SAGE
I pulled away from Jack, my mind whirling as I wiped away tears from my eyes.
Beckett stood frozen as the door clicked shut behind him.
Finn growled from his cage, and I knew the exact moment when Beck caught sight of him, because he pressed his fist to his mouth, blinking like he tried to keep from crying. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep my own tears from coming again. I remembered what it felt like to take my first look at Finn, and Beckett considered Finn his brother, too.
Finally, Beckett turned to Jack, a look of resentment on his face. The two brothers stared at each other.
“I should have known from the very beginning you would be here,” Beckett said. “Never underestimate the incredible Jack Adamson. Why haven’t I learned that by now?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, the muscle in his jaw twitched.
Beckett glanced between me and Jack, assessing. “Did he show you all his magic powers, Sage? Did he show you how he made girls swoon back home in the city?”
“Shut up, Beck.” Jack glared at his brother.
“What? Did I say something wrong?”
I didn’t recognize the Beckett that was in front of me, and I don’t know which hurt worse—thinking that Beckett had flipped so drastically in such a short amount of time, or that maybe I hadn’t known the real Beckett at all.
“Why are you here, Beckett?” Jack said.
“I came to get Sage and Finn out.”
Jack snorted. “And why do you care, when you’re the one that gave them up in the first place? You were supposed to be in Alaska. What in the hell where you doing in Kansas?”
Beckett walked straight up to Jack, closing the space between them. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Jack. And you’re the one who shoved me into that car.”
“You compromised her family’s location!”
“We didn’t have a choice!” Beckett shouted back. He shoved Jack in the chest, and Finn growled in response.
Jack froze—only for a moment—then responded with a shove of his own, forcing Beckett backward a step. Beck caught himself, and the two of them locked eyes. There was an excruciating pause before Beckett lunged at Jack’s waist and slammed him against the wall.
In my head, it all looked like slow motion.
Jack wrapped Beck’s legs and they crashed to the floor, rolling like wolves. There were not trained, articulate movements—no calculated hits—just an all-out street brawl speckled with raw punches and grunts. Some similar fight probably happened when they were ten, only this time, they were grown up, and it was for real. Real hits, real pain.
Get them apart. You have to get them apart.
They crashed into the cleaning bucket and sent it rolling across the floor toward Finn’s cage. Jack was on top of Beck, his legs wrapped around Beckett’s hips. Jack tried to pin Beckett’s arms back, but Beck kept punching at Jack’s chest, grabbing at his face.
I moved in close enough for both of them to hear me.
“STOP!” I yelled and reached my hand in between them, grabbing at Beckett’s arm. Jack’s weight shifted in response, giving Beckett a window of opportunity. He pushed Jack to the left, toward me. I jumped out of the way, but not before my foot caught under Beck’s shoulder. I tripped and fell backward, catching myself with my hands and crab-walked out of the way.
Now Beckett was on top, both oblivious to my fall. I shook out my hands to relieve the tingling in my wrists.
Then came the clang.
All I saw was the cleaning bucket and a few remaining supplies hitting the wall—right on the button that opened Finn’s cage.
I didn’t have time to marvel at the miracle, to wonder if Finn had done it on purpose, or if hitting the button had been purely accidental.
The cage door slid open, and fury contorted Finn’s face as he loped toward the boys.
“Finn! No!” I screamed. I tried to step in his way, but the glazed look in his eyes narrowed in on the boys. I had to dive out of the way or be trampled.
Beckett was frozen in place, watching Finn approach. Jack shoved Beckett off himself, and both boys got halfway up before Finn lunged at Beckett, encircling his neck with one of his hands. Beckett’s hands flew to Finn’s swollen fingers, trying to loosen the grip.
“Finn!” I screamed. His eyes were glassed over, unreachable in a way I’d never seen before. He was choking Beckett to death.
Jack jumped on Finn’s back, and his arms wrapped around my brother’s neck. Finn started twisting, swiping at Jack with his free hand, but he didn’t release his hold on Beckett.
Beck’s face was turning blue.
Do something!
Without thinking, I moved in and wrapped my arms around Finn’s waist. His belly was too swollen to encircle him completely.
“Finn. Stop. Please.” I hugged him tighter.
Finn’s grip on Beck loosened, whether from my hold or Jack’s, I wasn’t sure, but Beckett broke free and dropped to his knees coughing.
Both Finn’s hands went to his neck. I was crying again as I released my brother. Finn dropped to his knees on the ground, Jack still gripping his neck from behind.
I let out a sob.
Jack only released Finn’s neck once he’d fallen to the ground, unconscious.
Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead. He didn’t look at Beckett, who had pulled himself to standing and looked warily down at Finn’s body, still rubbing at his neck.
“Help me get him to his cage.” Jack spoke to me.
After we dragged Finn over and laid him inside, I pressed the button to close his door.
Jack didn’t make eye contact with me. Instead, he picked up his shirt and strode to the door of the old medical wing. “We leave in three days,” he said over his shoulder as he reached for the door handle.
“They’re dead, Jack. Jeff and Peg are dead.” Beckett’s words froze his brother.
Jack lowered his hand from the door knob. He turned. “What?”
Shock ran through me, echoing the sound in Jack’s voice. Jeff and Peg were dead? I hadn’t been able to think beyond my mom and my feelings of betrayal long enough to even ask about them.
“And Dad said he’d kill you if we didn’t go. That’s why we weren’t in Alaska.”
Air hissed between Jack’s teeth. Guilt ran through me at what I’d said to Beckett earlier.
“I don’t think three days is soon enough,” Beckett said. “We need to go now. I’m not sure what’s going on, but in the lab just a few minutes ago, one of the doctors came in and told Dad that he needed to take a look at Sage’s bloodwork.”
The two brothers held a long look with each other, an entire conversation playing back and forth between their eyes.
Finally, Jack broke the silence by speaking into his ear bud.
“C,” he said, “can you confirm?” There was a pause. Then Jack looked over at me. “They’re in the lab now. Caesar can’t hear their conversation clearly, but they are looking at your blood.” Jack glanced at Beckett again. “We leave tonight.”
“Tonight?” I cried. “But Finn’s not ready!”
“C.” Jack spoke into his ear again. “Find out if Dr. Cunningham can get a helicopter to the west side of the island by tomorrow morning.”
Beckett shook his head. “That’s not soon enough. We don’t know what Dad will do. He’s unpredictable. We’ve got to go now.”
“This is the best we can do,” Jack said. “I still have to go in the woods and mark out a path to the north to detour the guards away from our actual direction. Besides, Sage and Imogen will be missed anytime until after dinner. We can’t afford not to get a few hours head start. If we leave before then, we’ll be noticed missing within minutes.”
“But Finn’s not ready!” I repeated.
Jack turned to me. “I’m not sure how it will work, but my initial idea was to use part of a sedative pill—not enough to knock him out, just to subdue him. It’s ten miles through the woods, and then we hide in a cave. I’ll get up here just before midnight to give him the pill.” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out two ear buds. He handed me one, and I slipped it into my waistband.
This was happening too fast. The whole thing felt risky, too much room for error. “One more day. For Finn,” I said.
“Tonight,” Jack said solidly. He handed a second ear bud to Beckett. “To listen for my mark.”
They paused, staring at each other again. Then Jack grabbed the inside of Beckett’s right forearm and squeezed. For a half-second, I thought Jack was instigating another fight, but when Beckett mirrored the action, I realized this was their way of making up. I was catching a glimpse of their life as brothers before things had gotten so complicated. No words, and less than three seconds, and they were on the same team again. They released arms, Jack returned to the door, opened it up, and disappeared down the hall.
My world began to jumble. I felt distracted. Jack said we were leaving tonight. And traveling ten miles. Where did that really leave Finn? I wouldn’t go without him, and the sedative sounded risky. Jack had to know that, but I was afraid to ask more questions. There were glitches in this plan. Was Finn even physically capable of making it through the woods? Of running that far? I didn’t want to know what Jack was really thinking—because he’d likely tell me things I didn’t want to hear.
Eventually, vaguely, I felt Beckett watching me.
I sighed. “You should probably go,” I said without pulling my gaze from the door Jack had just disappeared through.
I felt Beckett’s gaze boring into me. “I wanted to tell you everything from day one,” he said softly.
I fingered the ear bud in my hand and nodded to avoid answering, because right now, that was the last thing on my mind.
Beckett nodded in response. But like water flowing through a broken dam, the gap between us widened, the space filling with more questions and more unspoken words.
Jack hadn’t known Beckett was in Canta after all. Beckett had been forced to stay there, for fear of Jack’s life. The whole thing was some twisted web, and I found myself caught in the middle, trying to separate truth from lies, trying to decide who to trust and how much. I wanted to curl into a ball and disappear.
My brain felt like it would burst. My body sagged with exhaustion from the last twenty minutes. From the last few days. Waves of emotion rolled through me, and hope was nowhere to be found. This was all too much to handle. Part of me just wanted to give up.
Instead, I found myself pulling the hallway door open.
I clenched my jaw, not making eye contact with Beckett. “You should go,” I said again.