“He did tell us. Probably a lot of other people, too. Take it up with him tomorrow, and make sure you mention the lemon squares. Now, get out.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got prep to do for the morning. You two get out, or I’ll get a guard in here faster—”
“Come back in an hour,” interrupts Wren. His voice is heavy, and he steps around me so the man can see him clearly. More accurately, so the man can see the gun he still holds by his side.
The man’s eyes round slightly, and then he wipes his hands on his apron, pulls it over his head, and drops it on the cutting board. “Hunter’s going to hear about this,” he mutters as he pushes out the door.
“Perfect,” I say once he is gone.
“Lemon squares. Aren’t they your favorite?”
“Yep. Consider it a calling card. So, before I forget to ask—are you going to tell me how you knew that guard’s name?”
“Grove? He tried to kill you.” Wren shrugs. “I looked him up after the feeding dock.”
I lead him through the kitchen to the storeroom, and I am glad that he can’t see my face, because I can’t stop myself from smiling. We weren’t a couple that day, but still he cared enough to do his homework. The rush of emotion makes my stomach tighten when I think about what is going to happen next. I am going to leave him. Forever.
I give myself a shake and enter the passcode for the storeroom. 11000200.
“It’s different,” Wren says from over my shoulder. “It doesn’t follow the same pattern.”
“It’s an important room.”
“So how do you know it?”
I push the door open before I answer. “I came here, once, with…him. Hunter. A job tour—the only one I went on. Funnily enough, the only reason I went was to try to make amends with him.”
“And?”
“And the leader of the tour took us in here. I made a point of standing close.”
I throw on the lights as Wren closes the door behind us.
“Shit,” he says when he turns.
“I assume you’ve never been.”
“You assume correctly.”
“And you’re telling me that way up there, above the very highest net, there’s a trapdoor into the building that houses the controls for the solar panels.”
“That’s precisely what I’m telling you.”
“And there’s no code or anything stopping me from going outside once I’m up there.”
He shakes his head. “No. There’s a keypad on the outside of the building. 1100061 is the passcode, in case…” He breathes deeply for a second, and I know what he is thinking. In case I change my mind. Then, calmly, he carries on. “There’s nothing on the inside. The trapdoor is an access hatch for tools, not humans.”
I nod and crane my head back. It’s impossible to see much from here. Nothing but net after net slung at intervals all the way to the top of the towering room.
“You aren’t afraid of heights, I hope?”
“Not that I know of.”
He sighs. “Then I guess…I guess this is where I leave you.”
A lump forms in my throat. I don’t want to say goodbye to Wren; I don’t.
I loop my arms around his waist and breathe deeply to keep away the tears. He smells like he always does, and I wish I could take that smell with me aboveground. If I don’t make it to paradise, I would be happy to die with his smell embracing me.
Once I feel like I’m not going to cry, I force myself to smile. Just another conversation with my boyfriend. “What will you do now?” I ask.
He shrugs as he holds me. “Go back upstairs. Sleep like a baby. Shoot some pool in the morning.” He kisses my forehead.
“Very funny. Besides, I didn’t mean right now. I meant…in general.”
It’s a few moments before he responds. “I passed the computer test, so I’ll get whatever position I’d like. And I’ll spend time with my friends. I don’t know. I don’t really want to think about it—life without you.”
I don’t want to think about it, either. It makes me feel physically ill. Like when I realized that Hunter had betrayed me. Except that only hurt in my gut, and this hurts everywhere. “Will you…and Addison…?”
He pulls back and looks at me. His eyes are suddenly hard. “You can’t have it both ways, Eve. You are deciding to leave, and that includes leaving me. I get that you have to do this. I understand it, I do, but you can’t have it both ways.” He sighs and pulls me close again, roughly, so that my cheekbone thumps against his chest. “But to answer your question, no.”
It’s silly, and he’s right, but still I smile. “You smell so good,” I say, and my voice is muffled by his shirt; it is weak with the tightening of the belt looping around my heart.
He laughs softly. “Is that a fact?”
“It is a fact. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
I feel his stillness, and it makes me realize that I said the word. Love. I squeeze my eyes shut so hard that white stars pop through the blackness, but it is the only thing stopping the tears. I breathe in. I breathe out. Enough with the lies, with the secrets. They have clouded the past few months, and now I need to clear my chest, lift this weight. I can do this. I can do this because I am brave and strong and fierce.
When I open my eyes, I see he is watching me.
“Wren.”
“Eve.”
I rest my forehead against his chin. I can’t look him in the eye right now; I can’t. “I’m in…” I breathe. In, out. “I’m in…with you.”
I shake my head. I’m being ridiculous. Of all the things we have been through together, why is it so hard to say one little word?
He pulls his head back, and his hand lands under my chin; he raises it several inches so I am forced to look into those flashing eyes that look like the sun. “I’m in…with you too.”
A quick laugh pushes between my lips, and he catches it with his own. He kisses me, and then we relax into each other’s arms, and I feel like my heart is several times too big for my chest. It feels warm and swollen with happiness. I am not a novelty, not something to laugh about with his Preme friends, not a tool for revenge against his mother. His feelings, like mine, are true. But after seconds pass, then minutes, the significance of what is about to happen sinks further and further through the layers of my skin until it strikes at my heart. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. “Don’t let go of me just yet,” I say as soon as his grip loosens, and he obliges.
But finally the clock runs out.
“It’s time, Eve,” he whispers. I nod. He lets go of me, and I feel cold and exposed without his embrace. When I look into his eyes, I am surprised to see they are slippery with emotion.
He takes a step toward the door, and I swallow. I don’t want him to go. Another step. I feel like something is sitting on my chest, and it is a weight I can’t sustain. Another. I am going to be crushed by this weight, smashed into particles at any second. But when he reaches the door, he forces a smile, and seeing his final act of strength makes me strong, too.
This is my destiny. It is time to get a grip.
“Enjoy your freedom, Eve.”
All I can do is nod.
He turns and is halfway through the door when I lunge forward and grab him by the arm. My voice rings through the silence. “If you ever doubt yourself again, remember you made a very miserable girl very happy. Please. Please carry that with you.”
He looks at me, and then the sun in his eyes disappears, and I shut mine quickly. He grabs my hand and squeezes it.
He squeezes it so hard it hurts, and then he is gone.
He is gone, and I am alone.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I stare at the door with only my beating heart as company. The sadness I feel right now is unbearable. It hurts a thousand time
s worse than I imagined it would, like I am being crushed from above and below and either side. It is terrifying.
So I look at the ceiling, and then my eyes comb the walls for the nearest ladder. I need something to distract myself from the feeling that sits inside my chest like a poisonous lump, and climbing to the top of the storeroom is just that.
Deep breath, in and out.
The closest ladder is attached to the wall near the corner, and I walk there on unsteady feet. My fingers curl slowly around cool metal. Silver has given way to tarnished gold on either side of each rung, and it comforts me, this. I am not the first person to climb this ladder, and I won’t be the last.
But I will be the first person to climb it for the purpose of going aboveground. My nerves tingle with a blush of excitement, and the lump in my chest shrinks ever so slightly. Soon I will occupy the same space that Jack occupied—maybe still does. Soon I will taste freedom. That is what I need to focus on right now. Not him.
Not him.
I pass by net after net after net, all slung at three-foot intervals. Goods litter each one, but I don’t turn to examine them; my only goal right now is to reach the top.
The nets themselves are constructed of rope, coarse and sturdy, and they fasten to the corners of the room through thick hoops of metal. If I stick my leg out behind me right now, or maybe even my arm, I could touch one.
I don’t want to do that, though. Right now I am a single story up, no more, and already my heart is thumping harder than it normally would. My muscles are beginning to ache from the effort, and if I waste too much time, they will tire.
When I am halfway to the top, I look down. Panic floods me like liquid lead; if I fall now, I will die. The thought makes my palms wet, and so I close my eyes and wait for my pulse to slow. Sweaty hands will slip. I need to relax, or this will end badly. Very badly.
I need to think of something else. Anything else.
Hunter. He will be in trouble with his soon-to-be colleagues, and this thought alone makes me distracted enough that I smile. And he will see that the lock on my door is gone in the morning and that I am, too, and my smile grows. He didn’t win. I did.
I wipe my hands one by one and continue to climb.
Next I think about my parents. The fact that I didn’t say goodbye weighs on me. Not much, no, but it is there. A remnant of guilt—one I didn’t want to carry with me aboveground. But who am I kidding. I am choosing to be selfish by the very act of going, and saying goodbye to my parents wouldn’t alleviate that, because they wouldn’t accept it.
Or maybe they would. Maybe when I spoke with my mother that day she fed the Noms, she was giving me her blessing to do whatever selfish act I wanted. Maybe she can find it in her heart to make peace with my decision. After all, if there’s any chance of her children reuniting, side by side, just like she used to sing, this is something I must do.
Now I am three-quarters of the way there. Breathing is becoming difficult because my heart beats so quickly, and everywhere my skin is tacky. I am fearful, yes, but there is also something exhilarating about being so high, doing something completely new.
What would Maggie say if she could see me right now? She would be shrieking at me to get down but cheering me to go higher. I smile, and my boot lifts to the next rung of the ladder.
I wonder what Wren will tell her. Whether he will let her think I have gone to Compound Ten or if he will tell her the truth. That I craved freedom, and, thanks to him, I got it.
I wonder if he will tell her that I am likely dead.
Because by the time the morning comes, I could be.
I shudder, and my boot doesn’t land firmly on the next rung; it grazes the edge, and I slip. The ticking of my heart is replaced by thick, meaty thumps in my throat as my fingers snatch around metal, as my feet scramble for position.
It was a careless mistake—one I can’t afford to make again. I swear under my breath.
Now my heart is beating much too quickly, and when I lift a hand to wipe it on my jeans, I see it is shaking. It shakes so deeply, it must be controlled by a mind that isn’t my own. Okay. Okay, I could climb onto the nearest net and wait for my heart to slow, wait for my palms to dry, or I could force myself to keep climbing, to not worry about the danger that presents itself with each and every step.
I bag up my fear, and I set it aside. Up and up and up, until just ten rungs separate me from the top of the storeroom.
Seven rungs, and I will stand inches below the earth’s crust.
Five.
I climb quicker now.
Two.
I am almost there.
One.
The top of the ladder—the top of the storeroom. If I reach up, my fingertips will graze the ceiling. If I look down, I will vomit on the floor below.
Every muscle in my body is clenched, rigid and taut. The joints in my fingers scream with pain; they have been forced into position for too long—I am asking too much of them.
I will my left hand to open.
It does, but slowly, and it moves sideways on an uneven trajectory until it wraps around the thick girth of rope that leads to the highest net. A shiver of excitement courses through my veins as my boot lifts from the ladder. Another breath, in and out. I tremble and shake and push off with my leg and let go of the ladder completely.
Okay.
All I must do is shuffle along the ropes until I am in front of the nets. Except it occurs to me as I do that I am suspended in midair, that a great bubble of space separates me from the floor—the same one that usually runs directly under my boot.
The idea makes a bite of laughter rattle my tongue.
I inch left, again and again, until the nets are in front of me. Three of them: the one my boots stand on, the one my hip bone digs into, and the one that my hands grip. It is the latter one I care about. My eyes comb it greedily, and I notice that it holds very little compared to the rest of the nets—a small pile of metal in the very center and nothing more. Slowly, my gaze lifts.
Carved in the shape of a perfect square is a small trapdoor. I stare at it, and a smile spreads across my mouth, exposes my teeth. I’m not even sure I believed it was there, until now. The only problem is that the net is slung directly below it; there is barely any room for me to crawl over and up.
I will figure out a way onto it, I will, but first I must rest. Carefully, I draw one leg up, then the other, so that I sit on the edge of the second-highest net in the storeroom, and before thinking about it I twist so that I lie down, so that I give my arms a much-needed reprieve. I catch my breath; I rub my muscles. Then I am still, and all I can think about is the feeling of Wren squeezing my hand, of the look on his face when we forever parted ways.
The trembling in my muscles is replaced by overwhelming sadness.
So I stir; I draw myself back to the edge of the net, back to where my pulse races. It is better this way. Because here, I need to focus. I need to focus on getting to the net above me.
A simple task, except completing it will be anything but easy.
I am much too close to the ceiling to stand. The only way for me to hook my boot onto the top net is to let my arms carry my weight. But my arms are tired from being held over my head for the past ten minutes—blood isn’t flowing to my muscles as it should, and they protest loudly at the idea. I don’t like it, either, but there’s no alternative.
I string one arm through the top net and clench my other hand around it to lock it in place. I let my weight fall, then lift both my legs and hook them around. I am nauseous and cold, yet a new padding of sweat spreads across my skin.
So close. I am so close. I just need to swing my body up, and I will have done it. Soon, Eve. Because right now I can see the floor so many feet below me, and it makes my stomach lunge. Because right now my arm is beginning to ache, and if I don’t act now, I will fall.
My abs contract, and I shift my weight up, my legs straightening to lock in my progress. Every muscle in my body is engaged, and my breathing is shallow. I am perfectly horizontal, hugging the edge of the top net in the storeroom. So close. I am so close.
I lunge upward once again, and this time my arm that serves as a lock lets go. It reaches around, desperate to grab the top of the net.
It is an error.
I lose my balance. I fall. I scream. Then my left hand snatches closed, and it is around rope.
The only thing standing between me and death. I taste something acidic at the back of my throat. Vomit.
My feet are kicking, desperate to latch onto something, desperate to give my fingers a break, to save myself. I didn’t realize how desperate I was to live until now. At first I screamed, but now I sob. I think of my family and friends, and I think about Wren. I want them all, and I love them all. I picture their faces, I imagine their embraces, and my limbs grow still.
Focus.
I need to curl my left arm, to use every last ounce of strength to bend it, to draw my body up to a spot where my right hand can reach the net. That is step one. I can accomplish step one. Already, my arm throbs, but it is my only chance, and so I force my sob to turn into a grunt, and I pull, I pull, I pull.
An inch, and another, and finally the fingers of my right hand curl over rope, and now two limbs hold me from falling to my death.
Now for the final test of strength. One leg springs up and hooks around the top net, and I use the strength in this leg to wrestle the rest of my body weight up and up and up, and now my hands reach deeper onto the net, and I am on, I am on, I am on.
I roll until my back digs into metal, and I breathe deeply and laugh; I let out a shriek.
I did it.
I just about died, but I will live another minute. I will taste freedom after all.
It was strange, though. When I almost fell, I didn’t want to go. I was scared of death, scared of the unknown.
Escaping Eleven (Eleven Trilogy) Page 32
