The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(57)

The boy’s eyes stared at me. No, they stared through me, still vacant, devoid of anything resembling emotion. After a pause, he cocked his head, as if listening to something.

“Affirmative,” he replied, confirming my suspicions. He was receiving orders from somewhere.

So sudden was his movement that I had no time to react. One second he was staring at me, his eyes empty of anything resembling a personality—the next he was in motion. I had a moment to brace myself, preparing for impact, when suddenly the blur before me became an uncontrolled tumble. Owen’s hands pushed me hard, and I slid right as the boy flew between the two of us, hitting the ground and sliding into a tent. I heard the thump as he hit the ground inside, taking a set of stakes and poles with him, and as he whirled with a grunt, the tent collapsed around him.

“What just happened?” I growled at Owen, so shocked that I let my words slip out loud.

He gave me a chagrined look as I switched my subvocalizer back on. I threw my gun at him, he replied, glancing at the tent. I didn’t even have time to think—I think it tripped him.

I blinked once. I could explore how much luck we had expended with that one later. For now, we needed to get moving.

“Viggo, another one is drawing close,” Violet gasped through the earbud.

Owen was already a few steps ahead of me, a knife glinting in his hand, and I started to follow… then turned back, staring at the collapsed tent, the fabric billowing where the boy thrashed and rolled silently around. I wondered if he was upsetting bodies in that tent, too. I heard Owen hissing my name through the subvocalizer, but I ignored it, taking a tentative step back toward the tent.

“Viggo,” Violet’s voice said tightly.

I couldn’t leave the boy behind. Not only was it possible we might get important information from him… but more than that, I couldn’t let Desmond and Elena continue to use him like this.

“What are you doing, Viggo? You guys need to get out of there!”

Trust me, I replied to Violet’s anxious voice, working as fast as I could.

I reached forward and yanked at the tent, pulling at the collapsed material until I uncovered the boy tangled in a lumpy pile of canvas and bodies, grunting as he tried to shift the objects off him, his mask askew. Hesitating for only a heartbeat, I reached out with my left hand and snatched at his mask, keeping my gun trained on him just in case. The boy’s hands reached up from among the wreckage, and he grabbed my hand in a grip that felt too weak to be that of an enhanced human, but he was too late. The mask was off.

I froze, my heart stopping for a moment as I recognized Cody, one of the boys who had been in the first group I had trained. Once he had taken a swing at me, but I had taken him down to prove a point. As I looked at him, I felt deep anger rising up in my chest. Cody wasn’t some dead-eyed drone; he had been precocious and challenging. And he was only eleven. Elena was not only using genetically modified teenagers, but children in her disgusting war.

Cody didn’t even seem to register that I’d removed the mask. His eyes still vacant, he let go of my arm, panting with exertion as he pushed at a dead man who had flopped out over his legs. I took a chance and holstered my gun, then quickly plucked the earbud from his ear and slipped it into my pocket, wondering if it might be useful.

Immediately Cody’s movements stilled, and he gazed at me, his face blank, his mouth hanging slightly open. As gently as I could, I grabbed his shirt and then carefully leveled a blow at his jaw, wincing as it impacted. He immediately went limp. Feeling sick, I carefully dragged the unconscious boy out of the tent and into my arms, taking a few more of our precious moments to check his pulse. I hated having to hit him, but even little Cody was too dangerous to take with us while he was conscious—I had no idea what he would do awake, how deep his loyalty to Desmond truly ran.

I heard fidgeting behind me and was suddenly grateful he hadn’t made a fuss over the detour. Viggo, Owen said, his voice low. There are guards coming back. I can hear them. Let’s go.

Take my gun, I replied. Try not to throw this one.

At the same time, Violet’s voice rang through my ears. “Viggo, I’m not sure what you’re doing down there, but they are closing in on you. Go straight through the tents ahead. Cut your way out if you have to.” From the hard edge in her voice, I could sense our luck was running out.

Got it. I nodded to Owen, who immediately went for the tent in front of us. I stepped up behind him, waiting, breathing through my teeth as he cut a hole in the fabric and then stepped aside for me. I raced for the next tent, and Owen followed, repeating the action. We were at the fourth one when Violet spoke again.

“The other boy is close. You need to move.”

Owen’s response was to rip another hole, his hand jerking on the knife, and motion me through. I stepped through, and, outside the door of the last tent. I finally saw the trodden-down empty space between the fence and the rows of death tents. There was still that thirty feet of open land between us and the hole we had made in the chain link. I felt a sinking in my stomach, despite all my preparations. We weren’t going to make it.

I had opened my mouth to tell Violet as much when her voice crackled in my ear, so loud it was practically a shout. “I’m going to create a diversion for you. Go NOW!”

I had no time to ask what that diversion would be before my ears picked up something whizzing lightly by overhead. I caught a glance of Violet’s drone as it headed toward the trailers. The humming of the motors died away as it moved out of earshot, and then an explosion rocked through the night.