“Wait,” Darian says. His hand forms a curved shape as though it’s cupped around an invisible source.
I gasp. “You found it?”
A clanking of metal sounds in the distance, and I sense the fighter bots moving in.
Darian utters a curse. His arm moves up and down in jerky motions, and I can tell he’s tugging up on something. “I’ve got the handle, but it’s stuck and I hear the fighter bots coming!”
I peek around the rising and falling white legs of the horses on the carousel. Tall, silver bots that have glowing red laser beams for eyes leap out from the Jugg U Lar circus tent. They march in fluid motion one after the other until they form a straight line.
I lick my parched lips and shoot a glance over my shoulder at Darian. He’s still tugging on the handle.
The bots spread out like ants. I cover my mouth to contain my scream, then turn back to Darian.
“Let me help—”
Darian shakes his head, “No, I got this,” he says, calm yet forceful. I’m instantly reminded of how he was as a kid—how he’s always been—the guy who wants to protect me more than anything, like the mythical hero who comes to the rescue. Except Darian isn’t a myth—he’s beauty, strength, courage, and something else that I can’t put into words—something that makes my insides feel differently than ever before.
Darian crouches low and places both of his hands around the handle. He tugs backward with a low growl.
Pop.
Darian stumbles, but doesn’t let go. He shifts his arm up as if he’s pulling open the invisible door. Then he lowers his hand over to the right and all the way down, resting what I figure is the door flap onto the floor of the carousel.
My gaze leaps to the now gaping hole in the ride and the staircase that descends below it.
“Let’s go, sunshine,” Darian says, and grins, extending his hand.
I scrabble down the stairs, ducking my head under the steel floor of the carousel. The reverberation of mechanical machinery-like furnaces and air conditioning units rumble in my ears. A box that looks like it’s filled with tools sits near the bottom of the staircase, but otherwise the basement of the building is empty.
Darian follows, and I turn to wait for him as he stretches up to grab the trap door again. He begins to pull it over us just as a fighter bot jumps onto the edge of the carousel with a loud thump. My stomach flips and I clasp my hand over my mouth to mute my gasp.
The fighter bot, which looks eerily humanoid, stands with its back to us. The curve of its metal is sculpted into a mass of muscles. As it slowly turns its head to the side, searching the area, its laser eyes light up one of the horses in a glow of red.
I want to tell Darian to hurry and close the trap door before it sees us, but if I talk, the bot will hear me, too.
We’re dead, I think. I’m so full of fear that it’s worse than any nightmare I could have ever imagined. It fills me with a nausea that cuts through me like a razor blade.
And just when the bot starts to twist around and I think it’s going to catch us, Darian finally eases the trap door closed with a soft click.
It’s like a tranquilizer has been injected into my veins, removing the buzzing adrenaline coursing through me all at once. I collapse against the stairs, breathless.
Darian sits on the step beside me, runs a hand over the back of my head and down my hair. “Come on, babe,” he whispers. “We’re not free yet. We still have to get out of the building.”
I nod and begin to lift my head, the relief of the moment overshadowed by the escalating need to really escape.
But before I can stand up and face Darian, a familiar voice calls out from the bottom of the staircase.
The voice of the man who murdered both of our parents.
Richards.
“And therein lies the problem, Darian,” Richards says, his voice laced with derision.
I twist around and face Richards’s mocking grin, and notice that he’s holding a black revolver. It’s pointed directly at us.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You haven’t gotten out of the building and you never will,” Richards says.
I scramble to my feet. Darian holds his arm out across my chest, then walks the few steps down toward Richards. Darian raises both hands into the air.
“Fine. I’ll make you a deal,” Darian says in a surprisingly even tone. “Take me and I’ll stay here forever without a fight, but you have to let Desiree go.”
I pad down the steps. Oh, hell to the no. There’s no way I’m letting Darian sacrifice himself for me.
Darian edges closer to Richards.
Richards laughs. “I have to let Desiree go?” He snickers. “You seem to forget the fact that I’m the one holding the gun, and…” He strums a finger against a communicator clipped to his belt. “With one tap of this…in comes a whole lot more officials.” Richards sizes up Darian. “You see, after your last jaunt in the infirmary, I didn’t really believe you’d just sit there, knowing full well about the fighter bots. Especially knowing they would come to get you and your little girlfriend here…not unless something was up.” He jabs his gun toward us. “So I had an official stand watch over every exit from the Terrorscape just in case. You just happened to pick the lucky one and got me.”
A muscle twitches in Darian’s jaw and he returns the official’s glare. “Just let her go,” he snarls, inching forward another step. “Who are you trying to kid? It’s me that you want anyway.”
“Let her go?” The official arches an eyebrow. “You know Prime Minister Vega will have none of that. We can’t have a murderess out running through the streets of Tower, now can we?” He mock laughs. “You escaped the last time under my watch. That cost me a month’s salary and a mountain of heat from every angle. For that, I promised myself you would pay.” His face grows steely. “I can assure you that your escaping won’t happen again. And as punishment for your attempt at such, you will be whipped…but first, Darian, you get to watch the pretty one get her lashes.”
My eyes fly open, looking from Darian to Richards. An image of Coral’s back and her whip marks flashes in my mind, and I wonder if she tried escaping, and if the whipping was her punishment, too. Rage thrashes inside me and my palms tingle with sweat. I wrap my hands around my elbows, weighing my options.
My gaze drifts to the toolbox on the far side of Richards. I wonder if I can move fast enough to grab a heavy tool before he notices and shoots me.
But before I can make a move, Darian lunges forward with a growl. A blast of the gun rings out. For a second, terror spikes my bloodstream. But then I see Darian struggling with Richards, rolling on the ground in a ball of arms and legs. There’s no blood.
Darian whips Richards around onto his back, straddles him, and fights to get the gun still gripped in the official’s hand.
If the gun goes off now, it will blow Darian’s head off. My whole body goes ice cold. But somehow I race to the toolbox and look for something I can hit Richards with.
Then I spot it—something better than a tool—the Taser rod.
Richards must have brought his favorite accessory with him and laid it against the boiler.
I dash forward and grab it as grunts and groans continue behind me.
I whip around and the gun’s just inches from Darian’s face. I flip the Taser rod on and it buzzes to life. “Watch out, Darian!” I shriek, bolting toward them.
Darian eyes widen as I race toward them with the Taser rod. He rolls off of Richards and lands with a hard whack.
In one swift movement I kick the gun out of a stunned Richards’s hand and jab the Taser rod into his side and twist. His body convulses in a wave of spasms.
“That’s for my parents,” I yell. “And for Darian’s parents, too!”
I’m blind with anger as the image of my parents’ lifeless bodies runs through my mind. Rage and grief rush through me like a violent river until I’m gritting my teeth, digging the rod into his rib cage harder, and heated tears floo
d down my cheeks.
Darian places a soft hand on my arm. “Rae? You can stop now.”
It takes a second, but I’m brought back to reality. I blink. Foam oozes out of Richards’s mouth. I turn off the Taser rod.
Darian leans down and feels for the official’s pulse. “He’s still alive, but he’ll be out for a while.” With a smirk, he then holds up a box cutter. He slides the blade out. “But I’m gonna make sure this douchebag will never forget what he did.”
My eyes widen, but before I get a chance to ask Darian what he means, he drops to a crouch beside the official.
“But first this.” In a sawing motion, Darian hacks off Richards’s ponytail, holds up the black hair, and drops it onto the official’s chest with a low growl. Then Darian leans forward, breathing hard, and holds the blade over Richards’s head.
All I can think is that Darian is about to kill the guy and, honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I never thought I could kill anyone, but right now I’m very tempted—which scares the hell out of me. “What are you doing?”
Darian glances over his shoulder, meeting my gaze. “Making sure the murderer never forgets what he did. He killed both of our parents, Rae. I’m going to carve the letter M into his forehead. For them, you know. He’s just lucky I’m leaving him breathing.”
I place a trembling hand on Darian’s shoulder. “No, Darian, please don’t.”
I don’t know why I care about cutting Richards, God knows he deserves it, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. “We better go,” I say, squeezing Darian’s shoulder, feeling more than a little freaked out and worried other officials will soon show up.
Darian inhales deeply, sighs, and stands up with a growl. “Fine.” He slides an arm around my shoulder protectively and draws me against his warm body. When I look up at him, the tightness in his face softens and his lips tug up on one side. He leans over and wipes the tears from my eyes. “You did good, sunshine. Now let’s get away from Tower completely—you and me.”
I nod and force a smile, even though my pulse is still all over the place, fueled by anger, hurt, and fear. I tuck the Taser rod underneath the elastic at the back of my pants while Darian snatches Richards’s gun and does the same.
We hurry out of the mechanical room and through a doorframe into a corridor. The ceiling is so low that Darian has to crouch a little so he doesn’t bang his head.
There aren’t any doors on either side of the long, dim passage. When we reach the door at the end of the hall, Darian eases down on the bar that slides across the door, and it creaks open.
A fresh blast of cool air blows in, and I know right away that we’re at the back of Olympus Jail. There’s a tall fence at the end of the paved courtyard and, beyond that, a forest.
I wonder if Asher told us to go to the trap door under the carousel because he knew it would lead us to this exit, and that maybe we could make an easier escape. I still don’t understand why Asher is helping us, but right now I’m infinitely grateful.
After we step outside and close the door behind us again, I notice the night sky. It’s dark in the courtyard with only the full moon lighting up the night. The rain makes metallic pinging sounds against the steel roof of the building, and the scent of wet leaves and earth fills my nose.
After I check to make sure nobody is close by, I tilt my head back and stick my tongue out, letting the cool rain wash over me and wet my sandpaper-dry mouth. With the heat in the Terrorscape’s amphitheatre, I’d forgotten about the cool, fall temperatures coming down on Tower like a gavel.
Darian tugs me forward. “We have to keep moving. The other officials are gonna notice something odd about the video loop soon, or they’ll figure out that one of their officials is missing.”
“There are probably security cameras everywhere around here,” I say, anxiety creeping into my voice as I search the trees.
“Then we just make a run for it.” Darian shrugs.
I eye the fence about one hundred yards in the distance at the end of the courtyard. It’s at least twenty feet high with a plummeting drop to the forest floor on the other side.
“Let’s go then,” I say, knowing it’s our only chance of escape. I don’t know where we’ll get the strength to make the three-day hike to the Awakened cell, or how we’ll survive the cool temperatures with only the light Olympus Jail uniform. I figure we can stop at a stream and get a drink, but with no food, no Dreamscape machine for sleep, or even a jacket, it seems hopeless. This wasn’t the plan Darian and I had talked about.
Darian takes my hand and gives it two pumps, breaking me out of my trance. “We can do it.” He smiles, as though reading my mind.
“Ready?” he asks.
I swallow and nod.
“Set.”
Darian plants his feet in a runner’s stance and I do the same.
“Go!”
And we’re running toward the fence. My heart is whipping radically in my chest. I’m so scared I think I might pass out. Imaginary gunshots explode in my head as I visualize getting shot in the back. I imagine that somehow the clown has made it out of the Terrorscape and will haunt me forever…that maybe he’s lurking around this corner…or the next.
Ten more steps, I tell myself as the fence draws closer. Then Darian is boosting me onto it. The chain link fence rattles in protest and I swear someone will hear us at any second and sink a bullet into our heads.
Hands, feet, hands, feet, I think, drowning out the nightmare thoughts and ignoring the bites of pain from the steel fence cutting into the soft flesh of my palms. The fear of not getting away takes on a life of its own, threatening to swallow me whole. If I don’t get away, my parents’ death will have been completely for nothing. The Protectorate took Sophia and now my parents. To have them kill me too would be the end of my entire family.
I won’t let them do it. My father’s words echo in my ears. Always remember, Desiree—dream big or go home. Be brave and live life to the fullest.
Today I am brave—for me, for Darian, for my parents…and for my stolen little sister, Sophia. If there’s any chance she’s still alive, I need to escape and find the people who might have the answers.
I reach the top of the fence and swing my legs over. Even though I try to avoid the barbwire that whips out from the top bar like angry teeth, it snags one side of my pants. The sharp wire shreds a piece of fabric and scrapes my leg. Both my leg and my rib cage explode in pain. I bite my lip, forcing back the scream.
Darian huffs. “Hurry, Rae,” he says, as he swings his legs over the fence. He maneuvers around the barbwire and climbs down the other side.
As I’m climbing down, a loud bang sounds from Olympus Jail. I peek through the diamond shapes of the chain-link fence and notice the noise is coming from the door we came through. It has swung open in the wind and now bumps against the steel building in a rhythmical thump, thump, thump.
I gasp, panicked, knowing we secured that door, then miss a step and lose my footing. My body dangles against the side of the now-rattling fence, my weight yanking against my hands. A fresh wave of pain tears through me. I’m in so much pain and the fear of being caught is so intense, I might actually faint.
I struggle to maintain my hold, but know the second I move my feet against the fence it’ll make a clanging sound again. I lift my head with a muted grunt, searching for an official, for someone who came through the door, but I don’t see anyone. My sweaty hands threaten to slide off the fence at any second.
“Jump!” Darian whispers from the ground below me. “I’ll catch you.”
I glance over my shoulder and realize I’m about halfway down. I’m not sure Darian can catch me safely from this height.
Between the rain and the sweat, my hands keep slipping until I’m hanging on by only the tips of my fingers.
“Trust me,” Darian calls in a low voice.
I do.
I take a deep breath and let go.
The cool air whips around me, flinging my hair agai
nst my face.
I land in Darian’s arms with a loud “Oomph.”
Darian stumbles back a step, but grips his arms around my back and underneath the curve of my knees. He carries me into the darkness of the woods. My whole body is a shaking, trembling mass of pain, fear, and relief.
“We made it,” I say through gritted teeth, trying to conceal the pain. And, for the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful. I’m not totally sure we can make it to the Awakened cell, but at least we’re together. And as long as we’re together, I’m optimistic that we can make it through anything.
Darian jogs into the woods a few more steps, laughing under his breath, a deep rumbling sound, and I know he feels it, too. He places me on my feet behind a large cedar, and we both catch our breath.
“Did we really do it?” I ask, grinning. “Did we really break out of Olympus Jail?” I’m filled with equal parts shock and happiness.
Darian chuckles. “Yeah, sunshine. We did.” He tugs me into his arms and I laugh, too, my body shaking as I try to mute the sound. The happiness of the moment seems to dissolve the aching in my body—until I hear twigs cracking and the rustling of tree branches.
We both twist around to meet a straight-faced Asher as he steps out from behind the shadow of a tree. Moonlight illuminates his face. Asher’s usually neat blond hair is tousled, and his eyes are rimmed with dark circles. But most notable is the gun he holds in his trembling hand—that is now directed straight at us.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Step away from her, Darian.” Asher jerks the gun to the right.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Darian steps out, blocking my path. He tugs out Richards’s gun and aims it at Asher.
Asher squints at Darian and keeps his gun raised. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m here to make sure you don’t.”
“Asher…” I say, stepping aside from Darian, and raising my arms high. “What are you doing?” I’m only partially comforted that he said he wasn’t going to hurt me. The fact that he has a gun in his hands doesn’t make me so sure of that, and I’m also worried they’re about to kill each other.
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