by Katie French
Tommy says nothing. His body is a rigid wire.
After we circle the hospital once, Tommy points to a loading dock. “We’ll go in through the back. Seems like they’d focus their energy on the front if they were setting up explosives.”
“Or is that just what they want you to think?” Gabe raises an eyebrow.
“It’s as good a plan as any.” I catch myself biting my fingernails and force my hands in my lap. Somehow my fingers start signing letters. Just random words for a while, but it calms me until I realize I’ve signed D-E-A-D. I lace my fingers together to force my hands to be still.
Tommy parks in a garbage-strewn parking lot. He clambers into the back seat and begins filling a backpack. In the light of a gas lantern, the boys grab bolt cutters, a wrench, a crowbar, a sheathed knife, water jugs, jerky, two headlamps and finally their ancient-looking handgun.
Tommy puts the handgun in his waistband.
Gabe points at the gun in Tommy’s pants. “I thought you valued the family jewels? If I die, who will repopulate the earth with our family’s good looks?”
Tommy rolls his eyes and slides the gun around to his back.
The three of us climb out of the van. The air smells stale. Trash skitters on the pavement. The whole area seems devoid of sound—no animals, no people, and no humming insects. I shiver and wrap my hands around my arms.
Tommy looks at me. “Last chance to wait in the van.”
“I’m not staying.” I drop my arms and set my chin. “You want me to hold that gun?”
“Can you fire it?” Tommy asks with a teasing smirk.
“I’m sure I could if I needed to.” I don’t tell him I have no idea how to fire a gun, but he can see it in my face.
Gabe straps the knife in its sheath to his belt and examines the crowbar. “I feel pretty badass with this.” He lifts the metal rod up and lets it fall into his palm with a thwump.
Tommy watches him. “Just don’t knock yourself out with that thing.”
Gabe rolls his eyes.
Tommy faces us. “If something bad happens… If there are people inside or an explosion goes off, just run. Don’t be heroes. It’s better that some of us get out than none.”
I shake my head. “That’s not how this works. We’re a team. We go in together. We get out together.”
Gabe nods. “I’m not leaving your sorry butt in there just so you can rag on me about it later. I’d never live that down.”
Tommy shoulders his pack and leads us toward the dark hospital.
We creep toward the back doors. They’re wide open, revealing the cavernous inside, dark and terrifying. It’s too easy. It must mean they want people to come in just to be blown to bits. My vision darts between a spray-painted dumpster and an overgrown tree. So many places for people to hide.
The wind stirs and the doors moan on their hinges. A noise from the parking lot makes me whip my head around. The shadows seem alive. Most of me wishes I’d stayed in the van.
When we reach the doors, Tommy holds up a fist. Pulling the gun out of his waistband, he locks his arms out and aims into the darkness.
Then he steps inside.
Heart pounding, I wait at the doorway. Should we follow him in? It’s pitch black and, even though both Tommy and Gabe have headlamps, neither have clicked them on. It’d be a dead giveaway that we’re here, but I can’t imagine fumbling around in the dark.
Gabe grabs my hand. I flinch and glance at him, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s watching Tommy, our fearless leader, tread farther and farther into the darkness.
We wait.
I don’t want to think about Gabe’s hand on mine or the electric feel of skin on skin. But as the long the silence creeps on, it’s my only anchor to a world where my life makes sense. A world that isn’t a nightmare. I squeeze his palm just a little. He looks down at me.
“It’ll be fine.” He stares into the darkness, waiting for his brother to return.
A shape appears in the hallway. Gabe and I both tense, but Tommy’s strong, compact form appears in the moonlight.
“No sign of life,” he whispers. When he turns and clicks on his headlamp, Gabe does the same.
Gabe lets go of my hand. I feel like I’m going to float away.
Gabe enters the dark hallway, but Tommy waits for me. “Stick close,” he says. “I don’t want you getting into trouble.”
There he goes again, ruining things. But this time, I don’t protest. Frankly, I’m a coward and don’t want to be left behind.
We creep through the door, our boots crunching on trash and debris. Somehow, Tommy manages to dodge the noisiest trash. I sound like a bear crashing through brush. He glances at me, and I try hard to be quiet. Gabe’s headlamp dances in front of us and Tommy’s bobs beside me, cutting narrow slices of light through the dark room. The hospital walls are puckered and peeling. The floor is covered with dry paper, plaster ceiling, and animal droppings. Plastic chairs—covered in dust—line one side of a hallway. The space opens up as we tiptoe ahead. A reception desk with the hospital’s emblem on the front is ringed with bullet holes. On the wall, someone has spray-painted “The End is NEAR” in red paint.
I hope it’s paint.
The air is heavy with dust, and I stifle the urge to cough. Even though the place feels dead, that doesn’t mean that someone isn’t lurking. I creep close to Tommy. He’s holding his gun out in front of him like I’ve seen police do on TV. His eyes are quick, and when Gabe bounds around a corner, he snaps the gun that way.
“We stick together!” he whisper-shouts after Gabe.
But Gabe has gone ahead, like he always does.
“Goddamn it,” he whispers. He turns to me. “Stay here.”
Before I can protest, he runs after Gabe.
Leaving me alone.
In the dark.
Unarmed.
I stand perfectly still. My heart thumps harder and harder as the seconds tick by. Every scary story I’ve ever been told begins to play in my head. Soon, I start imagining monsters creeping toward me in the darkness. I swear I hear a noise. I swivel toward it.
“Tommy?” I want to run, but I could be sprinting into danger.
“Gabe?” I call quietly. “Tommy?”
Footsteps thunder my way. Someone’s coming.
I stumble back, but where can I go? My knee hits something, and it thuds on the ground. They’ll hear me. I find the wall and crouch low. Why didn’t they give me a knife, something, anything?
Twin lights cut through the dark. Headlamps.
“Gabe! Tommy!” I stand up.
But they don’t stop running. Tommy waves his arm, urging me forward.
“Run!” he says.
Chapter 18
Janine
There’s no time to think. I turn and run back the way we came. I hear the boys at my heels, sprinting for their lives. In my mind, a million scenarios are spinning: raiders, bombs, giant man-eating rats.
A hand on my arm. “In here!” Tommy’s voice directs. He pulls me through a dark doorway. Gabe skitters in after.
We pull up against the wall, panting and sucking down dust. Gabe starts coughing.
“Is it safe?” he asks.
“What’s going on?” I whisper. My heart won’t stop pounding.
Tommy shakes his head, the headlamp darting around the room. “I thought Gabe tripped a wire.”
“But he didn’t?” I look toward Gabe.
“Guess not,” Gabe says through panting breaths. “Damn thing must not’ve been armed.”
I look between Gabe and Tommy. “So the bombs are duds?
Tommy wipes sweat from his brow. “Let’s not assume anything, okay?”
With the adrenaline leaking out of me, I feel suddenly tired. “Let’s just hurry up. This place makes my skin crawl.”
“Hurrying can be deadly,” Tommy says, adjusting his headlamp. The light from it dances over a slew of cobwebs in the corner.
“Okay, so we go fast and careful. And w
e stick together,” I say.
Both boys drop their eyes when they realize they left me alone in the dark.
“If someone wanted to hide the drugs here, where would they put them?” I ask.
“Where’s the easiest place to defend?” Gabe asks.
“Top floor,” Tommy says. “Your enemies would have to go through all your traps and you’d have an advantage on stairwells.”
I nod. “Lucky for us this is only a two-story building.”
Gabe points forward with his crowbar. “We passed a stairwell.”
“Good,” I say. “Let’s move.”
We walk back through darkened hallways. I’m on edge, but at least I have both boys next to me this time.
“Through here.” Gabe points with the crowbar at the doorframe, into another dark hallway. When he angles his headlamp, I see a set of stairs.
Tommy steps toward the door and inspects what remains of the tripwire and the old explosive. Then he examines the floor and walls.
“Janine said we should be fast,” Gabe complains.
With a finger to his lips, Tommy starts up the stairs.
Gabe makes a face at Tommy and then looks back at me to see if I’m with him on the joke. I smile. Gabe’s hand brushes my arm and then he begins tromping up the stairs far too loudly.
I think about our kiss and what it meant. I can’t help it. What would Sabrina say if she were here? God, I miss her.
The door between us and the top floor is shut. Everyone tenses. Is it booby-trapped? What will we do if we can’t open it?
Tommy peers at the floor, the door handle, and through the little glass window. He waves for us to go back down the stairwell and slowly begins to turn the handle.
“Should you do that?” Gabe asks.
Tommy stiffens. “Can you please be quiet? I need to concentrate.”
“Sorry,” Gabe says, not sounding sorry.
Tommy starts to turn the knob again.
“But what if it’s rigged?” Gabe asks.
“Jesus!” Tommy says. “I almost want there to be a bomb, so I don’t have to hear your mouth run anymore.”
We watch in tense silence as Tommy slowly turns the knob.
The door clicks open, but Tommy doesn’t pull. He waits, with the door cracked, listening. He peers into the crack. Then slowly, he draws it open.
“Nothing,” he says as he cracks the door wide.
I blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Gabe strides up the stairs and toward the door.
But something catches the light at the base of the open doorway.
“Stop!” I scream. “A wire!”
Gabe tries to stop but with his momentum, he’s already gone too far. His body crosses the threshold, but it’s his leg that will trip the bomb. My eyes are frozen on the thin wire. I watch the scene in slow motion—Gabe’s body falling forward, his arms going wide, Tommy reaching, but not being able to catch him, Gabe’s face as the horror flashes on it.
At the last second, he kicks up his legs and dives.
He clears the wire!
“Whoo!” Gabe shouts, through a fist into the air. “We’re alive!”
Tommy, who’s got a hand on his heaving chest, shakes his head. “So much for quiet and careful.”
But I can tell he’s glad Gabe didn’t blow himself up even if he is mad at him for nearly killing us all.
Tommy steps carefully over the wire and examines the explosive. “I could cut it, but I have no idea how trigger happy it is.” He stands up and holds a hand out to me.
I take it and step delicately over the wire. We head down the long hallway as fast as we can.
Room after torn-apart room goes by on each side—medical beds with stained mattresses, and shredded privacy curtains with awful, spray-painted messages make this place look like a horror house. In one room, there’s a decayed husk of a body. I grab Gabe’s arm. He pats my hand, but more like I’m a frightened little sister than a girl he wants to kiss.
Tommy stalks into each room, gun at the ready, and rifles through open drawers, but doesn’t open anything. He checks the floor for trip wires and the door casings for traps before he enters.
In a room full of trash, Tommy finds some blister packs on a counter and brings them to me.
“Antacids, I think. We need a locked room or cabinet. It wouldn’t be booby-trapped because they wouldn’t want to blow up their supply, but there might be something near the door.”
Gabe gives a whistle. He points inside a room a few doors down. When we get there, I see a small, nondescript office, but inside is the treasure. A large, locked cabinet takes up most of the space. Gabe starts to walk in, but Tommy grabs his shirt.
“Hold your horses,” Tommy says, adjusting his headlamp. He begins an exhaustive search around the doorframe, the outer walls, and anywhere else a wire could be. He examines the floor tiles, making sure none look disturbed. When he’s satisfied, he takes the first careful step into the room. We hold our breath.
When we don’t all die, Gabe and I follow.
We stare at the tarnished but tough-looking metal padlock that separates us from what we need. The bolt cutters won’t put a dent in that steel, and there’s no way we’ll be able to find the key. The gang leader who ran this place probably died with it around his neck. I gently brush the hair back from the burned half of my face and sigh. “All this way for nothing.”
Tommy shakes his head, swings off his pack, and pulls out a canvas bag. Inside are at least a dozen slender metal rods. He selects a few, looks them over, and stares into the keyhole.
“Our dah wasn’t an honest man,” Gabe says as he watches his brother work. “He made his living any way he could. Stealing. Gambling. He passed down his trade to us, peach that he was.”
“Not that we had any choice.” Tommy slides one pick into the lock and reaches for another. “Only way we could bring home enough scratch was to steal. Bastard knew we’d have to learn his trade.”
Gabe snorts. “It was that or whore ourselves out. But Tommy had an affinity for picking locks. Thank God.”
I watch Tommy’s careful fingers twist different picks. His face contorts in concentration until a click sounds and the padlock falls open. Only then does he break into a smile.
“Nice!” Gabe says, patting him on the back. “Crack it open.”
Carefully, Tommy inspects the cabinet again and slowly pulls on the door. Inside is a treasure trove. Orange bottles line the top shelves. Blister packs and vials are stacked by the floor. And they look fairly new. Probably stolen from the Breeders.
I gaze at the bounty. “What do we take?”
Gabe chuckles. “My dear, we take everything.”
Tommy fills his backpack to bursting and produces another bag for Gabe. They stuff their pockets next. I stuff myself with orange pill bottles until I sound like a maraca at every move. When we’re stuffed and the cabinet is mostly empty, Tommy shoulders his pack. “Let’s go.”
We’re alive and have more than enough to pay off Prentice and free Gabe and Tommy from his clutches. I’m sure that something in this massive pile of drugs helps with seizures. And the rest will make them filthy rich. It’s amazing how luck can turn, just like that.
We head toward the door, Tommy in the lead, Gabe, and then me. Tommy passes through, but Gabe pauses just before the doorway to stare at a painting on the wall. It’s a landscape, trees beside a bridge. The texture and use of color makes it seem like a photograph. It’s not your typical hospital art in its gilded frame. But it hangs askew. Gabe reaches up and straightens the painting.
“Gabe, should you touch tha—?”
An explosion sends me flying.
Chapter 19
Janine
I’m dead.
The blast flashes before my eyes, so white I can’t see. So loud, I can’t hear. The force lifts me like a giant hand and slams me into the cabinet.
The world dims, and then gradually comes back. I blink into the smok
y haze. My ears ring.
The blast.
Gabe.
As I push up, pain explodes from places on my body I barely can name. I shake my head and crawl through rubble. Gabe’s headlamp shines straight up, smoke drifting through the beam, on the other side of the room. I hope he’s still attached to it.
Let him be alive. Please let him be alive.
I find a foot. My mind goes to a dark place, and I wonder if it’s still attached to the whole.
“Gabe,” I manage, though my voice sticks in my throat.
Nothing.
“Gabe.”
A hand on my back startles me.
Tommy stands over me, his face flooded with concern. His mouth moves with words I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears.
“We have to see if Gabe’s okay,” I say, though I don’t know if any of us can hear. I continue my crawl up Gabe’s body.
His torso is attached to both legs. I find his chest, his arm. Tommy aims his headlamp on Gabe’s body, and I recoil. His shirt is in tatters. The skin beneath is so bloody. How deep are the wounds? How will we stop them from bleeding?
Oh God.
Tommy steps over me, scoops him up, and strides to the door. As he’s about to leave, he looks back. “Can you walk?”
I realize I can hear him over the droning in my ears. I nod, though I’m not sure if it’s true. As I stand, I find it is.
“Can you carry a pack?” He points his headlamp at one of the backpacks filled with precious medicine.
I grab it and heft it on my back. It’s heavy and my legs are wet paper, but I’ll have to carry it. We have to make it out.
Tommy carries Gabe down the hall so fast that I have to jog to keep up. The urge to throw up is back, and I’m so dizzy I have to run with one hand on the wall just to keep from falling, but I somehow run. We get to the stairs, step over the tripwire, and hurry down. Then it’s another jog down a long hallway until we reach fresh air.
I pause at the doorway to the outside and try to breathe. Ahead of me, Tommy jogs to the van with Gabe in his arms. Gabe’s dark head lolls lifelessly against his brother’s shoulder.