CHAPTER 30
LEGACY AND I SNAKE A path back to the safehouse apartment. Maverick, Ghost, and Aero wait back at the van with Anomaly’s dead body, which they shoved into the back, behind the rear seats. Like a duffle bag or a spare tire. Extra cargo to be carted back to The Program. Redux’s body, though, that’s lost to us forever. We’re all in agreement that braving the decrepit used-to-be hotel to retrieve his body would be a bad idea.
Now, Legacy and I are going back for Cipher and Hack, and Maverick—our newly designated getaway driver—is going to watch for us so he can swoop in and pick us up. It sounded so simple when Legacy came up with the plan, even if Maverick did try to argue that he should be the one to go with me to the apartment, but nothing about this mission has been simple, or gone according to plan.
The safehouse is dark when we get there, and Legacy unlocks the door. In the time it takes for me to take two steps inside the apartment, I manage to tamp down the feeling that something is wrong by reasoning with myself that the place would be dark, should be dark, since Hack and Cipher are running an op. They wouldn’t keep the lights blazing for anyone and everyone to see.
“Where are you guys? We need to go,” Legacy calls in a voice somewhere between whisper and echo. She must be dealing with a hint of unease herself.
We’re met with silence.
I follow close on her heels as she skirts the front door and makes for the kitchen. She flicks the light switch, and as soon as the fluorescent blazes overhead, I slam into Legacy’s back. Pain shoots though my nose, and I bring my hand up to cradle it gingerly. She barely seems to notice the impact. She must have a shoulder blade made of steel.
“What’s go—” I start to ask, but she cuts me off with a raised finger and a soft, “Shh.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I clamp my lips shut and peer over her impossibly high shoulders.
Why is she so freaking tall? I give up and sidestep to peek around her instead.
A dark crimson puddle covers the floor in front of the sink, but I can’t see any farther around her. I’m not sure I want to. “Is it…”
“Hack.” Legacy’s voice is robotic, empty.
I step fully out from Legacy’s shadow. Hack is face down in her own blood. Three solid circles of vermillion mar the back of her once white T-shirt. And there’s no rise and fall of air. Her lungs are motionless, her body lifeless. Her heart may not be beating, but mine is a hummingbird, threatening to take flight.
“Dad?” Legacy’s voice is smaller and broken next to me.
Dad? I look first at Legacy, then follow the direction of her gaze across the counter bar and into the living room.
Cipher stands ramrod straight in the center of the dark room, only partially illuminated by the light from the kitchen. Ruger is directly behind him. Closer than I would have expected. Then something shiny glints at Cipher’s neck, and I realize why. Ruger has a knife pressed to his throat, and I can feel the horror pressing sharply into my own throat.
The answer to every question I’ve ever had, and some I haven’t even considered, comes crashing into me with the force of a freight train. How someone snuck in the drug that killed Prodigy; why the guy we were questioning during interrogation week flipped so quickly when he heard Legacy’s code name; how my bedroom window came to be open the night I was almost thrown to my death. How my simulation went from safe to deadly. Ruger was behind everything. Every weird occurrence, every death. Sim.
Anger, revulsion, betrayal, pain, fear… any and every negative emotion I’m capable of wars for space in my brain, a tempest of mammoth proportions. Ruger is Legacy’s father. He is the reason she was a Legacy recruit. And he’s willing to go to any lengths to ensure she makes it through.
Did she know? I dare a glance in her direction. Her pale blue eyes are wide and brimming with unshed tears, and her skin is ashen. Legacy’s mouth hangs open, and her lips move, but no sound comes out. Is she shocked beyond words? Behind the shock, her expression is blank, like she can’t quite process the truth.
Ruger loosens his hold on Cipher, but not by much. “You weren’t supposed to find out.” He looks every bit the regretful, loving father. Except most fathers don’t go around killing off their kid’s peers. I consider the gun tucked into my shoulder holster, fully reloaded just moments ago at the van, but I’m still not fluid in my handgun handling. There’s no way I can get it, disengage the safety, and aim faster than Ruger can sever Cipher’s carotid.
“Find out what, Dad? That you were killing the recruits to give me a leg up?”
He drops his gaze to the floor. “I just… I knew how bad you wanted this. And you only get one shot.”
“What about Redux. He got in twice; I could, too.”
“Redux was a fluke, the first recruit in the history of The Program to be drafted twice. I couldn’t count on that happening again. I needed to help you. I needed to make sure you got in so you can avenge your mother.”
Legacy takes a small, shuffling step forward, then another. “Yes, I wanted The Program. I wanted to follow in your footsteps.” Another step. “But not like this.”
Ruger’s brow creases, and his nostrils flare. “Does it really matter how? I gave you what you wanted.” He’s less penitent now, more affronted. Like he’s insulted that she would reject his gift. My gun calls to me, the metal cold and heavy against my back.
Geez. No wonder the girl’s got the emotions of a robot. She was raised by a sociopath.
“It does matter.” She keeps her voice soft and takes another step in his direction. “It matters to me.”
Ruger’s hand tightens around the handle of his knife, and I feel the tightening around my heart, itch to tighten my fingers around my firearm, as the blade presses closer to Cipher’s neck. Cipher tenses, seemingly in an attempt to make himself smaller, draw himself away from the knife threatening to bisect his neck.
“Dad, you can’t do this. This isn’t what I want.” Legacy tries again and takes another tiny step forward.
“You don’t know what you want.” Ruger’s voice crashes through the quiet, and he shifts backward several inches, yanking Cipher with him.
I should do something to help, but my feet have grown roots, become grounded in the tile flooring.
“Don’t do this.” Legacy’s entreaty borders on a command.
Ruger hesitates in his backward movement. He’s considering listening to her. Then, “You’re almost there. I just have to take him out, and there won’t be any question of whether or not you’ll make it through. They’ll have to accept you.”
“But what about you? I don’t want this if you’re not around to be my mentor,” she reasons.
Mentor? The only person this man’s fit to mentor would be a budding serial killer.
“You’re ready, Jeanie. You can do this without me. And I’ve come too far to not see this through. You and I both know there’s no going back.”
I inch my hand toward my gun and mentally file away the fact that Legacy’s real name is Jeanie. It doesn’t fit, but I don’t have time to reflect on the dissonance.
“You don’t need to kill anyone else,” Legacy reasons. “There are only five of us left.”
Ruger blinks like he’s running the math in his head. “No, eight of you went into this assessment, and I’ve only taken down two. I need to take out one more.” He looks at Cipher, then looks past Legacy to spear me with the creepiest look I’ve ever seen. “Though, I would prefer it be her, the girl with the infinite potential.” He removes the knife from Cipher’s neck to point it in my direction.
For one heartbeat, I wonder if he’s going to throw it at me. And in the second heartbeat, everything freezes. Cipher ducks and rolls away from Ruger; Legacy leaps over the counter, and I pull my gun out. I aim but can’t fire with Legacy blocking the way.
Cipher seems to have the same idea as me. In the time it took Legacy to get over the counter and into the living room, he’s crossed to a pack on the floor next to the computers and is rifling through it. He pulls out a gun. He has a better vantage to aim from. Legacy must realize that, because she shifts her position, approaching Ruger just enough to put herself in Cipher’s line of fire. Now, neither of us can get to Ruger without also risking Legacy.
“You need to give me the knife, Dad. Now.” Legacy holds her gun down at her side, but her fingers twitch on the handle. Ruger considers her for a long moment, then flips the knife in his hand and holds it out to her, handle first.
Relief is a heavy sigh leaving my lungs as Legacy takes the knife. Her shoulders relax, and she takes a few steps back from him. As she bends to slip the knife into her boot, Ruger pulls a gun from behind his back with lightning quickness. One minute, he’s unarmed, the next he’s got a finger on the trigger and the barrel of his gun is swinging my way.
“Dear God…” My prayer dies on my lips, lacking a voice, but the sentiment is there. Please don’t let this be how I die.
The world grinds into slow motion. The room stills around me as if I’m no longer a part of it. Every smell, every sound, every bit of visual stimuli is both hollow and smotheringly sharp. The lingering scent of the spaghetti we had for dinner, the steady tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall behind the TV, the sound of my breath entering my body in a hard inhale—it all comes into focus, burning into my brain, branding this moment into my memory. Legacy raises her weapon at the same time I take aim with my own. Ruger almost has me in his sights when I pull the trigger. Pop. Pop. Pop. Not one gunshot, but three reverberate through the room, one after another. And none of them come from Ruger’s gun. He drops to his knees as three glistening circles grow on his chest.
By the time he crumples to the ground, his eyes are closed, and his chest is still. Legacy drops to his side and reaches out like she wants to touch him, but she doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” she whispers into the silence, and time resumes, full speed ahead.
I’m rooted to the floor, still just a spectator in my own body, but Cipher moves to Legacy’s side, sets a hand on her shoulder. “We should go.”
“He’s dead,” she announces.
“I know,” Cipher answers softly and pulls her up from the floor. He leads her toward the door, and I meet them there. On our way out, I take one last lingering look at Ruger—our instructor, Legacy’s father. He has three matching bullet wounds in his chest, one from me, one from Cipher, and even if it wasn’t the one that killed him, one from Legacy.