“Damn!” Marcus shouts, sending echoes down the corridor. He slams his fist against the concrete wall, drawing blood with a single punch.
“Wait,” I say continuing my sprint to the door.
The cord that had bound Marcus’s wrists now dangles from the crack in the door. I trace the line with my fingertips and reach for the door handle. Marcus’s footsteps draw closer behind me. I tug. With little effort the door pops open. I drag the cord back, untie the ring, and slip it back on my finger. I tie the cord around my waist, just in case such a need arises again.
“Let’s get them.” I smirk.
The Web is dark. As black as the time Marcus and I escaped from Crimson. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness illuminated only by the amber emergency lights. But even after my eyes have adjusted I look ahead and see nothing but an empty corridor. I hear nothing. No footsteps. No breathing. Where could they have gone?
“Are you okay?” Marcus asks.
“I’m fine. Better than you by the looks of it.” I reach my hand out to the wound on Marcus’s chest, obviously just a flesh wound. He catches it, only inches away from touching him, and draws my fingers up to his lips.
“I broke a rib. But I’ll be alright.”
We dash through the tunnel, though Marcus’s injuries slow him down a little, checking the walls for doors or intersecting tunnels, but there’s nothing. A secret door, perhaps?
I stop and turn back.
“What is it?” Marcus asks.
“We should have caught up to them by now. Something’s not right.”
“Maybe they had a transporter waiting for them. Let’s keep moving.”
Suddenly a tiny voice breaks the silence. “Where are we going?” It’s like the unmistakable chime of a doorbell.
“Evie?” I look left, right, up, down, everywhere I can see. That was Evie’s voice. And she’s close. If we can’t destroy the Trinity, at least we can still save Evie.
“Where is she?” Marcus runs up ahead, palpating the walls along the way. I look above, recalling the ventilation duct.
“Evie? Are you up there?” No answer.
I run ahead, catching up with Marcus.
“Evie!” I call out again.
“Auntie Pollen?”
“Evie! It’s me! Where are you?”
“Auntie Pollen, I’m scared.”
The voice is coming from in front of us. Marcus and I dash forward. Up ahead is Route 85, an intersecting high-speed terminal where trains used to travel cross-country. A glimmer of light reflects some movement in the terminal. Then I see a copper-toned braid.
“Evie! I’m here!”
I begin to run, but Marcus stops me and holds a finger to his lips. I listen. A low rumble starts and the floor begins to vibrate. As the rumble grows louder, terror ignites inside me.
“Evie get out of there!” I shout, running as fast as I can toward her. Marcus is sprinting a few steps ahead of me, grinding through the pain to reach her in time. As we draw closer her face comes into view, but she hasn’t moved. Why isn’t she moving?
“Run, Evie! A train is coming!” I dig my toes into the floor trying to leap further with each step. The train is rattling the walls now. Its light illuminates the terminal, casting an unworldly luminescence over Evie.
In one sickening second she’s gone, and the train rushes by.
“No!” I scream. Before we even have a chance to slow down, before I can even comprehend what has just happened the train explodes with the passion of a Liberation Day fireworks display.
The pressure from the explosion lifts my body and propels me back, how far I don’t know. All I know is when I hit the ground I’m done. I’m ready to give up. I can’t do this anymore.
I stare at the ghost trails burned in to the darkness behind my eyelids and will myself to die, to sleep, to do anything but be conscious. It’s over, I tell myself. Just die already.
“Auntie Pollen?” Evie? No. I must be imagining it. Her voice is carved into my ear canal, just as the bright explosion is burned into my eyes. I don’t know how long I can take this torment. Glenn is gone. Drake is gone. Now Evie is gone. Judging by the proximity Marcus was to the train, he’s most likely gone too. I have nobody, nothing left to live for.
“Auntie Pollen!” There it is again. It really does sound like her. But my ears are still ringing and crackling from the force of the explosion. It can’t be her.
“Auntie Pollen! Help me!”
It is her! My eyes shoot open, but instinctively shut again at the sight before me. The crackling I heard wasn’t my damaged hearing; it was the crackling of fire, framing the corridor with red-hot flames. It’s just like my nightmare. I can’t show my weakness now. I have to fight one more time. I think back to that picture I saw on the wall in Granby’s office. “One’s greatest fear, when confronted, invokes one’s greatest strength.”
I have to find my strength now. I pry my eyes open. Ribbons of fire loom above me and sooty smoke fills the spaces in between. I twist around looking in all directions, half expecting to see dead people. I am in my own nightmare, after all.
In the chaos of the explosion I dropped my slingshot. I search the floor around me and find it under a contorted hunk of metal, which glows red-orange around the edges. Reaching out with my nervous fingers, I snatch it up and climb to my feet.
I take a step backward as a seething tendril whips out at me. I take a reluctant step forward pivoting my eyes to either side. The heat emanating off the walls is sweltering. My clothes are drenched. This must be what summer feels like above ground. I certainly couldn’t survive in this heat for too long.
I push forward, anticipation rising as I wait for faces to appear out of the fire. Even when they don’t, the fear doesn’t subside.
“Auntie Pollen!” The voice is more distant now. I must hurry.
I want to find Marcus, but I’m afraid to look down. I know there’s the twisted metal carnage from the train, but I’m scared I’ll see a body. Or worse, body parts, bloodied and mangled and tossed around like confetti. No, I must keep my head up. I must find Evie.
The flames are thicker and the smoke heavier as I approach the terminal. Searing steel and shrapnel litter the floor and tracks. I slow my pace to step through the wreckage, careful not to trip and fall into an entanglement of scorching metal limbs.
Up ahead, I see Evie. She’s on the other side of the terminal, not trapped in a snake’s deadly coil, but struggling against the Enforcer that drags her away. Only one thing stands in my way now—the raging wall of flames that blocks the entire corridor. There’s no other way to get through. I have to run straight through the fire. My heart races. My blood pressure drops. Dizziness overwhelms me and I crouch to the floor to avoid fainting. I have to do this.
Glenn’s voice whispers inside my head, “Your strength could conquer the world, Polly.”
I look up at the fiery blockade one more time. This time I do see faces lurking in the flames. I see Marge Rosenfritz, Edgar Wisecraft, and Frasier Trident. I see their sneering faces and the fear dissolves. They will not stand in my way.
Without a moment to spare I launch myself up and through the flames as effortlessly as a diver into a pool of sparkling water. The heat scalds my skin and singes the tips of my hair, but it is over within a few seconds. When I land on the other side of the tracks, my clothing sizzles and steam rises, clouding my vision for a few seconds.
“Hey!” I shout. The Enforcer dragging Evie turns. Only then do I realize I’m out of bullets and have nothing to load into my slingshot. The Enforcer starts to walk back toward me, holding Evie back. I scan my surroundings for something, anything I can use as a projectile. I kick over some burning shrapnel and find a shiny black object. Rolling it between my fingers I recognize it as a knob of some sort. Rising, I load it into my slingshot and aim.
The Enforcer grabs Evie and lifts her in front of him, creating a human shield. I can’t get a good shot without risking Evie getti
ng hurt.
“You’re the one they’re looking for, aren’t you?” The Enforcer’s voice is high for a male, and smooth as honey. “Imagine the reward I’ll get for bringing you both in.”
I shift to the right and back to the left, trying to find a decent angle, but either way, Evie is still too close. He draws closer. In a few more steps he’ll have me. So I do the only thing I have left to do. I let him take me.
Chapter 37
Up close, the Enforcer has a hideous appearance. His face is striped with scars and he has a cleft upper lip. His greasy dark hair hangs over his eyes, no helmet in sight. The Enforcer lowers Evie as he wrings my wrist in his cold, bony hand. I writhe at the pressure, but keep my focus on holding the slingshot in my other hand. If I drop it, it means defeat. And I’m not done fighting yet.
“Yes, the Trinity will be pleased,” he jeers. The flames cast a golden glow on his skeletal features, enhancing his scars, giving him a deadly, zombie-like appearance. Evie sniffles in his arms. She’s scared. Like really, really scared.
“Auntie Pollen, I want to go home,” she cries.
“Aww, she wants to go home,” the Enforcer mocks, in a vile hiss. “Didn’t she tell you? You are home little girl. The last home you’ll ever know.”
I swing my arm up and clap him in the side of the head with the handle of my slingshot. He drops Evie instantly and she tumbles to the floor. The Enforcer keeps his grip on my wrist and I hit him again. The next swing meets his hand and now he’s got both my wrists.
“Evie, run!” I command. She backs up to the wall, avoiding the burning metal at her feet. She does not run.
The Enforcer glares down at me, an awful sneer stretching across his lips. I struggle to loosen my wrists from his grip, but his hands are glued to them. He pulls me closer and swings me around to the wall, pressing me into it like a sandwich. His breath is pungent and sweet. The smell makes me nauseated. Horror sweeps over me as he lowers his mouth to mine. Just as I turn my head I see movement from within the fire. POP! POP! POP!
The Enforcer drops like a bag of bones. Blood gushes from his head, shiny and black as oil against the floor. I run to meet Evie and cradle her in my arms.
“Oh, Evie! Are you okay?” I brush her hair aside and study her face, looking for any unusual marks or scars. She nods, but I check her arms and legs too, just to be sure. Other than some sticks from blood drawing she looks good.
“I missed you Auntie Pollen!” Her tears melt with mine as we embrace each other again.
“I missed you too. I love you so much Evie!”
“Who’s that?” Evie asks. She points behind me, toward the fire. A body drags itself from the burning wreckage. His clothes are in tatters, what’s left of his skin is red and bloodied, the rest is charred. But he is still alive.
“Marcus!” I cry.
By the time I reach him he is face down and unconscious. I take the gun from his loosened grip and shove it into the back of my waistband.
I manage to gather enough strength to pull him away from the scorching flames, but once we reach safety my muscles give out and I land flat on my backside. How am I going to get him and Evie back to Ceborec? I’m not strong enough to carry him, even in my best condition. I could find a way to drag him, but it would still be at least a three-day journey. And no doubt we’d be hunted by Enforcers the entire time.
If only I could find some way to send a message to Ceborec, to Granby. We need help and I can’t do it alone. For the time being I need to get us to a safe place, hidden away from the Enforcers. And the Trinity.
An idea hits me. I pull the boots from the Enforcer’s body and unzip the jumpsuit, pulling it inside out as I take it off. I drag it next to Marcus and flatten it out as smoothly as possible. The jumpsuit is barely large enough to fit Marcus’s body, but it’ll have to do. Gently, I roll Marcus onto the flattened jumpsuit. I unravel the cord from my waist and tie each end of it to the sleeves.
“Evie, can you help me?” She nods and joins me at my side.
“We’re going to stand behind the cord, like this,” I say as I hold the cord in front of my waist, “and pull while we walk, just like an ox. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she replies.
Together, we pull. He slides quite effortlessly across the smooth floor of the Web. I’ll have to lift him if we have to cross tracks, but I’ll deal with that challenge when we reach it.
After about an hour of walking dreadfully slow, Evie’s had it.
“I want to sit down, Auntie Pollen.”
“We have to keep walking Evie,” I tell her. “We need to get home.”
“But I’m tired. I want to ride on Marcus.”
“You can’t honey. Marcus is very hurt right now.” But she doesn’t listen. Evie runs back and straddles Marcus’s chest.
“No!” I shout, thinking about his broken rib. Evie’s lower lip quivers and her eyes glisten in the dim amber light. Oh no, please don’t cry.
“Here, Evie,” I say, pointing low on Marcus’s stomach. “You can sit here, but be very, very careful. Marcus has some broken bones.”
“Broken? Will they grow back?”
“Yes, but we need to be very careful not to touch them. And we need to get him to the doctor very quickly.”
Evie sits just below Marcus’s belly button, with her knees hanging off either side. Just as I begin to pull again, Evie groans.
“What is it?” I stop and find her probing Marcus’s belt. She pulls out a device that resembles a cell phone. “This was poking me. What is it?”
I drop the cord and examine the device’s five yellow pin lights. Two of them flash evenly and rapidly, one flashes every few seconds. The other two remain fixed. A button the size of my thumb breaks the smooth surface in the center of the device. I’ve seen this before. Jansen had one earlier. “It’s a communicator.”
I press the button. Nothing happens. I press it again. Then I remember that Jansen had something in his ear. I drop to the floor and, sure enough, there’s a flesh-colored probe in Marcus’s ear canal. I fish it out and place it in my ear. A few seconds later, a voice cuts through.
“Ceborec headquarters to Stigma, Marcus. Are you there Marcus?” The male voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place it.
“Stigma, you there?”
I press the button and speak. “Ceborec, this is Pollen McRae. Marcus has been severely injured. Nicron and Jansen are dead.” My voice cracks upon saying their names. Reality is really starting to sink in.
“Pollen?” There’s a static noise coming through the hearing device. It sounds like the microphone is shifting hands.
“I have Evie and Marcus, but we need help.”
“Pollen, is that you?” Granby’s voice comes over loud and clear. It has a unique calming effect on me. Something about his voice makes me feel like everything will be alright.
“Yes, it’s me. We need help. I don’t know how to get back and they’ll be following us soon.”
“Pollen, stay where you are and find a safe place to hide. We’ll send out a party to find you.”
“How will you find us? We’re in the Web and—”
“The communicator contains a tracker. We know exactly where you are. Hang tight, Pollen. We’ll be there soon.”
The communicator makes a “shh” sound and goes silent. I watch Evie and Marcus through the tears coating my eyes. Evie is being so soft and delicate in her interaction with him, stroking his belly as if it were covered in kitten fur. I can see she missed him as much as she missed me.
I lean against the wall and slide my back down, until I’m sitting on the floor with my knees just under my chin. I hug my knees and lower my face into the vacant space to hide my crying. I don’t know if they are tears of grief or tears of relief because so many emotions are running rampant through me.
Once I’ve had my release I wipe my cheeks and tilt my head against the wall, wishing I had a fluffy pillow to rest on. On the opposite wall my eyes rest on a fra
med portrait and advertisement. “Introducing North Cythera to the future of oil,” it reads. The portrait is a pre-virus mug of Edgar Wisecraft. His ice-cold eyes seem to stare at me, taunt me, and an aggression builds inside me that I can’t repress. I walk my hands up the wall, climbing to my feet. I ease up to the portrait, ball up my fist, and hammer it into the glass. It cracks, creating a spider web streaking out to the edges of the frame. I hit it again, spreading the cracks. I hit it one more time with all my force and the glass shatters, sprinkling shards mixed with drops of blood to the floor. I yank the picture off the wall, rip the portrait from the frame, and tear Edgar’s face to shreds. As I throw it to the floor, I squat down and pick up a polygonal shard of glass, half the size of my palm. A drop of blood has made a trail from one end to the other. I close my fist and open it back up. Two deep scratches carve lines into my flesh.
All the noise I just made kept me from noticing his appearance. My heart jumps when I look up to find the real Edgar Wisecraft staring at me from down the corridor.
“It’s time to give up Miss McRae.” His gravelly voice sends icy shivers down my spine, but I maintain my composure.
“I’ll never give up Wisecraft.”
“Oh, but my dear, how do you intend to transport Evie and Mr. Stigma all the way back to Ceborec? Do you really think you can escape the Enforcers? Do you really think you can escape me?”
I straighten my legs, yank out the pistol and shoot.
Click. Click.
Wisecraft’s vile laughter punches me in the face. But then a sparkle catches my eye. I still hold the glass in my other hand. Maybe if I aim it just right . . .
“You killed my family. You took away everything I ever loved. And here you stand, reveling in it. I don’t know if I can escape you, but I won’t go down without a fight. If you want me, you’ll have to come get me.”
Wisecraft begins a slow walk toward me. I duck into the shadows between the emergency lights, tear the slingshot from my leg and carefully load the glass into the sling, the sharpest edge pointed out. I take a deep breath, aim, and release.
The Trinity Page 23