by Holly Hook
“It looks like we're all clear,” I tell Weslie. “There's no one.”
“No one,” Jaden repeats. “Those rooms over there are where they take pictures of new workers. I think they have some files and supplies somewhere. Dwellers don't go in them because they're lit.” He stands next to the door. "The lights are off in both rooms, but you'll need to turn them on. I won't be able to go in. They look empty."
"You sure?" I ask.
"Sure."
I walk across the room. The air here is fresh, not dusty. My footsteps echo off the walls. At least we'll be able to hear if someone's coming.
The first door isn't locked. I open it with ease. The Society doesn't expect people to raid this place. I fumble for a light switch and find one.
Turn it on.
I squint, then realize what I'm looking at. It's a huge storage area, with white walls and the same stone floor. There are shelves everywhere and more supplies than I can think of. Crates. Pickaxes, shiny and new. Shovels and even a few lanterns. Canteens and metal boxes that might be rations of some sort. The place is huge. The light above flickers. It's dim, dim enough to let in Dwellers if they wanted to guard anyone getting in here.
"Wow," Weslie says, heading into the room. "There's enough supplies in here to keep us going for a while. We should take everything we can carry." She walks along the shelves. There are rows of them. Rows and rows. There must be a lot of workers here. "Elaine. Look. At. This."
I head over to her. Jaden steps inside, but stays by the door.
Weslie's standing before an open crate.
It's got several brown cylinders inside of it. With fuses coming out of them.
"Dynamite," I mutter. "Is that something you just leave out?"
"We must be the first to break in here," Weslie says. "If the Society has any workers come in here, I'm sure they're guarded. They'd have to be with this kind of stuff lying around." She grabs some books of matches and puts them in her pack. "There's another room behind this one."
"We had better hurry," Jaden says. He's still hanging by the doorway.
I turn. There's another room behind this one. "What's this?"
I run in. Backpacks line the shelves. Kids' backpacks. School books stack up on another. A quick glance at them reveals school books from the seventies and even the fifties. The Flamestone Society has been taking kids for a long, long time. These are the remnants of lives.
“What did you find?” Weslie asks, coming up behind me.
“Missing anything?” I ask, trying to hold down my sickness. “It might be here. Open up some of these backpacks. Jaden would love this.”
“I don't care what he'd love," Weslie says, surveying the room. “There must be hundreds of backpacks here. How does the government on Earth not know what's going on here?”
“They might not care,” I tell her. I hate what I'm saying. “Start opening these up. Well, the new ones. It might tell us who's down here.” This is the stuff those kids came down with. The stuff that those evil foster parents didn't want the authorities to find. I wonder if Talia's pack is down here. It's black with pink trim. I glance, but I don't see it. I hate this room. It reminds me of those piles of clothes I've seen on Holocaust documentaries. The ones stripped off dead victims. I can hear these kids crying for help. Groaning in pain and terror.
Something else stands out.
Five leather packs that look like the one Jaden's wearing. They sit heaped on each other
“Look,” I say, a crazy thought rising inside of me.
Weslie does. “Those didn't come from Earth,” she says. "They're ours."
“One of those might have come from Jaden's mom,” I say.
"What did you find?" Jaden whispers from behind us.
"Stay by the door," I order him. "Keep watch."
Weslie rushes for the leather packs. “Or someone else who left Wompitt. People have gone missing over the years. This could be their things! If we could find out for sure if they're down here, we could tell Ned. That might be enough for him to let us back in.”
I join Weslie at the leather bags. She opens one. “Paper,” she says.
“That makes even less sense,” I say. "If these packs are from Wompitt, they wouldn't have paper--would they?"
She pulls out a stack of notebook sheets with crude writing. They're yellow. Twenty years old, maybe. Weslie faces me. “Do you think this is what's left of the first expedition that came down here? Steven's friends?” She holds up the paper in the dim light. It's about impossible to read in this. "Looks like this might be some kind of journal or something."
"Take it," I say. "Take it all. It might even have belonged to that original rescue mission."
Weslie stuffs the papers in her pack. "There's a yearbook in this, too," she says. "We'll look at it later."
"We still need to check that other room," I say, going for the door.
"You're right." We race for the exit and I turn the dim light off.
Jaden's still waiting outside the door. "No one, yet," Jaden says.
I pull open the second door and flail around for a light switch. I find it and turn the light on.
It's brighter in here. Much brighter. A florescent light glows on the ceiling. My eyes hurt with it and I close them to let them adjust. Next to me, Jaden seethes and backs away.
It's a large office. Complete with green carpet, a polished desk, and a leather chair. A leather chair. There's a fake plant and a filing cabinet in the corner.
“Wow,” Weslie says.
“I think this is where the Flamestone leader works some of the time,” Jaden says. "I've seen him in here."
I shudder. Garrett might be here after all if I didn't hurt him too bad. He might be orchestrating this entire thing. I hate the thought. I might have to face him again.
I keep my axe close.
I might have to defend myself again.
But what will that do to my mother?
“I can't go in there,” Jaden says, squinting. “Too bright.”
"Then guard us again," I say. It might be a stupid mistake. Jaden could still sell us out the moment we step in.
But that filing cabinet might hold the answers we need. It might tell us how to find who we're looking for.
It's an office, all right, with a single lamp lit on the desk. A placard on the desk reads Garrett Monroe. Yes. This is his. This is where is goes when he's off at "work." When he's staying out late on business trips.
Every muscle in my body tightens. But no one's here. I don't even see some poor servant vacuuming up this place. There are books on the shelves. Notebooks which might be full of sketches.
I head to the filing cabinet and pull open drawers.
There are files, all right.
Actual paper folders and files. It makes sense that there's no Internet in Selwyn. No one's brought it here yet so there's no computer or phone on Garrett's desk.
“Look,” Weslie says. “Antoine's last name is Davis. There's the D's.”
Then I realize. There are letters on these folders. And names.
My hand itches. I pull out the D files and sift through them.
"There!" Weslie says.
There's a file for Antoine. His name's written in plain ink on the tab. I take it out and open the folder. There's a Polaroid photo of Antoine. It's taped to a form. Someone's written in his name, birth date, eye color, and height. There's a flashlight or something shining on him. Antoine's scowling in front of a stony background. There are green streaks in the stone behind him. He's a bit younger in this picture and wearing some anime T-shirt. They took this when they first dragged him to Selwyn.
And there's a stamp right across his form that says Escaped.
“This is old,” I say, flipping the paper over. There's another paper listing the name of his foster dad. The number of jewels supplied by the Dwellers to him. It's a transaction record and it makes me want to puke. Antoine was worth six hundred gems of various sizes. “They must have stamped this a few
years ago.”
Weslie curses and tears open the drawers to Garrett's desk. “There's got to be something else if they just got him back."
I sift through more files. Shawn. His last name is Holmes. Talia's got to be here, too, and Travis. I find their files in two other drawers and pull the folders out. We can look at the files as soon as we're somewhere safe, and this isn't it.
“One more,” Weslie says, closing the drawer to Garrett's desk. Pens rattle inside. “Jaden. What's your mother's last name?"
“Santez,” Jaden says. He eyes the files in my hands. “Did you find her?”
“We can look,” I say, walking back into the cabinet.
I yank open the bottom drawer and make my way to the S's. Jaden paces outside. He still can't come into the light.
His mother's not here. Maybe it's misplaced or she never got recaptured by the Society after all. Even though I hate Jaden, my heart hurts a bit for him. He ruined his life for nothing. He lost all his friends for nothing. The Society has really raked him over and now he's going to have to face that fact. I keep looking.
Once I'm in the W's, I'm ready to give him the bad news.
But then another file catches my eye.
Steven Wompitt.
It's an old folder, yellowed and frayed around the edges like it's been taken out and tampered with lots of times. It's a thick file. Thicker than all the others.
“Hurry!” Weslie says. She's freaked out.
My heart leaps and I snatch the file, but it falls out of my hands and onto the floor. It falls open, revealing Steven Wompitt's Polaroid photo and the bold stamp across his form that reads Escaped.
Weslie shouts at me to hurry again, but I can't tear my gaze from the photo of Steven Wompitt.
My father.
Chapter Nine
Truth
“Elaine, come on!”
Weslie's words fall on me, but they're a million miles away.
Steven Wompitt stares up at me. He's maybe seventeen. He stands before the same stone wall, getting his mug shot. There's no smile on his face, but his eyes are fiery. Determined.
I haven't seen my father in years, but it's him. I know it. He has my father's dark hair. The same mole right under his eye that looks like a dot. The same scar on his forehead that he said came from falling headfirst off his bike as a child.
When Steven Wompitt left his settlement, he made it back to Earth somehow.
Then he changed his name to Jonathan Klaver. He must have to avoid the Society. And then he married my mom. Had me.
And killed a guy.
“Elaine!” Weslie shouts.
There's a thump behind me and the sounds of a struggle. I snap out of it.
I turn towards the door.
It's Garrett.
With a bandage showing under the collar of his shirt and a pistol aimed at me.
My blood freezes. He's here. Weslie stands behind him, her hands up. So does Jaden. Garrett seems to be alone. Shocked. He didn't expect to find us here.
His mouth's falling open. He's pale. Garrett blinks. We surprised him. He glances back at Weslie, shooting her a warning glance. Jaden's behind her, too, staying out in the darkness. He can't approach.
“Drop your axe,” he says. “Get out of there. Now.”
I release my weapon. It thuds to the floor. I raise my hands and step away from the desk. He keeps the small pistol aimed at me. I have to assume it's loaded. Garrett could murder me right here and Mom will never know. No one will ever know except for possibly Jaden and Weslie, if they were to escape.
“No one has dared come this way before,” Garrett says. “No one's managed to find a way through those caves. Except for your father, of course." He studies the floor for a second. "Oh, I see that you found him. Surprised?”
I step out of the office. My pulse roars in my ears.
My father's in prison for murder.
And now I know why.
“Stand right here,” Garrett says, nodding to the wall. He backs away, keeping Weslie and I in sight. Jaden remains in the dark behind him, avoiding the square of light that we stand in.
"My father went after the Flamestone Society," I say. "He just got caught."
Weslie snaps her gaze to me. "What?"
"Shut up!" Garrett snaps at her. He waves the pistol. He can kill us here and no one will ever know. My stepfather scowls at me. There's nothing but hatred here now. I delivered that along with the Megapede jaw. “Do you know what, Elaine? Your father used to be one of our workers a long time ago. But he and his brother escaped. And then Steven had the nerve to come back and try to free some of the other workers. We captured everyone in his party except for him and he made it back to Earth. He must have found a gateway back. And then he tracked down the former Flamestone Society leader." His voice rises to a scream. "Your father killed my father, Elaine!”
I jump. Weslie's mouth falls open. "What? You're saying that Steven Wompitt is Elaine's--"
"Do you want a bullet between your eyes?" Garrett asks her.
Weslie stops talking. Whimpers.
"Don't take this out on her," I say. Will Jaden jump Garrett if we manage to get into darkness? Or will he watch? There are three of us here. "My father killed yours? Why didn't anyone ever tell me?"
“Your mother didn't want to discuss it.” Garrett takes a step towards me, keeping the gun raised. “I met your mother during the trial, by the way, when you were in summer camp. I knew exactly how to get back at your father. I got close to your mother and married her. And I made sure Steven Wompitt knew all about what was going on. I wanted him to know that his only daughter was going to one day join the Flamestone Society.”
"Garrett's your--" Weslie begins, then stops herself.
My secret is out. Weslie knows. I feel exposed. Dirty.
“You're disgusting,” I tell him. “You married my mother just to get back at him?” I want to strangle Garrett. He's even worse than I thought. He doesn't even love my mother. It was all an act.
Garrett calms and smiles. “Your father wakes up every day in his cell, thinking about these things. Well, you're not getting into the Society now, but he must know you're missing and that another fate is in store for you. It's all over the news." He glances at the elevator and back to me. “I think you're a little too dangerous to join the Society. You're too much like him." He pats his bandage. "The wound you gave me hurts and it might do that for months. I'm on pain meds, Elaine. And while that's healing, I think I'll put you and this girl here in Shaft 17. It's our newest shaft...and our lowest one. So new, in fact, that I'm not going to bother keeping records of those I send down there. We lose workers too often for that."
I swallow. Weslie presses against the wall. The elevator shaft behind Garrett looks like a gateway into a void. A cage guarding pure darkness.
Garrett backs towards it a bit. He's almost out of the light. "If you live long enough for my wound to heal, I might consider letting you back up. But until then, you'll be down there with your other friend who won't be hatching any more plans to destroy the Dwellers. If he's still alive, that is."
“You have Antoine there,” Weslie breathes.
"Who else is there?" I yell. "Is my boyfriend there? What about my other two friends? What have you done with them?"
Garrett's not listening to me. He's almost to the elevator. He won't lower his gun. It's like he's waiting for something and I know what that is.
Jaden shifts behind Garrett. Weslie looks at me.
My mind reels.
My father cut off the head of the Flamestone Society but it just grew a new one.
“Step over here to the elevator,” Garrett says. He reaches back and slams his free hand down on a button, keeping his body in the light. It hums. It's bringing the elevator back up. “The Dwellers will be here in a few minutes. They will escort you down to your new workstation. And by the way, this elevator can only be operated from here.”
“What about my mother?” I ask. Ice spreads down
my back. I have to stall. "How is she doing? Do you even care one tiny bit about her?”
“She's good cover for all of this,” Garrett says. “You're the one who ran away. You could have listened to my underlings and come out of that mine, but you chose wrong. You hurt her, not me. Now step over here.”
“You were only nice to me to hurt my father.”
If I ever get back to Earth, I'm going to see him. I'll drive right up to that prison and demand it.
And I'm going to hug him and tell him I love him.
“Time's wasting!” Garrett yells. He’s nervous. “The two of you. Over to the elevator."
Weslie shuffles over to the shaft. The gate is closed, but the cables groan and squeak. It's coming back up. I keep my ears sharp for any skittering, but there's none. Not yet.
"Where's my mother?" Jaden asks. He's loud and booming.
Garrett puts his back on the elevator's control panel. He's out of the light now. "I don't know where she is. The Megapede might have eaten her for all I know."
Jaden growls. He curses at Garrett. Advances on him and stops as Garrett waves his weapon again. Garrett’s back is to the wall now. He knows he’s outnumbered.
I hope the elevator takes a long time to come up. It's our only hope. I look back at the entrance to the chamber, the one that leads back to the cave. We could run for it. I read somewhere that if you run from someone who’s armed, they'll only hit you with a bullet four out of a hundred times. Or was it forty?
“Don't think about it,” Garrett says. “Drop the files.”
I do. My palms sweat. I might throw up.
"You promised me my mother!” Jaden roars.
Garrett doesn't take his gaze off me. The elevator keeps humming. I hear a rattle. How close is the car?
If we go down, we're not going to come back up.
“Whoever said anything about us handing over your mother?” Garrett asks. “We needed someone to use, boy, and you were perfect. You helped us find that settlement.”
