The Freeze (Barren Trilogy, Book 3) Read online

  “You shouldn't have to get dragged into this,” I said.

  “Laney, they want to make you something less than human,” Jerome said. “They want both of us to get used to death so we can keep killing for them and they have Alana and your dad to make us. It's what happens to soldiers and mercenaries. They're trained to go numb and not care about who they're shooting.”

  His explanations were only making me feel worse. Jerome's knowledge was a great way to see how bad people could really get. And he was usually right.

  “I know that's what they're trying to do,” I said. “They know about me. That's why they picked me.”

  “I've seen death, too,” Jerome said. “Tony should have kept his mouth shut to Dr. Marson. He's not here to suffer through this.”

  “I wonder when they're going to come in and tell us what to do,” I said. I wanted to throw up, but they hadn't provided us with a bathroom or even a trash can. Maybe that was part of the manipulation. They wouldn't let us out to be sick until we agreed to do the deed.

  So I sat. And Jerome sat next to me, intertwining his hand in mine.

  We both might die in this mission especially if Sheri got armed after the agents paid her a visit. She must know that something was up.

  “We can't let anything happen to Alana or your father,” he said. “They're more important to us right now. If we're good and we do what they want us to, maybe they'll even let us see them for a bit. Even if we get them banished, they're better off out there than they are in here.”

  “The agents don't want to banish Alana and my father,” I said. I eyed the plain white walls of the room and the tiles that surrounded a single florescent light. What if they were listening in? “We should keep our voices down,” I whispered.

  Jerome's eyes narrowed. He gave me a little nod. What other purpose did this room have? “We should totally make out,” he said. “We don't know when we're going to have the chance again. Once we get our mission, there won't be much time.” He spoke that last line like he wanted to let any eavesdroppers hear it.

  I saw where he was going. He leaned across the table at me and my heart pounded. We crashed together again and then we were kissing. Jerome tasted like Arizona. Like home. The world stopped being horrible while we were in each other's arms, kissing like we never would get to again. The shadows were there, waiting to pounce and rip us apart, but right now I couldn't let them. Alana and my father's lives depended on us being able to talk without any secret cameras hearing us.

  So we made out for for what felt like an eternity. Jerome pulled away just long enough to whisper, “did you see the combination for this place?”

  I told him the numbers I'd seen in the lowest voice I could. Five, three and six plus one mystery number.

  “Good,” he said, leaning in to kiss me again.

  I was getting so breathless that my head felt light and I might fall over. I managed to suck in a breath. Jerome's chest was up against mine and our hearts were racing. This wasn't just from the mission. I had never imagined kissing a boy could be this much fun. I didn't want the moment to end, but I knew the end would be there and it would be ugly. The shadows were waiting.

  And at last, we stopped.

  I had no idea how to get my dad and Alana out of here. “We should be good for now,” I whispered, letting my chin rest against Jerome's chest. “Maybe we can do this.”

  “We should,” he said. I wasn't sure if he was talking about the mission or us. “Maybe Sheri won't even be there when we get there.”

  It was something to hope for, so I didn't hold onto it. I couldn't see her leaving her food stash unless something was happening.

  Unless...

  “The storm,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Jerome said. “She might evacuate, making our job easy.”

  “But we'd have to hurry,” I said.

  We had dealt with storms before. We separted and Jerome was all back to serious. Maybe the kissing had just been to fool the people watching us and nothing more. I let disappointment wash over me like a tall, sad wave, but another part laid on the shores of relief. Things still weren't safe for me to give myself to Jerome and might never be from the way everything was going.

  But it had been so...so...

  The door opened. It was as if they had been waiting for us to make a decision.

  Chalmers stood in the doorway and the woman hung behind him, silent and scary. “Are the two of you ready to tell us your decision?” he asked, doing a good job of making it sound like he had never been listening in.

  “Yes,” I said. “We'll do the mission, but only if I get to see that Alana and my father are still alive first. You have to prove to me that they're still okay. Trust has to go both ways here.”

  “Don't worry. That's what we were planning,” Chalmers said. “Follow me. I'll show you where they're staying.”

  He left the door open as Jerome and I followed him back through the dark hallway lined with the star lamps and back to the prison area. There was no better name for it. Chalmers led us down the hallway and around the corner to another corridor. There must be dozens of cells here. The windows on the doors were so high that I couldn't tell if there were any occupants, or how many.

  This whole place was disorienting. It was meant to be that way.

  And I felt like Chalmers was leading me to the right room in a funeral home. At last, he stopped and pointed to one of the doors, close to the end of the hallway.

  My heart raced, but Jerome looked in first. “Alana's in there,” he said. “She's sleeping. And yes, she's breathing.”

  “I can't see,” I said, but relief coursed through me.

  “Here,” Jerome said, backing off and opening his arms so he could lift me.

  He grunted as he hoisted me up just enough to see inside the room. Alana lay in a cell like mine, a tray of half-eaten chicken and peas sitting next to the cot in an otherwise pure white room. She lay on her side, ribs going up and down as she worked her way through dreams that might not make any sense.

  “Alana!” I shouted, unable to help myself. She looked like she might have lost weight which she did not need. “Alana!”

  “She can't hear you,” Chalmers said. “Rest assured, we are feeding her and giving her water.”

  I thought of how frosted the window looked in my cell when I was trying to look out. Even if she heard me through the soundproof doors, she would never see me. Alana might even think she was hallucinating if somehow she could. It wouldn't be hard in a cell like that.

  “Let's move on,” Chalmers said. The scary woman stood on the other side of us. I noticed her in the near-darkness as Jerome let me down.

  “My best friend is in there,” I said. “She needs better quarters.”

  “Perhaps when you finish your first mission.”

  This was another part of their game. Let me see how bad Alana was off in that little room and then make me work to get her out. “You had better,” I said. I was getting so mad that I couldn't use any restraint anymore. Jerome gave me a wide-eyed glance that warned me to be careful, but I was past that. “She deserves a real bed and a real room after what we've been through. Alana's tough. She deserves to make it. She had to see her mom and her little brother rotting and bloated and then she had to help bury them. Alana just wants to reach her grandparents and she's survived the same things Jerome and I have. Give her a break.”

  “When you finish your mission. Being confined in isolation is not easy on the mind,” Chalmers said. “Surely you want to get her out of there.”

  They had us stuck. “Fine,” I said. “Show me where my father is, and then maybe I'll do it.” I felt like a dog on a chain and I couldn't find a way to break it. I was responsible for Alana and my father surviving and they knew there was a weakness inside of me that they could exploit. These people were bigger experts on the mind than Jerome.

  “This way,” Chalmers repeated, turning the corner. We were in rows and rows of cells, rows and rows of people the Star
dust folks had imprisoned to do their bidding. The government had planned this for years. It was disgusting. Or maybe this was their way of confusing me and Jerome. There was no way to tell.

  We reached the door to the little hallway, which was shut. There was no window on that door, maybe to keep the well off surveillance people from having to see this. Chalmers led me to the door I had come out of and I wanted to run. I wanted to run and never stop in case he decided to throw me in that place again with nothing but my thoughts to keep my company. But instead, he was true to his word and led me to the door next to mine.

  “You may lift her,” Chalmers said to Jerome.

  He did and I struggled to breathe against Jerome's hands which were poking into my ribs. I could peek inside the cell.

  Dad sat there, bent over and hands on his knees. He stared at the floor, at a tray of food that wasn't touched at all. His beard had gotten thicker to the point where I could barely make out the skin under it and he was getting a mustache, too. I'd never seen him with so much facial hair. Dad had always been meticulous about shaving just like he had been about safety.

  He was lost. Very, very lost, just like he had been when we were spending so much time in those horrible hospital waiting rooms.

  I knew what was on his mind. Me. I was the one causing all this worry now.

  “You're getting him out of there,” I said. Dad would never want me to go out and do these horrible things. It was killing him inside. I needed to talk to him, to hug him and sit down beside him. He also had nothing but his thoughts.

  “We will, in time,” Chalmers said in a gentle voice. “We hate to handle things this way, but it is necessary for our survival. You must understand that kindness does not aid in keeping us alive during desperate times, and these are desperate times.”

  “You sure know how to play this,” Jerome said, letting me down.

  I took a breath. Chalmers and the woman said nothing. It would be less scary if the woman spoke, but this must be part of it all, too.

  “It is how we must play this,” Chalmers said. “There will be rewards for completing your tasks with us.”

  “Will we go free?” I asked. “Will you let us go once things get better?”

  Chalmers paused just a little. I knew that even before he spoke that the answer was no. “We will think about it,” he said at last.

  Jerome shot me a glance. We both knew he was lying. Of course they wouldn't let people go who knew about Operation Stardust anytime soon. They would want us to stay gagged, one way or the other.

  “Follow me,” Chalmers said in that horrible, confident voice.

  He opened the metal door to the surveillance area and I got my first taste of how conditions might be outside.

  Chairs turned away from me and Jerome as we passed. I still hadn't had a shower and I was horrified to smell as bad as I must. My nose must be immune to it by now, but these office people were scooting away, hugging their desks and their monitors. It was humiliating as they still hadn't let us shower. “Hey,” I said as we walked through the long room and past all the cubicles, speaking as loud as I could. “When will you let us bathe? I am not going out into public without bathing first. I'll stand out too much if I don't. Let Jerome bathe, too.”

  “Before you leave,” Chalmers said. He stopped near a cubicle and motioned for the person inside to step out. A young man in glasses who might be better suited to gaming stepped out. He backed away as Chalmers motioned for me and Jerome to look at the computer screen.

  It showed the Holiday Inn. A man was walking in with a box that was heavy, judging from the way he was hugging it and waddling like a duck. I caught a glimpse of bags inside, plastic bags that might be bulging with groceries. He pulled open the door and stepped inside the dark hotel, leaving the sidewalk in front of it empty.

  And it was snowing, almost as hard as it had been in the squalls. The weather was getting worse, because it was also covering the sidewalks and leaving only footprints on it and tire tracks on the road.

  “As you can see, the Holiday Inn is still hoarding food,” Chalmers said. “Sheri is still there, running her hoarding operation. We fear she and her people may gather the food and leave before the storm surge comes up the Hudson River and floods the place. It's known from the floor plans of the Inn that it has a basement. We have good reason to believe that the food is there.”

  “Storm surge?” Jerome asked.

  “Scientists are not sure if the storm coming up the coast is tropical in nature or not,” Chalmers said. “There has never been a storm like it, but they expect a storm surge like you'd find in a hurricane. Do you understand what that is?”

  “It's when water rises really fast,” I said, thinking of how close the Holiday Inn was to the Hudson River.

  “The surge is expected to come up the river,” Chalmers filled in. “That will happen in about twelve hours. We need to get the food out before then. We've been monitoring and there is a very large stash down there, enough to feed us at this station for months.”

  We would be taking the food out of other peoples' mouths.

  “We will let you shower and change,” Chalmers continued, much to my relief. I was ready to do anything to get to bathe. “Most people on the surface have been doing their best to stay clean, so you are right that you need to blend in. We will also be providing you with disguises. Sheri will be suspicious if you return to her hotel after she willingly allowed you to walk right to us. Now,” he said, grabbing the mouse and clicking on the computer, “here is what you will need to do.”

  Chapter Twelve

  They drove us to the avenue that I had run down some time before, hoping to find Dad.

  They parked the van at the end of the street, right next to a building that was some sort of bank. It already had broken windows and was dark inside. I couldn't imagine who cared about money at a time like this. On the other side of us was a small market that had definitely been raided.

  Chalmers and the scary woman hadn't come with us. Instead, they had sent two underlings as the van drivers, Teddy and Tawna, a young man and woman who had haunted eyes I had seen too many times before. I had a feeling those weren't even their real names but some kind of code name. Chalmers hadn't instructed me or Jerome to use fake names. Maybe we hadn't proven ourselves enough yet.

  Teddy and Tawna sat in the front of the van, which was empty in the back. According to Chalmers, on another street other gatherers would wait in two more vans. After Jerome and I did the killing, they would move in and grab the food. Chalmers had also explained that the underground HQ was away from where the flooding would hit and would stay safe, a hint to get back there as soon as we could.

  Tawna's blond hair was ragged like she had crawled across the whole country herself and Teddy was a scrawny man they might have plucked off the street. Neither one of them spoke to us as we waited. It was dusk now, safe to be out, but we had to wait until there was more darkness. Ten was the time to go and do the deed.

  But I had gotten to shower and so had Jerome. It was nice not to stink and make everyone back away from us. We stood in the back of the gutted van with pistols strapped to our belts underneath our thick coats. I hated the feel of it hanging there, cold and metallic and heavy, even though I had handled one before and threatened people with it. Teddy had given us a quick lesson in firing the guns right outside the base, underneath that burned-out sign, and Chalmers seemed pretty confident we'd pick it up quickly.

  I hated that. He seemed to think we were natural killers. I wondered why he hadn't just hired a sociopath. David would have been better at this.

  Oh, right. He wouldn't be able to control a freak like that because they didn't care about anyone else.

  And it was snowing outside. Hard.

  Flakes blew to the side and you couldn't tell where the road ended and the sidewalk began. But people were still out and about, walking up and down towards the ocean and back. One guy even had a tripod camera under his arm like he'd been taking picture
s of the river. I hoped that he got out of here quickly before the surge hit, and that so did we, or that the surge would hit before Jerome and I had to go into the hotel and pretend to ask for shelter like a couple of naive kids. Sheri would be less afraid of kids, according to Chalmers. Most of the people she would fear would be adults.

  Jerome would have to do all the talking, though. My voice might be too recognizable since I'd spoken to her.

  “Keep your faces covered,” Tawna said, glancing back at us in the near-darkness.

  I really, really hated my life.

  David was one thing. Those guys back in the town were one thing. Sheri hadn't been trying to kill us—but she had let us walk into the trap. Chalmers made sure we knew about that. But Sheri hadn't dared look us in the eye when they were leading us out of the building. She felt guilty, maybe even horrible about what she'd done, but what if she didn't have a choice? These Stardust guys would have threatened her up and down to make her work with them for a few minutes, all in exchange for betraying her in the end. She might even think she was safe right now, doing her puzzles in the lantern light.

  And then Jerome and I would barge in and open fire on her like a couple of punks.

  Teddy checked his watch. We were supposed to walk into the hotel and strike in five minutes. Ahead, a woman walked into the hotel holding a box.

  Teddy cleared his throat. “I think that once we see that woman leave with the box, you two can go in. This is your first mission, and trust me, it's better if you get it over with quickly.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I had to pretend to be the good girl who was going to be a horrible person.

  “Just don't think about it,” Teddy said. “Don't think about it when you walk in and don't think about it when you leave. I've done this three times already and if you dwell on it, you're not going to make it very long.”

  “Who do they have that you care about?” I asked. “And do they ever let them out of their cells?”

  Teddy didn't hesitate to speak. “My sister's there,” he said. “The Stardust people chose me because I killed a guy that was trying to break into my house last week. At least, I think it was last week. They said they might move her to different quarters after a few more missions. I killed my first shop keeper last week. I won't think about that. It was a little old lady and...never mind. My sister's on her way to a better room with books to read and things to do and her own private bathroom. They might move her into an even better place or even a house in a military base if I keep doing what I'm doing.”