Deadfall

  “I’m sorry,” you say.

  “’Bout what? You didn’t do anything.” He eyes Ben.

  “The base?” Ben asks. “It’s safe?”

  “Hidden,” Rafe says. “We go two at a time so it’s not obvious. That’s why they left first.”

  A few guys spill out of the crowd. One stumbles and can barely stand. With the party winding down, now is the best time to leave. You look at Aggy, unsure if it’s better to pair Ben with a stranger or Rafe. There are risks to both.

  “You’ll show me the base, Aggy?” you ask.

  Ben leans against the tunnel wall, taking shallow breaths to ease the pain in his side. He doesn’t say anything and neither does Rafe. Then Aggy waves you forward and into the dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE PARK IS empty. There’s a low fence around the perimeter, and a brick building that says RESTROOMS in ornate subway tile. You look past the rows of benches to the Dumpsters on the other side of the block. There’s no obvious way in.

  “Where is it?” you ask.

  “Give me a minute. Then follow. There’s a shed—it’s the one with all the trash outside.”

  Aggy scans the park with its thin trees. He doesn’t look back as he starts up the path. It curves left, toward the street.

  You wait. You move toward the front of the playground, trying to find a place that’s less conspicuous. After a few minutes you follow.

  When you get to the maintenance shed you look around for a possible entrance to the base. There’s a stack of black garbage bags beside the brick wall, and some trash cans, but the door is chained shut.

  Then you notice the metal grate in the sidewalk a few yards back. A light is underneath it, blinking at you. When you get closer you see Aggy with a tiny flashlight in his hand. He lifts the grate an inch. “Make sure no one sees you.”

  You scan the street. It’s after four in the morning, and there’s only the occasional passing taxi. You pull the grate up and step down onto a rusted ladder. Aggy shifts to the side, making room for you. Some of the rust flakes off onto your hands. After a few rungs you drop the six feet to the bottom. The grate clatters shut above.

  Aggy hunches under the low ceiling as he walks, the light bouncing in front of you. “It’s only like this for another ten feet.”

  Everything is in shadow. It’s something between a sewer and a subway tunnel—the empty space beneath the sidewalk. You tread on candy wrappers, hard pieces of chewed-up gum, worn papers, trash. Aggy shines his light to where the path drops off. You catch a glimpse of Devon and Salto sitting on a pile of blankets below.

  “You made it,” Devon says, helping you down one more level. You wonder how they found this place.

  Salto doesn’t smile. She’s sitting with her back against the wall, the contents of her backpack spread between her feet. Thick, dark waves frame her face. As serious as she seems, she has round, full cheeks, making her look much younger than everyone else.

  “I was supposed to meet him,” she says, not looking at anyone in particular. “I was supposed to be there. I was too late.”

  “Maybe it’s better,” Devon says. “Who knows what would’ve happened if you were there. You’d probably both be dead.”

  “I saw him get shot.” Salto tries to say something else but she can’t manage it. She grabs a bottle on the floor and takes a swig. Her movements are slow and uneven.

  “I’m sorry,” you say, but Salto doesn’t look up. It sounds small, pathetic, and you know it.

  You take in the space. It’s a rectangular room just twenty feet deep, lit by a few candles. There are plastic jugs of water and a trash bag tied to a pipe. Blankets line the floor. You point to the other end, where there’s another opening about six feet high. “Where does that go?”

  “Into another tunnel,” Aggy says. “You can get out either way, but we try to always use the other one. It’s better hidden because of the park. We always leave before the sun comes up, so we only have a few hours to get some sleep.”

  Devon stretches across a couple of the blankets. Aggy kneels beside him, opening a can of pineapple with a knife. He hands it to you, along with a plastic fork that says Arby’s on the handle. “We’ve met here twice—once every three days. It’s too dangerous to stay in one place.”

  “When you leave . . . where do you go?”

  “Anywhere,” Aggy says. “Central Park has some good spots. Some of the smaller parks work, too. We already got chased from our spot by the Manhattan Bridge. It’s getting harder to find places that aren’t obvious.”

  “How many targets are there in New York? Do you know?”

  Devon shakes his head. He opens a sleeve of beef jerky, peeling back the plastic. “We’re not sure. Connor was the one who was trying to figure that out.”

  You hear the grate somewhere behind you. It clatters shut, metal meeting metal. You hear footsteps, then Rafe urging Ben farther into the tunnel. “We’re back here,” you say, hoping your voice reaches them. You can imagine what Ben must be thinking with Rafe behind him in the dark.

  When they reach you, Ben scans the small corridor and the supplies lined against the wall.

  Rafe takes the spot beside you, his shoulders stiff. You wonder what it felt like to see you and Ben together. You want to reassure him, but you don’t know if you can. You think about the last few hours you spent with Ben, how close you were in the hotel room. The feeling of his lips touching down on your face.

  You stand to help Ben, but he shrugs you off and sits on the other side of the room. From the way he lowers himself—his hand against the concrete—you can tell his side is hurting again.

  “Lena’s the other target I was talking about,” Rafe says, “If you haven’t realized.”

  “Kinda put it together.” Aggy laughs.

  Devon studies the way Ben keeps his arm off his side. “The first two days are the worst,” he says. “It gets better after that.”

  “You got hit?” you ask.

  “On the island. Twice. One’s still in there.” He points to a spot by his left shoulder.

  “Were any of you together on the island?” You glance sideways at Rafe, looking for confirmation. “Were we there with you?”

  “I didn’t see you,” Devon says. “You haven’t gotten your memory back yet?”

  “Not all of it.”

  Salto studies you. “You look familiar, definitely. But it’s hard to be sure.”

  “I still don’t have everything,” Devon says. “Neither does Aggy.”

  “I have these dreams about the island. . . .” Aggy says. “That’s how it started coming together.”

  “And you’re sure this is it . . . this is all of us?” Rafe asks.

  “It’s hard to be sure. Maybe he knows something?” Salto looks to Ben, her voice hopeful.

  Rafe laughs. “He works for the people who are trying to kill us. You really think he’s going to help?”

  “I am going to help,” Ben says, ignoring him.

  “You say that,” Rafe says. “But every minute you’re here we’re in even more danger.”

  “I don’t need you to take me in,” Ben says.

  “Then what do you need?” Rafe asks.

  “We need your help to get into a hospital,” you cut in. “Bellevue, over on the East Side. There’s a doctor there—Reynolds—who has information about AAE. He’s the one who invented the memory-loss drug.”

  “How do you know that?” Salto asks.

  “I found his name in my dad’s old files,” Ben says. “He must be in contact with whoever’s running AAE, and maybe some of the hunters. He could give us names, tell us more about what’s going on.”

  Aggy rubs the back of his head. “I don’t know, man. Look at what Connor was trying to do. It got him killed. I don’t want to be next.”

  “So you’re just going to wait it out here until they find you?” you say. “That’s exactly what AAE wants.”

  “Listen,” Aggy says, “everything was pretty mu
ch fine until you three showed up. If you want to be here with us, it’s our rules.”

  Your skin feels hot. You can’t believe you’ve gotten this far and no one else wants to know more. “Fine, we’ll leave and you can go and get yourselves killed. But I’m taking AAE down whether you help me or not.”

  Devon looks at Aggy. He’s almost smiling. “I like your angle. We should listen to her—think about it. No more hiding out, no more waiting. We go after them . . . and then, freedom.”

  “Exactly,” you say.

  Rafe is silent. Devon is nodding, taking it in, but Salto is the one who finally speaks. “Connor would have wanted this.”

  Aggy grumbles in frustration, but Salto’s statement seems to end the conversation. You set your knapsack in front of you and pull out the thin metallic blanket, passing it to Ben. Rafe takes a tattered wool one out of his pack and lays it down beside you.

  “We have extras.” Devon tosses you a pile from beside the wall. They’re surprisingly soft, with thick cables knitted down the center. They smell like perfume.

  Salto notices you examining them and she smiles. “I stole them from Century 21.”

  “They’re nice.” You laugh. “Thanks.”

  Ben stretches out beside you. He keeps adjusting himself to try to get comfortable, but his face is tense as he balls up a blanket underneath his head. You give him your pack to use as a pillow but he refuses. “I’m fine,” he says. “Seriously.”

  As you settle into the darkness you can feel the silence between Ben and Rafe. Just hours before, you didn’t think you’d see Rafe again, and now you’re lying between them. They’re equal parts of who you are, but neither knows all of you. You adjust the pack behind your head, not sure which way to turn.

  Suddenly Salto’s voice cuts through the silence. “Were you two a couple? On the island, I remember there were two kids who fought together. It was you and Rafe, wasn’t it?”

  You pull the blanket closer, not sure what to say. Ben is completely still. You wait for Rafe to respond, but he doesn’t. Maybe he’s waiting for you. You close your eyes, pretending to be asleep.

  After a moment, Rafe reaches for your hand. His finger grazes your palm.

  Someone shifts. Ben coughs.

  “Yeah,” Rafe says. “That was us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  YOU STARE OUT the window of the plane, focusing on the ice crystals forming between the two panes of glass. You press your finger against it, your forehead heavy against the wall. There’s nothing but a thin sheet of clouds below you.

  They did something to you. There’s no feeling attached to your thoughts. Your arms and legs are weak. Someone on the other side of the plane is yelling, but it’s a great effort to just move your head. How long have you been asleep? When you got in the car with the woman . . . the bottle of water she gave you must have been drugged.

  “Get off me, I want to go home,” the girl yells. The plane is only six rows. You can’t see her—she’s sitting somewhere in front of you. The pilot is behind a curtain. The boy in the row across from you is asleep. He’s lying across the seat, and you can only see the top of his shaved head, a strip of dyed orange hair running down the center.

  “Someone help me,” she yells. You want to move but you can’t. A spinning, heavy feeling takes hold every time you shift your body.

  A middle-aged man yanks the girl to her feet. Her thick black hair comes past her shoulders in waves. She elbows and kicks, but it doesn’t stop the man from dragging her toward the back of the plane. Her nails rip into your armrest. “Give her more,” the man says to someone behind you. “Calm her down.”

  She grinds her teeth together, her top lip curled up as he tries to force a pill into her mouth. Salto’s hair is longer but she has the same full cheeks. She looks so small beside him.

  Then there is another yell. “Come here, come help. . . .”

  Aggy steps over you, shining the flashlight into your eyes. Across from you, Devon runs his fingers through his Afro. “What is it?”

  “Time to go,” he says. “It’s gonna be light out soon.”

  When you lift your head it’s throbbing. You’ve only gotten an hour of sleep, if that. Rafe has moved closer to you in the night, the blankets in a crumpled pile. When you look down at him he smiles. “Morning,” he says.

  He reaches for your hand again, but you pretend not to see. Ben is on the other side of you. He’s already awake and folding up blankets. It seems like the rest did him some good.

  “Let’s spend the day scouting,” you suggest. “Make sure Reynolds is there, on duty, before we go in. We can make a plan once we have more of a sense of the layout, what we’re dealing with.”

  Salto nods. She retrieves a knife from the bottom of her bag. It looks nearly identical to yours.

  You tuck your own into your belt, hoping you won’t need it.

  It’s nearing five P.M. as the group convenes in an alleyway behind Bellevue, over on the East Side. You’ve spent the day scouting the hospital separately, finding out as much as you could. You arranged to meet here and report back to make a plan.

  “Reynolds is definitely on duty,” Aggy reports. “I checked a chart behind the nurse’s station. He’s on overnight call, so we’ve got some time.”

  “There are two elevator banks—pretty much everyone uses the one by the ER, but there’s another on the opposite side of the hospital. We could use that for a quick exit if we have to,” Rafe adds.

  “It’s probably best if two of us go in together through the ER,” Ben suggests. “He’s a neurologist. Someone needs to fake a head injury. A fall, a concussion, whatever, to get to see him. The rest can follow after. Once we have a room, we’ll—”

  “Surprise him,” Rafe cuts in.

  “I’ll go into the ER,” Salto says. “We can figure out a way to make it look like I fell, that my head’s all messed up.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard.” Devon laughs.

  “Ben can go with you and pretend he’s your friend,” you say. “I’ll meet you in the room as backup. Everyone else can keep watch.”

  “I should be in the room, too,” Rafe says. “There’s no point in me waiting in the hall. What if this guy has a gun?”

  “No, Ben will go with Salto,” you say, hoping to end the discussion. “He’s hurt, so he shouldn’t be working the perimeter. He’s not as experienced at scouting anyway. Rafe, you’ll be there if we need you.”

  Rafe stands and grabs his pack. “Fine, we have a plan,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE BRIGHT LIGHTING in the hospital is oppressive. The sterile, tiled corridors make you uneasy. It feels like a place you can enter, but never leave.

  The elevator gets to the seventh floor and you spot Rafe standing in an alcove by the window. He’s out of the way enough that you wouldn’t notice him unless you were looking. You don’t acknowledge him as you walk past and take a right down the hall. There’s a desk at the far end of the corridor, where a nurse is busy filing away papers. Another is talking on the phone, saying something about a patient two floors up who’s asking for a transfer. You stay out of their line of sight and head for 7776. The door shuts behind you as you slip into Salto’s room.

  Salto smiles when she sees you and it makes her look like a completely different person. There’s a deep dimple in each of her round, full cheeks. Her hospital gown hangs loose on her small frame, and you can see all her tattoos. The face of a woman on her right bicep. Two roses that twist up her left arm.

  “We already saw Reynolds once downstairs.” Ben sits in a chair, tearing open a packet of hospital-issued painkillers. “He asked her a few questions before they admitted her.”

  “Did he say when he’s coming back?” you ask.

  “Any minute. I didn’t tell them anything, just said I couldn’t remember things. They asked me what month it was, stuff like that,” Salto says. “Wanted to know what city I was in. I just kept saying I didn’t r
emember.”

  There’s a curtain by the door, hanging on a curved piece of metal. You pull it all the way closed. “What did he look like?”

  “He’s a little guy. Brown hair, but, you know, like, balding on the top.”

  You hear someone behind you and spin around. It’s only Rafe. He slips behind the curtain, gestures to the bathroom on the other side of the bed. “It’s better if I’m here. Just in case.”

  “Where are Devon and Aggy? Did you see them?” you ask.

  “They’re in the stairwell, watching the hallway. They already scoped out the whole building—nothing seemed off.”

  “That doesn’t mean AAE isn’t watching him.” Ben will only look at you when he talks. “They should keep moving.”

  “They will,” Rafe says. “Don’t worry, we know what we’re doing.”

  You follow Rafe into the bathroom, keeping the door open a few inches to see out.

  A nurse comes in. Salto pretends to be asleep. Ben says something about how tired she was, how her head hurt, and the woman checks something on the machine by her bed. A minute after she leaves there is the cold, hard sound of shoes on the linoleum tile. Someone else is coming in.

  Rafe pulls the knife from beneath his shirt. You peer out the space between the door hinges, watching the doctor as he approaches Salto. As soon as he moves to the other side of the bed, you and Rafe step out, blocking his exit.

  Reynolds turns around, realizing he’s surrounded on all sides. He sets the files down on the bed and raises both his hands.

  “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  REYNOLDS STARES DOWN at the floor. Sweat beads at his temples. “I knew you were going to find me eventually.”

  Salto gets up from the bed. She kept her jeans and sneakers on, hidden beneath the blanket. She closes the door.