Efferent

Chapter 43

"We will leave within the hour." Blaise offered, hardly blinking at James and his proposal. "And we will return in less than forty eight."

I nodded. "We have no time to waste now. If you will both excuse me, I must go pack some provisions." I elbowed past James aggressively, my residual anger yet to ebb away.

I glared at the tiles on the floor as I walked, allowing my feet to lead me down the hall to where the stocks of food and supplies were held, but paused at the door to Clark's prison. I held my hand to the wood, pressing my ear to the edge to listen. Silence. Although there was no part of me that thought he did not know I was there.

Staring at the wooden door, I clenched the metal handle tightly, hesitating, wondering whether I should enter despite my encounter earlier. The cold metal left an imprint on my palm as I quickly dropped my hand away.

"You were going to go in there, weren't you?" A voice grit out from behind me. "After everything you had just gone through, you were going to go in alone."

I pivoted on my heel to face Blaise. "No," I shook my head as tilted it to the side, "I thought about it, yes. But I was not going to go in."

His face was stormy, his eyes hooded as he glared down at me. "You were. Stop lying, Ardyn. You are not very good at it."

I opened my mouth to respond but nothing came out except for an excuse. "I just wanted to see-."

"We are wasting time." He glared and stepped away. "He is dangerous enough as it is, and yet you keep crawling back. He killed Amelia. He would kill you too, if he had a chance. Remember that."

He began striding down the hall, and I widened my steps to keep up. "Why did you offer to come? To save him if he was so dangerous?"

He paused, hesitating before the supply room door, handle in hand. Slowly, he turned to me, and repeated my own words from earlier. "Because," he started, "He is a human being, stripped of his own free will. If we can restore his power of choice, I believe he will be vital to the Efferent war effort."

"War effort?" I questioned, "This is the first I have heard of that from your mouth."

"It is naive of us to think that we will not have to fight for what is ours, Ardyn. What is rightfully ours can be taken away just as easily as it was given. Our Wfference must be protected from exploition." He entered the room, quickly grabbing two bags from the shelf and piling cans of food and bottles of water at the bottom.

I grabbed one from him, placing a rolled up blanket at the top. "So you justify taking lives by preserving your own power?" I shook my head. "That makes us no better than the officials."

"You are missing the point," Blaise's hands flew about in a flurry of motion. "This isn't about who is better, Ardyn, or who's motives are more morally sound."

I grabbed the bag from his hand and zipped it up, "What is it about then, Blaise?"

He shoved his hands into his pockets in the abscence of something to do. "It is about survival. They are hunting us, Ardyn. They will kill us if we are caught, or worse."

I zipped up the last bag, slinging one over my shoulder and watched as Blaise followed my lead. We left out the door, and I waved to Travis as we passed him teaching a room full of Afferent the basics of telekinesis.

Grimly, we left the threshold of the house, once more moving through the wooded area. We clambered into a rover, parked on the edge of the clearing and Blaise took the driver's seat as he stared the small all-terrain vehicle. "Then we can not got caught." I offered simply.

"We do not know what we are walking into, Ardyn. They most likely have already killed the Afferent." Blaise warned, running a hand through his hair.

"More likely that they kept them for questioning. Using the rover, we are less than three hours away from the nearest clinic." I brushed my hand through my hair streaming behind us, and Blaise clenched the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles quickly turning white. "We can argue the whole time if you wish, but I think I would find it far more productive to plan out what we wish to accomplish."

"What would you suggest then?" He offered.

"We arrive about a mile out from the clinic and trek on foot from there." I nodded.

"Okay. And then?" He kept his eyes to the small trail ahead of us, never once glancing in my direction.

"We circle the perimeter and approach from the back. That way we avoid any unexpected contact with service workers." I pressed the pad of my finger to my temple.

"How would we get in unnoticed?" Blaise drew his eyebrows together in thought.

I hesitated, thinking. "If the clinic is anything like the one I entered into, security on the outside is limited. The sedatives would be located in the infirmary where the serum injections take place. Getting in should be simple."

"What about getting out? Or how to find the other Afferent?" My frustration rose as he continued to poke holes in our plan.

"What would you suggest?" I questioned, internally spitting.

"You are the expert. I am trying to get you to build the plan."

"Clearly it is not satisfactory to you-."

"Satisfactory? Without me we would be walking in through the front door and politely asking the officials for the sedatives!" Blaise clenched his jaw and grit out.

"Then you create the plan!" I argued back.

"Fine!" He shouted, turning towards me slightly. "I wi-." He slammed on the breaks, his eyes going wide. I flew against the seatbelt, the strip cutting into my skin as I protested loudly.

"What was that for, Blaise?" I shouted, staring at the broken skin. I looked over to him, and his face remained frozen, eyes held open and unwavering. "Blaise?" When he did not respond, I slowly swallowed turning to the focal point of his gaze, ahead of our car, my heart beating loudly in my head.

There, guns raised, standing in the exhaust of their running truck, stood the fatigue clad officials. With their rifles trained on us, I noticed a small red dot circling Blaise's forhead and wondered if it was mirrored onto my own.

"Stop!" The official shouted. "You are trespassing on property of the government. Any sudden movement will be a catalyst for action."