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  I breathe out a sigh of relief and flop down on the bed. Nothing to do now but wait for Forrest to come for his samples.

  I toy with the idea of visiting Celeste. My warning to prepare for the next Survival test, that it could be worse than the last, fell on deaf ears. She didn’t seem to mind much. Now, I worry that she should know more about our plan to escape. She needs to be ready when the time comes. Why didn’t I tell her before? Visiting now wouldn’t be prudent, though. If I’m not in my room when Forrest shows up and the others are ready to move into action, they will be furious. So I stay, staring at the smooth ceiling.

  Nerves begin writhing in my stomach as I wait. After a while, I can’t help but wonder if I’m wrong. What if Forrest doesn’t come today? What if no samples are collected and I’m left with a rock in my shoe and no means of escape? The minutes feel like hours, and I get more anxious, shifting on the bed, staring at the door, at the wall, at the floor, at the ceiling.

  At last! A familiar, muffled voice in the hallway. Forrest is coming. All the anxiety becomes a pounding adrenaline in my ears. Please, let this work.

  The moment Forrest rounds the doorway into my room, I bolt upright in bed. My palms are sweating, and I rub them on my pants.

  “Good morning, Ugene,” Forrest says. His dark eyes scan me, and his brows pull together.

  He knows!

  “Everyone alright?”

  “Yeah, fine,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the tension in my voice. “Just not looking forward to the tests today.”

  Forrest makes a sound in his throat and stands near the doorway. Why is he standing in the doorway? He needs to come in and set the tablet down.

  “I’m sort of not… not feeling so great today,” I say, hoping his concern draws him into the room to check me.

  Forrest’s frown deepens, and he turns on the tablet. After a few taps, he scrolls through data. “Everything looks normal. Though your heart rate is elevated.”

  Yes! The heart. If I’m so valuable, they don’t want anything to happen to me. “That’s what I mean. I can’t get it to slow down. I tried to lie back and meditate, and it didn’t help.”

  Forrest sighs and turns off the tablet, then steps deeper into the room to set it on the desk and sits on the edge of the bed beside me. First, he checks my pulse, which I’m trying so hard to control. Next, he presses his fingers to my temples.

  A surge of Power pushes through me, through my blood. Forrest is Divinic—that much I already knew—and I never really stopped to think or care about exactly his specific Power. Now it’s clear that he has a blood-born Divinic Power. Healing Hands with a focus on cellular activation. Which means he could potentially control the speed of my cellular activity.

  As if to confirm this theory, my heart slows to a steadier beat. The anxiety that moments ago poured through me disappears. Forrest lets go, and a glance in his direction reveals just how much that took out of him. The exhaustion shows through the way his eyes droop.

  “That’s odd,” he mumbles, voice thick as if drugged.

  The lights in the room flicker off. I hardly have time to catch Forrest before he falls back, his head nearly hitting the wall had I not managed to pull him to the side a moment before. Trina’s blood trick works again.

  The plan is in motion.

  Instead of deleting video footage this time around, Miller insisted on killing the power in my room. Now, the only light entering filters through the open doorway. We are all aware that we won’t be as lucky as we were last time. Now, moving quickly and cautiously is more critical.

  Trina and Michael enter the room as I retrieve the drive from my shoe. Trina quickly moves to Forrest and puts her hands on his head.

  “Be careful,” I say, watching her work but not really seeing anything what she is doing.

  “Why do you care?” she asks, shooting an angry snarl in Forrest’s direction. “He deserves so much more.”

  “That’s not up to us to decide. If we play God with people, we are no better than they are.”

  Trina rolls her eyes, and the color begins draining from Forrest’s face. His normally coppery tone—much like Bianca’s—becomes ashen. I jump at Trina, pushing her off. She slips off the edge of the bed, grasping it just in time to keep from losing her balance.

  “I said stop.”

  “Who put you in charge?” Trina asks, pushing herself to her feet and brushing her scrubs off.

  “If we hurt him, what was the point in killing the video feed?” I say, angry that she can’t see the obvious in front of us. “Besides, do you really think they wouldn’t figure it out eventually if you did something more drastic to him? Paragon will know if we aren’t extra careful.”

  “Stop,” Michael says, his voice small compared to the heat between Trina and I. “Someone get me the tablet.” Michael’s hand is on Forrest’s neck, and sweat beads on Michael’s forehead.

  Trina is closer to the desk, so she snatches the tablet and thrusts the device at Michael. A moment later, we are in. Michael hands the tablet to me so that I can attach the drive.

  “Remember, we only have about ten minutes this time before anyone wonders where you and Forrest are,” Michael warns, stepping away from me.

  Ten minutes. Not nearly as long as last time. Not even close to enough time to find everything we need. But it’s our best assumption of how long it would take for Forrest to collect me and head to the lab for samples. Any longer and security will most likely be on us.

  When I access the data, I grimace. The files are code locked. First, I try to access the video files from before, hoping to at least copy evidence of the experiments, but every file I click to open prompts for a coded password.

  Minutes tick by faster than they should. My fingers fly over the surface, hoping to find something—anything; security information, test data, video feeds—but the more I scroll through the tablet, the less hope I have.

  A shadow fills the doorway as I work, and all three of us look up to see who caught us in the act.

  33

  “How’s it going, kid?”

  Miller. Thank God.

  “Everything is locked,” I say. “I’ve skimmed through just about everything on here, and the files are all locked. We can’t get to anything.”

  “Five more minutes,” Michael says, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other.

  Miller moves into the room, carelessly nudging past Trina to stand beside me. “It can’t be everything,” he says.

  Without giving me a chance to say anything, Miller pulls the tablet from my hand and scrolls through the files himself. After a few of his own hits and misses, Miller’s jaw clenches so tight I can hear his teeth rubbing together. A glance reveals what I should have suspected he would look for all along.

  Subject 0514: Murphy, Jaymes.

  Miller pulls in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  “Miller, don’t.” I put a hand on his arm.

  “Three minutes.” Michael’s voice changes pitch. “Guys…”

  Miller shrugs me off and taps the file. The same box pops up, prompting a password. Instead of growling in frustration or lashing out—like I would expect from Miller—he begins pounding out potential passwords. Does he have any idea what the actual password might be? Watching him desperately try over and over to get into the file, I’m torn between stopping him and waiting to see if he really does get lucky. Does Paragon know someone is trying to hack into the archives?

  “Two minutes,” Michael says. As if we need a reminder that we are out of time.

  “This is pointless,” Trina says. “You can’t crack the password. Why even try? And for all we know, even if we get lucky with the first one, there could be a secondary password for further access. It isn’t getting us anywhere.” She reaches for the tablet.

  Miller doesn’t look up from the screen. He shoves Trina with one hand. Trina’s back smacks the wall. She yelps, stumbles sideways, and falls to the floor. Michael rushes to her aid while I turn on Mi
ller. This isn’t part of the plan, and his actions are over the line.

  “Miller, that’s enough,” I say, wrestling the tablet from his one-handed grip. I fall back onto the bed, half landing on Forrest’s legs. “We failed. I managed to copy some of the encrypted files onto the drive. We will just have to work with that for now.” I drag Murphy’s file across the screen. “I copied it. We can’t do anything else right now.”

  Michael glances toward the doorway. “One minute. Guys, we gotta go.”

  Miller paces a few steps across the floor, glances toward the door. Michael feebly stands between Miller and the rest of us, as if he could actually do anything to stop Miller.

  Miller’s next move is so fast I can’t react. None of us can. Miller snatches the tablet, pulls off the drive, tosses the tablet back at me, and storms out.

  “Wait!” Michael races after him but stops at the doorway. We all know there’s no way he could get that drive from Miller even if he caught up to him.

  “Just give him time. Maybe we can figure something out.” I don’t really believe it even as I say it though.

  “Time’s up.” Michael’s words sound ominous.

  “Breach!” Dave’s voice calls out from down the hall.

  Forrest stirs under me. I turn the tablet off and toss it to Trina, who puts it back on the desk. Anger and indignation tense her shoulders.

  Down the hall, Dave’s second warning cuts off mid-sentence.

  “Go!”

  But I don’t have to tell Trina and Michael. The two of them are already bolting for the door.

  The power in my room blinks back to life. Screams echo in the hallway, coming from all directions. Shouts to get back to our rooms. The sound of stun gun pops followed by a flash of blue lights from elsewhere in the hall. Trina and Michael both hesitate to leave the room, likely afraid of what will happen if they step out the door.

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Michael says, locking his hands under his armpits. Is he afraid of touching others?

  Despite the chaos, my pulse remains calm. Steady. An aftereffect from whatever Forrest did?

  Trina is staring at me, fear etching lines across her smooth, pale face. Then her eyes slip past me into the room and grow wide.

  “Please return to your rooms,” Overwatch says in her always kind voice.

  “Forrest,” Trina yelps, then bolts into the chaos of the hallway.

  A strange thump echoes in my head, then blackness.

  ~~~

  Pulsing pain erupts next to my temple, yanking me back into the light. Why does the side of my head hurt?

  And why are my cheeks cold? Wait, no… that’s tile. The floor.

  The world tilts as I push myself to my knees.

  Then, a cacophony of screams. Gunshots. Boots and bare feet slapping the tiles. I wince at the growing pain at my temple as I glance lazily around.

  My room. I’m in my room.

  As are other dark figures, moving about, tossing my belongings around.

  Everything’s fuzzy.

  I try to shake away the fog in my mind, but it only causes the throbbing to worsen.

  Shaking, I push myself to my knees and look up to see the barrel of a gun pointed right at my face.

  More gunshots, and I flinch. More screams.

  Perspiration beads on my forehead.

  “Don’t struggle,” Forrest’s voice comes from behind me.

  I blink, glance around. Three security guards are tossing my room, looking for something. Michael is huddled on the floor in the hallway directly across from my door. His fingers are laced behind his head, and the fear as his eyes meet mine pierces my heart. A security guard holds a gun on him while another binds his wrists together.

  No. No this can’t be happening.

  “Wha—?” I swallow hard as Forrest steps around me, careless of the chaos and pain of those around us.

  “Did you really think you would get away with it a second time?” Forrest asks. “Where is the drive?”

  Trina’s animalistic growl erupts somewhere in the hallway, cut off abruptly by a gunshot. But not before the guard binding Michael’s wrists together collapses to the floor, blood running from his eyes, ears, and nose. My breath catches.

  Forrest carries on as if nothing happened. So cold. Calculating. He crouches in front of me, grabs my chin, and tilts it toward his face. The clatter of the guards searching my room continues.

  “Focus, Ugene. The drive. Where is it?”

  How could he know? Did one of the others tell him? Did he overhear a conversation? But we were so careful.

  “Please return to your rooms,” Overwatch repeats.

  Despite everything going on around us, I’m calm inside.

  “I don’t have a drive.”

  Terry. It must have been Terry. He used his Telepathy on someone in the group. Stupid! I knew he was fishing for information. Someone was bound to give it away. It had to be him… right? How else would they know? Unless Forrest had something tracking the use of his tablet.

  “He had this hidden under the desk,” a guard says, holding my messenger bag to Forrest.

  Without hesitating, Forrest upends the bag, dumping the contents on the floor and rifling through them carelessly. He pauses at the clothes and food supplies and looks at me.

  “Going somewhere?” he asks.

  “Survival test,” I admit truthfully—or at least partly truthfully. “Don’t want to be unprepared for the next one.”

  Forrest rummages through my notebooks, flipping the pages quickly until he finds the map of the floor.

  “What’s this?”

  “A map,” I say. “I’ve gotten lost more than once.”

  “But why do you need to know who is in each room? What are you planning, Ugene?”

  “A party. Any other dumb questions?” Sarcasm won’t help me now, but my anger won’t let me hold back.

  Forrest’s lips compress, and he picks up all three journals, handing them to one of the guards. “Incinerate these. He won’t be needing them anymore.”

  “No!” I jump for the notebooks, but the gun in my face cocks and I fall back on my heels. “I have years of research about my condition in those.”

  “Wait,” Forrest grabs the guard. “Put them in my office.”

  Every experiment I’ve conducted on myself. Every secret I’ve uncovered since arriving at Paragon. Everything I know is in those notebooks. In his hands. Without them, all I have when we escape is the drive—assuming Miller still has it.

  “Please return to your rooms,” Overwatch repeats.

  My gaze slips past Forrest. A security guard lumbers past the door, carrying the limp form of Trina over his shoulder. Another guard drags Michael to his feet and pulls him along, wrists bound together so he can’t touch anything.

  “What will happen to them?” I ask.

  “Come on, Ugene. You’re too smart to ask such a dumb question.” Forrest tilts his head to block my view of the hallway. “Breach of contract is a serious offense.”

  I shake my head, anger bubbling up from deep inside, spreading through my veins. They will be removed from the program. Injected with whatever experimental concoction Forrest currently has on hand and tossed in the trash if it fails.

  “Trina didn’t sign a contract,” I say. “She was forced into this because of that stupid proposition. Don’t be coy with me, Forrest. I’m not dumb. I know what you do to test subjects. I’ve seen the footage.”

  As soon as the words slip out, I know I’ve overplayed my hand, but it’s impossible to hold in the rage burning through me. Never have I hated anyone so much in my life. Not Terry and his threats. Not Jimmy the Idiot in high school. Not even myself. Forrest came from a good family. His parents are model citizens. His sister has such a good heart. The family is perfect. How could something so ugly come from something so pure?

  “Assuming such a video even exists, what do you think you can do?” Forrest smirks and shakes his head. “Powerless, locked in a cage. D
o you really think you have any other way out but through me?”

  “Come on, Forrest.” Venom bleeds out from my voice. “You’re too smart to ask such a dumb question.”

  Forrest appears amused by my reaction. “You are important to the program, Ugene. Everything we have learned about you has helped improve those tests. You are the perfect baseline, and soon we will know everything we need to stop regression. But you. You will be the same miserable, Powerless brat you’ve always been.” He stands upright. “Just remember. What happened here today, and what comes next, is your fault.”

  One of the guards moves toward Forrest. “All clear. No sign of a drive.”

  Instead of losing his cool, Forrest smooths out the wrinkles in his white lab coat and walks toward the door.

  “Check the others. Then initiate lockdown,” he says as he enters the hallway. “Protocol 10-98.”

  The guard nods as if he expected that response.

  “Please return to your rooms,” Overwatch repeats.

  Running on pure adrenaline, knowing my chance at getting out of the room—at getting my hands on Forrest—is slipping away, I launch my whole body at Forrest.

  A shot rings out. A punch in the shoulder knocks me off track and spreading pain like burning fire through my shoulder and arm. I try to get up, blinking at the small puncture wound in my arm. Not a standard stun gun burn, but something else—like an injection, a tranquilizer.

  The world goes fuzzy. The guards pull me back into the room and step over my body. Every part of me resists movement. Paralyzed.

  A chime rings out. An echoing chorus of doors slam shut. I fight off the effects of whatever they tried knocking me out with, but for just a moment everything goes dark.

  Part Three

  “Paragon always strives to expand our understanding of Powers. Sometimes, that means pushing the limits of what we, as people, are capable of. The ultimate goal is to stop regression and allow us to prosper in this broken world.”