I nodded at Mila. Mila said nothing.
“And who does she work for?”
“She won’t tell me.”
“Where is our troublesome Lucy?”
“Gone.”
“Dead,” Mila lied. “She wouldn’t tell Sam where his son is.”
“I will put your mind at ease about one point, Sam.” Edward smiled. “I sold your son.”
They were the four worst words I’d ever heard. Worse than “Watch what happens to men like him,” when my brother was killed. Worse than “I’m supposed to kill you,” said by my wife. For a moment I thought my knees would buckle.
“I sold him to a trafficker. She’s keeping him close at hand for me. She’ll kill him if you or Lucy make trouble.”
I have no words for the horror, the rage. White hot, like I’d been crafted from lightning.
I spoke the only words that occurred to me: “I’m going to kill you.” I should have bargained. Said I’d do whatever. Just don’t… just don’t hurt my kid. Sell him? Vomit rose in my throat. I swallowed the sourness down.
Edward laughed. “No, you’re not.” He gestured me away from the computer. I stepped away. Then he did something odd. He ejected a computer chip from the side of the gun where the unusual grid lay and inserted a new one from his shirt pocket. The chip was just like the one in my shoe. The gun was a bit bigger than the standard Glock, heavy and glossy and very dangerous.
Yasmin started. “Are you giving a demo? Did you get his-”
“Never mind,” Edward said. “I want to take them to the shaft.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Mila was in handcuffs. Yasmin took me by the arm, pressed a gun against my neck, and guided me out of the lab. We walked-me and Yasmin first, then Edward and Mila. The corridor was narrow, not enough room to fight. And if I fought, he had my son killed.
“Your father just wanted to save you,” I said to Yasmin. “He gave up everything to save you.”
“My father wanted to control me.” She virtually spat out the words.
“Someone’s controlling you far worse than your father ever did,” I said.
“Shut up,” Edward said.
I wanted to keep him rattled. He’d make a mistake, maybe. “The DNA analysis for the kids and the other people? What’s that about?”
“You’ll be free of all worries by then,” Edward said. “Don’t burden your mind with it.”
This was the end of my life. No way out, no exit. We walked down to a dark room that was a widening in the corridor. I could smell the earthy tang of artesian water.
“Just kill them,” Yasmin said. Her voice shook. We knew what had been done to her, and she didn’t like us being around. We were from her old life, outside the cocoon where Edward had trapped her.
The hallway’s splinter opened up into a narrow room, and the concrete ended at a heavy steel door. We went through the door into a round stone room. At the end of the room was a large hole, nearly seven feet across. In its depths I could hear a rush of water. I remembered seeing the start of a river on the property map. This must be the underground route of that river.
“Take him to the edge, Yasmin,” Edward said. She eased me along. Edward kept one gun trained on Mila’s throat, the other on me.
“You behaved, so your son lives,” Edward said. “You are a good father.”
“You don’t need to hurt my kid. Ever.” I was going to die for a son I’d never see. Okay. It was what it was. But I wished I’d gotten to hold him, to see his face, look for the clear bits of me and Lucy-yes, even Lucy, the Lucy of my dreams, the honest one-in his face.
Edward’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure he’ll have a good life.”
I had nowhere to run, nowhere to fight, and in my last moment I decided dignity was the only exit.
Let me go, Lucy had said, and I hadn’t. I couldn’t. It had got me here. “I’m sorry, Mila,” I said. She nodded.
Edward raised the odd, heavy gun that he’d slipped the computer chip into and aimed it at my chest. He was seven feet away. I wondered if I’d die before I hit the water, if I’d drown. I didn’t want to drown. I thought of my father, my mother, the weird life they’d made for me, my brother. I thought of Daniel. I held on to him.
The barrel of his gun centered on my chest.
He fired.
I kept standing and like an idiot I looked down at my chest, where a gaping hole should have been. My T-shirt was unmarred.
Four feet away from me, Yasmin staggered, stunned. Blood welled from her chest.
Couldn’t be. The gun was aimed directly at me. Impossible. She was four feet to my left, and Edward’s aim hadn’t veered.
Edward laughed. Mila’s mouth dropped open. I caught Yasmin at the edge of the shaft, felt the life pulse out of her as I held her in my arms.
“One man’s science,” he said, “is another man’s magic.”
“What… what?” I managed. She couldn’t be dead. The gun was aimed at me.
“I don’t need her anymore.” He raised the gun again.
“While you die in the dark, I am going to kill your baby,” he hissed. “Just because I can.”
He fired two more shots. I held Yasmin, tried to turn us both away but there was nowhere to go. The bullets hammered into her and I fell into blackness. I fell into dark water, Yasmin still in my arms.
88
I stayed under the water. If I surfaced, he would just shoot me. The cold was a shock. Illuminated by the crooked lights above the stone shaft, the water was gray.
I kicked down, steadying myself against the stone wall, trying not to rise again. If I broke the water’s surface, he would kill me. He had to believe me dead.
My lungs felt like they would explode. I heard a distant scream, perhaps Mila. Or, I wished, Edward. Mila was not the screaming type and I was sure Edward was. A crazy, disjointed thought to keep my lungs from shredding. But no Mila crashed down to join us. Yasmin’s face turned to mine, an inch away, eyes half open in the water. I touched her throat. No pulse. A little wooden dove on her necklace floated between our faces.
The lights went out. In the distance I heard a heavy grinding-the stone door shutting. Total darkness. My lungs seared with the burn of spent oxygen. I eased to the surface, tried to breathe as quietly as I could. I failed. My gasps echoed against the stone.
No shot came. Edward was gone, and I was buried in a horrible, suffocating darkness.
I groped for the side of the stone shaft and explored it with my fingers. But it wasn’t smooth concrete; it had to be a more ancient well with hewn stone that might give me a chance to climb it.
I didn’t think I was badly hurt. I could feel furrows along my wrists, where the skin had parted as the bullets had hit Yasmin as I held her, and my already-wounded shoulder hurt very badly.
First try I made it up about five feet before I fell and slid back into the water’s embrace. I didn’t bother to rest. I clambered back up.
I am going to kill your baby. Just because I can.
I made it ten feet. At least I thought I had. The pitch dark could be playing a cruel trick on me. Then I ran out of handhold and flailed, found another grip, lost it. Stone hit my chin and opened the flesh. Blood was a seeping warmth down my front.
The cold water revived me. I started to climb again. Fell again. Climbed again, but now I started to recognize the stones by feel. I used the same path and, after a half hour of agony, I felt the smooth lip of the top of the shaft.
I pulled myself up and lay, spent, my ribs afire with pain, the rest of me shivering and cold. I groped for the
