Blood

13. Hostages

As I came back into the lounge area I saw that the door to the second holding cell was open and Val were in there. I hoped everyone. I caught a quick glimpse of my mom. Bad she'd been captured but good she was alive.

But an agent was standing in the doorway, aiming a gun at them. Not good. And three more agents had dragged out two chairs with people duct taped to

them. My uncle. And Hedges. Damn! I stopped short.
Amira was frozen, too. She didn't have the sword anymore, and a fifth agent was

pressing Hedges' shotgun to her side.

Double damn! I thought. Didn't see that coming.

"Mr. Valvenandi," an agent said to me. It was the one with his gun pointed at Uncle Wolfgang. "You're—"

"Ms.," I interrupted. It bugged me when people couldn't even look at me closely enough to get that right.

"You're holding one of our air guns," he continued smoothly. "Put it down slowly."

I pretended to be surprised as I looked down at it. "Is that what this is?" I asked. "I was wondering. Never seen one. Don't even know how they work." I smiled. Sometimes that works with teachers. It didn't seem to work with him. "So," I said, "I'm just curious since I'm new to all this, see, I can't help wondering why you want them? I mean, you tranquilized them instead of shooting them, and now I'm guessing you're going to drive them somewhere, no wait, these vans aren't big enough for long range transport so you're waiting for a bus, like an armored one prisons use with bars and locks on the windows, right?" I was just playing for time but I could see from their expressions I was right. "Which means," I continued, "they must be useful to you, so are you studying them, or... (they hadn't reacted to that) experimenting on them?"

"Here's how it's going to work, " the agent beside Uncle Wolfgang said. "You'll put the dart gun down and kneel with your hands behind your head, or I'll blow your uncle's head off. And at the same time, my associates will discharge their weapons into two

dozen of your neighbors, along with your girlfriend and boyfriend, Ms. Valvenandi. Do I make myself clear?"

He did make himself clear, I thought, but in more ways than he knew because in the fight at the police station most of the agents had been trying to catch me, not shoot me. And now here he was, telling me to put the dart gun down instead of just blowing my brains out with his gun. I guessed maybe something about the way I fought had gotten their interest. Call it a hunch.

I had a kind of hunch about Uncle Wolfgang too. Hedges was as good as dead and so was Amira, but I had a different kind of hunch about her having seen her in action. I just had to push a thought into her head. You're on your own, I pushed. On my cue. And by the way Hedges never loaded that shotgun.

Okay was all she sent back but it told me she got my message.