Ashes (17 page)

Adam lured her forward, her hesitation more and more apparent with every step. An eerie drip bled down her back. The alarm's relentless shriek shattered her ears. The lights messed with her head too.

Bright. Dark.

Bright. Dark.

Haze.

Bright.
And dark again.

He pulled out that scanning device from before and exhaled. Emery assumed it would be used to grant them access to something.
Something that, at this point, seemed to put more fear in her than hope.
Would it open the elevator standing in sunken, tarnished spite at the end of this corridor?

Suddenly a noise rose above the sound of the alarm, or perhaps pierced through it. With a chime, everything went still. Like a violent sea, the elevator doors slowly parted. She fought the fear growing inside her. Emery's eyes exploded as five people, some with weapons, stepped out.

The silence seemed to strip her naked. Adam shoved her in the chest suddenly, flinging her body to the other side fast enough for her to slam against metal and Sheetrock and catch a tranquilizer fly past.

Her head spun.

Adam, clinging to the wall, took a glance at the group gaining on them then stole another look at Emery. With a scream, he sent the large black stick whirling through the air, aiming to break the nose of the frightening bald man who was coming toward them. She recognized him.
The agent that gave her chills.
The last day she ever saw Arson.
 

Adam grabbed Emery's hand then reached for his gun and fired off a few shots before racing back the way they'd come. Dodging several darts and bullets seemed like it came easy for this mysterious, blue-eyed rescuer. But he didn't dare tempt fate by looking back; he just followed his instincts. And his instincts seemed to say to take a sharp left.
 

“They're shooting at us!” Emery yelled.

“Thanks. Hadn't noticed.”

“Are they trying to kill us?”

“I think this is them being friendly.”

Emery didn't like the sound of that at all. “How are we gonna get outta here?”

“Just trust me,” Adam urged, barely having to catch a breath. “I know another way. There are tunnels we can use. They'll lead us out through the sewage line.”

“Forget it! I am not crawling through crap.”

“Then you can stay here with them. I'm sure you'll love Christmas dinner.”

Emery watched as he quickly slid into a divot in one of the walls. A small passageway, really, but he managed to squeeze through. A fear-filled glance shot behind her as she listened for the stampede of angry men desperate to bring her back to her cold prison. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she followed, sucking in some breath. They traveled deeper into the wall, her chest and ribs struggling not to cave in completely.

“Adam, they're coming. They're coming!” She panicked.

He snatched her wrist and tugged her toward him, pulling her in through the wall and then making a slight shift in direction.

A maze within a maze
, she thought. “How do you know these things?”
 

“Time.”

The bald man chasing them stopped midstride and stared into the wall. “Gotcha,” they heard him say as he spit a wad of brown saliva through the narrow opening. His nose was split open and running red.

As he reached into his coat for a pistol, Emery shuddered. “Gun! Gun! Gungungun!” Just then, she felt Adam drag her backward a little farther. Seconds earlier, he had been pressed up against a vent of some kind. But he must've kicked it in.
 

Their pursuer's face was a cloud of rage. His eyes were black coals.

In seconds, Emery swore she heard the sound of a trigger being pulled, followed by a dart splitting air molecules and dust above her. Then she felt a deep sinking in her gut. They were falling.
Into the dark.

Into the unknown.

23

 

EMERY KEPT HER MOUTH closed to keep the majority of rusty grime and soot from dripping in.

“Don't let go yet,” Adam warned, his grip starting to come loose. “And try not to look down.”

“I can't see anything. How high are we?”

She could hear the struggle to keep holding on in his voice, the way his tone stuck to the inner lining of his throat, almost like it felt more comfortable being stuck than escaping.“Emery, I'm gonna need you to let go soon, when I tell you.”

“You just said—” A sliver of brown slime oozed down her lip. “I'm gonna puke.”

“Please stay focused,” he groaned. “When I tell you, let go.”

“It's so dark in here.”

“It wasn't my first choice,” he admitted. “Look, Emery, just trust me. You'll be safe.”

They heard the sound of banging metal and heavy breathing. The enemy was getting closer. How much longer before they were both dragged back to those cells, left alone, separated?

“Now!” she heard Adam say. The split-second between when the word left his mouth and when she actually let go of him seemed like hours.

She kept falling. Wasn't sure if it was forever, but the black surrounding her made it feel like it. She felt weightless. She felt open. She was back on that cold steel table, bright lights flashing at her, through her. The strangers crept closer. Hot breath. Needles.
That painful sound between her ears.

And suddenly she hit water, or something else. She nearly sank in. The putrid smell of waste spread through her nostrils. She wanted to vomit. No—she was vomiting. There wasn't much to puke up, but still she swore one of her organs was coming up.

A few seconds later, there was another splash.

“Adam! Oh, where are we?”

“I told you, the sewer route,” he said, spitting. She couldn't quite see him yet, but she followed his movements, her mind swimming from the smell and nausea. “This is the only way out. There's a smaller tunnel we're going to have to crawl through.”

Emery tried to cut her fingers through her hair. What she felt were sticky, gross threads locked within themselves, reeking of sulfur and garbage.

“Get me outta here, fast!”

“Take my arm.”

“Where are you?” she asked, trying to follow his voice in the filth and the dark.

After a few awkward seconds of wading through the dirt and waste, Emery reached out, and he grabbed her hand, slipping from her grip with the first few attempts. “Try to hold on. Grab my shirt. I know it's weird.”

“Weird doesn't even come close.”

“You're stronger than you think, Emery.” His voice sounded slimy. It felt unclean and unknown.

Yet hopeful.

 
“Once you get past the smell, it's almost okay,” Adam said.

“If by
almost
you mean—”

“Shhh,” he whispered. “Hear that?”

Emery shook her head.

“Swore I heard something.” They kept moving. Adam said they were almost at the part where they'd have to crawl. She couldn't really make out anything with her eyes, so she touched things with her hands. Metal. Slime. More metal. Her hands surveyed the circumference of the tunnel he expected her to crawl through, the waste sliding between their fingers.

“Don't touch your face. You won't be right for days.”

“Gee,” Emery sarcastically began, “and that was the first thing I wanted to do. I can't see anything. I hate this.” She took another whiff and wanted to vomit again.

“Emery, there's no turning back now.” She felt his hand touch her, her legs screaming to be out of this pool of filth.
“Was this the best idea you could come up with for a first date, Shawshank?”

“What? I'm just—”

“Trying to get me outta here alive, I know. Look, just go in first. If the hookman decides to jump out, I want to make sure he has something to gnaw on while I make a crawl for it.” She laughed, thinking of how ridiculous her statement must have sounded.

“I'm getting you out of here,” Adam said, stepping into the claustrophobia-inducing tunnel. “I'll protect you. I won't let anyone hurt you again.”

“That's what Arson said,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Stay close behind me,” he told her. “We're almost out.”

“On a scale of one to insane, how sure are you?”

“Pretty.”

“Don't sound so convincing. You know, I never thought I'd be wading through crap with some skinhead I barely know. Not that you're an actual skin—whatever. Funny how things turn out.”

“Funny,” Adam said, crawling forward. “Wasn't exactly my choice for the perfect
word.
Messed up, maybe. Sick. Not funny.”

Emery followed behind him silently, at least for a few seconds. “So how many times have you done this, Shawshank?”

“Stop calling me that!”

“I thought we had to whisper.” She knew she was being difficult. She also knew he was looking back at her with one of those reprimanding faces her mother loved to employ, even though she could barely see him. “Something just moved past my leg. It's a freakin' rat. I hate rats.”

“Just be quiet and crawl faster. He'll move on.”

“Easy for you to say. Do you know how disgusting rats are?”

“Emery, do I have to remind you that you're literally crawling through human feces?”

“No!” she bit back. “Don't touch me, you little vermin.”

“Was that directed at me or the rat?”

Emery was somewhat amused, but she wasn't going to show it.

“So, Not-Shawshank, a.k.a. Adam,” Emery began, “what is this, escape number seven?”

“What?”

“How many times have you tried to break out?”

He didn't answer.

“How long have you been here? Where is
here
anyway?”

“You like to talk, don't you?” was all he said.

Silence carried them another two minutes before Emery heard something above her.

“Is that…a truck? Adam, that's, like, one of those
eighteen wheelers
or something. Oh, I've never been so happy to see a grungy truck driver before.”

“Yeah, don't get too excited yet. We still got a little bit to go. Move faster, will you, there's no telling how close they are behind. If they follow the right pipeline, they might be waiting for us.”

“You're not actually saying—”

“Keep moving
,
that's what I'm saying. No looking back. No second chances. We linger too long, and they'll take us again. They'll take you, Emery. So just keep close. I think I see some light up ahead.”

“Good. Hey, is that the highway above us?”

Adam groaned. She could tell he was getting annoyed. “No. But it's one of those side roads, one that carries you to the interstate.”

“I'm loving your confidence.”

Again, Adam kept quiet. She was getting used to talking to herself. The smell of the tunnel, black garbage coating every piece of hair and skin and clothing, permeated through her.

He jerked her forward. “C'mon. If I'm right, these tunnels should bring us just far enough to make it past any cameras, and hopefully no one will see us.”

Emery swore this kid was off his rocker. Did he have any idea how ludicrous this all sounded?
Hopefully
and
if
and whatever.
It was like this kid memorized everything but the words to make her feel safe with him. She wished it
was
Arson getting her out. She wished he
was
her hero. She wished…

“See,” Adam said, tugging her forward out of the lip of the tunnel and into puddles of mud. She panicked a little when she noticed a camera, but Adam told her it was one of the broken ones they just kept hanging to keep trespassers out. The fact that he knew so much about this place made her feel weird.

It was pouring violent rain. Adam spent the next moment letting it all soak through him, his body like a filter for the hard, wet bullets. Like he hadn't seen rain in years, or ever.

She studied him purely in that moment, focusing on the image of him—arms stretched out like someone about to break into song, the mud and filth slipping off his face with the water. This skinhead stranger dragged her out of the jaws of lions and into the rain. She should've been happier. But she wasn't. She couldn't be. Not yet.

It seemed like more than seconds, but that's all they were. That was the time it took them to get from being knee deep in strange, random mess to cutting through a forest, where Adam told her a road would welcome them. She wasn't sure how time had stopped for them, as if it knew what they needed and how far they had to go. She just followed him, blind hope filling the open spaces in her brain. Whatever lay on the outskirts of their former prison had to be better than a cold floor and no mattress.

And the rats.
She shivered at the thought.

Emery tried not to look behind her. Adam told her it wasn't good to look back, but she was never good at following laws to the letter. She was unsure if it was fear or hope or stupidity that called her eyes back to that giant prison, which at this very moment, looked like a jewel of brightened darkness in the distance. And it didn't matter. Her gaze lingered there for a long moment before she reminded her legs to stay in motion.

Adam tugged her forward. Something else wanted her back.

“A little further. Just stay focused, Emery, and don't be afraid.”

He kept saying that.
Don't be afraid.
Telling her not to be afraid was like telling her not to breathe. She'd lived with this new, heightened fear for so long she couldn't shake it. It stayed with her. Lived inside her skin. Emery kept her head down then forced her eyes up so she could focus on Adam, only inches from her, his hand cold just like hers. Shaking just like hers.

“It's late. There shouldn't be a lot of people out. We might be able to hitch a ride.”

“Is that legal?”

Adam eyeballed her for a long moment.

“Right, we're two lab experiments that just escaped from a facility no one even really knows exists. Hitchhiking it is.” She fought to catch her breath, but her heart was pounding like a hammer. “Gotta keep reminding myself this isn't a dream.”

“It's your new nightmare,” Adam said, grabbing her hand tighter and ushering her deeper into the woods.

She wanted to wake up now. She needed to. Emery flicked some excess dirt from underneath one of her fingernails. Still grossed her out. It felt like some living thing existed under her nails, squirming around to aggravate her, mess with her head.

She hated that it was working. Emery drew slightly closer to Adam's shoulder, ignoring whatever slimy, mysterious pool she had just stepped in.

When Emery next turned her head, she noticed nothing was looking back at her. Not some horrible dungeon.
Only nameless darkness.
How far had they gone? How long had they been running? She hadn't kept track. The trail they were on was so black she fell half a dozen times, nearly sprained her ankle. But Adam promised her he'd get her someplace safe.
When
, he couldn't say for sure.

Her spit felt like glue at the back of her throat, sticking but not providing her any kind of satisfaction, and it couldn't quench her thirst. A plume of her own breath escaped like a lost fog from her mouth, and it bothered her to be reminded of how it smelled.
How both their bodies reeked.
She was glad the mud covered most of her face, though. It felt cool, hidden.

 
Arson was the only one who gave her peace without her mask on. And he wasn't here. But she so wished he were. “Just don't think about it,” she accidentally said out loud.

“Don't think about what?” Adam replied.

“Nothing,” she quickly answered, lagging behind him. She wanted to trust this kid, hoped she could, but what if this lame, un-thought-out escape plan…

No, stop it. He's trying to save you. Trying to get you free.

Her thoughts were getting louder.

I really miss him.

Another five minutes went by before Emery could hear anything other than the sound of crunching leaves and squishy mud. But she began listening more intently. The slide of tires against wet pavement.
The honking of horns.
Adam said he could hear the sound of windshield wipers, but that was too freaky for her to wrap her head around.

A bolt of lightning split the sky, and soon after, the boom of thunder groaned somewhere far off. Where she wished they could be. Where she prayed they might make it to, if they were lucky.

“Emery, can you hear it? We're so close. The road is close.”