A Better World (The Brilliance Saga) by Marcus Sakey

Author:Marcus Sakey [Sakey, Marcus]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

The guard was young, with all the screw-you swagger that implied. Which was impressive considering he was kneeling on the floor with a gun to his head.

“You’re both dead.” His voice had a thick West Virginia drawl. “This is a DAR facility. We’ll know who you are, where you live. You may as well give up now.”

“Sweetie,” Shannon said, “I promise you. The DAR already knows who we are.”

She nodded at Kathy Baskoff, and the commando jammed her submachine gun barrel deeper into the guard’s neck. His swagger disappeared. After all, he’d watched Kathy kill his partner without hesitation.

And you have no idea how much she’d like to do the same to you.

Shannon took a roll of silver duct tape from her kit bag and yanked the end free. She wrapped a dozen loops around his wrists, then another dozen across his chest, binding him to the chair.

“We’re go,” she said, then stepped over the body of the other guard and into the cold predawn.

There were engine sounds, and the headlights of four trucks rolling up the hill. Light splashed across the heavy sign that read DAVIS ACADEMY, carved in granite and sitting there like it should have read YALE.

“This was my academy,” Kathy said. “From age eleven to eighteen.”

“I know,” Shannon said. “That’s why I picked you.”

In the dark, the commando’s thin-lipped smile looked carnivorous.

A Jeep and three heavy trucks pulled forward, engines chugging. Shannon waited for them to line up. “All of you, listen.” She had the urge to yell like William Wallace urging the Scots to battle, but she knew the earpiece would carry just fine. “You all know why we’re here. No matter what they call this place, no matter what they pretend so they can sleep at night, every academy is a prison. Some of you, like Kathy, spent time in them. Some of you didn’t. That doesn’t matter now. What matters is that tonight the first is falling. We’re done playing nice.”

She heard whoops through the truck walls.

“Every adult here is complicit. Guard or janitor, they all sat by and watched children be brainwashed and tortured. If they surrender, fine. If not”—she shrugged—“even better.”

The whoops were replaced by laughter.

“But remember. Our first goal is to get every single kid out of here. So check your targets. Don’t pull the trigger unless you’re sure.” She walked to the passenger side of the Jeep, pulled herself up. “Let’s roll.”

“Where to?”

“Administration. There’s someone there I want to talk to.”

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