The Takeover (5 page)

We’ll surprise them.
Ritter’s thoughts were easy to make out through our link, but I had to take them from his mind. He wouldn’t know if I’d heard unless I responded, because even though he could feel if I was in danger from miles away, he couldn’t see any thoughts I didn’t share.

I showed him where the life forces were located inside the room. Two were near the door, and another farther into the room next to a prone life force. I slipped into Callas’s head to find that he was sitting on the edge of a bed next to a sandy-haired man who had his hands clamped over his ears, shaking his head violently, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “No, no, no. Please no. She’ll hear. She’ll hurt me.” This must be Bedřich, the Czech Emporium agent.

I used the key card, and Ritter threw open the door.

The guards reacted immediately, but Ritter burst into movement, punching one hard and sending him to the ground, before pointing his gun at the other’s face. “Don’t move.”

Callas rose from the bed. “What is the meaning of this? Who are you?” He was shorter than I’d seen from Hartley’s mind, but his green eyes were more compelling.

“I have better questions,” I said, stepping around Ritter. “Who do you think you are, and what are you doing to this man?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m a doctor and he’s under my care. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You’re disturbing my patient.” On the bed, Bedřich had begun to thrash, but he didn’t open his eyes. I noticed two spent syringes lying on the bed.

“All Unbounded are my business.” I crossed the room and took a syringe from Callas’s unresisting hand. “What’s this?” He didn’t respond, but his thoughts told me it was a hallucinogen. “Well?”

“Nothing that will hurt him.”

“Oh, good.” I channeled Ritter’s quickness and stepped toward the doctor, putting him into a headlock. “Then you won’t mind taking it yourself.” The needle slid easily into his neck before he could do more than strain against me.

He gasped, and I let him jerk away. “What have you done?” he asked.

“You said it wasn’t harmful.”

“I’m not Unbounded.” His head twitched, but whether from a tick or a reaction from the injection, I couldn’t say. Abruptly, he sat down on the ground and moaned, holding his head in his hands.

The mixture, at one-third the dose he’d been planning for Bedřich, if the two spent syringes told a correct tale, shouldn’t kill him or cause lasting damage, but I was already having second thoughts. Even if I wanted him to suffer consequences for the extracurricular testing, I didn’t like hurting him.

I turned toward Bedřich, who was sitting up now, his hands still to his ears. He looked crazy, with his dirty blond hair pointing in every direction and his brown eyes red and bulging. I tried pushing my way into his mind, but a hard barrier stood against me. It was a mottled, silvery black, strong but diseased, and had a signature that felt familiar. Delia’s mark, I realized. She’d taught him this shielding, or maybe he’d learned it trying to protect himself from her.

I needed to see what was inside. Reaching for my talisman, a machete I’d been given in Mexico—or rather a mental version of the weapon that was now waiting for me in the van—I jabbed it into the tarnished barrier.

The guard who was still standing emitted a growl, our only warning before everything exploded into movement. He leapt at Ritter, pushing him backward. Ritter tripped over the fallen guard and landed on the floor, his gun flying from his hand and slamming against the wall. He was up in the next instant, foot lashing out to throw off the guard’s aim as he pulled the trigger. The gun cracked deafening fire, and the bullet embedded in the headboard of the bed. Bedřich released an inhuman scream and launched through the air at me, uttering what sounded like obscenities in a language I didn’t recognize.

Channeling Ritter, I stepped aside, chopping down at the Czech as he came to an impossibly graceful stop, like a cat finding its feet. The combat instinct made me jump away, even as he struck at me with a foot in a nearly successful effort to break my knee. His fists followed, one after another, and even using Ritter’s ability, I was barely able to keep ahead of him, blocking or dodging his blows. His rapid attack and the precise placement of the punches told me his ability was also combat.

Another part of me was aware of Ritter’s fight through my mental link, but only vaguely since I’d learned to mute that connection in the midst of a battle. With two punches, Ritter sent the guard into unconsciousness, but the other guard had recovered and jumped on his back. Ritter pushed backward, slamming him against the wall.

Bedřich landed a blow on my shoulder and another on my ribs that stole my breath. The Emporium agent had seven inches on me and at least forty pounds. No way would I win in a fair fight, and playing dirty meant hurting him, which I didn’t want to do, seeing as we were here to rescue him.

Even as I had the thought, his body crashed into me and we fell together to the bed. Somehow he had a knife in his hands, a jagged one that if plunged in deep enough would rip me apart on its way out. Who had he taken that from?

Maybe it was the desperation, but my machete finally carved a hole in his mental shield, and I arrowed inside him. His head was a mess. Destroyed bits of silvery gray construct littered his brain, obstructing the flow of the thought stream, disseminating it until thoughts and emotions careened around me like a sandstorm. Once again, I recognized Delia’s touch. Why the bits of ruined construct hadn’t disappeared when she’d died, I didn’t know. The pieces she’d left inside me had disappeared, if not all her memories.

I sent a flash of mental light to the Czech’s mind. Searing. Enough to cause unconsciousness, but hopefully not enough to cause more permanent damage. But he was too quick. The tip of his knife dug into my stomach, making it several inches past the thin body armor I wore like a second skin under my white blouse before he collapsed on top of me.

I rolled him off onto the bed. Ritter was already standing over me, murder screaming from his eyes.

“I’m fine.” I pulled the knife out as I sat up, catching my breath as it tore my insides. I was glad that only a small portion of the jagged blade had made it past my protection. Biting down hard on my lip to stave off the pain, I used the knife to slice off a part of the sheet, which I balled and pushed through the hole in my armor to catch the blood. I felt sapped as I always did when I used my ability in that way, but there was no chance for rest now. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ritter nodded and grabbed the unconscious Czech. I stopped only to uncurl the wire from inside my bracelet to secure Dr. Callas to the bed. He was moaning and shaking, clutching his head, and I didn’t want him wandering loose around the facility until the drug wore off. He pulled at my hands, but strength eluded him.

“Lilian,” he moaned. “You are so beautiful.”

“Too bad you’re a toad,” I said under my breath.

Ritter’s mental shield was still at half strength, strong enough to keep most sensing Unbounded out but like an invitation to me. I made sure not to project the burning in my side. Even so, he knew there was no way we’d be able to make it through the air shafts before we were discovered, not with my wound and him dragging the big Czech.

“Oliver?” Ritter said, leaning down toward the microphone disguised as a pin in his tie. “We need that distraction.”

“Coming right up,” Oliver’s voice came through, startling me with how calm he sounded. I also had a hidden microphone in my necklace, and he had to have heard our battle. “On your mark.” Oliver hesitated several seconds before adding, “You guys okay?”

Ritter’s gaze shifted to me. “We’re good.” Then he added, “Dimitri, we’re going out the way we came in, or at least as far as possible. We’ll meet you in the front. Cover us and have the van ready.”

“I need three minutes.” Dimitri’s voice crackled, indicating that he was farther away than Oliver.

“Three minutes,” Ritter confirmed.

I stumbled as we reached the double doors leading into the main wing. Ritter’s lips hardened, but he didn’t speak. Blood trickled down my side.

We hurried through the corridors, past the commons room, and finally the kitchen, backtracking the way we’d come in order to avoid a lab and an office area where small groups of life forces gathered. We had nearly reached Shadrach’s wing when an alarm blared through the building.

I stopped and shook my head. “There’re a dozen people heading to Shadrach’s hallway. All mortals, but in formation.”

“Homeland Security,” Ritter said. His head jerked backward. “The offices.”

“Eight there,” I told him.

The alarm continued, grating on my nerves. Stella was in their system, thanks to the laptop, but obviously she hadn’t found a way to remotely deal with what was probably a manually triggered alarm. I was glad Ritter was leading the way because the maps I’d studied jumbled together in my mind.

We reached the corridor leading to the offices, and I swiped the key card and held the door open for Ritter. His face was slightly flushed with the exertion, but I knew he’d slowed his pace for me. Every step was agony. Whatever I’d punctured dragging the knife from my stomach was worse than I expected. My Unbounded genes were rushing to heal the wound, and I knew the pain would soon ease, but until it did, I was next to useless.

In the office hallway, people looked uncertainly out at us from the doorways. “It’s okay,” I said. “We have it under control. This prisoner tried to escape, but we got him. Please notify Dr. Callas that he’s been recaptured. Excuse me, we need to get this man to the infirmary.”

Jaws dropped and people nodded. But one man said, “The infirmary’s back that way.”

“We’re looking for Dr. Hartley,” I said. “She needs to look at him now.”

We hurried past without one person trying to stop us. Half a minute later, Ritter took an abrupt turn into a new corridor.
What’s down here?
I asked silently.

Employee entrance.

He handed me a gun I hadn’t seen him retrieve from Bedřich’s room. “You up to it? Or should we dump the Czech?”

“I’m good. Only one guard.”

A warning beep sounded in my earbud, signaling that someone had found Ritter’s laptop. In two minutes the cameras would show our actual location.

The guard was standing in front of the door with his weapon drawn. “Help!” I cried. “I’m shot!” I’d thought the stain of red on my white blouse would convince him, but he didn’t waver.

“Stop right there or I’ll shoot!” he demanded.

I pushed light into his mind, and the effort of the mental flash momentarily blinded me. But I could see through Ritter’s eyes, and I pushed forward past the fallen man. No use taking his memory when so many had already seen us. In seconds, I recovered my sight, much faster than in the past.

The outer door was locked. I stifled a moan of regret, knowing we should have fought the guard instead of rendering him unconscious, but Ritter bent to retrieve the guard’s keys, and I used them to enter the narrow guard booth to find the door’s release button.

We exited into a parking garage. In Ritter’s mind, I saw his intention to find the exit and escape around to the front. “Wait,” I said, holding up the guard’s keys with the remote to his car. Ritter chuckled and unceremoniously dropped Bedřich onto the cement. Whatever bruises he might sustain would be long healed before he awoke.

Ritter raced through the garage while I waited, gun on the door behind me, mind alert for life forces. At the moment, they were concentrated near the closet where I’d stashed the first doctor, so someone must have found her prematurely, and that is what likely triggered the alarm. They were filtering outward from the closet, checking each room. It wouldn’t be long before they discovered the missing prisoners and the drugged Dr. Callas.

A car engine revved somewhere, and then Ritter was screeching to a stop in front of me, driving a small two-door sedan that had seen better days. He jumped out and scooped up Bedřich while I pulled the seat forward to give him room to dump the man in the narrow back seat. Ritter sprinted around to the driver’s side again before I could even slam my door.

There was no guard at the opening to the parking garage, and Ritter barely slowed as he exited, rounding the curb with a squeal of tires on concrete. He drove as if he’d been here before, but I knew he’d only studied the layout.

Our wheels squealed again as he curved around the building, where a scene straight from a movie set met our eyes. A tank decorated with the flag of the United States Army sat directly in front of the gates, a helmeted man peeking out of the top. An Army transport vehicle was parked nearby, and armed men hunkered behind both vehicles. A line of six Homeland Security guards stood uncertainly in front of the gated entry, staring with confusion at the challengers. I could imagine them wondering why they were being attacked by their own government.

Oliver had outdone himself.

All at once, the
rat-a-tat-tat
of machine gun fire burst through the air, sending up curls of smoke. The facility guards dove for cover.

Ritter laughed and stomped on the gas, heading directly for the fence and the tank behind it.

“I hope it’s you guys in that car,” Oliver said in our earbuds. “The van’s behind the transport, and Dimitri and the others are already here, but you’d better hurry. Helicopters are coming—and Stella’s sure they aren’t from Homeland Security.”

The Emporium,
I thought.

“Go now,” Ritter barked at Oliver. “We’ll continue in this car and meet you at the fallback location.”

He didn’t let off the gas as we crashed through the gates.