When No One Is Watching(87)
“Kim, it’s over for real this time,” Theo says.
Her expression suddenly softens, eyes filling with tenderness even though she’s pointing a weapon. “Can you really shoot me, babe? Really?”
“Do it, Theo,” I urge. “She’s going to kill us. She’s hurt so many people.”
Kim tilts her head and smiles. “You know, I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Why?” Theo asks sadly, still just standing there. I can’t seem to get the bullets into my gun, because my own hands are shaking, too, my body too overwhelmed by what’s happening even if my mind is still hanging in there.
“Theo, please,” I plead as more bullets drop to the ground.
“Because you’ve finally done something useful. I’ve been waiting for my dad to drop dead. Now I’m in charge.” She grins, releases the safety on her gun. “You’re big and strong, but so what? You’re just a soft little mama’s boy.”
“Howdy Doody!” I yell at Theo. “Howdy fucking Doody!”
Theo grunts, his finger jerks on the trigger, and Kim stumbles back, blood blooming on the front of her blouse like the zinnias Mommy planted in our backyard.
I don’t have time to say anything, to process anything; I hear steps running down the hall toward us and Theo is staring blank-eyed at the spot where Kim was standing. I reach for his back pocket, grab something that looks like a gun, and come away with the Taser I stripped from the cop instead.
A bullet whizzes past my head and I turn, flip what I hope is the safety, and when a laser sight appears on the chest of the man shooting at us, I fire. Two metal wires shoot out and hit him, and he drops to the ground writhing. I don’t let up, watching the gun slip from his splayed fingers and the Red Sox cap slide back and be crushed as he rolls onto it.
“Fucking Drew,” I say in a voice so low it rasps my throat. I finally release my finger, which is starting to cramp from willing my anger through the Taser.
I walk over to Drew and pick up his gun. I can’t bring myself to shoot him, unconscious and with a piss stain on his jeans. I should kill him, but instead I slip to the floor as my legs give out without so much as a warning tremble.
Theo walks up to me. “I’m sorry I froze. I should have—I should have—”
“It’s okay not to be that cold-blooded,” I say, my teeth starting to chatter. “I’m sure as hell not. Fuck.”
Theo drops down beside me and pulls me against him, and we stay like that for a minute. Holding each other in a room full of bodies and gore because if we didn’t need a hug after all that, it would mean this night had broken something in us that couldn’t be fixed.
“We need to get the people out of those rooms down there,” I say. I don’t want to give up the sensation, but there might be more Drews and there are definitely people in need of immediate medical attention. I don’t know how we’ll get it to them, but we have to finish this.
“Let’s go,” he says.
We shuffle back down the stairs—my adrenaline surge has faded and I’m fucking exhausted, and the night isn’t even close to over. We each grab a wheelchair from the lobby as we head back toward that awful wing of horrors we first encountered.
When we pass through the double doors my heart stops. The blood on the floor is gone. All the doors to the rooms for the “test subjects” are locked tight, their pain locked behind the soundproof doors once again.
Two men who look barely out of college, one white with greasy black hair, wearing a T-shirt with various sexual positions on it, the other one with curly brown hair and features people call racially ambiguous, stand talking with an older white man in a blood-spattered business suit a few feet away.
“Oh, there they are,” the man says, exasperation in his voice as he looks at me and Theo, completely ignoring our guns. “Perfect. Prime them, and then you can try the Feelbutrol on them. How does that sound? Feelbutrol. Mikel thought it sounded too much like an antidepressant, but he’s gone now and I like it. Has a sci-fi element but it’s still hip.”
“Sounds good, Mr. Voorhies. You were always cooler than Mr. DeVries,” Curly Hair says.
“Yeah, and Kim was a real bitch. Glad she’s gone,” Greasy Hair says, then looks at us, annoyed. “We’re giving it to this guy, too?”
“Yes,” Voorhies says. “I hate to say it, but Mikel was a bit racist. I mean yes, yes, superior race, whatever. He also wasted a lot of money on his whims. I’m not going to let a good strong volunteer go to waste. Use them both.”
He looks past us, snaps, and makes a wrap-it-up motion with one hand.
There’s a sharp prick in my shoulder and everything goes black.
Chapter 25
Sydney
IN MOVIES, WHEN PEOPLE GET STRAPPED DOWN TO HOSPITAL beds by the bad guys, they either develop superhuman strength or they manage to find some way to slip out. I’ve been strapped down against my will before. I know that no amount of wriggling, no amount of screaming, no amount of praying to God or Satan or one of their little friends will get you out.
I’m not calm as I lie on the gurney next to Theo—my heart is pounding, my jaw is locked, and I feel like if I blink too hard I might set off a full-on panic attack. I look calm compared to Theo, who, in typical white dude manner, is not pleased about being denied autonomy.