Resistance (The Institute Series Book 2) (21 page)

If looks could kill, he would be dead right now. I sigh through gritted teeth and feel my leg start to bounce uncontrollably. What is he doing? I should’ve known better than to trust him. He’s throwing me under the bus. Well to be literal, he may as well be throwing me into my old cell down stairs and throwing away the key. Brookfield is looking at me. I need to say something.

“It’s true,” I say quietly.

“Why did you come back?” Brookfield asks me.

Drew is the one to answer. “It’s like some weird commune out there. Sharing everything, even women,” he says gesturing in my direction.

“Apparently I caught the eye of one of the men there,” I say. Is this where Drew is wanting me to take this?

“Ah. So everything isn’t so rosy on the outside then?” Brookfield says. He has a small smile upon his lips but it fades quickly. “How many?” he asks.

“How many?” I repeat his question.

“How many people are out there?”

We don’t know how to answer this question because we don’t know how many have agreed to fight with us. I try to count how many people I know would help but lose track easily with Brookfield staring at me, his eyes almost trying to pierce my skin.

“I don’t know for sure,” I stall.

“I think I met about thirty to forty,” Drew says. “I can’t give a definitive number. There may have been more that I didn’t meet.”

Brookfield’s eyes light up. “Thirty to forty people? All Defective?”

“A few of them aren’t. My dad for instance,” I say.

Brookfield looks at Zac with raised eyebrows.

“Are you feeling okay, Agent Jacobs?” Zac asks.

“Actually, I’m pretty exhausted. We’ve been walking for days, trying to get back here. I haven’t had much sleep,” he replies. The pills must still be working.

Zac looks back at Brookfield and shakes his head, like he can’t get a definitive read on Drew.

“So what are you proposing we do about this, Agent Jacobs?” Brookfield asks.

“Mass arrest,” Drew says confidently.

Brookfield scoffs, “And walk my people into an ambush? Not going to happen.”

“From what I can tell, they aren’t well armed out there. All they want is to live on the outside, but deep down they know they could be brought in any minute. They’re prepared for that to happen. I think they know it’s inevitable. And now that the three of us have escaped them, they’ll know you’re coming.”

Brookfield rubs his hand over his head in thought. The manoeuvre reminds me of Chad and it makes my heart sting a little.

“Exactly, they’ll know we’re coming,” Brookfield says. “They’ll have time to prepare an attack.”

“Not if we move on this as soon as possible. We only left last night and no one knows we’re missing. They shouldn’t know until later today. They may have time to assemble in their safe house, but they won’t have time to formulate a plan. But we need to move on this, now,” Drew says.

Brookfield takes a moment to think it over. I’m really hoping they don’t pull Drew up on his lies. A minute ago he said we’ve been walking for days, now he’s admitting to only leaving last night. Maybe it’s my training kicking in or maybe it’s just that I know he’s lying. Either way, Brookfield and Zac don’t seem to notice and I let out a silent sigh of relief.

“Imagine the publicity you’ll get on this,” Drew entices him. It’s all the words he needs.

“We’ll need everyone on this,” Brookfield says. “Including you two. And to make sure this isn’t a trap, you two will lead the arrest. Be the first in line.”

“Me?” I ask. I haven’t even had a single arrest under my belt, let alone a mass one – apart from Licia’s which was faked.

“I don’t think bringing her is such a good idea,” Drew says. “She’s too close to the targets. Some of them are her family.”

“She defied them by coming here, didn’t she?” Brookfield asks.

“Because she wanted to get away from unwanted advances from old guys. Like thirty-year-old guys.” Brookfield almost flinches. If thirty is old, then Brookfield is ancient. “She didn’t come because she missed this place – no one would do that,” Drew says and I try not to laugh at Brookfield’s insulted face.

“She still goes. She’s obviously here for a reason and I know if she wants to keep her family safe, she’ll want to bring them in herself,” Brookfield says.

“Trust me, you don’t want to send her,” Drew says.

“Why not?” Brookfield asks.

I want to say, ‘Yeah Drew, why not?’ but I have a feeling I’m about to find out and I’m not going to like it. I have a feeling the small amount of trust I’ve put back into Drew is about to be crushed.

“She has a double ability,” Drew states loudly and confidently.

Of all the things I was expecting,
that
was not on the list. How could he do this to me?
Again?
How could I have trusted him?
Again?

The two guards – who have been remarkably quiet in their corners – step even closer to me now, so close I can feel their presence just inches away from me.

“You’re a dead man. If I don’t get the chance to do it myself, you know one of them will. You know which one, too,” I say, referring to Chad.

“A double ability?” Brookfield asks excitedly. “Are you sure?” he asks Drew but doesn’t take his eyes off me.

“I’m sure. It’s the reason she was so desired by everyone at that weird commune thing, whatever it was. I doubt anyone would like her for her personality.”

Ouch
. I’m livid. I’m outraged. I’m trying ever so hard not to throw myself at him, attack him from every angle. The real Drew is back. He hasn’t changed – he never will. Why would he do this to me? What’s the point? I close my eyes as tears fill them but just as I’m about to break down, something inside of me builds up. I don’t know if it’s courage or just plain anger, but it propels me into Drew. Tackling him out of his chair, I pin him to the ground. I punch his face as hard as I can and I get in a few good hits too, before the stunned guards finally come to Drew’s aid. They pull me off Drew and pin me on my stomach on the floor next to him, my face in the carpet, my hands restrained behind my back.

Drew leans in and whispers something barely audible. I can’t be sure, but I swear he says, “I’ve got this.”

“You know where to take her,” Brookfield orders the guards. They pull me off the floor, my hands now bound by cuffs behind my back.

They escort me out of the room, back to the elevator and down to the old hallways I used to walk every day. They’re taking me back to the Crypt.

My feet stumble and flounder as a dreaded understanding of defeat courses through me. Drew screwed me and my family over once again, and we were all fools for trusting him.

We walk down stairs to reach the Crypt floor and I’m expecting to be taken to a cell. My old cell is on the left, but by the look of it, it’s occupied by someone else now. They lead me to the very last cell and open the door. Where I’m expecting to see a bed, a toilet, anything that should be in a jail cell, I see nothing. There’s nothing but a cold cement floor in front of me.

They push me into the room, but file in behind me. My initial reaction is to tense for a beating. But instead of an assault, we walk to the opposite end of the cell where the guard on my right punches a code into a keypad on the wall. I try to see what numbers he pushes, but he blocks my view by turning his back to me. The entire wall, which I now realise is actually a door, slides completely to the left, revealing yet another set of stairs leading down.

One guard walks ahead of me and the other puts his hand on my shoulder, pushing me down the stairs. I take them slowly and cautiously.

We reach the bottom and turn right into another cell block. Only six cells are in this room, three on each side, cramped together with only a narrow walkway between them. Ahead of us, across from the entry, is a set of double doors. I can see through the two windows on the doors to what looks to be an operating theatre – like what hospitals have.

I’ve been so busy wondering why Drew exposed me that I didn’t even remember what I’d been told about what they do with double ability Defectives here. Until now. The guards escort me to a cell on the right and un-cuff me as they lead me in. They walk away as I sigh and throw myself onto the cot along the right hand wall of the cell. The dank air, the cold concrete walls, and the very real feeling of confinement only makes me realise: I truly am back.

“Yeah. You are,” an angry voice startles me. “And I want to know why.”

“Tate?” I jump up and run to the door of my cell, not that I have to run far – are the cells even smaller down here than in the Crypt?

There he sits, in the cell opposite me, right at the door. He’s alive. I slide down and join him on the floor, both elation and worry crossing my face, if that’s even possible. I can see only anger on his. He looks thin, too thin. He has bags under his eyes that I can see from here, and old bruises that haven’t quite healed.

“Thanks for that. You know you don’t look too crash hot yourself. What the hell are you doing back here? And more importantly, why are you down here, with me?” he asks.

“We thought you were dead!” I exclaim. “And by the look of it, a few more days and you would be.”

“Please don’t tell me you came back for me?”

“You were part of the reason. Actually, a big part of my decision,” I admit. “I’m so happy you’re alive. You have no idea what I’ve been thinking, what Shilah has been thinking.”

Tate’s head snaps up at me, “Shilah?” He starts to shift his position, like he’s suddenly uncomfortable.

“He’s really worried about you, and I’m sure if he knew I was here right now, he’d want me to tell you that he loves you,” I say.

“He told you about us?” he asks quietly and I nod. “And he didn’t come back with you?”

“He was going to, but it ended up just being Drew and me … for now.”

“Drew? Please don’t tell me that you’re back together with him, just because … Is Chad dead?” he asks.

I shake my head. “He’s alive and well. I told Paxton to tell you, but I guess with everything going on, he didn’t get the chance.”

“I didn’t think he was dead. I hoped he wasn’t. But when I didn’t get word that you had gotten away, I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t stop me from blaming myself for it,” he admits.

“Chad’s definitely alive,” I reassure him. I neglect to tell him that things between us are weird, that he ended things with me because I agreed to come back here. I sigh.
I guess you heard all of that though, didn’t you? I’m going to have to work on blocking you out again.

“Well at least I don’t have to kick his arse too then. He did the right thing in not coming back. But he ended things? Meaning there was something to end between you two?”

“I think there are bigger issues to deal with right now than me and Chad,” I say.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he suddenly says.

“I’ve missed you too. So much.”

“Well, I didn’t think it would end like this,” Tate says.

“Like what?”

“You and me in the chamber of death,” he says with a sigh of defeat.

“It’s not the end.”
If everything goes according to Drew’s plan, you’ll be out of here by tomorrow,
I tell him telepathically – a little worried someone might overhear otherwise.

After a bit of silence, Tate furrows his brows as he looks at me. “Drew’s plan?” he whispers.

Well it was Paxton’s actually. Drew just made it better. At least, I think that’s what he’s done. I’m not so sure now. Until I saw you, I was convinced he’d screwed me over again, but now I realise he did it so I could find you. That’s what I’m hoping he’s done, anyway
.

“So he ended up being a good guy after all?” Tate asks.

“I really hope so,” I say.
Otherwise I’ve just given everyone in the Resistance a death sentence.

“So, can you tell me something?” Tate asks.

“Always,” I reply.

“Why can’t you hear my thoughts? I’ve been thinking some very inappropriate things that you would’ve normally called me on.”

I give him a smile. “Because … I’m not really here.”

Chapter Seventeen

When I come to, I wake in my bed in Paxton’s house. Just the mere admission of being in a projected state seemed to have triggered bringing me back. I’m disorientated for a moment until I look and find Licia next to me, our hands still touching. She’s still out of it. I find Ebbodine sitting at the end of the bed, smiling at me.

“Hey, you’re back,” she whispers.

“Water,” I say. My throat is dry and my body is tired. It actually feels like I walked that far, that I have been awake this whole time even though technically, I haven’t.

Ebb runs to the kitchen to get me a glass of water and I turn and look at Licia passed out next to me. I wonder where she is right now. What are they doing to her other self, back at the Institute? I look at the bedside clock, it’s a little after eleven a.m. which means she’s been out for almost twelve hours. That’s the longest she’s ever gone. If I was to let go of her hand right now, it would bring her back immediately. We told her to come back as soon as she had the chance, so I guess there’s nothing to do but sit and wait for her to come back. What if she was still being interrogated and I brought her back? I hope she comes back soon, I really have to pee.

Ebb comes back with the water and I’m torn. My bladder is full but my mouth is dry. I take a small sip, hoping to quench my thirst without affecting my bathroom situation. I sit up and cross my legs – but keep a hold of Licia’s hand.

“So what are you doing here anyway?” I whisper to Ebb, like maybe my voice will startle Licia, even though I know it won’t.

“Moral support. It’s all happening, isn’t it?”

“And you’re here to help?” I ask, a little surprised.

“Of course! Anything to get me back home,” she admits, a hint of sadness in her eyes.

Licia takes in a deep breath, gasping as she wakes. She sits up, looking around disoriented.

“Whoa, are you okay?” Ebb asks, rushing to Licia’s side.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Licia chokes out. “It’s a bit of a jolt sometimes when you’ve been out for so long. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

“Oh, good,” I say, getting up and rushing to the bathroom.

When I return, Licia looks calmer and is back to breathing normally. “So, how did you leave things? Was it a clean getaway?” I ask her.

“Yeah, I think so. They had me in that interrogation room for ages but I was finally sent to one of the dorm rooms, given a uniform and was told to rest. I went to the bathroom and came back here.”

“Okay, that’s good. It gives us a few more hours. Hopefully they’ll be so wrapped up in arresting everyone here, they won’t check on you for a while,” I say.

“What happened to you?” Licia asks.

“Drew outed me for having a double ability. At first I thought he was double crossing us, but then I realised he was giving me the chance to find Tate. I may have reacted a little irrationally. I kind of attacked him,” I say with a small smile. Ebb and Licia look at me a little shocked, but also smiling. “It was like I totally forgot if I ran into trouble I could just come back here – to my real self. I think I was just overwhelmed by everything, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Find Tate?” Licia asks.

I nod with a smile. “He’s okay. For now.”

“So what’s the next step?” Ebb asks.

“I need to let the others know to get ready. They’re going to be coming for them, and soon. Have you heard from any of them this morning?” I ask Ebb.

“No, I haven’t. I didn’t want to leave your side in case something happened.”

I brace myself for this next part. Mum would’ve filled them in on the situation this morning. Everyone will know that Drew and I returned to the Institute, that we’ve put into motion what Paxton set out to do. A lot of people here will think we’ve betrayed them, and I guess in a way, we have.

“So are we going?” Licia asks.

“Ebb and I are. You’ve already helped us in more ways than I ever could have expected.” I walk over to her and place my hands on her shoulders. “You did so well. Thank you,” I say hugging her.

“I can still do more though. I want to help,” Licia says.

“There’s not much else you can do. Unless … Well, I’m guessing you can’t project back to the Institute can you? It doesn’t work that way, right?”

Licia shakes her head. “It doesn’t work like that. When you project, you always project from where your host body is– like we did last night. I’m not like Ebb, I can’t teleport.”

“We’d be able to take her though,” Ebb says to me.

“We can?” I ask.

“Yeah. I worked out one day I can take living things with me. I teleported and noticed I had a lady beetle on me that came along for the ride. Hall let me try it on him once.”

“Whoa, he’s brave,” I say.

“Well I figured that if I can take inanimate objects with me, surely I could take living things also.”

“But what if it didn’t work? You could’ve killed him.”

“But it did work,” Ebb argues.

“Like that makes my point invalid!” I argue back. “Then why can’t we just teleport everyone into the Institute?”

Ebb shakes her head. “I’ve teleported with Hall before, but that’s all. Even taking one person puts a bigger strain on me. I wouldn’t risk trying to take two people.”

“But we could go one by one? It would take some time but—”

Ebb sighs, “It takes a lot out of you – teleporting all the time. You’ll see what I mean.”

“So are you sending me back to the Institute or what?” Licia interrupts. “What did you want me to do there?”

“It would just be buying us time. Because you were with Drew and me last night, we can’t send you back in with the rest of the group. I’m sure Lynch and the others who came to pick us up will be part of the arrest crew, and we can’t risk them spotting you and realising something’s not right. If you decide to go back to the dorm, at least you won’t be discovered missing. But you don’t have to do that. We can take you to the safe house out west if you want.” Licia looks unsure, like she doesn’t know what she wants to do. “Want to come with us to get the others prepared and make a decision then?” I ask. Licia nods.

Ebb walks over to us and grabs Licia’s hand. She looks at me with a wicked grin. “Are you ready for this?” she asks wryly. I’m suddenly nervous about borrowing Ebb’s ability. What’s going to happen to me?

“How does this teleporting thing work?” I ask.

“Just think about where it is you want to go. Sometimes it’s easier to focus if you close your eyes and picture where it is you need to be. We’ll be right behind you,” Ebb replies. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and think of the town hall shed – where the arrest is set to take place.

When I open my eyes, I’m nowhere near the town hall entrance. I can see it from here, but I’m up the road quite a bit. A rush of nausea runs through me and I begin to stumble. How does Ebb get around like this? I feel woozy and car sick. Ebb and Licia come out onto the road from inside and laugh.

With a blink of an eye, Ebb’s right beside me. “Not bad for your first try,” she remarks. She puts her arm around me as I hunch over, feeling like I’m going to vomit. “It gets easier,” she says rubbing my back. “Are you ready to come inside yet?”

“I think so,” I say, still trying to catch my breath and trying not to dry retch.

I stand upright and immediately lose the contents of my stomach. Fortunately it’s only water since I haven’t eaten since last night.

“Oh. I probably should have told you to eat. Even I get woozy teleporting on an empty stomach.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I say dry retching again, kneeling on the ground. “How come she didn’t react like this?” I cough out, pointing at Licia who is approaching us.

“I don’t know,” Ebb says holding my hair back from my face in case I vomit again. “Maybe she’s used to weird sensations, being able to project and all. It’s probably a similar experience.”

“Projecting didn’t make me feel anything like this,” I reply, still unable to stand.

Warm, strong arms wrap around me, bringing me to my feet and then lifting me into the air. I look up, in hopes to find Chad, only to be a little disappointed when I see it’s Shilah. I’m grateful for the help, but I guess I was just hoping I’d find Chad here, and that he’d changed his mind about doing this with us.

“What happened to you?” Shilah asks, carrying me over to a bench seat just outside the cafeteria shed.

“I popped her teleporting cherry,” Ebbodine boasts. Shilah laughs.

He sets me down on the bench and I turn and lie down, one arm coming up to my head to try and stop the dizziness.

“Come on Licia, we’ll go get her some food,” Ebb says disappearing with Licia into the cafeteria.

“Are you going to be okay?” Shilah asks.

“He’s alive. Tate’s alive,” I say, ignoring Shilah’s question. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute.

“He is? You saw him?” he asks shakily.

“We kind of became cell neighbours again. But Shilah—” I say, gathering the strength to sit up and look him in the eye—”We need this plan to work or he’s not going to make it.”

“Allira, we need this plan to work or
no one
is going to make it,” he replies, taking a seat next to me.

“Have you seen it? What’s going to happen?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’ve tried. I haven’t seen anything since I found out about Tate. I don’t know why. I can’t get any vision, none at all – not what’s going to happen in five minutes, or even in thirty seconds.”

I reach out and quickly slap him across the face. I laugh when he doesn’t attempt to move. “You really have lost it, haven’t you?” He usually would have dodged such a simple attack. Shilah grimaces at me. “Sorry. What if we try together?”

“Are you sure you should try to do anything? You’re not going to throw up again are you?”

“That’s a very good possibility, but let’s try anyway. I can just barf all over you if need be.” I’m joking, but part of me wonders if I might actually do it. I touch his hand trying to amplify his ability and also focus on borrowing it to see if I can get something, anything, but I too get nothing. “What is going on?” I ask.

“I have no idea. This kind of thing used to happen to me all the time before I learned how to control my ability, but it hasn’t happened since before I was arrested,” Shilah says.

I realise Shilah uses the same life timeline I do. Everyone tends to have one big event in their life that they measure time and events against. It used to be divided by Mum’s disappearance, but now our lives are split into before our arrest, and after.

“Maybe we’re trying to force it too much?” I suggest. “I know that when I first discovered I could borrow abilities, I’d find myself just doing it without even focusing on it. Maybe we’re both too stressed about today and it’s clouding our abilities.”

“Maybe even the universe or fate – whatever it is that gave us our abilities – doesn’t know how today will play out. Maybe we both die and we have no future. Maybe that’s why we can’t see anything.”

Shilah’s words scare me more than they should. “Well unless we’re going to die in less than thirty seconds, we should at least be able to see that far, right? But we can’t, so your theory is invalid,” I argue, reassuring myself in the process. Still, Shilah and I sit and count to thirty just to be sure. We both look around for another ten seconds until finally he nods, accepting my response. “We can try again later. Where’s everyone else?” I ask.

“Inside. We got a lot accomplished this morning actually. We harvested extra crops for the safe house, got them all prepared. They should have plenty of stored food to last them until this whole thing blows over.” Shilah says. He must see the question in my eyes because I don’t need to ask him. “Chad went to the safe house,” he says. “I thought out of everyone, he’d be first in line to fight with us.”

“Yeah, me too. He says he’s staying out of it for ‘us’ but that doesn’t make sense to me. He says he’s not okay with any plan that puts me in harm’s way, but I think that’s crap. If he was to join us, I’d have access to his ability, making it a lot safer for me.”

“Do you think his mother has anything to do with his decision?”

“The last time he carried out a crazy plan that landed him in the Institute, he was chasing a girl and Tate. That plan didn’t exactly work out the way it was meant to – he came back with neither. I don’t think his mum would forgive him if he made the same mistake twice. I don’t know if he would forgive himself.”

“Well we just better make sure we’re successful so you can come back to him,” Shilah says.

“Yeah … I’m pretty sure we broke up last night.”

“What?” Shilah exclaims.

“He asked me to stay, and I left in the middle of the night to go to the Institute without even saying goodbye. I’m pretty sure he won’t forgive that one.”

“I’m sure he’ll come around, once this is all done.”

“That’s what Paxton said too. I’m just not so sure.”

Ebb returns, Licia in tow and puts a plate of food in front of my face. “Eat,” she says. I take the fork to my mouth, but the food is cold. “Oh yeah. Sorry about it being cold. I’m guessing it’s leftovers from this morning.”