Vitro (15 page)

The girls shot into action. They ran to the window and there was a moment of confusion as they tried to sort out who would go first. Jim took the hands of one and pulled her through, realizing with dizzy shock that he didn’t know which one it was—Lux or Sophie. Lux was no longer wearing her wispy hospital gown and now he couldn’t tell one from the other. But there was no time to exchange names; there were guards crawling over the island looking for him and he knew they had to move fast.

“You’re lucky I looked in and saw you,” he said to whichever twin he was now helping through the window. “I was about to give up.”

Circling the building had been extremely tricky. Guards roamed the perimeter and he was only saved from being seen by the tall grass that grew along the walls. When he saw a guard he would dive into the grass and lie flat until they passed. He was covered in dirt, scratches, and sand burrs and he didn’t think the day could possibly get much worse.

Once both girls were out and standing on the grass, he glanced each one over, trying to tell them apart. They were both scratched from the broken window and their hair was mussed. His eyes fell to their hands, one with nails bitten short and the other with nails long and delicate, and he finally identified them.

“Sophie,” he said, “we have to get to the plane.” “Wait,” she said. “Where’s Nicholas?”
“Nicholas?”
“Didn’t he find you?”
“Was he supposed to?” Jim shook his head. “There isn’t

“But I promised him I’d help him escape. He was the one who sent that e-mail, not my mom! He’s behind everything because he just wants to be free.” Her eyes entreated him. “I promised I’d help him.”

“He did this?” Jim barked a laugh. “Well. Screw him, then.”
“Jim, no! You’ve seen what they do to people.” She glanced meaningfully at Lux. “He’s not my favorite person either, but—all of this is my mom’s doing. I can’t help but feel guilty. If I can save him and Lux . . .” She bit her lip. “Maybe I can undo some of her wrong.”
“Sophie.” He took her shoulders in his hands. “It’s not your job to atone for your mother’s crimes.”
“But I have to do something.” She tilted her chin upward, her gaze unflinching.
“We can leave now and send help. We’ll tell someone what we’ve seen and let the government or somebody handle it. They’d do a better job than us, anyway. Leave Nicholas.”
She faltered; he could see his argument swaying her. Finally, she gave a curt, resentful nod and he sighed in relief. “Let’s go,” he said gently.
He led them along the wall, ducking when they passed open windows. If a guard walked around the corner now, they’d have no chance of hiding. The grass was tall, but there were three of them, and he knew he was running out of what miserable luck he had left.
“Just a bit further,” he said. “Once we reach the trees we can run.”
To their left the land dropped away to the sea; there was no beach below, only rocks. The span of grass grew narrower between the bluff and the building, until they had to walk single file.
When Jim turned the corner, he came face to face with an armed guard. The man looked as stunned as Jim felt, and for a moment they stood and blinked at each other. Then the guard reached for the Beretta on his hip.
“Go back!” Jim yelled, turning and pushing the girls the other way, keeping himself between them and the gun. “Run!”
Would the guard fire on all three of them?
He got his answer when a loud crack sounded, and at first he thought it was something else, like a tree falling. But then he saw Sophie stumble and fall and he felt his heart implode. Blood rushing in his ears, drowning out the shouts of the guard, he bent, snaked his arm around her middle and helped her up, and ran as fast as Sophie could manage. He saw Lux glance back, and he yelled through gritted teeth for her to keep running.
Sophie was conscious but groggy. The shot had only winged her, nicking her left shoulder. Still, blood stained her shirt and dripped down his arm, hot and crimson. She mumbled something, her face white with shock, and he told her to hush.
His gallant rescue was crumbling around him. More guards appeared ahead of them, their rifles raised warningly. There was nowhere to run, unless he jumped off the cliff and threw himself onto the rocks below. For a moment, he did consider it. At least with the rocks he might have a slim chance.
Jim slowed, dropped clumsily to his knees and set Sophie on the grass. Lux stood beside him, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to them both.
Sophie’s eyes rolled and then shut. She had fainted, probably from shock.
A group of people rushed across the grass toward them—a woman in a white pantsuit, several doctors in white coats, and a man in golf attire flanked by two suited bodyguards.
“James Julien?” said a small woman with dark hair and blue eyes. Moira Crue. She’d changed little since he’d last seen her a decade ago. She saw Sophie and let out a small cry. “What happened?” She looked up to the guard approaching them from behind. “You shot her, Dobbs?”
“‘Shoot on sight,’ that was the order,” Dobbs replied gruffly.
“The pilot, not my daughter!”
Jim wondered if he should be surprised that the mother of his childhood friend had tried to have him killed, but it seemed his threshold for astonishment had reached astronomical limits lately.
“Michalski, help me!” Moira said, and one of the doctors came forward and picked up Sophie. She moaned in his arms, her bleeding shoulder immediately staining his shoulder.
“It just nicked her,” Jim said wearily. “She passed out from shock.”
“I am the doctor here, Jim,” Moira said with a withering glare. “I’ll make the diagnoses, thank you.”
Jim lifted his hands in surrender. “So what now? You going to shoot me?”
“This is Victoria Strauss,” Moira said as the pantsuit came forward. “You’ll be turned over to her.” She faltered, wincing slightly as she whispered, “I’m sorry, Jim. But you shouldn’t have come here.”
“Take him to the cliff,” the woman said, “and shoot him. He’s just in the way. Then get rid of his plane; scatter some pieces of it offshore. His death will be credited to a crash.”
Jim’s heart froze over. He felt the blood drain from his face and he leaned forward, grabbing fistfuls of grass, on the verge of vomiting. It was so quick, so final. She spoke the words as if she were instructing someone to clean up spilled milk. He fought to control his breathing, his mind stalling when he tried to think of something to say that would get him out of this.
Two guards grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet, marched him toward the cliff. When they reached the edge, they shoved him back onto his knees and he stared down at the rocks below, barely comprehending what he saw. His ears were filled with the rush of blood and surf and wind, and he felt himself detach from his body, as if his soul were abandoning ship.
One image consumed his mind, and it surprised him: not his mom’s back as she walked out the front door the final time, not his father in one of his rare sober moments when they could have an actual conversation—but Sophie’s eyes as they rose above the clouds; the sun staining her hair gold.
He was shaking all over, and he hated himself for being such a coward. But he couldn’t deny the truth: he didn’t want to die. Especially not like this, not balancing on the edge of a cliff on a godforsaken island with a bullet drilled through his brain.
He braced himself, tried to focus on the cool wind against his face, on the distant sparkling horizon, on the memory of flight, the pristine sky.
I’ve never even seen real snow.
The sounds around him were vague and distorted in his ears, as if he were hearing them through a long tube: a word, a shout, a thump, a blast of the gun. He toppled forward, thrown off balance by a sudden weight against his back, and desperately he threw out a hand and snagged a tuft of grass. He dangled over the cliff by one hand and he felt the roots of the grass beginning to give way. Sand and dirt rained down on him, blinding his eyes, but he grappled with his free hand for something to hold on to.
Suddenly the grass broke loose and he began to fall, his stomach rising up his throat; then a hand closed around his wrist—Lux. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him, but he managed to grab the grass and pull himself up, and just in time. The two guards who’d been about to execute him were lying unconscious, but three more were charging at Lux. Everyone was shouting and running around.
Lux dispatched the first guard with a graceful arcing kick to his jaw that snapped his head back. He collapsed noiselessly. Jim noticed she’d improved in her movements by half since the tussle with the Vitros that morning. The next two came at her with their rifles raised, calling for her to stand down, and Jim tried to yell at her to stop but he was so shaken by his near death that his voice came out as a whisper. Lux spun, avoiding the guns, and collared each with a chop to the throat. When they doubled over, dropping their guns to clutch at their windpipes, she struck at the back of their heads, dropping them cold.
Lux didn’t stop there. She went after Strauss with silent purpose, streaking past Moira and Sophie. The man in the golf clothes fell back, his bodyguards glued to his sides. Strauss called for more guards, but Jim knew they were probably still scattered across the island looking for him.
His mind leaped into overdrive, his senses heightened, perhaps, by his near extinction. He stumbled to his feet and ran to Moira; before she could react, he snatched Sophie from her arms. The woman may have been Sophie’s mother, but she didn’t seem to be doing Sophie any good. She wouldn’t bleed out, not with the graze the bullet had made, so he had no qualms about getting her off the island. As far as he was concerned, this was their one shot at escaping; Lux was distracting Corpus and he wasn’t one to let an opportunity go to waste.
On a mad whim, he made for the small yellow excavator parked down the slope by the restaurant. He had no way of knowing if the keys were still in it, but he had to try. He couldn’t carry Sophie across the island, not fast enough anyway.
He reached the excavator just as a triplet of guards came running out of the jungle; they must have heard the shots. He recognized them as the same ones who had chased him and Lux across the island. They saw him and began shooting without hesitation. Jim dumped Sophie into the cab of the excavator and jumped in behind her; bullets pinged off the heavy metal exterior and ricocheted in every direction.
“Lux!” he yelled, but she wasn’t in sight. Had they gone inside? Had they taken Lux? He looked everywhere but there was no sign of her. Sophie stirred beside him; she blinked her eyes open and tried to sit up.
“No, no, stay down,” he murmured. “Bullets.”
She looked disoriented, but she nodded vaguely and lay still. Jim fumbled at the ignition; there were no keys. His heart pulsing faster, he searched the cab frantically, running his hands over the dash, along the seat, even on the floor. Damn. The guards were now approaching the excavator with their rifles raised. All they would have to do was open the door and shoot him where he sat, and Sophie too. He slammed his head into the steering wheel in frustration.
Sophie groaned and rolled over. “This what you’re looking for?” She held up a set of keys she’d been lying on.
With a wordless growl, Jim grabbed them and began shoving key after key into the ignition. Finally one fit, and he cranked it and stomped on the gas at the same time. The engine rattled and roared like a waking dragon, and they began to roll laboriously forward. The guards had to jump out of the way to avoid being crushed, and their bullets pounded harmlessly off the dozer. One of them jumped onto the side and tried to wrest open the door; Jim helped him out by shoving it open—right into the guy’s face. The guard fell backward, his mouth open in a shout that Jim couldn’t hear over the engine.
He flinched when he heard a thump from the opposite window, expecting to see another guard. But it was Nicholas who was pounding on the glass, yelling to be let in.
“Take me with you!” he cried.
“Let him in,” said Sophie. “Please, Jim.”
“There isn’t room!”
“Let him in!”
He growled and held his door open long enough for Nicholas to scramble around and crawl in, awkwardly lunging across Jim to wedge himself between Sophie and the window. He was carrying an old blue Jansport backpack, which he held gingerly in one hand. She had to half sit on his lap for all three to fit. The little cabin was really only meant for one person.
He looked around for Lux, but she was still nowhere in sight. Feeling the worst kind of traitor, but left with no other options, Jim floored the gas pedal and drove the excavator over everything in its path; it crushed flower beds and sidewalks and wore deep tracks into the freshly clipped grass. Soon the ping of bullets faded and stopped. Either they had outdistanced the guns or the guards had given up on penetrating the metal plates that covered the vehicle.
“They’ll come after us in their trucks,” Nicholas warned.
“Not if I can help it,” Jim murmured as he headed for the road that led to the northern end of the island. When he reached it, he drove a hundred feet and then pulled randomly at the controls to the giant claw hanging in front of him. When he found the lever that lowered the arms, he yanked it all the way down and the heavy metal claw crashed into the concrete. A network of cracks spread out from the point of impact. He raised the claw and then smashed it down again until the pavement was reduced to rubble. No truck short of an off-roader could navigate across the chunks and piles of cement, and the loose sand and trees on either side of the road allowed no means of passage around it. Jim sent the excavator rumbling over the broken road. It roared appreciatively.
“Well,” said Nicholas dryly, “suppose that should do it.”
Sophie laboriously sat up and pressed a hand to her wounded shoulder. “We can’t leave Lux,” she rasped.
“We don’t have a choice,” Jim snapped, immediately regretting the edge in his tone when Sophie’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” he said more gently, “but the only help we can give Lux now is for us to get away. We’ll come back with someone who can actually put a stop to this place.”
She said nothing, just stared out the window with her jaw clenched, partly from pain, he guessed, and partly with anger at him. He reached over and covered her left hand, which she had pressed into the seat. “We’ll come back, Sophie.”
She refused to look at him.