Escape (52 page)

Thinking to try a new tack, Kieran opened his mouth to let loose with a bellowing scream. He paused halfway through taking in the necessary lungful of air. He'd thought he'd heard something. A rapping sound. He held his breath, listening.

Rap, rap, rap.
It was coming from directly behind his head. It sounded like something knocking against transpiranium. He craned his head around to look
—

And saw a pair of glowing red eyes gazing back at him through a circular portal.

Wakey wakey, shakra face.

Dimmi. It took Kieran a moment to realize her presence meant he wasn't in a coffin after all, but some form of sleeping chamber. The portal opened with a hiss and a rush of warm air. Kieran was about to pull himself out, but Dimmi reached in and dragged him out before he could. He was dumped unceremoniously on the floor and left to roll around in the agony of cramped and spasming muscles.

“You wanted revenge. Here's your chance. They're still sleeping.”

Who is?
Kieran wondered.

“Jilly and Ferrel.”

Kieran's red eyes narrowed and he stood up, ignoring the sharp pains of protest in his thighs. “Where?”

Dimmi pointed to a pair of transpiranium portals beside theirs.

Kieran's eyes, now quickly adjusting to the dark, made out two dark shadows lurking beyond those portals. They were hard to recognize from this angle, but when he focused on them, he could begin to hear the whispers of their thoughts
—
nonsensical, disorganized thoughts that probably belonged to their subconscious minds, but the tone of those thoughts was unmistakable. For a moment, Kieran was torn, wondering what he should do.

He struggled to remember the burning anger which had brought him to this point, but somehow that fire was smothered beneath greater concerns: where were they? Why were they all together? What were the chambers for?

The list of questions went on almost endlessly. Dimmi, having followed the train of his thoughts, gave a derisive snort and started toward Jilly's sleeping chamber. “If you're not going to take advantage of the opportunity, I am.” She wrenched Jilly's chamber open with one arm, yanking the portal off its hinges with a scream of tortured alloy. Tossing the portal to one side, she reached in and dragged Jilly out by her long blond hair.

Jilly let out a startled scream, coming quickly awake as she was tossed onto the hard, tiled floor of the room. Kieran was there in an instant, stepping between her and Dimmi. Jilly lay sprawled on the floor in a familiar pose of contorted agony, her muscles all screaming at her from disuse.

“Dimmi, you have to fight it,” Kieran said, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “That unreasoning rage you feel is just a side effect of whatever else is happening to us.”

Dimmi's red eyes narrowed and she slapped his arms away from her. “Get out of my way.”

“No. You don't even have a reason to be angry with her. Think about it!”

“Maybe not, but I've got plenty of reasons to be angry with you!”

Without warning, she pounced on him, sending them both stumbling backward. Kieran tripped over Jilly's outstretched legs and fell heavily to the floor. Dimmi's lips stretched into a glistening grin of wickedly-pointed teeth
—
pointed teeth?
he wondered: but he had no time to dwell on it. Her red eyes flashed, and she strained for his throat, her teeth snapping experimentally.

Kieran's biceps bulged, restraining her with barely adequate force. Somehow, she was much stronger than she looked. “Dimmi,” he whispered through gritted teeth, while thinking,
this is familiar
. “Don't do this. You know I'm right. Deep down
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Kieran trailed off, breathing heavily.

Dimmi merely snarled again, her eyes wild and feverish. She wasn't even listening. In that moment she seemed more animal that human, and he knew there was only one way out. Either he killed her, or she would kill him. And from the look in her eyes, he knew she wouldn't stop there. She'd kill Jilly and Ferrel next, just for the sport of it.

“Kieran?” The voice was Jilly's. She sounded confused
—
“Is that you?”
—
and now alarmed.

“Yeah,” he panted, unable to say more.

“Get off of him!”

Kieran couldn't see much past Dimmi's snarling face, but a second later, hands appeared on Dimmi's shoulders
—
Jilly, trying to pull her off him.

“Get off!” Jilly screamed.

Dimmi snarled over her shoulder, distracted for a split-second. But it was long enough. Kieran brought his elbow up in a vicious jab to her throat. She went momentarily limp, and he threw her off of him
—
literally. She went flying into the row of sleeping chambers with enough force to leave a dent in the brushed alloy facade below the transparent portals. She lay there for a moment, stunned and coughing.

Kieran bolted to his feet beside Jilly, who was looking at him as though he were a ghost. “You're alive!” she exclaimed. “Ferrel told me, but I didn't believe him
 
.
 
.
 
.
I couldn't, but
—
”

“Later,” Kieran said, cutting her off and starting toward Dimmi. She was starting to rise, both hands wrapped around her throat, her mouth in a wide grimace as though she were choking. Kieran walked straight up to her and delivered a kick, as hard as he could, to her solar plexus. She slammed into Jilly's open sleeping chamber with a loud
bang!
and doubled over, with her rearend forced into the circular opening. Dimmi glared at him, her eyes glittering with fierce hatred. Her hands left her throat, and she tried to free herself from the sleeping chamber. Before she could, Kieran blurred into action, delivering another kick to her middle that pushed her further into the chamber. She screamed, having apparently recovered her voice, more from frustration than pain. He had to finish her before she had a chance to retaliate. Kieran looked around the room for something, anything
—

And in a flash of inspiration he saw it. He picked up the discarded transpiranium portal cover in one hand, switched to a two-handed grip, raised the heavy circle of transpiranium over his head and
—

“Kieran! What are you doing?” Jilly knew the answer already from his thoughts.

“It's her or me!” he said as he brought the heavy door down on Dimmi's head. Bent at the waist, her shoulders wedged into the opening of the sleeping chamber, Dimmi was in no position to ward off the blow, and her neck, bent forward as it was, snapped almost instantly. There was a wet popping sound, followed by the sound of the portal cover clattering loudly to the floor.

Dimmi's head lay at an impossible angle, looking up at him, turned an impossible 180° to do so. Her eyes were still glowing disconcertingly red. Kieran gave a long sigh, and wallowed in the remorse which followed. He felt sick about what he'd been forced to do, but there hadn't been any other way, had there?

Jilly appeared beside him. “Is she dead?” she whispered.

“I think so,” Kieran replied.

Jilly turned to him with a look of horror and disbelief. “Why? You didn't have to kill her!”

Kieran shook his head, feeling it growing fuzzy with white hot anger. How could she not understand? She'd seen everything he had! It wasn't as though this was the first time Dimmi had tried to kill him. “Yes I did! And you know that!” Kieran pushed violently past her, spinning her around. His mind flooded with violent thoughts, and he kept walking away, biting his lower lip and squeezing his eyes shut in an effort to suppress them.

Able to read those thoughts, Jilly gasped. “What's
wrong
with you?”

Kieran shook his head and gritted his teeth. “It's this
 
.
 
.
 
.
this
disease
. It's getting harder to control myself. I can't
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

Jilly began nodding slowly. “Ferrel was right. You were coming to kill us.”

“Yes
 
.
 
.
 
.
no
 
.
 
.
 
.
I
 
.
 
.
 
.
” He spun suddenly around to face her with flashing eyes. They seemed to be burning from within. “You left me to die!” he snarled.

Jilly's own eyes widened. “You were already dead!”

“Didn't. It.
Occur.
To you that I might recover?” he said, placing careful emphasis on each word, taking slow, plodding steps toward her.

Instinctively, Jilly began backing away. “Your heart wasn't even beating!” She fetched up against the bank of sleeping chambers, with nowhere left to run. Kieran kept advancing, his eyes glowing like fiery coals in the darkness.

“Neither was yours! Or Ferrel's!” Kieran's arm shot out to point viciously at Ferrel's still-closed chamber. “After the wolvins were through with you, you were both dead! But I stayed. I stayed long enough to see you recover. You abandoned me! Both of you!” Jilly watched spittle fly from his lips, and realized in that moment that she'd made a terrible mistake. She should have left Dimmi and Kieran to fight amongst themselves and run while she'd had the chance.

Kieran stopped advancing when he was nose to nose with her. For a long moment they just stood there, Jilly wondering what to do, and Kieran shivering with barely contained fury.

Jilly realized she would have to say, or do,
something
to distract him, to take his mind off his seeming betrayal. “How could I have known?” she asked quietly, desperately.

Kieran's eyes flashed. “You should have!” More spittle flew, his fists balled, and his arms shook, the muscles bulging suddenly. She had the distinct impression that he wanted to hit her, and she flinched away, her eyes wincing shut in anticipation.

But the blow never came.

He made a strangled sound and let out a strained breath. She turned to look and saw something shift behind his eyes, they appeared to glow more dimly for a moment, and his taut expression of fury abruptly slackened. “Run
 
.
 
.
 
.
” he whispered, panting heavily. She could feel his breath piling hotly on her face. There was a distinctly metallic tang to it. He gritted his teeth and his eyes squeezed shut. She watched, momentarily frozen, afraid even to breath, for fear that the sound would set him off. He appeared to be struggling to speak, and his arms were still shaking, as though he was fighting a war with himself. “Run
 
.
 
.
 
.
while you still can.”

Chapter 32

“K
ieran, I'm not going anywhere,” Jilly said.

“Jilly, I mean it! Get out of here now!”

“You're a good person, Kieran. I know you wouldn't hurt me. You're not capable of it. I trust you.”

Kieran's eyes opened slowly; they were shining a much duller red now. “I just killed Dimmi, and you don't think I'm capable of hurting you?”

“You and I both know she won't be ‘dead’ for long.”

Kieran held her gaze for a long, heart stopping moment, and she began to fear that she'd made the wrong decision by staying. Then, gradually, Kieran's fists unclenched, and his muscles relaxed.

He slumped visibly and began shaking his head. “I don't know who I am anymore.”

She reached out and lifted his chin. “You're my best friend, and you're stronger than this, so fight it! Something tells me we're not far from a cure.”

“How can you say that? You don't even know what
—
”

“I know exactly what we have. It's a nano virus.”

“That's impossible. The technology is still decades from
—
”

“It's here, now, and we're infected with it. The head doctor of the ER diagnosed us himself, and I believe him. It's the only thing that makes sense. Think about it. The things we can do
—
it's not human, Kieran. The human body simply isn't built for incredible feats of strength and speed, let alone the fact that we can somehow see even though this room is completely dark. Speaking of which, we need to find out what went wrong.” Jilly walked over to Ferrel's sleeping chamber and began fiddling with the control panel.

Kieran followed her, his head curiously cocked to one side. “What do you mean?”

“These are stasis chambers. The people who enter these usually have life-threatening diseases, sometimes in the final stages. They can't afford to wake up without medical personnel on hand to stabilize them. For that reason, stasis chambers are kept on multiple power backups. Of all the places in the med center, let alone the entire city, these rooms would be the last to lose power.” Jilly shook her head, and pounded the control panel violently. “The controls are completely dead!” She tried the handle to the transpiranium portal cover, giving it a quick jerk. Nothing happened, so she tried again, throwing her weight against it this time. Still nothing. “It's stuck!”