Читать книгу Earthquake - Aprilynne Pike - Страница 7

I’m not sure how much time elapses before I haze into consciousness. My head aches and my throat is painfully dry as pinpricks of light worm through my lashes. I throw my arm over my face—my eyes are so sensitive; I must have been out for a while—and struggle to remember where I am.

And how I got here.

The explosion, Logan’s house, the bag over my head.

The stinging pain in my arm.

Drugs.

Logan! Where is he? My head whips around, making me dizzy even as I fight to focus. There’s something on the floor—a dark lump in the corner, and as soon as I realize what—who—it is I fling myself over to it, to him.

“Logan. Logan!” I roll him over, my head spinning, and he emits a low groan but doesn’t open his eyes. I curl my body protectively around him and throw my hands up to create something—anything—to protect us from whatever the Reduciata, or whoever, has in store. But a new bout of sharp pain thrusts through my arm, and again the world swirls in front of me.

I collapse onto the floor, and my cheek falls against chilly tile.

My eyelids close.

The next time I float back to reality I keep my eyes clamped shut and take a few minutes to think. I acted too quickly last time. That doesn’t help anyone. No sudden movements—that’s step one.

Slowly, I lift my eyelids just enough to peer through my lashes at my surroundings. I’m in a stark white room, and I can see a huge mirror on one side that throws my reflection back at me. A two-way mirror, no doubt.

I sniff and smell what I swear is fresh paint. Everything is so neat and new as to be almost sterile. The smooth white walls, squeaky-clean white tiled floor, even the grout between the tiles is scrubbed to a pristine cream color. Like they poured a huge bottle of bleach over this place before dumping us in here. I shudder, wondering just what they had to scrub away.

I’m lying on my side, curled against Logan, and the warmth from his body makes me feel a tiny bit better. Yes, we’re obviously in some kind of prison, I guess, but at least I’m not alone. He’s still unconscious. Last time I awoke I at least got him to groan, but now he doesn’t respond to my touch at all. I wonder if at the same time they injected me they also got him with … whatever was in the needle. I glance down at my arm, where I can see two red dots. They make me want to scream in anger, but I’ve got to keep my cool. I focus on Logan instead.

I pull his limp torso halfway upright across my lap and cradle his large frame against my chest. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want him to get too cold lying on the freezing tile floor, but the truth is, after three days of him not letting me get near, I just want to hold him. This is the first time I’ve really gotten a chance to look at him this close. His skin is so tan against the honey color of his hair. I run my fingers through the short strands, remembering when they were long. Remembering Rebecca remembering. I scrunch my eyebrows together at that. Close enough.

He has a smattering of freckles along his hairline and across his cheeks that didn’t used to be there. Probably from living in the desert. There’s dried blood from the cut over his eye. I prod it gingerly, but it doesn’t seem too deep. My arms tremble as I attempt to check him for further injuries. I’m not sure where we are or how much longer they’re going to let us live, but at least we’re together.

As long as we’re together, there’s hope. Logan is my hope.

An icy spike of fear makes its way through my intense relief, and I force myself to peer around with what I hope is a degree of subtlety. Not that there’s much to observe. The room is bare and small, and the only possible escape is beyond that mirror I can’t see through.

Glancing at my reflection, I curl my shoulders, trying to look both harmless, which isn’t too hard given my pathetic appearance—bad hair, bedbug welts, no makeup, a big red mark across my cheek—and ignorant. The latter is, of course, more challenging. What I want to do is scream and yell and demand they let us go, but I have a feeling I’ll have better luck if I try to act submissive. That tranquilizer is nasty stuff. And I have no intention of staying a prisoner for long. Not after everything I’ve done. We’ve done. I just need to bide my time for a little while. First things first, I have to get Logan awake. There is no way on earth I’m leaving him.

While I’m waiting for Logan to open his eyes, I feel out the situation. “Hello?” I call quietly. My throat is so parched that only a hiss of a whisper comes out.

A bottle of water appears on the floor in front of me. Appears. It doesn’t get pushed through a little door or anything. Just pops into existence. Now I know for sure that there are Earthbounds involved. But whether they’re Reduciata—as I suspect—Curatoria, or something else entirely, I can’t be sure.

I reach for the bottle tentatively and consider the risks. They’ll want me to talk—so this water probably isn’t poisoned.

Probably.

I could make my own, but it’ll only disappear a few minutes later; and besides, I have a feeling that would bring about unhappy consequences.

I unscrew the cap and intend to sip—hoping to maintain some semblance of decorum despite my desperate thirst—but as soon as the cold water touches my cotton-dry tongue I’m gulping, and in seconds the whole thing is gone. Trying to cover my embarrassment, I resume my hunched posture of submission and screw the lid back on with as much dignity as I can muster. Then I set the empty bottle in front of me.

It vanishes only to be replaced by a new one.

This time I manage to drink the first few sips more slowly, considering this a test to make sure that this water is safe to ingest. It’s too late for caution regarding the last one, but I’m not taking chances anymore. I begin counting to three hundred, deciding that if I make it through a full five minutes without croaking, then the water most likely hasn’t been tampered with.

By the time I reach the 290s, I’m satisfied that the water isn’t poisoned and start actively trying to rouse Logan. This bottle is for him.

“Logan?” I lift his eyelids, first one and then the other. I poke and pinch his arm, shake him back and forth, and pat his cheeks sharply, just shy of a slap. Finally he starts to groan again. I keep prodding, not willing to lose this progress. He rolls to the side and starts to raise himself up to a sitting position, his eyes eerily out of focus.

“Here,” I say, proffering the nearly full water bottle. Even in his fuzzy haze he takes it and gulps it down about as quickly as I did. He shakes his head and rubs at his face as I set the water bottle down. “More,” he murmurs, his lips chalky-white.

Looking up at what I still believe to be two-way glass, I echo Logan’s request with my eyes and am rewarded with a cold bottle a few seconds later. Now that we’re three bottles in, I hand the newest one directly over to Logan without testing it. I’m going to have to trust whoever is behind that mirror one more time. After all, if they wanted us dead they would have done it already. Right?

But I think of Logan’s house, and doubt curls in my stomach.

Maybe it is the Curatoria after all. Don’t the Reduciata just want to murder us? Sadly, the thought that we might be in the custody of the not-as-bad guys doesn’t make me feel much better.

Logan is halfway through his second water when his eyes gain focus and zero in on me. “You!” he exclaims. Liquid spews from his mouth as he tosses the bottle down and crab walks backward away from me. His arms crumple beneath him, but he keeps scooting until his back is up against the corner, as far from me as the suddenly claustrophobic room will allow. “You stay away from me!” he shouts.

“Logan, I—”

“You did this!” he yells. “You made—you made all of this happen. Stay the hell away from me!”

“I didn’t—”

“My house,” he’s almost talking to himself now, struggling to get to his feet. But his strength isn’t back yet, and he leans against the wall, staggering to the side when he attempts to stand. He covers his face with one hand and lets out an inhuman sound halfway between a bark and a sob. “My family.” He’s nearly hyperventilating, and one arm splays against the wall as though grounding himself against everything.

Against me.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” He sounds like a little boy. But all I can do is give him the honest answer I know in my gut is true. I nod.

His breath is labored, the sound filling my ears. “Oh no. I can’t—they didn’t … Did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything,” I blurt. “It’s not your fault.”

My voice finds its way through his devastation, and his eyes narrow. “You’re right,” his says, his lips curling into a terrible grimace. “It’s your fault. Why couldn’t you leave me alone!”

“I was trying to save you,” I reply, my voice barely more than a whisper as I wilt beneath his accusations. My heart bleeds at his revulsion.

“Save me? The only reason I’m here is because of you.” He limps but manages to get across the room to the mirror, having clearly also identified it as the place where our captors are hidden. He pounds on it with both fists so hard I’m sure it’s going to shatter beneath his rage. “Please, get me away from her!”

“Logan, stop!” I shout, tears running down my face. I couldn’t stop them if I wanted to.

He’s right. I brought attention to him and in so doing I got his family killed.

I would hate me too.

There’s nothing I can do but crouch there on the cold, tiled floor, the strength drained from my body. It’s been eight months since my parents died, but watching Logan pound on the mirror, my mind flies back to the moment I realized our plane was crashing. Tears stream down my face in a torrent that splashes on the tile and joins the puddle of water that still drips out of Logan’s discarded bottle. For an instant it almost seems like the entire pool could have been formed from my tears.

It feels like hours before Logan relents. Finally, he crumbles into a heap on the floor, his face pressed to his arms, his forehead dotted with sweat.

I can only imagine what the people watching us are thinking.

Are they amused? Satisfied? Is this what they wanted? To watch us be so helpless? So at each other’s throats?

We’ve got to be in the hands of the Reduciata. Surely the Curatoria wouldn’t kill Logan’s family.

Surely.

But I can’t muster up a great deal of confidence to back that up.

My head aches from crying, and my eyes feel like cotton balls. But none of that compares to how my heart feels. Broken, shattered. No, something else. Empty.

After a while I feel my eyelids droop, and I fall into an exhausted, desperate sleep. Logan must as well because when I open my eyes again he’s calm. He’s back in his corner, far away from me, but his eyes are dark and glittering when they meet mine. He’s been waiting for me to wake up.

“Who are you?” he asks, his voice a little hoarse. Whether from screaming or disuse after sleeping I’m not sure. “And don’t lie this time.”

“I never lied,” I say, massaging my aching leg and trying to clear my foggy head. “I’m Tavia, like I said.”

“The whole truth.”

I look him in the eyes. What can I say to make him trust me? “I’m your eternal lover. We’ve been together since the beginning of time—in every lifetime that we could find one another.”

He lets out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Right. I should have known better than to even ask.”

“Then you tell me why you feel like you know me,” I say, my voice low. I’ve decided to focus on Logan and Logan alone, not the fact that we’re trapped or that we’re probably being watched by creeps who get their jollies from making us suffer; just Logan and getting through this conversation with him.

“Some people just seem familiar,” he says, brushing off my words. But I can tell, from the tiny creases between his eyebrows, that it bothers him. He doesn’t want to believe. He’s desperate not to believe.

“You saw me make that furniture,” I say, even as I wonder why I thought to make something so trivial.

He shakes his head. “A trick. Something to distract me while people were blowing up my house,” he says, the words a savage growl.

Okay, he’s right, that coincidence is not a happy one.

“Where did the water go?” I ask, and though a slight shake in my voice betrays me, I’m fighting not to let him know how much his mistrust is affecting me.

“What water?”

“The water bottle that spilled on the floor.”

He looks away. “They came and cleaned it up while we were asleep,” he says with total dismissal.

“Are you thirsty now?”

His eyes only dart toward me for a moment, but I can tell the answer is yes. I’m parched myself. And hungry. And I have to pee. But that’ll have to wait.

I take a chance and look directly at the glass, then hold up two fingers like I might to order coffee at a diner. If I have to depend upon my kidnappers, at least I can be sarcastic about it.

Within seconds two water bottles pop into existence on the floor. One within my reach and one within his. His jaw is shaking, and I wonder if I’ve just shoved him over that delicate precipice into insanity.

“I can’t … I can’t. No.” He turns away from the water and curls his face against his knees, his whole body shuddering. I don’t know if he’s crying or trying to keep his mind from cracking.

But clearly I’m not going to get any help from him until he figures out who he is. And that likely won’t happen unless I can get him out of here. Not that I don’t empathize. I was pretty much a wreck when all this stuff started happening to me too.

But the timing is … less than ideal.

I stand and walk the perimeter of the room, giving Logan as wide a berth as I can. My fingers stray up to Rebecca’s necklace and I fiddle with it as I consider the situation. I think about what happened when Logan pounded on the glass—how the surface rang with vibrations but never cracked. The material must be something stronger than glass. What can I create that could break it? And how could I do so without anyone noticing?

I take deep breaths, trying to keep my thoughts hidden. My shoulders slump as though in defeat but in my mind I see a heavy sledge hammer. In an instant my knuckles are white on a splintery wooden handle, and with a loud grunt I swing the newly formed hammer at the mirror. Shards of glass rain down like snow and my heart races for three beats, four, enjoying the sensation of success.

It doesn’t last. A burning that feels like knives assaults my arm.

I can’t move.

Every muscle in my body rebels and clenches tight, My tendons ache and twitch, and it’s only when the sensation releases me that I look down at my arm and realize that I’ve been tased.

Shit.

I fight for consciousness, my body already overwhelmed from whatever tranquilizer they gave me earlier and today’s lack of food.

Or has it been two days without food? I don’t even know.

My knees give out, and I sprawl to the floor. My fuzzy brain grasps for daylight, and I manage to push back the darkness gathering at the edges of my vision. I will not succumb again. I suck in air, focusing on my breath until I’m certain I’m not going to lose it.

I glance about me.

It’s as if my entire attempt never happened. The mirror is as it had been—whole and unbroken—the shards of glass I distinctly remember peppering my skin are gone. Even my bottle of water is sitting full and upright, just how it was when it first appeared.

“I suggest you don’t try that again.” A bored voice booms in from an unseen speaker, frightening me as much as anything. I know that voice. I just can’t put my finger on it. “As you can see, you can be instantaneously subdued if you try anything.”

I nod shortly—since it’s clear they can see me—anger trickling through my body as a weary absence of energy replaces the fierce tension of the electricity from the Taser. No using my powers. In any way, shape, or form. Got it.

I glare at the mirror, knowing that even though all I can see is my own scowling face—a red mark across my cheek—there must be people on the other side watching me. The familiar voice, for one. I stare at the mirror, willing my expression to travel through the thick glass the way my vision can’t, and all of a sudden the surface almost seems to turn transparent. At first I think it’s my imagination, but then something clicks and the lights on our side dim, and I know it’s not my tired body playing tricks on me; I can actually see through.

A man in a dark suit is standing at what appears to be a long counter. His hands are planted on the surface, and he’s leaning forward in a manner so menacing it can’t possibly be accidental.

I would have recognized him in an instant, even without his signature shades.

Sunglasses Guy. The guy who followed me for two weeks in Portsmouth. Who shot at me, and terrified me, and dragged Benson away on that terrible night.

And just over his shoulders, painted on a gray wall so obvious I can’t miss it, is a black symbol, at least four feet high. An ankh, with one side of the loop curled up like a shepherd’s crook.

The symbol of the Reduciata.