut and sighed. “So they want us to gather the scientists and protect the world, but then they want to be able to choose which should be kept secret and which should be used to better their world?”

Luce whistled through her teeth. “We are screwed, ladies and gentlemen.”

My blood started to boil again as I took the phone back from Jack and dialed Coop.

“Don't yell at me. Get my mom and Fitz and the kids out. We have a major situation.” I hung up again before he could argue.