Arrested
Redstone was the first one down. He grinned at me as he unclipped from the rope. I grabbed him into a hug and slapped his back. "Good to see you." I'd known he'd made it, but I guess I didn't really believe it until I saw him.
He must have felt the same way. "So you're alive."
"Mostly."
"You ready?" he asked as he gestured to his holstered gun.
"Got 'cuffs too. What's the plan?"
"Don't know. Just follow Paylor's lead. And keep ready."
Asher was lowered down next. His face was pale, but he still gave us a huge smile. "Sarge. You're a mess." I'd almost forgotten the scrapes and burns on my face. The fat lip I remembered. Add that to my splinted arm and it was no wonder Johanna hadn't called me "pretty boy" lately.
"Look who's talking," I said. Besides the broken leg, his neck and face were scraped and burned, too. He didn't look much better than I did. I helped Redstone catch him and detach him from the halter they had rigged up. It included an old ladder they'd cut in half somehow, which Asher used as make-shift crutches once we took the whole thing apart. They were big and unwieldy, but he got around pretty well with them. The way they had rigged him up looked to me like it was solid enough to use to lift him out. The only question was whether it was too big for the fan vent.
"Horrock is next," said Redstone looking at me, then added in a lower voice "Tweedle Mean." I nodded and put my hand on my gun to let him know that I'd gotten Mercurius' message. I didn't want to say too much since she could probably hear us by now.
As she reached the bottom she acknowledged us with a nod, then detached herself from the ropes. If she noticed we were watching her, she didn't say anything about it. Redstone and I stood behind her on either side. She was tall and completely filled the close quarters of the lift shaft. But she moved with the fierce grace of someone you didn't want to mess with. Tweedle Mean fit her.
"The President is on her way," she announced, in a voice that was obviously used to making pronouncements like that.
I wasn't sure what the correct protocol was for greeting a President as she rappelled down an old lift shaft. Luckily, Paylor didn't seem concerned about that sort of thing. As soon as she was down, Horrock stepped forward to help her, but she shook her head and detached herself.
Paylor walked over and greeted Johanna, then me as she shook our hands. "Mason, Hawthorne." Then she said "Batton is next" and looked at Johanna, reminding her that she was to keep an eye on him.
Batton, Tweedle Mum, seemed coiled for action as he landed. He wasn't as tall as Horrock and so far I had yet to see him talk or smile. Mercurius arrived with his usual infectious grin, but it wasn't half as big as the smile he threw Johanna. He sobered up quickly though.
Everyone was on edge as Paylor said "Now that we are all here, I have a few things that we need to go over. Our evacuation plan seems solid, and so far proceeding well. However, I have some security concerns that cannot be delayed." I saw the tendons in Horrock's neck tighten. I hated having only one functioning hand. I slipped my right hand to my gun. I knew Redstone didn't have handcuffs, but if there was trouble I'd need the gun first. I trusted Johanna and Mercurius to have Batton covered.
"The events of the last couple of days have shown an obvious breach of security, which I believe may well stem from my own staff." She looked bluntly at Horrock and Batton in turn. "Lacking time to fully investigate, I have decided that the most prudent option is to arrest both of you. Immediately."
That was my cue. We'd all been trained on the basics of making a combat arrest. Horrock didn't resist as I frisked her, then handcuffed her, but her whole body was rigid with anger. She turned away from Paylor, her face hard as granite. They'd been together for years, but I was glad Paylor was willing to upset old friends. This situation was just too dangerous.
Then a thought flashed through my mind – how would I feel if Brighton suspected me of plotting against him? I'd burn with pain and betrayal. And I hadn't known him nearly as long as Horrock had been with Paylor. Unless both Horrock and Batton were conniving, at least one of them was being unjustly accused. One way or another, no wonder she was livid.
And if she did want the President dead, she must know she would be more likely to get a chance to kill her down here than once we were all above ground.
I gave her gun to Redstone, figuring I already had my one hand full. Once Horrock and Batton were cuffed we set off down the hall, a freaky parade, led by a limping Johanna.
As we walked, I tried to figure out how we were going to get this whole circus up the vents and out. When we just had Asher we'd have to lift out that wasn't too hard to do. Now, Johanna was going to have trouble crevice climbing with her hurt, possibly broken, ankle. And I had no idea how we could keep the two bodyguards in custody while all making a demanding climb. My first choice would be to knock them out with morphling or something and just lift them out. I wondered if Paylor could be talked into that. Even then it'd be a lot of work. Maybe I could rig up some sort of pulley like we'd used in the mines. Couldn't anything be easy?
We were approaching the detention cells. I fought the temptation to pull down my face mask. The air was foul, but not poisonous, and I needed to be able to keep an eye on Horrock. Johanna held up a hand and we halted.
"Excuse me, Madame President," I couldn't believe that Johanna was capable of being so respectful. But in I.I. she worked directly for Paylor, and she must have thought very highly of her. "These are the old detention cells. If there are gonna be trials it'd be a good idea to get some photographs of . . . the cells, and . . . those in them. It might be a long time before anyone else is down here."
Paylor nodded. "Rutilus would usually be our photographer. But I believe there's an extra camera in Ms. Horrock's pack. Hawthorne, if you can get the camera out, Mason can be our new photographer."
I nodded and stepped around behind Horrock. Redstone came over and kept his gun trained on her. There were a lot of different pouches. I was glad I was right handed, but it was still awkward to unzip each pouch with only one hand. I used my splinted left hand to steady the pack as I pulled the zipper, but even that small amount of pressure caused my wrist to ache. Luckily, it was in the second pouch I checked, but then I had to use my left hand again as I awkwardly zipped it up.
Meanwhile, Paylor asked Johanna for a flashlight. In the dark, little could be seen by the dim light of her helmet lamp. Flashlight in hand, she stepped forward to peer through the small cell door window herself. I came around Horrock and held the camera out to Johanna.
Just then Paylor gasped and I glanced up to see a grinning skull just inches on the other side of the glass. She stepped back into me.
Horrock must have been waiting for a moment just like that. In an instant she spun, kicking Redstone's gun out of his hand, bashing her elbow against my splint.
Agony filled my mind and my eyes flashed blind. I turned toward her, but I couldn't see, couldn't make out anything. As my eyes cleared, I pushed through the pain and looked up into the barrel of my own gun. She grasped it at her side, her still-cuffed hands pulled around to her hip. She glared insanely at me and we all froze.
At least I was between her and the President. "Hands up, drop your guns!" she barked. I heard the sounds of guns thudding around me as I raised my hands. I wished that they had ignored her and just taken their chances with shooting her, but it was too late for that.
It was my gun. It was my job to stop her.
"Hawthorne, up against the wall." Instead, I took a small step toward her. I risked a glance at Johanna, willing her to guess what I was going to do and back me up. She moved her head slightly and I hoped that was a nod. It was all I was going to get. I took another step toward Horrock.
"Back up! Your body armor won't save you at this range." Her voice had a shrill quaver. Her eyes were wide and wild. I watched her carefully. But her hips weren't going to show me when she was going to move. All she had to do was put a bit of pressure on the trigger. I knew she would shoot the next time I moved, so I'd better make it good.
I took a deep breath and launched myself at her. The blast and the pain erupted as one. She caught me in my right side. Through the body armor I felt the impact smash into my once healed ribs. My right side was pushed away, but I twisted to catch her with my mangled left arm. I felt my forearm connect with the gun and, again, everything exploded into pain.
I heard voices in the distance and forced my eyes to open, my mind to take in the sound. Someone was fumbling with my body armor, trying to get it off of me.
". . . had Doc. Johanna, tell me what to do." It was Mercurius. Even in the dim light I could see that his face was white.
"Don't bother. He'll be fine." I looked over to see her sitting on top of Horrock, a chokehold around her neck. Mercurius' head snapped up to look at her with shock.
The air had been knocked out of me and I knew I couldn't talk yet. So I sat up and took a few deep breaths, hoping that would be enough to show him I wasn't dead. I still felt shaky and nauseous, but pretty good for having just been shot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Paylor and Redstone flanking Johanna, all three of them now holding Horrock.
"We need the keys to these handcuffs," Paylor said to Mercurius. I dug them out of my pocket and tossed them to her. With every breath, the pain slid a bit, falling back to a heavy ache. I had to smile at Mercurius' face. He looked like he was about to faint.
"What the . . . . Since when are you bulletproof?" he gasped at me.
I couldn't quite speak yet. Johanna answered for me. "Since he put a rubber bullet in his gun. It was special for me."
I lifted my arm, slowly, to show him that my body armor wasn't dented. "Wrong gun to steal," I croaked.
"Damn, I thought you were nuts," said Asher.
I noticed a streak of blood sliding out from under my splint. I must've opened up some of the hundred cuts left from where the metal had been embedded. My arm was back to throbbing. I wiped the blood off on my pants and took the water Mercurius was holding out to me.
Paylor had removed Horrock's pack and was recuffing her. I watched to see if she did it differently. Had I put them on wrong? But from where I was it looked like she did it the same way I had.
Horrock snarled back over her shoulder at Paylor. "You bitch. Why wouldn't you listen to me? We should have just killed them all and not screwed around with those stupid trials."
She seemed to be laughing at us, scoffing that we hadn't just killed her. What was Paylor thinking? How were we going to get her out of here? But it was one thing to shoot her while she was attacking. It felt wrong to kill her now, now that she was back under control. Or was she? I'd thought she was under control before.
"Lea," said Paylor, her voice amazingly steady and smooth, "Don't do this. Don't throw it all away. We can talk about this when we get out."
Horrock just made a noise at her, somewhere between a grunt and a growl. Paylor gestured at Redstone. He took Horrock by the elbow, then poked her in the side with his gun to let her know it was there.
Paylor came over to me and offered me a hand up. I took it and was glad that I could stand without wobbling. She looked me in the eye and said "Thank you. That was a close call. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just bruised a bit." I didn't want to make a big deal about my splinted hand. I just wanted to get out of here. She didn't point out that none of it would have happened if I hadn't been an idiot and let a handcuffed prisoner get my gun. That would've been an awkward conversation.
Paylor uncuffed Batton. It was pretty clear Horrock was a traitor. I wondered if she'd considered that they might both be in on it. But I wasn't going to question her. She'd known them for years. Batton joined Redstone in guarding Horrock. With my injured hand still killing me I was glad to be relieved of that duty. They'd taken the pack off of Horrock and were dividing her stuff so no one had to carry it all.
"Hawthorne," Johanna held the camera out to me. "We still need those pictures." The rest of them were busy with Horrock.
"Sure." I figured I could handle that with one hand.
Then she said "You'll need the flashlight, too. You can't use the camera flash or you'll just get glare from the window."
"I'll get the flashlight." Asher crutched over to help me.
I took one picture of the skeletonized face in the window, then another down to the side that showed others also pressed up against the door.
"What d'you think happened to them?" I asked as I put the camera into Asher's pack.
"Probably a poison gas," Paylor answered. "That's why they pressed up against the door. We've seen detention cells like that before. I should've been ready for it."
Horrock smirked at her and Paylor's hand flinched toward her holster. But she took a breath and calmed herself. Too bad.
Johanna surprised me by coming over and pressing a couple of pills into my good hand. "They'll take the edge off." Maybe it was more obvious than I thought that my hand was hurting.
Before too long we were ready to go again. I was bringing up the rear now, just behind Asher as he crutched along. He was moving pretty well, obviously getting used to the crutches. I still couldn't think of any way to get Horrock up the vent besides knocking her out. Before she'd been mad; now she'd begun to move her head around in a strange jerky way. Was her brain about to snap? It was nothing but luck, good for us, bad for her, that had blown her desperate attempt. I wondered if she'd try anything else. She had to know that things wouldn't go well for her up top. From the tense silence of the group I knew the others knew the danger she posed.
The headache that never seemed to completely go away had come back full force. Maybe Johanna's pills would help with that too, once they kicked in. What I really needed was to breathe some clean air. A vision flashed through my mind of sitting back against the oak in the cool forest of District 4, holding Katniss. I'd do anything to be back there again, with her in my arms. Or even to just sit with her on the concrete stairs of the Base under an open sky.
We reached the interrogation room and Johanna, still leading, marched through the door without hesitating. Asher had to slow and turn to make it through every doorway; he was just too wide with the bulky ladder crutches on either side. Here the floor was wet, too. I waited behind him, ready to help if one of his crutches slipped.
Once we were in the labs, Johanna paused and said "Careful in here," before opening the door to the pod storage room. We'd told Mercurius about this room earlier when we were describing the route to the air vent. Batton had Horrock by the arm, and Redstone had his gun out, right behind. I was glad I wasn't the one watching her now. They just had to get her a few more feet to be past this room, but I wondered if she realized how volatile that room was.
"Sorry I'm so slow," Asher was turning sideways, but still had to lean forward a bit so that his pack could clear the door, this one a bit more narrow than the others they'd been through.
"Don't worry. We'll all get –"
A rush of noise and movement interrupted, then a shot, deafening in the close space. Horrock had broken away from Batton and Mercurius and was standing up against the shelf, her hands still cuffed, her elbow poised, ready to start pushing things off. A stain of dark blood was spreading on her side, her navy blue uniform sheening black. Redstone had shot her right in the gut. But her eyes had a strange glee in them. She knew she was going to die and she was going to take us all with her.
Batton and Redstone had their guns up and aimed at her head, but they couldn't fire. Knocking her into that shelf could set off every pod on it. At least some of them would be active.
She sought out Paylor, also frozen. "I'm not stupid. I know it's over. Too bad everyone has to die for your weakness." She snapped the end of every sentence. Her face broke into a rabid grin. She twisted manically and knocked something off the shelf.
I'd heard others say that life could go into slow motion, but it'd never happened to me before, until now. I felt very far away from my body, my pain. Time moved at a crawl as I watched a set of small metal balls drop. Trackerjacks? Darts? Why so small? They looked like a sketch of Beetee's – body armor blasters. Little balls of fire meant to explode on contact with body armor. Katniss thought they crossed the line. In here, they'd trigger every pod. That'd cross the line for me. They hit with echoing metal clangs that jerked life back into speed.
And nothing happened. They were duds.
Horrock snarled at her own bad luck, then found a pod with her elbow and knocked it down. Before I could register what was going on, Redstone dove forward. He landed on the pod as it hit the ground and for a moment I thought he'd held it together with his body, kept it from opening. But then there was a blast. Redstone was blown to one side and I threw up my hands and ducked as a white powder sprayed toward Asher and me.
I heard Asher scream as he took the brunt of it, and my skin burned where the powder hit me. He went down and I looked up to see Batton grabbing Horrock as she pushed another pod off of the shelf.
There was a strange shrieking hiss and a red cloud seeped out of this one. I tried to pull Asher away, but as soon as I touched him I knew he was dead, his face covered with an acidic foam that must have come from the powder. My hands were covered in it too and I tried to scrape it off on my pants as I backed away from the new horror.
But the cloud had hardened into a red bubble which didn't spread but encased Horrock and Batton as they struggled. Their screams were silenced, no sound escaping the bubble. Their bodies shook as they fought each other. Their faces changed, reacting to pain, death, something.
They were completely different. Horrock's face contorted, twisting, more and more feral, animal, hideous, until she seemed a snarling lizard, then she went slack and was gone.
But Batton seemed to hear or see something. He looked up, his face surprised, relieved. For a moment he was beautiful and bright, then he vanished in a burst of light.
It all happened so fast that I wasn't even sure what I'd seen. I finally realized I was the only one left alive on this side of the room. I grabbed onto Asher's body with my good hand, twisting the fabric of his shirt above his pack in my grip. His crutches fell and I pulled him away from them. He wouldn't need them any more. We crossed to the door where the others were fleeing. As I turned to close it, I saw that there was now nothing left but a puddle of gleaming red on the floor. I slammed the door and leaned my head against it, letting Asher's body slump to the floor.
I felt detached, numb, confused. I'd just been talking to Asher - and he was gone. Just like that last crazed drive into the Capitol. It was so random, so unfair.
I looked down at my own arms, wondering why I wasn't hurt more when he was dead. The bandage around my splint had been eaten away and my other arm was swollen and red, but the pain was no worse than a bad sunburn.
"We're taking a break. A half hour to bandage up, get some food and water. Then let's get out of here." Paylor's voice was brisk, but her eyes looked as dead as I felt. I leaned against the wall, unwinding what was left of the wrap off of my splint. I decided to take a look at my arm before I rewrapped it. I slipped off my pack, wincing as it scraped my raw right hand, then lifting it carefully off of my left arm. As I dug around for some bandaging I looked over and saw Johanna and Mercurius checking Redstone. I was amazed that he could be alive after throwing himself on that pod. I gave up on the bandages. I must not have brought any extra.
"Hawthorne, are you okay?" President Paylor was looking at me, her own face twisted as she held in her grief.
I didn't know how to answer that question. Was I okay?
"What just happened in there?" My voice wavered. It seemed wrong that I could be here, alive. Just a few inches and it would've been me.
Paylor sat on the floor and gestured for me to sit next to her. I did. She pulled a couple of bars out of her pack and gave me one. I took a bite, but it was like sawdust in my mouth. I grabbed my canteen and tried not to think of anything but the water.
"It never makes sense. It never gets easier," she said in a low voice. "Redstone sacrificed himself, but he's alive. Batton has saved me so many times and miraculously survived, but now . . . he's gone."
I held on to the most concrete thing she'd said. "How could Redstone not be dead? He had a bomb in his stomach."
"No. The charge was just enough to open the pod. The blast wasn't meant to kill. He took a punch to the gut, but he'll be okay. He saved some of us though. Who knows what that powder would have done if it had fully dispersed."
"He may have cracked some ribs," said Johanna, "But the body armor dispersed the impact. He is going to have one hell of a bruise."
"How can Asher be dead when my hands are just burnt a little?"
Mercurius came over to us, squatting down to hand me some burn cream. "He took it right in the face. Maybe it poisoned him. At least he went quick."
I smeared the cream on my hands and was lost for the moment in its soothing balm.
"I killed Asher," came Redstone's voice, distorted by pain.
"You didn't kill him, Redstone. Horrock did. You saved the rest of us." Paylor's voice was still tightly controlled. I wondered what it was like to lose both of your bodyguards like that.
Redstone turned his head toward the wall. Johanna pulled his shirt down over the bandages she'd put on him, then sat next to him on the ground.
She tossed a roll of bandages toward me. "Hawthorne, you need to rewrap your splint."
I nodded and started to try to unroll them with my right hand.
"Let me do that," Mercurius said. I handed it to him, then realized he and Redstone were the only ones left down here from our squad. How could I have lost so many? I put my head back against the wall, my eyes gripped shut.
"Hey, before we go up, Asher figured something out. Something we'll need to know up there. He thinks . . . thought Walker helped Shine." Mercurius was repositioning the splint after he checked over my arm.
Another one. How could I have been so clueless? "Do you think he was right?" I ached to talk about Asher in past tense. I looked over at him, still slumped against the wall where I'd left him.
"Maybe. Shine must've set the charge when they were down before, bringing down the equipment. He said that there was a spill, some kind of booze in Rutilus's pack."
"Walker told me about that." I could barely remember back to standing by the wall, waiting for the phone with Walker.
"It couldn't have been Mica's," said Paylor and it took me a minute to realize that was Rutilus's first name. "She's not a drinker and she would never try to sneak something unauthorized in. Just not like her."
"But none of us knew that. Somebody put that in her stuff," Mercurius was wrapping my arm now. "Walker was the one who slung the pack down, broke the bottle. When they were cleaning it up Shine said he'd go to supply and get some towels. Asher even said he'd wondered why it took so long, but guessed that maybe the towels were hard to find."
"So that's when Shine set the charge. But anyone could have put the bottle in her pack. Before – back up top." I was trying to piece this all together. If we were wrong, and it wasn't Walker, then it could be someone else.
"No. Asher said security went through their packs. They would've seen it."
"It got past them somehow. Shine could've done it."
Mercurius shook his head. "Maybe. But Asher thought Walker was weird when the spill happened, wouldn't look them in the eye."
Johanna looked up. "Walker told me the new government was too soft. All the Capitol folks should be lined up and shot he said."
"Let's wait and see, when we get up top. Just keep an eye on him," I said. We were back to thinking anyone could be a spy. But then, some of them clearly were.
"Are you all ready? What do we need to do to get this climb going?"
"We need to get Asher ready. Anybody got a tarp?" I was glad no one argued. Somebody'd have to come back and get Marik and Shine later, but I didn't want to leave anyone else down here.
Mercurius went over and gave Redstone a hand up. Then the two of them wrapped Asher's body, a bandana over where his face had been, and secured him with ropes so we could lift him out.
The climb turned out to be much easier than I'd thought it would be. I hated that it was because most of our problems were dead. At least the ones down below.
Mercurius and Johanna led, since they both had good hands to deal with removing the fans. Paylor went up next so that the three of them could hoist up Asher's body. Then Redstone. We'd thought he'd need some help after the blow he'd taken, but he managed pretty well on his own. I went up last. Getting to the first vent was hard since I couldn't crevice climb yet. I climbed up the furnace then Redstone helped me. After that it was slow, but steady. We had to take out the fan at each level, then lower them down, but we got it done.
I could feel the air getting colder, fresher, the darkness giving way to light. The last time I had to wait, tucked back in an intake vent as the broken fan was lowered, I knew I couldn't take much more of the tight space in the vents. I focused on the sunlight, blocked by the vent cap, but still seeping through. I just wanted to be out. Katniss was waiting for me up there.
After a little more than two hours we were out. Mercurius was the first one. The climb past L1 was just twenty-some feet. He cut the top off of the vent, then whooped as his feet hit the ground. As Johanna followed him we could hear them talking. It sounded to me like there was another voice; they were talking to someone.
After they got Paylor up, Mercurius yelled something back down, but I couldn't hear him well. It sounded like he said "Hey Hawthorne, you're already up here," but that didn't make any sense.
The last part of the climb, I was looking up at light blue sky. I'd lost track of the time, but the fading color told me it was dusk. I didn't care how much it hurt my hands. I locked my eyes on the sky and went as fast as I could.
When I scrambled out of the top, the air was brisk and clear. I leaned my head back and filled my lungs with the clean taste of it. I opened them as I was grabbed into a tight embrace, then I knew what Mercurius had meant.
It was Rory. Somehow he was here waiting for us. And everyone was hugging and smiling. I didn't even mind when I saw Johanna give Rory a big hug, although she caught my eye and winked at me. Funny.
All my fatigue and grief slid away. It felt so good to be standing there on the mountain, free from the Nut, the wide sky around us.
Except Asher was dead. I looked over at his body and realized I'd have to tell his family. And Marik's. And what would I say to Shine's family?
We heard someone crashing through the trees, then saw Chervil running up through the scrub oak. He smiled to see us, but then panted "They're coming."
He was breathless as he explained that Katniss had done some amazing press conference; a riot was breaking out when she finished, some wanting us rescued, some wanting to lynch us. He'd been right behind the podium, when he heard someone announce to Onyx, standing just to the side, "They're out. They've been spotted. On the mountain."
"I didn't wait. I knew you'd be here, on the south side. But they're coming. They think you're dead." He pointed to Paylor. "They're coming to arrest you," he said to me.
"It's nuts down there," Rory jumped in. "Gale, they're saying that you and Johanna were out to kill the President."
My mouth gaped open. Why would I want to do that? But Rory must have already told the others. Paylor motioned for us to gather around.
"For now, let them think I'm dead. In fact, helmets back on, everyone. Let's find out as much as we can before they know who's alive. We have another battle to get through here."
As we put our helmets on, gathered our gear, Chervil threw his arm around me. "I can't believe you guys got out. I'm so glad to see you."
"Me, too," I said, trying to get my mind back, ready to deal with whatever was coming. "Where's Katniss? Is she okay?"
"It was crazy after the press conference. I lost everyone else. But I saw them. She was okay. Walker was taking her somewhere."
My head snapped up and cold gripped my chest.
I'd been trying not to jump to conclusions on Walker. But not if he had Katniss. My gut was telling me that something was off, that he was up to no good.
"Where were they?" Wherever it was, I was going. Now.
"I don't know. The press conference was in the parking lot, just outside the Nut's security fence. I saw them leaving, up the stairs, back to base. I thought they were just trying to get away from the crowd, from everyone asking her questions. What's wrong?"
"We think he was helping Shine. I gotta go."
"They're not going to let you. The MP's are coming - they're just down the hill."
I could hear them. They certainly weren't sneaking up on anyone.
"I'll go around," I said, already calculating how long it would take to make a wide enough circle to evade them. Too long. And if they were smart and spread apart . . . I needed to get over to the Base. Now.
"Gale, go. I'll stay." It was Rory.
"What?" He was taking off his sweatshirt, holding it out to me.
"Give me your helmet, and those arm things. They'll think I'm you. It'll buy you time."
Chervil nodded. "Let's go. Doc's down below. He'll help."
I started to unstrap the body armor.
Mercurius said "Just go. We'll give him Asher's. You can't let them see you."
I looked up at Paylor and she nodded. That was all I needed. I gave Rory a quick hug, and Chervil and I took off for the trees. As we ran, I slipped off my pack and pulled on his sweatshirt, leaving the hood on to hide my face. I thought about ditching the pack, but I didn't know what we'd be facing. Better keep my stuff.
We heard the military police confronting the others. Nice welcome home they were getting. But now they wouldn't be looking for us; they wouldn't be searching the mountain.
Except they were.
I ducked behind a tree, hoping it was thick enough to hide both me and my pack. Chervil was behind another. He caught my eye.
"They've got Doc," he said softly. "Now, they're looking for me." He sighed and leaned his head back against the tree. "Check Brighton's office and Beetee's lab. If we can get loose we'll come help."
Before I could register what he meant, he stepped out from behind his tree, his hands up.
"Don't shoot," he called. "I'm coming."
I was on my own.
Thanks so much, IrishLuck19, for the extra work on this chapter.
And thanks to all of you reading this story. Extra thanks to those of you who read and review. Such fun that new names keeping popping up:
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