by Holly Hook
“Why the hell were you chewing on that? Does Flamestone have some magical teeth whitening properties or something?”
“You were what?” Weslie says.
“Did it taste good?” I ask.
Jaden stands and drops the piece of stone. He brushes the dust off and blinks like he's not comprehending. "What? I don't know why I was doing that.”
I look up and down the cave to make sure no one's coming. Clear. There's nothing but darkness behind is and rushing water up ahead.
“You were trying to eat that,” I say.
"I was--what?"
“Someone get me a torch.”
Weslie scrambles over and mutters something. She sounds really freaked out and I don't blame her. Something very weird is happening with Jaden here and it must have something to do with the sickness he had. With the tattoo and with all of this.
She lights the torch back up after finding the hammer and chisel. Brings it over.
“Shine it up to his face,” I say. I'm not sure why I'm saying that.
She does. Firelight falls over Jaden's face and he squints. “Ouch!”
But he doesn't squint fast enough.
The blood vessels in his eyes are the wrong color.
Instead of red or pink, they're green.
As in, Slimestone green.
I face Weslie. I think my jaw's falling open in horror.
“Could you not shine that in my face again?” Jaden says. “Please. It hurt and I'm getting a headache.”
I look at the torch. It's not that bright.
Jaden's seething. He falls on the boulder and Baxter backs away like he's not sure what to do. I advance on Jaden and lower the torch. “Sorry,” I say. “Something really weird has happened to you. You sure the Flamestone Society never told you what that tattoo does?”
“They never did. Just that it would keep me from getting Dweller sick.”
“It looks like it made you a different kind of sick. Did you start feeling like crap when you had to fess up to everyone? Or did you feel like crap right after those things took Antoine?”
“I felt it right after I fessed up. But that's about the time they took Antoine. So I don't know what started all of this. My tattoo started pulsing last night. I guess it had to punish me. I don't know.” He manages to look up at us. “What's wrong? Did you see something wrong with me?”
“Well,” I say. “You just tried to eat Flamestone and the blood vessels in your eyes are green. Not to mention, you can see in the dark now.”
“What?” He springs up all the way. Sweat breaks out on his forehead.
Baxter backs up further and bumps into some of the glowing mushrooms. He's trying to escape from this. It's like we're in some kind of circus that we can't walk out of. Even he has never seen this kind of thing before.
Weslie advances on him. “Maybe you shouldn't have done a deal with the Flamestone Society. Did you really think they were going to give you what you wanted? They look down on people like us. We're just useful to them. We're money to them. You were useful, Jaden. They never meant to let you out of here or give you your mother back."
Jaden stays seated on the boulder, looking between us. I hold the torch back. He's not looking much at it. It's hurting his eyes.
“That tattoo changed you, Jaden,” I tell him. I have to be blunt. “Maybe Antoine will know how it works and he'll know how to reverse it, or something. He's the expert at this stuff.” I have to keep Jaden going along with us or he's going to run off in terror. He's going to hide. “You have to show us how to get to him and you can't be leading us into any traps. What more do you have to lose? The Flamestone Society betrayed you in the worst way they could."
He lunges at me but stops before he gets into the torch light. “They've got to have her! The Dwellers just forgot me last night because I wasn't where I was supposed to be."
"They could have," Weslie says. "By the way, I hope you shrink down and turn into a Dweller next. It looks like you're already full of that green stuff."
"What?" Jaden explodes. He looks down at himself. "I'm not shorter--am I?"
"I think you are," Weslie says. "You had better get us to where Antoine is if you want any chance at saving yourself."
Jaden's not shrinking, but the threat gets him moving. Weslie winks at me as he scrambles over to the river. "This way," he says.
“Let us grab our stuff,” I say. “We're going to go find your mother. If they have her, we can find her. We all have someone we need to find. And we're not going to do it standing here.” I have to think about saner things. Not the fact that Jaden's become something other than human.
We pick up our bags and I realize something.
Baxter's missing.
“Baxter?” I call. I search the blue glow but he's not there. He's vanished somewhere into the dark we've left. “Where did you go? You're supposed to come with us.” I take the torch and leave Jaden and Weslie by the river. “Baxter?” I ask, waving it around.
Weslie cups her hands over her mouth and repeats his name. “I think he's left us,” she said. “I think he headed back up towards Wompitt. What a jerk.”
“Ned told him to come with us!” I don't want us to be alone down here. Baxter's the oldest. A grown man with experience in this world. And he's running. A coward. He's probably going to climb out of the tunnel and tell Ned that we all died--if he manages to find his way back. Or worse—he'll tell him we decided to join the Flamestone Society because we're all traitors after all.
I watch the tunnel behind us for any sign of a flame. At last I spot one, very far away and yellow against the stone. It's uphill. Baxter's gone up the cave about half a mile and he's leaving fast. He's even taken one of our torches.
Or maybe I shouldn't blame him. Ned ordered him down here. He didn't want to come with us. Weslie and I came down out of our own free will.
“He didn't take the other pack, did he?” Weslie asks.
I search around. Jaden still stands there, shifting leg to leg. I find the pack with the torches and pick it up. “Jaden, you're the mule."
“How do I get that on my back with my hands tied?” he asks. He sounds relieved that we've changed the subject.
I know what I have to do. What I should do. “I'll take those binds off. But if you run, it'll be pointless for you. And us. If you go to the surface, the sun might kill you.”
Jaden swallows. “I'm not like those Dwellers.”
“You are," I say. "And if you don't want to be anymore, you need to cooperate with us. Like I said, Antoine can probably think of a way to get you out of this. To get the Slimestone out of your body.”
Jaden holds up his wrists.
I take my Megapede jaw and cut them off. They fall to the ground.
“There,” I say, waiting for Jaden to run. He doesn't need torches anymore.
But he doesn't.
“Thanks.” Jaden shakes his wrists out. “I really appreciate it.”
Weslie stands behind him. He still doesn't make an escape attempt. We have him. “Now, you're going to lead us down the river and to Antoine," she says.
Jaden takes the pack. “This way.”
Chapter Eight
Processing
There's a narrow trail down the edge of the river.
The glowing mushrooms remain, but I keep my torch ready just in case things hit the fan. Jaden leads. The water grows rougher the farther down we go. Are we going to head over a waterfall soon? I keep listening, but the flow doesn't get any more intense.
“You don't see any drop offs?” I ask Jaden.
“No. The river goes for about another mile.” He looks ahead into the gloom. “Then it curves again. After that, there should be a tunnel that will take us to the processing office.”
"The what?” Weslie asks.
“It sounds bad. I know,” he says. “It's at the very edge of the mines. It's where the Flamestone Society and the Dwellers decide where certain workers go and which ones aren't useful anymore. Okay.
I guess that is pretty bad. It's not a big place. I'm guessing that Antoine's there right now, if they haven't stuck him in a mine yet. I've seen people in there before.”
Crazy hope rises inside me. “When were you there last?”
Jaden thinks. “I was there two days ago,” he says. “I was there...telling the Society and the Dwellers where that tunnel came out, and where to find the second one to get into town. There were a couple of guys standing there, waiting to get put in a new mine they're opening up really deep down or something. I overhead something about a really big vein of Flamestone that they just found."
“Were the guys high school aged?” I ask.
“They might have been. I've never been to high school. One was a blond guy and the other a guy with dark skin. They were both pretty big."
I think of Shawn and Travis. It sounds like them. It could have been them getting relocated after what I did to Garrett. “Was anyone else there?”
“There were a few girls and a couple of other men. Garrett was there. He had the Dwellers shove them into an elevator, and they never came back up."
A hole opens up in my chest.
Never came back up. Garrett has no intention of letting them out.
"Hurry," I order him.
“Is it light in the processing office? Or dark enough for Dwellers to walk around?” Weslie asks.
“The offices have bright lights. The main room doesn't. And I heard a couple of explosions while I was there, too. They must be blasting open new tunnels."
Weslie faces me. “They might be bringing in dynamite. They never did that before."
“It makes sense,” I say. “Garrett does own that industrial supply company. He could have gotten some.” That's bad news for all the workers there, if all the worst creatures live below the mines. Garrett's sending my boyfriend and my best friends right to them.
And maybe towards that Heart of Flamestone that Antoine spoke of.
We're getting closer. I can tell my the way Jaden speeds up his walk. “The tunnel is close,” he says. “I'll show you where it is.”
“And not lead us into a trap, right?” Weslie says.
“I can't guarantee that the two of you will be safe,” he says. “But I can guarantee that you'll get to the right place.”
“I just hope he's still there,” Weslie says. Her nerves are rising again. The glowing mushrooms grow farther and farther apart now. We're coming out of their little niche. Headed back into real dark.
“There!” Jaden points.
I shush him. It could be getting close to night and the Dwellers could be ready to make their way to the surface. I hold up my torch.
Jaden saw it first, of course. But there's a tunnel carved in the wall across the river. It's got a lined border around it. Someone's spent some time working on the entrance. And above the lined border, there's a fire carved out of Flamestone stuck into the wall. Someone's done some work here, all right. Someone who could be dead for all we know.
“That's it,” I say, heart leaping.
Shawn and Talia and Travis are somewhere down there, in those mines.
In that place I escaped.
And so is Antoine and Jaden's mother, if the Flamestone Society told him any amount of truth.
The three of us stand there, catching our breath. We just have to walk across the river. The water's not flowing as fast now, but I've read stories about flood waters knocking people off their feet at only a few inches high, too. This could be the same.
Jaden seems to read my thoughts. “Don't worry. If the Dwellers could walk across the water here, so can we.”
I look back at all the glowing mushrooms we've left. The glow's distant now. Somewhere far back, Baxter is traversing miles of darkness and back up towards Wompitt to deliver whatever lie he has planned.
Jaden leads the way and wades through the water. “It's really cold,” he says. “We might want to take a drink before we go in.”
“How thoughtful of you,” I say. I'm still bristling over his betrayal. I know I'm never going to forgive him and neither will Weslie. It'll take a lot for that.
We follow. The water soaks right in through my sneakers and I regret not taking them off. Jaden waits at the mouth of the tunnel.
“You'll need torches through here,” he says as we climb up onto the opposite shore.
I face the river. It continues going down, down. The rock here is different. It's all gray here, complete with the green streaks and occasional blue and red spots. This is how it looked when I first came through into Selwyn with Travis and Shawn. When Larconi and Roger were still chasing us. When we first got to the abandoned part of the mine.
Jaden keeps his gaze away from the Slimestone and disappears into the tunnel. “This way. It's another walk.”
Weslie lights her torch with mine and we follow. Jaden doesn't dare look back at us. The light from our flames bounces on the wall, but Jaden stays just out of it. He's s dark figure. The tunnel is just wide enough to let in two people side by side. I can't help but feel a little claustrophobic.
“How you doing?” I ask Weslie.
“Not too bad, so long as I have some light,” she says. “I've been down here long enough that I think I'm starting to get desensitized. Until something happens, that is.”
We walk for minutes. A half hour, maybe. Dusk has to be getting closer. When the Dwellers come through here—if they decide to go back to Wompitt tonight—we're going to get trampled even if they don't decide to take us to the Flamestone Society.
And at last, the tunnel gets larger up ahead. I wonder about the toxic gases that Weslie told me about. We're not in the cave anymore. This is different down here. Mines on Earth leak them all the time. I remember reading something about that. There was one mixture that was odorless but had no oxygen in it, so people would wander in abandoned mines and pass out and die. And another gas smelled really bad and also killed you. I can't remember the names of them, but what kinds are in Selwyn? There doesn't seem to be any coal here. Maybe it has new dangers, like the creatures that come out at night.
“We're about ten minutes away from the processing area,” Jaden whispers. “I can see the curve up ahead. There's going to be another doorway, and to our left will be the shaft that goes farther down. Don't be freaked out if you hear some explosions. It depends on what the workers are doing today.”
“What Antoine might be doing today,” Weslie says.
Jaden has nothing to say about that. All we can do is keep following him.
Thankfully, the tunnel doesn't go down any farther into the ground. I hope we don't have to descend any more than we already have. The processing area won't be too bad—right? If the Flamestone Society hangs out there at all, they'll keep it ventilated and pretty safe. They're good at protecting themselves.
Jaden's right. There's an archway ahead. I take a deep breath and pat Weslie on the arm. She's gone really quiet again.
“I don't want to go back in there,” she whispers.
“I don't, either.”
Even Jaden slows. “Listen,” he says.
We do.
Silence. And then from somewhere distant, there's a humming sound.
“What's that?” Weslie asks.
“I think that's the elevator,” he tells us. “It's taking someone up or down. Probably down. It doesn't come up unless they're ready to load it with more workers. We should wait until it's done. There could be Flamestone Society members in the area."
We stop. Wait.
The humming stops and there's a click.
And footsteps, heading away. Someone's here, all right.
Jaden moves forward. “They're gone," he says. "Put out your torches or someone might see us coming up the tunnel."
We do.
Now that our flames are gone, my eyes can adjust and I see it.
Another carved archway with a stony, sparkling flame on top. Beyond it, there's pale light and a large, open space.
After this we're in Dweller territ
ory. Anything could happen to us in there.
I take a breath and grab onto Weslie's arm.
Everybody we care about is in there.
Jaden waves us in. “All clear,” he says.
Do we trust him?
What does he have to lose now?
I go first. Jaden comes out after me and Weslie last. And then a space opens up.
I'm in a chamber the size of a regular house. The floor's flat, but the ceiling is jagged like someone's cut this out with a giant jackhammer. Two electric lights hang from the ceiling, but they're yellow and low and sad--and probably not enough to bother the Dwellers. The place is lit as well as a dark movie theater. Jaden's not even squinting.
And the room is empty.
"Relight your torch," I tell Weslie. "Just in case the Dwellers come through here."
Jaden doesn't protest. He turns away instead, facing our left. He's right. There's an elevator. The lift is gone, but a metal gate's closed across the entrance to the shaft. Somewhere, something hums. A fan, maybe. This area is ventilated after all. It's the shafts below that are probably dangerous.
Weslie snatches a piece of Flamestone from my pack and relights her torch. Light erupts again. "That's better," she says. "This place is dead. And creepy."
More of the room comes into focus. Right on the other side of it is the beginning of a mineshaft, held up by wooden beams. It goes right into a horrible darkness. There are no lights there, and no life. This one looks new, however. There are even cart tracks vanishing into the dark. This must be an area of the mine that people are still working in.
And an area where Dwellers can come out.
And on the right side of the room are two wooden doors, both closed. There's even glass windows here, separating two of the rooms from the rest of the chamber.
For a second, I wonder if I've stumbled back on Earth or if we've gone through a gateway. But there wasn't any of that strange electric feeling. I would have felt it. And the stone here is still streaked with green. We're still in Selwyn—just an industrialized little corner of it not known to the surface world.
“It looks like we're all clear,” I tell Weslie. “There's no one.”