by Stacey Jay
“Past time for that one to meet his maker,” the Big Man continues. “He’s got a history of stirring up trouble. After he worked them pixies into a frenzy, I couldn’t see a truce with him being worth diddlyshit. He knew better. We’ve been trying to round those things up for a damned month.”
A month. Round them up.
I store the information away for later. If there is a later.
“Besides, you’re one of mine now.”
Sixty seconds. We can’t have more than sixty seconds. “Please, I—”
“Don’t worry. We’re working on the problem, and the pixies will lose interest. They’ve got a short attention span, and the fairies got other things to worry about with their leader dead,” he says. “So you go home and lay low, you hear me? Don’t work any magic, don’t talk to fairies, don’t cause any more trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dead. We’re dead. It’s over. My every muscle strings tight, braced for the explosion I know is coming. I could make a run for the corridor and be out before the Big Man catches up with me, but I can’t leave Hitch. I just can’t. So I stand and stare into the Big Man’s freckled face, cursing the universe that his ugly mug is the last thing I’m ever going to see.
“Take a few more weeks off, have a barbecue, have your kissin’ cousin over for a few beers,” he says. “I think you and Tucker are going to—”
“Please,” I beg, voice hoarse with fear. “We’re all going to die if we don’t leave now. Now!”
“All right. Settle down there, Beb.” The Big Man pulls a pocketknife from his pants, leans down, and cuts the ropes at Hitch’s wrists. Hitch flinches as the tension releases, his head jerking up like he’s waking from a bad dream. “There you go, son,” Big Man says. “Think you’d better grab Ms. Lee and head toward the exit.”
Hitch launches out of the chair, closing the distance between us at a run. His hand finds the spot between my shoulders and shoves me—none too gently—toward the corridor where Marcy and Cane disappeared a few minutes earlier. “Run!” he says, urging me in front of him as he takes off at a sprint.
I dash for the entrance to the hallway, casting one last look over my shoulder as I haul ass. I half-expect to see the Big Man standing in the middle of the room with a grin on his face, confident in his ability to withstand an explosion. But by the time I turn back, he’s gone. He’s light on his feet for an obese man, and he knows his way around. Chances are he’ll make it out alive.
I’m not sure the same can be said for Hitch and me.
The corridor ahead of us is long. Very long. Longer than the one Tucker and I walked through to get to the main room. And wider, with oversized railroad tracks set into the floor. We run for what feels like three or four endless, adrenaline-mangled minutes, but there’s still no end and no exit and every second is a second of borrowed time and I can feel death crawling up my spine on razor-tipped feet.
“How much further?” I gasp.
“Almost there. There’s a staircase. Exit through the roof.”
“Comes out in the swamp?”
“Yeah. But no fairies. Iron mesh on the ground. Parked the cruiser close,” he says, his sentences getting shorter as he sprints faster. Overhead, the lights set into the ceiling flicker and go out, leaving us in near blackness.
My heart leaps, and I falter, not sure if I can run on through the dark.
“Come on. Almost there. Don’t stop.”
I recognize the thinly concealed terror in his voice and pour on another burst of speed. Beside me, Hitch matches my pace, his breath coming in long, even draws that make me suspect he could push harder. He’s holding back, sticking with me the way I stuck with him.
I want to say “thank you.” I want to tell him that I’m glad I knew him—at least for most of the time I knew him. I want to tell him that I love him. Because I do. In a way that isn’t healthy and I’m not even sure is romantic anymore, but is still love. He was my friend, my lover, and for a long time the only person who knew me. Hitch took the time to see every part, to learn every secret.
Even now, when his presence causes more pain than pleasure, when he’s become a stranger and the ties binding us together are shredding at the seams, there’s still something incomparable about looking into his eyes. More than anyone else in the world, Hitch is a part of me, and he always will be.
I pull in a deeper breath, deciding to let whatever comes out, come out, but I don’t get to say a word.
One second we’re running like hell through the near dark, the next the world is eaten alive by a boom so big and bad that the ground jumps beneath our feet and the hallway begins to crumble.
Hitch grabs my hand and holds tight, pulling me hard to the left, pressing me against the wall as a piece of rock ceiling comes down where I was standing. I whip my head around to face him. My eyes have adjusted enough to the black to see his lips move, but I can’t hear a thing. The first boom is followed by a series of baby booms that make speech impossible.
Still, I scream, “I can’t hear you!”
He yells something back, but all I catch is a rogue vowel and maybe a p sound. Or a d?
I shake my head as another boom hits, buckling the ground, sending me crashing into Hitch. His arms go around my waist, my legs tangle in his, and he stumbles. I try to regain my footing and pull him upright, but sharp chunks of rock and twisted rail jut up from the floor. My shin slams into something hard, my center of gravity shifts, and Hitch falls backward.
I’m tumbling after when large hands grab my elbows and pull me back against damp clothes and a solid stretch of man.
“Fuck you, Tucker!” I wrench my arms away. It’s too dark to see much, but I’d be able to see something if there were anything there to see. If he weren’t in invisible-coward mode. Yet again.
Still, I know it’s him and not the Big Man or some other invisible. Even a second of contact was enough for my body to recognize his. Blargh. I can’t believe I kissed him. As soon as we get back to Donaldsonville, I’m going to wash my mouth out with soap. A fresh bar, one a fairy hasn’t pooped on.
I reach back to help Hitch, but he’s already up and reaching for me. I take his hand and hold tight, following him over the increasingly jagged floor, shoulders hunched against falling debris, ignoring the pocket of body heat that follows behind. Even when a hunk of rock is magically knocked to the side seconds before it hits my shoulder, I don’t look back. Tucker had his chance to help and he blew it. Now he’s just another name on the Betrayal List.
What a list that’s becoming.
I can’t believe Marcy strapped explosives to Cane’s chest. What the hell does she think this is? Some 1980s spy movie? An episode of fucking MacGyver? You don’t go around strapping explosives to people in real life. Especially not people you care about. Especially not people who—only weeks ago—you advised your surrogate daughter to marry.
Not anymore. Not family anymore. I wince, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the second supersized boom that shakes the earth, knocking Hitch and me into the wall, or the inescapable truth that hits so much harder.
Marcy’s not my family anymore. She left me for the Big Man. That had to be what she meant when she said I wasn’t “her decision to make.” The CIA story was a lie. Either that or she’s a double agent, working for the CIA and an invisible psychopath. A psycho she wasn’t sure would allow me to live. I could see the uncertainty and pain in her eyes when she walked away. She didn’t want to leave me to him, but she did. She made her choice. And now I’ve made mine.
No matter how much I love her, if I see her again, I won’t pull any punches. I won’t protect her; I’ll do what it takes to make sure she can’t hurt anyone. Ever again.
Hitch drops my hand to push away a falling rock and Tucker makes his move. His arms wrap around me from behind and suddenly I’m in the air, feet thrashing in front of me.
“Put me down,” I scream, loud enough that I can hear myself over the next explosion. Guess Hitch can,
too. He turns—body tensed, fist lifted.
Before he can deliver his punch, a door flies open in the wall. Tucker pulls me back into a small, dark room that’s holding up better than the hall outside. Hitch follows close behind. My hand flies out. Rough, cool, metal—like the bottom of a cast-iron skillet—brushes my fingertips. Metal walls. We must be in a safe room, one of the thousands sold after the fairy emergence.
“This way.” Tucker’s arm slides from my waist. A second later, a fluorescent light flicks on overhead, casting Hitch and me in a faint blue glow. “There should be an escape hatch in the back. Follow me.”
“I can’t see you,” I snap. “How can I—”
Tucker flickers into visibility next to Hitch, making Hitch jump and his hands ball into fists. “Howdy.” Tucker grins that same good-old-boy grin, and holds out a hand. “Tucker.”
Anger and Confusion wrestle on Hitch’s face before Understanding swoops in and knocks them both out of the ring. “Your cousin?” he asks, lifting his brows in my direction.
“Not my cousin,” I confess.
“No shit.” Hitch ignores Tucker’s hand. “I knew you were lying about that. I didn’t know you were lying about—”
“I wasn’t lying.”
“This is the guy from the road today, isn’t it?” Hitch asks, putting the pieces together pretty quickly for a man whose life is in imminent peril. “I can’t believe you didn’t—”
“All right, lovebirds.” Tucker strides toward the far wall. “Let’s save the arguments until we’re out of this hellhole.”
“We’re not lovebirds,” I say, glad it’s easier to be heard in here. “And in case we die, I want you to know that I hate you. A lot.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. You left me hanging in there.”
“I didn’t leave you hanging.”
“Yes, you did!” I ignore Hitch’s narrow look. “I—”
“We’ll talk about it later, Red.” Tucker reaches for the ceiling, taking hold of the black wheel that operates the escape hatch and turning it to the left.
Or trying to turn it to the left. The wheel creaks a few inches and sticks, refusing to budge, even when Tucker intensifies his efforts, straining until veins stand out on his neck and arms and his face turns red. Beneath us, the ground continues to shake while the hallway behind us crumbles. Pretty soon we won’t be able to get out of here. We’ll be stuck. If that wheel won’t budge we’re as good as buried alive.
“Let me help.” I start forward, but Hitch is already in front of me.
“Superior arm strength,” he mumbles. He grabs hold and together he and Tucker wrench and grunt and wrench, but the wheel holds tight.
I stuff my panic back down into my stomach and focus. My tongue curls and my shoulders lift and for a second I think I feel magic stirring somewhere inside of me, but when I shift my attention to the wheel, it vanishes. I’m tapped out, and the only way I’m going to be of any help is with my hands.
I shove past Hitch to the other side of the wheel, standing on tiptoe to reach. Clearly this escape hatch was designed for the male of the species. I’m five eight—a good four or five inches taller than the average woman—and I can barely get my fists wrapped around the metal bar.
“Come on,” I shout, recognizing the hopeless look creeping onto Hitch’s face. He doesn’t think I can help. He thinks I’m too weak. “Let’s try again. All three of us.”
“It’s not going to work,” he says, backing away. “The wheel must be stripped. We should get back out there before—”
“Just try! One more time! I—”
Another boom shakes the room and we all shuffle before regaining our balance. “Come on, Doc,” Tucker says. “Let her show you what she’s got.”
I glance at Tucker, torn between thanking him and telling him to go to hell. Instead I say, “On three.” I turn to Hitch, willing him to give this one last chance. After a second’s hesitation, his hands grip the wheel next to mine.
“One, two, three!” My last word becomes a groan. I throw my weight and squeeze with my fingers and tug until my shoulder blades burn and it feels like my neck is going to snap in two.
On either side of me, Hitch and Tucker strain and pull, but it seems all our grunting and groaning will be in vain until finally, finally, we’re rewarded with the tiniest squawnk as the wheel turns a quarter turn before sticking tight. Again.
“See there?” Tucker pants, propping his hands on his knees as he recovers. “Few more like that and we’ll—”
“We’re not going to get it open,” Hitch says.
“We might.” But I’m starting to agree with him. It didn’t feel like the wheel was going to budge an inch past where it stopped the last time.
“It’s worth one more try,” Tucker says. “If we get it open, we—”
“If we get it open we have no idea where we’re going to end up.” Hitch swipes a frustrated arm across his forehead. “The way I came in was at the top of a two story staircase. This isn’t high enough to put us out above ground.”
“It might let out underwater,” I say. “Tucker and I came in through a—”
My words are cut off as the wheel turns and the room fills with metallic screeching. My hands fly to cover my ears. Tucker’s hand flies to a handgun shoved in the back of his pants. When he traded his rifle in for something smaller is unclear, but I’m glad he did. I’m sure we’ll want to be armed against whoever opens the hatch.
Unfortunately, Hitch and I aren’t going to be able to offer backup, aside from our fists and those won’t do any good unless this person decides to jump in and join us. Still, I try to look menacing as the wheel is pulled up into the ceiling, revealing a black opening two feet above.
“Annabelle Lee?” I pin the voice even before the yellowed eyes and sharp face appear in the hole above us. “What are you doing down there?”
“Amity!” I smile, hoping she’s forgotten the circumstances surrounding our last interaction. The one where she and her friend beat me up for presumably stealing Amity’s Breeze stash. She was rather messed up at the time.
Maybe she hates me less now that she’s sober.
“I should leave your ass down there to die,” she says, stabbing a finger in my direction.
Maybe not.
“You’re a fucking bitch.” She leans in far enough for me to see she’s still wearing the regulation jumpsuit required for the infected at Keesler. “I heard what you’ve been doing to my brother, playing with his fucking mind when all he’s got is love for you. He’s a fine, beautiful-hearted, champion of a strong, proud black man and I—”
A hand touches her back. Amity breaks off, curling into herself, casting a feral look over her shoulder. “Get back off me, dick,” she snaps. “I ain’t got nothing for you.”
“It’s okay,” a deep voice answers. “It’s me. Abe.” Abe meets my eyes over Amity’s crouched form and does a double take. He seems surprised to see me, but not that surprised. Cane must have told Abe I was out in the bayou when he contacted him about taking over Amity’s pickup.
But how did he and Amity end up here? It doesn’t seem like enough time has passed for him to have picked her up at the docks and gotten this close to Donaldsonville. There must be some kind of transportation system in the tunnels, something other than the scooters Cane mentioned.
“What’s happening, Annabelle?” he asks. “We heard—”
“Cane might be in trouble. We need to find him. And there was an explosion.”
“We heard. We—”
“You know this guy?” Tucker interrupts, stepping closer, gun trained on the faces peering down at us.
“Abe Cooper. Cane’s big brother. He’s on the Donaldsonville police force.”
Tucker’s gun dips. “Can we trust him?”
“Of course,” I say, hoping I’m telling the truth.
“Good.” Tucker’s hand comes to my waist. “Let’s lift you up there and—”
“No,
I’m not going without you and Hitch.” I shoo his hand away.
“I’ll lift him up, too,” he says. “He’s scrawny enough.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Then you’ll have no one to lift you, and it’s too far to jump.” I look up again, surveying the slick sides of the hole. Even if Tucker reaches the opening, there’s nothing to hold on to. His hands will slip right off the sides. “We need a rope or—”
“Bring a rope!” Abe shouts over his shoulder, my request spurring him into action. He’s going to help us. Thank god. I really didn’t want to add another name to the betrayal list. “There are people down here! We need to get them out before this area is compromised.”
“I won’t comprise with you.” Amity shrugs his hand off her back. “You can’t have none of my pussy.”
Abe turns back to her. “Amity, please. It’s your brother, Abe. You knew me just a few minutes ago. You remember?”
“Abe,” she repeats in a listless voice.
“Yes,” he says gently. “Your brother.”
“Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. But he can’t help us now.” Amity starts to shiver, though the air is hot and thickening with smoke. The explosions must have caused a fire, one that’s filling the air with an acrid, toxic smell.
“There were chemicals down here, Abe,” I say. “They might be on fire. We need to—”
“I hear you.” He calls more urgently to whoever’s behind him. “Where’s the rope? There’s a chemical fire, we need to evacuate.” I hear some faint mumbling, but can’t understand what the person is saying. Abe must be able to, however. His forehead bunches and he shouts in his best police captain voice, “I don’t care about the damned goats.”
Goats?
I decide not to ask.
“Let the goats go, we’ve got people down here.” Abe sighs and lifts a hand in the air. “Just a second, Anna-belle. We’ll get y’all out. Then you can tell me what’s happened to Cane.”
“Thanks, Abe.” He disappears into the darkness. I wish I could feel relieved. But the smoke and the devil smell creeping into the room are only getting worse.
