by Angela White
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tears
“In the dark of night, the wildcard flipped.”
1
“It comes.”
Marc smothered the chill, glancing up at the doorway to the empty brig. “What?”
Now wearing the same clothes as their hosts, Natoli and his men had kept to themselves while being locked in the mountain. Other than the day they handled the train people, Marc hadn’t glimpsed them the entire time. He’d assumed the Indians were practicing their natural skills and avoiding possible trouble with the camp members. Marc had been surprised they’d returned the night of Angela’s fight with Vlad.
“Get to her. It comes.” Natoli marched from the doorway, moving fast.
Behind him, the hall was littered with people walking through the cave to get ready for sleep.
“Hey!” Marc went to the hall, noting Adrian’s ugly head peeking out of the shower entrance. “What is it?”
Natoli didn’t stop in his quick march toward the rear of this level. “Death.”
“For who?” Adrian shouted angrily.
“For all of us, Adrian Mitchel,” Natoli called back. “But especially for those you love.”
Marc and Adrian immediately thought of Angela and took off running.
Fucking assassins! Marc swore furiously. I’m piking this one. I don’t care if it is inside with us. I’m piking it and then I’ll make every camp member walk by it!
Adrian understood Marc’s outrage, but he didn’t believe Marc’s Indian friend would have come to him if there were an assassin with Angela. The Indian would have saved her first, and then reported it. Natoli and his men truly were Shadow Warriors in Adrian’s opinion. The two that had been following him around the cave had blended in to the stone and citizens perfectly. If not for their occasional reflections on something he was doing, Adrian wouldn’t have known the braves were there.
Marc slid down the ladder, using the metal, outer part of the rail to avoid splinters. He hurried toward the medical bay, frowning at all the calm chatter and relaxed people moving through the corridors. It didn’t feel like there was a threat here.
He drew attention when he pulled his gun and slipped into the dark medical bay entrance. People ran to be out of the crossfire.
The guards on the ladder and detention center observed nervously from their posts, not sure what to do since Marc hadn’t waved them over.
“Where is she?!” Marc’s shout brought them on a run.
The doctor and his students quacked unhelpfully about how Angela never slept here anymore and barely spent time here and why didn’t he already know that.
“Find Greg!” Marc ordered. “He’s her shadow.”
The small group of men spread out as Marc used his grid to search for Angie. She’d been in the bottom level earlier… “She still is!”
Maybe she needed help all of this time, he scolded himself. When Julia came, I should have gone to her then.
Maybe, Adrian told him, but she isn’t scared.
You can feel her emotions?! Why didn’t you tell me that?!
Adrian stayed on Marc’s heels but he didn’t answer the question. “She’s sad right now. Incredibly sad.”
Marc realized Angela might be the danger from herself and increased his pace. Don’t do it, baby-cakes! Please don’t do this.
2
“Come on!”
“We’re in trouble already!” Tracy protested, but she let Charlie drag her from the living quarters where they’d been grounded and then pull her toward a storage hall. She didn’t realize that her usual fear of the dark had been replaced with annoyance. “We’re gonna get put in the brig this time.”
Charlie ran faster, heart beating wildly. “Hurry!”
Tracy got the idea that something was wrong and stopped resisting. She kept pace with him, but he didn’t release the death grip on her wrist.
“What is it?” she asked, getting scared.
“I don’t know,” Charlie muttered. “I can’t see yet.” He jerked her into the pitch-black crevice as a loud crunching noise sounded through the cavern. It was as if every radio had switched on at once and then shut right off.
Tracy let Charlie put her into the washroom where pile after pile of dirty laundry waited for the washing crews.
“What are–”
“Sh…”
“But we should tell your dad,” Tracy protested.
Charlie placed himself between her and the exit. “He’s sensing it. He’ll get to my mom.”
“Is it more assassins?”
Charlie struggled to force the barrier open in his mind, wanting to warn people but he couldn’t because he didn’t know what the problem was. He’d never felt anything like it. The sense of death hadn’t been this thick even when they were fighting Donner and people were dying daily.
“Stay close to me,” Charlie ordered.
Tracy was suddenly terrified. She came forward to wrap her arms around his lean hips. She rested her cheek against his stiff shoulder, shivering as a thick sensation of doom swept over her. “We’re not all coming out of this one, are we?” she asked, voice breaking.
“I don’t think so,” he gasped, finally getting a clear glimpse of the future that was barreling towards them from the west. “But you will!”
Charlie spun around and shoved her into a pile of the clothes. He fell on top of her, locking their mouths and their minds. Come fly with me. Neither of us needs this memory.
Tracy responded eagerly, not ready to face another horror in the darkness. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him bury them in the clothes on the floor and the thick, protective fog that was filling his powerful mind.
Around the couple, Natoli and his men were doing much the same. They hadn’t been noticed by Charlie and Tracy. They were already under the piles of coats and shirts and pants, mentally chanting rings of protection in hopes of surviving what shouldn’t be survivable.
3
“Come here!” Angela ordered. “Hurry!”
She and Cody slid into the farthest corner of the storage crevice as the stone began to shake. She shielded the child with as much of her body as she could, crooning to him when he began to cry.
Dust and dirt fell from the walls and ceiling as the stone started to vibrate. The tremors they’d had before had been light and short, but everyone knew this was different from the instant it began. The sound was harder, thicker, deeper in the ground.
The mountain around them groaned as the tremor increased. Pictures rattled from walls and dishes slid from shelves. Cabinets fell over, crashing to the floor, spraying people with shrapnel.
Lights flickered as the rock shifted, snapping power cords that sent darkness through sections of the cave. Startled cries began to echo from every level.
Marc had one concern. He flew through the tunnels, shoving by people to reach the ladder. He had no words to calm his herd in this moment. There weren’t any.
“Get to Angie!” Marc shouted, voice distorted as he and Adrian had met at the ladder.
Adrian, still layered in paint, was shaken off his feet as the rumbling thickened, but he used the motion to swing onto the ladder. He gripped it lightly, letting his body weight carry him swiftly to the bottom. Ignoring the wooden splinters in his palms, he landed in a heap, arm coming up as part of the wall fell.
Marc leapt over the debris pile, zigzagging through falling rocks and dirt to reach the storage area. As he got there, Adrian appeared, covered in dirt.
“Blocked!” Marc shouted, shining the light on his belt as dust fell on them.
Adrian would have gone forward to start digging a hole into the storage chamber, but Marc pulled him back as another part of the wall collapsed and piled up where Adrian had been standing. Waves of dust from the impact slammed into the men, coating them in filth and cuts from tiny shrapnel.
The ceiling right above them cracked from the violent shaking and gave way.
Adrian tried to shove Ma
rc clear, but it wasn’t far enough. Both men were coated in falling rock and debris.
Coming from the bathroom next door, Greg hurried toward the fallen men.
Clumsily climbing down the ladder to reach the bottom tunnel, Julia lost her balance and slipped, falling straight down.
Above her, the third level crumbled. It slammed into the bottom floor, crushing anyone who wasn’t under a ledge or another strong shelter. Pieces of the radio chamber and security area fell in front of the storage room, blocking it further.
In the rear of the crevice, Angela held the boy tighter and tried not to feel the agony of her people as they died.
4
In the animal area, Bobby held onto the wall and tried to keep his feet. Debris fell from the levels above in deadly rain as he waited for the quake to stop… “Hey!”
Bobby was grabbed from behind and shoved. As he fell down the deep chasm that had opened up, he stared up at his killer in shocked betrayal.
The vet jumped back as people below came toward the body. He spun around to leave the scene of the crime and found Ray standing there.
Ray had been hit by falling debris, causing blood to run over one eye. He gaped at the vet, unable to believe what he was witnessing. He staggered forward, hand out…
The vet shoved him away from the edge, hard. Ray slammed into the stone wall and dropped onto the ledge the vet had been hiding on when he’d spotted his opportunity to get rid of an assassin.
The rumbling came again, a second tremor the vet assumed, but Chris kept moving. Others could be dealt with the same way during this chaos. He wasn’t going to waste this chance to do his job.
5
“In here!” Peter shouted, shoving his men into the narrow crevice behind the guard booth. He and the two soldiers had been following Marc, hoping to earn points by helping him out somehow, but the ladder was gone and the hole had widened into a huge gap that couldn’t be scaled in the flickering panic.
Boothe and James squeezed into the crevice with the guards and a few of the camp members who had already taken cover there.
“Move back!” Peter called, spotting another group coming from a corridor that hadn’t been blocked off yet. He ran out to help them with the elderly man and woman, recognizing Brittani’s mother and father.
Behind them, Gus and his brothers were carrying people who couldn’t run fast enough.
The walls trembled thinly, dust falling…
“Get away from there!” The ledge collapsed heavily onto the group, knocking several of them down. Gus and his brothers shoved those in front of them to safety, lunging with their precious packages.
Peter pulled Gus’s big arm, trying to rebalance the big descendant who was tilting toward the crack opening up. Peter grunted, yanking them onto the floor as the rest of the corridor collapsed.
Gus shoved Missa into Peter’s arms and twisted around. “Gotta go back!”
Joseph took the terrified female and Peter held onto Gus. “You can’t! It’s gone.”
Gus stared in horror at the twenty-foot gap where the tunnel had been. On the other side, shadows moved and screamed as the quake continued to rip their lives apart.
6
Nancy screamed as she fell through the deep crevice that opened up in the washroom. She braced for death.
Shane saw her and dove without thinking. The fast action allowed him a lucky leap that slammed him into her falling body and carried them both into the now open cavity of the washroom.
They hit the floor and rolled into the debris piles already there.
Nancy groaned, being pelted with falling rocks. “Help!”
Shane didn’t react at all. He was unconscious from hitting his skull.
Nancy crawled over to him, aware of pain and blood in various places on her body. “Shane?”
Nancy saw something moving through the dirt and dust, crawling toward her… “Help!”
The ants came through the crevice in a small horde, chittering angrily.
7
On level three, Samantha curled under the edge of the desk in the weather room as the rock fell, collapsing the chamber. As the bottom dropped out, all she could do was scream.
In the corridor by the weather room, Neil and Jeremy had come running. They were knocked into what remained of the radio cavity as the rest of the floor fell onto the level below.
“Samantha!”
She didn’t answer.
Jeremy, flooded with guilt over being too drunk to be in there instead of her, threw himself into the hole after her.
8
The medical bay and the lab were also struck with the strengthening tremor and the sounds of breaking glass were as loud as the screams for a few second. Half of the medical bay crumbled, taking two of the little ducks along. The doctor shoved the rest of them into the showers and crammed in with them, hoping the reinforced floor there would hold.
In the lab next door, Tonya and the cat huddled in a far corner, unable to get out for a huge gap in the floor. Through the dust and rock, Tonya could discern the bodies of those who had already fallen. More dust came through the lab and another part of the wall collapsed into the hole.
Tonya shuddered, not feeling the cat claws sank deep into her arm.
9
On the second level, where the majority of the camp had been, the washroom caved-in, trapping members and Eagles. The ladder was crushed by falling stone, killing several citizens as they tried to reach the lower levels and loved ones.
In the sleeping areas, forts fell over and people were tossed from their cots. Candy and Cynthia, both sedated, slept through it all. Around them, there was chaos as people tried to flee. Many were stepped on and kicked by the panicking crowd. Dale was one of those. He cowered on the floor as the chaos grew worse.
“Come on!”
Dale felt a hand on his wrist and followed his rescuer blindly, coughing at all the dust.
“Stay in there!”
Dale tried to view who it was as he huddled in the tiny closet of the sleeping chamber, but a white jacket was all he glimpsed before the person was gone.
Dale sank to his knees and cried as he listened to the tragedies unfolding throughout the cave.
10
Li tried to make it to the rear of the kitchen, where most of his family had gathered for their evening tea, but the shaking was too strong to fight. He fell into the cabinet of pans, knocking pots and mixing bowls to the floor where they clattered and banged endlessly as the tremor intensified.
“Li!” Li’s wife, Sophia, crawled over to hold him as the debris continued to fall from the upper levels and the kitchen came alive with dropping dishes and breaking equipment.
In the attached mess, Hilda herded the children and pregnant women into a corner, with the help of Jax and Quinn. Doug and Peggy joined them, reaching the space right as the center of the mess dropped out. Tables of screaming people fell through the hole, including Chauncey.
11
Trapped in the destroyed garden area, Jenny held her squalling baby, aware of the screams of the children in the cave more than the shouts and cries of the adults. Jennifer could sense their terror, and the pain of those who were injured. Because she was experiencing it, so did Autumn.
“Jenny!”
“Here!” Jennifer shouted hoarsely. She coughed, lifting her jacket to slide Autumn under protection from falling debris. She couldn’t see much beyond a faint glow above them.
Kyle shined his light across the gap, unable to view her through the falling dust that looked like ash. He narrowed her location by the sound of her coughing and Autumn crying. The infant was also screaming for him mentally, driving Kyle to leap across the gap without waiting or surveying further.
Jennifer shouted as a shape came hurtling through the loud darkness, cringing away with the baby shielded.
“It’s me, Jenny!” Kyle wrapped arms around them, heart beating furiously. He reached around her gun to put a calming hand on the baby.
; Her tiny fingers clutched his, shaking in horror.
“Shhh…” he soothed them both. “Shut it off, Jenny. She’s getting it all.”
Jennifer gasped in pain as she realized their mental connection was feeding the baby details she couldn’t handle. Jennifer slammed the wall down, trembling. “Kyle…”
“I know. I know.” He held her tighter as the tremor continued to shake the mountain and shatter their dreams. “I’ll get us out. Sh…”
Across the gap, Billy and Shawn scanned the hole and chose not to follow Kyle. Both men were listening to the screams of the children above them, where their future mates were calling for them relentlessly. In that moment, there was no pretense.
Billy gestured toward the ladder that had fallen but only broken in half. “That’ll get us part of the way. We’ll climb the rest.”
Shawn immediately staggered through the debris and shaking to help Billy get the ladder. Missy was up there. He was going.
Billy and Shawn hefted the heavy wooden ladder toward the hole, climbing over items they refused to identify. If someone had moved or groaned, they would have helped, but there was nothing from the piles of furniture and broken rocks.
“Look out!” Shawn called, leaning in to the ladder as a huge chunk of something whizzed past his shoulder from above. It crashed heavily to the floor below.
“You okay, man?” Shawn called.
Billy didn’t answer.
12
“Fire! There’s a fire!”
“We have to get up there!” Theo pointed toward the top of the cave, to the thin glow. His clubfoot was forgotten in his fear for everyone. “We’re on fire.”
Debra clung to his arm, not hearing but deeply experiencing the quake and the agony around her.
Greg was trying to dig Marc free. He’d been using the bathroom by the storage crevice, waiting on Angela when the cave had begun shaking.
