Unbreakable (Unraveling) (36 page)

M
y fist connects to the left side of his face, and it feels like I’ve just slammed my hand into a brick wall. Pain shoots up my arm, but I don’t stop. I ram my knee into his crotch and reach for the gun at his back.

Glass breaks behind me, several shouts move through the room, and Meridian grunts. And when my fingers brush past the gun, I think I might have it, but then I feel the sharp pain in my head, and a rough hand coiled around my hair pulls back, then pushes me down to my knees.

I feel cool metal against my temple and smell the gunpowder.

Meridian reaches down and grabs my chin, forcing my face up to him. The guy with the grip on my hair doesn’t ease up, and I can feel some of it ripping out of my head.

Meridian shakes his head, his hand falling away. “Not who I thought you were,” he says quietly.

Something about the calmness in his voice makes me flinch. Having his attention directly on me turns my stomach and makes my skin feel uncomfortable. I don’t want him to touch me again.

He doesn’t. Instead, I see his hand coming down.

And pain explodes in the back of my head.

W
hen I wake up, I have the worst headache of my life—shocking.

And my face itches.

I’m facedown on a beige carpet, and my hands are restrained behind my back. I can’t tell how long I’ve been out, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some of my other injuries from this week. For one thing, my hands haven’t gone numb, which means they haven’t been in this position all that long.

“If we don’t find them, we’ll draw them out,” a female voice says. “Surely you understand the concept.” It’s the governor.

From where I am, I can’t see her—I can’t see much of anything.

For a split second, I debate whether I should move around, test my restraints, take stock of where we are and possibly give away the fact that I’ve come to, or just keep lying here. The second option feels a lot more appealing to my aching head. It also feels safer. I’m less likely to get hit again, less likely to get outright shot, less likely to attract attention.

But what is that going to get me in the end?

No matter what happens, I’m probably going to end up in the same place.

Dead.

I shift a little and turn my face to the side so I have a view of the room. I’m still not ready to go down fighting. Through my blurry vision, I manage to make out bookshelves lining the wall. Behind me is a desk. Across the room is a door. It’s partway open, and a girl—probably my age or a little older, with brown hair—is sitting at a desk, a high-tech computer in front of her. Her nose is crooked and half her face is black and blue with relatively fresh bruises. She looks like she either got hit with a fly ball or punched in the face. I don’t have to be too creative to assume it’s the latter.

Next to my feet is another guy, who’s restrained, conscious, and sitting up with his back against the wall. He’s been beat up pretty badly—his face is covered with blood, some dried and some fresh. He snorts, blowing a spray of blood out of his nose, and I realize it’s Barclay. He’s not quite close enough for me to touch him.

“It’s your job to handle this, both of you,” a male voice says. I think it’s Meridian, but I’m not entirely sure.

I can’t see him—or any of the people talking to him in hushed tones. Unless I’ve damaged my ears, they must be at least a room away from us, because I can only hear them when their voices are raised.

The girl at the computer looks at me. Our eyes meet, and she knows I’m awake.

S
he looks at the door and then back at me. She’s thinking—trying to make a decision about something. I can see it on her face, the way her lips are pressed together. I just don’t know what she’s planning.

My pulse speeds up. It feels like it’s pounding directly in the ear I have against the carpet. I look at Barclay to see if I can get his attention, but he’s got his eyes closed. He’s either passed out or hurting too much to concentrate.

The girl gets up from her desk and moves to the door that separates our rooms. She’s in jeans and a white sweater. If she didn’t have the bruises, she’d look so normal. It makes me wonder what she’s doing here. How she got roped into this.

She hesitates and looks at the door to the hallway—the direction the voices are coming from.

No one is in view.

She rushes to my side, putting her hands under my shoulder and hip as she turns me a little—just enough so I have a better view of what’s coming, and then she presses a ballpoint pen into my hands. “I don’t have anything else,” she whispers, her attention still on the doorway.

“How many of them are there?” I’m not sure what I can really do with a pen, especially if I’m still in restraints, but if I’m going to do anything, I need to know that much.

“Right now?” she says, biting her lip. “They always have four guys who are like Secret Service or something. The governor and her husband, I mean. Tonight her cousin is here. He had a few people with him, but he sent them out. They’ll probably come back, though. And then this new guy showed up.”

“So at best there’s eight of them,” I say. Not good odds. “At worst, maybe twelve?”

She nods.

“Where are we?”

Her head tilts just slightly and she says, “Governor Worth’s house.”

I’d already guessed that much. “No, I mean, the layout of the house, where are we?” Our best chance may be trying to escape while they think we’re still knocked out.

“Second floor,” she whispers. “Near the back of the house.”

Not what I wanted to hear. In the condition we’re in, the three of us aren’t going to be able to do a second-story drop and then get up and start running, and we’re obviously too far from a door.

“I think they’re coming,” she says, and as she stands up, her left hand moves past my face. She’s wearing a gold ring on her ring finger, and she’s missing most of her thumbnail.

The words pass my lips before I think too much about it. “What’s your name?”

She glances back and smiles. “Renee,” she says, and then she’s through the doorway and back at her desk, looking at the computer.

Brown hair, early twenties, half of a fingernail and a ripped sheet at the scene, Renee.

Cecily said Renee Adams worked with computers somewhere downtown, but according to the stalker files we found on her, she worked an assortment of temp jobs during the day and otherwise spent a lot of time at home on her computer.

Assorted temp jobs at big companies—ones with big databases and information that potentially could be worth something. If I wasn’t restrained or lying on the floor, I would be looking up whether those companies ever filed suits about information being stolen. I’d be looking into Renee Adams’s bank accounts and seeing what kind of major deposits were being made.

I watch her type something into the computer, and I hear someone say, “How are you possibly going to fix this?” And I try to ignore the fact that I’d know that voice anywhere.

It might be a stretch, but I wonder if Renee Adams is some kind of computer hacker.

The bigger question, of course, is what kind of work she’s doing for the governor.

But I don’t get a chance to ask, because she was right. Someone was coming.

Now they’re here.

I
t’s Meridian, the governor herself, two of her bodyguards, and Deputy Director Ryan Struzinski.

I push the ballpoint pen into my restraints, but they’re wire, not rope, and a pen isn’t going to do anything. I slip it into my sleeve. It still might be the only weapon I’ll get my hands on.

Through heavy lids, I track Meridian and the governor’s movements. Based on the positioning—the bodyguards are flanking her, and evil Struz is trailing them—they’re the ones in charge.

They’re also arguing. “Take care of the girl, and I’ll handle Taylor,” the governor says.

“I can use her. She’s pretty enough—not anything special—but still. Someone will pay something for her. This one . . .” He kicks Barclay’s foot. “He’ll just be trouble.”

My throat constricts as I realize what exactly they’re arguing about.

What to do with us.

Specifically, whether they should kill us. If my options are death or slavery, I’m not sure which one I’d vote for.

They’re both unacceptable. I’m not ready to die—I promised
my
Struz that I would come home to my family. And I’m certainly not going to get shipped off to some other world where my free will would be stripped from me in whatever manner works best.

I try to move my hands a little in the restraints. The wire bites into my wrist, but I have a little leeway. I have small hands—if I can compress them, make them a little smaller, I might be able to slip one of them out.

“I can control him.” The governor laughs. “He’s just like Ryan, smart, ambitious, and hungry. We just have to find out what he wants.”

“You’ve done such a bang-up job so far,” Meridian says.

There’s a pause, and they must expect Struz’s evil twin to weigh in on the decision, because he says, “Don’t look at me.” His voice is low, gritty, and tired. “Just do whatever you’re going to do.”

Meridian laughs. It’s not maniacal evil laughter or anything, but it’s cold, like he’s laughing because he’s supposed to, not because he understands humor. I shiver and focus harder on the restraints. I’ll try to get my left hand out first—the wire will undoubtedly slice it open in a few places, but it’ll leave my right hand—the hand I need—unscathed.

“You play the innocent card so well,” Meridian says. “Especially for someone experimenting on kids.”

“I never said I was innocent,” the deputy director says, the resignation in his voice coming out like disgrace.

“Enough.” The governor crosses the room, toward Renee Adams and the computer. “Taylor wasn’t a problem until he met her. The girl is a bad influence. Just kill her and I’ll handle him.”

Silence.

I’m tempted to sit up and call bullshit. Tell her I was just a normal high-school junior with a bad attitude until Barclay showed up—that it was
Barclay
who came to my world and asked me for help. I don’t even want to be here in this stupid world with its ridiculous skyscrapers and people who spend their lives a hundred feet off the ground, like they’re better than everyone beneath them.

But I stay still, and I let my indignation wrap itself around me—let it steady my hands and still my body. I hold on to it so it keeps my fear at bay.

As bad as slavery would be, I’d still be alive.

The silence stretches out. None of the men in the room make any protests, as if the argument is over.

And why wouldn’t it be? Meridian might think it’s a waste to kill me, especially if he can get some money for me as a slave, but I haven’t proven to be all that weak and he’s probably already got enough money.

I shift my eyes to Barclay, wishing I could reach him and try to wake him somehow. But when I see the blue of his eyes through the bloody and swollen skin, I realize we’re in the same boat. He’s also been listening and faking being passed out.

I try to communicate with him. I try to tell him,
It’s now or never
with my eyes. My only hope is that he’s figured out how to get out of his restraints as well.

I’m not sure if he gets the message or not. He gives a slight shake of his head, whatever that means.

“Well?” the governor says.

“How about I just kill them both?” Meridian says.

She makes a pouting noise, but she doesn’t object.

My hands are sticky and warm from the blood, but I think I can get them out. If I’m going to do anything, it’s going to be right now. I’m not about to let Barclay or myself die without making some kind of move.

“Get her up,” Meridian says, and one of the bodyguards is in front of me. “What? You want me to shoot her while she’s passed out?” He snorts. “Where’s the fun in that?”

T
he bodyguard slips his hands under my armpits. With my eyes closed, I picture the room and everyone in it.

Farthest from me, about six or seven feet away, are the governor and one of her bodyguards. Renee Adams is behind them in the other room.

Struz’s evil twin is lingering by the door, about five feet away.

Meridian is directly in front of me, no more than a few feet, but just out of my reach.

As the bodyguard lifts me up, I hold my breath and yank my left hand through the restraints.

The pain is more than I would have imagined possible. At least three layers of skin from about half my hand come off, hot blood pours from my wrist to my fingertips, and I let out some kind of terrible yelp.

But my hands are free.

I
open my eyes.

The bodyguard is trying to lean me against the desk. Meridian is behind him, his face blank.

I shift my right hand and let the ballpoint pen drop out of my sleeve and into my fingers.

I take a deep breath and think of my dad, of the lengths he would have gone to keep me safe. I think of Alex and how he looked at me when I asked him to take self-defense classes, how he said,
I’m in. We won’t let anyone ever hurt you again
. I think of Cecily and how she insisted on coming to IA with us, how she said,
I was minding my own business, and some asshole with terrible breath grabbed me, stuck me with a needle, and pulled me through a black hole
.

Meridian draws his gun and taps it against his thigh.

I think of Ben, of his family who might still be executed tomorrow, of how he might be dead or bleeding out somewhere.

And I tell myself that it’s my life or this guy’s, and I have every right to do anything in my power to make sure it’s not me.

I shift my grip on the pen, so the point is facing out.

I tell myself that no matter what I do right now, it doesn’t make me as bad as them.

The bodyguard turns to look at Meridian. His lips part like he’s about to say something, but I don’t give him a chance. While he’s not paying attention, I swing my right arm around and drive the pen straight into his right eye.