The Hunt

20

FORD RAISED HER EYEBROWS, SURPRISED, evidently, that I’d figured out her identity so quickly. It wasn’t that hard, if you knew there were two of them and what to watch for.

No matter how similar they looked, Ford had a harshness about her that Ariane did not. It just took an extra second or two of observation to see it. Ford’s hair was lighter too, if you were looking for it.

“Perhaps you are not nearly as intellectually deficient as I originally thought,” Ford said. “Congratulations.”

For someone not particularly fluent in human, Ford certainly had a fine grasp on sarcasm. Or maybe she was being sincere. Either was possible.

“Though,” she continued, rubbing her wrists, which were strangely red and raw-looking beneath the cuffs of her shirt, “running through the halls and attracting attention to yourself by shouting for someone who isn’t even a student here might contradict that idea. I rescind my congratulations.”

“You sent her in there, alone,” I accused.

“I could hardly go with her,” she pointed out.

“She’s taking all the risk, while, what, you just hide out here and wait?” I asked, outraged.

Ford regarded me with a frown, then her mouth curved into a sneer. “She didn’t tell you about this. Good for her. For that, at least, I can respect her. You are not worthy. I am relieved that she’s finally seen the evidence for herself.”

Leave it to Ford not to mince any words. And I hated how close to the truth she was, whether she realized it or not. And damn it, she probably did.

I gritted my teeth. “Look, it was my fault she left, and she would have told me the plan, but—”

Apparently bored already, Ford turned away from me, heading toward the handicapped stall she’d emerged from. I tensed, unwilling to trust her out of my sight.

When I ventured forward and peeked around the edge of the metal wall, she was standing on the toilet, her hand raised in front of the air vent. The screws were slowly removing themselves from each corner of the vent cover.

Then I noticed a familiar scarf, hanging from wheelchair-assistance bar by the toilet. Ariane’s scarf. The one she’d purchased as part of her uniform here. It had been torn in half and twisted into two loops and tied to the bar, like restraints.

With a chill, I recalled the red and abraded skin around Ford’s wrists. Ariane had bound Ford to keep her here, and now Ford was free. A knot of dread developed in my stomach.

The vent cover flew over my head, narrowly missing me, and I ducked reflexively.

“What the hell…” I stopped, the words drying up in my throat, as Ford hauled a very familiar duffel bag from its hiding place in the air vent. Ariane’s emergency supplies, everything she owned in the world. Her money, her memories of her father, her identity.

Ford should not have that. Ford could not be allowed to have that.

Under the guidance of Ford’s power, it landed lightly on the floor, just a few feet away from me.

Acting on instinct rather than reason, I lunged for the duffel.

“No,” Ford said casually, shoving me away with her mind, which, coincidentally, felt pretty much like being punched in the gut with a giant fist.

I doubled over instantly, choking on my own air and the urge to vomit.

“You…sent her in…and you’re leaving,” I croaked, when I could manage it. Which meant Ariane would be stuck playing Ford forever, or until Laughlin figured it out. I knew her. She wouldn’t be willing to abandon Carter and Nixon to their fates.

This was not exactly the trap I’d feared, but only because I’d been too stupid to see it. I’d been so worried about Ford lying to win the competition or luring Ariane to her side, to them, away from me, I’d failed to see that there was another possibility.

That Ford was a self-involved and deranged sociopath who cared only about herself even at the expense of those she claimed to care for.

Ford hopped off the toilet and scooped up the bag as I coughed and wheezed, trying to catch my breath.

“It is not, I suppose, your fault that you are so shortsighted and dim,” she said, as if attempting to be generous but not quite finding it within herself. “But my sister”—her tongue curled around the word, imbuing it with a bitterness that I could almost taste—“should know—”

She paused, her attention turning inward, her head tilting to one side as if she were hearing something I could not. “No, no,” she muttered.

Seconds later, footsteps sounded in the hall outside the door. “I heard shouting,” a confused male voice said nearby. “It was just a few minutes ago.” An adult definitely. A teacher or staff person, probably.

If I yell for help…The thought flickered like lightning, there and gone almost instantly, but it was enough.

Ford glared at me and the weight of her power slammed down over my body, like being encased in a wet concrete cast, only one that poured down my throat into my lungs and through my skin into my veins. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. Sweat broke out at the back of my neck as I struggled to pull in air even though none of my muscles would cooperate.

Shadows moved outside the frosted glass window and a rustling sound followed. Someone examining the sign on the door. “Do you know anything about this?” a woman asked, a frown in her voice.

“No,” the guy said. The doorknob rattled. “It’s locked.”

“I don’t have a key for this section,” the woman said with a sigh. “You know how Betty is. She who has the most keys wins.” She gave a derisive snort.

“Jamie’s still here. We can borrow his keys,” the guy said, sounding worried. “Just check it out to be sure.”

White sparkles floated across my darkening field of vision. If they didn’t leave soon, I was going to pass out or die. I suspected that Ford would have preferred the latter, even if that would give her the added chore of disposing of a body. I doubted it was anything she’d find too difficult, if not something in which she was already well versed.

The woman sighed again, but her response was unintelligible as they walked away, their steps growing fainter.

My knees gave, and Ford, sensing the change, allowed me to fall but did not release me. She knelt down next to me, rummaging in Ariane’s bag until she pulled something free. My phone. The old one from Wingate.

“I do hope you said good-bye,” she said conversationally, as she snapped the battery into place. “I understand that provides closure for your kind. You don’t understand this now, but let me assure you that, no matter what her fate, she is better off without you. For whatever few years we have left, anyway.”

Few years? What? I wanted to ask, but that would have required the ability to breathe. And right now the struggle to get oxygen was taking nearly all of my attention.

She slung the bag over her arm, tucked the phone up inside her opposite sleeve, and exited the stall with a sharp turn toward the door, her skirt flipping after her.

The click of the door closing sounded loud in the silence, but that was nothing compared to the moment when Ford’s grip on me slacked. I sucked in a huge breath, sounding like a drowning man, and promptly coughed all the air out again.

My vision throbbed in time with my head, and fireworks went off in the blackness behind my eyelids.

Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. That was all I could think. That and: Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

As soon as I could, I hauled myself up to my feet and lurched after her, swaying sideways drunkenly as dizziness swirled over me.

I managed to get the door open only to run smack into someone. A man with round glasses wearing a sweater-vest.

He stumbled back and threw up his hands to protect himself or in anticipation of me falling. I wasn’t sure. “What’s going on here?”

It was the same voice I’d heard before outside the door. The teacher who’d heard shouting and wanted to check the bathroom.

“I was…” My brain stuttered to a halt before a spark lit up in a distant region and connected two pieces of information. “I thought I heard shouting. I was going for help.” I sounded ridiculously hoarse, and my eyes were watering like I’d inhaled a noseful of pepper.

He squinted at me suspiciously, a thick ring of keys still in his hand despite our collision. “How did you get in?”

On firmer ground now but fighting the urge to collapse, I shook my head and tried to feign confusion. “It was unlocked.”

“Is there anyone else in there?” he demanded.

“I…” Was it better to say yes, so he’d go in and I could leave? Or better to say no, so he wouldn’t suspect anything? But he already suspected something.

My mind bumbled through these machinations far, far too slowly.

His mouth pinched in. “Stay here,” he ordered as he pushed past me into the bathroom.

Yeah, right.

Struggling not to feel like I was dying, I limped and coughed my way toward the nearest exit and found myself on the side of the building.

No sign of Ford.

I jogged, or as close to it as I could come, to the front of the building, expecting to see the taillights of the van pulling away with Ford at the wheel.

But the van, weirdly enough, was still there. I hurried over, not sure what I’d actually do if I caught up with her—other than, you know, die—but the van was as empty and abandoned looking as it had been when I’d checked before.

I sagged back against the sun-warmed metal, my legs shaky. I suppose Ford could have just taken another vehicle—lack of keys wasn’t exactly an obstacle for her—but the parking lot was dead. No cars coming or going at the moment. So where had she gone?

It was as if she’d vanished into thin air. But that wasn’t possible. As far as I knew.

Lowering myself to the ground, I tried to think, so much harder now than ever before. Not just because of my oxygen deprivation but because I felt like I was playing at a level way above my head.

Ford was gone. And Ariane was trapped at Laughlin’s facility, even if she didn’t realize it yet. And Quinn, I couldn’t forget about him, being tortured at GTX. What would Dr. Jacobs do with him if Ariane wasn’t at the meeting point? I had no idea, and I didn’t want to find out.

So…what the hell was I supposed to do now?

Assaulting Laughlin’s stronghold was out of the question, and so was just walking in, obviously.

My brain spun through various scenarios, each as improbable and fantastic as the last.

I pounded my fist into my leg. I’d tried to warn Ariane. But she’d wanted to believe them so badly.

And sitting here now, the perfectly paved asphalt burning through the fabric of my pants to my skin, I could think of only one thing to do. A single action that might stop Ford and save Ariane.

Maybe.

But Ariane…oh God, Ariane would never, ever forgive me, and that was if it even worked.

I pulled my phone, the anonymous one Ariane and I had bought together, from my pocket. The sunlight reflecting off the screen slashed at my eyes.

If I did this, Ariane might never be free again. And I would have to live with that. Live with never seeing her again. Live with knowing that she hated me.

But I could feel the seconds ticking away even as I wrestled with the idea. The longer I waited, the farther away Ford got and the less likely Ariane would ever make it out of Laughlin’s alive.

The memory of Quinn screaming in the video resurfaced in my mind, only to be replaced by an image of Ariane, held down and screaming, while scientists in white coats and surgical masks cut away pieces of her flesh.

I couldn’t…I just couldn’t.

With fingers fumbling and numb despite the heat, I pulled up the browser on my phone and typed in what I was looking for.

The phone number popped up instantly. All innocent, blue on the white background, just like if I’d been searching for a pizza place or dentist. Rather than the person who would determine the fate of the girl I loved.

I took a deep breath, pressed the link, and then lifted the phone to my ear with a shaking hand.

Oh God, Ariane, I’m sorry.

“Good afternoon, this is GenTex Labs. How may I direct your call?” a perky-sounding woman chirped almost instantly.

For one crazy second, I thought about saying, “Connect me to the secret lab in the basement. You know, the one with all the alien experiments.”

What would the cheery and completely unaware receptionist say to that?

But there was no point in stirring up that kind of trouble and no time to waste. “Dr. Arthur Jacobs, please,” I said, and because I was suddenly so weary of fighting, I added, “Tell him it’s Zane Bradshaw calling.” That, if nothing else, might get his attention.

The sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone told me that the receptionist was, perhaps, not as ignorant as I’d assumed. Someone had told her I might be calling. I wondered if Ariane’s name was on the list. Or my mom’s.

My mom. Had she felt this torn and sickened when she’d realized what Dr. Jacobs was really up to at GTX? When she’d seen Ariane huddled in her cell and made the choice to keep working there, in the hope that something good would come out of it?

Suddenly, I could see new shades of gray in her decision, ones I’d been blind to before.

“Uh, just a moment, please,” the GTX receptionist said with barely repressed excitement.

I hated her for a second then, that anonymous voice on the other end of the phone.

While I waited, hold music played. And then ads for GTX Community Outreach, their community service division. Serving Wingate; it’s our hometown too.

It made me want to throw up.

“The youngest Mr. Bradshaw,” Dr. Jacobs said, after a few moments, in a fake hearty tone. “To what do I owe the—”

“Stop. Just stop.” Resisting the urge to hurl the phone away from me, I clenched it so hard in my fist that the plastic cover cracked. “We both know exactly what’s going on here.” I paused. “Actually, that’s not true. I know what’s going on. You don’t.”

There was a significant pause on Jacobs’s end. “What can I do for you, Zane?” His tone was cool, curious, but not unduly so. As if that would fool me anymore.

I leaned my head against my knees. “I think Ariane’s in trouble.”

“What happened?” he asked sharply, all pretense of casualness gone.

And with bile rising in my throat, I told him everything, finding my mom, how she’d been tricked into working for Laughlin, and meeting the hybrids. How they were supposedly controlled, Ariane’s plan to free them—or as much of it as I knew—and how Ford had broken loose, which meant Ariane was stuck pretending to be Ford.

“So, she’s in Laughlin’s facility now, you say,” Dr. Jacobs said. His voice had taken on a peculiar echo. He’d probably put me on speakerphone so someone else could hear.

I didn’t care. Now that I’d done it, now that I’d crossed this line, I wanted him to do whatever needed to be done to get Ariane out of there.

“Pretending to be Ford, yes,” I said.

“And the other one,” he said with disdain, “this Ford—”

“She was here at Linwood Academy, but she’s gone now.”

“Where?” This was an unfamiliar male voice. One of the spectators in Dr. Jacobs’s office. Perhaps the new head of security now that Mark Tucker was no longer around.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Zane—” Dr. Jacobs began.

I cut him off before he could give me whatever litany of excuses he had prepared. “She has my old phone,” I said. “She put the battery in. She’s going to make a call, if she hasn’t already.” I had no idea who Ford would be calling, but regardless, it was a stupid move, using my phone. Unless, of course, she wanted people (GTX, Laughlin, God only knew who else) to chase after her. But I couldn’t figure out why that would be.

There was a flurry of unidentifiable activity on the other end. I pictured black-clad GTX retrieval teams loading up with weapons and pouring out the door.

“So, if we can track her down, you’re suggesting we attempt a trade?” Dr. Jacobs asked.

“No,” I snapped. “I’m suggesting a hostage exchange, since neither one of them has any choice in the matter, thanks to you and your douche bag friends.”

I grimaced, remembering belatedly that I was, in fact, sort of, in a twisted way, asking him for a favor. “And my brother, you’ll let him go too,” I added, though it lacked the force and conviction of my earlier outburst.

Another long pause. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Dr. Jacobs said carefully. “But if there’s a situation involving Quinn, I’d be happy to look into it.”

Bastard.

Someone in the background murmured then, and there was a loud rustling noise. Covering the speaker so I couldn’t hear, perhaps?

“Stay where you are, Zane,” he said a moment later, his voice sharp with tension and more than a hint of eagerness. “We’ll have someone there in forty-five minutes. Less, perhaps.”

Greasy relief welled up at his reassurance, and I hated myself even more.

“Or my betrayal is free?” I laughed bitterly.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Dr. Jacobs said with a calm certainty. “She doesn’t belong out there in the world. It’s too dangerous.”

“For you or for her?” I asked wearily. I wanted to cry, but everything in me felt dried up and empty.

“I know you think I’m a cruel man,” he said, “but I’m just trying to protect—”

I hung up before I could hear the end of that lie. It was the same one I was telling myself.

Ariane would rather die than go back to GTX. I knew that. She’d told me as much.

But I couldn’t just let that happen. Alive and in a cage was better than dead. To me, at least.

So because of my weakness, I’d taken away her choice, making me no better than Dr. Jacobs.

Just as she’d said.