Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

“There’s no way I’d send a minor to USAMRIID!” Quarropas objects, focusing on me. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“The Union Men are going to kill me. I’m the one who beat up that kid in there.” I gesture to the back room.

“Nobody’s going to kill anyone,” he says kindly. “Look, we have meds that can help you. Let me help you.”

“There’s only one way for you to help me,” I beg. “Send me away for testing, please!”

“There’s a girl here. We need assistance,” Dr. Neman is saying on the phone.

“You’re not going to help me?” I ask him.

“I’m not going to send you for medical testing,” he says.

I back away.

Fine.

Maybe Venger will send me. He’d threatened me with it.

“Mario died, by the way,” I tell the doctors, my anger getting the better of me. “He died on the floor of a bathroom. So thanks for nothing.”

“Venger!” I shout as I arrive at the courtyard. “Venger, where are you? Come and get me, you stupid, freakin’ bully. You son of a pig! Come and get me!”

I walk over to the fence.

There are no reporters there—maybe the soldiers had made them all clear out for good. So much for Lori’s plan.

“Venger, where are you?”

Excellence and Responsibility are eating now. The courtyard is empty.

I dig my fingers into the chain-link fence and rattle it.

There is a car parked a few feet past the second gate. A minivan, of all things.

Over my shoulder, I see Carlo and two of his thugs slip out of Plaza 900, heading for me. One of them is big, the other is puny.

“VENGER!” I shout.

Where is he? Where are the stupid guards when you actually want them?

Then I hear, “Josie?”

A voice from beyond the fences.

I look.

“Josie Miller? Is that you?”

And I see.

A skinny man in a strange dark-brown bodysuit of some kind.

It is all one piece, with a belt built on. It is some kind of light protective suit.

Then I see the person push his hair out of his eyes.

I know the tilt of his head—the straight posture.

I know the brown hair, brown tanned face.

Even across the distance of two chain-link fences.

It is Niko.

“Niko?!” I shout.

“Josie! Josie! I can’t believe it.”

My Niko. He is pressed up against the outside fence. He has his fingers through the grill.

It is him. It is.

“NIKO! How did you find me?” I shout.

“The paper! Your picture was in the paper!”

“I got your note,” I say. I find I am crying. “I was going to get to you. Mario was helping me—”

A sharp jang of pain as my head is jerked back.

Carlo has me by the hair.

“Who’s that, Josie? Who’s your friend?” he asks, as if he is asking me to be introduced to someone at a party.

He pulls my head back and pushes down so that I sink to my knees. The skin on my knees screams and I feel the scabs slit open.

“Leave her alone!” Niko shouts.

“Or what, spaceman?” says one of the Union Men.

The other one snorts, “Spaceman!”

“Leave her be!” Niko shouts.

He starts to scale the fence.

“Don’t!” I scream. “They’ll shoot you!”

The guards had shot people trying to rescue prisoners. But I don’t get to explain because Carlo punches me in the face.

It’s hard to explain the counterbalance of rage—but as the blow registers, I know it hurts, but I can’t feel it at all because my blood is amped up now, adrenaline flowing, and I am ready to kill him.

He leans in low. “We are going to take you to our suite now. So you’d better say good-bye to your friend.”

“Somebody help!” Niko calls. He paces back and forth.

He can’t believe that no one is coming to help me.

Carlo digs his fingers into my hair, as if to remind me I am in his control. I fight to think.

Can I kill the three men and somehow get over the fence?

But then I hear the voices of the kids.

They are pleading.

They are pleading with Venger, trying to keep up with him as he strides our way.

“Please,” Lori says, “she was only trying to defend me and they’re going to kill her!”

The kids step up to us in a cacophony of pleading and begging.

“Shut up!” Venger says. Then he makes a gesture to Carlo like What the heck? “Carlo, you seem to have forgotten our agreement.”

“I apologize, Mr. Venger. We were just leaving.”

“Those men are beating her!” Niko shouts. “She needs help!”

Venger ignores him.

“I know she put two of yours in the clinic. She’s been trouble from day one. But if you’re gonna take her, TAKE HER. Don’t stand here with her in the light of day where the press can see.” Venger gestures toward Niko.

“Again, my apologies,” Carlo says.

Now people start spilling out of Plaza 900. Breakfast is over.

Some of them must have seen what is happening.

Aidan is pulling on Carlo’s arm.

“Please don’t hurt Josie,” Aidan pleads to Carlo. “It’s all my fault. Please, you can have all my food! Every day! And my sugars!”

The short Union Man pulls Aidan off and shoves him away and he falls on his backside.

I look at Aidan and suddenly, with a wrench, I realize I love that little scrappy kid.

“You leave that girl alone,” comes a man’s voice from behind us.

The people from the mess hall are coming close.

“Venger, this is too much,” someone else calls. “Let that girl alone!”

A chorus of yeahs goes up.

“Josie!” Niko calls.

I look, see him fumbling with his pack.

There is this funny, tinny whistle.

“Josie!” He gets out some kind of mask with a visor and is attaching it to the suit.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Venger says through his teeth to Carlo. He gestures to the mob.

“No worries.” Carlo jerks me toward Excellence. “We’ll just be on our way…”

And then Heather screams.

I look where she is looking.

I see Niko is pointing that same direction.

From the empty quad across the street there is some kind of a dust cloud coming. It doesn’t float, the way you’d think it might—it slinks. It seems to be a cloud with weight to it—lifting and then settling again, like something alive and restless.