Resistance (The Institute Series Book 2) (20 page)

“I know,” he says gently squeezing my leg before putting his hand back on the steering wheel.

We begin to drive through the outer rural suburbs; the first signs of civilisation appearing in the form of run down farm houses, abandoned store fronts, and neglected streets.

Paxton pulls over to the side of the road, just off the shoulder. He kills the engine and turns to look at me. Drew and Licia open their doors and get out. I tell myself to move but my body doesn’t cooperate.

“You can do this,” Paxton reassures me. I nod as a tear rolls down my cheek. I don’t know why I’m crying though. I will myself to stop but fail. I look at Paxton and see the concern in his eyes.

“I’ll be fine once I’m out there.” I smile. “I faked my way through three months of being an agent, right?”

He reaches over and wipes my tear away with his thumb. “You’ll be great,” he says. He reaches behind his seat, pulling out the box that contains the tracking bracelets. He pulls two of them out and hands them to me. “Take the metal off at sunrise. It won’t take long for them to come.” I pocket the trackers and open the car door. “I’ll see you in a few hours,” Paxton says with a smile.

I nod and force myself out of the car. Drew, Licia, and I start walking as Paxton speeds off in the direction of the Institute. We walk a few kilometres in complete darkness before anyone says anything.

“So how far do we have to walk?” Licia asks.

“The farther we get the better. We need to be as far away from the compound as possible.”

“What’s the time?” she asks.

“The car clock said 3:04am when we got out,” I say.

“So we have about two and a half to three hours until sunrise,” Drew says. “Maybe we should pick up the pace.” He sounds way too excited and way too optimistic for three o’clock in the morning.

“We should have slept before we left,” I complain.

“Come on, the run will do you good,” he replies. Even though it’s pitch black out here, I can feel his smile mocking me.

“It’s like I’m back already,” I say, starting a light jog. It feels exactly how it was a few weeks ago. Drew and I going for a run before our daily tasks as Institute agents, watching Licia and every move she made. In this moment, it’s hard to believe we even left at all. It gives me hope that Brookfield and the others at the Institute might feel the same. I start to falter after a while when I can no longer contain the thoughts running through my head, slowing down, trying to catch my breath.

“You okay?” Drew asks.

“I’ve just been thinking,” I say. “How do you know Brookfield won’t just kill everyone instead of arresting them?” Fear shoots through me at a level I didn’t even know existed.

“We’ll make sure he won’t,” Drew replies, like that’s meant to make me feel better.

“How?”

“A proud man like Brookfield won’t let this arrest go down like some sort of genocide. Imagine the political advantage he will gain from an arrest this big.”

“He will want to be seen as a hero, not a dictator,” Licia adds.

They’re right. It’s too big of an opportunity for Brookfield to turn down.

I nod to Drew, “Ready to jog again?”

***

“So are we ready to do this?” I ask as I notice the sky begin to turn a shade lighter. “I doubt they have someone watching us right now, just waiting for our trackers to start flashing, or beeping, or whatever they do. It might be a while before they notice, right?”

“I guess here is as good as any,” Drew says. “We can keep walking until they come, just to keep getting that little bit further away from the compound.”

“I don’t understand why Paxton couldn’t have just dropped us off closer,” Licia complains.

“Because this way, they can blame our location and the faulty trackers for our disappearance,” I explain, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the two bracelets.  Drew takes the thinner, more feminine one and removes the metal. The clasp falls open and he wraps the bracelet around my wrist, fastening it to my skin. I do the same to him with his.

“Ready?” he asks.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say.

“Sorry about this, Licia,” Drew says, taking zip ties out of his pockets and tying her hands behind her back. “We need to make it look real.” She nods in reply. “One last thing,” Drew says, digging into his pocket again and pulling out six pills. “As soon as we see them, we need to take these.” He hands me two and goes to hand two to Licia before realising he had just cuffed her. “I’ll give you yours when the time comes.”

“What do they do?” I ask.

“One of them is pure caffeine, the other is a drug they used to prescribe to hyperactive kids to calm them down. Apparently it works in reverse if you don’t have a hyperactive disorder,” he says. “They’ll make you unreadable to a lie detector. They’ll no doubt question us for a few hours, so we need to take them as late as possible.”

“Lie detector? Why was I never given a test when I was arrested months ago?” I ask. It would have saved a lot of trauma.

“You did,” Drew says. “Zac is the lie detector. He can analyse your respiration, pulse, and blood pressure just by looking at you. Any slight variance in your stats indicates you’re lying. That’s why you confused us so much. We were so sure you were Defective, we didn’t understand how you couldn’t have known. You were covering for your brother at the time, so I assume that’s why your stats showed you were lying. It’s not an exact science, but he’s pretty accurate. Hence the pills.”

“So if our stats are erratic—”

“He won’t be able to get a definitive read on us,” Drew interrupts me.

“Where did you get these?” I ask, referring to the pills. I’m beginning to wonder just how much Drew has left out in this plan of his.

“From that poor excuse of a clinic the Resistance has. Ebb thought they would come in handy when I told her about the plan.”

“So Ebb knows about the plan, too?”

“Yeah. She left to alert your mum of the new plan so Paxton and I could continue to iron out the smaller details.”

This information doesn’t sit well with me. I thought they had already told Mum and Shilah before I agreed to this. If this plan fails, we are putting everyone at risk.

We continue to walk, sudden silence filling the air. The sun starts rising behind us and light starts hitting the dry desolate land ahead of us. We pop the pills when we see the two four-wheel drives speeding towards us.

Chapter Sixteen

We stand with Licia in the middle of us, Drew and me on either side of her holding on to the spot just above her elbows.

“Here we go,” Licia says, smiling.

“Yes, but for this to be believable, you may want to stop grinning like you just won the lottery,” I say. “We’re meant to be being mean to you after all.”

She nods and tries to look serious but a strong case of the giggles begins to come out of her. I think she’s really nervous.

Drew shrugs, “Maybe we can just tell them she’s insane.” He tries to hold back a smile but he too can’t help it.

Both four-wheel drives are getting closer with every breath, and Licia still doesn’t have herself under control. I kick her hard behind the knee making her stance falter, throwing her off guard.

“Ah, shit!” she mutters. “Well that worked,” she says regaining her footing, her laugh gone from her voice.

“Sorry. Had to,” I say.

The monstrous cars come to a screeching halt about thirty metres shy of us. Four agents file out and aim guns at us.
Yeah, great plan.

“Finally! Where the hell have you guys been?” Drew yells, taking a few cautious steps towards them.

“Don’t move!” One of them – who I can see now, is Lynch – yells. “Put your hands up and get on your knees.”

“Is this really necessary?” Drew asks, abiding to her demands. He looks over to me, encouraging me to do the same.

“You, in the middle, get your hands up,” Lynch demands.

“Uh. I can’t,” Licia says, turning slowly to show them she’s cuffed.

“Get down on the ground,” Lynch yells back.

They approach us in a swift manner, the front two making sure they focus their weapons on us, the other two flanking them on either side. As Lynch approaches, she lowers her gun.

“What the hell, Jacobs?” she asks Drew. “Where have you been?”

“Where have
we
been?!” Drew exclaims. “We’ve been doing our job! What have you guys been doing?”

“We’ve been looking for you!” she replies angrily.

“We’ve been waiting to be picked up. We’ve had our target in custody for days now without a way of getting back. We thought if we just stayed in the one spot you’d track us.”

Lynch looks confused. “But your trackers have been inactive for weeks now,” she says.

“What!” Drew exclaims again. It’s scary how well he lies. Even I believe him right now. “How could that even happen?”

“We don’t know. We thought you worked out a way to do a runner,” she says.

A throat clears behind Lynch. It belongs to Costello, the driver of the van on the day of Licia’s unsuccessful arrest. “We better save the questions for Zac,” he says to Lynch.

“You’re right,” Lynch nods. “Okay, get up you two,” she says to Drew and me. “You two go with Costello and Bek. Eugene and I can take the target.”

“No, I need to go with her,” I say. I need to stay close to Licia.

“We’re not going to give her to you and have you take credit for her arrest.” Drew remarks hastily.

“Look, I was woken up in the middle of the night to come get you two. Just cooperate okay?” Lynch says rolling her eyes. “You’ll get your recognition. Relax, we’ll be right behind you.”

Drew and I reluctantly climb into the back of one of the cars while Licia is assisted into the other.

“Welcome back,” Bek says.

“Funny. We didn’t even realise we had left,” I say.

“So where did you find her?” she asks.

“I think we should wait until we get back to the Institute before giving any answers,” Drew says. “No doubt there will be an investigation. I can’t believe our trackers weren’t working. We’re lucky she didn’t kill us. You never would’ve found us. I thought these were meant to be for our protection!” he says gesturing to his wrist. I try to suppress a smile, he’s laying the act on pretty thick.

The closer we get to the Institute, the more I start to freak out. I start running over details in my head of what we have to do once we’re inside. If I feel prepared, I won’t freak out as much. That’s the theory anyway. I should be worried about finding Tate, but right now he’s a few priorities down the list. My first priority is convincing them we’ve been working this whole time.

When we eventually arrive at the Institute, my stomach is in knots and the nerves have taken over. My heart is pounding through my chest, but I’m not sure if it’s from the nerves or the pills Drew gave me. The place itself looks the same. Tall mid-rise building, no windows apart from the atrium at the front of the building and the first few levels where Brookfield’s and the administration offices are. It all screams evil. I’m on edge and just the sound of Drew opening the car door makes me jump. I tell myself to calm down or I will never pass this questioning.

I hope that Licia doesn’t have to endure what I did when I was first arrested. Just thinking about it is making me flashback. I can almost feel the swell of my cheek, the ache of my muscles, the ringing in my ears.
Please Licia, just co-operate with them.

We’re greeted at the car by guards. Lynch lied, they aren’t right behind us. I don’t know if that car has already arrived or if they’re still on their way in. We’re escorted to agent headquarters, taken to the locker rooms, and are told to get dressed into our old uniforms. This is probably a good thing – we still have our four stripe ranking on our clothes, which means they believe us so far, at least.

When we come back out, we’re escorted over the walkway to the main building and to where the interrogation rooms are. My jaw tightens. I don’t want to be back here.

Drew and I are led into a small room, a light flicks on and I can see through a window into the next room. Licia sits at a table, hands still bound behind her back. Six months ago, I was on that side of the two-way mirror. Drew and I are left alone in the little viewing booth. Carefully sneaking over to the door behind us that leads to the hallway, I open it a crack and double check there’s definitely no one out there.

“What do you think they’ll do to her?” I ask as I make my way back over to Drew.

“Do you really need to ask that question?” he responds, not making eye contact.

“What do you think they’ll do to us?”

Drew sighs. “Right now, I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to tell them together, or separate? About… you know where.”

The door swings open, interrupting us. My interrogator – the one who was there for all of my torturing – struts in. His monobrow is still as impressive as the last time we came face-to-face.

“Agent Jacobs,” Monobrow nods. “Miss Daniels. Oh … I guess it’s
Agent
Daniels now, right?”

“You remember Zac, Allira?” Drew asks.

“Yeah, I do,” I reply through gritted teeth.

“Well I’ll get started then, shall I?” Zac says, entering the interrogation room. “Hello, Miss Henry,” he starts as the door clicks closed behind him, leaving us to observe through the two-way mirror. He puts a file down in front of him, sits down and leans back in his chair confidently.

“My name is Licia,” she says casually. If she’s scared at all, I can’t tell. She’s hiding it well.

“Alright. So, Licia, are you aware of why you have been arrested?”

“Yeah, it probably has something to do with the fact I’m Defective.”
Good girl.

“If you knew you were Defective, why didn’t you turn yourself in? Why send our agents on a wild goose chase?” he asks.

“I wanted to be free,” she says and I feel myself wince.

“So you think it’s okay for you to be free but not other Defective people?”

“I think they should be free too,” she replies. I facepalm.

“Maybe we should’ve spent more time on prepping her answers,” I mutter to Drew.

He smiles. “She’s doing fine. She has to show a little reluctance or it won’t be believable.”

The door behind Drew and me clicks open and Lynch steps through the threshold. “How’s she going?” she asks. “Did I miss much?”

“Nothing important,” Drew says. “I don’t think she’ll be any trouble for us. She’s already admitted she’s Defective. If only all interrogations were this easy,” he says, sweeping his hand in my direction.

“To be fair, I seriously had no idea I was Defective,” I argue.

“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Lynch says. “Only in your case, it did seem to be true.”

We all watch Zac continue his interrogation. “Okay, so can you tell me where you have been for the last two weeks?”

Licia looks into the mirror, as if she knows we are behind it.

“I … Well, my parents, they heard of this place out west. Not like here out west, more north and more west than here. It was beyond the radiation perimeter. We were looking for it.”

“That’s probably why your trackers lost their signal,” Lynch tells us. “Basically nothing works if you’re that far inland.”
Yeah, that’s why.

“What place?” Zac asks Licia.

“A refuge.”
Here we go.

Zac shakes his head like he thinks Licia is crazy. “Where are your parents now?” he asks.

“They left me a few days ago. They said they could no longer live on the run and that I was on my own. They said they wouldn’t turn me in but encouraged me to do so.”

“And why didn’t you?” Zac asks.

“I still had hope of finding them,” she says.

“Finding who?” he asks.

“The refuge, the people who live out there,” Licia says.

“I can assure you, no one lives out there,” Zac says. Licia doesn’t respond. “Are you able to tell me about the nature of your defect?” he asks, taking a different angle.

“I thought your agents would’ve told you?” she responds.

“They did, but we want to hear it from you.”

“I can project,” she says simply.

Zac just stares at her for a moment. By the looks of things he doesn’t really know where to go from here. “Just sit tight, I’ll be right back,” he says, getting up from his chair. He walks into the room, looks at Drew, and then me. “She’s lying through her teeth,” he says accusingly.

“About what?” I ask cautiously.

“I don’t know yet. Her stats are all over the place.” Oh good, the pills Drew gave us are working. “She seems pretty adamant that there’s something out there though – people. Did you two ever see anything that would indicate that?” he asks. This is it. It’s time to come clean.

“About that …” Drew stammers, his voice unusually shaky. “Uh, yeah … we’re going to need a meeting with Brookfield.”

***

We’re escorted by guards who come to collect us from the interrogation rooms, Zac trailing us. As we near Brookfield’s office, I start trembling. I look at Drew and for once I’m actually happy he’s with me. I reach out my hand for his, taking it and intertwining his fingers with mine. Drew tenses with surprise but then relaxes into it. I just really need to not feel alone right now. I need a symbol of solidarity.

We’re escorted into Brookfield’s office. We stand at the doorway, waiting for Brookfield to notice us. He’s behind his desk with his head in some paperwork. He looks up, but remains seated, not bothering to come and greet us.

“Allira,” he says looking at me before glancing at Drew, “Andrew. We’re so glad to have you back.”

I look at Drew with a raised eyebrow.
Andrew?
He shakes his head and mouths, ‘Just Drew.’ He nods in the direction of Brookfield. ‘Dickhead,’ he mouths again, rolling his eyes. I try to contain my giggle. He gives me a half smile before looking down at our hands. His face goes sombre before he lets go of my hand and enters farther into the office. I follow him in, confused by the look he just gave me.

“So,” Brookfield says as we take our seats in front of his desk. Zac walks over and stands next to a still seated Brookfield, his arms folded in a defensive stance. “Are you ready to fill us in on what
really
happened out there?”

I don’t even know where we should start. I can still feel the presence of the two guards behind us. Brookfield sits forward, leaning his elbows on his desk, waiting for us to begin.

I look over at Drew. “Well,” I say, turning back to Brookfield. “A lot happened out there.” I’m trying to be elusive and Brookfield knows it.

“This group of people. Who are they?” Brookfield asks.

“We don’t know,” I answer.

“She knows about them,” Drew says. “Her mother is one of them.”

Arsehole, bastard, god damn sonofabitch.
What is he doing? Before I have a chance to say anything, I feel the guards take a step closer. I pick my jaw up off the floor, take a deep breath and prepare myself for what’s going to happen now. They won’t believe me if I dispute Drew. It would be his word against mine and he has a lot more influence here than I do.

“My mother is one of them,” I admit.

“And her Dad, and her brother,” Drew adds.