Chapter 50
FIFTY
If he hadn’t been burning off the trank, he would have killed the bastards before they laid a hand on her.
As it was, Reese was slack-jawed and slow when the black copter descended. Some of the soldiers even wore a fading ghost of Holly’s scent, or maybe he was just high on whatever they’d shot him with. Confusing smells whirled inside his head, walls coming down, everything unsteady and smeared.
He was in the home again, in the green plastic chair of a classroom he shared with Tommy Flisk and George Octonok.
George was a Polack and his lazy eye wandered; Tommy was a klepto and a talker, too.
Kept muttering about setting the night on fire, and Reese was smart enough to know that was a Bad Sign even if it didn’t mean anything Antisocial.
So Reese just sat staring out the window, institutional fried food a lump in his stomach and his brain a mess of fuzzed yarn, rocking back and forth, humming to keep the chaos outside from spilling in.
A jolt, a snap, and he found himself in restraints, his shoulder almost dislocating with a crack of blue pain as he worked his arm loose. You could yank yourself out of metal cuffs if you didn’t mind losing a little skin; zips were bad but they’d taught him things, oh yes they had.
Teach a dog to dig, he goes and digs.
Where was she? Tranked him up—was she collateral? Or was she simply taken, insurance to make him behave?
Motion. The world was spinning.
A gush of cold sweat all over him, the drug metabolizing all at once. The little bastards in his bloodstream were just eating it up. Did they like the various things the tolerance tests stuffed him with? Booze didn’t dent them, smoke didn’t slow them down.
They’ve killed her.
Dark. It was dark, and there was a metal shelf underneath him. For a second Reese thought he was in the passage again, leading her along, her gloved fingers tight in his.
You’re real to me. Really real.
No, he was in the stockade. High lockdown, cuffed and stuffed. Blinking, unable to clear the grit from his eyes because his hands were tied. He was reflexively working one hand free, a thin grease-layer of blood filling his nose with red rage.
Someone else was bleeding, too.
The dark was almost complete, but he heard another heartbeat. A harsh acridity—someone else metabolizing the drug. It wasn’t Holly.
Reese cleared his throat. He still had to try twice before the word would slip loose. “Cal?”
A heavy slurred mumble in reply. “No, Trace, don’t gooooo...”
It was indeed Cal. They were in the same boat.
Great. The chains meant to hold wrists to ankles made a soft slitherclash as he moved a little more, testing his body’s responses.
Concrete walls, more sensed than seen. The only light was a faint gleam under the heavy barred door. Two metal shelves they would call bunks and charge the poor bastard in the stockade for using.
They did things like that to keep you indebted. Free was a politician’s word, meaning whatever they wanted it to mean and losing all importance when they decided otherwise.
The restraints at his ankles took a little more work. Cal had stopped moving, and his breathing had changed. They’d dosed Reese hard, but it was already mostly worn off. He tasted salt, metal, grit, and a fading ghost of Holly all over his damp clothes.
They’d dragged him through the snow, the bastards.
Cal began moving again. Reese worked on his ankles. By the time he got them loose, almost slicing his fingers on sharp metal, Cal had his own hood off.
“Location?” Cal whispered.
South, probably. Arizona? There’s installations there. “Dunno.”
“They got her?”
“Guess so.” What was your first clue? Sarcasm was useless, no matter how much it might have made him feel better.
“Then they’re dead,” Cal said, quietly. “What’s our plan?”
Why don’t you come up with one? There was a wad of nasty, hairy mucus in Reese’s throat; he hawked and spat as quietly as he could and immediately felt better. Probably leftovers from the drug. He probed at his aching shoulder, hot even through his clothes—healing up. That was good. “Door.”
“What?”
Holly would have understood immediately. Reese inhaled, deeply, pushing the rage down. If they’ve hurt her...
Except he was the one who had dragged her into this. “Getting the door open.”
“That first one’s a lulu.” Cal’s short, half-swallowed laugh wasn’t loud enough to be heard outside the room. They were probably being recorded.
Reese found out he didn’t care. Where there was a will, there was a way. He’d figure out how to get that door open—or he’d find a way to overpower whoever came through it, and keep going until he found Holly.
Or her body. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?
He told that little voice inside his head to shut the fuck up and began to examine the room, holding his stretched shoulder. His hands were bloody, missing some flesh. That might compromise his effectiveness, but—
He froze. So did Cal, who had slithered off his own bunk and begun his own examination of the cell.
There. “You hear that?” Reese whispered.
Cal’s wolfish grin was a gleam in the darkness. “Visitors.”