Chapter Five
KENNEDY COULDN’T WAIT any longer. They’d finally let Charlie out of her room—her cell—and she looked horrible. Wan, too thin, and scared. Just like the rest of the Level 4 women gathered for mealtime.
To her cousin, she mentally sent,Charlie, come on. We have to go.
She tugged at her arm, but Charlie refused to budge. She whispered, “I can’t. Go without me. I’ll get you caught.”
Kennedy sent back,No, we go together.
“I can’t, Kennedy.” Tears spilled down Charlie’s cheeks. The two of them couldn’t look more different. Though their mothers had been sisters, Aunt Alice had married a half-Japanese man, and Charlie had the best of both of them in looks. Petite with black hair, slightly tilted gray-green eyes, and an athletic build, she had a generosity of spirit so like her mother. Charlie would do anything for the people she loved, and she and Kennedy were as close as sisters.
I’m not leaving without you,Kennedy insisted.
A mutant had gotten loose in the building and escaped, leading to several more who seemed to be missing. While security ran amuck trying to locate the absent mutants, Kennedy, Charlie, and the other four women left in the Level 4 program sat in the dining hall, watched over by armed Circs.
Charlie leaned closer. “I’ve foreseen it. You have to leave now. Alone. You’ll find him, and then he’ll find me.”
“Who—”
Charlie cut her off. “If I leave with you now, we’ll both die.” She paused. “Remember what I told you. Don’t deviate from the route I mapped out for you. Find Alex. He’s the one, Kennedy. But be careful. He’s dangerous too.”
“Alex. Right.” Kennedy knew she had to take this chance, if only to come back and rescue her cousin and the others. She wouldn’t get a better opportunity than now.
“You’ll come back for me. I know it.” Charlie seemed to be reminding herself more than telling Kennedy. “We can do this.”
Charlie glanced at another of their women, and Kennedy waited. An explosion blew up the nearby microwave, courtesy of the Level 4 telekinetic with anger issues. Then Kennedy focused one aspect of her newly developing telepathy to send strong thoughts into the heads of the guards, creating migraine-like headaches.
With both men writhing on the ground in pain, she was free to run along the route Charlie had told her to take. Though her cousin had short bouts of precognition and couldn’t see more than Kennedy’s immediate future, Charlie sometimes had premonitions of far future events. If she said only Kennedy could get away now, then Kennedy believed her.
While the armed guards in the hallway tried to focus past the chaos around them—alarms going off, mutants shrieking as they grew closer, fights breaking out—Kennedy darted to the bathroom. “I’m going to throw up,” she said to the male closest to her.
He watched her go into a lavatory, then fired at someone down the hall. Nivia, the telekinetic, followed her inside. So far so good.
“You can’t escape. It’s too risky.” A foreign exchange graduate student from Spain, poor Nivia had answered the wrong ad for psychic research and found herself kidnapped by Smith.
“What?” Kennedy searched for a way to access the vent that would lead away from the center of the building.
“I said you can’t go. I’ve changed my mind. If you leave, we’ll all suffer.”
And poor Nivia had suffered enough. That animal Sheer had toyed with her, and Nivia hadn’t been the same since.
Kennedy gave the girl a hug. “The only reason I’m leaving now is Charlie told me it’s time. I can get help for all of us, but I need to go right now.”
Nivia bit her lower lip in indecision.
“I swear, I’d never leave you all if this wasn’t the only way.” She stared into Nivia’s eyes, willing her to believe the truth. “And if you don’t believe that, then know I’d never leave Charlie behind. She’s my cousin.”
Nivia’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that.”
“No one does. Look, can you give me a boost up? Once I get out, I’m going to send back help. Charlie and I have a plan. Trust me. Stay strong.”
Using her mind, Nivia lifted Kennedy up to the vent with ease, though Kennedy saw the strain on her face. She managed to get the vent cover off, then moved inside, having little room to wiggle. But she did her best and continued to travel, repeating to herself the instructions Charlie had given her yesterday.
It felt never-ending. She turned right, then left, went straight, and all the while prayed she’d reach freedom. The alarm sounded loud in the air duct, and she hurried, breathing a sigh of relief once the duct grew wider.
Finally, she came to the end and saw the outside so close. She shoved the outer vent away, then looked out and saw she was one story up. But as Charlie had predicted, a food truck sat underneath her.
She heard the engine start. With no way around it, she’d have to go out headfirst. But the drop couldn’t be more than ten feet. As if thinking about possible damage, her beast came to the fore. Before Kennedy knew it, she’d somersaulted onto the top of the van and laid flat without injury.
