Chapter 17 - MY BROTHER’S FIRST LIE
Noah backed away from the screen.
Eli stared at him.
“What did they do to you?”
“I said I don’t remember.”
Ward laughed through the speaker.
“You remember enough.”
The timer showed 2:31.
I grabbed Noah’s jacket.
“Were you working for them at fourteen?”
“No!”
“Then why were you there?”
“I followed Dad.”
Ward said, “And then you made a choice.”
Noah slammed his fist into the monitor.
The image flickered.
“Shut up!”
That scared me more than anything she had said.
Eli pulled me toward the vent.
“Later. Air first.”
We crawled into the maintenance shaft.
Noah went after me.
Eli stayed behind.
I looked back.
“What are you doing?”
“Manual vent release is inside.”
“No.”
“Maya, move.”
“You come with us.”
“Not enough time.”
The timer hit 1:18.
He reached through the grate and touched my hand.
“Trust me once more.”
I almost laughed.
Then I saw his face.
He was scared.
Not of dying.
Of me watching him do it.
I crawled forward.
Behind us, Eli ripped open a control panel.
The gas hiss grew louder.
Noah and I reached a vertical ladder.
Forty seconds.
I climbed.
Twenty.
A blast of air roared below us.
The shaft shook.
I looked down.
“Eli!”
No answer.
Noah pushed me upward.
“Go!”
We burst through a grate into the cemetery maintenance building.
I immediately turned back.
Noah caught me.
“He’ll come if he can.”
“If?”
“Maya—”
A gun clicked behind us.
Sloane stood in the doorway.
Blood ran down one side of his face.
“Family reunion’s over.”
Noah moved in front of me.
Sloane shot him in the leg.
Noah dropped.
I screamed and lunged.
Sloane grabbed my hair and dragged me back.
“You people have been exhausting.”
I clawed his arm.
He slammed me against the wall.
Then the floor grate exploded upward.
Eli came out of the shaft like a ghost from hell.
He hit Sloane before Sloane could turn.
They crashed through a table.
The gun skidded toward me.
I grabbed it.
Sloane got on top of Eli and wrapped both hands around his throat.
I aimed.
“Get off him!”
Sloane looked at me and smiled.
“You won’t shoot.”
Noah, bleeding on the floor, whispered, “Maya.”
I fired.
The bullet hit the wall beside Sloane’s head.
He flinched.
Eli threw him off.
Sloane stumbled backward through the open doorway and fell down the stone steps.
He didn’t get up.
I dropped the gun.
Eli looked at me.
“You missed.”
“No.”
He understood.
I had chosen not to kill.
Noah groaned.
I went to him.
As I pressed my hands to his wound, a flash drive fell from his pocket.
Not ours.
A black one marked with the Circle symbol.
Eli picked it up.
Noah reached for it too late.
“What is this?” I asked.
Noah’s face changed.
Eli inserted it into a laptop on the desk.
A command log opened.
The newest entry read:
OPERATION SOUTH WINDOW — AUTHORIZED: RAVEN.
Raven was Noah.
I looked at my brother.
“You authorized the attack on me?”
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