The Ward (23 page)

Maybe it don’t matter.

I take his hand, and we begin the climb.

The building isn’t too tall. Less than five stories. The ladder shakes under our feet, so we move fast, scrambling up the rungs. My palms grow red and raw from gripping the metal. Rust cuts the skin. It must be bothering Derek too, but with only fifty feet to go—maybe less—he keeps going, and so do I.

We’re close—the whirring of the Omni’s props has gotten much louder. Then, the screaming of metal. It cuts out all other noise. I want to cover my ears but I’m afraid I’ll lose my balance if I do.

“Jump out!” Derek yells, but he’s gotta know there ain’t no way Kent can hear him.

At the top, we arrive in time to watch gravity pull the Omni and its driver down into the concrete canyon.

My stomach turns. Kent, frantic, fitful, tries to climb from the mobile’s moonroof. I may not love the fact that he’s alive, but I guess I’m not so hard that I want to watch him die either.

The props are still spinning, gnawing a gap in the side of the building. Bricks tumble into the canal; the metal slides down, driver half in, half out. Whiplash forces his torso against the mobile’s front, then pulls him in the other direction. His back presses against the moonroof, dangerously close to the props.

Derek and I run to the side of the building. More screeching metal; the Omni’s nose catches on one of the level’s fire escapes. Props spin.

Kent has stopped trying to get himself out.

“I’m jumping onto the fire escape!” Derek yells over the props.

Looking down, I see what a phenomenally bad idea that is. “Don’t be an idiot, Derek! The whole thing could give way!” And I can’t even hold the ladder steady for him. It’s too far down.

What we need is a window.

“I have an idea!” I wave for Derek to follow me, heading back to the ladder we came up on.

I climb back down one level, closer to where Kent’s stuck, then hop through the window. Derek sees what I’m doing and together we run across the empty floor to the north-facing window. Pressed up against it—the underside of Ter’s Omni.

“Smart . . .” Derek nods.

I open the window and stand on the sill. “Steady me,” I say, letting him grip my left arm and leg, freeing me to lean closer to Kent.

He’s upside down, black hair dripping with sweat, his face contorted.

When he sees me, that old familiar hatred fires up in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he quakes.

I reach out my hand for his, because that’s the only answer I have. At the sight of it, his look dies. Out of desperation or thanks, I don’t know.

He places one palm in mine—it’s so slick and wet. . . . And I thought Callum’s hands were sweaty. Kent tightens his grip and lifts himself forward, no longer upside down.

Under the weight of the Omni the fire escape groans. Bolts pop, and the whole thing caves sideways. Kent’s still got one of my arms, but I can’t give him the other—it’s locked in Derek’s grip.

“You’ve got to climb out,” Derek says from behind me.

“Shut up.” Kent tries to extract his legs from the seat. “You think I don’t know that?”

I swallow my irritation, glad to know that he isn’t an ass to me alone.

Again the Omni buckles, drops another foot. Kent’s arm is yanked from mine. He catches my wrist and freezes, crouched on the driver’s seat, not sure what to do.

“Ren—have him take your arm with both hands. When he pushes off the seat, he can make a jump for the window. You can swing him in.” Derek adjusts himself to get a better grip on me as my body sways farther over the ledge.

I shake my head. “I’m not strong enough. . . .” My voice is weaker than I’ve ever heard it, but I’m afraid. I may be strong, but I’m not delusional—Kent is tall. He’s got a lot of length on him to be relying on me alone. It’s one thing to take risks with my own life, but the life of someone else—even Kent’s?

“You’re definitely
not
strong enough,” Kent chimes in.

“Ignore him. I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere.”

When I look back, I see Derek holding on to my arm with both his hands, one foot on the wall. “You can do this,” he mouths.

I inhale, and on the exhale, I count down. “All right. On three.” I push my fear away for Kent’s sake. He’s terrified enough as it is. “One . . . two . . .”

Derek squeezes my arm. At the last moment, Kent nods, looking me in the eye.

“Three!”

He kicks himself up from the seat, both arms clenched around mine in a vise-tight grip. That’s all the push the mobile needs. It slides, grates down the fire escape, all the metal tearing and howling, sucked away by gravity.

I try to swing Kent in, but I’m losing circulation in my arm. My hold loosens, and his body flies forward. I have to drop to a squat to keep my grip. He doesn’t make it through the window. I’m pulled down, and he’s left kicking against the side of the building.

“Use your feet!” Derek tells him, holding my arm tight.

The muscles are tearing in both my arms, a burning all the way to my back. I want someone to let go of me. . . . Slowly, Kent shuffles himself up the brick siding. When he’s close, I don’t have enough in me to keep holding. Soon as his foot’s on the windowsill, I lean back, let gravity do something useful.

Kent still on my arm, we fall into the building onto the floor. He immediately rolls off me, panting.

I don’t move. All I can do is breathe. If I tried anything more, I’m sure it wouldn’t work. Blood tingles back into both my shaking arms. Kent, Derek, and I stay like that, close together, three heaps on the floor.

“You . . . saved . . . my life.” Kent forces the words out between breaths, eyes on the ceiling. “Thank you,” he says, soft. Quietly, like he don’t want me to hear.

Derek says nothing—I guess “you’re welcome” makes no sense in this scenario. I decide not to answer him either, but something, a warning in my gut, tells me that I might’ve made things worse for myself. That my good deed for the day is going to come back and bite me in the arse. So I stay silent.

I listen to the unevenness of our breathing and gather the energy to climb back downstairs, finding life just a little too unfair. That I can save Kent’s life—someone who hates me—but not my own sister’s.

23

“I
t’s fine, Ren. We’ll go with you to Ward Hope and you can drop us off there,” Benny says, nodding to Terrence.

I force a smile, except that’s the last thing I want them doing—I’m being followed, I know I am, and if we all boat together, they’re going to know it too.

Derek leans forward in his seat, touches my knee. I pull my eyes from the water to look at him.
He’s so close. . . .
My heart watches him harder than my eyes do—his curls, they dangle over his forehead. Fire let loose in the daylight.

“I’d like to come with, if that’s all right,” he says, seeming sincere. “To visit Aven. I never should have left the hospital, Ren. I’m sorry. I just . . .” He’s pleading, head bent so close to my thigh. “I had to go.”

Maybe it was an emergency
. Maybe he didn’t abandon me to spend time with his Not-Girlfriend. The next words are out of my mouth before I realize it—

“Sure. Of course you can come,” I say, not letting on how thankful I am. I don’t want to be back in that place alone.

Ter huffs, lowering himself onto the floor of the mobile. He’s sullen, and understandably so. His shiny carrot didn’t even make it two full days. He clenches his fist, and under his breath I hear him curse himself for trusting Kent.

“I’d offer to come too,” he says, “but I don’t want to give my dad more to ream me out about, especially not once he sees I’m home without the mobile.”

I pat his shoulder. Can’t say I understand, ’cause I don’t. Instead I go with, “No worries.”

In the curling white trail of waves, I scan for an agent.

Though nothing seems unusual, he must be there. An Omni fell off a rooftop, for crying out loud. If the guy somehow lost me with a bread-crumb trail that size, he shouldn’t be working for the DI.

I start to fidget, tapping my fingers on the mobile’s siding. The sun is so bright it actually feels heavy. Benny’s Cloud is a smooth ride, with floats on either side cushioning each wake—but it makes no difference. Being without the cover of buildings or bridges stirs my anxiety. We’ve left the racing quadrants, heading north over open waters, so these next two miles are a dead zone: no canals, no gutters. Not even important enough to get a quadrant number. The Wash Out pretty much dunked all these buildings off the horizon.

Every ten seconds, I do a sweep of the area. To distract the others, I call up to Benny, “Hey, you ever figure out what happened to my Rimbo? Why’d she bunk on me?”

He turns to me and his face goes all wrinkly. “Ahh . . . that.” He pats the steering wheel.

Derek, Ter, and I all exchange looks, waiting for more.

“You wouldn’t believe it—or, perhaps you would.” He stops to face the water again. “Evidence suggests that your mobile was, quite possibly, tampered with.”

I squeeze the cushy leather of the Cloud’s front seat between my fists. “I’d believe it,” I say. Of course I’d believe it. Only one person who I can think of, too. “What I don’t believe is how I just risked my neck for his—”

“Wait a minute.” Derek holds up his arm. “Let’s not jump to conclusions—you don’t know that Kent had anything to do with it. Mobile systems fail all the time. You dragsters aren’t exactly easy on your equipment, right, Benny? It’s a little early to be yelling ‘fire.’”

I grind my teeth together.

“I’m looking into it,” Benny assures me, but I see him eye Derek in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, guys?” Ter says, pointing behind us. “What’s that?”

I hold my breath, hoping it isn’t what I think—

It is.

Right below the surface, about fifty feet back, we see the winking of light on metal. Then a dark, oblong shadow.

“Looks like an Omni.” Derek watches the shape trail behind us. To Benny, “When we hit Six, make a left, okay?”

Benny eyes him in the rearview mirror, hard-jawed. “You think we’re being followed?”

I hear Ter laugh at the question and ask, “Who’d be following us? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

They’re
not doing anything wrong. They don’t know that they’re about to find out why someone might be following our boat.

No one else says anything, and I wipe the sweat from my palms onto the Cloud’s leather, swallowing repeatedly till I have to stop ’cause I’m making my throat go dry.
Just play dumb
.
Pretend you got no idea who’s back there
.

Benny doesn’t speed the Cloud up, nor does he slow her down. He keeps her steady until Six’s best skyscraper, the Gold Pyramid, towers over us. Then we’re in view of the southern docks—where the avenue boardwalks end. No longer in open water.

He boats us under Fifth Ave. Sunlight filters through gaps in the planking, but it’s not enough. The boardwalk overhead shadows everything, makes the mobile behind us impossible to see. We’ve all got our eyes fixed on him as he drives, waiting to see which canal he chooses to swing left into. Back in the sun again, we’ll be able to see if the guy is following us. And I’m sure he is.

Without warning, Benny guns the engine. The Cloud rockets forward, water sprays everywhere, and just as we’re about to pass Twenty-Fifth, he throws the wheel left. We spin onto the canal, but we don’t stop there. The Cloud keeps flying—we boat under two more avenues. Benny hurtles her left again, then right. One last left brings us back into the sunlight.

Then, we slow.

Each of our heads turn. At first, for a moment, even I see nothing in the brack water—I almost allow myself to hope. To think we’ve lost him. But no such luck.

There, about a hundred feet off—an Omni. Hugging the building, almost out of sight.

Ter surveys the canal, his gaze swinging left to right in a pendulum. “Weird,” he says, finally looking up.

“We lost him?” Benny shouts back.

Derek nods his head. “Looks like it.” But I can hear in his voice that he’s suspicious.

No one sees it. . . .
No one else has been trained by these guys, either. I keep quiet all of the ten blocks it takes us to get to Ward Hope. My guy is out there, and he knows I’m headed to the hospital—exactly where I was told not to go. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Not without having to explain things that I’m not ready to explain.

I stop checking the water.

Dunn already knows.

24

6:30 A.M., SUNDAY

I
n the waiting room, the air is tight with electricity. Tense. Every couple of seconds I check the door by the receptionist’s desk, waiting for the nurse to call us. And every other couple of seconds, I check the entryway, waiting for a DI agent to charge through.

Then, my foot freezes. Quits its tapping.

A woman in white steps into the waiting room, a datapad clutched at her hip. It’s as though my lungs have shrunk a size and my arm hairs lift up, like the moment before lightning. You don’t know when it will strike—you only know it will.

“Visitors of Aventine Colatura?”

I begin to lose it, my insides go haywire, and Derek squeezes my hand.

We stand up together, and we follow the nurse. She leads us through the corridors, up two flights of stairs, all the way to the HBNC wing. Its double doors swing open, and then we’re in the ward where noncontagious patients are kept.

Derek won’t look through the windows, into the other patients’ rooms, but I do. I look in each one—I can’t help it.

A child using only one arm to play with his plastic blocks—the other he can’t lift. It’s covered in fist-sized lumps, all a blue-black-red. An elderly man, but no older than Benny, with a tumor on his forehead, balled up low and thick over one eye.

Patients whose families can afford to send them here.

The nurse opens the door to Aven’s room.

Immediately I can tell—something is off. She’s just lying there, body too still in the small cot. I examine her face, pale and waxy, even with daylight streaming through the window. “What’s wrong with her?” I ask the nurse, watching from behind us. “She’s worse. . . .” Sucking in air through my teeth, I force my hands out of their fists, like unclamping a vise. I’d been holding them so tight, I can actually feel the muscles twitching, clicking as they release.