They passed a small room resembling somewhat to a kitchen, and five others with ten beds each. At the end of the corridor, they came to an open archway, and a stretched out area of almost the exact size of the Keep’s cafeteria.
There’d been a crate-crafted table at the centre of the room, with more than fifty seats neatly stacked around it. Shelves on the walls were piled with all sorts of gadgets: From guns, to books, and old wheel caps of ancient cars.
The eight guests (excluding Shawn) all stared in awe of everything hidden below the quiet city of Jaf, and all this time without anyone ever knowing.
‘Here they are, Belle.’ Carl said, presenting the awestruck bunch to a bright-eyed woman sitting opposite of the stretched out table.
Belle Willow had hazel brown hair, neatly braided across her left shoulder, and kind green eyes, shining of both the wisdom and pain she’d obtained throughout her life. She rose from her chair, and fled towards them with a bright, shiny smile.
Sam could see why Mike would’ve been close with her. She really was beautiful.
‘Welcome!’ Belle howled, her voice sounding soft and kind. ‘I trust all went well in getting you here?’
Her eyes drifted to Carl, who’d rub his chin.
‘Blimey, if only that’d be true!’ He drew his hand through his ashy haircut, and revealed tiny ginger-like tuffs slowly emerging from his hairline. ‘But nothin’d be impossible for this here Carl Herring!’
It might’ve been their physical tiredness, but for some reason they’d all started laughing along as Carl blushed; well all except for Viper. Her eyes had been caught by the figure of a man entering the room from the opposite side.
‘You!’ she muttered. ‘You’re the man who leaked our location to the ECD!’ She sprung forward, and balled her fists at him. If it hadn’t been for Luke an Aaron who’d jumped to restrain her, she might’ve just assaulted him.
The man seemed flustered, but by the look of his apron, Sam and Aaron recognised him at once. He was the barman from Jaf.
Ben was shaking when Viper’s voice had shattered his eardrums. He turned round to find her balling fists swinging in the air, and crawling through the limbs of the two young boys withholding her, both of whom he’d seen at the bar earlier.
He was all too relieved when Belle leaped in front of him; panic and bewilderedness wrapped across her face. She clearly hadn’t the slightest clue of what was going on.
‘No, you’ve got it all wrong! Ben alerted us, not the ECD!’ She said, tapping the puzzled barman on the back. ‘How else do think Carl was able to find you, and bring you here?’
Viper backed off at once.
Still not entirely convinced, she raised one of her thick, black eyebrows, and shrewdly murmured something inaudible. She wrenched herself from the boys’ grip, and crossed her arms. If it hadn’t been him conversing with Jack Crowe, then who? There was something about this entire setup that deeply bothered her.
‘Where exactly is, here?’ Melanie asked, scouring the room with all its unobserved treasures. Her eyes were caught by an old globe of the earth, its waters still blue, and its grounds still green. Oh, how she longed to have lived in a world like that.
There’d been faded paper aeroplanes dangling from the ceiling, and softly striding within the feeble breeze emerging from the air vents. Nowadays she’d only seen airships: Boisterous machines that filled the sky with its polluting wastes.
Her heart bled for the spiral of human kind.
‘I’ll be happy to explain,’ Belle said. She had gestured for Carl and Ben to leave, and they tamely tipped their heads, before striding out, and off to the common room.
Belle reached for one of the shelves.
She removed an old piece of rolled up cloth, with faint patches of blue ink splattered along its edges. ‘We’d just arrived in Jaf after escaping the Keep, when we too had fell victim to having no tags. You see, in attempt to escape the ECD, Mike and I decided it was best for us to hid underground. That’s when we stumbled upon this place,’ Belle opened the cloth, and spread it flat against the table’s surface. It revealed crooked drawings of what had looked like a map. ‘The undergrounds,’ her womanly fingers ran to the edges of the cloth, connecting all four entrances of the map.
‘We have the quickest access to every part of the city, including a cast-off mining exit up on the old mountains. That way, if the ECD were ever to find us, we’d be able to escape within the blink of an eye.’ She stood aside, and Sam studied the map closely.
Within the bright blue web of hand-drawn tunnels, she found there’d been much more of the undergrounds than at first revealed to them. She’d seen crooked corridors and hidden doors; all entwined to connect at the centre of what looked like a living area–exactly where they were right now.
There was one tunnel though, that seemed slightly more compressed.
Its narrow constructed body led right to entrance number three, and into the mountains. Although one of Belle’s thumbs had partially been covering it, Sam quickly identified it by the universal sign of drawn hilltops.
‘So you’ve been surviving down here all this time?’ Aaron asked.
‘Not surviving my friend, but living. We have everything we could possible need down here. These bunkers were so long forgotten, the waterlines from the pump had never been disconnected. As for food–well–potatoes, snakes and scorpions are as far as it goes. On the good harvests, we might even have some yellow carrots, but this year hasn’t been one of the best though. This is the wastelands after all; we have to get by with what we’ve got.’ Belle rolled up the cloth, and tucked it into the shelves between two thick atlases. Sam would’ve really wanted to have closer look at them, to study more of the old world: The one her great ancestors let slip from their fingers, dooming all future generations to nothing but dust.
How could they have achieved so much, only to ignore the little things, the most important things?
‘None of this would’ve ever been possible without your brother, Sam.’ Belle said, her eyes swooning, and her voice calm.
‘How–did you know who I am?’
Belle smiled, studying the eight fugitives staring at her. They were all so young, and confused. She too had been there once.
‘Do you really think when yet another group of prisoners manage to escape the Keep, it would remain a secret? Especially when one of them is the legendary Mike Cyrus’ sister? Not a chance!’ Belle snickered, and strode forward. ‘Come on, follow me.’
‘Do you know where Mike is?’ Sam asked. The corridor was too narrow for her to walk alongside Belle, and forced her to trot at the back. She wasn’t sure if the racing figure in front could hear her properly, so she raised her voice.
‘I’m afraid not. I’m so sorry.’ Belle swallowed. ‘One night he simply took off. Hadn’t even told me where he was going. But rumour has it he joined the rebellion–not that I know if it’s true.’
Sam gulped.
Her feet failed to carry her, slacking her down to the bare crawl of a walk. She saw Viper’s arm fishing past her, crushing her body into the wall when scooting to the front.
‘Are you okay?’ Aaron asked, seeing how pale she was, but Sam could only vaguely make out his voice. As for his face, it spun around in blurry circles before her dizzy eyes. She nodded (lying) and resumed walking in silence.
Belle entered one of the rooms to her right, and stood by the door as the others piled in after her. There’d been ten pasty beds, tightly stacked against each other.
‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not much, but at least it’s a place to sleep.’ She referred her words to the crumbling tiles on the floor, and cloudy grey walls. There’d been small stains of what looked like tar, trailing bits by bits to the ceiling.
‘Compared to where we’ve been, this is considered as luxury!’ Luna said, flopping onto the nearest bed. The moment her head hit the stale foam pillow, her eyes fell shut.
‘Well you’re welcome to stay here as lon
g as you like. Anyone who escaped the Keep is considered as family here.’ Belle paused at the door. ‘Showers are down the hall to your left, there would be a girl Maggie waiting for you. We don’t have any fancy clothes here, but at least it’ll beat those rags you’re wearing.’ She laughed, studying Aaron’s revealed chest. ‘Oh, and I doubt you’ve had anything to eat. It’s past dinner already, so I’ll send some food up with Shawn for you. I figure he’d still be mingling?’ She bid them goodnight, walked into the hall, and turned left towards the kitchen.
How did Belle know that Shawn was with them? Carl never said it. Sam rubbed her head, and sat down on one of the beds. Perhaps she’d never know, she thought.
Just as she’d never know how Belle had recognized her.
Chapter 30
When Shawn had returned at what felt like the brink of midnight, he carried a steaming tray of granite bowls with him. It was generously filled with a lumpy orange soup, seemingly unfamiliar to any of them.
Never the less had they indulged themselves, slurping it all up to the very point they could feel jagged stone scratching against their tongues. Whatever its contents, it was successfully disguised as a peculiar, yet tasty, soup.
Sam couldn’t tell if it was better than the Keep’s moon mud or not, for her thriving hunger had overpowered all her other senses, including those that told her of the great white elephant still in the room with them.
‘Listen,’ Sam said to those around her, staring blankly across the room. ‘I’m really sorry about everything. I swear, I never meant for–’
Viper groaned, and rolled her eyes.
‘Shut up, Viper!’ Melanie contested, shoving her pillow at the sulking lump on the bed next to her. ‘Sam’s trying to talk.’
‘I never said anything.’ Viper muttered, and lay back down with her hands behind her head.
‘So, as I said. I’m really sorry.’ Sam apologized, and almost at once her stomach enlightened. Even so much so, that an unexpected scaly texture of bitterness came dancing across her tongue. Scorpion, from what she could guess. ‘I bet you all think I deserve this...never finding Mike.’
‘You do.’ Aaron said, sternly. ‘But Mike doesn’t. That’s why you’ll find him.’
They’d had a long and revolutionary talk. Sam told them all about how she’d gotten herself caught, and never expected any of them to get caught up in her plans. She told of how she’d thought Mike to be awaiting her at the Keep, and the devastation of a lifetime when she found out that he clearly wasn’t.
For whatever it meant, it seemed that most of those around her understood, or at least, pretended to.
‘I would’ve done the exact same thing, I guess.’
‘At least we escaped the Keep, that’s good right?’
It was good, and so was Sam. She was happy to find that all of them felt free. Well, free enough.
‘Jamie wasn’t your fault, you know.’ A sleepy voice rose from behind them. Luna woke just in time to catch Sam’s speech, and heard the drawing dagger of guilt within her friend’s voice from all across the room. It wasn’t fair to let Sam suffer, when in actual fact it was all she had done from the very moment they escaped. ‘She wasn’t.’
Sam’s eyes filled with unexpected tears, but she hid them at best she could.
‘I know,’ she whispered, fearing that she’d burst into crying at her lie. Jamie’s death WAS in fact her fault, even if no one else had thought so. She would always hate herself for letting such a young girl die at the stake of someone else’s gain…Her gain.
‘That’s why, when I’m going after Mike, you should all stay here. I can’t risk anything happening to any of you.’
Aaron frowned.
‘You’re going after Mike?’ His curdling tone rippled with worry, and he turned to face Shawn. Surely he’d be against it? Instead, Shawn just sat there, pretending not to notice. He rummaged around on the tray, searching for a mere lick of food that might be left.
‘I have to.’ Sam said. ‘He’s the sole reason I came here. Without him, I have no one.’
‘You have us.’
Sam broke away to stare at the wall. Friends will be friends, but family is blood. Mike was her mission, but maybe staying with her friends was her duty. After all, it would be safer.
Look at everything they’ve found: a glistening gem in the lost lands of waste. Weren’t they free now? Shouldn’t she be happier?
Sam feared she was now even more confused than ever.
‘Mm…’ was all she could say.
She forced a warm smile, and crawled under the scratchy maroon blankets. They weren’t as comfortable as those at the Keep, she had to admit, but they sure were better than the broken ceiling of a buried cabin in the desert.
She turned on her side, and closed her eyes.
The bright orange light shining beneath her eyelids, dimmed, leaving everything around her in pitch black. It was Aaron who had turned off the light.
He cleared his throat, as if to mutter a good night, but no sound emerged from his lips as he crawled into bed. On that note, they all went to sleep, dreaming of staggering questions and escaping prisons.
Sam opened her eyes.
There was no way she could possibly fall asleep now. She had so many decisions, all with just as many consequences.
She pictured Mike in her head, and how he torched a satellite while calling ‘Long live the rebellion!’ over the mountain tops. Why did he join the rebellion? What were they rebelling against?
Thousands by thousands of questions flooded her mind, rendering her head thick, and her neck heavy. She couldn’t remember when she had finally dosed off, but clear above all, she decided: She had to get out of there.
* * *
Morning drew near, and as Sam rose from her slumber, the last of her friends’ bodies disappeared through the doorway. She jumped out of bed, straightened herself out, and rushed after them.
‘Where are we going?’ Sam asked, catching up to Eric.
‘Breakfast of course.’ He said, smiling. ‘What else.’
‘Why didn’t you guys wake me?’
‘We wanted you to sleep. Aaron said he heard you having a bad dream last night. Is everything okay?’
‘Everything’s peachy.’ Sam said, entering the room with the stretched out table. All around, the room was buzzing with people, and the heavenly scent of spiciness and sweet.
Sam’s eyes searched the crowd.
Belle smiled at her, and motioned towards an empty chair by her side. Sam was so hungry, she hadn’t dare resist. She sat down next to the young guy with glasses, and soon discovered that his name as Edward. He’d been great friends with Mike too, or so he told her.
It appeared that even though Sam hadn’t known a single soul around her, they were all dangerously well acquainted with her. She asked Edward about the soup, served once again in the same orange colour.
He laughed. ‘You don’t want to know.’
She heard him muttering something about scorpions, proving the returned scaly bitterness just as she’d thought.
This morning, along with the soup, they had a generous helping of stale potatoes. Sam thought this to be the best thing she’d had to eat in months. She was enlightened to see that all of her friends had thought so too, and soon, without even realizing it, she’d eaten four potatoes already.
Shawn was sitting opposite of her, chatting away at a bunch of people she’d seen in the common room the day before. He’d clearly been in his element, making them cry of hysteria as he told one joke after the other. Every now and then his eyes would drift towards Sam and catch her attention, smiling at her. Each of those times, he undoubtedly succeeded in weakening her knees.
While Sam hadn’t known what she felt, she refused to give in to his charms. She heard Edward chattering at the back of her head, blabbering on about an ancient type of rock he’d found.
Her eyes would drift towards Aaron, enjoying the company of a young girl, blonde and beautiful. Although he�
�d been very good at keeping her attention, Sam couldn’t help but notice his occasional glance in her direction.
She breathed in deeply, and reached for another potato.
* * *
‘The five of us are going out with Belle to see the garden.’ Melanie said after breakfast, psyched. ‘You want to join us?’
Sam shook her head.
‘No thanks, I think I’d stay here, maybe explore a little.’
‘Okay then, but if you change your mind, you know where to find us.’ Melanie smiled, and left with Aaron, Luna, Donny and Luke short on her trail. Viper was seated in the common room, betting the boys she’d win them hands down at poker. They laughed her off, and the brawl had started. Lance was supposedly the best player of the lot, and easily won the first hand.
‘That’s all you got, big guy?’ Viper bellowed, straightening her back before crackling her knuckles. ‘I grew up with three brothers and one sister. I’ve dealt with worse than you! Make it double or nothing!’
Sam laughed. It was the first piece of real information she’d ever learnt about Viper. Maybe she wasn’t all as bad as Sam thought? There was definitely no way that Viper would lose. She’d proven time after time how smart she really was, and although Sam hadn’t known why, she pretended to be an airhead.
Entering the dining room, Sam took the atlases down from the shelves, and opened them up, one by one to a map of the earth. They had all looked exactly same. It gave her an unexpected feeling of stability, something unchangeable for millions of years passed. She traced her fingers from Spain to Saudi-Arabia, a fairly shorter journey than she’d thought.
It was clearly near enough for Dallas Romero to fly to and from in his airship, Sam thought, smirking.
Back in Emitton, she’d only always heard of the wastelands, and how it was found on the other side of the earth, seemingly impossible to reach. They were taught in school it was a lost land, from which no one can return, and there being no way to ever tell what happened to those sent through the portal. Oh, how gullible she was.
The Keep (A Renegades story Book 1) Page 21