“Yeah, okay,” I muttered, looking down so that I could reel back in the emotional overload.
I couldn’t think of anything to wish for, because in my experience, the things you want that badly are the things that get taken away. Instead, I repeated “Fuck” in my brain, eighteen times, and then blew out the candle.
Everyone cheered, in some manner, and the lights came back on, leaving me blinking and covering my eyes from the harsh glare.
Gemma pulled the candle out and handed me the plate with the cake on it. “All yours, Azzie,” she smiled, then looked at her sister, then back to me, almost sheepishly? “We, uh, made you something…” she trailed off, looking embarrassed, and handed me a box of band-aids.
I looked at it, then back at her, narrowing my eyes, then carefully opened the top — half expecting a poisonous snake or something to bite me, but there was just a shit-ton of bandages with the top half of their wrappers removed.
“It’s not totally unhygienic,” Adriana said with a shrug, “we left the bottom part on covering the part that touches the wound, so they aren’t completely useless.”
I lifted one out of the box, and it had “TWATWAFFLE” written across it in bold, black letters. The next one said “CUNTMUFFIN,” and the third, “COCK-HOLSTER.” At least I’d made an impression on them.
“You made me vulgar band-aids?” I asked, staring at them. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” I yelled, bouncing on my heels. “But not cool enough to hug you so back off, evil bitch,” I flinched away from a grasping Gemma and backed into Jason Callis.
“Careful, there,” he warned, grabbing my hips and holding me steady, his breath puffing against my ear.
“We made you something too,” Ryan proclaimed proudly, and stepped up so I was wedged between the two of them — far enough apart so there wasn’t anything I should complain about, but close enough that I was still uncomfortable. I twisted so they were on either side of me, my back wasn’t to either of them.
Ryan handed me a thick stack of what appeared to be halves of index cards, fastened together. The top one had two stick figures on it.
“What is it?” I looked at the next card: the two figures had moved together slightly.
“Flip book,” Jason said, taking my hands to show me how to flick rapidly through the pages. I watched in awe as the two figures came together and looked like they were kissing, then suddenly the shorter one started stabbing the taller, and he collapsed onto the ground as she walked away, grinning broadly.
“You made me a flip book of a murder?”
“We made you a flip book of Azzie cutting a bitch,” Ryan replied, leaning in to peck my cheek. “You’re welcome.”
“There must be a hundred pictures here!”
“And that’s why they’re stick figures,” Jason explained, leaning in to kiss my other cheek. I held very still, fighting the impulse to turn my head and catch his mouth. His breath caught, like he knew my internal struggle, and then sighed softly. “I’m so sorry, Az. But happy birthday.”
“Took forever to draw it all,” Ryan assured me like he was looking for praise, “so thank your boyfriends for dealing with all the gear and letting us go off to make your surprise. Which you almost ruined by walking in unannounced.” That fucker was actually scolding me! For walking around my own damn house!
I narrowed my eyes, opening my mouth to release the bitch-kraken, then shook my head, letting it go. He winked at me with a smirk, and I realized almost too late that he was fucking with me to alleviate some of the tension. I sighed, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek, and he sucked in a breath in shock. Patting that cheek, I turned to his brother and kissed Jason’s cheek too, just a brief peck even though he moved his face and I caught the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” I said, sincerely, then looked at the Evil Viper Twins. “Really, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Azzie,” Adriana replied with dignity and class, while her sister decided to go another direction.
“You’ll get your presents from your boyfriends later,” she waggled her eyebrows suggestively, as if it wasn’t obvious what she meant. Apparently she wanted to make sure. “And by that, I mean the big D. You know, all the dicking. Five cocks, no waiting. I’m saying you’ll get some. Probably your birthday spanks then too — does one of them make you call him Daddy because this is like prime—”
I slammed my palm over her mouth and didn’t even pull it away when she licked me, like a child. “I broke your code when you said presents, you douchecanoe,” I growled, my face on fire.
“Oh, damn! We shoulda put douchecanoe on one of the bandages!” Gemma cried, waving her arms at her sister who looked equally distraught at the missed opportunity.
I glanced over at Spider, and I must’ve had a please save me look on my face because he was on it, checking his manly watch and ordering everyone to get their shit together, we needed to head out if we wanted to hit the wall at shift-change. I smiled at him gratefully, and almost swooned when my aloof, impassive soldier-slash-teacher — without any change in expression — winked at me across a room full of people.
Once everyone was suited up again, and I’d tucked my profanity-laced bandages and violent flip-book into my pack — both of which I loved more than I was willing to admit — I approached the intercom and this time no one stopped me. Smacking the button, I spoke into the microphone.
“We’re leaving,” I said flatly. “The power is going to be off for five minutes, but it will come back on automatically. Cover the tunnel entrance back up when we’re gone.”
There was a short delay, then Rachel came on. “Good luck out there, all of you.” She sounded weird for her. Subdued. The bitch volume was cranked way down.
“Thanks,” I replied, then turned back to—
“Azzie? I’m sorry.” It was so tentative that I almost thought I imagined it. “I really am. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, a little confused. Did she want something? Is that why she was suddenly apologizing?
Tai approached, hitting the intercom button. “Thank you, Rachel. You all take care of yourselves,” he said, almost kindly, and I stared at him in disbelief. What the fuck?
“You too, Tai,” she said, sounding happier, and I could hear the kids shouting Good luck! and Bye Azzie! in the background. “All of you, be safe.”
Tai took my hand, leading me away from the intercom, his expression promising me he’d explain later. I shook my head, looking around to make sure Laurence Fishburne wasn’t about to offer me a blue pill, but it was just eight other equally confused people, and one Sev nodding knowingly. That must’ve been some meal planning session.
I leaned down and peeled back the giant rug of Hello Kitty’s head and padding underneath it, then dislodged the thick plywood disk that covered the hatch embedded in the floor. I pointed down at the keypad mounted next to the hatch and grinned. “It’s a dummy,” I said, talking to them while I crossed over to the security terminal and logged in. “You can punch numbers into it for a hundred years and it will never unlock a fucking thing. Only way to open this hatch from inside the bunker is to shut off the power to release the latch. There’s a code to enter from the outside — Mouse’s little joke, you have to spell out Spazzie on the keypad.” Gemma giggled while Spider snorted. “And if any of you call me that, I’ll, um… well, shit. I don’t have anything to threaten you with anymore. That blows…” I looked around at the group again. “Guess I’m stuck with offering sexual favors.”
I chose that moment to kill the power and the room was plunged into complete blackness.
A woman screamed, but I’m pretty sure it was actually Luka. There were a bunch of gasps and cussing, and I cackled like a hyena as I switched my flashlight on — I couldn’t handle the dark for very long, even if it was the best prank ever. I directed the light down at the floor but we could all see each other just fine because it was a freaking bright flashlight.
“Bitch,” was said decisive
ly, by several people including two of my boyfriends.
“C’mon,” I whined, “that was perfect timing!”
Sasha and Tai both looked away, trying to hide their smiles, but Luka continued to glare at me while Sev and Spider were totally stone-faced. The Slopes were glaring too, but the Callises were laughing.
I shook my head, muttering about lame people not appreciating my genius, and crossed back to the hatch, spinning the wheel and popping it open. A dank, musty smell filled the room, effectively killing the mood, whatever mood it might be.
“Alright, we only have a few minutes. Luka and Spider, you go down first — heheheh — and we’ll lower all the loose stuff down to you. I’ll go down last—” yeah, I giggled again. I’m not proud. “—and shut the hatch behind us. Be careful, it’s going to be slippery.” Then I was full-on chortling because I’m twelve and that shit is funny.
And yes, some of them were fighting back snickers as well, including Luka who wasn’t fighting that hard.
Hard. Bwahahaha!
“Are you seriously laughing at your own internal monologue right now?” Adriana demanded and I shrugged at her.
“I’m fucking hilarious, you just never appreciated my wit,” I handed Mouse’s and my bags — the last ones to go — down to Luka, who winked at me. “Alright, everyone down the ladder, and pick up any bags you can, we’ll sort it all out once we’re outside.”
I climbed down after Ryan, pulling the hatch door shut behind me, and paused. Fifteen seconds or so later, I heard the lock re-engage as the power came back on and all the systems rebooted.
It was slow-going in the tunnel because it was really slippery — carved through solid rock and sitting eight feet below the bunker, it was situated in the layers between the bunker and the aquifer below, and the walls and floor were slick with moisture. I’d be giggling about moist tunnels and such, except my anxiety was creeping up to epic levels.
We were about to leave the relative security of the bunker, the only real home I’ve known since my family died. The only place I’ve felt truly safe over the last four years.
We were about to leave this place hoping against all the odds that no one on the base knew we were going — counting on no one even suspecting it — to emerge alongside a road not thirty feet from an active guard tower. If they were looking, they’d see us, so the only way this worked is if no one was looking.
The shift change was at midnight. It was 11:32. We had a good two hundred yards of slippery tunnel to maneuver ten people and a shit-ton of baggage up hill towards the surface, then a door to get through into a giant metal tube that would echo and resonate with every sound we made.
We were fucked.
As we got farther down the tunnel, moving slower than my heart could take as I watched the minutes tick away, I began to babble — to fill them in on important information, and to have something else to do with my brain besides dwell on what fresh hell this could bring.
“Not sure if you noticed, but this tunnel slopes upward,” I said from the middle of the group where my guys had placed me. I was still only carrying my bag and Mouse’s — and I knew they were the right bags because ours were the only ones with patches sewn onto them. It’s like they knew I’d be comforted to have hands on our shit. “The bunker was about twenty feet underground, give or take. Where we are coming out, it’s only about three feet under the surface. Under a road, actually. We’re going to be coming out into a corrugated metal pipe that runs under the county highway to the south of Salem. There’s about seven of them along that road, which runs parallel to the wall, and we’ll be in the center one. There’s a guard tower about thirty feet away from the pipe’s opening on the north side. When we exit this tunnel, it’s going to be imperative that we made as little sound as possible in that pipe, because anything in there is going to echo. If our timing works, there’s going to be a shift change right around then, which would be really, really helpful.”
“And if we missed that window?” Someone asked, I think it was Sasha.
“It makes things harder, but not impossible. The door is on the west side of the pipe, which means you turn right when you exit. Got it? Through the door, turn right. It’s going to empty out into a ditch, hopefully dry but maybe not. Don’t leave the ditch. Don’t crawl up the side and look across at the wall, there are cameras running along the road just like roads inside the barrier. Once we’re all out of the pipe, then we can figure out how to get into the woods. Just… no lights, no sound. Anything this side of the wall gets shot on sight, no exceptions.”
We made it to the door. I got it open with minimal noise, or at least not enough to draw attention. The pipe itself had a few inches of water in it, which didn’t bode well… the first person who hit the edge of the pipe ended up making a small splashing sound and we all froze, waiting for shouts, gun fire, but nothing.
I got the door closed back up, the piece of metal that sat in front of it back into place as the rest of them emptied out into the ditch, then I inched my way to the edge. It was so dark outside, so dark in the pipe, with my fucked up eyes I was blind again, not nearly enough light for me to make anything out, and my heart was pounding. Every breath seemed to echo, every movement was like a gong sounding out, vibrating the metal around me. I was crouched down, holding Mouse’s bag against my chest, my own pack on my back and scraping against the top of the pipe every time my left foot moved forward. Not my right, only my left, like I was walking at an angle on the side of the pipe or something.
It had been a long time since I’d come through the tunnel, crawled through this pipe. Four years, in fact. We were too scared about the tracking chip, even masking it, so I only came through once to make sure I knew the way, to make sure I could orient myself and make it to the woods. There was another tunnel that led out, but it required a lot of crawling — this was the only one that meant we could bring supplies out too.
I remember that night, it was just a game then. I was so young, and we didn’t have much to lose — we were so damn confident that we were untouchable, the biggest risk was losing a bunker we’d only had for a few weeks.
Things were different now. The price was so much higher.
I was shaking by the time I reached the lip, by the time my hand slid right off the edge into nothingness, and my foot began to bend against nothing, my weight shifting, ready to pitch me forward into nothingness, into noise and chaos and gunfire, but someone caught me.
Someone stood in the opening of the pipe and kept me from falling, someone tall enough that they blocked me completely, their arms stretched out and touching the sides. Someone with blonde hair turned silver in the darkness.
“I got you, sweetpea,” Luka whispered so softly that not even my shadow could’ve heard him, if there was any light to cast one. Once I was balanced, hanging onto his arm with one hand, he carefully lifted Mouse’s pack away and handed it to someone I couldn’t see, then both his hands were on my shoulders.
“I can’t see, Luka.” I tried to whisper it, as soft as him, but my panic cracked through the thin shell of caution and leaked out in a tremulous cry. I covered my mouth, hitching in a breath, then tried again. “It’s like being blind again— I can’t see.”
“I know, baby,” he leaned in until he was right up against me, until his mouth was buried in my ear. “That’s why I’m going to carry you. We already checked, we know where the cameras are, and the guard tower is quiet—”
“How?” I hissed into his ear, not understanding. It takes at least five minutes to see the red light blink on a camera and we’ve only just—
“You’ve been in that pipe for a long time, Azzie. Barely inching along. We couldn’t help you until you got to the edge, but you’re here now, and we’re ready. As soon as Sasha gives the word, I’m going to lift you up and go. Don’t make a sound, okay? Everything is going to be okay.”
I nodded, trusting him to feel the movement, not trusting my voice. I waited, letting the warmth of his body seep into the
hollow space inside where the darkness lived that was always waiting to strand me, helpless and isolated. Vulnerable.
I pictured it like it was bright daylight outside, but the dark crept up from inside and broke through my eyes from behind, pouring out to shroud my face in an impenetrable, inky cloud; everyone else could see just fine, it was only me that was trapped in the void, in perpetual night.
“You’re shaking,” he breathed into my ear, “just relax. We’ve got you, Azzie. Trust me.”
I did. I did trust him. And when the near-silent call of “Now!” seemed to hover in the air like a figment of my imagination, I didn’t hesitate. Luka grabbed hold and I wrapped every limb I could around him, clinging like a spider monkey, as he carried me through five seconds worth of water, up a slope covered in weeds and underbrush for thirty heartbeats, and then into an even blacker place where branches brushed against me and snagged on my pack and hair. I buried my face in his neck and held on, closing my eyes against my greatest fear.
No, endless darkness was my second greatest fear now. The first was losing them.
Chapter Thirteen
Mouse, about four years ago
“Helloooooo?” I called out, resting my hand against the thick metal door. I didn’t push it open, not yet, not until I knew if anyone was inside.
Please don’t let there be anyone inside.
We needed this place. We needed a way out.
I waited, counting my breaths, listening for any noise at all. Nothing.
“If you’re in here, you need to say something!” I yelled again, louder this time, and then waited.
Still nothing.
“Alright, but I warned you! And you better not be hiding and waiting for me to walk in so you can shoot me as a trespasser because that wouldn’t be cool!”
Okay, that was a lot of shit to be yelling into a dark, underground lair, but these people were known for being WEIRD. And, like, those are usually my people, but these preppers weren’t my tribe. They weren’t my kind of weird. They were fertilizer-bombs-in-public-buildings weird.
Book of the Lost: AAV-07d25-11: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 3) Page 15