Page 50 of Anarchy Chained: Alpha Thomas

I shake my head. “Nope. Never heard of that shit before. Prodigy must’ve really upped their game if they’ve invented a vision screen overlay.”

“Vision screen overlay?”

I stare back at her, looking right at her eyes. “I can’t really tell in this light but once we get up top again, I’ll see if I can detect a lens. If they have invented an overlay, I’ll be able to see it.”

“Hmm,” is all she says.

“You’re probably a pretty dangerous girl, you know that?”

“Says the pretty dangerous guy.”

I smile. “Which is why we’re gonna make an awesome team once Sheila and Linc figure out what they did to you.”

“What makes you think I want to be on your team?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” I ask, glancing at her for a second before looking ahead again. “What could you possibly have to look forward to going back to Prodigy? You’re nothing but a slave to them, Sadie. They keep you like a pet. Like a project. They’ll use you again, you know.”

“So will you.”

“I said T-E-A-M. I never said I’d use you for anything.”

“You’ll use me for a friend.”

I laugh. “Since when is friendship using someone?”

“Since we discovered we’re pretty equal opposites. Who understands you, Thomas?”

“Case,” I say. “Lincoln. Sheila. Probably Molly. Lulu, maybe. One day. That’s more than most people have, I bet. I’m not using you. I don’t need you. I just want you.”

I smile at her, but she’s not smiling. “Lots of people probably want me. I’ll take ‘need me’ any day of the week over ‘want me.’”

I shake my head and roll my eyes. “There’s the next gate. We’re almost to the tower.”

“Will it close behind us again?”

“Yup. Just like clockwork. The ones on the other side will close too. So they won’t be able to get inside the underground rooms from the tunnel.”

“It’s quite the set-up you have here—”

But she stops talking, stands up, and looks out the back window as we pass through the gate. “Fuck!” she says, holding her head like she’s in pain. Then she drops to the floor and screams, “Fuck!” again.

Bang! The gate spirals closed.

Then the next one.

Bang!

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask.

But then the power goes out. The train slows and the next gate—BANG!—comes so close to cutting the ass-end of the car off, I forget about her and take my attention to the next gate.

We’re still going fast—but not fast enough. It starts to close too soon.

“Shit!” I grab her by the arm and lift her up. But she’s unconscious. Dead, heavy weight. “Sadie, get up! We need to move to the back! Now!”

She’s not moving, so I throw her over my shoulder and run to the back of the car just as the final gate slams down on the roof. A deafening crushing sound of metal on metal. Screeching as the magnetic field under the car collapses and the car—at least the part we’re in because the fucking thing has been cut in half—wobbles for a split second, before it flies backwards from the blast force of… my fucking mind!

We roll with what’s left of the car as it spirals through the air. I lose hold of Sadie’s arm and she goes tumbling out in front of me, hitting her head on the ceiling. Metal collapses in on top of us. Pinning her, me, everything to the floor as the car spins wildly—tossing us both like rag dolls against sharp edges and jagged pieces of ripped interior.