There was a chatter of gunfire, and James ducked down in his seat. He heard metallic plinks as the bullets connected with the front of the plane. Tom yelled out, and the plane banked hard to the left. James tumbled forward, sliding in his seat, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he stared at the ground through the side window, grass and rocks flying past at a dizzying speed. Then the plane banked back, and suddenly they were away. They shot into the sky. The runway, the SUVs, Roche, and the rest of the SIA all fell away behind them.
James pushed himself off the seat, cursing the lack of a seat belt. In the front, Tom held onto the control wheel with one hand. The other hand was pressed to his shoulder, which was covered in blood. A small hole in the windshield showed where the bullet had entered the plane.
“I’ve been hit!” Tom said. “Oh, I’m yet another soldier fallen in battle, a hero of the greatest sort. Tell my mother and her latest boyfriend of my deeds!”
“You got skimmed. Stop being dramatic,” Banks said, leaning forward. He pulled out a towel and handed it to Tom. “Just tie this around it.”
“Ah, well,” Tom said, grabbing the towel and using both hands to tie it around his arm. As he worked, the plane started pitching downward. James clutched his seat, but Tom seemingly remembered he was in the middle of flying a plane and grabbed the wheel. “I ’spose it’s not as bad as it looks. Still hurts.”
Banks glanced back at James. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” James said. He felt vulnerable in the back of a plane with two men he barely knew, one of whom was Roche’s lackey until moments ago. “Where are you taking me?”
“We’re not taking you anywhere,” Banks said. “You’re the leader here. Where should we go?”
James regarded the man, suspicious. He’d always been kinder to him than Roche, but he still worked for the SIA. “Why did you help me? What’s in this for you?”
Banks let out a bark of laughter. “Nothing’s in it for me.”
“Then why are you here?”
He sighed. “Look, Roche is a good man—” James snorted. “Or was a good man. I don’t know. But I think his hatred for the Supers has blinded him.”
“So you’re saying...”
“I believe you.” His face was pale in the darkness. “It sounds ridiculous, but I believe you. About the stone, about Calico, about everything.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Not until we stop this madness.”
James was silent. The terrain passed below them, barely visible in the darkness, lit only by a sliver of the moon. The mountains, as always, loomed around them.
“I believe you, too, if that matters,” Tom said.
“Okay,” James said.
“You can trust Tom. He’s not SIA,” Banks explained. “Just an old friend.”
“An old friend who saved your life yet again,” Tom muttered.
Banks ignored him. “So are you going to tell us where to go?”
“Oh,” James said. “Lumbini, I guess. The stone’s supposed to be hidden there, somewhere near the birthplace of Buddha.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s a long flight.”
James glanced between Banks and Tom and let himself smile a little. For the first time in what felt like weeks, he talked about what happened. He settled back into his seat, staring out into the night, feeling the light breeze of air whistling through the windshield, and started at the beginning.
Chapter 32
Katie McLaine stirred and awakened to pain.
Her head pounded horribly, reminding her of the migraines she used to get when she was young. When her eyes cracked open, her vision was blurry, and she squinted against the single bare bulb hanging before her, as bright as the sun. A drop of blood fell from her wrists, which were suspended from a rope above her head. She watched the drop of blood fall past her hanging feet and hit the ground. Her arms had long since gone numb. If her wrists were chafing against the frayed rope, she barely felt it.
She hung there, powerless. Her shoulders and sides burned, and she wondered if at some point her muscles would simply tear. How long could one stay hanging like this without sustaining permanent damage?
Her body rotated slowly on the rope. She was in the room adjacent to where the Supers were being kept in those tubes. It was basically a dungeon, with dim lighting and rough stone walls. She remembered Calico rushing back into this room after James had escaped, pure fury on his face. With a simple brush of his hand, everything had gone black, and she had known no more.
As she turned on the rope, the opposite corner of the room came into view, and she let out an involuntary shout.
A long table sat against the wall, like a gurney. Strapped to the top of it, shirtless, his eyes closed, was Rocky. And leaning over Rocky was Calico.
Calico turned at the noise and smiled when he saw Katie. “Good, you’re awake.”
Fear gripped her heart. Rocky’s body was limp, lifeless.
“I-Is he dead?” she said, her voice shaking despite herself.
“What, him?” Calico feigned surprise. “No, no, I would never!”
“What are you doing to him?”
“You’ll see in just a moment,” he said, crossing the room and advancing toward her. Normally, he was much taller than she was, but with her hanging from the shackles, they were eye to eye. His dark eyes burned with silent anger. “Your friend James left you here, you know.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “He abandoned you. Why would he do that?”
She said nothing. She met his eyes, refusing to be intimidated.
“Do you remember what he said before he ran away like a coward?” he said, cocking his head slightly.
She stayed silent. A smile played at his lips.
“He said he knew the location of the Chintamani Stone,” he answered for her. “Was he telling the truth?”
Again she was silent, staring into his eyes,
