Recruits (New Haven Book 1), page 20
If I did survive this ordeal, I needed to fight back, whatever it took. I didn't want a terrible life. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted my life to matter. If working at Infinity Corp wasn't in my future, then I would have to make my own destiny. Carve my own path.
I'd been so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed when someone came into the room. Someone touched my arm, bringing me back to reality.
SO Clark floated next to me, trying to pull my hand out of the cuff that held me down. He finally gave me a look that said he was sorry. Sorry for what? That my life was over? That there was nothing he could do to save me?
Pain shot through my trapped hand, making me scream, bubbles shooting out from my mouth. As my mouthpiece fell away from my lips, I swallowed some water, making me choke a little. SO Clark had broken my thumb so he could pull my hand through.
I put the mouthpiece back in with my good hand and held onto Tina’s tank as if my life depended on it. Which of course, it did.
As SO Clark pulled me through the ship and out the opening that had been busted open, the last of Tina’s tank went out. I spit out the mouthpiece having no more use for it. SO Clark was too busy pulling me up to notice I had run out of air. I looked up and watched the sky come closer and closer.
We were almost to the surface. My throat stung from the water I had swallowed making me want to cough, which I knew I couldn’t. All I could feel was the pain in my hand and the hope in my heart when everything went black.
I stood on a rock located on a tall mountain. Fresh snow covered the ground, the air bitter cold. Behind me were hundreds of trees; tall pine and aspen trees thick with a blanket of snow. Down below me sat a vast open field of white. The mountain circled the field, enclosing it from the outside world.
I hopped off the rock and looked down at my feet to see a small, blue flower rising from the snow. Picking it up with my right hand, I pulled it to my nose and took in the scent. It smelled wonderful. It smelled like hope.
Suddenly someone took my left hand. I looked up to see Eric, smiling at me, making his blue eyes flash. A rustle sounded behind me. When I turned around, Tina, with her beautiful red hair, and Dee, with her amazing brown curls, were standing there, their eyes excited.
To the left of Tina stood my dad. His expression confused me. He looked sad but happy at the same time. It didn’t make sense.
SO Mack Clark stood to the right of Dee. His shoulders were square, his face determined. He looked confident as he scanned the valley below us. Next to Mack stood two others, but their faces were blurry. I tried to focus my eyes, but it was no use.
A cough came from the right of me. I turned to see VP Oliver. He smiled at me as he took the flower from my hand. He held it up, sniffed it, then put it in the palm of his hand and blew.
We watched it float down to the valley until it landed on the ground. As soon as the flower touched the snow, the snow melted away, exposing a field of the same blue flowers. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Smiling, I turned back to look at VP Oliver, but he was no longer there.
“Emmie,” Eric said. He sounded far away.
I turned to my left, looking for Eric, but my world went black. I tried to reach out, but no one was there.
“Emmie,” Tina said.
Again, I tried to reach out, but emptiness surrounded me.
“Come on, Emmie!” Mack said, his voice fierce.
Suddenly, my lungs were on fire. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to gasp for air, but nothing happened.
“Please, Emmie!” Tina sounded scared and desperate.
At that moment, I knew I could let go and end it all. It would all be over. No more worries. No more rules. No more Amber. No more President Randall.
My left hand warmed. It comforted me, making me want to hold on. I focused on that warmth, trying to expand it. It spread to my arms, then my legs. I held on tighter, pushing it all around me.
“Emmie, please, come back to me.” Eric’s voice was in my ear.
My lungs were still on fire, but I held onto the warmth and pushed it up the middle of my body. The fire went out, leaving my chest and my heart warm. I didn’t want to leave. Not yet.
I needed to stay. There was so much to do. So much to fix. So much change that needed to happen.
“Emmie.” Eric’s voice was barely a whisper.
My eyes shot open and water escaped from my mouth, pouring down my neck. I coughed, gasping for air. My right hand throbbed, the pain unbearable.
“I thought we lost you.” I focused my eyes to see SO Clark leaning over me. “Welcome back.”
“Oh, Emmie!” Tina kneeled on the other side, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Right next to her was Eric, holding my good hand. He was my warmth. My hope. He had also been crying, his shirt wet from all the tears that had fallen. He laughed when I looked into his eyes. “You’re alive.” He kissed me on my forehead. “You’re alive.”
“Was I dead?” I choked out. My throat and lungs burned a little.
“For a few minutes,” SO Clark said. He turned to SO Martin. “Let’s get her to the infirmary.”
“Sure thing,” SO Martin said.
SO Clark and Eric helped me up. I wobbled a little, but Eric held on tight. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice soft. I held my right hand close to my chest, clenching my jaw to hold in the screams from the pain.
As we walked over to a security vehicle, I noticed RL Steven sitting down on the pebbles. He rocked back and forth, staring straight ahead. His face was pale, and his eyes were wide. I thought he might throw up.
Will ran up next to us, keeping pace with me and Eric. “Emmie, are you alright?”
I forced a smile. “I think so.” Inside, I felt far from alright. Will’s eyes told me he was still worried, so I forced a bigger smile. “I’ll be fine, Will. Thank you for checking.”
Will nodded slowly. “Yeah, sure. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You had us all worried.” He straightened his glasses. “I never knew Recruitment was going to be this intense.”
Eric gave a small laugh, but I could hear the strain in his voice. “I don’t think any of us thought that. This is far from what I imagined.”
“Well, take care of yourself, Emmie,” Will said. “I’m not sure if they’ll let me, but I’ll try to come visit you in the infirmary later.”
They wouldn’t let him. “Thanks, Will. That means a lot.” And it truly did. Our city had some terrible people in it, but there were still a lot of good people.
Will gave me a small smile and stopped walking, letting us continue our own.
Luke stood off to the side. He looked like he wanted to come over, but he didn’t. We made eye contact for a few seconds. Worry and pain consumed his eyes. I wanted to tell him to come over so I could let him know I was okay, but I wasn’t sure if I should. He ran his hand over his head and turned away. It looked like his eyes were wet, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Pierce, drive Emmie to the infirmary,” SO Clark said. “I need to go talk to the president and report this.” He glared at his hands.
“This isn’t your fault, Mack,” SO Martin said to him. “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. Plus, she’s alive. You saved her.”
“It was on my watch, Pierce, therefore I’m responsible for what happens.” SO Clark’s jaw tightened.
I wanted to say something to him, to thank him for saving my life, but the words wouldn’t come. Besides, he had turned away too fast.
“Steven!” SO Clark yelled. “Get the rest of the Recruits on the bus now!”
RL Steven looked up, snapping back to reality. He slowly got up and nodded at SO Clark. “Everyone on the bus,” RL Steven said to all the Recruits sitting on the ground. I noticed them for the first time since I came to. Most were staring at me and a lot of them looked scared.
“Let’s go, Emmie,” SO Martin said to me, opening the back door of the vehicle. Eric still held onto me.
Eric helped me into the vehicle and then moved to get in himself.
“What do you think you're doing?” SO Martin asked.
Eric stopped and turned to SO Martin. “I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not,” SO Martin said, his voice flat.
“The only way you can stop me is to knock me out and drag my body back to the bus. I’d like to see you try.” Eric didn’t bother waiting for an answer. He just got in the vehicle next to me and shut the door. Now that was the Eric I had come to know and care about.
A small smile came to SO Martin’s mouth, but it was gone just as quick. Tina went around to the other side of the vehicle and opened the door.
“What about you?” SO Martin asked her.
Tina nodded toward Eric. “Same as him.”
“Okay then,” SO Martin said as he got into the driver’s seat.
The whole ride to the infirmary, I leaned my head on Eric’s shoulder. He held on tightly to my left hand, caressing my hand with his thumb. I set my right hand in my lap and tried not to think about the pain.
I was alive. Whatever President Randall, well, RH Johnson had rigged to eliminate me didn’t work. But that wasn’t the last try they would make.
So now I had to decide what I was going to do. I couldn’t go back to Recruitment because they would keep trying to kill me until they did. But if I didn’t go back, where would I go? I needed to figure out a plan, and I needed to figure it out soon.
A s soon as they got me to the infirmary, they took me to a room and had me change into the mandatory white short-sleeve shirt and white pants.
The same nurse that had helped me after my fight with Amber was the one helping me. She hooked me up to tons of equipment. She tried to explain what it all did, but my head was spinning from everything that had happened that I couldn’t pay attention. She wrapped up my broken thumb and gave me some medicine for the pain.
Unlike the last time I was in the infirmary, they put me in my own room. The small, square room had plain white walls and no windows. Just the bed, the medical equipment, and two chairs took up the space.
Once the nurse left, Eric pulled his chair up next to me and intertwined his fingers with mine. Tina dragged her chair to the other side of the bed. We sat in silence for a few minutes. I hadn’t the slightest idea where to start. I guess with the main issue.
“So, I guess Whit Randall wants me dead.” I figured I could drop the titles. Recruitment was over and I would never work for Infinity Corp.
Eric shook his head. “This is crazy, Emmie. I can’t believe this. What happened down there? All I saw was the boat speeding toward the shore and when it came to a stop, SO Clark carried your lifeless body out and set you down. By the time I had run over, he was already performing CPR trying to bring you back to life. Seeing you lying there, not breathing …” Eric choked up and couldn’t finish.
I squeezed his hand. “They had rigged it so that as soon as I turned my key a metal cuff came up and clamped my right wrist down. They also had messed with my tank so there wasn’t as much air in there. It ran out while we were down there.”
“They also locked the entrance to the ship once we were inside,” Tina said. “When we went in, it must have triggered it so it would close.”
“A ship? You went in a ship?” Eric asked.
“Yeah, that’s where the box was,” Tina said.
“Weird, our container was just sitting on the lake floor,” Eric said. “And how did they know that was the key you would use? What if Tina had turned that side?”
“Steven assigned our keys,” I said. “Didn’t he do the same with you?”
“No,” Eric said, shaking his head. “That means Steven was in on it.”
“Well, haven’t we always known that?” Tina asked.
“Not that he was willing to kill Emmie,” Eric said, his voice sharp.
I looked at Eric. “We don’t know if he knew that was going to happen. After I woke up, I noticed him sitting by himself on the ground. He looked sick like he couldn’t believe what happened. He could’ve just thought it was a way to eliminate me from Recruitment, not kill me.”
Eric nodded. “That could be true. So, if you ran out of air down in the ship, what did you do?”
“Tina gave me some of hers. You should have seen her, Eric. She was awesome. I couldn’t believe how quickly she assessed the situation and tried to think of solutions.” I smiled at Tina.
“All I could think about was that I needed to save you,” Tina said. “I needed a way out so I could get someone to help.”
“What about the button on the compass?” Eric asked. “Why didn’t you just press that?”
Tina and I both laughed a little. It was kind of sad that it took us so long to think of that.
“We finally remembered that but when I tried to push it, it didn’t work,” Tina said. “The button was stuck and couldn’t be pressed in.”
“How did you get out?” Eric asked Tina.
Tina leaned back in her chair. “I used one of the arms from the piece of metal holding down the container to break open a porthole in the side of the ship.”
“I’m impressed, Tina,” Eric said, “that you got that open. Nice work.”
“Thanks,” Tina said. “It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. But when your adrenaline’s pumping like that, it's amazing the amount of strength you get. Plus, all those workouts made me stronger. I left my tank with Emmie and went up to get help. When I surfaced, a boat was nearby. SO Clark and another guy were in it and I told them that Emmie was stuck. SO Clark immediately jumped into the water and went to get her. The other guy pulled me into the boat, and we waited, which was agonizing.” She rubbed my arm. “That’s all I know.”
I smiled at her. “Mack broke open the door into the ship and came down to where I was. He assessed my situation and thought the best possible solution was to break my thumb.” I held up my poor hand.
“Are we dropping the titles?” Tina asked.
“Oh, yes,” I said with a nod.
Tina let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”
Eric looked at my hand. “I wondered what happened. That must’ve hurt a lot.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” I said. “I’m sure if I wasn’t under water the scream that came out of my mouth might have made some people go deaf. But it got the job done. Mack was able to pull my hand out and he took me out of the room. Right when we got out of the ship, I ran out of air. I blacked out before we surfaced. I was having a crazy dream and then I felt Eric’s hand.”
“You felt that?” Eric asked.
“Yeah.” I looked at Eric. “It was the one thing that pulled me back to reality and made me hang on. I could hear you both saying my name. It was the warmth of your hand that woke me up.”
Eric looked at Tina. “Can you close your eyes for a second?”
“Sure thing,” Tina said, covering up her eyes with her hand.
Eric reached over and pressed his lips to mine. It felt as good as the first kiss and I hoped I would always have that warm, butterfly sensation whenever he kissed me. I sighed when he pulled away.
“You can open your eyes now, Tina,” Eric said.
Tina pulled down her hand. “So, what do we do now?”
“We?” I asked, looking at her.
“Of course, we,” Tina said. “You think we’re going to go back to Recruitment and pretend as if none of this happened?”
“We all can’t drop out,” I said. They had already risked so much for me. They still had a chance to live a normal life. “Who knows what they’ll do to us.”
Eric looked at me. “Emmie, they’re trying to kill you, and I’m pretty sure they’ll keep trying. I’m not going to work for a corporation that sits back and lets that happen.”
“Me either,” Tina said, shaking her head.
“Well, we can’t just leave. Where would we go?”
We all sat quietly for a while, trying to think. Really, what could we do? We were seventeen.
While I was thinking, another thought came to my head. “Why was Mack out on the boat? He was on the shore when we left.”
“A couple of minutes after you two went under, one of the boats came back,” Eric said. “One of the guys was sick and had been throwing up. Mack took his place on the boat and went out there.”
“Ewww,” Tina said. “He threw up in the water that we swam in?”
“I’m sure that happens now and then,” Eric said with a laugh.
“Well, it’s still gross to think about,” Tina said with a shiver.
I rested my head against the pillow and let out a sigh.
“We’re going to figure this out, Emmie,” Eric said.
“I sure hope so,” I said. “I need to talk to Frank Oliver. Maybe he can help us some way.” My head started to feel a little dizzy. “I think those pain pills are making me a little drowsy.”
“Close your eyes and get some sleep,” Eric said to me, rubbing my hand. “We’ll be right here when you wake up.”
“Good. I need the two of you.” I let out a yawn. “I feel like I need a nice, warm shower, though.”
“Well, get some rest and I’ll help you take a shower when you wake up,” Eric said.
I let go of his hand and pushed his shoulder. “Nice try, Eric. I just broke my thumb. I think I’m capable of still taking a shower on my own.”
Eric laughed. “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”
Smiling, I closed my eyes, letting the drugs take me away to sleep.
M y sleep was restless. I dreamed of being trapped down in the ship, but instead of Mack coming to my rescue, a shark came into the room and attacked. Right as the shark opened its enormous jaws to have me for dinner, I shot up in bed, screaming.
It took Eric a couple of minutes to calm me down and let me know I was safe. Well, at least for the moment. It wouldn’t be long before a shark of a different kind was trying to eat me whole.
