With so much focus on their runaway, we hadn’t been spotted yet. A small miracle. Hunt waved us back into the cover of the trees. Without a word, we retreated, stares fixed ahead.
Hunt was right. Our time to intervene had passed. There wasn’t much we could do to save the kid now that wouldn’t lead to us being captured and possibly killed.
Knowledge was power, and at least remaining free meant we stood a chance of helping him later. We stood a chance of figuring out what the ever-loving hell was going on and what exactly the secret underground whatever was being used for.
From the safety of the trees, we watched as the electrified soldier pressed his hands to the drooping kid, whose body was already nearly flat on the ground he seemed to command. His body stiffened as the guard pumped wattage into his body. His extremities went rigid and rose from the earth as blood spurted from the wound in his shoulder.
Then, finally, he lay limp.
“Is he going to stay down?” Fanny asked loudly enough that we heard her clearly.
“I think so,” replied the soldier.
“Then turn off your suit. And where the hell are Fred and Doug?”
Another of the soldiers stood. “On their way. They got held up. A sleepwalker knocked them out.”
“For goodness’ sake,” Fanny muttered. “What, is everyone an amateur now? They should know better! They’re the ones who’re supposed to be dealing with the rogues, not me. Now I’m late to see Magnum, and I have to pop by the lab first to check on the priority cases.”
I swallowed. I’d bet we were said priority cases.
As a few other soldiers joined the one in the suit, now dark and quiet, to drag the kid into the entrance below the earth, and Fanny commanded those who remained to help Don get the buggy upright again, we gathered Bobo and ran.
We were loaded up in Bonnie and rocketing back toward the labs before we heard or saw sign of the cart on our tails.
All too aware we lacked true privacy, we rode in silence till we skidded to a stop outside the science building.
We’d already known we were surrounded by the enemy. But now we also knew we weren’t the only ones coerced into attending Magnum’s little institute for immortals.
On the outside, it might seem like a classy, upscale academy.
Appearances were worth a steaming, stinking pile of shit.
Despite our mansion, cars, and all the fake smiles, we were at war.
As we’d do in war, we’d bide our time—until we struck wherever it would hurt the most.
16
Eyes and Ears Everywhere
Despite our collective silence, I knew my friends were as freaked out as I was. We walked so closely together that we occasionally bumped arms as we made our way down the elegant, ample hallways of the science building with Bobo immediately behind us. Ordinarily, I might have considered leaving Bobo in the car while the rest of us headed into the labs—temperatures were in the low sixties, and in the shade with the windows open he’d be fine for what I hoped would be a brief stint inside—but no way was I letting Bobo out of my sight now.
Though neither I nor my friends had lowered our guard since arriving at the institute, which would have been more aptly named aprison, the outward civility of the place and everyone staffing it had lulled me into hoping things wouldn’t be so bad. After what we’d just witnessed, that hope fizzled and deflated like a sad, sad party balloon.
The sophisticated architectural details of the campus, which I’d previously admired, now only made me scowl. It was all a façade. A twisted, sick façade. Magnum was as villainous a villain as I’d ever found in any sort of fiction. He was, indeed, the worst kind. Handsome, charismatic, and used to getting his way. He wore his ugly villainy on the inside.
I was sandwiched between Griffin and Brady, and on my right, Brady sighed so heavily that I knew his thoughts were as burdened as mine. He scowled brutally. “Let’s just get this shit over with as fast as we possibly can.”
Griffin said, “Yep. But only ’cause we don’t have a better fucking choice.”
I sighed as we pushed through the double doors of the lab, then froze. On a large screen up on the wall was a full-color view of the hallway we’d just exited. The fuckers had been following our progress as if we were ants stuck in a glass farm. What could have possibly been so interesting about our approach?
Tobias (aka the former Orson Conway) pressed a button on a keyboard and the image vanished.
“Smooth, D—” Griffin said, catching himself. This man was no more his dad than mine was. What a total and absolute mindfuck.
But Tobias smiled triumphantly at Griffin’s near slip. “Good morning, kids,” he announced, a bit too bubbly for the tempered man I’d been around all my life.
