She opened her backpack and placed the vial inside her tinderbox, padding it with her spare socks. Then she shrugged her arms through the backpack straps and felt the cumbersome weight settle against her back.
“Come on,” she whispered.
Lucy opened the door and peered into the hallway. It was empty and quiet except for the weird clicking noises the turned-off air conditioner made. She unlocked, then twisted the knob of the adjacent door. It opened with a creak that set her muscles jumping. The scent of antiseptic was very strong. The room was darker, but she could just make out the shrouded form on the gurney. Plastic IV bags hanging from the stand dripped a viscous liquid, and clear tubes snaked beneath the sheets.
Sammy, close at her heels, flipped on the light. The sudden blaze threw everything into stark relief. Lucy froze, her heart pounding. “God, can you stop doing stuff without warning!” she snapped. “We’re supposed to be stealthy,” she continued in a furious whisper. The figure on the bed groaned. Lucy sprang forward, tripping in her haste. Her boots squealed on the shiny floor. She caught Sammy’s smirk and ignored it.
Aidan lay on his back. His T-shirt was damp with sweat. His eyes were open, but they were bleary. He blinked, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Aidan,” she said, bending over him. A tube ending in a needle ran into the small veins of his hand, another into the larger vein of his forearm. The liquid they carried was clear. They weren’t bleeding him. They were doing something else. Lucy frowned. She couldn’t think about it now. They would get him out first. She clawed at the covers. Someone had tucked him in tight.
“Here, let me,” Sammy said, putting his arm around Aidan’s shoulders and heaving him upright. The blankets fell to the floor. He was still wearing his jeans and socks. Lucy looked around quickly and located his boots and sweatshirt on the chair. His bow and quiver were gone.
Aidan blinked again. “Lucy. Sammy,” he said in a rough voice. “I’m feeling a little sick.” His head slumped forward. His breathing was labored.
Lucy ripped the needle out of his hand. He groaned again. A trickle of blood leaked from the wounds.
“You going to be sick?” Sammy asked him.
“No.”
“Good.”
Sammy slapped him across the face. The crack was shockingly loud.
“What are you doing?” Lucy said, trying to get her arms around Aidan. She could feel a bandage of some kind wrapped tightly around his shoulder and ribs.
“He’s got to snap out of it,” Sammy said, his fingers busy with the tape holding the second, thicker needle in his brother’s vein. He ripped it off and slid the needle out.
Aidan’s eyes were open now, and they did seem clearer. He swung his legs over the side of the gurney.
“Remind me I owe you one later,” he told his brother with a grimace. “What the heck are you doing here, anyway? Didn’t I tell you to stay at the camp?”
“Didn’t you always tell me to question authority?” Sammy pulled his hood down lower. “Besides, if I hadn’t shown up, you guys would still be locked up. So now that I have rescued you, why don’t you get a move on so we can get out of here already? Or are you just going to lie around?”
Lucy glared at him. He grinned back at her.
“He’s right. We should go. I’m okay,” Aidan said to Lucy, squeezing her hand. “Just a little woozy.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, smoothing his hair down.
“Yes.”
“What were they injecting you with?”
He shrugged. “He took some blood first. After he checked my arm. Pulled muscle, maybe a cracked rib,” he said in answer to his brother’s querying look. “I think the small IV was a painkiller. The big one. I’m not sure.”
Lucy gasped.
“I saw the bottles of medicine,” he said. “They were legit. Sealed. Big pharmaceutical names. It could have been an anticoagulant, so I’d bleed quicker. The nurses always had a hard time getting blood out of me. They said my veins were buried too deep. Remind me to ask Henry when I see him next.”
“You don’t feel like you might be getting sick?” Lucy asked, pressing her hand against his forehead. It was clammy, but not warm. There was no air conditioner, and the room was humid.
“No. I remember drinking some really bad coffee. It must have had six spoonfuls of sugar in it. And then passing out.” He rubbed the puncture in his arm. The wounds in Lucy’s arm stung in sympathy.
“There were sleeping pills in the coffee,” she said. “If you walk around a little you’ll feel better.”
He took a deep breath, and cautiously probed his ribs. Lucy didn’t miss the grimace that flickered across his face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked him again quietly.
With a brief nod, Aidan stood up. “That guy, Simmons, taped me up pretty good.” He frowned. “It’s weird. I mean, are they bad guys or good guys or what?”
“I vote bad,” Lucy said. She brought his boots to him, pushed his fumbling hands away when he tried to lace them, and did it herself. While she was pulling them tight, Sammy brought him up to speed.
“Del came back?” Aidan asked, his face serious. Lucy couldn’t read his expression.
“She’s getting the other kids out,” Sammy said. “Two floors down. Emi and Jack.”
The kids who’d been taken in the first raid, Lucy remembered.
“So what’s the plan?”
“The plan?” asked Sammy. He rubbed his chin. “To get out of here as fast as possible. Meet up if we can. We didn’t have much time to come up with anything.” He grinned. “This seems to be working pretty well so far.”
“Weapons?”
“I’ve got my broken knife,” Lucy said. “Sammy’s got a billhook. And a hammer.”
Aidan’s green eyes opened wide. He looked more awake. His lip curled. “A hammer?”
“It’s heavy. It’s blunt. It’s all we’ve got,” Lucy said. She went to the door, put her ear against it, and listened.
Aidan made a face.
“Well, where’s your bow, your slingshot?” Sammy asked him.
“They must have taken them.”
“So a hammer doesn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore, then, does it?”
“Not if we meet a loose nail or a hanging shutter.”
“Stop bickering and get over here,” Lucy hissed. “Sammy, give Aidan the hammer.”
She flicked the light switch off and eased the door open. The foyer was empty.
“Quickest way out?” Aidan whispered.
“Side door?” Sammy said with a shrug. “That’s how Del and I got in.”
“Us, too.”
“Four floors down,” Lucy said.
“Guards?”
She shrugged.
“Likely, then.”
She gripped her knife. “Quiet now.”
The recessed lights high above them must have been on a dimmer switch. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the murk, but she could see the glimmer of the floor tile and the sheen of the metal handrail, which followed the curve of the spiral staircase. She felt Aidan behind her. Sammy, to her right, grumbled to himself, and she nudged him sharply. “Shhhh!”
“I turned the alarm off, but there’s a number code for the door lock,” a voice said. A shadow on the far side of the corridor peeled itself away and stepped toward them. Lucy froze.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KELLY
Although the light was dim, Lucy recognized the form of the blonde Sweeper, Kelly. Dr. Lessing’s second in command. Lucy sucked in a breath and curled her fingers around the hilt of her knife. Beside her, Sammy and Aidan tensed. Kelly walked forward and showed her hands. They were empty. No Taser. She was wearing regular clothes, a button-down blouse and jeans. Her hair was tucked behind one ear, and on the other side it hung loose, draping her face.