Hope in Hell (An Adam and Eve Thriller Book 6)

by Mark Ayre

  Adam said, “What now?”

  “Well, if Graham ever finishes his buffet,” Eve said. “I think you were going to suggest something about saving the world?”

  In the red room, in the grips of despair, Isla stared at the wall into which her blood continued to flow.

  She was past the point of fear or pain. In her delirium, brought on by lack of blood, she had come to view the hole in the wall as almost beautiful. Through it, she could see flames. At first, she had heard only the endless inferno.

  But no, continuous study had revealed more. Within the flames there stood a man, and if you listened hard enough, as Isla now was, you could hear him whisper; and if you wanted to, you could discern what he was saying.

  Isla wanted to. Upon making out his words, she smiled.

  “Not long now,” she said to no one. “My baby’s daddy is coming.”

  She collapsed.

  No longer subject to the laws of gravity, the arm from which her blood flowed did not follow. Rather than hit the ground, she swung from the sturdy limb like a puppet with its hand nailed to the shelf.

  And in that position, she began to laugh.

  Adam stepped into the hall off which sprung Saskia’s cell. Outside her door stood Omi, Hattie, Delilah, Rachel and a woman who appeared to be in her mid-seventies. As Adam approached, trailing Eve, Ursula, Graham and Doc, Omi stepped towards him.

  “We need to talk. There are decisions to make before we get moving.”

  “In a minute.”

  Brushing past the ex-guard, Adam swept though the others, opened Saskia’s door, and stepped inside.

  First, he saw his mother. She sat in one corner of the room, nursing a bruise on the back of her head. Spotting her son did not prompt her to smile. She had never been an expressive woman unless the emotion she wished to express was negative—anger, disgust, disappointment.

  “My darling son.”

  It was the first time in twelve years he had heard her voice. Twelve years in which he had believed her dead, had mourned her. Occasionally he had woken in the night, missing her, and had found tears on his cheeks. He expected seeing her again would draw more tears—tears of joy and relief. Instead, he found himself strangely unemotive.

  Something wasn’t right. Adam could tell by the way she dressed, the make up she wore, the way she had styled her hair. Even recovering from a knock that had sent her into unconsciousness, she emanated strength and control. Adam doubted twelve years in a cell did that to a person.

  “Mum,” he said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  The door opened. Eve stepped inside and closed it behind her.

  “She gave herself to the organisation and faked her death twelve years ago,” Eve said. “Since then she’s been working her way up the ranks and is now one rung off the founders of this venture themselves. She was responsible for our capture. She claims she did all this for us because she couldn’t bear to see us living our lives on the run any longer. She claims she is going to improve our lives. Now you’re all caught up. She can finish explaining herself later but, for now, they’re getting anxious outside. We need to come together, make a plan. Come on. Mum, you’d better stay here. It’s a corridor full of haters out there, so far are you’re concerned.”

  “Fine by me,” said Sandra. “I’m still recovering from the attack my delightful daughter launched on me.”

  “You’re lucky,” said Eve. “I almost left you where you lay. If I had, the monster we nearly died killing just now would have devoured you.”

  “You would have liked that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t have time for this,” said Eve. “Adam, come on.”

  Adam had turned from his mother and sister. His eyes were across the room where were two more additions to the tiny cell: an unoccupied wheelchair and a woman hunched over Saskia’s bed, blocking the love of Adam’s life from view.

  “You’re Saskia’s mother?” he said. “I’m supposed to save you.”

  Slowly, the woman turned. She was in her mid-forties, tall, with sleek, black hair. She was also black, where Saskia was white.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Adam didn’t respond. A shock of fear ran through him. Had he been the only person to whom Saskia had made her final request? When Adam seemed reticent to act on her wishes, had she found another more willing to end her life? Heart pounding, he took a step to the side, trying to see past the woman, but she was tight to the bed, so he could not.

  “Adam, what’s going on?” This was Eve. He could hear the concern in her voice, and it frustrated him.

  “Why are you sorry?” he asked the woman. “What have you done to Saskia?”

  “Saskia’s dead.” Eve again. “She’s been dead years. You watched her die.”

  “They faked it like with mum,” said Adam. Then back to the woman. “Who are you? What have you done?”

  “My name is Tameka,” said the woman. “And I’m sorry because I sedated you. It was a necessary evil.”

  “Move out of the way.”

  “Adam, come to me.” This was his mother. There was a tenderness in her voice he had rarely heard in his youth. “Let’s have a chat.”

  “You don’t want me to look at you right now,” said Adam, feeling his anger build. “Saskia has been here years while you’ve been working your way up the ranks. You let her rot in a cell. For that, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “You have many reasons never to forgive me,” said Sandra. “That’s not one, because Saskia has never been in this facility.”

  “You’re lying. I’ve seen her.”

  “She isn’t lying,” said Tameka.

  “Tameka,” said Sandra, “is one of five women who have entered the red room and survived. She gave birth to one of the seven red room children. Like you and Eve, like Graham and Delilah, her son has an ability.”

  Not listening, Adam’s frayed patience snapped. He stepped forward, grabbed Tameka, and pulled her aside.

  “Sas—”

  He stopped. Lying in bed, where had been Saskia, was not the love of Adam’s life but a boy of around ten.

  “Tameka was the second woman, after me, to survive the red room. She gave birth to Noah in 1998. He’s the only child of the red room to age slower than the normal human rate. He was born in a coma and has been in one ever since.”

  Adam put his hands to his head, turned from the bed, pointed at his mother. “Shut up.” To Tameka, he said, “What have you done with Saskia?”

  Eve came forward, placed a hand on his arm. “Adam, you know I’m loathe to believe our mother, but Saskia died. This wasn’t like with mum. You held her in your arms. You must remember that?”

  “I’ve seen her, Eve,” he said. “I’ve seen her. I know she’s alive. Where is she?”

  He was back to Tameka; had shouted in her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “My son—”

  “I don’t care about your son. You will tell me where she is.”

  He crossed the small space to her; his hand was up before he knew what was happening, his finger bent to grip her throat.

  Tameka didn’t move. Adam was an inch from grasping her when an invisible force cast him across the room. When he hit the wall, the same power pinned him there. No matter how much he struggled, he could not escape.

  “You’ve got three seconds to release me,” said Adam.

  “Don’t do this,” said Eve.

  “My son has an ability, like you,” said Tameka. “He’s been in a coma his whole life, as Sandra says, but when people sleep nearby, he can visit their minds. When he does, he always appears in the guise of someone they love deeply, usually someone they’ve lost.”

  “She kissed me,” Adam said. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. He was shaking his head as though he could reject what Tameka told him, as though he could make it untrue.

  “It’s not his fault,” said Tameka. “The form he takes is automatic, driven by his visitees subconscious desire. Whe
n he transforms, he remembers who he is but also becomes the person he appears as. He kissed you not for a prank, but because he was Saskia, and she wanted to kiss you. He hates this aspect of his power because he knows the pain it can cause. He would never have visited you if it hadn’t been urgent. He told me he had vital information for you. If he could not impart his message, the world was in terrible danger.”

  All eyes turned to Adam.

  “What was the message?” said Eve.

  Adam didn’t care for the world. He did not, could not, accept Noah’s excuse for becoming Saskia. There was no excuse. Losing her had broken him. He had never recovered. Now now the pain was fresh once more. It was like watching her die all over again.

  He looked at his sister.

  “Let me go.”

  She seemed unsure. Adam did not look away until she nodded, complied. Dropping to his feet, he crossed to the bed, looking over the boy who should have been twenty-two but appeared not to have hit puberty—the boy who had spent his life in a coma, deprived of so much.

  “Adam?” Eve said.

  “He spoke of a red room,” said Adam. “Said a doorway would open and a hellish dimension would spill onto Earth. He said it could only open because all the children of the red room were in the facility. The only way to stop it would be to kill a red room child. In a perfect world, that would be Pandora.”

  “Who’s Pandora?”

  “That was my question. Sask… Noah said we would never reach her in time. He’d thought long and hard about what he had to do. He’d concluded there was only one viable solution. That was what she…” Adam closed his eyes. “He, asked of me.”

  “What solution?”

  Adam took a deep breath. He was no talker, never had been. Words drained him; he preferred to leave the speeches to Eve.

  His eyes remained closed. Once more, he could see Saskia, the way she had stood before him. Her scent, her taste, her eyes. A sickness rolled into his throat. Tears rolled down his face. He wished he had died with her. The pain was unbearable.

  All Noah’s fault.

  “Adam, what solution?”

  “He wanted me to kill him.”

  At Adam’s waist: a gun. Before anyone knew what was happening, he’d grabbed it, cocked it and placed the barrel to the boy’s head.

  “I guess I’m happy to oblige.”

  Eve knew her brother like no one else; better than he knew himself, in some ways. When he pulled the gun and pointed it at the boy, even he was shocked by the action. Shock would not have stopped him, rage being a more powerful force. Eve had seen his blood boil, had sensed the coming storm. As Adam aimed at Noah, she flicked her fingers.

  The gun flipped from his grasp as he was thrown through the closed door and into the corridor, where the group who waited beyond scattered like bowling pins fed up of being knocked down. Eve followed. She rapped the wall to draw everyone’s attention.

  “Here’s what I know, what I believe,” she said. “Something awful is about to happen, which threatens the safety of humanity as a whole. If we are to stop it, we must kill a child of the red room. Someone tell me how many there are.”

  “Nine, as of this afternoon.”

  The woman who had spoken was the only member of the group whose name Eve did not know. She also appeared to be far older than anyone else who had gathered in the circle. Eve had learned from Noah not to judge looks when it came to guessing age.

  “Who are you, and when were you born?” she asked of the woman.

  “My name is Cassandra,” she said. “I was born in 2002.”

  “Uhh, I’m no good at maths but—”

  “Shut up, Doc,” said Eve. She looked at Cassandra. “Who are the nine?”

  “Six of us are here,” she said. “You, Adam, Noah, Graham, Delilah and me. That leaves Lucy and whoever arrived today. Presumably, twins.”

  “One of those must be Pandora?” said Eve. “Noah told Adam that the preferable option would be to kill Pandora. Wouldn’t she be a baby?”

  “With the way some of us age? Don’t count on it.”

  “Fine, what about this humanity-threatening event, you know about that?”

  “I get glimpses of the future. The one in which the red room opens is beyond imagining. Truly, it will be hell on Earth.”

  “But it’s avoidable?”

  “I’ve seen alternatives.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ursula. “Are we just supposed to believe this because Cassandra and Noah say it’s so? Eve, you don’t seem the sort. Or can you, too, see the future?”

  “I’ve not seen the future,” she said. “But I’ve seen the hell.”

  Across the way, Adam was rising. He propped himself against the wall and stared at his sister. Their eyes met. She was unable not to think of the hellish landscape into which overuse of her power had so often sent her. The place where she would sit and talk with a man of boundless cruelty. A man she now believed to be her father. When speaking of this place to Adam, she had always been vague. She feared he could see the full truth in her eyes.

  “I don’t think we have long,” she said. “We need to make a choice.”

  “And that choice is which red room child should die?” asked Omi. His hand was on Delilah’s shoulder. He gripped a little too hard.

  “Peace,” said Eve. “We’ll kill no one who wants to live.”

  “You won’t kill my son.”

  This from Tameka. Standing in the doorway, a hand on either frame to protect her son, no matter what.

  “No one mentioned killing Noah,” said Rachel.

  “Noah did,” said Eve. “He told Adam to kill him, via a dream, to save the world.”

  “Says Adam,” said Ursula.

  “Problem solved,” said Rachel.

  Eve raised a hand to Tameka, who was ready to charge Rachel. “No one is going to kill your son if you don’t want them to.”

  “They won’t need to,” said Cassandra. “Thanks to my special body clock, I’m an eighteen-year-old trapped in the body of an elderly lady. Within five years, I’d be dead anyway. If someone has to die, and I believe that is the best way to guarantee humanity’s safety, that someone will be me.”

  This announcement was met, not with protestation or agreement, but silence. No one liked the idea of murder. All had done their internal calculations and come to the same optimal option if someone had to die: Cassandra. This was an unfair evolutionary reaction. Noah was older than Cassandra but, because he looked like a child, the thought of killing him engendered an almost visceral response. As ever it was easier to deem one who appeared elderly, closer to death, as expendable.

  Possibly.

  “Don’t pity me,” Cassandra said. “This is the logical move. All I must say, and I hate myself for this weakness, because of what it will mean putting one of you through, but I am too cowardly to do the deed. Someone else must pull the trigger.”

  All eyes turned to the floor. Even, and it was surprising to see it from someone with such a bloodlust, Graham's. Eve turned to Rachel, expecting an argument or fight from Cassandra’s mother, but she too had bowed her head. Defeated.

  “We have two organisation employees here,” said Tameka at last. Her voice was a little high, a little shrill, but her words were clear. “Aren’t they used to murder? Shouldn’t they step forward, do the right thing?”

  “I take it you mean me?” said Omi, his voice dark, dangerous. “I’m no longer part of the organisation. My kill count also pales in comparison to that of Graham and Adam, and their count, in turn, is dwarfed, even when combined, by Eve’s.” He turned to her. “Surely, murder is nothing to you any longer?”

  Eve might have expected such a comment to inspire anger. Instead, the blow caused sadness. Adam provided the fury.

  “If you don’t want me to move one kill closer to my sister, I’d watch what you’re saying,” said Adam. His tone, even darker and more deadly than Omi’s, was new to her brother. It frightened Eve.

  “Omi’s right,�
� she said. “I’ve killed so many it should be second nature. But it isn’t. I can’t do it, I’m sorry.”

  “Sandra.”

  The word sprung as a squeak from the terrified teenager, Hattie, Delilah's mother. As she spoke, her eyes flashed to the door which Tameka guarded, beyond which Sandra remained against the wall.

  “You rang?” she asked, rising, moving towards but not past Tameka.

  “You’re the other organisation employee. Unlike Omi, you still work for them, and you’re ruthless. You’ve shown that today.”

  “Your words hurt,” Sandra mocked, pushing Tameka’s arm and stepping into the hall. She smiled at Hattie. “Do you need a hug?”

  “Will you do it or not?” Eve said.

  “I take no pleasure in killing,” said Sandra. “But Cassandra is never wrong. To save my children, I’ve performed many acts of villainy over the years. What’s one more to save the world?”

  She awaited her applause. No one moved. Eve could feel her temperature rise but refused to bite at Sandra’s ‘save my children’ comment.

  “I’ll need a gun if we’re to do this,” said Sandra. She turned to Cassandra. “I’ll make it quick.”

  Silence moved in like a heavy mist, shrouding all. Several of the group were armed. Eve heard hands clench tight. No one moved to yield their weapon; none could bear to be complicit in what was about to take place.

  Sandra watched them, then gave a condescending smile.

  “None of you have the stomach to kill one to save billions. Already, I have taken from you that burden. Now we learn none possess the strength of character even to hand me the weapon with which I must perform this heroic act?”

  A shot of hatred rushed through Eve. It did not matter that Cassandra had asked to die, or that it might save billions of lives. That Sandra could not only agree to do it but could be snide in the process made Eve want to destroy her mother.

  At last, Ursula stepped forward. All the brazen attitude and confidence had drained away. She shook. None the less, she lifted her hand, presenting the gun to Sandra.

  Behind her, Graham gave a low whine.