Moving slowly, crouching close to the ground, Ethan moved behind the sentry-house to get a clearer view the compound beyond it. Not that he didn't already know. This place was as familiar to him as his own ranchno, more familiar. He'd spent his entire life imprisoned within the boundaries clearly marked by the electrified fence.
He'd once seen one of his fellow captives, in a fit of desperationor perhaps it had been madnessrush at the fence, as if he would climb it or burst straight through somehow. But as soon as he'd touched it, there had been a terrible shower of sparks and spiraling smokeand then he'd been launched like a man shot from a cannon. Airborne, he'd sailed in an arc that ended only when his back slammed into the ground some fifty yards from where he'd begun.
His hands had been burned black. His eyes had been wide, and his hair singed and smoldering at the ends. He was dead, of course, his life burned from him in one burst of electricity.
Ethan had never known his name. But he did know not to touch that fence.
There were other areas that had been deemed forbidden, places he and the other captives had never been allowed to go and would have been punished for even daring to look at for too long.
But now Ethan needed to know everything about this place. He had to learn more than just what was there, he needed to know who was there, where they had taken Lilith, how many keepers and guards stood between them now, and what they were armed with.
And so he crouched in the shadows and looked ahead to the first building on the grounds, the motor pool. Rows of pre-fab metal buildings, olive green with white doors standing open, ran along both sides of the black-topped roadway. Jeeps, mini-vans and high performance sedans filled every spot available.
The compound was hugethree miles from end to end. A vehicle would be an added bonus. Ethan glanced up at the guard in the sentry house. The man stood still, his head bowed over a book. Silently willing him to stay that way, Ethan darted cross the compound to the motor pool. As soon as he reached the first vehicle he ducked behind it, then peered back at the sentry.
He was still involved in his book. He hadn't noticed a thing. Good.
Ethan crept from one car to the next in search of one with its keys still in the ignition, but there were was none to be found. He suspected the keys were kept inside one of the buildings, but he had no time now to search there for them.
He had to find Lilith. His reaction to seeing that she was still alive had been enough to fuel him for the battle to come. His bitter disappointment at seeing proof, beyond any doubt, that his brother had betrayed them could easily have crippled him, but he wouldn't allow that. Lilith's life was in his hands.
He sped from one point of cover to the next, moving faster than human eyes could detect. The entire time, he was searching with his mind for Lilith, hunting for that sense of her that had become so much a part of him that he was lost without it.
He wove and dodged from one building to the next, skirting the barracks where most of the captives lived out their lives of indentured service and indoctrination, and heading for the educational area, the part of the camp reserved for brainwashing, mind-altering, and torture.
Torture.
God, the thought of them hurting Lilith
No. He forced the thought away, because it would do nothing to help him find her. And it made him ill, made him weak, to dwell too long on the nightmarish fears of what might, even now, be happening to her.
He crept around to the side of one building, his sense of her failing miserablyprobably because she was still unconscious. He had to peer through each window, and he stopped short when he heard the unmistakable sound of electricity zapping into something.
Or someone.
Lilith?
"Leave off, Griz," a voice said. "There's no point while she's out."
"Yeah, well, then let's bring her around." The man sounded irrationally eager.
"We're under orders to keep her sedated until further notice. Sorry, but you won't be having any fun with this one."
"Hmph. When's the next dose due?"
There was a pause, then, "Three hours ."
"I'll be the one giving it, then."
The other one said, "Griz," in a tone that made the word a warning.
"Hell, it's not like I can hurt her any."
Damn right he wasn't going to hurt her, Ethan thought, and he eased himself further, closer to the door.
As the two keepers left the building, Ethan watched. And more than that, he felt. He could feel others nearby and could probe their thoughts, could probably even communicate with others of his own kind, just as he could on the outside. He was relieved to learn that the barrier blocking communication between this place and the outside world had no effect within the compound itself. He'd left this place immediately after his transformation, so he'd never had the chance to test it before.
He waited until the two keepers were out of sight, then edged nearer the door. He felt inside for others, guards, keepers, mortals, prisonersanyone.
He felt no one. If anyone else was inside, they must be as unconscious as Lilith was, and therefore they were harmless to him.
He looked in every direction, grateful for the mortals' inability to see as well in the dark as he could, then quickly gripped the doorknob, twisted it until the lock gave and pushed it open. Ducking inside, he closed it behind him and kept moving. The building consisted of two rows of rooms, separated by a narrow hallway. Each steel door was locked, and he had no way of knowing what lay on the other side of any of them. Or which one might hide Lilith.
Glancing behind him only once, he realized there were no guards here. The captives kept in this building must not be considered much of a threat. As he moved along the hall, his feet tapping over the institutional-gray tiles of the floor, he stopped at the first door. It was a rectangle of pale slate blue, breaking up, just barely, the otherwise unbroken gray of the walls and floor. Even the ceiling was gray, though it looked like it had been white once. But now it was coated in layers of grime in between the lighted panels.
He stopped outside the door to the room where he'd heard the keepers talking and licked his lips nervously, dreading what he would find beyond it. Lifting his palm, he pressed it to the steel. With his mind, he called out to her. Lilith?
But he heard no reply.
There was no more time for finesse, he decided. He had to find her. He was desperate to find her. He drew his hand back, then drove it forward again, palm hitting the door just above the knob.
It smashed open and crashed against the wall behind it, making more noise than was probably wise.
Ethan ducked inside, his gaze sweeping the room in search of Lilith.
But there was only one person in the room, and it wasn't her. A girl, maybe in her late teens, lay bound to a set of bed springs, with no mattress between her flesh and the metal. Her jeans were torn, her feet bare, her shirt in tatters. She was one of the Chosen, of courseeveryone here was either one of the Chosen and a captive, or an employee of the damned DPI. The girl's essence was weak, too weak to be felt beyond that steel door, even by a vampire. But Ethan felt it now, compelling him closer.
The electrical wires attached to the bedsprings told Ethan of the way in which the girl had been tortured.
His stomach convulsed at the thought of it, and he had to close his eyes briefly. "Good God," he muttered.
When he dared to look again, the girl's eyes had opened, huge and brown, unfocused and swollen, a plea in their depths. "Please" she whispered, her voice as dry as a wind over straw.
Vampires, Ethan had been told, were compelled to protect The Chosen. He couldn't turn away, even though he wanted to. Even his drive to find and save Lilith couldn't prevent him doing what every cell in him was demanding that he do. He had no choice.
Quickly, he moved forward, ripped apart the bonds that held the girl, hauled her off the bed and over his shoulder, and quickly turned and strode out of the room.
No time now to mess around. No more time for pondering or wondering or searching with his mind. He set the girl on the floor, leaning his back against the wall, and moved to the next door. One kick and the door banged open.
This room was empty. So he moved to the next, and then the next, kicking open each door in turn. AH
were empty, except the final one, where he found another young woman. He couldn't begin to guess her age. She was on the thin side of healthy, and had platinum blonde hair that was as straight and smooth as satin. It hung to her shoulders and was cut in bangs over her forehead.
She was strapped to a chair, her eyes taped wide open, and duct tape covered her mouthscreaming captives, Ethan thought furiously, were probably bad for morale. In front of her, a huge television screen flashed images at strobe speed. She wore headphones, and Ethan knew they were blasting DPI propaganda into her ears. Into her mind. This was how they "programmed" their future killers.
He moved into the room, and her huge blue eyes darted in his direction, fear in them, though she couldn't turn her head. He felt her stiffen in terror, and he felt awful for it. He tried to send calming thoughts to her mind, but he had no idea if she could hear him, and there wasn't time to spend finding out. Instead, he walked right up to her, blocking the television screen with his body, and gently removed the headphones, then dropped them on to the floor. Carefully, he peeled the tape from her eyelids, and then he removed straps that held her wrists and her head to the chair.
She let her head fall forward but didn't try to get up. He bent closer, gathering her up in his arms, and whispered close to her ear. "I'm not one of them," he told her. "I'm going to take you out of this place.
You can take that tape off your mouth, but please, be very quiet."
She was peeling the tape from her face as he carried her into the hallway and bent to reach for the first girl.
"Can you walk?"
She nodded and got to her feet. "Who are you, anyway?" she asked, and then, eyes narrowed, "What are you?"
"There's no time," he began, but then he heard a siren in the distance and swore. His entire raid on the building had taken no more than three minutes, but already an alarm was sounding. He slung both girls over his shoulders, then took off running as fast as he could go while carrying two humans, knowing it was far faster than any mortal would ever be able to match, though slower than he could have gone without the added baggage.
He sensed keepers rushing toward the building he'd just left, but he was already long gone. He reached the fence and then pushed off for all he was worth. He cleared the fence, barely managing to keep the girls from making contact on the way over, and then he landed hard on the other side. He hit the ground feet first, then fell forward. His passengers tumbled every which way, but he pulled them to their feet again.
"Come with me, and hurry," Ethan said.
"Where are we going?" the first girl asked.
"Not far," the second girlhe decided to call her Blondiesaid. "He hasn't got what he came for yet."
He glanced at her, wondering how she knew. Then he quickly scanned the area. "There," he said, pointing. "And hurry!"
He dragged them toward the shelter of a fallen tree, diving behind it. The tree's root plate was thirteen feet in diameter, at the very least, and it was packed with earth and brush. It leaned at an angle over the depression it had left in the ground, and formed a shield between him and the compound.
"We have to hurry," Ethan told them. "In minutes they'll be on us. Turn around," he said to the first girlSpring, he decided to call her, allowing himself a grin at the irony of it.
Ethan looked at her lower back, saw the barcode tattooed there and touched it with his fingertips.
"Dammit," he said, when he felt the tell-tale lump just beneath the skin.
"What?"
"You've got a tracking device implanted here. I've got to cut it out. It's going to hurt, but it's your only hope. Bear with me, kid."
Spring nodded and braced herself. Ethan got out his pocketknife, opened it and wished to God for some alcohol to sterilize it. The girl wasn't a vampire, but she would still be prone to infection.
"It's one snip, it'll be fast."
Bracing himself, Ethan poked the blade underneath the lump, making an incision rather than just slicing off the skin entirely. The girl arched his back and hissed. Quickly, Ethan squeezed the device, and it popped out. Then he tore a strip from his shirt and wadded it up. "You can hold this there, keep the pressure on," he said.
"Wait." Blondie handed him something. A strip of cloth torn from her own shirt, bearing a gob of some sticky substance.
Ethan looked at her, his question in his eyes.
"It's sap, from the tree. It's a pine, so it's antiseptic, and it should help with the bleeding." She held up the duct tape she had pulled from her mouth. "This might help, too."
"You're amazing. But save some of that for yourselfyou're going to need it."
"No, I won't," she said. And turning, she lifted her shirt, and showed him that she bore neither a tattoo nor a lump at the small of her back. "I've only been here a little while. They hadn't got around to tagging me yet."
He nodded and looked at the electronic chip in his hand. "Patch her up, and stay right here. I'll be back, I promise. Don't move, don't make any noise, cover yourselves in brush. I think you'll be all right until I return."
She nodded and turned to do as he had asked of her.
Ethan dashed out of their shelter, running as far and as fast as he could, circling the compound until he estimated he was on the opposite side, then dashing directly away from it into the forest. He began listening for the river, and once he homed in on it, he raced toward it.
He took the time to peel a shell-shaped bit of bark from a nearby tree and test it to be sure it would float, and then he set the tracking chip in the middle of it, set the little boat adrift on the river, then turned and raced back the way he had come.
When he returned to the two girls he'd rescued, they looked up at him with surprise in their eyes, as if they hadn't really expected him to return. At least, that was the feeling he got from Spring. Blondie had a more knowing expression in her eyes, and Ethan sensed that there was a reason for it.
"We have to move," he told them, and helped them to their feet.
"You're a vampire, aren't you?" Blondie said softly.
He nodded. "This way, it's more than a mile. Can you make it?"
"I'd make it if I had to crawl, as long as it meant getting out of there." She turned to glance at the other girl. "How about you?"
"I can make it," she muttered.
"So you're a Bloodliner?" Blondie asked.
Ethan nodded.
"And you're obviously not working for them. So you have to be Ethan."
He glanced back at her but never slowed his pace. "What makes you so sure I'm not James?"
"James works for them. Everyone knows that," she said.
"You know a lot for a newly acquired captive, Miss ?"
"I'm Ellie. She's Marissa."
"And what happened to your family, Ellie?"
"My parents were archaeologists, on their way to a dig in South America. Their plane went down in the jungle."
"And then these jerks showed up to take you in," Ethan said. "Veer left up here. Try to hurry."
"You came for Lilith, didn't you?" Ellie asked.
He frowned hard at her this time, pausing only briefly. "Have you seen her?"
"No, but I heard some of the keepers talking. They said she'd been brought in, and that something big was going to happen."
"Something horrible, I'll bet," Marissa said. "They'll try to make an example out of her. We have to try to stop them."
Surprised, Ethan stopped walking and turned around. "I have every intention of trying to stop them. I just need to should get you two to safety first, as fast as possible, and then I'll go back."
Marissa held his gaze, lifting her chin though it seemed to require a great effort. "We should go back together. We could help you."
"Why would you want to?" Ethan asked.
Marissa frowned, as if that were a ridiculous question. "You're legends, you and Lilith. The only two ever to escape and survive."
"How did you know we had survived?" Ethan asked him.
"It was all over camp as soon as they brought her in."
"Do you know where she is? Where they're keeping her?"
The girl blinked, regained her composure and lowered her head. "No. I'm sorry."
Ellie shouldered her way between them, staring up at Ethan a little defiantly. "We're on your side, you know. We want to help."
Ethan felt a tightness in his throat, one he was unaccustomed to feeling, and he found himself absurdly glad he had found and rescued these people, even though it had delayed him in saving Lilith. "I'm sorry,"
he said. "It's justI have to get to her before it's too late."
"We want that as badly as you do," Ellie said. "She's a hero. Her escape is what inspired our entire movement."
"Movement?"
She nodded, and Marissa said, "We're well, I guess you'd call us the resistance. We stopped letting them believe they'd broken us. We became as rebellious as Lilith was, modeled ourselves after her. No more pretending to accept their bull. We meet in secret and plan for the day when there will be enough of us to make a real difference."
Elite said, "The keepers don't know about the meetings, or how organized we've become, even though it's only been a few days. They just see us rebelling. That's why we ended up in the torture rooms."
"So there are more of you?" Ethan asked.
Ellie nodded. "Sixteen. Before long we'll have enough to overthrow this place."
"We're going to overthrow this place now," Ethan said.
Ellie gripped Ethan's arm. "Never mind getting us to safety, Ethan. We can't leave her there. I heard she was coming back for us, so we have to do the same for her. Let's go back. Right now, let's go back and get Lilith out of there."
He hesitated, then glanced at Marissa, his brows raised in question.
"I'm with Ellie," the other girl said.
"Lilith won't settle for us just getting her out," Ethan told them. "She won't leave that place unless we can take everyone with us. You should know that before we go in."
The two exchanged a worried look, but then Ellie sighed and nodded. "We'd better connect with the rest of our group and organize something as fast as we can. We're going to need all the help we can get."
I woke in chains.
Lifting my head slowly, I tried to focus, to get my bearings, but it wasn't easy. I was upright, I realized slowly, my wrists and ankles spread and shackled to the wall at my back. I was still wearing the clothes given to me by my mother.
My mother.
My heart twisted a little at the memory of her, because I was terrified that I would never see her again.
But I had no time to dwell on that regret at the moment.
Instead, I let my gaze scan the room. The wall at a right angle to minebrick. No windows. The one across from me, also brick, and in its center
"James."
He was shackled just as I was. His shirt had been torn open, and I saw welts crisscrossing his chest and tiny streams of blood trickling from them. They must have given him something so he wouldn't bleed out, I thought.
"How much did you tell them?"
He met my eyes. "Nothing."
I searched those eyes of his, and was reminded sharply and painfully of the last time I'd looked deeply into Ethan's eyes. So similar, physically, and yet so very different, too. I felt relief, not heartache, when I thought of Ethan now. Relief at knowing he hadn't betrayed me the way I feared he had. His brother had been working without his knowledge. All of that was clear to me now. Oh, Ethan had indeed lied to mehe had broken his promise and told his brother our plans after vowing he wouldn't.
But that was a far cry from conspiring against me, from plotting my recapture and even my death.
"I told them nothing. But you don't believe that, do you?" James asked.
"Why would I believe anything you have to say to me? You've already proven yourself a traitor against your own kind."
"But not against my own brother."
I stared hard at him, trying to read his thoughts.
"If I'd told them what they wanted to know, do you think I'd still be here?" he asked.
I shrugged as best I could with my arms stretched in a V above me, and held in place by manacles and short lengths of chain. "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe they left you here to see what you could get out of me."
"They don't want to get anything out of you, Lilith. You won't be questioned, and you won't be tortured."
"No? And how do you know that?"
"They're making no secret of it. You're simply going to be executed. They're calling an assembly on the parade grounds. Everyone here, captives and keepers alike, is going to watch it happen."
His words, each one of them, hit my nerves like knives plunging into my flesh. Each one made me flinch in pain, tremble in fear, dread what was to come. "How am I going to be killed?" I asked him, unsure whether I really wanted to know.
"They didn't say."
I lowered my head, stared at the floor. "When?"
"I don't know. I heard one source claim it would be before sunrise. Another said tomorrow night. Either way, it's soon. You won't have long to wait."
Raising my head, I looked for a window, but there were none, so I couldn't judge the time. And then I realized how they would kill me, and I went rigid with fear. I felt my eyes widen. "They'll stake me out to await the sunrise, won't they?"
James shrugged.
"God, I don't want to burn alive."
"I can't think of anyone who really does."
"Are you joking? Are you being sarcastic about my impending death, James? Has it even occurred to you that you're the cause of it?"
He blinked and averted his eyes.
"Your brother might just love me. Have you thought of that? He'll never forgive you for this."
"No, probably not. But at least he'll be alive."
"And he wouldn't have been otherwise? Is that how you justify what you've done, James?"
He shot me a look that should have wilted me. "Yes, that's how I justify it. If you'd stayed with him, someone would have found you sooner or later. They doubled their efforts to recapture Ethan when you escaped. They realized that more would follow unless they stamped out the spark of rebellion you two ignited. If it had been any of the other operativesanyone but meEthan would be facing the same brutal end that you are." He looked me up and down, then looked away, turning his head hard, as if he couldn't stand the sight of me. Or maybe it was his own guilt that made looking at me impossible for him. "I had to capture you to save him. I had no choice."
"You really believe that, don't you?" I was disgusted. "Why is it that their brainwashing works with some people but not others? How is it that you couldn't see any other option? Like turning against them. Like sowing the seeds of rebellion the way I"
I blinked then, as I remembered the few bits of my past that had still been missing. "As I tried to do. I thought I could ignite a spark and then feed until it became a full blown flame that would devour this place whole. Why wasn't something like that an option for you, James?"
He looked at me with such a puzzled expression that I knew he couldn't imagine it as an option even now.
"I work for them," he explained. "I can't work against them. They made me."
"And they can unmake you. You were created for one purpose onlyto serve. To kill on command. To follow ordersto the point of death, if necessary. I know," I said. "I know because they tried to imprint my brain with all that nonsense, too, James, but I wouldn't listen. I wouldn't believe. I wouldn't give in. And you did. Think about it? How much sense does it make that you should obey them without question just because they say so?"
He blinked, shaking his head. "It's our purpose."
"Is it?"
He wasn't responding to me anymore. It felt as if a wall had come down between us. He wouldn't look at me, wouldn't listen There was nothing but emptiness in his eyes. I lowered my head and sighed, giving up.
The door burst open then, and several keepers came inside. And I knew, with a gut deep horror, that they had come for me.
