SIX
THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHWEST MONTANA
SIX STOPPED WALKING SO ABRUPTLY THAT SAM almost ran into her.
“What?” he said.
“Did you hear that?” Six asked.
The in-ear receiver she wore was tuned to Rena’s transmitter, while Sam was receiving Nemo’s feed. Although the wrist monitor Six wore was receiving the video feeds from both girls’ contact lens cameras, the smallness of the screen and the darkness of the woods made it impossible to tell what was going on.
“The shouting?” said Sam. “Yeah. Why? Did you hear something else?”
Six nodded. “Rena must be closer to them than Nemo is,” she said. “Something happened.”
“Is he dead?” said a voice in her ear. It wasn’t Rena’s and didn’t sound like Nemo or Yo-Yo either.
There was silence, then some scratchy sounds, as if something was being dragged through the snow. Then a woman’s voice said, “He is.”
“Good,” said the first voice. There was an odd quality to it, as if the speaker was in pain. “He was the only one with any survival skills. Without him they won’t know what to do.”
“The boy can still shoot fire,” said the woman.
“Yeah, I noticed that,” the man replied.
“Relax,” said the woman. “It only burned your jacket and part of your arm. You’ll live.”
“It’s my shooting arm,” the man complained. “And in case you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty goddamn cold out here.”
“We can stop at the lodge and get you another coat,” said the woman. “They won’t get far.”
The man grumbled something unintelligible, and Six heard the sound of feet on snow. They were walking away from the necklace, which Six guessed Rena had either dropped or lost. But that wasn’t what worried her at the moment.
“Patch through to Lexa,” she said to Sam.
A few moments later, Lexa’s voice was in her ear. “Where are you?”
“We just got to where they parked the truck. Now we’re heading up the mountain,” Six said. She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Are you still getting a read from Kirk’s tracking device?”
“I’ll call it up,” Lexa said. Then, in a more somber tone, she said, “It’s still tracking, but it’s on recovery mode. No signs of life.”
“Shit,” Six muttered.
“What the hell is going on up there?” Lexa growled, her usually calm voice bristling with anger.
“Someone is hunting the kids,” said Six. “Literally. Kirk was helping them get away, and—”
“How close are you?” Lexa interrupted.
“Not close enough,” said Six. “Can you help us out?”
“I’ll work with Nine on getting someone up there,” said Lexa. “But it might take a little time.”
“A little time is all we have,” Six said.
“Got it,” Lexa said, and disconnected the call.
“They’re really hunting them,” Sam said. “They’re as sick as the humans who sided with the Mogs.”
Six said nothing. Inside, she was raging with anger and frustration. She wanted to find Nemo, Rena, and Yo-Yo and get them out of there. Then, she wanted to find Jagger Dennings and the two monsters hunting the teens and show them what it was like to be on the run from someone who knew how to use her Legacies to their full extent.
She doubled the pace. She and Sam moved swiftly up the mountain, following the path that Cutter had led Rena and Nemo up. Without Rena’s transmitter sending them her feed, Six tuned to Nemo’s, hoping for clues as to where the three teenagers were.
What she heard was three frightened kids who were running for their lives.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Nemo said.
“No,” Rena said, her voice trembling. “But I think so. There was a lot of blood.”
“Fuck!” Nemo said. “This is all so fucked-up!”
“Yo-Yo, we need to bandage your hand,” Rena said in a calmer voice.
Good girl, Six thought. Keep them thinking about other things.
“What’s the plan?” Sam asked from behind her.
“First, we find these three and get them out,” Six said. “After that, I don’t know.”
“We find the two who are hunting them.”
“I’ll be more than happy to spend a few minutes with them,” Six told him grimly.
They reached the point where Cutter had transferred the girls to the ATV. Now, even though they were in great shape, they found the going tough. Six pushed herself on by listening to the voices of Yo-Yo, Nemo, and Rena as they looked for someplace to hide from the people pursuing them. They had bandaged Yo-Yo’s hand. Now they were debating whether to go to the lodge and try to steal an ATV or keep moving on foot.
“Dennings will be waiting for us to try that,” Yo-Yo argued. “I say we stay away from the lodge and head down the mountain on foot.”
“My feet are blocks of ice,” Nemo said. “My jeans are wet too. Rena and I aren’t dressed for this. If we don’t change or get warm, we’re going to freeze to death before we get out of here.”
“Nemo’s right,” said Rena. “My teeth are already chattering, and I can’t feel my toes or fingertips. We’ve got to dry out somehow.”
“Okay,” Yo-Yo said. “There’s another building. Some kind of barn or storage shed or something. Down the mountain a ways from the lodge. I heard Dennings tell Cutter to go get something out of it. We can try to go there. Maybe find some weapons while we’re at it.”
“Won’t they be watching that place too?” Nemo said.
“You got a better idea?” said Yo-Yo. “Unless you can build us a cabin somehow, that’s all I’ve got.”
“We’ll go there,” Rena said decisively. “It can’t be any more dangerous than trying to get down the mountain in this weather. Besides, Sam and Six are probably on their way to help.”
“We are,” Six said aloud, forgetting that they couldn’t hear her.
“We have our tracking devices, and if they’re listening, they’ll know exactly where we are,” Rena told the others. Then the sounds of talking were replaced by sounds of walking.
Six looked down at her wrist. She was wearing a GPS that showed their position in relation to the lodge, the coordinates of which she’d put in once they’d used the data from Rena’s and Nemo’s tracking devices. They were only about fifteen minutes away.
All of a sudden, there was a screeching sound in her ear. She pulled the receiver out, seeing that Sam was doing the same thing.
“What was that?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” said Six, rubbing her ear. There was a ringing in her head. “It’s like something fried Nemo’s transmitter.”
She looked at Sam as a horrible thought filled her mind. If the transmitter had been destroyed, it might mean Nemo had been hurt, or that Dennings had discovered it was a transmitter and removed it. Sam, likely realizing the same thing, said, “We’ve got to get to them.”
Finding the barn was not difficult, and it’s setting—below and away from the lodge—meant that it was hidden from anyone spying from the main building. This didn’t mean it was safe, though, and Six and Sam weren’t about to just walk through the doors. Instead, they first peered through one of the windows on the side. The inside appeared empty. Then Six noticed movement towards the back, plus a flicker of light.
“They’re in there,” she said with a sigh of relief. “But if they’re smart, they’ve barricaded the door from inside. We need to get their attention.”
Sam looked around. The barn was filled with pieces of furniture, boxes, and tools of various kinds. But one thing stuck out at him. It was an old pinball machine, sitting not far from the window. Why it was there, he had no idea. “This might do it,” he said.
Concentrating his attention on the machine, he brought it to life. The lights around it suddenly flashed, and the various bells dinged as a ball was launched up the shooter lane and the flippers went wild. It wasn’t the subtlest way of announcing their presence, but it did the job. A moment later, a worried-looking Nemo peered out from the shadows. Sam waved at her, hoping she would be able to tell it was him and not think someone was attacking them.
She did. She ran to the window, then to the door, which opened a crack. Sam and Six slipped inside, then they barricaded it again. Six looked at Nemo, who was trembling with cold. “Are you okay?”
Nemo nodded even as her teeth clacked together. “Yeah” she said. “Just hiding out from some nutjobs who are trying to hunt us down like a bunch of deer. The usual.”
“We heard,” Six said.
Rena and Yo-Yo appeared. Relief flooded their faces when they saw Sam and Six. “You made it!” Rena said.
“Let’s go in the back,” Six suggested. “Away from the windows.”
Rena led them to the rear of the barn. There, they found a fire burning inside a large metal cauldron that hung suspended on chains from a steel frame. “Hunters and farmers use these for cleaning animals they kill,” Yo-Yo explained. “You fill them with water and heat it to help de-hair hogs and such when you’re skinning them. I saw my cousins do it once. It’s kind of gross.”
“It makes a nice fire pit,” Sam said, holding his hands over the dancing flames.
“I don’t think I’ll ever feel warm again,” Nemo said, standing close to the cauldron.
Rena looked at Sam and Six. “I think they killed James,” she said, her voice breaking. “I tried to . . .” Her words trailed off, and she started to cry.
Sam hugged her. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re going to get out of here now.”
Six addressed Yo-Yo. “Are there any other kids up there?” she asked.
“A few,” Yo-Yo said.
“Ghost or Edwige?” Six said.
Yo-Yo shook his head. “I don’t know who all is there. I only got here yesterday, and they kept me to myself mostly. Except when I saw Drac, and he restored my Legacy.”
“Drac is here?” said Six.
“Yeah,” said Yo-Yo. “Like I said, he’s the one who fixed me up.”
“How did—”
“Six,” said Sam. “We really should get out of here.”
“What’s the hurry?” Dennings’s voice filled the room. Everyone spun around, looking for him. Yo-Yo lifted his hands, forming a fireball. Dennings laughed. “Everybody’s so ready to fight. Settle down. I just want to talk. You think I’d bring you all this way just to kill you? Not that I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he added. “The barn is rigged with enough explosives to send you all back to Lorien.”
“What do you mean you brought us here?” said Six.
Dennings laughed again, his voice crackling through speakers in the barn’s roof. “You think I wanted Rena and Whatshername?” he said. “Hell, no. I wanted you, Six. One of the originals. Why do you think I took your flyboy pal? Why do you think I let those two run around with their implants and their transmitters? I wanted you to hear everything. I wanted you and your human boyfriend there to come running to save these two. I knew you wouldn’t let them get picked off.”
“What do you want with me?” said Six.
“Like I said, I want to talk,” Dennings replied. “Why don’t you come up here to the lodge?”
“We’ve got nothing to talk about,” said Six.
Dennings clucked his tongue. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Well, if you’d rather all of you die right now, I guess we’ll do it your way.”
“You know he means it,” Yo-Yo said. “He doesn’t care what happens to any of us.”
“All right,” Six said. “I’ll come talk. But everybody else leaves.”
“Sure, sure,” said Dennings. “I mean, I can’t promise my clients won’t try to stop them, but four against two is pretty decent odds.” He laughed. “Not that it helped your pilot.”
Six swore and started to say something, but Sam put his hand on her arm. “I can handle this,” he whispered. “It’s two bad guys. I’ll get everybody out, take them to safety, and come back. I’m pretty sure you can handle yourself.” He smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “Okay?”
“No,” said Six. “But I guess that’s the plan.”
“Come to the lodge,” Dennings said. “Alone. And no one else leaves that barn until you’re inside. I’ll tell them when they can go. Oh, and don’t try the going-invisible trick or everyone else dies.”
His voice seemed to evaporate, and the barn was once again still except for the crackling of the fire.
“He’s probably still listening,” Nemo said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Six. “Here’s the plan. I go up there. When he says you can leave, you get out of here.”
“That’s not much of a plan,” said Nemo. “What’s to stop him from blowing this place up once you’re there?”
“Because if he does, I’ll tear that lodge—and him—to pieces,” Six said. She spoke loudly, assuming that Nemo was right about Dennings listening in. “Besides,” she added in a whisper. “McKenna knows exactly where we are and is sending help.”
“Dennings will just move again,” said Yo-Yo.
“He’s not the one I care about,” Six said. “You guys are. All right. I’m going.”
They walked to the barn door. Six removed the boards they’d used to hold it shut from the inside, opened the door, and looked outside. She didn’t see anything suspicious, but that didn’t mean there was nothing out there. She turned to Sam, leaned in, and kissed him. “Be smart,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
She slipped into the dark. Sam pulled the door shut behind her.
Six walked up the slope towards the lodge. She knew Sam was capable of handling himself, but still she worried. He had three other people to take care of—three people who had been through a lot and were frightened, exhausted, and edgy. She didn’t know who those people hunting them were, but they’d already proved that they were more than willing to kill.
She passed through a copse of trees, momentarily engulfed in darkness, then emerged into the moonlight again. Ahead of her, the lodge loomed against the backdrop of the full moon. A lone figure stood on the porch, looking down at her. He waved.
“Come on up,” Dennings called out.
Six mounted the stairs. “Well,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”
A second later she felt a sharp sting at her neck. Her hand flew to the spot, and her fingers felt something fuzzy and sharp. She pulled the tiny dart away and looked at it. Already her vision was fading. She tried to attack Dennings, but her body went limp. As she fell, he caught her.
“Oh, there are so many things to talk about,” he said as he dragged her through the door and into the house. His voice sounded very far away. “Right after you see the doc.”