Stung. Part 21

Bowen glares and stands, his jaw muscles pulsing. He walks to the side of the pool and holds his hand up to the commentator. The commentator, round belly nearly popping the b.u.t.tons off his white shirt, reaches down and clasps Bowen's hand, ready to hoist him up. But Bowen yanks. The man topples over the side of the pool and lands on his back at Bowen's feet. He blinks, stunned, and the crowda"those who have braved the grenade to see what is going to happen nexta"gasps.

Bowen b.a.l.l.s his fist and hits the man in the face. The commentator's eyes roll back in his fleshy head, and his pudgy cheeks sag.

Placing his fingers on the commentator's ample cheeks, Bowen pries open the man's mouth and sticks his finger inside, removing a tooth-sized metal chip. He sticks it into his own mouth and glares up at the remaining people.

"Listen to me." Bowen's voice drones impossibly loud, vibrating my bones, just like the commentator's. "My name is Dreyden Bowen. This is Fiona Tarsis." He points at me without looking. "She's a Level Ten. And she's not a beast! She's been cured!" The crowd goes utterly still, staring down at Bowen with wide eyes. "Now take a good look at the boy beside her. That's Jonah Tarsis. Her brother! You all came here today to watch our only hope for survival, our first real hope for the future, be torn apart by her own brother! You disgust me!"

The crowd inches toward the pool, all eyes on Jonah and me. The low drone of whispers fills the room. Women blink back tears, hang their heads in shame, and leave. Some of the men shout apologies. Others shake their heads and follow the women out.

Bowen crouches beside me. "The militia should be here any minute, and doctors are on their way," he says. He frowns and breaks eye contact, studies his hands. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know how else to save you." He looks as if he's about to be sick.

"What do you mean?" I whisper. The thought of medical help is a comfort to my throbbing body.

Without looking at me he says, "When they took you in the tunnels, I knew you were going to go to the pits. Tommy and I got back to south gate as fast as we could, but when we told them you were cured and needed to be rescued, they didn't believe usa"locked Tommy and me up as traitors. But when Micklemoore came back to the campa"he had been out searching for youa"and found out that I had info about your location, he set us free and had us contact the lab with your whereabouts. Then Mickelmoore convinced the director of the lab to issue an order to open the gates for reinforcements, so the militia could help rescue you. So Tommy led the militia through the gate, and I came here through the tunnels." Finally, he meets my eyes. "Fo. The only way I could get them to agree to help was by telling the lab your location. I couldn't let you die in the pits. At least in the lab, you won't feel anything when you die. They're coming to take you." His cheeks are pale and sunken, and blue shadows darken the skin under his eyes. A definite improvement from the last time I saw him, but still far from the glowing picture of health he used to be.

I reach a trembling hand to his face and trail my fingers over his bristly cheek. "How are you?" I ask. Hope that he will live a long, prosperous life burns in my chest. I don't care if I have to go to the lab, as long as he survives.

He leans into my hand, and a hint of a smile touches his blue-tinged lips. "I tell you you're going to the lab and you want to know how I am?" He tilts his head and kisses me so softly and so gently I could lean into his lips and fall asleep forever, but he pulls away and looks into my eyes. "I'm glad you're alive."

A door on the side of the pool opens. Bowen stands and grabs his gun, aiming it at a lone man wearing a long white jacket. The man puts up his hands and steps into the pool.

"Looks like the lab has arrived," Bowen mutters, lowering his gun. His lips harden into a thin, straight line.

I look at the man in the white coat and my eyes narrow. He steps over Arris's lifeless body and walks toward me. Dark brows frame pale blue eyes. My heart starts pounding and a memory floods my vision.

Chapter 36.

Warm hands were on my icy skin, the first warmth I'd felt in a long time.

"I need you to wake up!" someone whispered. "We need to get you away from here before they find out you survived the recovery period."

I forced my eyelids open and stared into pale-blue eyes creased at the corners with worry and framed with black lashes. He looked away, and I followed his gaze to my arm. His warm, nimble fingers slid a needle out from the crease in my elbow. He moved to the other side of the bed and slid another needle out of the other arm. Tiny beads of blood pooled in the creases.

Next, he jabbed a needle into my bicep, emptied a syringe into me, and pulled it out. Fire seemed to spread up my shoulder and into my heart, making it pound, making it pump blood through my body so fast I started to tremble. "I just injected you with adrenaline," he said, wiping a drop of blood away. "It won't last long and we don't have much time." His warm hands clasped my shoulders and helped me sit. "Can you walk?"

"Of course I can walk," I said, and frowned. My voice felt broken, sounded as rough as a dog's bark. I put a weak hand to my throat and felt a fine chain beneath my fingers. "But, who are you?"

"I'll explain as we go." He gave me his hand, and I tried to clasp it but couldn't. My bones felt like liquid. He squeezed my hand and pulled, and helped me to my feet.

The moment I tried to stand, my knees knocked together and my arms flailed, like a newborn deer on brand-new legs. I threw my arms around the man's waist and sagged gracelessly against him.

Without a word, the blue-eyed man draped my arm over his shoulder, supporting almost all my weight. Together, we walked out of a dimly lit room that had a bed and nothing else.

The empty hallway was nearly pitch-black and lined with numbered doors. His shoes didn't make a sound on the floor. My white tennis shoes hardly touched it because my feet, like my legs and my voice, didn't remember how to work. We came to the end of the hall and stopped by a slick black wall.

"This is where it gets tricky," the man whispered. He took a small metal object from his pocket and put it to his mouth. "She's awake. Call Gary. We have to get her out of the lab tonight. I just took her off life-support, so it's only a matter of minutes before he realizes she's cured." He took my arm from his shoulders and stepped away from me. My legs trembled beneath my weight, but not as badly as a few minutes before. I braced my shoes against the floor and held on to the dark wall for balance as the man typed something into a keypad on the wall at my left.

Light flashed beneath my hand. I squinted at the wall and realized I stood beside a floor-to-ceiling window many stories above the ground. It was nighttime. In the near distance, I could make out a wide stretch of connected buildings against a star-filled sky.

The lights flashed brighter beneath my hand. Nearer. A helicopter.

The blue-eyed man looked out the window. "Oh no. We've got to go now!" he said, no longer whispering.

He grabbed me, lifted me off the floor, and cradled me in his arms like a baby. And then he ran.

My head bounced against his shoulder, lolling on a nearly useless neck, and I clung to his pristine white coat. At the end of the hall, we stepped into a pitch-black steam-filled room that reeked of bleach. He maneuvered through the darkness, stopped, and threw me down. I flailed before landing on my back in a mound of warm, dry cloth.

"Looks like we're going to use plan B," he whispered. A light flickered, a tiny flashlight, barely illuminating the man's face while he scanned my body with it. The small light stopped on my arm. The man jabbed a needle into my bicep again and injected something into my muscle.

He leaned toward me, and his troubled face swirled in and out of focus. Lifting my eyelids, he shone the tiny flashlight into each of my eyes and nodded. The light went out. A fresh mound of hot cloth dropped onto me, making it almost impossible to breathe, yet my hands felt as limp and weak as flower petals, too weak to move the ma.s.s from my face. I relaxed into the warmth, content to be enveloped. My eyes closed, my mouth eased open, and I sank deeper into the warm fabric.

"Where is she?" a woman's voice asked, barely making it to my cotton-filled brain. I tried to open my eyes, to see who'd spoken the words. Because I knew that voice.

"She's in the linens. But we have to get her out now! There's already a copter circling the building. He knows she's awake."

"Then Gary has to get her outside the wall tonight. He won't be missed. As long as he's back before sunrise, no one will suspect we had anything to do with her disappearance, and as long as she's sedated, she won't wake until we're with her," the woman said.

"Outside the wall? Buta""

"She'll be sedated. She'll be fine. And you know Soneschen's got too many eyes in the city. She'll be dead before dawn if we keep her nearby. The other side of the wall is the safest place," the woman insisted. Hands sifted through the warm linens covering me and circled around my neck. They fiddled with something and slid a chain away from my skin.

A lone pair of footsteps echoed on the floor. "Gary! Take her. Quickly," the woman said. "To my old home from before." The towels surrounding me started to move, being wheeled away.

Footsteps pounded on the ground. "Doctor Grayson! You're to be taken in for questioning in the disappearance of lab specimen fourteen," someone bellowed.

And then I floated.

"I know you," I say. The man smiles, a gesture that doesn't reach his eyes.

"You remember me, then?" He crouches in front of me and visually scans my body.

I nod and look at the name embroidered on his starched white coata"Dr. Grayson. "You moved me out of a bed and put me in some laundry."

"That's right." He glances over his shoulder, at the door he just came in through. "We need to get you out of here immediately," he says, looking at me again, pressing warm fingers against the pulse in my neck. "Can you stand?"

"Wait. My brother. He a"

"That's Jonah?" Doctor Grayson asks, looking at the blood-covered body beside me.

"Yes. He's still alive. Can you help him?"

The doctor crouches beside Jonah and presses fingers to his neck. His blue eyes meet mine and he pulls a tiny clip from the pocket of his white jacket, lifts it to his mouth. "We have an unconscious Level Ten in the pit. Get him medical help immediately. And take every precaution that he survives," he says into the clip.

"Thank you," I whisper.

The doctor's eyes move to Bowen. "Are you Dreyden Bowen?" he asks.

Bowen nods, eyes instantly wary. "How do you know me?"

"I'm the one who had you promoted to guardian."

"You? Why?" Bowen asks, his voice bitter. "Do you have a personal vendetta against me?"

Grayson smiles, and this time it touches his eyes. "No, no personal vendetta. I was a apprehended the night I had Fiona removed from the lab and wasn't able to get to her. Your gate was the closest to her childhood home, so I thought she might find her way there. And if she did, I needed someone in place who would protect her, someone who knew her and would recognize her. Based on your psych a.n.a.lysis, you have a soft spot for helping women. So, while I was being held for questioning, I secretly signed the papers for you to be promoted to guardian, and an accomplice smuggled them to the gate." He looks between Bowen and me, then holds out his hand to Bowen. Bowen, his face raw with surprise, puts his hand into the doctor's and shakes it. "Nicely done. You've exceeded all my hopes." They drop hands. "Now, we've got to get Fiona out of here."

Bowen eases to his feet, slow and unsteady, and starts tipping sideways. His eyes glaze over and roll into his head, and his legs crumple. Doctor Grayson grabs at him, toppling onto the pool floor with Bowen cradled against his chest.

"Is he injured?" the doctor asks, looking at me.

I nod, suddenly clammy cold. "I accidentally shot him. I think it was yesterday morning. It went all the way through his back." The words make my head spin, make me want to vomit. The pool wavers and I turn my head to the side, dry heaving.

The doctor pulls up Bowen's shirt, exposing a semifilled hole in his back that is oozing pus and blood. He looks at me, and the color has drained from his face. "How has he survived?"

I have no words.

"Get me medical backup, now!" Grayson orders, the clip against his mouth once more. "I have two injured teenagers in the pit, one on the verge of death."

Verge of death. He means Bowen. I lie down on my side in spite of the b.l.o.o.d.y floor. I am too exhausted to keep sitting, too sore to move, and too scared to go on. My head pounds as if it's filled with too much blood, and I fight the urge to dry heave again.

The doctor studies me with calculating eyes. "You've been kissing him, haven't you. Kissing Dreyden?"

I stare at him, wondering why he's asking me something so irrelevant at a time like this.

"Fiona," Grayson says. "Kiss him."

I blink at the doctor's face, confused.

"Kiss him," he says again, frantic. "Just do it!"

I stare at him and wonder how hard I hit my head. I'm obviously losing it.

"You still carry trace amounts of the vaccine. It has certain advantages in very small doses, certain healing properties," Doctor Grayson calmly explains. "If you can pa.s.s more of them on to Dreyden, he might live."

I push up onto my hands and knees and crawl over to Dreyden, pressing my uninjured hand against his cold cheek. "Dreyden?" He doesn't move. I lean down and put my mouth against his slightly open mouth, but his lips are cool and hard. I kiss him anyway, and as my warm lips leave his, I'm certain it is the last time I will ever kiss him.

Feet scuffle and the doctor curses under his breath. I turn away from Bowen's cold, still face to see what's going on and gasp. I am seeing a ghost.

A man crosses the pool and falls to his knees beside Bowen. He presses his fingers against Bowen's neck. "What happened?" he demands, looking at Dr. Grayson with accusing gray eyes. "Why is my brother in the pits?"

"He came to save her," the doctor says, nodding toward me, eyes steel hard.

Duncan focuses on me, and I can hardly believe how much he looks like his younger brother. The only difference is his eyesa"cold, flat gray instead of warm green. "You're not dead yet? But I was told the Fec a" His eyes move to the slash on my arm, the spot where Arris's knife wounded me. Ironically, the only spot on my body that doesn't hurt. At all.

I look at my arm and gently prod the oozing knife wound. My skin is completely numb. Thin veins spiderweb away from a sickly purple gash, spreading up my entire arm and disappearing beneath my shirtsleeve.

The doctor is at my side, eyes panicked, staring at my arm. "You've been poisoned!" he blurts. And then he does three things that make me wonder if I'm hallucinating. First, he tears the tie from his neck and cinches it around my bicep so hard that I yelp. Next, he takes the knife from Dreyden's belt and slashes it over Arris's knife wounda"and I don't feel it, even a little bit. Last, he starts squeezing my arm like he's wringing out a washcloth, forcing blood from the numb wound.

"Stop," a calm, smooth voice commands. Hard-soled shoes click across the pool floor, and a man stops beside Doctor Grayson. Duncan Bowen jumps to his feet, spine ramrod straight, and salutes. The governor doesn't seem to notice Duncan, doesn't take his eyes from the doctor and me. "There's nothing you can do to save her now," he says, a satisfied gleam in his eyes.

"Get out of here or I will physically remove you, Jacoby." The doctor gently releases my arm and stands, looking down at the governor. He's a full head taller than the governor, has broad shoulders, and looks at least a decade younger.

The governor laughs and steps up to Grayson. "You think you can stop me?"

"I already have," Grayson says, his body trembling as if he's about to explode. "As soon as Mickelmoore heard that I found a cure and you've been covering it up, he has been rallying the militia to stand against your Inner Guard. They're taking over control as we speak. They outnumber you five to one."

"You have no proof that there is a cure," the governor says.

Grayson smiles and, without taking his eyes from the governor, nods at me.

The governor takes a deep breath. He slowly removes his suit jacket and tosses it to the side of the pool. Without warning, his hand darts out and he grabs the doctor's wrist, twisting. The doctor gasps and falls to his knees, his arm at an unnatural angle. "If I move your arm an inch, your shoulder will dislocate." The governor's muscles bulge beneath his spotless white shirt, the seams barely holding the cloth together.

"You're not going to be able to hide this forever," Grayson says through gritted teeth.

The governor laughs. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. I can hide anything. Without the girl, there's no proof. It will look like you fabricated this whole thing in an attempt to usurp me." He kicks the doctor in the stomach. "Bowen, get the bodies out of here, starting with the girl," the governor says, holding the panting doctor firmly in place.

"But the girl is still alive," Duncan says.

"Just do it," the governor orders. Veins are bulging beneath his skin, and a sheen of sweat has glossed his wrinkled forehead.

"Yes, sir." Duncan Bowen steps up to me. He bends down to grab me when something clicks. Duncan freezes and his startled eyes flicker past me. I follow his gaze to Dreyden, to the handgun in his quivering handa"aimed at his brother's chest.

"You touch her, Duncan, I shoot," Dreyden warns, his voice a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Duncan looks between me and his younger brother. "You've got to be kidding me! You'd shoot me? Over a beast?" he asks.

"You left Mom and me to fend for ourselves outside the wall. I should shoot you for that. But I won't," Dreyden says, voice weak. "But if you move a single inch closer to Fiona, I swear I'll kill you so fast you won't even feel it."

Slowly, eyes wide, Duncan stands and backs away from me. He hasn't taken two steps when Grayson crashes to the pool floor and the governor leaps toward me.

"Shoot him!" Grayson shrieks. Time seems to slow down. I watch the governor arcing through the air toward me, teeth bared, see Dreyden move his gun a fraction, hear him pull the trigger. The governor's eyes grow wide as he skids to a stop on the ground beside me. His brows knit, and he looks from me to the blood spreading over the chest of his white b.u.t.ton-up shirt.

As if responding to the gunshot, men in brown storm into the arena and circle the pool, guns pointing in, aimed at Duncan Bowen and the governor. Mickelmoore strides to the side of the pool and looks in. "Tommy, Rory, restrain those two," he says.

Tommy jumps down into the pool with two pairs of electromagnetic cuffs in his hands and chuckles. "h.e.l.lo, Governor Soneschen! Never thought I'd see the day I put a pair of these on you. If only my mother could see it. But you threw her out of the wall and got her killed on her fifty-fifth birthday."

He slaps the cuffs onto the governor, over his shirt. Rory jumps in next and cuffs Duncan.

Too woozy to keep watching, I roll onto my side and face Dreyden. He turns his head and we stare into each other's eyes. Inching his way to my side, he carefully lifts my head with cold, clammy hands, onto the crook of his shoulder. I tilt my chin up and press my warm lips to his cold mouth. I kiss him like I am the blood transfusion he needs to stay alive. Because, really, I sort of am.

My lips fall away and I nestle closer to him, my head cradled in the soft spot just below his shoulder where I can hear the gentle thump-thump of his heart.