Toxic Heart Read Online Free Page B

thick as a barrel shoots a round into the sky. “Guys!”
    I try to zigzag away from him, but it’s too hard to run and carry Markus at the same time.
    A pair of hands grabs me from the side, and I lurch forward. Markus falls off my back, onto the ground. “Run!” I yell.
    A sweaty hand covers my mouth. The grip on my shoulders tightens. I think back to my training with Shannon. What did she tell me to do when an attacker came at me from behind?
    I bite down and catch one of the man’s fingers with my teeth. I kick back my right leg, jamming my heel into his groin. “Aw, shit,” the man groans, his hand falling away.
    I stumble forward, trying to run, but it’s so dark. Where didMarkus go? I don’t dare glance back to see how many men are behind me. I search for the white eyes that were in front of me, but I don’t see them anymore.
    Until I do. And a matching pair of smaller eyes.
Markus
.
    “Stop!” the man shouts. I look around frantically: I can’t be more than a quarter mile from the trees. Is Shannon watching?
    “Help!” I scream. “Someone help me!”
    “Nobody is here to help you,” the man says. His voice is husky and terrifying. For a second, there is a flare of green light in the sky. It illuminates the man’s face, and I can see that he’s barely older than I am. Red cheeks, blond hair, skin slick with sweat. A tight silver uniform. His hand is curled tightly around Markus’s neck.
    “Let him go,” I plead. I can barely speak I’m so nervous; my heart is beating furiously. “Please.”
    “Okay.” He uncurls his fingers, but Markus doesn’t move an inch, frozen with fear.
    The soldier raises his gun and aims it at Markus’s head.
    My heart stops. “Markus, run!”
    The man unlocks the safety and shoots.
    It’s a soft sound compared to the chaos going on around us. There’s a second shot and a thud as Markus topples to the earth.
    I scream something into the night, barely recognizing my own voice. Tears stream down my face as the soldier shifts his focus. Now the gun is pointed directly at me.
No no no no no no no—
    There’s a rush of air behind me and then someone else’s hands are on my shoulders. I struggle with all my might but can’t break his grip.
    “We were told not to kill you,” the soldier with the gun says.“But we’re happy to cripple you if that’s what it takes.” He moves his aim from my head to my leg. The Foster crest—a five-pointed star—glistens on the front of his uniform. “Or to kill everyone around you. Your call.”
    The man behind me kicks my legs out from under me, and I drop like a bag of bricks, slamming my head on the rough soil. I stare up at the burning sky, defeated.
    “Cuff her.”
    My arms are nearly ripped out of their sockets as a pair of metal cuffs finds its way around my wrists. Everything seems lost.
    I should have listened to Shannon.

The guards’ voices echo loudly in my head as I’m shoved into a metal chair, my arms yanked tightly behind me. My wrists are raw from rubbing against the cuffs. It feels like we’ve been traveling for hours.
    “Stop moving!” comes a high-pitched voice, not one of the men who captured me back at the compound.
    The dirty blindfold someone tied around my head in the copter is still in place. There’s a click as the cuff on my right hand is unlocked. For a second I foolishly think they’re letting me go, but then I hear the cuff being locked around my chair.
    I leap forward blindly, attempting to pull the chair with me, out of the room, but it’s bolted to the floor. There are a few hearty laughs; then someone strikes me across the cheek.
    “I said, stop moving.”
    My mouth fills with the tang of blood. I try to spit it out but end up swallowing most of it.
    Just breathe
, I tell myself.
In and out
.
    I suppose I’m back in the Aeries—judging from the time I spent in the helicopter and the elevator ride afterward—thoughreally, I could be anywhere. The air around me is cool. I can