Vagabonds

Chapter Forty-Nine: Eye of the Storm

"We have to go back."

"Don't be an idiot, Joe, we have no idea where she is."

"Tori —"

But Tori just yanked out one of the three guns sprouting from her waistband, cutting off Joe's protests.

"Look, there's nothing we can do for her except find the others and hope she's with them. Unless you have a better suggestion?"

Joe looked like he very much wished he did. But he remained silent. Satisfied, Tori nodded and bounced her knees, peering through the tiny window in the stairwell door.

"I guess we'll start with this floor," she said with as much authority as she could muster. Then, turning back to Joe, she lifted her eyebrows. "You know, your gun isn't going to do any good on your hip."

Gingerly, as if it was something that might bite him, Joe wiggled his weapon out of the holster on Martin's belt. Tori's eyes took in his nervousness, the way his fingers didn't quite curl around the handle, and she sighed.

"Here, let me show you."

Trying to hide the instinctual fear of how dangerous Joe had become and what he could do to her if he wanted, Tori stepped in closer, tapping under Joe's elbows.

"Straight arms, but careful not to lock your elbows, or else the kick will hurt. Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it. And don't hold it like a baby bird or it won't stay in your hands. Got it?"

"No," Joe said, but his hands tightened around the molded grip.

"Not here!" Tori snapped, shoving the barrel down. Joe swallowed, but Tori was already moving to the door, muttering beneath her breath. "Of all the people to have my back in here..."

But her voice withered as she poked her head around a corner and peered down a long, empty hallway. She was braced for anything. Her breathing tightened as she thought of her brother, tied to his own coffee table. Martin would help them, if he was able. Martin would have seen through Amile's plan if he'd been of sound mind, would have fought by their side for the rights of the Vagabonds.

Wouldn't he?

She would just have to cure him and find out.

Tori braced herself to plunge out of the relative safety of the stairwell doorway.

"Let's go," Tori said, not allowing her fear any more time to grow. Carefully, slowly, she slid along the wall to the nearest door. Peered inside.

An empty office.

Her instincts were tuned so tight that even Joe's steps behind her made her jump. She jerked her head, leading him further down the hall, trying to ignore the glimmer of cameras over their heads, still active. Was someone watching them, or had the chaos in the garage been enough to distract the guards?

Either way, they had to hurry.

The next room was a pristine lab, a few people in white coats clustered near a fume hood in the back.

She ducked to the other side of the open entrance before one of the scientists could see her, grabbing Joe's arm and dragging him further away from the stairwell and their exit and any scrap of the familiar.

After another few peeks into empty or near-empty rooms, they came upon a door with no window.

What is it? Joe mouthed.

Tori could only shrug, clutching her revolver with white-knuckled hands.

One way to find out.

She tried the handle. Locked. Joe fumbled with Martin's ID, holding up as if in question. Tori shrugged again.

Maybe they'd get lucky.

Joe pressed the key card against the square side-panel. They both held their breaths, watching the blinking light.

After a tense, stretching moment, it turned green.

"Watch the hall," Tori hissed to Joe, opening the door just wide enough to duck her head inside.

It was the strangest thing she'd ever seen.

An enormous machine filled the middle of the room. It stretched two stories, bracketed by a walkway on their floor and disappearing into the deep-sea darkness below. The basement? Whirring and clicking and surrounded by monitors, Tori couldn't even begin to make sense of it. She took a hesitant step onto the metal walkway, only to see movement on the other side of the strange mechanical pillar. Two voices were echoing toward her, accompanied by the soft sound of rubber shoes on tile.

"...shouldn't take much time to splice in those mutations."

"You think, what, forty minutes?"

"With this baby? Ten."

"No way."

"I'd put my money on it. But of course, she wants duplicates of everything."

"Well, let's hurry up and get more samples. After what she did to..."

Tori yanked her head back and pulled the door closed as quietly as she could. Her heart was hammering, her face flushed. She glanced around frantically as Joe's eyes widened in question. But there was no time.

Let's hurry up and get more samples.

Were these scientists on their way to the Vagabonds?

Tori grabbed Joe's hand and hauled him down the hall, ignoring the doors and windows. Finally, about thirty feet from the door, Tori found a side-table, laden with beakers and chemicals, file boxes crammed underneath. She shoved Joe behind it.

"What's —?"

"Shhh," Tori hissed, sliding in next to him and leaning out from behind a shelf of test tubes. They rattled at her touch, making her flinch. She squinted down the corridor, watched two people in white coats emerge where they'd just been standing. The scientists moved down the hall, toward Tori and Joe's hiding place, one of them carrying a tray of vials and needles.

Please be right, Tori thought, refusing to blink as the pair of voices echoed toward her, too jumbled to make out words. Oh please let me be right.

They stopped by a black door on the opposite wall. One of them unlocked it.

They both disappeared inside.

"Come on," Tori whispered, launching herself from behind the table like a sprinter down a track. She pumped her arms, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. She could hear Joe panting behind her, their breathing equally panicked. Equally raw.

The door was drifting shut.

She slid the last few feet, stuck her foot into the door, shoved it back open.

"Hey —!"

Tori had only a single breathless moment to take in the room. Two scientists, three soldiers, arranged around a cluster of misshapen cots. And there, watching her with wide eyes, were four of the five Vagabonds, their faces white with terror.