The Mod Code Read online

  There. I said it. And just like that, Mom’s gaze flickered off Finn and onto me.

  “What?”

  “Yes. It’s true. I did it back in March. I didn’t get the scholarship. So don’t worry. I’m not going.” The last part was just for mocking her. Of course I wasn’t going—scholarship or not.

  I waited for the verbal firing squad to unleash itself. Instead, Mom clasped her hands together in her lap and said nothing at all.

  Well now, this was a first. We drove in silence for a minute and a half, the tension growing as Mom’s knuckles turned white. The late afternoon sun lowered in the west, almost completely covered by the storm clouds. A single ray still shone through the clouds, and I moved my visor to block the glare.

  Finally, Mom spoke. “Sage, someday you’re going to have to trust the people who love you. I’m really not trying to make your life miserable.” She smoothed out her cotton skirt. “If you understand nothing else, understand this. People who love you—people like me—are actually here to help you through life, not complicate it.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Because funny thing, I couldn’t remember the last time Mom did much of anything to help me.

  Mom sighed, as if she could read my thoughts. Her shoulders actually dropped a little. “I think we all need to have a talk tonight. I’ll tell the Andersons. They can come, too.”

  I frowned. Beckett and his parents? To an organized family meeting on a day Mom was especially crazy? Sure, they’d seen her uptight plenty of times, but this sounded downright awkward. I tried to keep her worst days hidden from everyone else.

  Finn’s voice came out tentative. “Um, Mom? I was hanging out with Katie tonight.”

  Mom’s neck muscles contracted into a tightrope. “Katie will have to wait.”

  Finn responded by placing a hand on Noxley’s box, trying to protect the toad from the tension that wafted off Mom in waves.

  On the road up ahead, a car came into view. It kicked up dust on the perpendicular road a half mile away. Mom reached out to me, and I felt the coolness of her hand on my arm. I was driving too fast again. The soft gravel on the side of the road had a way of pulling at the tires, which made her nervous if I drove over thirty miles per hour. Finn had just started piddling around the farm with the truck a few months ago, so for him, Mom’s anxiousness emerged at more like twenty.

  “Stop the car.” Mom leaned forward, squinting through the windshield at the black car. “Turn around.”

  My stomach contracted. I usually tried not to let Mom’s paranoia rub off on me, but this felt different. Something was wrong.

  I slowed the car.

  Finn looked up from his phone, where he’d no doubt been texting Katie. “What’s going on? The fair starts in fifteen minutes.”

  In the small amount of time it took me to rotate the opposite direction, the black car turned onto the same road, only six hundred yards back. As I accelerated, it gained on us.

  “Mom?! What is going on? Why are we being chased?” I shouted.

  Mom looked up from fumbling through her purse. “Where’s my phone?” she cried. “Finn! Text Peg! Type S.O.S. Sage, go faster!”

  “Faster?!” I was already going sixty, faster than I’d ever driven on this road in my entire life. The black car drew closer. Finn, silent and pale, clutched the shoebox to his chest.

  My entire body shook as I pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

  Seventy.

  Eighty.

  It felt like the tires hardly touched the ground. My heart beat wild in my chest, mouth dry. There was no more space to talk. One shift of the wheel now, and it was over. The black car sped up directly behind us, the dark shape filling my entire side mirror.

  Eighty-four miles per hour.

  Then, our front tire caught on a soft patch of rock.

  We spun. Once, twice, five times. I couldn’t tell. I only heard my screams.

  At some point, we were rolling. Over and over.

  Finally, our car slammed to a stop and my airbag exploded. My head and chest whipped against the white balloon, the seat belt burning across my chest.

  As the bag deflated, I only saw dust. When it cleared, a barbed-wire fence and wooden post came into view, crushed into the right side of the hood. Everything fell absolutely quiet, save for the hissing of the engine. Pain pulsed through my spine, in rhythm with my soaring heartbeat.

  What. Was. Happening? My hands shook as I dabbed at the warm sensation on my neck. Blood. I wiped it away, unable to tell the source.

  I turned. “Mom.” My voice came out raspy, shaky. Dust coated my throat.

  Blood streamed down Mom’s temples, her head dropped against the seat, eyes closed. My hand stretched toward her. “Mom!”

  Drops of rain started to fall, hitting the windshield one or two at a time. The windshield had cracked in front of Mom—a web of shattered glass radiating outward from a center circle. Had her head hit the glass?

  “Finn.” I turned a few inches, and pain shot into my skull. Finn slouched in his seat, unconscious—or dead? Noxley lay on the floorboard, bottom-side-up, neon green body unmoving.

  The shiny sedan pulled to a stop on the road. A car door opened. Then another and another. Three men. Two in black suits, one in gray fatigues.

  “Mom!” I screamed, shaking her harder this time. No response.

  My hands groped for her purse. I needed her cell phone. Then Mom coughed.

  “Hope.” Her mouth barely moved. “Run.” She licked her lips, eyes still closed. “Run.”

  Hope?

  The men were at my door, one pulling on the handle, the other two peering through the windows at my brother, my mother. I struggled with the seatbelt clasp. If I could get out of here, get to Beckett, get to the police, get to somebody ….

  The man in gray fatigues used his elbow to shatter the driver’s window. I screamed. He drew back his arm and brushed glass from his sleeve.

  The man’s hands patted inside the frame, grabbing for the handle, and the nearness of his body sent a white hot panic through me. I screamed at the seatbelt to release.

  The door pulled open, and I punched at the man’s arms as he tried to reach for me.

  A rag went to my face. Then, blackness.

  Just before the unconsciousness hit, Mom’s words ran through my head again.

  Hope. Run.

  2

  BECKETT

  I smiled as I drove away from the house and headed south down the gravel road toward the school for Finn’s science fair. The rain had started and stopped again, but the dark clouds still loomed in the distance, conspiring a downpour. I turned up the radio and let the music thrum threw me. Damp air blew on my face from the open window, and it pushed away the unsettled feeling I’d had in my stomach ever since Sage told me about the astronomy camp. She was getting restless. Her mom wouldn’t like it. But let the cards fall where they may once she told her mom. That wasn’t my problem. I didn’t care if Sage did leave the farm, as long as I could go with her whenever she went.

  I loved her. I really, truly loved her. Of course, I couldn’t tell her that, and the guilt gnawed away at my insides. It’s why I wouldn’t kiss her, why I couldn’t touch her like I wanted. Because someday, when I can finally tell her the truth—that I am a spy—maybe, just maybe, she’ll find a way to forgive me. And when that moment comes, a history of kisses will only complicate things. This way, maybe she’ll know how much I really care.

  I slowed as I passed her family farm, making sure the horses were closed up and the cows were still inside the fence. One cow in particular had a knack for escaping, and we had to track it down about once a week.

  All looked in order. Their car was gone, which meant they had already made it to the science fair. Aunt Peg and Uncle Jeff were running a few errands in town and meeting us at the school.

  I pressed on the gas, hoping I wouldn’t miss the awards ceremony. A mile up ahead, my eyes picked out a dark gray spot in the horizon, just o
ff course from the straight path of the road. My hands tightened a bit on the steering wheel, although at first, I wasn’t really sure why. It could be anything: a cow, a pile of upturned dirt, a trick of my own eyes. But I leaned forward anyway and pressed on the accelerator. A quarter mile further, the ball of fear I’d shoved down in my stomach came bursting through my chest.

  It was a car. I wished I didn’t recognize which one, but I did. Hers.

  I slammed on the breaks when I got close enough, kicking up dust as my tires skidded to a stop. Blood pumped to my head, to all my limbs, and I felt myself going numb.

  The car was crushed in on itself, smashed into a fence. The driver’s door and back passenger door hung open. It was like a movie. I wasn’t seeing real life. A hundred times I’d played out what to do if they ever came, how I’d protect Sage and her family. And now I was too late.

  I shoved open my truck door and jumped from the seat, stumbling on the gravel as my body made its way to her car. I braced my hands on the driver’s side doorframe and ducked down so I could peer inside. Mrs. Sallisaw was in the passenger seat. Covered in blood. The car held no one else.

  Panic coursed through me as I sprinted around to the other side of the car, stumbling through the tall grass to get to the woman I’d adopted as a mother in my life.

  At the passenger side, I reached my hand through the window and pressed against her neck, the blood on her skin still warm. I closed my eyes, unable to stare at her face while I felt for a heartbeat. There wasn’t one.

  I spun away. My eyes searched down the road, frantic. I’d pretended for too long that the life I’d so carefully built for myself the past three years was real. I’d believed in the tiny probability that it could last.

  “SAAGE!” The sound of my voice echoed across the fields. Three crows flew up from their hiding spot among the growing wheat, cawing. A red-tailed hawk swooped off the telephone wire and flapped away. Everything else stayed silent.

  I was too late. They’d come when I wasn’t there. None of my emergency escape plans mattered anymore because I was too late.

  I don’t remember getting back into my truck. I only remember speeding down the road, my hand typing the “SOS” on my phone to Peg and Jeff.

  Three miles down, I got an answer. Their car rested upside down in the middle of the road. I could see my aunt and uncle inside. I put the truck in park, not shutting off the ignition, not thinking, barely able to make my legs move forward toward their hissing car.

  Peg and Jeff hung upside down, still strapped to their seats. Uncle Jeff’s body was long enough that his palms rested on the roof, fingers loosely curled inward. Peg’s arms dangled toward the ground but didn’t touch, like she was riding a coaster and got frozen in the underside of a 360 degree loop. Next to the car lay a rifle. I choked back a cry, putting together the weapon with the pool of blood slowly seeping out onto the gravel. I couldn’t bring myself to look at their faces, to stare at their blood-soaked shirts. The gun holes in the windshield were enough.

  My vision started to spin. My chest constricted so tight I could not breathe.

  They were dead.

  The gun was my .22. The one registered under my name—the one I’d just shot Millie with. A gun that had my fingerprints all over it. The Corporation was setting me up. They’d timed all of it perfectly, down to the very minute. They’d known our schedule—that we’d all be heading to the science fair that afternoon. Why hadn’t they come for me at the house and killed me? Or waited and taken me, too?

  My eyes remained stuck on the growing puddle of blood, my brain trapped someplace between shock and disbelief. I felt something inside me closing down. My arms folded in on my stomach, and I threw up in the road.

  As I wiped the spit from my mouth, I squatted in the road to keep the world from spinning. It was then that I noticed the white paper, nailed to the wooden fence post, blowing slightly in the breeze.

  I stumbled across the road and through the ditch. When I ripped the paper from the post, I had to blink several times before my eyes focused enough to read it.

  The recruits are sterile. We need the code.

  If you have information on Dr. Cunningham, come see us at the mansion.

  Otherwise, just kill yourself now.

  10 Vasterias Way, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510

  Something shifted inside of me then, anger rising up through my grief. I crumpled the paper in my fist. Surely my father wasn’t part of this. Surely Jack didn’t know what the Corporation was doing.

  I couldn’t go to the police. The cops would never believe my story, and I didn’t want them to know who I really was anyway. That would mean news reporters, the press. Besides, the Corp was far above local law enforcement.

  No. I knew exactly what I would do. My plan involved the only thing I’d ever wanted. To stop running. To wake up in the morning without having to be afraid for the people I love. To wake up next to her.

  I steadied myself on the wooden post. I would bury Aunt Peg, Uncle Jeff, and Mrs. Sallisaw. They deserved that. Then I would get in my truck and drive to New York. I’d been to the mansion before.

  I’d let the Corp think I knew about her dad’s whereabouts. I’d let them think that I had all the information in the world. I’d tell lies until I could get to Sage and Finn. Then I’d take them somewhere safe, out of the country, where we could hide forever.

  Peg’s car hissed—final sounds of defiance leaking from the car.

  A handful of crows began cawing tentatively, circling overhead, eyeing me—the one human still alive on the road. One of the braver crows landed on the gravel. I clenched my jaw at the boldness of the small animal and flung my arms. “Get! Get out of here!” The bird flew down the road, but didn’t disappear.

  I punched the wooden fence post, every one of my emotions behind the hit. When I pulled back, blood poured from my knuckles. It was a brash, pointless release of energy, something my brother would do, not me. But it still felt good. I felt the warmth of the blood trickle down my hand as I slumped against the post.

  I would get to her—or die trying.

  3

  SAGE

  My eyes blinked open. I sat in a helicopter chair, my arms and legs tied down.

  The helicopter tilted, and the movement washed away the last of my grogginess. My gaze shifted, and there was Finn, strapped down and unconscious in a seat by the opposite door. His head sagged toward his shoulder, but his chest moved shallowly up and down.

  Still alive. I stifled a cry of relief.

  Two men sat in the cockpit. Both wore headsets and neither seemed aware that I was awake. Out the window, blue-green sea spread for miles and miles. The sun sat high, reflecting off the water in a glassy shimmer that reached out to the end of the horizon.

  The memories rushed at me all at once. The black car. The crash. Mom. Finn. Those men.

  My brain struggled to fit together the words Mom had whispered.

  Hope. Run.

  My heart dropped in my chest. Too late for running. At least too late to run down any road that would be familiar. But I could still hope. I wouldn’t give up that.

  Was Mom still alive? Where would Beckett think we’d gone? How long until he and his parents saw our car? Had Mom gotten to a hospital in time? Beckett would be a mess, I knew he would. He’d always acted like the overprotective older brother, especially toward Finn. Regardless of whatever he and I were or were not to each other, he and his parents cared about my family—a lot. What would they make of this?

  I tried to swallow away the cotton feeling coating my mouth. “Finn,” I whispered, hoping my voice stayed below the noise of the helicopter, that it would still reach his unconsciousness. I glanced to the pilots then back to him. “Finn.”

  Finn’s thin arms vibrated involuntarily on the armrests. His skin had turned pink where the straps rubbed at his ankles and wrists. A small cut ran across his cheekbone, dried blood sticking to his cheek.

  A balmy sweat broke out across my body, d
ifferent from when my shirt would get soaked in the fields. That sweat was formed from hard work, from manual labor combined with a day in the sun. This dampness appeared because I was afraid.

  Plus, I didn’t know how many hours, minutes, and seconds had passed. Unconsciousness was different than sleep. It meant my brain had been forced to turn off. Unconsciousness meant I couldn’t be sure of my numbers. Any possible ocean was hundreds or thousands of miles away from our home. Without knowing exactly how much time had passed, it was impossible for me to calculate the options about our location.

  The pilot directly in front of me spoke into his headset. “Air boss to base. Feet dry. Three down and welded. Helo landing now.” The helicopter started lowering.

  My stomach knotted. As my panic increased, so did my sweating. Out the window, a patch of trees distinguished itself from the mass of ocean. As the helicopter drew nearer, the spot expanded into an island. A giant concrete building rested in the middle of the trees near the beach, with a section of pavement set apart for the landing pad.

  Chain-link fencing created a barrier around the property perimeter, all the way to the water. The fence strained to keep back the trees; branches reached over and through the chain-link, trying to reclaim their hijacked land. A large section of trees had been cleared on the south side of the building, leaving a giant oval of dirt.

  A group of people dressed in black jogged up and down the beach—not running with the deflated posture of prisoners. No, they ran with shoulders back and spines tall. Their steps had a spring to them, an energy that showed they were racing, or proving themselves, or at least doing their best. As we neared the ground, the runners slid out of view.

  The helicopter landed with a bump. Finn’s chin dropped to his chest and stayed there, unmoving. The pilots began to flip switches, and the noise of flight shut down. Across the pavement loomed the rectangular concrete building with those high, narrow windows. The only visible entrance was a single metal door, dead center in the concrete wall.