Jamb: (28 page)

Then three people jump on her and they go down in a heap, everyone grabbing for the gun.

“We’ve got to go
now,
” I say, pulling Milo back to Garrett and Teagan.  The room is focused on the gun fight in the corner and most of The Fury are climbing over each other to see what’s happening.  Teagan’s wild-eyed, hanging onto Grace as Garrett spins in a circle, looking for a clear exit.  There isn’t one.  We lock eyes and I say, “What’s the plan?”

But there are only two doors.  The one we came in and the one blocked by the gun fight. 

“Here,” a voice says behind us.  Garrett, Milo and I all turn at once to see the tall, itchy guy, waving us toward a couch near the wall.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

We don’t say his name.  Even Teagan doesn’t ask any questions.  We just follow him around the back of the couch.  Nok smashes us in behind the couch, huddled together but facing the crowd.  Milo looks at me and I shrug.  I have no idea what we’re supposed to do.  Nok goes to the end of the couch, beside Teagan.

He motions to Grace, locking his own arms across hi
s chest.

“Tight,” he says.
  Teagan nods, squeezing the baby to her. 

Nok eases the toe of his shoe under the couch as his fingers dig behind the back cushion at the same time.  He taps three times with his shoe.

One moment, I’m looking across the room at the gun-squabbling pile of bodies, and the next, I’m falling through a flap in the floor.  We land on something soft.  On my back, looking up, I see the puckered, black, fabric flap and I hear what I think is the actual floor, as it slides back into place in the Hub.  We’re in a Veritas tunnel.

“Mag
net and sensor-rigged trap door,” Milo says and Nok grins.  “Impressive.”

“Come,” Nok says as he jumps
up and we follow.  About fifty feet away is a trapeze lever, hanging from the ceiling.  Nok vaults up and grabs it, riding it back down until his feet touch the ground.  The moment they do, there is a loud thump and a cloud of dust follows us down the tunnel.

“Sand?” Garrett asks.  “You collapsed the tunnel with sand?”

Nok grins again, but waves us on.  “Hurry.”

We
break into a run.  Teagan’s breathing hard right away, but won’t let anyone else carry Grace.  We follow Nok and ask at intervals if we can take the baby, but Teagan always refuses.  All she asks is, “Where are we going?”

I don’t know if I should answer, so I don’t.  Nok and Milo don’t say anything either, but Garrett finally tells her,
“We’re getting out of here.”

“How?”

“You’ll see.”

“I do
n’t want them to get my baby.”  The fear clots her voice.

“They won’t,” I tell her.  I don’t know if it’s the truth
and I don’t care.  It’s a luxury to even be able to think it.  Either way, Teagan seems encouraged and picks up her pace a little.  All I see are Grace’s big, green eyes, staring at me as she remains silent and cradled to her mother’s chest.

“They’ve got the Cornerstone,” Milo says.

“They got it?  Off you?” Garrett asks.

“Yeah.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it right now.”

We turn a corner
and Nok pulls up short to a door, a regular door, in the tunnel wall.

“Here,”
he says.  He opens the door and we step into the garage, from the shadows close to the control panel.  Our feet crunch across the glinting shards of glass.  Teagan tightens her grip on the baby, as she wobbles over the uneven floor.  When I put my hand on her elbow to steady her, she doesn’t pull away.  She actually gives me a ghost of a grin.

Judging by how
the light is filtering into the garage, I figure it must be midday outside, until I see the glow of the welding torch go out.  Then, I think it is only the twilight, from the soft blue shadows that are cast on us.

Trig pulls off his welding helmet and drops it on the ground.

“Good timing,” he says.  “Let’s get y’all outta here.  It’ll be good to see you go.”

When we’re close enough
to him, even in the dim light, I can see the pinch of his forehead and how his eyes are swollen with the tears he’s holding back.  I have to look away before I run all the scenarios in my head of how we’re leaving Trig behind and how he’s getting through the last minutes of his life right now, for us.  Living it and unliving it, having to wait for us, while we contemplate climbing into the harnesses, so he can launch us to a safety he’ll never see.

“Get on,” Mark calls.  The Ball jiggles as he leans out of his harness inside.  “Trig made me fasten in…ju
st in case…and it’s chaffing.”

Nok bobbles toward it on awkward, probably fake legs, and climbs in
side.  The Ball shakes as he fastens in.  Garrett is moving blocks away from the Ball, as if he’s already rehearsed the launch routine with Trig.

“We’re leaving on
that
?”  Teagan gapes at the Ball.  “How’s Miki going to ride in that?  How’s any of us going to ride on that?”

“I made a special harness,
just for you and the baby,” Trig says.  “It’s right on the front of yours, so you can hang onto her the whole time.”

But Teagan backs away.  Her face clouds with suspicion. 
“I’m not getting in that thing!  You’re trying to kill us!  You’ll get us in there and explode it!”

Trig cuts her off with a g
rowl.  “I’m trying to save you and Sean’s baby, you got that?  And it’s time for y’all to go!”

Teagan’s face registers the shock as he turns away.
She’s listening like I am as Trig chants softly to himself, “You’ll be safe.  All I’ve got to do is hit the blue button on the wall.  That’s all I gotta do.”

Blue button.  I can see it, even in the shadows, a
dull blue button on a panel of bright, rainbow colored buttons.  Teagan glances at it too.  The blue one is tucked up in the corner, with a label over the face of it.  Three letters.  DIE.  Because no one from The Fury would ever touch a button that might end their own life.  Beneath the blue button, there is a variety of green, yellow and red buttons all over the panel.  I squint, focus.  The buttons say things like,
Yes, This One, Out, In, Escape, Gas, Engines. 
And I’d bet that none of those buttons do anything at all.  Anyone trying to launch the Ball could be monkeying around for quite a while, trying to figure out which green button actually launches it.

And then the letters start zooming up
off the control panel, one after another, exploding in front of my face.

G-pop-O-pop
-G-pop-O-pop-G-pop-O-pop

“We’ve got to go!” I say, but it’s too late.  The glass crunches behind us.  A man steps out from the shadows, the redheaded guard with the lip that won’t close.  His gun is pointed right at us and
he’s got a hand-held, two-way radio in his hand.

He brings it up to his thin, pink lips and barks into it,  “TRAITORS IN THE GARAGE!
  TRAITORS ARE IN THE GARAGE!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Trig scoops up a handful of glass and fires it at the redhead.  The guard ducks away.

The hall door that leads t
o the garage shakes as The Fury on the other side try to knock it down.

Teagan screams. 

Garrett has one hand on me and one on Teagan, yanking us toward the ball.  I tear my arm away.

“
We have to protect Milo!” I shout.

Turning,
I focus and zoom in on the redhead’s finger on the trigger.  I am so focused on it, I can almost trace the bullet as it rips from the gun.  I hear the air move as the bullet sears it, racing past me, missing me.

Striking Milo.
All of a sudden, I’m hit with the surging need to protect him.  Wounded, Milo isn’t projecting his energy away anymore.  And it’s going to bring The Fury on us even faster.

Trig lunges at the guard.

Garrett and I pull apart.  He points to Teagan.

“Get her and the baby on the Ball and I’ll get Milo.  I can carry him if I have to.”

I just nod.  I grab Teagan’s arm and drag her toward the Ball.

“I’m not leaving
Sean behind!”  she screams. 

“That’s not Sean, it’s Garrett!”  I shout back.

The door to the garage buckles.  One more strike and they’ll have it.

“We’ve got to go!”  I
scream at her.  She’s wriggling in my grasp and Grace begins to cry.

Garrett’s already
got Milo slung over his shoulder.  He’s stumbling through the glass field to the Ball.

“See,
he’s coming!  Let’s go!”  I shout. 

The crack of the gun hurts my ears.  Teagan’s shriek hurts them
even worse.  My body reacts as Teagan stumbles and loses her grip on Grace.  I dive and grab the baby before she falls in the glass with her mother.  The wound in Teagan’s side is gaping.  The blood is pouring out.  Teagan’s hand finds the wound and then she holds her fingers up to her face to see the blood.  She looks dazed as she gets to her feet, less like she’s hurt and more like she’s trapped in a walking nightmare.

“Take my baby,” she tells me.  Her face is already white as milk.  “Get her out of here.”

I know there’s no options.

“I’ll keep her safe,” I say.

“Yes.”  Teagan says as she turns away.  “Keep her safe.  I’m going to hit the blue button.”

Before I can say anything else, Teagan’s stumbling in the direction of the control panel. 

“Teagan!  Get in a harness!” Garrett shouts, but Teagan churns past him and with Milo on his shoulders, he can’t stop her.  I hold Grace close, her green eyes wide, but her tiny mouth closed.  She looks up at me and blinks once, as if she believes in me.  As if she knows I’ll keep her alive.  Safe.

I will not
let her down.

Garrett hauls Milo into the Ball.  The redhead is lying at Trig’s feet as Teagan stumbles past him.  He shouts for her to turn around, to get in the Ball.  Teagan shakes her head.
  I focus and hear her.  She tells him she’s going to save her baby.  She is going to press the blue button.

“Trig, come on!  She’s got it!” I shout
, just as the hall door to the garage bursts open.  The Fury pours in.  Teagan steps into the shadows as I pull myself into the Ball, with Grace cradled to my chest.  Milo is strapped in already and I take the special-made harness beside him, fastening Grace to me, as Garrett secures himself in the harness beside Milo.  I cinch my last buckle as Trig hops in.  His fingers are shaking as he belts himself into the remaining harness, the one meant for Teagan.

I hear the roaring crunch of footsteps stomping over glass.

I hear the collective shouting from The Fury.

There’s no way of knowing if Teagan will even make it.
  If she will even be able to push the right button.

A gunshot cracks the air in half and Trig groans, gripping his leg.

I chant in my head, 
Please let Teagan get there.  I’m sorry, but please let her press the button.

And then the white-hot force hits me and my ears pop with the tremendous roar of the Ball.  My arms around Grace, my head ducked low to protect her face, every one of my muscles strains to hang on as we are fired up the ramp.

The cement walls on both sides of the ramp break apart with a tremendous crack.  For a split second, I think I can even see the spirits that were caught in the Jamb.  There is a tremendous white cloud that explodes after we’ve cleared the structure, it races up along beside us.  I glance outside the Ball and against the twilight, I see a face I know better than my own.

The one that was over my crib.

The one that kissed my forehead and wished me sweet dreams.

The one who had the most beautiful crease in the middle of her forehead when she
was worried about me.

My mother’s face rushes by me in a beautiful, smiling cloud that seems to light up the night
.  She is followed by the ancient, kindly face of my grandfather, that I only knew from pictures.  Last, my father’s face comes looping by, like a happy comet, spiraling along and flashing me a smile and a wink, as my mother rejoins him.  Then the three clouds of my family join together and become one before they zoom away.

And then there’s Teagan’s face, her hair swirling around her, as she zips by with her smile wide and eyes full.  She blows a kiss to Grace.

Milo mutters beside me,
I see you.

A blessing.  My family
, Teagan included, is finally free.

Grace giggles
at the sight of her mother, just as the Ball does a sharp, upward climb and all the clouds disappear.  The fresh air takes my breath away as I hold Grace close. One day I’ll tell her about her incredible mother and mine. 

For now,
my heart spins like a wind vane, powered by her beautiful giggle, even though I can’t even breath yet.  It’s okay.  If I don’t breathe, this perfect moment can go on forever, with all of our families blessed and our new families safe.  The Ball clears the trees by an even wider margin than Trig had hoped and we zoom up into the clear, open sky. 

The world
seems endless and we are free.

I catch Garrett’s eyes and I think of a million words and things to mouth to him, but I keep my
lips closed and my gaze locked on his as I kiss the top of Grace’s head instead. 

And he
smiles at me, like he understands every word.