Joan Ascends

Chapter 27: Strand's evil clutches

I don't know what happened after Tressa blew up my life. There's a blank spot in my memory when I wake up shivering on a cot in a tiny white room like the one that I've seen Lozen in during my visions.

Lexi has also delivered a walloping headache, probably to punish me for messing up her perfect interview. My eyes are sore, and the contact cameras have been removed. For the first time since I turned myself in to Strand's evil clutches, I'm alone. My friends have no way to contact me, or protect me from whatever torture Dr. Rodriguez plans next.

Other than my bed and a toilet in the corner, the only other item in the room is a plate with some kind of mushy food on it. I'm hungry enough to choke it down, and manage to keep it from coming back up again. Something tells me I'm going to need my strength for whatever is coming next.

I'm in the middle of a series of breathing exercises to help me manage the pain in my head when I hear a muffled sound in the hallway. My door is made from thick metal, and the only opening is a slot where my food can be pushed through.

I peek through the narrow gap and see a guard, a Dean clone type, struggling with someone just beyond my field of vision. He pulls a weapon, likely some kind of laser gun, but his opponent kicks it out of his hand and it skitters across the tile.

He lunges and then stumbles out of my view. I strain forward, trying to see what's happening, but there's nothing but the blank, white hallway until a pair of dark eyes suddenly appears in front of me.

I recognize Lozen immediately from my visions. She gives me a nod and then stands. My door opens, and we're finally face to face. She's a few inches shorter than me, and her body looks strong, though lean. Something tells me she hasn't spent her time in her cell doing breathing exercises.

"I was counting on you getting banished down here by this evening," she says with a grin. "Come on."

"Are we escaping?"

"Not everything is in place yet. But I'm going to get all of us out soon. Now follow me, and try not to slip on the blood."

I step out of my cell and see that the white hall is painted red with the blood of the guard Lozen was struggling with. He's out cold, but still breathing.

"Does he have a weapon? We should take it."

"They don't let the guards have weapons since the last time I got my hands on one of their laser pens," she says. "Now hurry up—we've got less than an hour and a whole lot to do."

Before I can ask where we're going, Lozen jogs down the hall, and I follow her, pulled along by her energy. She makes several turns and then stops at a tall door. She swipes a key card against a pad to the left of the door handle, and then smears some of the guard's blood from her knuckles to a reader below the pad, which likely tests for DNA. The door opens.

I follow her inside and am hit with vertigo as I see Dr. Rodriguez's laboratory from a new angle. We're in the closed-off corner with his desk and monitors.

Lozen opens a drawer and pulls out a tablet. "That friend of yours—the smart one with the gorgeous eyes who makes cool weapons—needs access to the information on the lab's servers."

Following Lozen's logic even if I was rested and feeling well would be tricky. Under the current circumstances, I'm completely lost.

"You mean Marie?" I finally ask.

"You're slow today," Lozen says, giving me a considering look.

Then she snaps her fingers as if she's figured something out. She unlocks Dr. Rodriguez's tablet as if she's done it a dozen times before, and quickly taps on the screen. Several seconds later, my headache vanishes as if Lozen hit the 'off' switch. She must have accessed the program that was sending the pain signal to my chip.