The Progeny by Tosca Lee

wasn’t looking.
    My tongue feels too thick to even curse. I didn’t drink it all—on that count, the proverbial glass is half full. But the fact that Rolan wants me out is enough for me to realize it’s time to go.
    I glance at the clock: 9:13.
    I force my eyes to widen, myself to straighten. Shake my arms as though they’re wet. Take inventory. One door, leading to the sitting room, where Rolan is no doubt still awake. One window, looking down from the second story onto the bushes below.
    One option.
    I unlock the latches at the top of the window with clumsy fingers. With one last glance at the door, I push the inside pane up a tentative inch. It squeals against the sill. With a quick breath, I shove it loudly all the way up at once.
    Commotion in the front room, pounding on my door. Time’s up.
    I climb awkwardly over, fighting for purchase, and dangle just long enough to see a pair of headlights illuminate the bushes—and a length of concealed pipe—before I drop.

11
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    W hen I open my eyes to intermittent darkness, I know I have failed. Gone, the ugly floral bedspread. The leather beneath my cheek is clammy. I’m staring at a partial wall—no, the back of a seat in a moving vehicle I do not recognize. My wrists are tied with what looks like part of a torn-up T-shirt.
    My name is Audra Ellison. I am twenty-one, and I am in deep trouble.
    The acceleration of the engine sounds like a freight train, the occasional bump in what I assume to be highway jars my throbbing head to the base of my skull.
    At least I’m alive. I might not have escaped Rolan, but I’m not done working on that part. I tug on the ties around my wrists with my teeth. They’re knotted tight.
    I slide my feet off the edge of the seat in the darkness until my knee finds the hump in the middle of the floor.
    With a quick breath, I shove up from the seat and throw my arms around Rolan’s head. The car swerves, sending us skidding onto the shoulder and almost into the ditch. Even better. If I’m going to die without answers—or a seat belt—I am not going alone.
    I throw my weight back, bonds cutting into my wrists. He brakes, and my cheek crashes into the headrest. He’s gotten his fingers within the circle of my arms, and I’m positive one of my hands is about to pop off.
    “Audra!”
    I falter, hearing my real name. In that split second, he grabs me by the right elbow, hits the brakes again, and hauls me to the front, my body twisting onto the console. My left arm, caught on the headrest, feels like it’s ripping from its socket.
    I look up then, and see him.
    Luka.
    With no more leverage against his throat, I drive my head forward. He’s buckled in and jerks away just in time. I catch his shoulder instead, lip splitting over my teeth.
    “I’m not going to hurt you!” he shouts.
    I spit blood. Behind the headrest, I can no longer feel my hands.
    “Right, because that’s why you have me tied up!”
    I struggle to pull my arms over the top of the seat, but he yanks them back down. A car whizzes by, horn blaring.
    “I tied you up because I knew this would happen when you came to! You took a hard fall from that window.”
    “Let me go!” I shout. But I am freaked out. There’s no way he could have followed us this far without our noticing, which means that he knew about the Center from the start.
    I shove up, trying to free my hands, and he grabs me by the shoulders. “Audra, whatever that guy told you, none of it’s true.”
    “He told me what you are, ” I hiss. “Showed me pictures of you following me last year!”
    Luka presses his lips together.
    “You should’ve done it then. You should’ve killed me. Because guess what? I don’t remember anything . Whatever I had is gone! So when this is all over and you trot back to your Historian master with nothing to show for—what? A year’s worth of work? Two?—what’s he going to do to you? What’s the punishment, Luka, for returning empty-handed? Because I may be