BECKETT
I pushed through a queasy feeling, a sensation of spinning and dipping in the air. The guard must have hit me hard on the head.
Footsteps echoed down the hall, coming toward our cell. Imogen heard them too because she lifted her gaze from Finn and his bleeding arm.
Through the small window in the door of our cell, I watched a guard pull Jack to a stop in front of our door. Jack’s hands were cuffed behind his back.
“Now that we’re alone—” the guard said. And then he punched Jack in the face.
Jack’s head flung to the side. He didn’t even stiffen at the hit. The fight that usually lit up in his eyes was completely gone.
The guard massaged his hand. “I’ve been waiting to do that a very long time.”
There was a time, back when Jack and I were fourteen, and we were on vacation with Dad in Brazil, when Jack actually broke out of handcuffs. So why wasn’t he trying now? He never let people just hit him. Especially not just because “they’d been waiting to do it for a very long time.”
Behind me, Finn, his giant body sprawled across the concrete floor, was showing the first signs of rousing from unconsciousness. I glanced at Imogen, and she gave me a knowing look. If Finn was waking, we didn’t have much time. Then what? Without his sister here, he’d rip us all to pieces. Especially because his sister wasn’t here.
The guard unlocked the door.
My eyes met Jack’s. If we were going to break out of here, now was our opportunity. But Jack read my expression and shook his head. Not now.
I hesitated for a split second. If not now, when? Were we basing our entire escape plan on whenever Jack felt like fighting back? Sage was out there, over the Pacific somewhere with Dad. We needed out.
But the guard shoved Jack forward, and Jack didn’t fight it. As much as I hated it, I took a step back, giving him room to enter the concrete cell.
“Finn is starting to wake up,” I said to the guard, waving my hand toward the floor so he would know who I was talking about. “We need another tranquilizer dart if we’re all going to stay in this cell togeth—”
The door closed before I could finish.
I eyed Finn warily. His limbs and torso looked larger than ever, larger than any normal fifteen-year-old boy should ever look. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen Finn since he and Sage had been kidnapped. Thanks to my dad’s injection, Finn wasn’t recognizable any longer. His bones and muscle had expanded, distending his face and jaw bone, enlarging his entire body. His skin had changed to a grayish, translucent green. Boils speckled his skin, and clumps of his wavy brown hair had fallen out.
He’d moved beyond the Finn I knew from the farm.
I longed for the farm—for Finn to be normal again, for me and Sage to be riding horses across the land, herding cattle, checking the crops.
I wanted that, instead of here on the island with Finn dying before my very eyes, and Sage who knows where.
Earlier, when Finn’s arm had started bleeding again, Imogen had ripped the bottom part of her shirt and tied the piece around his arm. Now his whole limb was swollen and purplish. Blood trickled down his arm, dripping to the floor, mixing with a blood stain already on the concrete—Jack’s blood from last night, from bullet wounds. Bullet wounds our own father gave him. I wanted to ask Jack if his injuries were healed up, if he felt alright, but I was too ticked at him for failing Sage. In fact, some cruel part of me hoped Jack was still in pain from wounds.
“You have a plan, Sherlock?” Imogen said to Jack.
Without saying a single word, Jack glanced at me, glanced at Imogen, glanced at Finn’s giant body lying unconscious on the floor, and then stared up at the ceiling. He was either deep in thought or ten seconds from blowing up. This was the calm before the storm. Sometimes, though, Jack could bottle his rage for hours, days, weeks. The waiting made the explosion all the bigger, whenever it came.
But, actually, this time, I didn’t care. I felt my own anger growing, seeing Jack here in front of me, while Sage was somewhere on a helicopter with our dad, getting closer to headquarters and the science labs with every passing moment. And we were here, locked inside this cell.
“Well?” I said. “What’ll it be? You got some magnificent plan up there? Brilliant enough that it would keep us from taking out that guard just a minute ago?”
We should have figured out Dad’s plan earlier. We should have outsmarted him. But we didn’t, and Jack acted like he didn’t even care.
Jack lowered his wrists below his hips and stepped over his cuffed arms, bringing his hands to the front of his body. Then he leaned against the wall next to the door. If his bullet wounds still bothered him, he hid it well. He hid most everything well.
“Well?” I prodded.
Finally, Jack spoke. “Why don’t you just say what you want to say, Beckett? Get it off your chest.”
He wanted to tango? Fine.
“You know what I’m gonna say,” I began.
Jack shrugged. “Then say it.”
“Fine.” I wasn’t backing down. “Why didn’t you get her out?”
Jack’s eyes snapped to mine, like he was suddenly awake for the first time since falling from the helicopter. Maybe he wasn’t expecting me to be so blunt?
A look of muted fury crossed over his face, but before he could mask it, I saw what lay underneath.
Pain.
Go ahead and feel it, Jack. Soak it in. Feel the pain. This is what it feels like when you fail. Sucks, doesn’t it, when you don’t get everything you want? I’m just sorry it had to be something I wanted too—something I desperately needed. Like air to breathe, I need her.
Imogen watched Jack and me glaring at each other, probably feeling the tension growing in the air. Seconds passed.
The energy reached a boiling point, both Jack and I refusing to look away from each other, an unspoken contest to see who was weaker—which of us would look away first or lose control of his emotions. We’d done it like this since we were four years old. Except now, we both had muscle. We could hurt each other.
Screw it. I’ll just punch him.
But Imogen’s voice wrecked my decision. “Just cut it out, you two, okay? We’re here. Sage isn’t here. Period. End of story.” She knelt down to inspect Finn for the fiftieth time since we’d been in the cell.
I wasn’t sure if Jack got distracted by her movement or Finn’s sudden ragged inhale, but either way, he looked down at Finn and broke our stare. I logged my silent victory.
“The tranquilizer dart is wearing off. He’s starting to wake up,” Imogen said. “He won’t recognize any of us. We need to restrain him because he’s going to flip out.”
Maybe that’s what Dad wanted. For it all to end with Finn ripping us to pieces.
I loved Finn like he was my own brother, and I couldn’t look at his body without large amounts of guilt. What if I’d gotten to the island sooner? What if we’d left the farm before Sage and Finn ever got taken by Vasterias and my father? What if we had actually made it off this island in time to help him?
“And then what, Imogen?” I said, hating the helplessness that slipped into my voice. “Once he’s tied up, then what? How do we get out of here? How are we actually going to save him?”
“Forget about that!” she said. “I need to tie his limbs. Give me your shirts or something.”
But before I could lift my hand to the hem of my shirt to do what Imogen asked, Finn’s eyes fluttered open, and he swung his good arm toward Imogen’s face.
Imogen ducked, and before Finn pushed himself to sitting, Jack hit Finn right in the center of his forehead. Finn fell back to the floor, unconscious.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. “He’s already hurt enough as it is!”
“I just bought us fifteen minutes and no injuries, that’s what I’m doing. Would you rather I let you do it, Beckett?”
I spun toward Jack. “He’s still one of us, Jack. He’s still a human.”
“You always seem so appalled when I do what has to be done,” Jack said. “And yet, you never acknowledge that it gets us out of problems time and time again.”
Jack’s sarcasm did me in. He was right; I wouldn’t punch Finn in the face, but I could certainly punch him. I was completely fine with that.
“Well, it’s too bad you can’t deliver when it actually matters,” I said and lunged toward Jack before he could reply, ready to smash in his face. Unfortunately, Imogen leapt into the space between us before I could get there.
“Enough!” she said, pushing her hands into both our chests and shoving us away from one another. “Will you two prats channel this into something productive? Like figuring a way to get us out of here? I don’t have time to babysit you two and take care of an injured modwrog. Calm yourselves and use your brains for something besides beating each other up.”
She placed her hands on her hips, satisfied she had our full attention. “Now. Hand me your shirts.”