Surrender by Elana Johnson Page B

respond. With horror, I realized why that doctor had said he wouldn’t be awake. They’d drugged him.
    I turned on the faucet and threw cold water in his face. He jerked and opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and glazed over. He said nothing, barely registering that I stood in front of him yelling his name. His eyes drooped closed again.
    “No! Jag, you’ve got to wake up. They’re gonna tag you!” I opened his gel—the smell alone could wake the dead—and waved it under his nose. “Wake up!” He stirred again, and I threw another handful of water on him.
    “Finally,” I said as he sat up.
    “Ugnh.” He rubbed his hands over his face.
    “Can you stand?” I checked the corridor for guards. Empty. It had to be very early in the morning, maybe still the middle of the night.
    The bed creaked as he lay down. “Give me a break,” I muttered, pulling him back up. I could barely hold his weight in his drugged condition. “No. You’ve got to wake up.”
    “I don’t feel so good.”
    “Well, too bad. They’re coming to tag you, and I can’t get out of here by myself.” I spotted the bread he’d saved from dinner on the shelf and grabbed it. “Here, eat this. We gotta go.”
    As he ate, he seemed to throw off some of the fog surrounding him. I helped him stand and pace in the tiny cell toget his blood moving.
He’s not sick. Everything’s fine,
I thought on every turn.
    He stopped and looked at me, his eyes brightening.
    “How do you feel?” I asked.
    A strange look crossed his face, something between wonder and fear. “You . . . I’m . . .” he said, and then shook his head. His face closed off again.
    I didn’t have time for his issues with, well, whatever. “Come on,” I said. “You’ve got to pretend you’re sick so you can go to the bathroom. We’ve got to get to the elevator.”
    “It won’t be pretending.” He sat on the bed. “We’re using the elevator?”
    “Yeah, I explored a bit yesterday.” I didn’t want to waste time explaining—or for him to know—that I’d already been tagged. “You’ll have to help me with the guard.”
    “Sure, whatever,” he said as he pulled on his shoes.
    “Hey!” I yelled toward the guard’s office. “Jag’s sick! He’s gonna blow chunks! You gotta come get him!” I shouted for ten minutes before a bleary-eyed guard came out, tucking in his shirt as he walked.
    The color had returned to Jag’s cheeks. He bent over to hide his grin. My face relaxed into a smile. I wiped it away as the guard slid the bars to the side. Jag shuffled forward, clutching his stomach and moaning.
    The guard put his hand under Jag’s arm for support. “What’s wrong with him?”
    “How would I know? Do I look like a doctor?”
    Jag moved slowly, giving me time to edge out the door. I stood outside the cell before the guard noticed. By then, it was too late.
    In one motion, Jag straightened and punched him in the nose hard enough that the disgusting crunch of bone echoed in the corridor. The guard doubled over, clutching his face as blood dripped through his fingers.
    I grabbed the keys and taser from his belt. I hesitated, unsure if the taser could kill him. Jag locked his hands together and brought both fists down on the back of the guard’s head. Jag dragged him into the cell, and I locked him in with shaking hands.
    After exchanging a glance, we ran down the hall. I punched the down button for the elevator. It was so low-class, we didn’t even need the ID card Jag had snagged from the guard.
    When the doors opened to the laboratory, we pressed against the side of the elevator. With my heart in my throat, I held the Door Open button and waited.
    An alarm would sound if the door wasn’t allowed to close, so I took a chance. I stepped out of the elevator, croucheddown, and scampered behind a long metal counter. Jag followed me, his breathing ragged. When I glanced at him, he was glowing. There I was, terrified, making stuff up on the fly, and this guy