02 Seekers

by Lynnie Purcell

  “Would you like some help?” Daniel asked.

  “You know how to pick locks?” Spider asked skeptically.

  “Well, yes, but I also know how to do this.” Daniel punched the door over the lock. The lock crumbled and the door opened slightly.

  “Neat trick. I could make a fortune with that gift,” Spider said as the others piled out of the door.

  Spider gave Twitch a sideways hug, trying to calm the trembling boy. Cora’s eyes were wide were terror. Sprint’s eyes were wide with anger. Ethan was the last one out of the cell his thoughts full of the situation we were in. It was the first time he had been the leader of the kids.

  It had made him instantly more serious; it also gave him a greater appreciation of Spider. He was managing well, doing better than he thought he was…he had kept the kids calm, at least.

  “I’m going to release the others then you need to lead them out,” Daniel told Spider. “Can you do that?”

  “Can a cheat steal?”

  “I have a feeling you know firsthand,” Daniel replied. “Serenity…go stir up some mischief or something.”

  “My pleasure,” she said.

  Her long legs took her down the narrow hall very quickly. Before she turned the corner, she disappeared, using her talent. I stared at the spot she had disappeared for a moment, my stomach uneasy. She may have had her reasons for setting the fire, she may even be validated in those reasons, but there was no way on this earth I was going to trust her. I couldn’t see how Daniel could trust her to ‘stir up mischief’ after what he had learned about her.

  Either my thoughts were obvious on my face or he had gotten exceptionally better at reading minds, because his next words were an attempt to alleviate my fears. Not that it helped. “She wants you alive.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  He smiled at my sarcasm and went to the next door to free the person inside. With Spider starting to lead groups of people toward the exit, and the kids doing their best to keep the other prisoners calm, it wasn’t long before the hall was full of confused, desperate people searching for an explanation and a way out. Occasionally, we were too late to rescue the person inside, the person or people not moving from their place on the floor. The rotted stench of death filled the hall along with the sound of the others. Daniel did his best to shield the kids from the bodies, but it didn’t stop them from knowing what our reactions meant.

  As we worked, the sounds of chaos surged ever closer, shortening our time for escape. Small explosions rocked the area, sending occasional showers of dust on top of us. I listened to the sounds, aware I could hear further than the others; I knew it was dangerous hanging around waiting to be discovered. Waiting risked everyone’s life.

  “Spider’s taking too long with his escape route. We’re going to be found. I’m going to start leading people to the surface, too,” I said.

  Daniel sighed at my words, but, perhaps he thought he had no say on what I did anymore,

  because he didn’t argue. “Be careful. I’ll release the rest and show them to the surface. I know a couple more tunnels to the outside…”

  “Okay.”

  I maneuvered through the increasingly panicked crowd and herded them in the direction of the tunnel Anna had brought me down here through. I figured the door of the cemetery wouldn’t be as heavily guarded as the others. It was the door that people went through to be buried alive.

  Plus, unless someone were a grave robber, the door was impossible to discover.

  “Follow me,” I whispered to a group of fifteen or so.

  They were scared out of their minds, but they didn’t waste their time on arguing. They were willing to accept any helping hand in this dark hell. We made our way through the halls as quickly and as quietly as we could. As we walked, I noticed a man carrying a small girl at the head of the pack. As we paused in the shadows of a large intersection to look for signs of Watchers, I spoke to the man. “Are you the scientist I talked to earlier?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of experiments have they been making you do?” I asked.

  “They’ve been making me test out drugs...help in building a weapon using a silver substance.”

  “A weapon?” I asked, certain the ‘silver substance’ was Watcher’s blood.

  “They don’t seem particular about what I build as long as it’s deadly. They just want a weapon.”

  “And?”

  “The blood has amazing regenerative properties, and a wonderful resistance to most forms of radiation, chemicals, poisons, acids, etc. that I tested. If used properly – or improperly, I should say – it could become a bio-weapon. Imagine a strain of diseases that couldn’t be killed, couldn’t be stopped. Imagine a bomb where the blast was only the beginning of a biological nightmare.”

  “Did…did you make any such thing?” I asked, terrified at the thought.

  “No, not the weapon…I couldn’t figure out the process to bind the diseases to the substance.

  Even then, how would you get it to the population?” His words were so calm. It was as if he were worried more about the problem of spreading the disease than about the fact that there was a substance out there capable of being resistant to modern medicine. He blinked and seemed to realize what he was saying. “Too, I was stalling. These…people are animals. They made me do tests…horrible tests. They made me develop drugs and forced me to give it to innocent people as well as their own people.”

  “What kind of drug?”

  “An addictive one. The most addictive one I’ve ever seen. It makes people horribly dependent. I had to give it to their people once a week. Most of the other subjects didn’t last the testing phase…only their people. It somehow induces rage, the likes I have never seen before.”

  “Oh…”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence, my brain working hard to understand the reasons

  behind such tests. I wondered if Daniel had received any drugs. If so, what did that mean? Was that the real reason he hadn’t left this nest yet? Was a drug keeping him here?

  We finally came to the wall Anna had brought me through, and I saw that on this side of the door there was a handle. I tugged on it, straining from the weight of the door. A couple of the others helped me, and inch by inch we were able to get it open.

  “Go on!” I told them once the door was open. “Run!”

  They poured out from the tomb, their emotions boiling through my brain as a parting gift. The scientist grabbed my hand and held it for a brief moment before he left. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Now get out of here…and keep her safe.” I looked at his daughter, whose bright eyes and dirty face reminded me so much of the kids; kids who were risking everything to make sure the others were safe.

  The scientist smiled at me and hurried away, his feet scrambling to get away from the cemetery, and his time in hell, as quickly as they could. I turned around and headed back to the jails, hoping that he, and all of the people I had seen to safety, would be okay.

  The dirt hallway had just started to show signs of ‘humanity’ again, of built walls and metal instead of dirt, when I ran into the Nightstalker. I wasn’t sure if it had somehow escaped during the chaos or if they had set it free to kill the prisoners, but it didn’t really matter. All I knew was that it was there and that it was blocking the only path back to the prisons. I backed away slowly, knowing it couldn’t see very well, but luck, or fate, was not with me. It inhaled sharply as it caught my scent and whipped its head around in my direction. I stopped backing up, aware there was no hiding from its nose. Its red eyes burned through the dark, the red, flashing lights accentuating the glowing evil. A low growl, which sounded as if it were coming from the bowels of the earth, emanated from it.

  “Nice, scary, demon, monster, Nightstalker thing. Down boy…How about a bone?”…It had

  worked on the dogs at the house I had broken into.

  It tilted its head at me in confusion, its deadly pounce s
tymied with its confusion. It was enough to safe my life. A second later, the cavalry arrived. Another Nightstalker pounced on the

  creature, its teeth ripping into its scaly flesh. I scurried into a vacant room – out of their way –

  and watched as they fought tooth and nail. The new Nightstalker was a better fighter. In a matter of a minute, it managed to pin the first and, without hesitation, ripped out the throat of its opponent. I stared at my helper in suspicious hope as it regained its full height in the corridor.

  Instead of the red I was accustomed to seeing its eyes were a milky white.

  “Alex?” I whispered, hoping my whisper wasn’t a death sentence.

  Alex whined once in response, human words beyond her. I stepped out of the room and stared at her, trying to see if she were still mad at me. Had she been changed all this time? Regardless, of that, I was glad to see her again. It meant she hadn’t died. She cocked her head to the side and stared back at me. Sensing my fear, she stepped closer and nuzzled me with her snout. I laughed and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I was so afraid I wouldn’t see you again! Are you okay?! Are you still mad? I’m so sorry!”

  Alex whined again and through our touch I heard. Safe? It was as if she was struggling to find the words, as if English wasn’t her first language.

  I’m safe, I told her.

  Kids?

  Spider’s with them now…Daniel is down freeing the others, and this place is swarming with bad guys. I’m going back to help him.

  I…Help.

  “I know you will. Just don’t get hurt…”

  She growled, showing me her teeth. I nodded, understanding that she intended on doing the hurting, and gestured for her to follow me. With her on my heels, I ran to where I had left Daniel.

  The problem was, he had been found. The fight had finally moved to the prisons. The prisons themselves were mercifully empty, our trips to the surface having emptied them of their

  occupants. The kids were gone. I hoped they, too, had made it to the surface.

  The hall, however, was not so empty. It was littered with the dead bodies of Seekers. The bodies all had one thing in common: deep, deadly cuts. I found my explanation for the violence at the mouth of the hall. Daniel had somehow managed to get his hands on Anna’s sword. He cut

  through the people in his way without any sense of mercy or fear. Havoc was his wake, as body after body dropped to the floor around him. Alex didn’t slow at the sight of the bodies like I did; she ran straight into the fray. Daniel raised his sword when he saw her behind him, figuring her for another foe.

  “It’s Alex!” I yelled to him.

  He turned to me, his eyes entirely black. There was no control there. No humanity. He had

  completely lost it. No recognition in the darkness of his eyes, he turned away from me and started cutting down any Seeker stupid enough to cross his path, accepting Alex as an ally. I watched him for a moment impressed by how frightening he was. Suddenly, his grace made

  sense. It was being used in ways it had always been intended. It was being used to survive as all Watchers learned: to kill or be killed. Around being impressed at his skill, and the terror he was capable of so much skill, I felt irritation. Seeing him fight, I knew he had lost his fight to Jackson on purpose. I realized it was silly to be irritated about him lying about losing that fight at such a time, even as I slowly came to another realization that a part of him had wanted to loose. He had wanted to give me the chance to come down here; he had seen how important it was to me. He had loved me enough for that.

  I jumped back to the present as another small explosion rocked the tunnel. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling, making me cough. More explosions and confused yelling followed the

  initial explosion. I stumbled forward as the dust swirled, to try and help, wanting to fight, to do something, but the next explosion wasn’t so distant. It shattered the space between Daniel and me, and the debris that rained down on top of me wasn’t as subtle as dust this time. I was knocked off my feet, rocks and pieces of metal pelting me as I fell.

  Shocked by the explosion, I stayed on the ground for a moment, my body locked into

  immobility. The ringing in my ears was disorienting and terrifying as I laid there; it filled my head with a sharp ringing sound. I pushed off the ground, the ringing pulsing through my body like a living thing, and tried to find logic again. What was I supposed to be doing? Why was there urgency to that doing?

  Dazed, I looked around the hall for an answer. Rubble had fallen, blocking half of the hall near the intersection Daniel had been cutting a path through. The ringing in my ears merged with the blurred sounds of people yelling and fighting beyond the destruction. Holding my ears against the ringing, I started toward the chaotic end of the hall. I stopped almost immediately, my heart racing in fear. Near the intersection, his face covered in white dust, his body blocked by a heavy piece of metal, I saw Spider. He was unmoving, his eyes shut. A trail of blood rain down from the crown of his head. He had come back to help me, to make up for his betrayal, and had gotten caught in the blast. The panic tore at my chest.

  Around us, the chaos of the fighting continued, undeterred despite the enormity of what had happened.

  Chapter 21

  I found my wits, quickly realizing that Spider could still be alive under the metal. Just because he had fallen didn’t mean he was dead. I ran to him, the terror pounding through me in a measured beat of awful emotion. I dropped down next to him and tried to push the metal off of his

  unmoving body. The unyielding metal didn’t move an inch. I was too weak.

  “Oh, come on!” I yelled at the metal.

  Before I could move to check his pulse, or find the wits to see if I heard any thoughts issuing from him, I was picked up by the waist. The action was so sudden, so unexpected, it took me a moment to react the way I needed to. When I realized there was more going on in the world

  beyond what was happening with Spider, I pushed against the hands. I twisted and fought, trying everything in my arsenal of moves to break free, but it wasn’t enough. Their grip was too strong.

  The person threw me over their shoulder and started carrying me away from the fighting, which was still loud as it raged down the tunnel. My eyes lingered on the still form of Spider as I fought my way down the hall. Worry curled up into my heart and settled in deep. If he was alive and left here, it was certain he would die.

  “I found her!” the man carrying me said. I fought harder as I recognized the voice as Damian’s.

  He was my captor, the reason I was being pulled away from Spider in the moment Spider needed the most help.

  “How much longer do we have until your bombs go off?” Nguyen asked Damian as they met up

  in the tunnel. I couldn’t see him, because of my location on Damian’s back, but I recognized his voice as well. It was unmistakable, even over the sounds of chaos. Damian stopped walking as they reunited in the tunnel far enough away from the fighting to matter.

  “About five minutes,” Damian replied, fighting against my kicking and squirming without even bothering to use the full force of his strength.

  “You’re sure it will bring this whole place down?” Nguyen demanded. “It will mean both of our asses if it doesn’t.”

  “Yes, of course. We probably shouldn’t stand around here waiting for that to happen though, huh?” Damian pointed out, his voice full of a cold humor I didn’t find even vaguely amusing.

  “Lead the way,” Nguyen said.

  “Let go of me you evil, twisted, son of a-”

  Damian squeezed me tighter, cutting my words short. The ringing had faded slightly from my ears, but I still felt disoriented and hurt from the blast, as if a giant hand had smacked me right in the chest. At Damian’s squeeze I felt an added pressure, but it didn’t stop me from trying to kick him in the face. My legs didn’t reach, and in retaliation he hit me in the ribs with his free hand. I grunted in pain and stopped struggli
ng as I fought to recover from the pain. Knowing it was useless to fight, knowing, also, that he was a billion times stronger than me, I tried another tactic.

  I found my wind again around the pain in my chest.

  “Daniel! Damian’s got me! He’s going to blow this place up! DANIEL! Get out!”

  I wasn’t sure if the answering roar was Alex or Daniel, I just knew that Damian started moving a whole lot faster. I didn’t need their constant looks behind them to see their fear; it was obvious in the way they moved. Daniel scared them more than either was willing to admit. I took

  satisfaction in that, even if it didn’t help me escape Damian’s grip.

  Damian took turn after turn, his feet eating up the distance, Nguyen right behind him. The further we moved down the endless tunnels the more convinced I was that Daniel and Alex weren’t

  coming. After all my years of running, I had finally been captured by Marcus’s people; my

  running had been useless. I shook off the thought and kept up the hope that help was on the way, even as I made every inch a struggle for Damian with my constant squirming.

  It wasn’t Daniel or Alex who saved me, however; if ‘save’ was even the right word. ‘Repossess’

  had a more factual ring to it. We were close to the exit, the way Damian’s body radiated with relief telling me we were about to break our way to freedom, when we were intercepted. Damian and Nguyen slid to a stop on the dirt floor as a figure stepped in front of them, blocking off their escape route. I strained my neck to see details about the figure, hoping it was someone I knew.

  The darkness at this end of the tunnel was more complete than the end I had come from, but there was no mistaking the figure who had stopped us. Anna had survived her drop into the pit. I should have guessed she would have. It wasn’t just the fact that she seemed to have nine lives, it was the fact that she was one of the most skilled Watchers I had ever met.

  “Damian, old friend, I just want you to know that I am going to ram this sword straight into your heart for your little trick,” Anna said, holding up her silver sword in the dark. “And I won’t feel the least bit sorry.”