Tremble (Denazen #3)(52)
Technically I wasn’t lying to him.
Ben’s expression was a mask of utter panic, but he followed me to the door and out into the hall. Before starting forward, I gave Kale a neener-neener grin and couldn’t help the spike of happy I felt when his lip twitched in amusement.
We were a few feet from the end of the hall when an angry voice came from behind. “What the— Stop!”
A quick peek over my shoulder told me the security guard I’d sent to the office had returned. He stood in the doorway of the room with his radio out, presumably to call for backup. “Great,” I snapped, pushing Ben forward. “Just great.”
As the three of us wove our way through the crowd, trying hard to stay at its thickest to avoid detection, I dialed Mom. “Please tell me you’re almost here,” I huffed when she answered. In the background, a horn blew and Dax’s muffled curse, along with the distant squeal of breaks against blacktop, rang out.
“About ten minutes away,” she replied. “Why? What happened?”
“We had a little hiccup.” Beside me, Ben kept pace, but he didn’t look good. Sweat beaded against his brow, and his eyes darted back and forth. He’d wrapped both arms around himself like he was terrified to touch anyone and had started whispering incoherent things under his breath. I couldn’t catch much of what he said, but I did hear the words spike, death, harpoon, and space. “Actually, it’s more like a stinky butt burp than a hiccup.”
Mom groaned. “Can you make it outside? We’ll pull up right in front.”
I looked to Kale for confirmation. “Front door?”
He shook his head. “Blocked by security.”
A quick look over my shoulder showed more guards fanning out to canvass the room. They were getting closer. “I’ll have to call you back,” I barked and ended the call, almost dropping the cell. “If we can get someplace out of the way, I can try mimicking us and we can walk right out the front.”
“No,” Kale said. “Three people? That will take too much out of you.”
Of course it would. Focus, Dez! Focus.
It was stupid, considering the situation we were currently in, but I froze, staring at him like he’d just spouted the lyrics to a Powerman 5000 song in ancient Greek. “What?”
“You’ve already mimicked yourself twice in the last hour. The attendant and the police officer. You won’t be able to change all three of us and walk out of here on your own. If I have to carry you it will attract too much attention.”
When my brain was functioning on all cylinders, I knew that, but memory-impaired Kale didn’t. I’d never told him. “How did you—”
“My head,” Ben said, stopping short and crouching low to the ground. We were in the middle of the crowd, and several people slowed to stare. “My head is going to float away!”
“Oh, shit.” The guard said they restrained Ben during the flight because he’d become delusional and violent.
“Is…is he okay?” a tall woman asked, pulling her small child behind her. The boy wouldn’t be pushed aide, though. He shrugged her off and pulled back the legs of her pants to get a better look at Ben.
“Yeah, he’s fine. He just doesn’t—”
“They’re inside my head!” he cried, curling tight on the floor.
People didn’t pass slowly anymore. They stopped. The woman jumped back, startled, and pulled her son into the crowd as others joined her.
With each word, Ben’s voice grew louder and louder, overcoming the noise of the terminal. “Inching their way through my gray matter and trying to eat out my eyes!”
“What’s he talking about?” Kale asked, trying to drag him off the floor. But Ben kept going limp, folding like overcooked spaghetti.
“He’s having an episode. His symptoms are further along,” I whispered, bending to help Kale pick him up. “Worst timing ever.”
We managed to get Ben upright, but he wasn’t responsive so I kind of panicked. Taking a deep breath, I backhanded him. Sprained my middle finger doing it, too. He stumbled backward into Kale, eyes wide.
“What the hell?” he snapped.
“Seriously?” I blinked down at my hand. “That actually worked?” Huh. Chalk one up for melodrama in Hollywood!
Kale grabbed my shoulders and spun me toward the door. “They’ve seen us.”
They had us surrounded—at least five at our back and three in front. Kale on one side of Ben and me on the other, we dashed forward.
Agents hovered around the edges biding their time, and security charged full-speed ahead. Typical Denazen. Let someone else jump in and get their hands dirty while they waited on the sidelines to swoop in. There wasn’t much time to think, much less get out of their path. We separated, Kale tugging Ben to the right and around a large pillar to avoid two of the men coming at our front. The third was on me.
The crowd shrank back, giving us a wide berth as a collective gasp rolled through the room. Kale decked one guard square in the head and sent him crumbling to the floor as the other made an inelegant swipe Kale easily danced away from.
Kale was fine. He had Ben, and he’d make sure he stayed safe. I needed to focus on the guard flying toward me. I waited until he was several feet away, speed never decreasing, before bending low like Mom had shown me in one of our training sessions. I angled my shoulder just below his waist and jumped up with every ounce of strength I had. The movement sent him flying headfirst over my shoulder to the ground.