FLOOD

The Formula

"Vee." Eli's whisper jerked me out of my thoughts, and when I turned it was to see him pointing at something behind me, eyes wide. "She's there, look."

I whirled around, heart beating hard against my ribcage. The row of cages Eli pointed at was empty, save for two in the very center, where two dark shapes lay at the bottom, hard to spot if you weren't looking.

Gunny and Fiske.

I ran, footsteps echoing on the cement floor, breath ragged in my lungs. My blood rushed in my ears, drowing out something Eli was saying behind me. It didn't matter, my eyes were fixed on the still, dark shapes at the bottom of the cages.

They couldn't be dead. They had to be alive, both of them.

Cain's grandfather had said she was only half dead-

When I reached the cages I could make out the figure on the right, even through the cloudly plastic. It was Gunny, curled up on her side, hands folded over her middle, over the wound in her stomach. Her face was dangerously white, and I pressed my hands to the plastic, heart beating wildly, pressing my face to the cage, trying to see her face better.

Oh gods. Please be alive.

Gunny's face stayed perfectly still, like a wax mask, cold and dead. But her chest rose and fell, ever so slightly. She was alive.

It felt like someone had unwrapped the iron band from my lungs. I could breath again, and I moved onto Fiske's cage. He was asleep and breathing heavily, his tail and paws twitching from time to time. He was sedated.

I barely held myself back from smacking the heel of my hand into the cage. Of course he'd be sedated, and Gunny was unconscious. That made things about a million times harder, since we had to try to drag them out without being caught when they were both deadweight.

I was an idiot.

"Vee," Eli said, his voice soft by my ear. "I don't like this."

"Me either, I don't know how we're going to get them both out without being seen."

"No, I don't like this...this room." Eli darted a look around. "It's too...perfect."

I straightened up, alarm already spiking in my chest. I'd been too focused on the cages, on Gunny and Fiske and trying to get them out. I hadn't even checked to see if there was anyone nearby. Now I could feel them, two figures approaching, one taller than the other, just outside the door.

"They're coming-"

"Already here, dear."

The voice send prickles of alarm over my skin, and I whirled around. Cain's grandfather was standing on the opposite side of the room, leaning back against the metal table by the cupboards. He had a long silver needle in his hand, and while I watched, eyes wide, he flicked the side of it with one finger and smiled at me, his lips thin and white. The expression didn't meet his eyes. "You were so focused on my approaching soldiers that you didn't sense me, did you? Though you can hardly be blamed, since I've taken some precautions against you. I'm glad this is over soon, I haven't had any water for three days now. Not a drop to drink. I think a few more days could kill me, honestly."

"How about I do that now?" My hands curled into fists. "There's no way you get close enough to use that needle, I rip your stomach out before you get within ten feet of me."

He would need to get closer, I could barely sense him now as it was. He wasn't bluffing, he really was completely dehydrated. What sort of man half kills himself to get to one person? The idea that Cain's grandfather was insane had occurred to me before, but now he was really confirming it.

"But I don't have to get close to you." The old man's eyes went distant, fixed on something behind me.

My head jerked up, and I started to turn around, but already I could feel it, a stinging pain in the side of my neck. In slow motion I raised my hand, clapping it over the pain in my throat, feeling the small plastic dart lodged in my skin. I curled my fingers around it and ripped it out with a sharp cry of pain.

"Sorry about the delivery system."

That familiar cold drawl sent me staggering backwards as Cain stepped out from behind the shelves, a slender metal tube in one hand. He grimaced down at it, his sharp features twisted in disgust. "The blow pipe, such a primitive tool. But really, your new found powers made it necessary to do business from a distance."

Already I could feel something surging through my blood, or maybe it was just my imagination, or fear that shot through my veins. My hands felt heavy and awkward, like I had gloves on, and my shoulders slumped, head rolling forward slightly. Everything felt so heavy.

I was vaguely aware now, of movement out of the corner of my left eye. Eli launching himself forward, soldiers bursting through the door with a shuffling clatter. Someone was yelling.

Above me, the ceiling blurred and swayed, the buzzing electric lights morphing into shining blobs of energy, waving in and out of one another, dancing and jumping from one corner to the next.

I wasn't standing anymore. I was on my back on the floor, the cement cold on my cheek.

How did I get here?

"A mild sedative." Cain's voice floated above me, sounding both nearby and one hundred miles away at the same time. "Combined with a new serum. In theory it should work to block your power. Of course, we haven't tested it out yet. Tell me, are you able to rip my innards out, Vee?"

I wanted to, so very very much. But my head felt foggy, and when I reached out with my senses everything was a wash of jumbled feelings and sensations, a vague, fuzzy chaos. It was like grasping at motes of dust in a sunbeam. Useless.

My eyelids were heavy, drifting down and flickering up again as I fought the wave of exhaustion that rolled over me. Whatever I did, I couldn't sleep.