Inheritance

gagged her.

“Who’s this? We already have two of them,” barked the soldier next to Reese.

“The orders say ‘all the teenagers,’ ” said the soldier who had taken Amber. “Here’s the third.”

“Fuck it, take her too,” the first soldier said. He smacked on the metal grate between the rear of the van and the driver’s cab. “Let’s go!”

They roared out of the parking garage, the wheels squealing. Reese’s stomach lurched as she banged into the soldier beside her. She recoiled from the dense compactness of his body, all muscle and adrenaline, and the acidity in her stomach threatened to rise into her throat. She choked it down, trying to inhale through her nose, but the tape over her mouth magnified the false sensation that she couldn’t breathe. A buzzing sound filled her ears as her panic crested. She thought she was about to faint and she looked across the van at David, his face swimming in her vision. Then someone pulled a hood over her head, and she couldn’t even see.

She screamed through the tape, but it came out as a desperate gurgle. The van took a curve so quickly she slid onto one of the soldier’s laps. “Sit up,” he growled, pushing her away.

She sat up, her limbs trembling. She focused on breathing through her nose and through the black material of the hood over her head. The air was warm and smelled of sweat and the soldiers’ sour, metallic odor. She strained against the tie around her wrists; it cut into her skin like a knife.

Reese.

She froze.

Reese, are you hurt?

David. Relief flooded through her. No, I’m okay. Are you?

No. I’m fine. Don’t panic.

She choked on a hysterical laugh, the tape an impenetrable barrier against her lips. Don’t panic? The soldiers around them were silent. She could hear them breathing like well-oiled machines. In, out, in, out. Beyond that she heard the rough inhale of someone trying to breathe through a mask. Amber? But though she focused as intently as she could, she was unable to sense Amber at all.

I can’t talk to Amber, she thought to David. Can you?

No. Did you feel these soldiers?

Yeah, like pits of nothing. Fear shuddered through her. They’re from Blue Base.

They had to be sent by Charles Lovick, since we obviously didn’t give Mr. Hernandez the info they wanted.

Something beeped loudly, and Reese recognized the lead soldier’s voice as he said, “Retriever one, we have the quarry.”

A scratchy sound followed, and Reese realized the soldier was speaking on a walkie-talkie. A woman’s voice came through. “Base six. Exercise option one-zero-four. Repeat, option one-zero-four.”

“Roger that.”

“Report when finalized.”

She heard the crunch of a lock being opened. Someone asked, “Why one-zero-four? They can’t do anything.”

“We don’t ask questions. We follow orders.”

A soldier pulled her away from the wall. His touch made her cringe. There was something disturbing about him that went beyond the dense weight of his body—something unstable. Without warning, a sharp needle plunged into her shoulder, and she yelped. The drug flooded into her bloodstream in a thick, numbing rush, and then she blacked out.

CHAPTER 35

Reese woke up slowly. She was lying on her stomach, her hands still bound behind her back, her cheek pressed against something hard and gritty. Her head was cloudy with the remnants of the drug they had injected into her, and her mouth tasted foul. She tried to lick her lips but the tape was still covering them.

That jolted her into blinking her eyes open, panic arcing through her as she wriggled against the restraints binding her wrists. Her cheek scraped against a dirt floor. Wherever she was, it was dark, but the hood had been removed. She inhaled through her nose, sucking in several deep breaths. She smelled dust and mold and something pungent—the scent of old chemicals.

Footsteps sounded above.

She tried to roll onto her back but her shoulder got in the way, grinding painfully into the ground. She scooted onto her side as well as she could, using her legs to turn herself, and angled her head toward the ceiling. There were several cracks of light in the middle of the roof. As the footsteps returned, she realized she was seeing floorboards. She must be in a basement somewhere. That explained the odor of mildew and closed-up spaces.

A voice called, “I’m going to check on them.”

“Take the drugs,” someone else said.

A door opened, spilling light into the basement. Reese froze, closing her eyes. The only thing she could think to do was play dead.

The man came down the stairs. Reese heard a click, and then light glowed through her eyelids. He had turned on an overhead bulb. His boots scuffed across the floor and paused. She heard a muffled whimper. Amber.

“You awake yet?” the man said in a low voice. There was a soft thump, and Amber cried out.

Fear lanced white-hot through the lingering haze in Reese’s mind. The man laughed.

“Aliens,” he muttered. “Too bad they don’t all look like you.”

Upstairs a door slammed. The sound of men’s voices floated down the stairs. “Why’s the door open?” someone asked.

“Wilson’s giving them another dose.”

“Aw, shit. I wanted to see them awake.”

“Why?”

Another man laughed. “Why do you think?”

They came down the stairs, their footsteps loud and carefree. Reese held herself as perfectly still as she could, trying to pretend she was the dirt floor itself. Her heart was beating so loudly she was terrified they would notice her twitching.

A pair of footsteps came closer to her. Paused. A man said, “What about this one? This is the human chick, right?” He grabbed Reese’s shoulder and pulled her onto her back, causing her to land on her wrists and elbows. Pain spiked up her arms and her head spun from the sudden movement. She forced her body to remain limp on the ground even as her upper arms burned from being twisted in a direction they didn’t want to go. “She’s still out,” the man said, sounding disappointed.

“Forget about her. This one’s awake.”

There was a ripping sound, and suddenly Amber screamed, “Don’t touch her! Don’t you fucking touch her!”

A thunk, brutal and hard. Amber made a guttural noise.

“Shut up or we’ll tape you again.”

Sweat broke out on Reese’s skin. She heard the sound of Amber’s ragged breath across the room.

Footsteps shuffled across the dirt. “Maybe she likes to be gagged,” said one man. The others laughed.

Reese concentrated on breathing. They wouldn’t do anything to Amber, would they? Her brain was so foggy that part of her felt as if she must be dreaming this.

“Let’s take a look at you. Just how alien are you?”