by Holly Hook
Weslie and I run under house after house. The screaming's just as loud down here. Dirt crumbles and rains on my head. I feel like the tunnel's going to collapse on us any second. Ned shouts something again. Maybe we should light the fire and then run out of Wompitt. Weslie and I need to stay alive. Ned might see us here and assume the worst.
No. I won't abandon these people.
Not like Jaden did.
Weslie squeezes past me and we run under another house. It might even be mine, for all I know. There's not as much noise here. I hear one shout, but nothing else. The Dwellers might take everyone.
“Drop the lumber here!” I say. I can see where the rain's coming in through the hole that Jaden knew was there all along. That Jaden left open. Why didn't we see it sooner? He wanted us back in Wompitt so we'd be Dweller bait right along with everyone else. Garrett must have added an assignment and it was me.
Weslie does. “Flamestone,” she says.
I toss my backpack down. The skittering noises grow even louder overhead. I unzip it and grab a chunk of Flamestone. I fumble in my pack and find the flint in there. I have to do this right. I set the piece down on the pile of sticks and strike it. There's a spark, but nothing else. I strike it again, harder. Weslie tosses down some straw. A flame erupts and a fire springs to life. Light fills the dirt tunnel, illuminating Weslie. She stands next to me, squeezed up against soil. She smiles. Gives me a thumbs-up.
“We did it,” I breathe, fanning the fire to make it grow higher. Light grows. The walls flicker with it. The air smells of smoke. The Dwellers won't want to go through this. Once they bring someone down this tunnel, they'll have no other way to go but back into town.
“What if the Dwellers carry their victims out another way?” Weslie asks.
“They can't lower the gates,” I say. But then I think of all the branching tunnels that led under other peoples' houses. What if there is another tunnel out of here? What if Jaden's left to go open it up for them?
And then the earth trembles. Little feet approach us.
“They're coming,” Weslie says. She casts her gaze to the ceiling and takes a panicked breath. “Try not to fall on the fire.”
She's right. I catch a glimpse of little red and yellow striped points swarming and racing towards us. The whole crowd's coming through. They could trample us. I cast my gaze to the ceiling, too, but not before I catch a glimpse of a limp figure in furs riding on top of the Dwellers. I can't tell who it is.
They've got someone. Someone who's fallen victim to their gaze. Someone who's passed out.
The Dwellers stop.
Squeal in pain.
“I hope you like it!” I shout at them. I still stare at the ceiling and grab onto a stray root. I'll be down if I see their eyes. Weslie does the same next to me. This fire is the only thing keeping them back. I kick two more of the sticks on it, making it climb higher.
Tiny feet move as they back away, victim in tow. Ned shouts something from somewhere. He's approaching. Heavier footfalls echo up the tunnels at us. Others are coming.
I turn away from the Dwellers. Ned might kill us. Weslie and I might have to jump over the fire and climb back up the ladder.
“Who do they have?” Weslie asks.
I can't look, even if the Dwellers are looking away. They skitter away from us now, deeper into the tunnel. People are coming. I catch a glimpse. A huge, hulking figure comes up behind several others. Is it Ned?
“You two!”
Yeah. It's Ned.
I don't move. I keep looking at the ceiling.
“Stay there. Keep that fire going!” someone else shouts. I don't recognize the voice. “We've got to get to him.”
But I hear no one coming forward. The Dwellers squeak and scurry around. No one can dare look.
“Elaine,” Weslie says.
“What?” The heat of the fire blasts against my face. We can't move. We're stuck between the flames and the Dwellers.
“There's mud flowing in.”
I realize the meaning of her words too late. I dare to look over the fire, to where the ladder comes down. We're just feet from it. Rain pours down as hard as ever.
“Don't look at them, Baxter....you idiot!” Ned roars.
There's a thud as someone falls victim to the Dwellers. Ned groans. Is he passing out too?
Then I see it.
Mud flows down over the ladder that Jaden must have put there over a year ago. It covers the rungs, making it impossible to climb out on.
And it flows right for the fire.
I curse and kick more lumber onto it, but it's too late.
The mud washes over the fire and over my shoes, soaking my feet and freezing my skin.
Darkness stomps out everything. The Dwellers skitter for a bit and then race over my feet. A large lump brushes past me. It's their captive. They're taking them away.
“Hey!” I shout. I kick at the Dwellers. One squeals but it's not enough.
“No!” Weslie shouts.
I catch a dark, seething mass near the entrance to the tunnel. Claws dig into wooden rungs. And then it's gone, vanished up into the night above. The Dwellers have taken their captive.
Ned groans somewhere. It's chaos in the cave. People shout and words blend together.
“Everyone!” I yell. Someone bumps into me. “We have to find where the Dwellers are taking them!” I race for the ladder. I have an idea, but I don't want to go there.
Weslie stays still. Her breaths come fast. She's lost it again. I race for the ladder and grab the rungs. Grainy mud slides out from under my feet and makes climbing difficult. I have to get out. The skittering is fading now. Getting much fainter. They're moving fast.
Rain beats on my face. I poke my head out into the night. Why didn't the Dwellers take me? Garrett would have ordered them to. Why didn't they take me? Or Ned?
They must have had another target all along. Someone who the Flamestone Society considers a threat. Maybe I've fallen off that radar. Garrett doesn't think I'm ever going to bother them again.
Antoine.
It's him.
He's the closest to figuring out how to stop all of this. He's the Flamestone expert. He would know exactly how to stop the Dwellers once and for all.
And now he's gone.
I stand in the rainy field. The ground's ponding. Flooding.
“Weslie!” I shout. “I need you up here!”
She climbs up after me and grabs my arm. “He's gone!”
I search the field. Lightning flashes, illuminating all of it for a second. I catch a trail of trampled grass, limp in the deluge. It's heading straight for the tunnel that Antoine fell into the other day. The one that Weslie and I had to investigate.
The one Jaden spent the last year digging in secret.
I run for it. I have no light and I have no way to follow the Dwellers. It could even be a trap.
Lightning flashes again. I find the hole. Crawl up to it. I don't stop until my hands dip into darkness. It's still narrow as ever and I wonder how the Dwellers fit him down there without dropping him. I cock my head and listen. The noise of their stampede echoes back at me. It almost sounds like a fading, roaring river. They're taking him down this tunnel and into the depths.
“Antoine!” I shout.
There's no response. My heart pounds.
“Shawn!”
I'm living it again. He's screaming at me to run.
They're taking someone else I know. Leaving me out here, alone.
“Shawn!”
I keep shouting his name, over and over and over. He's down there, too.
“Elaine!” Someone's got my shoulder and they're pulling me up.
“They must have Antoine,” I tell her. Lightning flashes a third time, illuminating her face. Rain mixes with tears.
“I know they do,” she says, shaking me. “I don't see him anywhere. He's gone. He's gone!”
I hug her right there in the rain. I feel like I'm holding her up. She's so frail. Read
y to break.
Weslie's lost everything.
I know what I have to say. “We're going to get him back,” I tell her. “I promise. We'll go down, and we'll find him and bring him back. My boyfriend's down there, too.” What am I saying? Am I really going to launch an impossible rescue mission?
I'm scaring myself.
“Girls!” Someone stands there in the dark, shouting at us. “You can't stand out here. Come back in.”
It's the mother of the five year old boy.
I face her. “I thought we were banished.”
“Well, you shouldn't be after such a heroic attempt to keep the Dwellers from succeeding with their task,” she says. “Get back in here. I'll tell Ned what I saw. He'll listen to me. He's passed out, so we'll put him somewhere where he can't harm you. Besides, I think he saw what the two of you did, too.”
I about freak out at the thought of going back into Wompitt. I have to, once again, turn away from the cave where someone I know and care about is being taken away.
Weslie leans on me and sobs.
I let her. She needs a shoulder right now and I know her pain.
And after we face Ned, then what?
Will I really go down there?
I'm not waiting anymore.
The woman leads us back down into the muddy tunnel. It's dark. We step over the remains of the fire and I snatch my backpack. It's slimy with the mud. The tunnel gets drier the more we go in. I walk under my house again. We're a line of the defeated, heading back into town to regroup.
Weslie straightens up in the presence of everyone. Sniffs.
“We'll find him,” I remind her.
She says nothing. I could be lying for all I know. How can I promise that we go down there into the mines and get him out? I can't even rescue my own boyfriend.
At last, we come out the tunnel under Jaden's house. He's implicated and now everyone knows. I wonder where he is. He can't leave without lowering the gate himself. He's still in town somewhere.
“Everyone,” the woman says. “Ned and Baxter are passed out. We need to put them somewhere dry and then figure out what we're going to do. And we need to block this hole before any more Dwellers come back. They could be taking one of us at a time. Or we can start another fire in the tunnel.” She faces me. “Do you still have the Flamestone?”
“Yes,” I say. I hand her my backpack. I'm not even scared to surrender it anymore. It doesn't matter now.
She takes it and waves a young guy underground with her. She's right. We have to keep any more Dweller charges out of here.
The crowd takes Ned and Baxter over to one of the houses far away from Jaden's. Weslie and I follow. No one questions why I'm here. Everyone saw the opening in Jaden's floor. Followed the Dwellers to it. It's a no brainer. How did these people miss Jaden digging that tunnel under Wompitt for the past year? I don't get it.
Jaden was spending a lot of time in town while most everyone was gone. Ned even said so. Over the past year, he's been digging that secret passage, calculating and doing it when everyone else is gone or asleep. That's why he wanted me to teach him how to read. The Flamestone Society must have promised him a trip back to Earth in exchange for Antoine and he wanted to be ready for it.
But the Dwellers didn't take Jaden tonight like they said.
Even so, I want to kill him.
“Where's Jaden?” Weslie asks. “Where is he? He's responsible for this, not Elaine. Elaine had nothing to do with this mess.” She's screaming over the crowd. “Jaden wanted to get back here so the Dwellers would take him with them!”
But no one seems to hear her. The crowd carries Ned and Baxter inside a house that isn't Ned's. They're moving the leader away from where the Dwellers expect him to be, I guess. Also makes sense.
“Where's Jaden?” I've never seen Weslie so hateful. He was someone she called a friend.
And now he took so much from her.
“I don't know,” I say. “He won't go far in this weather. He's a goner, either way.”
When Ned wakes, we're going to see something bad. I don't want to watch it.
The crowd parts and I push forward. Ned and Baxter lie on the floor of the cabin. The seething rain calms down just a bit. The woman with my backpack returns and hands it to me. It still has most of the Flamestone inside. I have a feeling the guy she borrowed will be stoking the new fire all night, keeping the Dwellers from getting back in. Unless there's another tunnel somewhere. One we don't know about. One that Jaden might be escaping to right now.
“We have to find him,” says Weslie. Her face contorts into something scary. “While Ned's waking up. Then we present him.”
I know she's right. Ned might still suspect us when he wakes and we need to have the truth ready. These people will back us up. No one's told us to get out of town yet. And we can't waste time.
Weslie and I head back out into the rain. There's a soft roll of thunder that's almost soothing, as if the storm is relieved that the Dwellers are gone. All the cabins look low and depressed. We've just lost someone. They should be.
We find Jaden sitting down on the floor in my cabin. In his mother's former cabin. He looks up at us as we enter. He's not armed. I still have my axe. I can boss him around. “Miss your ride?” I ask. “I told you the Flamestone Society was going to screw you over. Get up. You have a lot of explaining to do to these people. And to Weslie.”
“You disgust me,” Weslie tells him.
“I had to run out of my cabin,” Jaden manages. “Ned was in there. The Dwellers missed me.”
“Get up!”
He does. He looks like a zombie.
“Now walk between us, and don't try anything.”
Jaden does. We exit and go back into the weather. Weslie grabs his arm as tight as she can. She's trembling and struggling not to hit him. That's only because we need him conscious for this.
Everyone's standing in the rain, waiting around the cabin that houses Baxter and Ned. Ned's up. He's staggering out the door, groaning, with the fangs on his necklace swinging in the rain. The Dwellers did a number on him.
Then he looks up and his gaze lands on me.
“I take it you didn't bring me an arm?” he asks. His expression is unreadable.
An arm. I can see where this is going.
“No,” I say. “But we did bring you the real traitor.”
Jaden tries to back away. We don't let him.
Ned looks at all three of us in turn. The woman appears from the crowd and whispers something in his ear. He thinks. “You girls did the right thing with the fire,” he says. “I sure didn't see this...piece of trash...down there with you, trying to keep the Dwellers from kidnapping our smartest guy.”
“Because he wasn't,” Weslie says.
I keep a tough exterior, but my heart's pounding. Jaden's going to die here. He's shaking. Looking down as if he's already accepted his fate.
“I will revoke your banishment,” Ned says. “If you complete one task. Roll up Jaden's sleeve.”
Jaden squeezes his eyes shut.
The axe gets a lot heavier in my hands.
Ned expects me to cut off his arm.
Right here. In front of everyone.
Weslie hesitates, hand over his leather sleeve. Some of the rage melts off her face. Jaden mutters something to himself.
“I said, make him roll up his sleeve. He must have gotten his flame tattoo in that two week vacation he took.”
“I was looking for my mother!” Jaden dares to face him. “That's all I wanted to do. But...they found me and caught me. They were going to put me in the worst mine they had. They offered to free my mother if I did this. They only wanted one person. That's all. The Dwellers won't come back any time soon.”
“Any one of us would have chosen the deep mines instead of betraying the town that's kept us alive for twenty years!” Ned advances on him. “I would have. I would have volunteered for death rather than betray my people. And you were born here. What would your mother thin
k of your actions?”
“You're talking about me?” Jaden faces him. “You're just a big coward. You didn't even help when the guards were holding back the Dwellers last night. You were the last one down in my secret tunnel when they took Antoine. And you didn't even have the guts to go after your brother after he vanished.”
The crowd stiffens.
Ned raises a fist. Hits Jaden right across the face.
We let him go.
Jaden collapses to the ground, rubs his jaw, and then stands. He doesn't try to run. He knows he's dead.
“Why don't you cut off my hand yourself?” Jaden asks.
Ned leans close to him. “That's not the deal.” Ned seizes Jaden's hand and rolls up his sleeve. “What?” he manages.
Jaden doesn't have a flame tattoo after all.
Instead, he has a green spiral.
“Is that...Slimestone under your skin?” I ask, remembering the lessons Antoine gave me. “That's what they put on you when you agreed to the deal?”
“I've never seen this before,” Ned says. He glares at Jaden. “Explain.”
Jaden swallows. “The Society told me that having this would make me invulnerable to the Dwellers' gazes,” he says. “They don't make me sick. I don't know why they didn't give me a flame yet. I thought I'd get one, but got this instead. Maybe it's my probation tattoo or something. I don't know what else it does. If it was going to kill me, it would have done it already.”
“This will suffice for an arm,” Ned says. “No one but the Dwellers know the technique for getting these minerals under skin. Weslie, you hold his arm. Elaine, you swing.”
My heart leaps into my chest and Jaden's arm takes up everything.
“Just do it,” Jaden says. He sounds miserable.
Weslie grabs him. She grimaces at me. That might be too light a word.
“Elaine,” Ned orders.
“Wait,” I say. A thought hits me. “We need someone to help us find Antoine.”
“I don't know about that,” Ned says. “We don't know where to go. The underground is just as vast as the surface here.”
“But we can use Jaden to lead us. He's been down there. He knows where they must have taken Antoine. We can tie him up and go down there and look for Antoine. And anyone who wants to come with us, can. He's our most valuable guy.”
