22

 

THE DOOR PUSHED OPEN with a hiss, and faint light cut into the black. Emery was curled up on her back, tossing prayers into the darkness. Ones she believed would never be answered.

“Arson?” she gasped.  

The figure moved closer. “Emery, you awake?”

She leaned up, wiped her eyes. Had it finally happened? Had Arson finally come to save her? She reached out to touch his skin. Cold breath shot out from his mouth. She got even closer. She hugged him. It felt like Arson. It had to be him.

“Yes. I’m awake now. Now that you’re here.”

But as the boy pulled away, she realized her mind was mistaken. She was wrong. This savior, this frail shell of a person, however much it resembled the boy she loved, wasn’t Arson.

“Good,” he whispered quickly. “We need to move. Now.”

She recognized the voice. It was the voice that belonged to the secret shadow. The one she’d missed. She had been wondering where he had gone. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting you out. Right now. We’re both getting out.”

“How?”

“Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open at all times. Do exactly as I say if you want to get out of here alive. You’ve stayed in this hell long enough.” He hugged her tightly then let her go.

Emery got a clear glimpse of his face just then. A young stare carved out of pale-white skin, a hard and bruised surface. Black circles lined the bottoms of each eye. Cheek-bones protruded out a bit, and his lips seemed thin enough to miss if she weren’t looking closely. Short spikes of facial hair flashed out in certain spots of his lower chin, and it seemed a razor had gotten to his scalp before a comb. The boy was bald.    

“Stay close to me as we move.” The boy stuck out his hand and looked at her with young eyes, the kind she figured were made of heartbreak and loss, the dark color of uncertainty.

She waited. “Where are we going? Who are you?”

He grunted. “My name is Adam. Now, do you want to stay here or come with me?”

She doubted a moment. She didn’t have a clue who he was, where he came from, or where he wanted to take her. How had he found her, anyway? What in the world did he want with her?

Emery slowly nodded, still shaky. She’d made up her mind. “Go with you.”
“Okay. Grab my hand. I’ll protect you from them.”

Emery reached out, and he snatched her palm, tugging her closer to himself. His pulse beat inside his grip. He clutched her hand tighter as he peered around the lit corner, searching for faces and warm bodies.

When she stuck her head out of the doorway, she saw two massive guards lying face down on the tile. One guy’s leg was twisted and his neck was purple. No movement. The other one was pressed up against the wall in a strange position. Both were unconscious. Disassembled gun pieces lay on the floor beside them. But she noticed Adam had a gun nudging up against her. One of theirs, she imagined.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about that. I might need it. For now.”

“Don’t worry,” she mumbled. “Right.”

The cameras twitched back and forth, so Adam kept his hand pressed up against her chest. “Wait. Be very careful,” he said quietly. “Wait for them to rotate again.”

She was still, quite uncomfortable with his hand groping her like some excitable jock. But she didn’t say anything. So far, he wanted to help her, and that she was cool with. Emery swung the loose strands of hair away from her eyes and waited until the cameras looked away.

“Run. Now!”

Adam held a black stick in one hand and dragged her along with his other. As she raced with Adam down the hallway, she couldn’t help but wonder how such a thin kid was able to take down two guards nearly double his size—guards who had guns and death sticks.

“Where are we, Adam?”

“I told you before,” he snapped. “They call this place the Sanctuary. It’s where God and his false prophets gather.”

False prophets. The Sanctuary. This all sounded crazy.  

“Gather for what?”

“Haven’t they studied you? Taken you in for sessions?”

 

Emery searched her memories. It was all still hazy. Part of her felt drugged; the rest of her was scared.

“They’re getting better,” Adam said, unable to wait for her answer. A curse tore out of his mouth. “You probably don’t remember anything.” He lifted up her shirt and stared at her skin.

She fought him. “Hands off!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Well, don’t grope me like that.”

“I was hardly groping.”

The cuts were gone.

“It worked faster on you here,” he noticed, “but not your face.”

“What are you talking about?”

He hesitated for a moment, looking at her mutilated skin. From where she was standing, it seemed like he wasn’t all that terrified of it. The look in his eyes was almost like compassion or sympathy. “Why couldn’t my blood heal your face?” he wondered.

“Wait, what? Your blood?”

“Later,” he returned, not bothering with an explanation. “We can’t stay still.”

Emery trailed closely behind him. He stunk. But maybe that was her own stink rushing to her nose to be reviled. She was sweating enough.

Adam had dirt and blood encrusted underneath his nails. The back of his head had scars that she could see but couldn’t focus on. The world around them was getting darker. It was quiet. Way too quiet.

“How did you do that?”

“What?” he shot back.

“Take out those guys back there. What are you, part cyborg?”

“Not even close. I’m just a little different. You’ll get it eventually.”

“Oh, really?” she said snidely.

“I have to get you free from this place, before—Shh! Don’t move.”

They waited. And waited. Until an opportunity to continue presented itself.

Then, after a moment of running, it was back to the walls. They came to a stop at the end of one of the hallways. White walls with black lines running together. She was sure this place was a maze. One of those rooms inside of another room, none of which really had an exit. This all felt like a nightmare, one that this puny, bald hero was attempting to save her from. Nevertheless, if looks could kill, he’d collect a trophy. Adam held that big black stick like he knew how to use it. She imagined him bashing somebody’s brains in like some juvenile maniac with a bad attitude.

Emery held her breath when she heard footsteps, warring with the panic begging to let out a scream. A shadow reached forth from an open door somewhere around their left corner. Adam’s back hugged the wall. He counted silently.

One, his mouth moved.

Two…

The footsteps drew closer. He gripped her hand tighter, and Emery eyed him while he grinded his teeth. She didn’t like whatever was coming. Whatever sick plan he was conjuring couldn’t have a happy ending.

“You’re hurting me,” she whispered. “Easy on the death grip.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. But in point-five seconds, he suddenly let her go and swung his right wrist up so fast she wondered if it was all taking place in slow motion. The sound of a man’s nose snapping to pieces inside an ugly mug crashed against her eardrums. Emery covered her mouth in awe.

The man used his leg to swoop underneath Adam’s feet and trip him. But Adam unleashed an ungodly assault on the man’s entire body while on the floor. White-knuckled, he dragged a bloody fist through the man’s side, cracking a rib or two. With his forehead, he drove pure violence into his new victim. Blood splashed inside the tile grooves.

She couldn’t tell if the man was a guard or some doctor or scientist, and it didn’t really matter. She feared for his life.

Adam dropped his fist into the man’s throat and then dug the back of that death stick into the ribs. She swore she heard more cracking sounds. A spike of panic climbed up her spine.

“Stop! You’re going to kill him. He can’t hurt us.”

“Not anymore,” Adam replied, wiping loose spit from his mouth. “I trusted you. I thought you were my friends.”

She stepped over the man, now gasping for air. “You’ll never make it out,” he said, struggling to breathe through missing teeth. “H-h-how did you get down here?”

 Adam eyed him from where he stood, circling the body like some kind of lion. “I need something from you.”

Emery listened to the smacking sound of Adam’s bare feet against the tile. She was shivering. But it didn’t bother him.

 “A-Adam, you don’t have to do this.” The frail whimpers resumed. “Don’t run.”

The man’s head tilted back. Emery could see the look on his face. She was full of fear for him, for the life that hung between sanity and violence, the will of this strange boy who could kill if he needed to. She knew she should feel something—anger, hatred—and she did. But maybe this was going too far.  

“Don’t worry. I won’t cut you open like you did to us. But by the time they find you, I’ll be long gone. Look at me.”

Adam pulled out a device from his pocket. It was the size of a mini voice recorder. She’d never seen something like this before. A lip protruded from the top of it, one that had a scanner. The only thing she could compare it to was a supermarket bar code scanner. But she didn’t have the slightest idea what to call the device.

The man tried hard to redirect his eyes.

“Now, now, let’s not be feisty. There is another way.”

Emery watched the man’s lip quiver.Adam proceeded to bash the stuttering fool’s face in with the black stick now spotted with blood.  He dropped the weapon and forced open the man’s right eye until he heard a beeping sound. The scan was complete.

“Whoa,” Emery said. She couldn’t feel her hands, and her feet ached. “What do you need his eye scan for?”

The cameras had circled around. No time for an answer.

“Adam!” she screamed.

“They’re watching now. Let’s dance.”

Just then the lights flashed. Flickers of red and yellow ran along the walls and the glass. Light beamed and vanished, beamed and vanished. A loud alarm blasted down the hall. Adam turned to her. Then they started running, into the maze.   

“You’re insane, you know that?” Emery chimed, forgetting she practically clung to him. The cry of the alarm was the sound of chaos, a deep boom, like something wicked was trailing closely behind and gaining. “Do you know how to get out?”

“I’ve memorized a way.” Adam took wide steps onward past a set of double doors. In order to avoid coming footsteps, he dragged her into the bathroom. There was a closet in there where they hid for a few minutes, until they heard their pursuers being pulled away by distance.

“It’s so cozy,” she murmured. “By the way, you can stop staring at me.” 

“I’m not.”

“Whatever.” She realized he hadn’t been staring. But it seemed easier to think of him as some kid who thought she was a freak than coming to the realization that she might actually be one.

The closet was crowded. Claustrophobic. His cold breath seemed to come out wet but dried on her skin. His heart beat against his ribs, and she could feel it tickle her chest.  

“I think it’s okay now,” Adam concluded, stepping out of the dark. His eyes pierced the still air. “C’mon.”

With panic racing through her, Emery traced his footsteps, holding tightly to Adam’s waist, where the stick he held dug into her side a bit. But she dealt with it. No way she was letting go.

They entered what seemed like the end of the maze. A snake-like hall lay before them, white rooms set inside the walls. A nickel-plated elevator stood like a centurion at the end of it all. They drew carefully closer, Adam focused on taking the lead, despite the obvious apprehension Emery could see staining his eyes. It was like with each step, his eyes grew older, a deep, mysterious blue, outlined by his pale, leathery flesh and crimson cheeks.

What if they took another step and some line was tripped? A line that would send tiny spikes into their bodies? Or a net that shot up from the floor to steal them back to their secret dungeon?

Immediately her mind birthed images of her cold. She couldn’t move, could barely talk. Voices like a distorted, gut-spinning swarm. Mirages looming over her face. A thick haze drifting above it all.

Adam lured her forward, her hesitation more and more apparent with every step. An eerie drip bled down her back. The alarm’s relentless shriek shattered her ears. The lights messed with her head too.

Bright. Dark.

Bright. Dark.

Haze.

Bright. And dark again.

He pulled out that scanning device from before and exhaled. Emery assumed it would be used to grant them access to something. Something that, at this point, seemed to put more fear in her than hope. Would it open the elevator standing in sunken, tarnished spite at the end of this corridor?

Suddenly a noise rose above the sound of the alarm, or perhaps pierced through it. With a chime, everything went still. Like a violent sea, the elevator doors slowly parted. She fought the fear growing inside her. Emery’s eyes exploded as five people, some with weapons, stepped out.

The silence seemed to strip her naked. Adam shoved her in the chest suddenly, flinging her body to the other side fast enough for her to slam against metal and Sheetrock and catch a tranquilizer fly past.

Her head spun.

Adam, clinging to the wall, took a glance at the group gaining on them then stole another look at Emery. With a scream, he sent the large black stick whirling through the air, aiming to break the nose of the frightening bald man who was coming toward them. She recognized him. The agent that gave her chills. The last day she ever saw Arson.  

Adam grabbed Emery’s hand then reached for his gun and fired off a few shots before racing back the way they’d come. Dodging several darts and bullets seemed like it came easy for this mysterious, blue-eyed rescuer. But he didn’t dare tempt fate by looking back; he just followed his instincts. And his instincts seemed to say to take a sharp left.  

“They’re shooting at us!” Emery yelled.

“Thanks. Hadn’t noticed.”

“Are they trying to kill us?”

“I think this is them being friendly.”

Emery didn’t like the sound of that at all. “How are we gonna get outta here?”

“Just trust me,” Adam urged, barely having to catch a breath. “I know another way. There are tunnels we can use. They’ll lead us out through the sewage line.”

“Forget it! I am not crawling through crap.”

“Then you can stay here with them. I’m sure you’ll love Christmas dinner.”

Emery watched as he quickly slid into a divot in one of the walls. A small passageway, really, but he managed to squeeze through. A fear-filled glance shot behind her as she listened for the stampede of angry men desperate to bring her back to her cold prison. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she followed, sucking in some breath. They traveled deeper into the wall, her chest and ribs struggling not to cave in completely.

“Adam, they’re coming. They’re coming!” She panicked.

He snatched her wrist and tugged her toward him, pulling her in through the wall and then making a slight shift in direction.

A maze within a maze, she thought. “How do you know these things?” 

“Time.”

The bald man chasing them stopped midstride and stared into the wall. “Gotcha,” they heard him say as he spit a wad of brown saliva through the narrow opening. His nose was split open and running red.

As he reached into his coat for a pistol, Emery shuddered. “Gun! Gun! Gungungun!” Just then, she felt Adam drag her backward a little farther. Seconds earlier, he had been pressed up against a vent of some kind. But he must’ve kicked it in.  

Their pursuer’s face was a cloud of rage. His eyes were black coals.

In seconds, Emery swore she heard the sound of a trigger being pulled, followed by a dart splitting air molecules and dust above her. Then she felt a deep sinking in her gut. They were falling. Into the dark.

Into the unknown.