Deadlock (TalentBorn Book 3)

  TALENTBORN:DEADLOCK

  Book 3 of the TalentBorn Series

  C. S. Churton

  This is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or to living persons alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

  Cover by May Dawney Designs.

  Copyright © 2019 by C. S. Churton

  All rights reserved.

  Chapter One

  I’ve walked the whole of hell in the last three hours. Set up camp there, learned every inch of its fiery walls, and breathed the brimstone air until my lungs are charred to dust. Hell is guilt. Hell is knowing the man you love is lying two rooms over but not being able to go to him. Hell is knowing he could be dead right now, but being too afraid to find out. Hell is knowing it’s your fault.

  It’s my fault. Scott was counting on me, and I failed him. It should be me lying in there, and believe me, I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat. Trade places. That’s what I was supposed to do. That’s what I told Pearce – who was holding him prisoner – I would do. But Pearce knew, somehow he knew that we were planning to double cross him, and he took it out on Scott. He didn’t have to do that. Why did he do that?

  I pace the room, bouncing first off one wall and then another. Wait here, they’d told me, leaving me little choice in the matter. We’ll tell you when there’s news. Then they left. Even Iain has left me. He helped me rescue Scott – if you can call this rescued – but Ephraim had summoned him away. To debrief, he’d said. This is Ephraim’s base; we have to play by his rules. So Iain says. I refuse to play by anyone’s rules. I’m not interested in being debriefed. I’m waiting right here until the doctors come back.

  Here is not a pleasant place. Here is a room full of doubt, of fear, of every bad decision I’ve made in the last month. Here is no less than I deserve. I bounce off another wall, my hands propelling me away from it as my feet automatically retrace their steps. The gun tucked into my waistband digs into my stomach, left there from the rescue mission. An unnecessary precaution, in the end. We weren’t the ones in danger. Its hammer rubs uncomfortably against me and I relish the distraction. My feet keep moving. I’ve walked the path a hundred times. A thousand. I stopped counting.

  The door isn’t locked. No locked door could hold me, anyway. I can’t be caged, at least, not by any physical means. If I wanted, I could reach inside myself to that place my talent lives, and shift right to Scott’s side. I don’t dare. What would I find? Are his eyes open, is he looking for me? Or are they staring lifelessly at the ceiling, while the doctors look on with resignation etched into their faces, wondering which of them will have to break the news to me? Perhaps they’ll draw straws.

  My nails dig into my palms as I try to drive the image from my mind. It’s immediately replaced by him lying in the dirt, with a sinister rash crawling down his arm, spreading from a single needle mark. By the time we got him here, the rash was covering his hand and his neck. I didn’t dare look how far it had spread across his chest. Coward!

  I bounce off the wall again, leaving a smear of red where my palm makes contact. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I know the tears have long since dried up, and my throat is raw. Good. I deserve the pain. Scott would never have let me be infected with a genetically engineered virus. I failed him. I heard the doctors talking when we got here, before they led me to this room. They’ve never seen anything like it before: the distinctive maculopapular pattern, how quickly it spreads. The way it renders its victim so utterly vulnerable. Unconscious. Shallow breathing. Thready heartbeat. I saw it in their faces. They were worried. They don’t know how to fix this. How could they? They don’t even know what it is.

  A single wooden chair is all the furniture that’s in the room. It’s in two pieces after I threw it at the wall, some time between the crying and the pacing. A single fluorescent strip hangs from the ceiling: the only source of light in the room. There are no windows, of course, since we’re deep underground. The barn itself is above ground, but we all cower beneath the surface, hiding from Pearce, and the rest of AbGen’s agents. The Abnormal Genetics Research Department. No-one is fully beyond their reach – they’re the government – but here we can pretend. If Scott is truly dead, then I won’t have any more use for hiding. I will dismantle the corrupt agency, one person at a time, and I will see Pearce pay for his crimes. I’m through with pretending, and I’m through with hiding.

  I wrap my hand around the doorknob and yank it open. Then I slam it shut again. What if they couldn’t save him? I start to pace again, and stumble over the stupid broken chair. My feet forget how to be feet and I end up on the floor in a pile of bones and clothing. Whatever. I don’t feel like getting up again. I lay there staring at the far wall, chair pieces blurring in my periphery, and wonder not for the first time how my life came to this. Modestly skilled waitress in a dead-end town, to hunted absa and girlfriend of a dying man. No, he’s not going to die, dammit! I fling a chair leg at the wall with a scream, breathing heavily as it rebounds and skitters across the floor.

  He’s not the only one whose life is on the line today. A handful of the Ishmaelians – the rebel group whose furniture I’m smashing – acted as decoys, distracting Pearce and his men while I rescued Scott. Helen, Nathan, and Joe, friends from our former days as AbGen agents, risked everything to free Joe’s family from Pearce’s dungeon. No-one has brought me news about any of them. They could all be dead too, for all I know. I can barely bring myself to care. If Scott is gone, what does it matter who remains?

  Except it does. It should. These people are my friends. I push myself upright and shuffle back into the corner. I should go to Ephraim. Even do his stupid debrief if that’s what he wants. And I will. As soon as I get some news about Scott. Until then I’m waiting right here.

  “Anna?”

  The door opens a crack, and I look up as Iain walks through. Tall, blond and in his twenties, he’s what you’d call classically handsome, but right now there are shadows under his eyes, and his forehead is wrinkled with concern as he looks at me.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  I shrug. He looks around the room, pausing on the smashed chair.

  “No news about Scott?”

  I shake my head, and he drops down on the floor beside me.

  “What about the others?” I drag the words from myself. They’re flat even to my own ears.

  “Alistair, Rohan and the rest of the decoy team gave Pearce’s men the slip. They’re on their way back now. Your AbGen friends arrived back a little while ago. They’re all fine. Ephraim’s waiting to debrief them. I don’t think he’s quite sure how to handle Helen.”

  My lips twitch. Helen’s talent is a potent one: she can change people’s perception of her. It sounds pretty benign, until you realise that if you can change how people feel about you, you can get them to do pretty much anything you want. ‘Mind control’ might be a bit of a stretch, but I can understand Ephraim’s reluctance. Especially since Helen has spent years work for AbGen, who drove the Ishmaelians underground – literally and figuratively. But that was before she knew the truth about them. She more than proved her loyalty last month when she helped me and Scott escape AbGen’s trap. And she’s the reason Joe’s family are free.

  “Nora’s not quite what he was expecting.”

  Nora being Joe’s AbGen handler. She’s not an absa – Atypically Biologically Selectively Advanta
ged, or ‘gifted’ as the Ishmaelians insist on calling them, like these powers are anything other than a curse – but she's an integral part of Joe’s ability to do his job. Normally handlers are young, athletic, and combat trained. Nora’s sixty-eight. I may have led Ephraim to believe otherwise. But his prejudice against ‘ungifteds’ was beginning to wear on me. Iain is ungifted. He did more to help me find Scott than anyone on this base. Nathan is ungifted. He risked his life to save Joe’s wife and son, freeing the mind reader from Pearce’s control. Pearce himself is ungifted. Ephraim of all people should know not to underestimate the ‘ungifted’. And he shouldn’t define them by what they don’t have. This talent of mine – this gift as he calls it – doesn’t make me better than anyone else. Just more of a target. And that’s why the people around me keep getting hurt.

  I push myself up from the floor.

  “I’m sick of waiting. Let’s go pay the doctors a visit.”

  Chapter Two

  My courage fails me before I walk through the door, but Iain stays by my side, waiting patiently. We’re standing in the brightly lit corridor, and beyond this door is Scott. I should be rushing through it, rushing back to his side, but I’m frozen by a thousand what-ifs. I’m back to pacing my own personal hell, because not knowing is better by a hair’s breadth than losing what little hope I have left. But false hope is no hope, really, and I can’t stomach any more lies. I raise my hand and push the door open.

  Scott is lying in a bed with tubes and wires running in and out of him, pumping him with fluids and hooking him up to machinery. A monitor sits beside him, bleeping rhythmically. Relief floods through me, leaving me dizzy and light-headed. Never was there a more beautiful sound. He’s alive. I look at the machine’s screen, but the readings make no sense to me.

  A doctor stands beside him, adjusting a drip going into his arm. He turns at the sound of our approach.

  “What’s up, doc?” I ask humourlessly: a relic from a childhood of watching cartoons. The doctor shoots me a weary smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and he doesn’t answer me right away. I move closer and take Scott’s clammy hand in mine. The rash is covering both his arms, and the first few spots are starting to creep onto his jawline.

  “We’ve managed to stop the spread of the rash,” the doctor says, only the way he says it, it doesn’t sound like a cause for celebration.

  “That’s good, right?”

  “We have him on the strongest antibiotics available, but so far all they’re doing is stopping the virus spreading. I’m concerned that it’s already spread far beyond his ability to fight it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “If we don’t find a more effective way to combat it, then I’m afraid Scott may not recover at all.”

  I stare at him blankly. That’s not possible. We got him back. They’ve stopped the rash. He’s going to be okay. He’s got to be okay.

  “I’m sorry, Anna. I wish I had better news.”

  “That’s it?” I demand. “You’re sorry? Don’t just stand there – do something! You’re a doctor. Find a way to make him better!”

  “Anna.” Iain places a hand on my shoulder, and I realise I’m shouting. I glare at the doctor a moment longer, and then turn my attention back to Scott.

  “He’s a fighter. He’s not going to give up.”

  “And neither are we,” the doctor says, then pauses. “But you should prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “I don’t want to hear that. Do your damned job!”

  He scurries away. Good. I don’t need him standing around telling me there’s no hope. I know there’s hope. Scott’s better than this. He’ll find a way to beat it.

  Iain pulls out a chair for me and I nod my thanks as I sink into it. I didn’t realise how tired I am. My bones ache with exhaustion, my soul aches with grief. I can’t lose him now.

  The door creaks open, and a figure stands in the doorway. It takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing. The tall blonde gives me an uncertain smile that’s completely at odds with her stunningly made-up face and usually confident demeanour. Ephraim must still not have decided how to handle her.

  “Helen.”

  “Can I come in?”

  I nod. She’s known Scott much longer than I have, it’s just as much of a blow to her as it is to me. She comes and stands beside him.

  “How is he?”

  “Not good. The doctors don’t know how to help him.”

  “They’ll find a way.”

  Right. What a load of bull. How can she possibly know that? She’s never set foot in this base before today, never met a single one of the doctors, and until a few weeks ago, she was completely taken in by Pearce’s good guy act. How can she possibly know whether the Ishmaelians can cure what he did?

  My anger subsides as quickly as it rose, and I simply nod. She turns to Iain.

  “You must be Iain. I hear you helped find Scott.”

  “I just wish we could have found him sooner.”

  “I’m not sure what difference it would have made,” she says sadly, looking at the machine’s read out.

  “He’s not dead yet,” I snap, sick of all the resignation lingering in the room. What’s the matter with these people? Why is everyone so quick to want to write off Scott, after everything he’s done?

  “Of course not. Anna, that’s not what I meant. I-”

  “I need some air.”

  I get up and push my way out into the corridor, and am relieved when no-one follows me. I’m no good in hospitals. I’m a doer, not a watcher. I can’t bear to stand around watching someone I love lying helplessly, while the doctors stand around, just as helplessly, waiting for– No. That’s not going to happen. Suddenly I just need to be a long way from here, out in the open air. My muscles quiver with anticipation, but I can’t shift. My EM pulse would knock all the medical equipment offline. Instead, I hurry through the winding corridors, jogging up the stairs because I can’t stomach the thought of standing still in a lift.

  “Anna, wait up!”

  I pretend not to hear the footsteps hurrying along behind me, but Nathan’s nothing if not persistent. He also has longer legs than me and he’s built like a tank. He probably earned the old break in his nose the hard way. I could shift now that I’m away from the med-wing, but somehow it all seems pointless. Resigned, I drag my feet to a halt. He takes me in with a glance.

  “You heading outside?”

  I nod, and he falls in beside me as my feet start moving again. I turn a corner and my shoulder thuds into something – someone – spinning me off to the side. I look up to grunt an apology, but when my eyes meet the person’s face, I freeze. My lip curls into a snarl.

  “Marcus.” The last time I saw this gutter rat was in Gardiner’s office back at AbGen, and I can still hear the sickening crunch of bone from his boot crushing Scott’s hand as he tried to stop us escaping. The time before that, he was standing guard in Gardiner’s dungeon when him and Pearce tried to cram me into a cage. I’m not exactly feeling overwhelmed with warm and fuzzy memories.

  “Anna. I heard about Scott. Is he–”

  Abruptly, the gun from my waistband is in my hand, pointing at Marcus’s stubble-covered face. He cuts off mid-sentence. Good. I can’t stomach the sound of his voice right now.

  “Don’t you dare say his name.”

  “Take it easy.”

  Why do people say that? Easy would be pulling the trigger. Easy would be punishing the one person I can hold accountable right now. Easy would not go in his favour. He raises his hands, slowly, placatingly, and I flash back to Gardiner’s office, with him on his knees, hands raised in fake surrender, right before he attacked Scott.

  “Anna, put it down,” Nathan says, his voice a hair too intense to be calm. “Trust me, you don’t want to do this.”

  I don’t know why he’s defending this psychopath. This is one of AbGen’s inner circle, this… man helps lock people away and tortures them in the name of patriotism. He’s as bad as
Pearce. I don’t ask Nathan why he thinks I don’t want to do this. That would mean letting some of my attention slip from Marcus, and that would be a mistake. You don’t get to make mistakes around someone like this.

  “I’m an Ishmaelian.”

  I stare at my enemy and my brows knit, because that is simply not true.

  “It’s true, I swear. I was undercover at AbGen.”

  “Anna, he’s telling the truth. He helped us get out.”

  This time I do turn to Nathan, because how can it possibly be true? Marcus did everything he could to stop us escaping. He’s Gardiner’s man – Pearce’s, now that Gardiner’s dead. His face tells me it’s not a lie though, and my eyes flip back to Marcus before he can try anything. If he helped Nathan and Helen escape, it was for his benefit, not theirs.

  “Ephraim needed someone on the inside, so he could monitor what Gardiner and Pearce were up to. The three of them have been at war for years. Think back, Anna,” Marcus urges. “I had Scott bested in that fight. I let him take me down so you could both get out.”

  I don’t have to think back, because that day is etched into my memory. Marcus overpowered Scott, disarmed him and crushed every bone in his right hand. Scott got in a lucky headbutt.

  “I have a one second precognition, it makes me virtually unbeatable in hand to hand combat. It’s my talent.”

  Talent.

  “That’s an AbGen word. The Ishmaelians call it a gift.” For some reason.

  “I’ve spent more time with AbGen than I have with the Ishmaelians. I only check in when I have to, so Pearce doesn’t get suspicious. Can you put that gun down?”

  “Maybe you’ve spent so long with them that you’ve forgotten where your loyalties lie,” I counter, keeping the gun level with his head, and watching him closely. One second precognition? That’s not much, but he’d see a punch coming before someone threw it. Or a headbutt.

  “I’m the one who passed your message to Nathan.”