“So tell me, James Bolt,” Takarta said, facing the valley. “What is it you want?”
The question threw James off guard. “Well, I want to save my brother.”
“And?”
“And... stop Calico.”
“And?”
“And... I don’t know,” James said, exasperated at the cryptic old man. He leaned against the rickety fence and felt the frustration and pain of the past few weeks finally bubble over. “I want to stop Calico, save my brother, save my friends. And I want to go home. I want to sit on the couch and watch TV. I want to go back to school and complain about my classes and awkwardly talk to girls and work my minimum-wage job and go to parties and make mistakes and be a goddamn teenager like I’m supposed to.”
James stopped, breathing heavily, his hands clenched tightly on the fence. After a few moments, his breath slowed and he glanced at the old man, slightly embarrassed. The man’s blank expression showed no signs that he’d even understood half of what James had said. He simply stared out into the valley, the sun shining on his face, the wind ruffling his thin, gray hair. In that moment, he didn’t just look old—he looked ancient.
After a long stretch of silence, Takarta nodded.
“Good,” he said. His voice no longer held the playful, wizened quality of earlier. Now it was deep, serious, maybe sorrowful. “Because they’re here.”
“What do you mea—”
A stick cracked behind them. James turned, surprised by the noise in the peaceful silence. Two men in black suits were approaching them slowly, pistols in their hands. When James turned, they raised their weapons.
“Hands up!” one of them shouted.
James complied, unthinking, unable to process what was happening. They ran at him. One lifted his gun while the other forced him to the ground. He landed with a thud, tasting dirt.
“What is this?” he said. He turned his head, but he couldn’t see anything but the legs of the SIA agents. “Did you do this?” he demanded of the air, hoping Takarta would hear him. “You betrayed me!”
Cuffs were placed over his wrists and he was forced back to his feet.
“Why?” James yelled, his throat raw. He stopped in his tracks, resisting a forceful push from one of the agents. He stood on the edge of the overlook, the valley still peaceful, uncaring of what happened above it. But the old man was nowhere to be seen.
Takarta was gone.
Chapter 31
The SIA agents marched James back into the village, which now seemed to be a ghost town. The streets were empty and the windows shuttered. Several black SUVs sat in the center of the village, extremely out of place next to the ancient architecture. Other SIA agents lingered nearby, holding assault rifles as if the villagers were going to stage a revolt for the American teenager they didn’t know.
Standing in front of the lead SUV, his hands clasped before him, was the last man James wanted to see.
“Ah, Mr. Bolt,” Roche said as they neared. He wore a thin, self-satisfied smile. “Great to see you again.”
“Fuck you,” James said, barely able to speak through his rage. How many times was he going to be cuffed, arrested, and imprisoned before the world realized he wasn’t the bad guy?
James was tossed unceremoniously into the back of one of the SUVs, his cuffed wrists trapped behind him. A divider separated the back seat from the rest of the car, and soon he heard the doors shut and the engine start. Within minutes they were trundling down the dirt road, and James watched the village disappear behind them.
How the hell did this happen? James hit the cool leather seat with his cuffed hands, exasperated. He hadn’t been a free man since he and Rocky stepped into the airport so long ago, maybe even before that. Since then, he had bounced around, always in the control of others and at their whims. He had gone from Roche to Calico and back to Roche. He was sick of it all. Sick of being controlled. Sick of being saved.
They drove for a long time.
Finally, they came upon another village, no longer in the shadow of the mountains. He could still see the mountains in the distance, dotting the horizon like a broken buzzsaw, but the land here was much flatter. The village itself seemed completely abandoned, and a small base had been erected next to it, swarming with Roche’s men. Command tents had been propped up, the white plastic extremely out of place among the ancient architecture of the village. As they pulled to a stop and James was forced from the car, he didn’t see any locals, only agents and what appeared to be scientists wearing white lab coats. Perhaps the locals were hiding... or they had been forcibly removed.
James was marched through the compound, into a small, squat building in the rear. Everything inside was white and sterile, like a hospital. He was brought into a tiny, isolated room. It had no windows, no tables, nothing. Just a single wooden chair, sitting alone in the middle.
James knew what was coming, but he still struggled against his captors as they forced him into the chair, painfully dragged his arms behind him, and locked his hands together. Next, they tied a rope around his ankles, pinning them against the legs of the chair. He definitely wasn’t going anywhere.
The two men left James alone in semidarkness, the only light from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. He sat, waiting for the inevitable, trying to shove down the panic that rose in his throat. He hated being constricted like this, unable to move at all. The rope dug into his legs, and his shoulder ached from being pulled back. The more he thought about it, the more he panicked and needed to move. He
