Another Kind of Dead Read online

  As soon as Kismet stopped to enter her code, my pulse began to race. I’d not been back since completing my training four years ago. I had tried to forget about the people I’d hurt and seen hurt, forget the pain I’d suffered and inflicted.

  Wyatt sat up straighter and covered my hand with his. “It might be safer if you lie low while we get the vials,” he said.

  David had tensed considerably since passing through the gate. His visible left hand was curled around the armrest so tightly it trembled. Even Milo was uneasy, shifting in his seat as the SUV rumbled down the dirt road toward our personal hell.

  “Maybe we all should stay,” I said, and Wyatt didn’t have to ask who I meant. He just nodded.

  The dense foliage ceased abruptly. Beyond it lay a sunlit clearing.

  Six buildings made up the main compound, and, to a stranger’s eyes, it looked like a small community college. The concrete structures varied in height from single-story to six stories. They were clean and painted ivory, their simple tin roofs gleaming in the sun. Windows covered with steel bars didn’t seem completely out of place, given the outlying security.

  Past those six buildings—dormitories, a cafeteria, the infirmary, classrooms, an indoor gymnasium—was a line of loblolly pines. Beyond those, out of eyesight, was where we’d done most of our training. A ghost town for maneuvers and tactics, obstacle courses to test reflexes, a pool for water exercises and breath-holding games, a shooting range for guns and crossbows, and targets for knife throwing. Everything our trainers needed to churn out perfect little killing machines.

  We stayed far away from the rear of the compound. Kismet parked in front of the farthest building from the entrance, a two-story job the size of half a football field—one of the only two buildings trainees were forbidden to enter. Its front doors had familiar keypad locks, bars on all windows that I could see, and it looked as quiet as a morgue. In fact, the entire compound was strangely silent.

  “Truman, come with me,” Kismet said, palming the keys. “The rest of you, hang out for a bit.”

  She didn’t have to ask me twice. Wyatt gave my knee a squeeze, then climbed out with Kismet. They disappeared inside, swallowed up by the building’s forbidding façade.

  David twisted around to face the rear. “Anyone else not really comfortable being here?” he asked.

  Milo and I raised our hands; I smiled at the comical display of solidarity.

  “The day I walked out that gate,” Milo said, “I swore I’d never come back. Then what happens? I get to help move the ugliest, creepiest critters I’ve ever seen out of a forest lab and into Research and Development.”

  I flinched at the sideways jab. “I never wanted to return, either. Guess I sort of kept that personal promise, since this isn’t the body I trained in.”

  “Suffered in,” David said. “They don’t tell you about the suffering when they pitch the idea of coming here.”

  “Most of us aren’t in a position to say no.”

  “On the bright side,” Milo said with false bravado, “we’re the ones who passed, so we’re the lucky ones, right?”

  Silence. I picked at a thread on the seam of my jeans, wishing for a swift return of our Handlers. Memory Lane was an uncomfortable place for me at the best of times, and given present company and location, this was definitely on the list of worst times.

  “Your other teammate,” David said to Milo, “he lost his hand last week. How’s he doing?”

  “Fast track to recovering,” Milo replied.

  “It’s not an easy thing, man.” He could have meant a lot of things—cutting off a friend’s hand to save his life, relearning how to live with one hand—but it didn’t matter. Milo didn’t ask for clarification, and the comment hung there for a while in the uneasy silence.

  Movement flickered in the corner of my eye. I turned toward the passenger side window. A line of six young folks, late teens at the oldest, were jogging near the edge of the tree line, led by an older man in blue sweats. Physical-conditioning time. At my peak, I’d been able to run a four-mile mountain trail in under twenty minutes. I doubted I could walk the same trail in two hours in this new body.

  It wasn’t that I’d inherited an out-of-shape body, just an out-of-practice one. I was curvy but trim. My muscles didn’t thrum with the same taut power I’d once possessed, or the flexibility I’d acquired over six months of hard training. I didn’t look forward to taking up that regime again—I kind of liked the softness of my body now. Rounder hips, fuller breasts, definitely more feminine. For the first time in my life, I felt like a woman.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Milo said.

  He was staring out his driver’s side window. I squinted out, curious. A dozen yards away, a man had exited the cafeteria. Dressed in familiar black slacks and a white, buttoned-up shirt that seemed to weep for its missing tie, he paused on the steps and consulted a leather binder.

  Light glinted off the white-blond hair of the silver-tongued recruiter who tracked down and brought trainees to Boot Camp. The man who had negotiated my release from prison with the promise of a more fulfilling life.

  Bastian.

  The fucker.

  Chapter Six

  Four and a Half Years Ago

  I can survive another twenty-eight days in Hell. After all, I’ve lived in it for seventeen years and eleven months. One more month is nothing, and then I’ll finally be free. Free of Juvie, free of adults who don’t understand me, free of rules and restrictions and walls. I can do anything.

  In twenty-eight days.

  As quietly as I can in my thin slippers, I pad down the chilly corridor, knowing full well I’m not supposed to be here. The plain globe lights are set to nighttime levels, giving the faded blue linoleum floor a sickly tint. Not my fault I drank too much juice at dinner and have to pee after lights-out. Okay, yes it is. Still, I’m not pissing in my bed. Haven’t done that since I was four.

  No one stirs in the rooms I pass. Soft snores and occasional whimpers drift out through the doorless frames. Took me a long time to get used to sleeping with an open door and lots of light, not to mention three other girls in the same room. Doesn’t bother me so much now, not after three-plus years here.

  The bathroom is at the far end of the corridor from my room, naturally, practically next to the watch room. Blinds are shut, though, so Joanie Willis, the overnight guard on weekdays, is either watching a movie she shouldn’t be or entertaining one of the night guards from the boys’ block. I don’t hear anything like heavy breathing or wailing as I slip past, so probably a movie.

  I’m careful about the door—it likes to squeal sometimes. I know the layout by heart, so I don’t bother with the lights. I just cross six steps straight ahead, then make a sharp right. My palm slaps a stall partition. I creep inside in the near-pitch, tug down my pajama bottoms, and do my business. Feels great. I’ve been holding that too damned long.

  I don’t flush. Someone will be pissed in the morning (no pun intended), but it makes too much noise. Can’t risk it when the battle’s half-won. I emerge from the stall at the same moment the door opens. My stomach knots. Fear roots my feet, even though common sense screams to hide. Several shadows move inward, and then a bright beam of light hits me in the eyes.

  I gasp and look away, spots of color dancing behind my eyelids. The door creaks shut. Slippered feet whisper across the floor, moving toward me. Panic hits like ice, chilling me inside and setting my hands shaking. I backpedal until my ass hits the cement wall. I’ve been in my share of fights, sure, but never in the dark.

  The light beam tilts toward my feet, and beyond it are four shapes. Girls from my hall, girls who hate me for one reason or another. The biggest girl, six inches and a good thirty pounds on me, is also the meanest. Her name is Lana. She picked a fight with me my first week here because I refused to kiss her shoes. Literally, kiss her fucking shoes. We tussled; I smashed her face into the wall and broke her nose. After that, mean or not, she liked to let her “girls”
pick on me.

  Those girls are with her now. Alicia hates me because I have straight blond hair, while hers is shit brown and frizzy. She cut a huge hank of my hair off once, so I put ice cubes in her bed half an hour before inspection, which got her tossed into the Thinking Room. Standing next to Alicia is Rowan—who likes to brag about the dogs she killed and skinned to get her here—and a bony corpse of a girl named Cathy. She hates me because her friends do, but we’ve not had it out personally. Yet.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here, Evil,” Lana says, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  I bristle. I hate the nickname. “Neither are you.”

  “Sure we are. We came to give you a good-bye present, since you’re leaving us soon.”

  Alicia skirts closer to me, getting within spitting distance. Something long and thin is in her hand. “Going to be eighteen soon,” she says. “Can’t have you leaving us without breaking you in first.”

  A tremor rips down my spine. “I’ve had enough fucking things broken since I got here,” I snarl, hands balling into fists at my sides.

  “We don’t mean bones.” Alicia brings that thing out from behind her back and into the beam of light. It takes me a minute to understand what it is—a plunger—and what exactly she means to do with it. Holy fuck!

  Irrationality strikes hard, and I bolt. Right at Cathy, who doesn’t expect me. I knock her sideways into Rowan, dart left, and get past them. I’m almost at the door when Lana slams into me sideways. I shriek as we tumble to the floor, kicking and scratching. I get a handful of her hair and pull hard. A lot of it breaks and she shouts.

  A foot kicks me in the head, and I see colorful lights. The flashlight beam is streaking all over the walls, making it hard to understand what’s happening. I punch out, scratch at flesh, fight back against the weight pressing down on me. Someone’s sitting on my chest, someone else tries to hold my legs still, but I’m kicking and flailing. I connect—I think it’s Rowan from the grunt—and her body falls away.

  No, no, fucking hell no! I’ve kept them away from me this long. I start to scream, hoping to lure in any guard close by—why the hell hasn’t anyone heard us by now?—but fabric is shoved into my mouth. Foul and scratchy, maybe a sock. Hands on my legs again.

  I go limp, which seems to surprise them. Then I shock the shit out of them by twisting my entire body, fast enough to dislodge Lana. I keep twisting and roll until I hit a wall. A hard cylinder is by my hand—the flashlight. Someone must have dropped it in the confusion. I grab it and swing at the nearest thing to me, which just happens to be Alicia’s head. She drops like a sack of stones, blood spurting from her mouth.

  “Bitch!” That’s Cathy, and she trips over Alicia in her haste to get to me. Falls hard and cracks her own damned head on the tile floor. Moron.

  The hard wood plunger pole smacks into my belly. Didn’t see that coming. I double over, gasping, tears stinging my eyes. Another blow across my spine sends me to my knees as fire blossoms in my lower back. A foot swings at my head; I react on sheer instinct. I grab the ankle and pull, tripping the owner into falling on her ample ass, then clamp my teeth down on her calf. Hard.

  Lana shrieks and kicks with her other foot. She connects with my shoulder, and I bite harder. Blood floods my mouth, thick and metallic. Her next kick combines with Alicia’s swing with the plunger, and I let go. Spit the blood at Alicia and somehow duck her next brutal blow, then use my entire body to bowl her over. Her shoulder strikes first with a solid crunch. The plunger skitters away.

  A boy from my first foster home once called me a scrappy fighter. I guess this is what he meant.

  Lana and I fling ourselves toward the plunger at the same time and nearly knock heads. We both grab for it, hissing and spitting at each other like cats. I do the only thing I can think of and slam my forehead against her nose. It hurts me like a fucking bitch, but it hurts Lana more. She scrambles away, holding her bleeding nose, crying.

  Plunger in hand, I pull up to my knees and bring the handle down across her head. That sends her into never-never land with her cronies. The room falls into silence, the flashlight beam aimed at the far wall, away from the carnage. My entire body begins to tremble. I stand on shaking legs, plunger still in one unsteady hand, dazed and unsure what to do.

  The decision is made for me. The door opens and lights are turned on, and I blink hard against the sudden glare. Three female guards storm the room, batons in hand. I don’t have time to drop the plunger before they’re on me. No time to explain as I curl into a ball, protecting myself as best I can. I’m the last person standing, and this is my punishment for winning.

  The Thinking Room has a unique odor I recognize before I can peel my eyes open. It smells of urine and shit and sweat. I’ve been here many times, in this center’s version of solitary confinement, and usually I deserve it. For starting fights, talking back to guards, generally being pissed off.

  This time it isn’t my fault.

  Cold seeps through my back from the floor. I open my eyes to a familiar plaster ceiling and single bare bulb. Let my head loll around, too sore and achy to bother sitting up yet. Same hard plastic chair, same wall-embedded toilet that flushes once a day like clockwork. Nothing else.

  I test my legs, and both move without trouble. Just lots of aches, probably lots of bruises, too. Back and stomach already hurt from the blows of the plunger, compounded times ten by additional baton hits. My ribs scream when I inhale too deeply, testing them. My left shoulder feels swollen; my left hand, too. And heavy. Maybe broken, maybe sprained. My right arm is fine, though.

  My face is puffy. I can tell just by moving my cheeks a little bit. At least one black eye, I bet. My lips are cut, flecked with dried blood. My forehead is sore, too. My head is throbbing, three sizes too big. I want to curl into a ball until the pain goes away, but the idea of moving horrifies me. No, better to lie here and suffer. And not cry.

  Just thinking about crying sparks tears. I bite my tongue to keep them at bay. I won’t cry—not when I’m so close to getting the fuck out of here.

  Time passes in never-ending pain. At some point my bowels release, and I just don’t have the strength to care. I drift in and out, and when I’m on the edge of real sleep, the door squeals open. I wince away from the light and chilly air that moves in. Wait for … whatever.

  The door closes again, and I’m glad. I don’t want to be bothered. Only I’m not alone. Leather soles patter across the floor toward me. Fabric rustles as someone squats down close by. I don’t look. Don’t want to be hit again. Then I smell it—spicy and inviting cologne.

  “Evangeline Stone?” The strange male voice is smooth as butter, lightly accented, and oddly warm. Curious.

  I grunt, eyes still shut.

  “I’ll see that they’re all fired for this.”

  That gets my attention. I angle my head toward him and open my eyes. The most handsome grown man I’ve ever seen is hovering above me. White-blond hair is cut short, the perfect accent to his dark blue eyes. High forehead, narrow nose, sharp jaw, and wide pink lips. Just … wow.

  “Who?” I croaked.

  “The guards who did this to you, of course.” His eyebrows arch at my confused frown. “Oh, I apologize. My name is Bastian.” He lets his navy gaze roam up and down my body, and if not for my injuries, I’d swear he was checking me out. It’s uncomfortable, but I have no strength to make him stop.

  “What do … you want?”

  “To help you,” he says, soothing.

  I’ve heard that one before, motherfucker. And I want to say it so badly. Only my throat is raw, too sore to force out such a mouthful. So I settle for glaring at him.

  “You’ve got something special in you, Evangeline. Something I could use.”

  My nostrils flare, and I force out, “Not gonna … blow you … fuckwad.”

  Slender eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “I’d never ask such a thing from you, and I hope you can learn to believe that. You find it difficult to trust people, I
understand. Do you always wish to reach for suspicion first?”

  What the hell is this guy’s deal? Strangely, I find myself shaking my head. Suspicion is all I know, and it’s my default reaction to new people. Hell, it’s often my default for old people, too. But something about this man makes me want to trust him, even if just for a few seconds. Since everything good in my life seems to last only minutes, I figure a few seconds is all I’ll manage.

  “What do you plan on doing with your life, Evangeline, when you’re free from this place?”

  I can think of a lot of things I want to do, including a few nasty ones to Terry McManus, the guy in charge of this place. Maybe a few of his favorite guards, too, like the ones Bastian seems keen on firing. Won’t tell Bastian that, though. “Run” is all I say.

  Something flickers across his face. Sadness maybe, or understanding. “What if I offered you an opportunity? A career that would give your life meaning, give you a goal, and put you among some of the most dedicated, loyal people you’ll ever meet in your life?” He is absolutely serious.

  “I’d say … you’re fucking nuts.”

  He smiles, those pink lips pulling back to expose perfect, pearly teeth. “I’ve heard worse. It isn’t an easy job, especially at first. You have to train hard for this, but in the end, you’ll be serving a higher purpose.”

  Now I know he’s insane. How did he even get in here?

  “Your release is in twenty-six days, and I promise you will live the rest of them in peace. Those girls and those guards will not bother you again, you have my word.”

  Uh-huh, yeah, and tomorrow I’ll fart rainbows. I only nod, ready for him to be gone.