“What are you waiting for?” Tank calls again. His hand is stretched long as if he can reach me.
The monster is getting closer, slowly because of its size, but with purpose, like he wants to use me as a palate cleanser after eating that horse. I can shoot it, jump over it, and get to Tank. The Canine will do the same, but will most likely not survive once we seal the manhole. Junks will be upon him in a matter of seconds.
There’s one huge problem, and it’s the reason why I’m hesitating. I can’t be sure he won’t survive unless I stick to the plan. I steady the gun on the Canine. He proceeds forward, not flinching in the least. Until I make him flinch.
I pull the trigger.
The sound of a windstorm rushes out of the gun’s barrel, knocking the Canine backwards. Before his body can hit the ground, I’m placing each hand, downward facing, on the sides of the walls and lifting up. My feet spread too to help push me up toward the ceiling.
I scramble as high as I can go just as the monster and its foul smell reaches me. The creature’s stench burns my nostrils, and my stomach churns, making me gag. It looks up at me, the motion pulling sagging, rotten skin down away from its sickly, yellowed eyes. It attempts to reach me, but it can’t jump, only bounce like an overfilled water balloon. Another roar almost makes me lose my footing; one foot slides off the tunnel’s wall and brushes the top of the creature.
“Careful!” Tank calls.
The monster lets out one more terrible growl then moves on to feast on the Canine, who looks supremely frustrated as he’s still struggling to get up. Several of the Junks have come forward, clawing and snarling at the Canine, but they slink back to the shadows when the creature roars again.
I move to lower myself on the ground, thinking I’m safe, but all of a sudden something whips up over the monster’s face and snaps me on my thigh, tearing open my pants and a good chunk of skin. A second later, the frog-like tongue returns to his mouth. I cry out and fall to the ground.
“Run!” Tank yells.
I scramble to my feet, despite my stinging leg, but the monster doesn’t turn back like I expect. Instead it continues on to the Canine. I limp toward Tank and reach up my arm when I’m beneath him. He pulls me up as if I’m a bucket of water. The last thing I see is the monster tearing into the Canine while Junks snap and snort not far away in hopes of feasting upon a strewn bit of meat. The image is gruesome and stains my mind. It’s not something I’ll easily forget.
Tank sets me to the side and shoves the metal covering back over the manhole. “Why didn’t you shoot that thing?”
It takes a second for my heart to start beating again. “Because I had to be sure the Canine wouldn’t survive.”
“Did you get cut?” Tank asks. He’s looking down at my left leg.
“Not really. That monster whipped me with his tongue, like a frog.” I examine the wound. There’s a long red mark on my lower thigh that’s barely open; a slow drop of blood runs down my leg. It doesn’t look that bad but it sure stings.
“His tongue?” He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Does your leg hurt?”
“Not really. How much farther?”
He turns to his left. “A mile and a half, I think. We can take our time now that we aren’t being tracked.”
“Let’s hurry. I want to get back to Max.” I walk past him in the direction he was looking, trying to even my breathing. If I don’t focus on Max then I’m afraid I might have a panic attack. I’ve never seen so much blood or heard those kind of bone-breaking sounds before. It was so brutal and vicious.
The sting in my leg spreads.
Tank catches up to me. We’re still in some sort of business district, but the buildings here look newer and are well kept. I read their signs, forcing them to memory, every detail. Anything to replace what I just witnessed.
After a few minutes, Tank asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m not used to seeing such brutality.” I want to say more. That what I have witnessed the last several days has created a darkness inside me that’s threatening to suffocate my heart. No wonder Primes choose not to feel.
Tank rounds a corner at a small diner. Only a man and woman sit inside, six booths apart. They don’t look at us as we pass.
“This is a hard world to live in if you aren’t used to it,” Tank says.
Despite the late hour there are several people walking the streets, looking as if they don’t know which way to go. Just wandering aimlessly, too afraid to go home to a place where no one feels emotions, where no one loves. Or maybe that’s just how I see them.
“But is anyone really living?” I ask. “Life should be about making connections with others, learning to love them to the point where you would sacrifice your own desires for even a moment to make that person happy.”
He doesn’t say anything, only continues on, pulling further away from me. I limp to catch up to him. My left leg is on fire and becoming useless. I rub my palm against it, willing it to get better.
“No one thinks like you,” Tank finally says. He’s staring straight ahead, appearing to be deep in thought.
“That could be a good thing,” I say. The strained sound of my voice smothers my attempt at humor.
Tank turns around. “Why are you limping? Is it the cut?”
I rub at my leg again, but even as I do so, the invisible flames spread to my other side. “Something’s wrong. My leg’s burning and it’s getting difficult to walk.”
Tanks drops to his knees and examines the wound. I don’t look with him. His concerned expression is enough for me to know that there’s something seriously wrong.
“You’ve been poisoned.”
“Do we have anything for it?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know what ‘it’ is. The creature was nothing I’ve ever seen before.” He straightens. “We better hurry and get you to your father. He’s probably the only one who can help you now. Think you can run?”
“I’ll try.”
“This way. We’re almost there.” He darts into a nearby alleyway, away from prying eyes, and jogs fast.
I sort of keep up by doing a weird skipping motion, but then something happens. The burning sensation changes to an all-out inferno on the bottom half of my body, and I cry out. Tank turns back while I collapse to the ground, unable to take the pain any longer, and shove the back of my hand into my mouth to keep from screaming.
“Hold on, Sage,” he says and scoops me up into his arms.
He runs fast, turning corners and jumping over fences. I try to pay attention to where he’s going but the searing heat has moved to my abdomen. I scream and bite into the flesh on my arm. My eyes squeeze tightly shut.
When I manage to open them, Tank is tapping his finger into a specific pattern upon the circular image of Eden’s tree that’s etched into the side of a three-story metal building. A moment later a door appears when a section of the building sinks backwards.
Tank steps across the threshold just as I stifle another scream. The burning sensation reaches my arms, rendering them as useless as my legs, not because they’ve gone limp but because every muscle is flexed tight, only adding to my misery. Tank is running up a staircase past several voices that are calling out to him.
When the pain reaches my chest, I can no longer hold in my terror. Never have I felt such pain! “Help me! Please! Tank!”
My screams come one on top of the other until I can barely catch my breath. Tank hurries into a room and shouts, but I can’t hear him. Holding me with one arm, he uses his other to swipe books, papers, and a lamp off a desk and sets me on its top. My legs are extended, feet and toes curled tight, but my arms are twisted unnaturally to my chest, cramped muscles deciding their position.
My lungs still burn but the fire reaches my vocal cords, shutting off any sounds I was making. All I can do now is gasp for air. I thrash my head back and forth. A few people I don’t recognize look me over. Tank disappears through a door, leaving me alone with stra
ngers.
“Don’t go!” I say, but it’s only my mind calling out to him. Meaningless, desperate thoughts in a world that seems to have none, unless they involve self-preservation.
Hot tears add to my burning pain. I blink through them, staring at the empty doorway and sucking in quick short breaths.
The two men in the room are talking about my leg.
“Never seen a wound like this.”
“It’s clearly poison.”
“There’s no way we have an antidote for something like this. It’s a shame we have to lose an Original this way.”
“Hush, you two,” a woman with short blond hair says. “The girl can hear you.”
The room goes quiet. I wish they were still talking. Their voices, no matter what they were saying, were a slight distraction from the inferno tearing through my body like a fire across a dry forest. I think of my brother and father. Are they here? This has got to be the location for HOPE that Tank was talking about. Then where are they? Maybe something happened to Colt and the others. Maybe the Institute found Max.
These thoughts on top of my pain are more than I can bear. I’m about to close my eyes when I catch movement in the doorway. It’s Colt, but it’s not how I expect to see him. He’s coming in on an electrically assisted chair. His black hair is disheveled and one of his eyes is dark purple and swollen. How did that happen? And why isn’t he walking?
Our eyes meet.
“Slow your breathing,” the woman says to me. “Deep breaths.”
I don’t know what Colt sees in my eyes, but despite being in obvious pain, he struggles to get out of the chair. He almost falls but catches himself on the arm of the chair. He forces a smile and limps to my side.
“You look worse than I do,” he says and smiles.
I’m hurting too bad to smile back. Tears run down the sides of my face as I fight for every breath.
“Sage!” a familiar voice calls from beyond the doorway. A second later my father, who I haven’t seen in over a month, appears at my side. He looks me up and down and then smooths my hair. “Hold on, Sage.”
I have mixed feelings about seeing him. Part of me is angry that he lied to me about so many things, like what he was doing all those times he disappeared. The other half of me wants to bury myself in his arms. I can let go now. He’s here and will take care of everything.
My father addresses the others. “What do we have, Dex?”
Dex, a man whose head is mostly shaved except for a long ponytail that’s both black and blue, says, “A laceration on her thigh. Whatever cut her was laced with poison and it’s spreading fast. I’m not sure we can stop it without knowing what it was that poisoned her.”
“I know what it was,” my father says. “Get me the vial labeled EN437 from the back of the freezer. Heat it to room temperature and bring me the biggest needle you’ve got.”
He stares down at me. His face looks the same as when I last saw him, but there’s something different. I wish I could figure out what, but the pain radiating across my body keeps me from thinking beyond the surface. He speaks fast, more to the others than me, something about keeping my circulation going.
I don’t hear all of it because Colt is speaking in my ear.
“I’m so sorry I left you. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if,” he pauses. His face is pale and sweat dots his forehead. “I went with you instead of Tank. Max would’ve been fine with him. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I wish I could ease his mind instead of making these silly, quick breathing sounds. I attempt to give him a reassuring look, but I don’t think my face muscles are working anymore so I’m probably staring at him like a frozen corpse. Not reassuring.
My father’s still talking while poking me along my arms as if checking for a good vein.
“Your dad’s not so bad,” Colt says again in my ear. “He’s kind to me when he shouldn’t be. I told him about what I did. I expected him to throw me out, but he didn’t. I don’t understand you Originals. You’ve got me thinking all kinds of crazy thoughts.”
Dex appears near my father holding a vial and a syringe. “It’s ready.”
My father takes the syringe and fills it with purplish liquid from the vial.
Colt whispers, “Max did really well. He went undetected the whole way here thanks to you. The only problem was Jenna talking too much like usual. Even Anthony was ready to boot her, especially when she made us stop so she could buy a pair of shoes.” In his highest voice possible, he says in a mock-Jenna voice, “We’re in New York City! I can’t come here without buying shoes!”
“That’s not how I sound!” a high voice from the doorway says.
I can’t move my head anymore, but my eyes look upward. I can just barely see the top of Jenna’s head.
My father places his hand onto my shoulder and presses the needle to my arm. “This might hurt, but something tells me you won’t mind.”
Before he can inject me, my body spasms suddenly and my eyes roll to the back of my head, taking the light with them.
“She’s seizing! Hold her still!” my father shouts. Hands press down all over my body. “Get that arm! Steady. Good. It’s in.”
I never even felt the sting of the needle.
“Now what?” Jenna’s voice asks.
My body stops shaking, but my eyes remain firmly embedded into the back of my head where the pain doesn’t seem as bad.
“We wait,” my father says.
“Do you think she’s still in pain?” It’s Colt.
They must think I’m unconscious. What I wouldn’t give to be unconscious right now!
“I don’t know.”
“How did you know what to give her?” Jenna asks.
The room is silent for what feels like a very long time, especially to someone like me. Pain is never patient.
“I’ve been through those tunnels more times than I’d like to admit. One time when Benton, my old lab partner, and I were going through them, the same creature that attacked Sage tonight attacked us. I barely got away but only because Benton sacrificed himself.” His voice is pained, a sound I’ve only heard when he would speak about my mother. “I saw how the thing killed him and knew it was through poison. Several hours later I returned to the spot and managed to get a tissue sample on what was left of Benton’s body. Through it, I was able to isolate the toxin and come up with an antidote.”
“But what was it?” Jenna asks. “And are there a lot of them?”
“Three at least that I’ve seen. As far as I can tell they are genetically mutated Junks, which doesn’t make sense because where would Junks get new pDNA injections?”
“Someone’s doing it to them,” Colt says and the room goes quiet. “Probably the Institute.”
Footsteps come into the room. “How is she?” Tank’s voice.
“I think she’ll make it. How’s Max?”
“He’s staring at a clock on the wall,” Anthony’s voice says. “I tried getting him to do something else, but he won’t budge.”
Max. My heart aches to see him. I need this poison out of me so I can go to him. He’s probably so nervous by everything that’s happened that he’s retreated into his mind, to a place that’s far better than this world. Sometimes I wish he could take me there too.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tank asks.
“She could’ve died out there,” Colt says. “Why would you ever concoct a plan that put her in such danger?”
“It was Sage’s plan, not mine. I tried to talk her out of it, but she was determined to get the Canine off her back. She was afraid he would track her here and she was probably right.”
“None of that matters now,” Anthony says. “Let Sage rest. She’s going to wake soon and then we’re going to have to leave this place. Just because the Canine isn’t tracking her anymore doesn’t mean the Institute has given up. Let’s go. We have a lot to plan.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Colt says.
“No. I’ll st
ay with her.” My father’s voice is firm.
“Right. Okay.” Colt stands. I can tell by the sound of his movements that it takes him great effort. He must’ve had another seizure. After a few seconds, the whirling sound of his chair leaves the room.
My father doesn’t say anything, but his hand presses against mine. After several minutes of silence I fall asleep.
I dream of monsters. Deformed, hairless, with teeth the size of railroad spikes. They are tearing through the flesh and bones of a body, the first of many. A long line of humans, standing erect, each waits their turn to be feasted upon. Their eyes are open, yet they don’t run.
After each ravaged body, the monsters glance back at me as if to make sure I’m watching. No matter how hard I try, I can’t look away. The blood of their victims runs together and pools at my feet, rising higher and higher until I’m almost drowning. When the copper-smelling blood reaches my lips, pours into my mouth, my eyelids snap open and I sit up screaming.
“Whoa! Calm down. You’re safe.”
The room is dark and warm. I don’t think it’s the same room Tank brought me into earlier. I’m lying on a hard cot pressed against a wall. A lamp is in the corner of the room, turned on a dim setting. There’s a table . . . my eyes narrow. Maybe this is the same room I was in. The table is the same length as me, but there are books and papers back on its top. There’s no window, which bothers me. I really want to see the moonlight. I want to know there’s light out there away from the dark images carved into my mind like a branding.
“Lay back,” my father says. He helps lower me onto a pillow. “How are you feeling?”
I turn my head and stare at him, at the scruff on his face, at the deep lines etched into the corners of his eyes, at the way he is looking at me in the same way he looked at my mother. I throw my arms around his neck.
He squeezes me back. “I’ve been so worried about you. I just kept praying that you’d remember your training.”
My body tenses, and all the nostalgia I was just experiencing turns rotten at the mention of what the last several years of my life have been like. I let him go and drop back to the pillow. I can’t hide the bitterness in my next words. “You taught me well.”
Escape to Eden Page 25
