Read Falling for Free Online Page B

way up, back out of the base. There are Faders waiting for us as we reach the surface, all armed, and all dressed in cold weather gear. One, a woman in her mid-twenties, tosses warm coats to both Grayson and me.
    “If we’re heading into the alps,” she says, in an accent not as pronounced as Lionel’s, but somewhere closer to Jack’s, “then it could get cold quickly, just with the altitude. You’ll want to wrap up.”
    Helicopters arrive. There are two of them; big dual rotor things that look like they’re built for long distance travel. Grayson, Lionel, a couple of Faders and I get on the first of them, while the remainder take the second. It hardly seems like we’ve been in England any time at all, and already we’re leaving.
    The journey is a long one, and despite the design of the helicopters, we have to stop several times to refuel. At each stop, Lionel gets out to talk to local officials, and they quickly hurry to help. It seems that the middle-aged man has quite a lot of connections.
    One thing the journey does is give me time to think. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, because it’s too easy for my thoughts to slide back to Jack, and what has happened to him, yet I manage to distract myself for at least some of the journey with thoughts of what might be waiting for us. Lionel has already said that the signal is similar to the one the Underground’s sensors get from me, so does that mean that there’s someone else like me out there somewhere, living their life in some pretty little Swiss village? That thought seems like too much to hope for, but I can’t help thinking about what it would be like to meet someone else with my strange talents. Someone else who knows what it’s like to be me.
    The Swiss Alps are beautiful. They’re also, as the Fader who gave us the coats predicts, cold. I guess that’s why some places there can offer year round skiing. That’s not what we’re there for though, and we fly with purpose, following Lionel’s instructions as he stares at the screen of a laptop. We fly around for what feels like forever before he points a finger at a mountain slope.
    “There. Take us down there. The signal is coming from that direction.”
    The pilot takes the helicopter down, managing to find enough flat land to touch down on. The other helicopter lands beside us. From ground level, it’s easy to see the cave that cuts into the mountainside, though it was impossible to spot from above.
    “Check it out,” Lionel says to the woman Fader, and she nods. In seconds, all the Faders are off the helicopters, all with pistols or heavier weapons drawn. It seems they aren’t taking any chances.
    “Shouldn’t we go with them?” I suggest.
    Lionel shakes his head. “We wait here and monitor things until we know it is safe.”
    “What could possibly go wrong?” I ask.
    I get an answer to that almost immediately. The sound of gunfire comes from the cave, along with shouts and barked orders. Grayson has a gun in his hand, I don’t know where it has come from, while his other arm is on mine, preventing me from running towards the sound. He knows me well enough to know that I need to know what is going on.
    I find out quickly enough. The woman whom Lionel had ordered into the cave runs out from it, wounded in the side. She’s been shot. She makes it over to the helicopter.
    “What happened, Annette?” Lionel asks.
    The woman’s face is ashen. “It was a fake signal. The Others… they’re in there.”
    I start to leap down from the helicopter, but Lionel grabs me and pulls me back with surprising strength for a man his age.
    “Grayson?” he says, making a question of it. Grayson seems to understand, even though I don’t, and hops down from the helicopter. Why is he allowed to do it when I’m not?
    “You and Annette need to hold the perimeter around the cave mouth. Kill any of the Others who make an appearance.”
    They move back towards the cave mouth, and Grayson shoots at