Vitro (24 page)

“Good God, Moira, he doesn’t have a bomb,” Strauss said, approaching.
“If you really believe that,” said Nicholas, “why don’t you tell them to shoot me now?” He wiggled his eyebrows at the guards and gave them a Cheshire grin.
“Nicholas.” Moira’s tone could turn grapes into wine. He stopped taunting the guards and turned to her. “What is this about? What do you want?”
“Finally,” he said, with an exaggerated groan. “Someone who speaks reason. I want the helicopter,” he pointed at the Corpus chopper sitting across the bluff. “I want a pilot to fly it—Lux will do. And lastly, I want Sophie.”
“And what if I call your bluff?” Moira asked.
Sophie was only half listening. Her mind raced up and down the corridors of the past twenty-four hours, collecting stray bits of information like a trail of breadcrumbs. I know every corner of this island, down to the forgotten rooms and the spaces inside the walls themselves, he had boasted to her. He’d said that he’d lost his bomb when he used it on Jim’s plane, as if he didn’t have any others . . . but then what was it he’d added? Well. I can always come up with something. He wanted to destroy the Vitro building, one way or another. Escaping wasn’t enough for him, oh, no—he had to have it all: Sophie, his freedom, and his revenge on Corpus.
“He’s not bluffing,” she found herself saying.
Everyone turned to stare at her as she went on. “You sabotaged the gas lines. That’s what this was all about, from the very beginning. You woke the Vitros and sent them to the cliff; you knew the Vitros would distract everyone but Moira, who would come to investigate. I was just there to distract Moira while you sabotaged the gas chamber equipment inside the walls, because you knew Strauss would shortly use it to try to kill the Vitros you’d also sabotaged. He has a bomb,” she said, turning to Moira. “The entire building is his bomb, thanks to Strauss.”
Nicholas’s smile could melt an iceberg. He gave her a mocking bow. “Brilliant, Sophie Crue. You truly are your mother’s daughter. Oh, wait . . .” He straightened and gave a sardonic frown. “No, you’re not.”
The only thing stopping her from slapping the false pity off his face was the detonator and the gun in his hands.
“I imagine the control you’re holding sets off a spark somewhere in the basement, to ignite the hydrogen cyanide,” said Moira carefully, as if the wrong word might somehow ignite the gas on its own.
“It was so easy. There are tanks of the stuff down there. It’s like you wanted to blow this place up from the beginning. You have to admit—it’s so brilliantly simple that it’s simply brilliant.” He beamed at her, as if he expected applause.
“Think about what you’re doing,” Moira said. “We are not your enemies, Nicholas. We’re your family.”
“I don’t have a family and I don’t want one.”
“We raised you, taught you.” She held out a hand, her eyes sorrowful. “Loved you.”
“Your sentiment may ensnare the likes of her,” he said, flicking a scornful look Sophie’s way, “but I’m smarter than that. You try to build cages out of a false sense of obligation and affection—flimsy materials, Doctor. If you really wanted to control me, you should have built a cage of steel. I’ve been your pet for too long. But no more.” He held up the detonator above his head. “I hold the keys now.”
“Oh, good God,” said Strauss. “You little bastard. You’re nothing, do you hear me? You’re a laboratory failure, a pet I let Moira keep simply because you were too pathetic to kill. Do you want to know why I let you live all those years ago when we discovered what you were? What Moira had made of you? I let you live because you’re not a threat. Not to anyone. You’re not even half as smart as you think you are, and you’re delusional and dramatic and stupid if you think I’m going to let you just prance off into the sunset. You think you’re special? Tell him, Moira. Tell him about Isaiah.”
“I . . .” Moira shut her eyes. “Oh, Nicholas.”
His mask of triumph slipped just slightly as his gaze honed in on Moira. “Isaiah?”
“Your Control, Nicky.”
Laughing, Nicholas waved the detonator, making them all flinch. “I don’t have a Control! Sophie is the only one!”
“His name is Isaiah Cartwright,” said Strauss, “and he lives in Wyoming on a ranch with his adoptive family. He is not a psychopath, but a decorated rodeo rider. Am I right, Moira?”
“Shut up!” Nicholas swung the gun toward Strauss, who stared him down.
Opening her eyes, Moira looked sadly at Nicholas. “She’s telling you the truth, Nicky.”
“No, she’s not—she’s lying! You all are! You always have!” he screamed. Spit sprayed from his mouth. “Stop it!”
“He has two parents and a sister who love him dearly,” Strauss went on, pouring acid on the wound she’d opened. “He has friends. He goes to school. He’s normal, Nicky, and he has a real life. He’s a real boy. Not like you—you are nothing. You’re just . . . just a shade, a shadow of what he is. You’ll never know what he’s known. You’re not a threat. You’re an echo of someone else.”
If this was Strauss’s method of calming Nicholas down, then Sophie was extremely unimpressed by her approach. Nicholas howled, his face going deathly white. His cheeks turned to pockets of shadow as he sucked in a breath. “I’m not a threat? I could blow you to hell with a flick of my thumb!”
“And kill yourself in the process? Ha! Look at where you’re standing! You are much too fond of yourself to do that.”
“I would,” he said. “Even if it was the last thing I ever did, it would be worth it, the revenge. The knowledge that I’d be dragging you into hell with me!”
“You lying son of a—”
“I’ll do it!” He raised the detonator. “Say one more word, and I swear I will.”
Strauss studied him, her eyes thin slits. Then she turned to one of the guards. “Give him the chopper keys. Okay, Nicholas, you win.”
The man tossed the keys; they glinted as they arced through the air. Nicholas, caught off guard, reached to awkwardly catch the keys with his gun hand. Strauss took advantage of his momentary distraction to fire.
Nicholas screamed as his other arm exploded in a spray of crimson. The detonator dropped to the ground. Strauss advanced on Nicholas, firing again, but he twisted aside, still screeching in pain and clutching his wounded arm to his stomach.
Moira spun around. “Get them out of here! Away from this building—now! The gas chamber is located beneath the atrium, and we’re practically standing on top of it. Go! A few feet of dirt won’t stop that blast, and every moment we waste makes it worse!” The doctors immediately began wheeling and carrying the Vitros down the hill toward the resort. The moment Strauss had fired, Andreyev’s bodyguards had pulled out their weapons, twin revolvers black as jet. One trained his on Strauss, the other on Nicholas, but Moira told Andreyev to help get the Vitros down the hill. He nodded and ordered his men to help him. They shot him mutinous looks, and kept their guns in hand as they helped push stretchers down the slope. Moira whipped her own gun out and directed it at Strauss. “Victoria, stop!”
Nicholas tripped and fell into a heap in the grass, whimpering and snarling like a rabid dog, swinging his gun wildly at everyone who came near him. Sophie took the chance to dart across the ground and pick up the detonator—but someone got there before she did.
The Vitro girl, Mary. She held it up in triumph, her eyes flaming.
“I got it, Nicky! Do you want me to do it?” She stood with her legs spread and her curls bouncing in the wind, her thumb leaning against the little metal switch. Sophie froze in horror.
“You’ll kill yourself, Mary!” Sophie hissed. “Do you really want that?”
Mary looked down at her.
“Just listen to me,” said Sophie. Moira and Strauss were still in a stand-off, but she knew they were watching Mary—or rather, Mary’s thumb. “Nicholas was going to leave without you,” she said. “He had it all worked out. You’re his friend, right? You’re one of the ones who didn’t imprint. One of the lucky ones, I think. And yet he was going to leave you behind. Why would you die for his cause?”
The fanatical light in Mary’s eyes faltered. She lowered her gaze to where Nicholas crouched in the grass.
“Give it to me,” said Sophie, holding out a hand. “Please, Mary. You don’t want to throw your life away for him.”
“Do it,” Nicholas hissed. “Light it up. We’ll burn together, you and me, Mary.”
“Mary, no. Give me the—”
Craaaack!
Mary flew backward, the detonator falling from her hands, a bullet planted between her eyes. She landed heavily on the grass and lay still, her eyes stretched open, her mouth contorted in a scream she didn’t live long enough to give. A thin line of blood drained down her face and pooled in her eye socket.
Strauss smiled. Actually smiled.
For a moment, everyone stared at the body in shock. Sophie gagged on a surge of bile.
Then, with a roar of rage, Moira fired at Strauss and missed, and everyone left on the hilltop sprang into chaos. The guards took up firing stances all over the place, but seemed uncertain whom to fire at. Nicholas crawled toward the detonator with fiendish speed despite his shattered, bloody arm, and Sophie scrambled in an attempt to beat him to it. Meanwhile, Moira and Strauss ducked behind palms and took wild shots at each other that sent splinters of wood flying; one of Strauss’s bullets hit the glass doors to the atrium and they shattered in a magnificent, glittering crash.
Nicholas reached the detonator first, but Sophie was a breath away. She slammed into him, sending them both hard into the dirt. He threw her off and lunged away, but she grabbed his long hair and yanked him back.
Jim charged toward them and slid in as if they were sitting on home plate. He collared Nicholas around the neck, trying to get a strangle hold on him, when Nicholas clamped his teeth onto Sophie’s hurt shoulder. She howled and fell back, giving him the chance to deliver a cutting elbow jab to Jim’s jaw and breaking Jim’s hold on him. He leaped for the detonator, but not before Lux scooped it up. She danced backward, out of Nicholas’s reach, then tripped over Mary’s body and toppled down. Before she could get back on her feet, Nicholas was on her. She caught him in the stomach with her feet and threw him over her head, then rolled smoothly into a crouch. Nicholas landed heavily, howling at the pain in his arm.
“Whoa,” said Sophie, her eyes wide.
“I know, right?” Jim’s voice was hard. “Talk about teenage mutant ninja blonde. Lux, don’t let him touch that detonator.”
She nodded, clutching the detonator in both hands. Behind them, they heard a loud click.
“Ha! You’re empty!” Moira cried, and Sophie spun to see Strauss standing in the open, her gun at her side. Moira advanced on her. “And I’ve still got one left, Victoria.”
Strauss rolled her eyes. “Fine. Your round, Moira. But the board will have the final say.”
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” said Moira. “I’m looking forward to telling them all about how you shoved my Vitros into a gas chamber.”
“I hope you’ll add that one of those same Vitros turned that gas chamber into a giant bomb.” Strauss dropped her gun and held up her hands. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be around when that thing goes off. And it will. Whether or not your little psychopath sets it off, it will go off. The place is full of explosive gas and all it will take is a spark. This whole hilltop will go up in flames.”
She turned her back to Moira and walked briskly down the hill to where the others stood, without so much as a backward look.
“She’s right,” Moira said, turning to them. “Let’s go, Nicky. Let’s—”
“You have one shot? Well, I’ve got eight.” He waved his pistol.
“Enough,” she said impatiently. “You’re bleeding out. Let me help you!”
“No, let me help you!” He struggled to his feet, wheezing and pale. “Let me help you understand what’s going to happen here. First, you’re going to back up, all three of you. Now.”
Moira, Sophie, and Jim backed away, hands raised.
“Toss the gun, Moira.”
She dropped her pistol.
“I’ve reached a decision,” he announced. “Do you want to hear it? I’ve decided to shoot all three of you. That’s right. No more games, no more talking, no more surprises. Just pop, pop, pop! And then Lux and I fly off into the sunset—Oh, no, precious. Don’t even think about moving.” He held up a hand in warning to Lux. She was several paces away, just far enough to be out of reach.
“You act like you don’t care,” said Moira. “You tell yourself that—and maybe, for the most part it’s true. But you’re not as lost as you think you are. You do care, don’t you? You care about Sophie.” She looked at her daughter, then back at Nicholas, her eyes moist. “Your trouble isn’t that you can’t care, it’s that you don’t know how to care. Luring her here, these games you’re playing, this is your way of expressing that deep down you do feel a connection. You did all of this for her, right? To be with her? To find some way into her world?”
Nicholas sneered. “I did all of this for me. You see what you want to, that’s all.”
“I’m trying to make you see it! You aren’t beyond saving, Nicky! Maybe we assumed too much about you when we called you a psychopath. Maybe there is still time—”
“I’m tired, Moira,” he said, and he looked it. Bags under his eyes, shadows beneath his cheekbones and over his temples. “I’m so very tired. Tired of this place, of this life, of your constant nagging. Just . . . enough.” He raised the gun, and Moira threw herself to the side, but not before he fired; the bullet caught her in the back and she fell with a cry of pain.
Sophie’s chest seized; she felt herself begin to hyperventilate. No, no, no, got to stay focused!
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Just stop! You don’t have to be this way! You don’t have to be this—this monster.”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Everyone always blames the monster—but no one ever blames the one who created it. Isn’t that right?” He sneered at Moira’s limp form. “Tell me, who is the monster? The creation or the creator? It has to start somewhere.”
“You can’t blame someone else for your own actions,” Sophie said, her eyes slipping to her mom. She’s breathing! Now if I can just keep him talking. The guards below must have heard the shot. Surely they’d come running.
“Oh, fine. Blame whoever you want. While you can. Which isn’t for much longer. Hmm . . . who’s next?” He swung the pistol steadily until it was pointing at Jim, who stood with clenched fists and a scalding glare, but he said nothing.
Sophie looked from the gun to Jim, She and everything he had once been to her—friend, protector, partner in crime— roared through her head, a maelstrom of memories and emotions, as if the last ten years had never happened. But it was different now, the way she felt toward him. He wasn’t just a boy she’d take the blame for when he put grapes in the microwave to watch them explode. He was a boy she’d take a bullet for. The thought struck her like a punch, leaving her breathless, amazed. She reached out and took his hand, stepping closer until they were shoulder to shoulder. She felt him stiffen, then his fingers tightened around hers, and ludicrously perhaps, she felt safe. Calm. Whether this sudden surety flowed from Jim or from their entangled fingers she didn’t know—all she knew was that she would hold his hand no matter what came—bullets or explosions or poison gas—and she never wanted to let go.