Authors: Michele Tallarita
Michael Thorne limps out of the cockpit, his shoes clunking against the metallic floor. He does not even glance at me as he walks by, but moves right to Sammie. Bile rises in my throat as I watch him put his fingers to her wrist to check her pulse, then wrap a piece of black elastic around her arm to take her blood pressure. It’s the way he moves that gets me: the confidence in each of his actions, the lack of hesitation to poke and prod her. I can’t help but think of that day in my kitchen, when Sammie laid her hand on my heart and talked about people not caring about ruining other people’s lives.
“She’s not yours, you know,” I say loudly.
Thorne ignores me, continuing to fiddle with the blood-pressure instrument. I peer around him to get a look at Sammie’s face. She remains asleep, though her brow is clenched, as if even unconscious she knows we are in trouble. She is far more restrained than me: two straps make an X across her chest, and both her arms and legs are fastened down. I can only imagine what happened on the previous jet, to make Thorne take such precautions. I shudder as I remember what Sammie said about the pilot. Could Thorne be right about her? Is loyalty, in fact, the reason behind her actions?
Sammie’s eyes blink open. For several seconds, she looks dazed. Then her eyes bulge. “What time is it?”
Thorne rips the black strap off her arm and pulls a syringe from his pocket, examining its contents carefully. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
She breathes heavily, as her eyes dart around the plane. They land on me, and I see her exhale. Then she looks at Thorne. “You have to let me go.”
Thorne chuckles. “That is highly unlikely.”
“What time is it?” she says again.
“Sammie?” I say, confused. Why is she asking about the time?
Her eyes flick to me, then back to Thorne. “You’re wrong about my father. You think I’d be loyal to him? He’s just like you.”
Thorne lets out a thunderous laugh.
“It’s true,” Sammie says. “You may not be a criminal, technically, but that’s not what I mean. You only care about making things better for yourself, no matter what you do to other people.”
“And?” he says.
“And I could never be loyal to someone like that. Someone who can ruin another person’s life and not even care.”
Thorne crouches beside Sammie and examines the veins in the crook of her arm, wielding the syringe above them. His face is blank with disinterest. “It’s a nice sentiment, my dear, but I have to accuse you of being a little hypocritical. What about him?” He jerks his head in my direction. “The fact that he’s here:
your
fault.”
Sammie looks stricken. Her lips barely move as she says, “I know.”
“So much for not ruining other people’s lives then, huh?” Thorne says. “You’ve sure done a job on his. He had a pretty nice future ahead of him. Now he’s here, with you.”
Sammie lifts her eyes to me, and her forehead crumbles. My instinct is to comfort her, and my body lifts from the seat, but I’m jerked back by the restraints on my arms. Thorne pulls back the syringe, preparing to jab it into Sammie’s arm.
“Don’t!” I say.
Thorne stops, then swings toward me, annoyed. “
What?
”
“Don’t,” I say again. A tension in my stomach, something large and cold and tight, screams that if Thorne injects Sammie with that needle, she will not awaken. I’m not sure what this feeling is, but I’m certain it is correct. “She’ll die.”
Thorne stares at me for a long moment, then curses and stands up straight. “What are you talking about?”
I inhale sharply, unable to explain my own statement. “I’m not sure.”
Thorne storms toward me, his limp making his gait wild, and whips me across the face with the back of his hand. “Explain what you mean.”
“Stop it!” Sammie shouts.
Thorne shoves his face close to mine, so that I can see the tiny cracks around his gray eyes. “What do you
mean?
”
“Stop!” Sammie says again. Then, after a pause, “He’s right!”
Thorne pulls away from me and turns to her.
“You think the reason I go back to the Tower is loyalty?” she says. “You’re smoking something. The boss doesn’t command loyalty in anyone. He commands
fear.
You know what happens to me if I’m not back at the Tower when I’m supposed to be?” She gives Thorne a long, cold look. “I
die.
”
Thorne’s gaze narrows on her. “I don’t believe you.”
“Take a look at the back of my neck.”
Thorne remains still for another moment, then walks heavily over to Sammie. He thrusts her head forward roughly and yanks her hair out of the way. I watch his expression turn from angry to confused.
“What is this?” he says.
Her head cast down, Sammie speaks in a low voice. “The boss is like you, Thorne. He doesn’t really believe in building relationships. That’s why when he hires somebody, he equips them with a little something to make sure they always come back.”
Thorne purses his lips and touches the back of Sammie’s neck gingerly, looking half fascinated. “What does it do?”
Sammie thrusts her face up. “Kaboom.”
Thorne tilts his head.
“Sammie?” I say, unnerved by her word choice.
“Here’s an interesting riddle for you,” Sammie says, her tone acidic. “Let’s say a guy is the boss of a bunch of criminals. He doesn’t trust them. He knows that if someone offered to pay them more money, or if they got caught and interrogated, they would sell him out. How does he ensure that they always come back, and that if they were held against their will, they wouldn’t give away information about him? Can you figure it out?” She holds his gaze. “The thing
explodes
. If you’re not back within two hours of your appointed time, you
blow up.
How’s that for loyalty?”
Thorne stares at her, his face frozen in something like a shocked smile. I pull against the restraints on my arms, my breath quickening. A mix of emotions swirls inside me: relief that Sammie would never be loyal to criminals, horror at her boss and father, and extreme anxiety about the ticking time bomb attached to the person I love.
“Sammie,” I say, my voice oddly high-pitched. “Exactly how long until
—
”
“If someone would
tell
me the time
—
”
“It’s 12:30,” Thorne says quickly.
Sammie takes a deep breath and blows it out. “I’m supposed to be back at three. Which means I have until five. I suggest you don’t inject me with anything that makes me sleep for a week. Better yet, I suggest you let us go. Both of us.”
Thorne watches her for a long moment. His gray hair, slick against his head, bounces off sunlight as he turns his head back and forth.
“No,” he says.
One of the men in the black suits, all of whom have been seated impassively until now, rises to his feet. “Sir, if the girl is going to die
—
”
“I’m
not
letting them go!” Thorne says.
He stomps across the jet, his jaw clenched, looking like he could punch a hole in the wall. He swings back around and screams at no one in particular, “Three years of searching, just to open the door and say goodbye? I think not!” He looks at the ground and paces. “We’ll think of something else. We’re not letting them go.”
My heartbeat races. If he doesn’t let Sammie go, she’s going to die. I clench my fingers over the armrests. There has to be something I can do.
“Keep me,” I say.
Thorne looks up.
“She’ll come back if you have me,” I say.
Sammie scowls. “Damien, no
—
”
“Damien, yes
,
” Thorne says, his grin spreading over his face once again. “You
are
smart. Free the girl.”
Two of the men leap from their chairs and begin to unbuckle Sammie’s restraints. Thorne rubs his hands together. The men lift Sammie by the arms and shove her forward. She stumbles a few steps and then glares at me.
“I’m not leaving you,” she says.
“You have to,” I hiss. “I’m deeply in favor of you not blowing up.”
Thorne grasps her arm and drags her toward the door of the jet. There’s a roar of sound as two of the men pry it open, revealing a patch of blue sky.
“I assume your employers told you where to find us,” Thorne screams over the rushing air.
Sammie glowers at him, her hair whipping around her face. “If you lay one finger on him.”
“I won’t,” Thorne says, “as long as you’re back within 24 hours. After that, I’m not making any promises.”
Sammie turns to me, her expression rigid with determination. “I’m coming back for you
—
”
Thorne shoves her in the back, and she tumbles out of the jet.
Sammie
It’s really something to be shoved out of a jet, let me tell you. I roll through the air for a good ten seconds before I manage to get sky-side-up, and even then, I feel like I could wretch.
Could be related to other things.
I can’t describe how bad I’ve screwed up today. I’ve been exposed, captured, and, worst of all, forced to leave Damien in the claws of the mad scientists. If they don’t kill him, I may strangle him myself for volunteering to be held hostage. Doesn’t he see that I’m doing my best (and failing) to preserve
anything
of a life for him? That every time I plunge him into one of my problems, it’s like a stab to the chest?
Thorne is right: I’ve broken my own rule; I’ve let my own selfish desires ruin the life of another person. And not just any person: a person I love (as if there are a lot of them). I deserve whatever I get when I go back to the Tower, which I imagine will be seriously painful. But I almost crave it, at this point. I want to suffer for what I’ve done to Damien.
If there was just some way to take it back.
I push my face into the wind and inhale deeply. Below, flat fields of corn unfold for as far as I can see, and a mountain range forms round green humps in the distance. I’m not entirely sure where I am. The jet took off from Reading about an hour ago, and I suppose it was headed for...the white place. A chill shoots up my spine. The boss clued me in on the fact that it’s nestled in some mountains in Upstate New York. He ordered me never to go anywhere near there. I spin myself in the opposite direction of the mountains and head south, judging by the sun.
Thorne wasn’t lying: the boss
is
my father. Of course, he never actually told me this himself. Jiminy did. He said I had a right to know, though I’d be wise not to bring it up. I guess it made sense: how else would the boss have even known I existed, a flying girl hidden away in a secret laboratory? At first I was heartbroken: my father, someone I’d imagined my whole life, was a terrible man who forced me to steal and fight? Then I got angry. How could he do this to me, his own kid? If he had the power to rescue me from the scientists, why didn’t he use it to give me a normal life? His actions were unthinkable, atrocious. I raged at the thought of being related to him in any way. Later, I just got numb. I didn’t think of him as my father anymore. I just thought of him as
the boss
. I also resolved that I would never, ever be like him.