Forged (17 page)

EVEN THOUGH THE NEXT DAY
passes at a torturous pace, night finally, inevitably falls.

“Remember, you are truly cut off until you make contact with Sammy,” September says. “Garrett can relay anything that might go down in the transfer, but it's a dead zone between here and Taem.”

I'm well aware of this, but let September have her moment. It sets her at ease, all this orchestrating of plans. I pull on my jacket and backpack. Harvey has my gun, which, if everything unfolds as planned, will make sense once the Order takes us into custody.

The round of good-byes is quick, nothing but curt handshakes. Not even Emma lingers over her words.

“See you sometime,” she says to me. Aiden leans against her hip, one hand in Rusty's mangy mane.

“Let's hope so,” I respond. She gives me a half smile, but it seems forced.

A moment later, I'm stepping into the crisp evening with Harvey. It is nothing short of marvelous to breathe in fresh air again. To feel the wind on my face. I am not made for indoors.

My stomach is twisting as we make our way to the port. Tethered boats sway on the choppy water, the starry sky reflecting off the vastness of the Gulf.

We meet Garrett at the docks as planned. The stiff cuff of his Order uniform scratches at my wrist when we shake.

“Time to make all Bea's
lies
mean something,” he whispers. “You guys ready?”

I nod. “Ready as we'll ever be.”

“Okay then.”

I close my eyes because I know I won't be able to take it otherwise. Garrett clocks me good. Twice. The second sends me staggering backward.

“Go on then,” he says to Harvey. “Call them.”

Harvey points my gun at the night sky and lets off a shot. It's deafening in the stillness.

“Over here!” Garrett shouts, bringing me to the salt-slicked docks. He presses a knee to my back and I let him
gather my hands there as well. “I've got—Holy hell! I said over
here
! Hurry up!”

Another two Order members come running, peeling from darkened streets where they were stationed.

Hands find my back. I'm flipped. Tugged to my feet. A pointed nose examines me. “Is this who I think it is?” I recognize his voice. Garrett's boss. The inspector September distracted. He's younger than I expect.

“Sure looks like him,” Garrett says.

“It is,” Harvey affirms.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Harvey Maldoon. Gray held me hostage since he escaped our facilities a week back. I barely got the jump on him tonight.”

“Make the call,” the inspector says to someone behind him. Then he turns to me. “Got business in Bone Harbor? Think you can sneak into my port in the dead of night?”

“I
did
sneak in. If I hadn't lost hold of my gun, you'd still have no clue I was here.”

He knees me in the stomach. As I hang buckled over, sucking in air, Harvey tells the Order member to go easy, which results in the scientist's loyalty being questioned.

“You clearly have no clue who you're talking to,” Harvey says. “Frank is going to be elated if you bring this boy in unharmed. Even more thrilled when I come with him.”

“And me,” comes a voice from inland. “He'll be glad to have me back, too.”

I glance up and my chest seizes. Emma. Jogging down to the docks like she owns all of Bone Harbor.

“I told you to run,” Harvey snaps, improvising expertly fast. “Why would you—?” He turns back to the Order member. “She was with us, another of Gray's hostages. When I overpowered him, I told her to bolt; I didn't know how long I'd be able to hold him.”

“I work in Taem's hospitals,” Emma says to the guard. “I was one of the best set of hands in that place. I just want to go home.”

Home? To Taem? What is she playing at? She was set to stay here in Bone Harbor, watch over Aiden, help September come Sunder Day.

The inspector leans backward, yelling into the darkness. “What's the word on that call?”

“They're sending a rig immediately. Secure him.”

“Allow me,” Harvey says.

I know it's part of an act, but as he strikes me with the handgun, I can't help but question everything. His smile—so malicious, so willing to play this part. His cool reaction to Emma's joining, and his lines so swiftly delivered they almost seemed rehearsed. I cringe as he winds up again.
The world goes blurry, then cuts off entirely as a bag comes down over my head.

I'm jostled, shoved.

I listen while Emma gives her name, and the Order welcomes her back into its ranks. The roar of an approaching helicopter drowns out the world.

As I'm forced toward it, the panic hits. Deep in my chest and then surging upward, like a sickness I need to eject, like a burn scorching from the inside out.

This is wrong. Emma shouldn't be here. There's no reason for it. Not unless she somehow persuaded Harvey to let her join. Or maybe she's trying to accomplish something—revenge, justice. Have I become her biggest enemy?

Is that ridiculous, to think it all comes back to that? To believe that Emma—sweet, gentle, loving Emma—could be driven to act this way out of hate and bitterness?

I writhe against the ropes.

Bree, Sammy, Clipper.

I need them. I need them and I sent them away.

An extra set of hands pushes at the back of my spine, forcing me forward. Then I'm hoisted up, shoved. I land on my side, strike my head against a hard surface.

Next comes the roar of an engine, the nauseating feeling of the world dropping away beneath me.

At least one part of the plan is still unfolding as arranged. We're flying. Hopefully east. I don't know what I'll do if we're not.

When I come to, it takes me a moment to remember being shoved into the vehicle, the fall that caused me to strike my head. I have no recollection of what followed, how I got to wherever I now am. Or how much time has passed since the flight.

They gave me something, I'd wager—to knock me out and blur my senses.

I sit up in the darkness, and feel a restraint pull against my neck. My fingers find rope. Coarse. Brittle. Once I know it's there, the scratch of it against my skin is so discomforting I wonder how I'd ignored it previously. The rope continues upward, much farther than my hands can reach. I've been collared like a dog.

Lights clap on. I'm in a stark, unadorned room, on a platform raised several feet from the ground and smaller than an average mattress. It's a miracle I didn't fall off the thing while asleep.

I hear a door open behind me, and when I twist, Frank is entering the room. Hopefully this means I'm in Taem.

“You're like a fly, Gray,” he says in that silky voice he commands, so smooth it made me once trust him. “A pesky
nuisance that keeps buzzing around, creating just enough trouble to royally tick me off.”

Frank walks around the platform, bringing his fingers together in a mellow wave. Pinky to pinky. Ring finger to ring finger. His eyes are piercing—murderous—as they lock with mine.

“Gray, something's been troubling me. There are roaches crawling around the outskirts of my cities. They are greedy and ungrateful. All they do is consume. They eat and take and they grow their colony. They think there's a better way because they don't realize that they are pests, that they will destroy any chance of security and safety with their ways. They are trying to invade my domed paradises that keep
out
the evils of the world.

“I thought you might help me deter them, but to be perfectly honest, you no longer seem worth the effort. The intel you've given up is mediocre at best, and the longer I let you scurry around, the stronger these pests seem to grow. You're fueling them. Dangerous, don't you think? To let people believe in something that won't actually help them?”

I grunt.

“What can you offer them, truly, besides a silly newspaper and the wild impracticality of blind hope? They've latched on to this idea that
I'm
the roach, the evil that needs to be removed, but I built them these hives.
I
kept them safe when
the world was rotting.
I
gave them water when everyone else was parched. No, I think I know how to deal with them now, how to stamp out this growing infestation.”

He pauses, lacing all but his pointer fingers together, which he brings to his lips.

“You are expendable, Gray. In fact, I think watching your life bleed out during the Sunder Rally might be the best way for me to show just how little power these Rebels have, how they've invested all their energies in a losing battle.”

He plans to execute me, then. Publicly. Perhaps broadcasted to all his domed cities. Fine. That will give Harvey the perfect opportunity to do his work.

“Unless . . .” Frank moves very near the platform, so close that I can make out the wrinkles surrounding his eyes. I could probably kick him if I were brave enough to risk trying. “Unless you are finally willing to cooperate. Unless you have some information I might be able to use to my advantage.”

“Like Headquarters' location?” I bluff.

“Oh, no. I already took care of that.” He runs a forefinger along the edge of my platform and glances up at me. “What is being planned? Some sort of strike, correct? Your people have your spies, and I have mine. I know something is in the works. Details, or your life.”

“These threats mean nothing to me,” I say. “Not when
anything I say will be used against people—to punish them, imprison them, destroy them. That's all this has been: you on a power trip, thinking your way is the best way—the
only
way—and forcing it on everyone.”

“You think this is still about governing?” He laughs. “My father was always trying to fix the country, the men in power before him tried to do the same. But the truth is that the government isn't broken. People are. I'm fixing people, Gray. I'm making a world where people are grateful and fair, where they follow rules and laws, where order trumps all.

“I crafted Forgeries to fight AmWest, to keep them at bay; and now I will use them to secure a new social order for all of AmEast.
Laicos. Social
. This has always been about people, Gray. I birthed five societies when the project started. They've birthed the most loyal, dedicated soldiers imaginable. The best type of citizens.
Worthy
citizens.”

“You're crazy,” I manage. It's a lame response, but I can't come up with anything else.

“People who don't want order are the crazy ones. You are the outlier. Your people are the terrorists. You threaten our way of life, you try to tear down the world we've created. My people thank me, Gray. I've given them everything—safety, security, protection from the West—and the Forgeries can uphold that. They will be the new Order, one that never fails or tires or thins. They will carry on what I've crafted long
after I'm gone. Although perhaps I'll never be gone either.”

He smiles at this and my stomach clenches.

If the fail-safe doesn't work, it won't matter how many papers Bea prints with my face on them, or how many Rebel supporters go around whispering her clever slogans. The Forgeries are limitless, and people are only so many. They will be run into the ground.

“Tell me what you roaches are planning,” Frank says, “or it's your own execution.”

“I'll be dead either way, so I think I'll avoid betraying my team as my final act.”

He steps away from my platform, a half smile on his lips. “Roaches have wings, Gray, but they're not the best fliers.”

The platform lurches beneath me and slowly begins to lower. I scramble to my feet, look up toward the ceiling. The rope is still slack.

“You killed Marco in a similar manner, did you not? Such a stellar soldier, Marco. Perhaps one of the best humans I had working beneath me. Felt like a Forgery sometimes given how loyal he was.”

My platform keeps sinking. Slowly. Painfully slowly. I pull on the rope as hard as I can, hoping in vain that it will snap.

“You can hang now, or you can tell me the Rebels' plans and die a martyr for them later. Harvey can even do the
honors. It will be just like last year, only reversed.”

He rubs his hands together expectantly.

The floor sinks farther. I feel the rope tighten above me and rise onto my toes. Next comes the pressure against my windpipe, cutting off my air.

“A strike on the Compound,” I choke out, our agreed cover. “Trying to destroy the Forgeries I discovered when you held me there.”

“When?”

“During the Sunder Rally.”

My toes are barely touching the floor anymore. My throat is screaming.

“Interesting,” is all Frank says, and he keeps watching. As my toes lift off the floor. As I claw at the rope beneath my neck. As I gag.

This is an awful way to die. For the smallest moment I pity Marco for what I did to him. I feel my lungs shudder, heave, beg.

I hear footsteps, someone else entering the room. Harvey walks behind Frank and leans forward to speak into his ear.

“Sir,” he says, “I really think we should make a spectacle of it. It will pack more punch.”

They both regard me calmly. I kick as though I can swim through air.

Frank frowns, but signals to someone. The rope is cut and I drop like a stone. Pain rockets through my knees and back when I hit the platform.

“See you at the Rally,” Frank says.

I'm on all fours—retching and gasping—but I can hear his smile in the bright tone of his voice. When I look up to confirm it, he's gone.

A door slams.

The lights bang off.

Darkness again.