by Blair Drake
And then it struck him. What if one of those mechanical soldiers was patrolling now? What if they were looking for him and Raven? His pulse pounded in his ears until the blood pumping through his veins drowned out any noise around him. Raven was alone. What if they’d found her?
The baker carried a basket of fresh bread and carefully placed it on the shelves in front of his window display. Reese slowed his pace and kept his eye on the baker, who went back inside. There were only a few loaves of bread on the display. Surely he’d be coming back outside to add more to the shelves.
His heart hammered in his chest and irritation coiled inside of him. Why the hell did he have to do this? Why did he have to be here at all? It wasn’t bad enough he’d been sent to live with strangers at a school, but now he had to endure stealing food just to survive!
He glanced back quickly to see the distance he’d already gone. He was almost two thirds of the way to the bakery. He didn’t want have to go back to the tunnel empty-handed. Who knows if he’d get another chance to come back again? And then he saw the baker rolling a large cart filled with bread out onto the sidewalk and propping it up against the front window.
Reese turned towards one of the closed stores and looked at the window, trying to see if he could see the baker in the window’s reflection. The store window he was looking into was dark and made it easier to see. But he quickly realized he looked ridiculous looking in the window of a store that was still obviously closed.
Reese watched long enough to see the baker pull some of the loaves of bread off the top of the pile on the cart, and transfer them to the other display shelf in front of the other store window. As soon as the baker disappeared into the store, he turned and began walking swiftly across the street toward the bakery.
He dropped the basket on the corner with care so it wouldn’t make a sound as adrenaline surged through him. Now was his chance. He didn’t need his prop anymore and it would only slow him down if he continued carrying it. Swiftly, he walked the rest of the distance down the road glancing around to see that the few people he’d seen from above were still busy talking to store vendors down the road and doing their own thing. The smell of bread assaulted him the closer he got, and made his hunger grow in leaps and bounds. When he was close enough he could hear the ticking clock, and knew his time was limited. Second bell was upon them.
The baker was whistling as he worked inside the store and Reese needed to use that to his advantage. But as he walked, Reese could hear the sound of his feet moving over the ground. Crunch. Crunch. If he could hear it then others would be able to hear it once he started running, and that could cause a scene. He made his stride’s wider so he could cover more ground swiftly.
When he was twenty feet from the bakery door, he sprinted as fast as he could until he was close enough to reach out and grab one of the loaves of bread. As he ran by the door, his eyes naturally glanced into the bakery, and saw the baker positioned in the back of the store. But as he ran by clutching the bread in his hands, the baker’s eyes widened.
Everything inside his body kicked into overdrive. He heard yelling coming from inside the bakery, but he ignored it. He sprinted as hard as he could up the closest set of stairs leading to the tunnels. He knew they connected and there was more than one door to gain entrance. He didn’t want to risk flying through the door Raven was waiting at in case someone was close on his tail. If he managed to get inside, and lock the tunnel door, he could run down to get Raven and then hide. But first, he had to make it up the stairs without anyone getting suspicious of the commotion down on ground level.
He took the stairs up two at a time, pushing until he felt the familiar burning in his legs that he felt during a hard sprint in competition. As he reached another landing, he paused only to glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was coming after him. Three men abandoned their duties and started running up the stairs. The baker was standing in the middle of the street screaming obscenities, and waving his fist up at Reese.
He gauged the distance between him and the doorway above and figured he had enough time to get through the door and disappear into the darkness before anyone had a chance to reach him. He would probably scare Raven when she heard him racing through the tunnel. But he had no choice. The sooner he got to her, the faster they could hide.
He reached another set of stairs and sprinted the remaining steps three at a time until he made it to the top landing. Someone came out from the alleyway and saw him running with the loaf of bread, and heard the screaming below.
“Hey, you!” he called out to Reese.
The door was only a few yards in front of him. But for the first time, it occurred to Reese that the door could be locked. Oh, he hoped it wasn’t. But if there was a way to lock it from the other side, he added that to his plan.
Fear clutched him as the man from the alley advanced toward him. He grabbed the handle of the door when he reached it, and gave it a hard yank. At first, it didn’t budge. Panic stricken, he held the handle tighter with his right hand as he held the loaf of bread in his other hand. He felt his fingers dig into the spongy softness of the bread, and hoped it didn’t crumble. He took a deep breath, held the handle tight, and gave it all he had until the door broke free and swung open.
He slipped into the darkness and saw the lights flare as they always did when the energy inside him flowed strong. He looked around quickly to see if there was a lock on the door. Nothing. But he didn’t hear any movement outside the door, no screams of a thief on the loose. And he wasn’t sticking around to see if there would be.
He ran through the tunnel as fast as he could, ignoring the way the lights flared as he passed by. He kept running until he got to the next door where he’d left Raven. But she wasn’t there. Noise outside the door seemed odd to him, and for a moment he panicked that perhaps she’d gone looking for him and been found. He had to chance it. Opening the door just a crack, he listened and peered through the opening to see if the commotion had anything to do with Raven’s disappearance. To his relief, people weren’t thundering up the stairs after them. Instead, there was a growing convoy of people heading down the stairs. The lights of the city were on. And then he heard it. Second bell.
He’d made it.
But Raven was gone.
“Why didn’t you stay here like you said you were going to,” Reese said when he finally saw Raven climb down from a tunnel one hundred or so yards from the door he’d expected her to be at. He held the loaf of bread in his hands. He didn’t take a bite of it in the hopes that he’d find Raven alive. Now that he did, he was not only annoyed, but hungry as hell.
“If I remember correctly, I told you that I didn’t want to stay here by myself,” Raven countered.
Reese thought a second. “That’s beside the point. I didn’t know what happened to you. I didn’t know if one of those…things came here and took you.”
“I thought the same thing. You were gone a long time.”
Reese shook his head. “What are you talking about? I went as fast as I could. And I brought back breakfast.”
She smiled wide. “I know. I can smell it. I can’t wait to eat.”
“Yeah? Me, too. I thought this would be gone by now, and my stomach is protesting because of it. Where were you?”
“I kept hearing the dripping. I knew that meant there was a water stream somewhere.”
Reese looked around on the floor where she’d just walked for a sign, some evidence of what she was saying was true. “I’m guessing you struck out, huh?”
Raven smirked and then rolled her eyes. “It’s not like they have paper cups and pails down at the aqueduct. I didn’t have anything to bring it back with.”
His eyes widened. “You mean, you really found it?”
She nodded. “I didn’t climb out of the tunnel because my arm still hurts and I didn’t want to get stuck in there if I couldn’t climb back out. But I did open the door enough to see that there was fresh water flowing there. It’s the same system
as it was on the other side of the tunnel where I’d been. I’m sure of it. That means it’s clean. We should be able to drink it.”
Her eyes dropped to the loaf of bread in his hand. It had been wrapped in paper, but his fingers had dug through the paper when he was running. It was still warm and the strong aroma of freshly baked bread, especially in the enclosed tunnel, made his stomach protest loudly with a growl.
“Do you plan on sharing any of that with me or are you gonna make me wait all day?”
Reese chuckled low as he eased himself against the concrete wall and then slid down to the floor. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t squish it too much while I was running. I was holding it pretty tight because I didn’t want to drop it.”
She sat down on the concrete floor next to him, and leaned against the hard wall. “I don’t care what it looks like. You have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve had fresh bread. Most of what Endel can manage to leave for me ends up being stale by the time I get it. This smells so great!”
He broke the loaf of bread in half, giving one piece to Raven and keeping the other for himself. He ate it so fast that he wished they’d been patient enough to get some water first because it only multiplied his thirst.
“I’m not sure I can finish this,” Raven said.
“We have to. Endel said we can’t be caught with any bread.”
She broke a piece off her bread, and handed it to him. “Here. I can’t eat it all.”
He took the bread, but it didn’t feel right. Her appetite might be smaller than his, but she’d need her strength, too.
But Raven was already wiping her lips of crumbs and licking them, seeming satisfied with her bland meal.
“The water’s not too far from here,” she said. “It was a little scary going down the access tunnel because it narrows a lot more than what it was like where we slept. It’s not far from there. But I actually had to crawl on my hands and knees to get to the door. Once I was there, I could hear the water rushing by. We should be able to get into the aqueduct easy enough and then climb back into the tunnel.”
His nerves were on edge suddenly. Electricity and water wasn’t a good combination.
“Maybe you could climb down and just get me a little bit of water,” he suggested, not wanting to sound paranoid by confessing his thoughts. “If not then just take as much you need, and I’ll make do.”
Raven started to protest and then, as if she thought better of it, she nodded. “It’s this way.”
They worked their way back to the tunnel where they’d slept. As he did last night, Reese helped Raven up, although she didn’t seem to be having much trouble with her arm like she did the night before. Feeling a bit stronger, he hoisted himself up and made his way down the access tunnel, following behind Raven. Just as she’d said, the tunnel narrowed. The ceilings that were normally very high dropped down enough so Reese had to walk hunched over. Eventually, he crawled behind Raven and tried to avert his gaze from the sway of her hips. The back and forth motion was hypnotizing him, and making his mind go to places he didn’t have time to deal with. Not here, and not now.
As they moved, the lights in the tunnel illuminated just enough for them to see where they were going. And see the view in front of him a lot better.
And then an ominous thought occurred to him.
“Do you know if these lights are connected to a central power grid?”
Raven stopped for a second and twisted around. “No, why?”
“Well, I know I can make the lights go on. But I don’t know if it’s doing it somewhere else.”
She thought a second. “No one came and found us last night. You made the lights in the tunnel go on right after we’d gotten across the bridge. People must know something went down there. No one came looking though.”
“Why do you think that is?”
She shrugged. “Everyone was still asleep.”
“Which means they may be more aware now.”
“I see what you’re getting at. I’m not so sure it’s something we can control. The very fact that we’re here makes us a target. We just need to be careful.”
She turned and continued crawling down the tunnel. Endel had said they were safest when they stayed hidden in the tunnels. But the people who lived in this underground city must know of them. They must wonder who lurks inside them. What if there was some kind of surveillance in here with cameras? Maybe someone was watching them right now.
Raven reached a metal door and positioned herself in front of it, placing her ear against metal.
Turning back to him, she said, “This is the door I opened up earlier.”
“What are you listening for?”
“I want to make sure no one is out there before I open the door again. There is water on the other side.”
Reese stayed quiet and listened. He could hear something but he didn’t know exactly what it was. “Are you sure this is it?”
She nodded. “There’s water.”
“What’s the likelihood someone will be out there now?”
She shrugged. “There is only one way to find out.”
She bent over and reached her hand in to his jacket pocket and pulled out the paper the loaf of bread had been wrapped in.
“Hey, what you doing?”
She tore a section of the paper covering and folded it into what looked like a cone. “Making a cup. It’s the easiest way to drink the water quickly, silly. Don’t worry. I’ll bring enough up to you so you can have some,too.”
“Bring to me? I can get my own.”
She pushed the door open fully and dangled her legs inside the next tunnel where Reese could now clearly hear water running.
“No you can’t. You’re too big for this opening. Even if you can get through, you’ll have the devil of a time trying to climb back up. I saw how hard it was for you to get up into the last tunnel.”
“Fine.” He conceded only because he was thirsty. He wanted to get the water and then be on their way again.
He watched Raven ease through the door, and then climb down the short few feet to a landing next to flowing water. He had renewed appreciation for Raven and her being with him. The idea of making a paper cup was brilliant. He would’ve never thought about that.
He watched from above as she quickly turned the paper and created a cup. Bending over, holding on to the landing with one hand, and the cup with the other, she reached into the flow and scooped a full cup of water into the makeshift cup. Then she lifted the cup to her lips and drank it all quickly. When she finished she reached into the water again, and filled the cup. This time she brought the cup up to where Reese was waiting.
Water was dripping from the bottom of the cone, so she carefully placed it in his hands, and he curled his fingers around it in an attempt to keep as much water in the cup for him to drink. Throwing his head back and letting the liquid slip down his throat, he drank it quickly. It was for freshening but there was an odd taste he couldn’t decipher.
He handed the cup back to Raven. “Are you sure this water is okay to drink?”
She chuckled. “You’re asking me this after you’ve taken a drink? I’ve been drinking this water ever since I got here. It hasn’t killed me yet.”
“Good to know.”
She giggled. And it sounded sweet and amusing in a way that made him want to laugh as well.
“Why don’t you get another drink for both of us, and then we can get out of here.”
When they were finished hydrating themselves, Reese reached his hands out into the opening to help Raven climb back into the access tunnel. Every little noise they made sounded so loud bouncing off the water and walls. He feared someone would find them there if they didn’t leave soon. When the door was closed, they turned and headed back to the place where they had slept the night before their bellies were full enough. They’d quenched their thirst, but still had a long way to go.
The longer he stayed in this underground world, the more he knew he didn’t belong here. Whatev
er battle came next, Reese knew they had to win.
Chapter 9
“All we have to do is get through this next part of the city, and we’ll be at the epicenter,” Reese said. “That’s halfway. Isn’t that what you remember it showed on the map?”
Raven had been dragging behind him. “That’s what it looked like.”
“Come on. This is a good thing. Halfway. That means we’re almost there.”
“Sure.”
He turned to Raven, annoyed that she seemed to be losing steam so early. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a load of shit.”
“I said it was nothing.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
She stopped walking. She may have even stomped her foot like he’d seen some of the girls do at the Cliffs when they were pissed off about something. “You know, I don’t really care if you believe me or not.”
He took a step away from her. “Okay, okay. Forget it. Let’s just keep going.”
“I’m tired. And my arm hurts.”
He’d forgotten. No wonder she was getting cranky.
“All you had to do is tell me you needed a break.”
“I don’t need a break. I want to get through this part of the city as soon as we can.”
Something didn’t settle well with him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.” She pointed ahead. “There’s the end of the tunnel.”
She had to be nervous about going out into the city before first bell. He didn’t really blame her. He didn’t know what minefields were waiting for them out there either.
“Do you remember where this tunnel opens up to?” he asked.
