Hardwired Page 16

  She yanked the flash drive from the laptop and shoved it into her pocket. “Does anybody besides the two of you know about this?”

  “No,” I lied. Sob story about her daughter or not, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure I trusted her.

  “Good,” she said. “For now, keep it that way.”

  Thirty-four

  “You gave Ms. Tremblay the information, so I say we cut bait and get out of here now,” Chris said.

  “What about Cam? What about Carly?” I asked, looking behind us. Ms. Tremblay had told us to go ahead, that she’d catch up with us shortly. Something about making sure none of the documents she’d downloaded had made their way to the facility’s mainframe. But that was at least five minutes ago, and we hadn’t seen her since.

  “Screw them,” Chris replied. “Carly’s been nothing but trouble since the second we laid eyes on her, and you saw Cam. He’s pretty much checked out already.”

  I shook my head. “You can go if you want, but I can’t just leave Carly in here. Not after what Ms. Tremblay said about the guards and her brother. He—”

  I stopped mid-sentence, the hint of a shadow at the end of the hall catching my attention. I turned around, half expecting it to be one of the guards from the lounge or Cam. But the shadow was already gone. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Chris asked. He walked down the entire length of the hall, then turned back and tossed his hands out, silently asking what had me so spooked.

  “Nothing,” I said, shaking off the feeling that I was being watched. “I swear this place is screwing with me even more than usual.”

  “You and me both,” Chris said as he pulled up next to me. “There’s nobody down there. But the fact that you’re starting to see things makes me think I’m right. We need to get the hell out of here before you crack next.”

  “Can’t,” I said. As infuriating as Carly was, I couldn’t leave her.

  Rounding the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks. It was another empty hall, but something about this one felt familiar. Agonizingly familiar. The white tiles that lined the floor, the graying grout, the small red streak on the wall that I’d always assumed was blood they couldn’t get off …

  “Our room,” Chris said, and we both ducked in. The beds were stripped bare, the uncomfortable squares of foam they called pillows waiting for the new residents. Ones who’d never made it here. Ones who were lying dead in a van. The camera mounted in the corner of our room was off, its giant eye hanging downward like a wayward child. I motioned for Chris to give me a lift, then reached up and tore it off the ceiling. I threw it to the floor, driving my foot into the lens until it was nothing more than a broken mess of wires. It felt amazing to actually destroy some little piece of this place.

  “How could we have left this behind?” Chris laughed, and I turned around, found him lounging on the top bunk, the magazine I’d stashed in my mattress open in his hands.

  “If you’re done reminiscing?” Ms. Tremblay was standing in the doorway, her hands waving at us to get moving. She saw the magazine and sighed in disgust, but made no move to take it away. I guess in the scheme of things, one dirty magazine didn’t matter much anymore.

  Chris tucked the magazine back into the slit I’d cut in the mattress—a present for the next unlucky soul who got stuck in this room—then jumped down off the top bunk.

  I headed toward the door, paying more attention to Chris kicking at the shattered surveillance camera than to where I was going, and I walked smack into Ms. Tremblay’s back. I smothered a curse, wondering why the person who’d been bitching at us to hurry up a few seconds earlier was now stopped dead in her tracks. There were nine rooms in this hall, nine empty rooms that all needed to be searched.

  There was a shuffling sound just behind Cam’s doorway; nothing but an echo of movement. I walked in, half expecting Cam to be sitting there, rocking back and forth, completely oblivious to the fact that we were all searching for him. He wasn’t, but finding him in that broken state would’ve been a blessing compared to what I actually saw.

  Carly.

  Her tiny frame was huddled into the corner of her brother’s room. Her eyes were red and she was trembling, her words slurring together into what sounded like the phrase “too late.” It wasn’t until I passed through the doorway that I saw him hanging there. The bedsheet was wrapped around the metal frame of the top bunk, and Cam’s legs were dangling inches off the ground. He’d wound the sheet twice around the frame, ensuring it would hold, before slipping off the opposite end and snapping his neck.

  “Oh shit.” I wrapped my hands around Cam’s legs and lifted him up, pointlessly trying to ease the tension of the noose. “Help me get him down.”

  Chris scrambled up to the top bunk and clawed at the sheet until it tore free. Cam fell forward, his entire weight slumping over my shoulder. Unable to stop our momentum, I tumbled to the ground, Cam’s lifeless body landing on top of me.

  “Move,” Chris yelled, and I slid Cam to the floor, then skidded backward out of the way.

  Chris knelt down next to Cam and pressed an ear to his mouth, listening for signs that Cam was still breathing. He rotated his wrist to feel for a pulse, then swore and started alternating between pounding on Cam’s chest and forcing his own breath into his lungs. Cam’s chest rose and fell in time with Chris’s breathing, but not once did he gasp for air. Not once did he look anything but gone.

  For a few excruciatingly long minutes, my entire life revolved around Chris’s hands on Cam’s chest, Carly’s ragged whimpers behind me, and the agonizing sense of despair gripping us all. Chris’s hands slowed to a stop as he lifted two trembling fingers to Cam’s neck. He shook his head and fell backward, his entire body collapsing onto the cold tile floor as he covered his face with his hands.

  I knew what Chris was thinking: we’d failed. We’d risked everything to come in here, had put ten other boys’ lives in danger, and for what? None of it had changed a damn thing.

  “No,” I screamed as I shoved Chris out of the way and started pounding on Cam’s chest myself. “I didn’t risk everything, everything, for it to end this way.”

  “Stop.” Ms. Tremblay laid her hand on my shoulder, gently squeezing until she had my attention. “He’s gone, Lucas. He’s gone.”

  I leaned back, staring down at Cam’s dead eyes. They were a darker blue than Carly’s and filled with a pain that went soul-deep. I knew that look; I’d seen Tyler surrender to it in our backyard.

  Bloody handprints marred Cam’s bare chest, the deep crimson standing out against his pale skin. I tilted his head to the side, looking for claw marks, scratches, something to indicate that he’d fought—that the second the sheet had tightened around his neck, he’d changed his mind and struggled to live. But as with Tyler, I found nothing. Not a single outward sign that he’d had any second thoughts. Any desire to live.

  I slid the makeshift noose off Cam’s neck, flinching at the deep purple ring that ran from his jaw to the back of his ears. I screamed as memories flooded my mind. One after another they bombarded me, like flashes from that strobe light above my bed, burning my eyes and searing my very being. The rage built to a strangling level, and I stood up and slammed my fist into the wall.

  “He killed himself,” I muttered numbly. “He went through all of this, for what? What’s the point of getting out of this place, of going home at all, if this is what will happen? If eventually we’ll just give up?”

  “No,” Chris said. “We’re not them. You’re not Tyler and I’m not Cam. This won’t happen to us. I won’t let it.”

  I laughed, the harsh sound hurting even my own ears. “First my brother, then Olivia, and now Cam? Odds aren’t exactly in our favor.”

  “We’re not them,” Chris repeated, and I wondered who he was trying to convince—me or himself.

  I wished I had half his faith, but everything I’d see
n, everything I’d lived through, demanded that I believe otherwise. I dug the heel of my hands into my eyes, refusing to cry, refusing to give this place even an ounce of my pain.

  “Lucas?” Ms. Tremblay laid a hand on my shoulder, her tone soft and pitiful. For a second I was back home again, loosening my tie after Tyler’s funeral, listening to the minister try and comfort my mother by saying some stupid shit about how Tyler was at peace.

  “You won,” I said, flinching her off. “Are you happy now?”

  “No.” Her voice hitched, and I looked up and saw tears pooling in her eyes. Genuine tears. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Somehow, I’m going to make this all right.”

  “How?” I stood up and looked in Carly’s direction. She was crumpled on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. She reminded me so much of the Cam I’d seen in the isolation unit earlier, lost in a world of agony with no desire to come back. “How are you going to make any of this better?” I asked.

  “I’m going to get you home. I’m going to get you all home.”

  “Home.” I tossed that ugly word in her direction, knowing full well that whatever life I’d had died the second that stupid genetic test declared me a potential killer. Suzie and my mom were it, the only ones who didn’t look at me with a mixture of disgust and fear. No girlfriend. No college acceptance letters. No future to speak of. Absolutely nothing to look forward to. Nothing to live for.

  Thirty-five

  Chris was kneeling in front of Carly, running his hand along the side of her face as he tried to ease her pain. She all but ignored him, sat there with her hands locked around her knees, refusing to answer any of his questions.

  “Carly?” I knelt down beside Chris and ducked my head to meet her eyes. I needed Carly to know that I was going to keep my word, that I’d been where she was and somehow, someway, I’d get her through this. “I’m going to take you home now. Nick and Joe are waiting outside.”

  “I won’t leave without Cam,” she said as she crawled over to her brother, picked up his head, and laid it in her lap. “You promised me we’d bring him home.”

  The sadness in her tone splintered me, adding another layer of unbearable weight to my already sinking shoulders. Cam wasn’t the only one who deserved a chance to go home. There were ten boys in that room—five who I’d promised freedom to—and I’d left them in there to die. My mind flickered to Ryan and his reluctance to tell me his name, his hesitancy to trust anybody. I’d harnessed his fear and used it against him with barely a second thought.

  “We won’t leave him here, Carly. We won’t leave any of them here,” I promised.

  “Lucas,” Chris whispered. I followed his eyes to the corner of the room, to the cramped space I’d first found Carly huddled in. Lying there on the ground was what looked like a bat. Or the wooden leg to a table. I’d have to pick it up to be sure, but it was caked in dried blood. And if I wasn’t mistaken, that was hair.

  Ms. Tremblay saw it too. “This is my fault,” she muttered to herself. “If I’d just taken Joe’s calls. If I’d called the Dentons myself. This is all my fault.”

  I nodded, not even considering easing her guilt. It was her fault, her’s and every government official’s who developed these facilities. “There’s nothing left in here for Carly,” I told her. “I need to get her home. You need help me get her home.”

  Ms. Tremblay nodded and reached out to Carly, whispering soft words of encouragement as she helped her off the ground. “You need keys to unlock the front door,” she said.

  I held out my hand. Ms. Tremblay had keys; I’d watched her use them to let us in.

  “I don’t have them. I left everything—my keys, my staff ID, everything—in my room.”

  “Who else has keys?” I asked, cringing as I anticipated her answer.

  “All the guards have a full set. There’s a master key. It’s the only one with a code sequence that starts with a number nine. It opens every room in this building, including the outside gates.”

  It took some convincing, but I finally managed to get Carly to move. She was shuffling along beside me, her hand locked in mine. Ms. Tremblay had wandered off, muttering something about the master key. I doubted she’d find it. She seemed quite sure that she’d left everything useful back in that room, more concerned about getting herself out than taking her purse and keys. I’d let her look anyway. Something in her eyes had told me she needed to keep moving, to try and do something useful to keep her mind off the horror unfolding around her.

  It was surprisingly easy to find our way back to the staff lounge, like some sick, magnetic pull had us turning in the right direction. Every. Single. Time. The faint glow of that lone emergency light came into view, a beacon daring us step closer.

  “We should get some more flashlights if we can,” Chris said, the narrow beam of his light skirting across the floor. “Who the hell even knows what time it is anymore, and I don’t want to spend my night trudging through the snow in the complete darkness.” We only had one flashlight between the three of us, and it barely worked. We’d found it stuffed inside a moldy crate in the back of a utility closet with a bunch of other half-broken items.

  “And we’re going to need something to dig out the glass in the lock.” I said, cursing myself for not grabbing that blood-coated club we’d found in Cam’s old bunk room. Maybe I could’ve use it to pry the glass loose, or at the very least shatter it free.

  The sound of crushed glass beneath my shoes had me reaching back, swiping the flashlight from Chris’s hand. The light above the door had been smashed, and the chunk of glass I remembered seeing wedged into the lock was gone.

  Chris started moving, his shadow creeping away from my line of sight. “Wait,” I called out, training the flashlight at the floor. He looked down, his eyes narrowing as he traced the outline of the shoeprint with the toe of his sneaker.

  “No blood,” I whispered to Chris, remembering that the kids in that room had been stripped of their shoes and socks, the sharp glass just waiting to meet their bare feet.

  Chris eased the door open, both of us waiting for the echo of feet, the flare of a Taser gun, something to come at us. Wanting to draw someone out, I kicked a pile of glass into the room, hoping they’d mistake it for me. All I got in return was silence.

  With more courage than was probably wise, I ducked my head inside, shining the flashlight from side to side, my eyes skirting over the bodies sprawled across the room. They were huddled close together, making it nearly impossible to distinguish one body from the next in the dark.

  A boot came into view and I dropped to the ground, making myself as small a target as possible. I crawled into the room and ran my hand up the guard’s legs, feeling around his utility belt for a flashlight. Keys were no longer my first priority; I needed to flood this room with light so I could see what had happened.

  I found a flashlight tucked behind the extra air cartridges for the Taser gun the guard still had clutched in his hand. I tossed it to Chris, motioning for him to keep it turned off. I wanted each of us armed with a gun and a flashlight before we made our move.

  “Utility belts,” I whispered to Chris. He dropped to the ground and made his way around the opposite side of the room, searching each body as he went.

  In a matter of minutes, Chris and I had five flashlights, three stun guns, and a rather impressive-looking knife in our possession. But no keys. I patted down every single body I came across—guard and resident alike—but found nothing. Not one lone key.

  On Chris’s cue, we hit our flashlights at the same time, and light illuminated the room.

  “Holy crap.” I wasn’t sure if it was Chris or I who said that, but it didn’t matter. It aptly described what we saw.

  The five guards and the medic were all still there, each one face-down, blood pouring from every opening in their bodies. They’d been bludgeoned with something, something larg
e enough to do some serious damage. I swept my flashlight across the floor and saw it—a weapon similar to the one I’d seen back in Cam’s bunk room. Someone had dismantled the only table in the room—the bolts where they’d pried it from the ground were still sticking out—and used the legs as clubs.

  “Ryan,” I called out, praying he’d respond. Needing him to respond. I’d targeted him, seen the broken look in his eyes and used him anyway. Of everybody in here, it was his eyes that would haunt my dreams and leave me begging for a forgiveness I didn’t deserve.

  “Can we go now?”

  I whipped the flashlight in the direction of Ryan’s voice. On either side of him were the twins, both alive. Bruised and bloody, but alive.

  I took a tiny step in Ryan’s direction and he shrank back, melding himself with the wall. He looked terrified of me, and I hadn’t even touched him. Slowly, I squatted down and ducked my head to meet his eyes, hoping he’d see that I meant him no harm. “What happened?”

  His gaze skirted to Carly and I snapped my fingers in front of him, refocusing his attention on me. I was afraid of this, afraid that once they let a tiny piece of the anger out, they wouldn’t be able to pull it back in. And Carly was an easy target. The girl who wasn’t even supposed to be here. The girl who’d set everything in motion.

  I stood up and tucked her behind my body. “You look at me, not her,” I said. “She’s with me, got it? Now, tell me what happened.”

  My response was met with another repetitive request from Ryan, this one more forceful. “Can. We. Go. Now?”

  I thought about questioning him, but something about the way he was huddled there, his back against the wall, sandwiched between the only two other kids alive in that room, told me he’d all but given up.