“It’s too soon.”
“It was days ago.”
“Exactly. Days. I don’t want you to be reminded of that. I don’t want to be reminded of that.” He frowns. “I should’ve finished Landry when I had the chance.”
I smile into his chest and pull him close. “Um, Wren? Even when I am over it, there’s a very good chance I’m going to get, you know. Nervous.”
“When we…?”
“Yep.” I am thankful that the lights are dim; he can’t see how deeply I blush.
“Mmm,” he growls in my ear. “Good point.” He holds me tight in his arms and kisses my forehead, and there is that feeling again. That I never want him to let me go. But it doesn’t make sense, because all I’ve ever wanted is just the opposite. Freedom.
And that is what I will get when I make it aboveground. That is what I will get when I kill a person. A hard pit forms in my stomach at the thought, and for a second I forget Wren lies against me, our hearts beating in rhythm. All I can think about is how soul-destroying it must be to take the light from someone’s eyes, no matter how dark those snake eyes may be. All I can think about is that I might not have the stomach for it. And so I might not ever escape Compound Eleven after all. I might have to stay here, in Wren’s arms, forever.
Chapter Thirty
The next day, murder doesn’t seem so difficult to comprehend. My eyes watch Daniel, and as they do, his flit to mine. When they lock into position, I see them sparkle with dark laughter, laughter that is sinister, that is full of ill intent. We are on opposite sides of the cafeteria, but still I can see them shine. Still I can spot their wickedness.
“Is everything okay, Eve?”
I look at Hunter and nod. “Daniel’s over there. That’s all.”
“Too bad Wren isn’t here,” says Maggie as she cranes her neck to see.
“I don’t need Wren to defend me,” I insist, and my voice is sharp. Maybe I’m afraid that I do.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “Well, that wasn’t what I meant.” She sighs. “So, is everyone getting excited for tomorrow night?” Her voice is strained with effort. Normally, it is light and airy, but lately it has been heavy, bogged down with reality. “We could all use a fun night,” she adds.
Hunter gives her one of his shy smiles. “How come ever since school finished, life’s been…”
“Shit?”
He adjusts his glasses and frowns. “Not shit. Just…tough.”
“Hopefully it isn’t a sign of what’s to come,” mutters Emerald. “You know, in the real world. On our own.”
“We’ve had a run of bad luck, that’s all,” I say, and I sit straighter. “And if we let it get us down, they win. The Daniels and Kyles and Anitas of the world win.”
“Wow, Eve,” says Hunter. “I think that’s the most positive thing I’ve heard you say in ages. No wait, eons. Literal eons.” His eyes comb the ceiling like he is counting, and he nods. “Eons.”
I kick him under the table. “Very funny.”
“What’s going on with you lately?” Hunter continues. “You’re hardly ever around.”
Maggie’s eyes snap to mine, and I look sideways. I feel Emerald glance at me, too. Both of them know; they know where I’ve been. With Wren. And if I am being more positive lately, it probably has something to do with him, too. I think of kissing him, of the feeling of his arms wrapped around me, skin to skin, and I smile.
“Hello?” Hunter calls. He waves a hand in front of my face. “You’re grinning like a fool. I think you need to take a hiatus from the Bowl before you do any permanent damage.”
I kick him again, harder this time. Both of us are laughing. “Maybe I’m looking forward to letting loose tomorrow night after all.”
“Know what I’m thinking, Eve?” asks Maggie. Her lime green eyes twinkle.
“Don’t say it.”
“Makeover!”
I roll my eyes. “I told you not to say it. What happened last time?”
Half of Emerald’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Oh yeah, I remember. You looked like a poodle.”
“She looked fantastic,” Maggie protests. “But okay, fine. I won’t touch your hair. I’m just thinking a little makeup. That’s it.”
“It’s not a bad idea, Eve,” says Emerald. She winks. “I’ve seen you attempt it, and you really could use a few pointers.”
I shove her.
“She doesn’t need makeup,” says Hunter between bites. “She looks amazing just like that.”
I stare at him, but before I can respond, I am shoved from behind, and the cafeteria table digs into my sternum. I swing my legs around, but Daniel’s hand lands on my chest, collecting the fabric of my shirt and forcing me to stay seated.
It reminds me of that night—his face alone reminds me of that night, but for him to grab me…
“Looks like your face has healed up okay, Eve. Too bad.”
“Get out of here,” Hunter says sharply from the other side of the table. Emerald jumps to her feet, but I hold up a hand to stop her. This is something I need to deal with on my own.
“What do you want, Daniel?” I whisper.
“Here’s the thing. What your bodyguard did to my best friend is something I take personally—very personally. Do you understand?”
“Take it up with him, then. I’m sure he’d love to chat.”
He shrugs. “I’d rather hit him where it really hurts, and I think I’m looking at just that.” He sneers. “Why he cares about the likes of you, I can only guess, but no doubt your Lower Mean charm will wear on him soon enough. In the meantime, consider yourself warned.” He bends down so we are eye to eye. “I’m coming for you.”
Then he is gone, and I am left with my heart thudding through to my feet. Whatever clout I had with Daniel has evaporated. I don’t know if it was Wren fighting my fights for me that did it, or the attack itself. But if Daniel was ever intimidated by me, he is no longer. I’m a walking target.
I can’t be a walking target.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I say.
“Eve—” starts Maggie, but I shake my head.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I repeat, and my voice is firm. Hunter and Emerald eye each other, but already I am gone. I follow Daniel out of the cafeteria in time to see him board the elevator, and then I head for the stairs. Moving over steps that witnessed my own slice of hell makes my palms slick, but I push on. Determination and anger are my guide, and I step onto the fourth floor at the same time he does. The hallways are crowded, and he doesn’t see me.
I wait until he is half a hallway ahead, and then I follow. This time I am the cat and he is the mouse. Wren may have gotten revenge on Landry, but Daniel’s blood is all for me. It is time he paid for his sins. It is time I see whether I have the stomach to kill.
I think I do.
He turns down a hallway that is quieter than the first. Still, there are too many people about, and the next hallway is the same. The one after that, though, is perfect. It is dead empty, and one of the lights is missing its fancy Upper Mean case. That means the bulb is glaring and uncomfortable. Bright. So I will be able to see his anguish in detail.
My heart doesn’t thud anymore; it hammers with excitement. I jump on the balls of my feet, and I feel like I do in the Bowl. I haven’t worked out much since the attack, so my muscles are fresh; they are looking for an excuse to engage. And I am not injured anymore, or tired, either. I’ve always thought I could beat Daniel, and now I will see. He is larger than me and in decent shape, but he doesn’t have experience fighting.
I stare at the back of his head, at the brown curly hair cut short. It would be almost cute, that hair, if it didn’t encase pure evil. It’s strange; neither he nor Landry looks particularly troubling. But scratch beneath the surface, and their veins run black. I am about to find out just how much.
Right now I could do one of two things. I could run up behind him and attack, or I could call his name, make it a fair fight.
I am the kind of person who is fair, but he isn’t. He wouldn’t extend me that courtesy, and so I won’t for him. I smile, and then my leg muscles twitch and I am sprinting as fast as I can, and by the time he hears me and turns his head, I’m on top of him. I knock him to the ground and punch him three times in a row, three quick bursts of rage that loosen his eye sockets. He is awake now, and he pushes me back with considerable force. His eyes streak red; the fight is on.
His first punch, I block, but the second I am not so lucky. I land in a heap on the floor. Normally I would jump to my feet again, but not this time. No, this time my fingers stretch into the lip of my boot, where they brush cool metal. Daniel is moving toward me, and my fingers plunge deeper, snatch the knife, tuck it into my fist.
“I hate dirty little bitches like you who don’t know their place,” he says under his breath, and I let him drag me to my feet. I let him shove me into the wall. I wasn’t planning on killing him today. I just wanted to see if I could. But the more vitriol he spews, the more I begin to think that now is the time.
“So what, Daniel?” I say, and my voice is remarkably calm. “What, you think you’re going to be the one who finally puts me in my place? Is that it?”
“Yeah, something like that”—and he releases me, then shoves me against the wall with all his force. The impact stuns me, and it burns the back of my skull, but only for a moment. I kick him between the legs, and he doubles over in pain, into a position of weakness.
I knock him quickly to the ground, and my fist unclenches. The knife is warmed through from my palm, and the blade springs open. His eyes find it; they widen. The hate that lurked there a second earlier is replaced by fear.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m getting even. For when you tried to kill me!” Tears burn behind my eyes, and my breathing is ragged. Below me, he struggles to free himself, to push me off him, and if I’m not quick, he will. My fingers are deft, and they shove the blade to the side of my fist, and I punch him across the face. The blade slices into his skin as I do.
He screams.
His warm blood is everywhere, and panic overtakes his senses. But that was just a taste of what is to come…
I must act quickly. I must kill him now, or he will get me off him and he will be gone. I must act now.
My pulse races, and all I see is red.
I am a monster, and I am cruel, and I can’t wait to see the light leave his snake eyes forever, a small payment for all his sins. I am a killer.
But more than anything else, I am a liar.
Chapter Thirty-One
Every step I take hurts more than the last. Not my legs, not my arms—nothing physical. It is inside where it aches, and I can’t think of a worse feeling. It is less painful to be black and blue and filled with broken bones. Now I am filled with despair, and everywhere I look is darkness.
It was bad enough when my first plan to escape came to a crashing end. And then along came another, fortuitously dropped into my lap as if sent from the heavens. But I had my opportunity yesterday to kill Daniel, and I couldn’t do it. And if I can’t kill him, of all people, I can’t kill anybody. Not Landry, not Kyle, not the guard. I am not a murderer, not a monster, and that means my fate is sealed.
I will never feel fresh air; I will never have freedom. I will never have a shot at finding Jack. Instead, I will spend my life serving those responsible for exiling him to a likely death.
I should probably go back to my cell now. Maggie and the others are excited for the party; maybe it would cheer me up to spend the day with them. The past two hours have been spent walking the Lower Mean corridors mindlessly, and my feet are beginning to ache from the concrete floors. I wonder what it would feel like to walk on top of the earth. The grass, the soil. What does that feel like underfoot?
Jack experienced it; I hope he still does. I will never know.
Just thinking it makes a sob choke my throat.
I walk faster.
The doors around me are more frequent now, and I can hear children playing; I must be near the family cells. My feet move of their own accord, and soon I find myself knocking on a door I know well. The dent along the bottom, the scuff marks near the keyhole, the fingerprints around the handle are intimate details, ones that are forever imprinted on my soul. Any day now, my parents will be moved to a smaller cell, and these little details will become imprinted on someone else.
My father opens the door, and his eyebrows inch up when he sees me. No smile, not even any pleasantries.
“What are you doing here?” he demands. I shrug, and my eyes comb the space for my mother. In the corner, and my heart sinks as I look at her. Embroidery sits on her lap, and her gaze doesn’t lift to see me. Her expression is placid, her eyes empty. She mutters tick-tock under her breath.
Gone once more.
I want to scream at her. I want to tell her to stop being selfish, tell her that I still exist and I need her right now. But I can’t do that. I am soft and weak and good, and I hate myself for it.
My father clears his throat. “I’ve been checking the schedule. Care to explain what’s going on?”
At first I have no idea what he is talking about, but then I realize he is referring to the Bowl. I haven’t had a fight lately; I haven’t signed up for any, either. “Nothing’s going on.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Bruno, does it?”
“What, the fact that he died in the ring? You do realize most parents wouldn’t want their kid fighting after something like that, right?”
He gazes at me calmly, and it makes anger burn my insides. “It was a fluke, Eve, nothing more. Don’t throw away everything you have worked toward because of a fluke.”
“Actually, it’s everything you have worked toward. I just went along with it, remember? Because prize fighters get tons of allotments, right? Enough for me and you.”
He crosses his arms and stands taller. “What exactly are you saying? That I’ve been using you? That you don’t enjoy fighting?”
“I hate it!” I scream at him. The words erupt from my belly. On the other side of the cell, my mother doesn’t flinch; I’m not sure she even hears. “I’ve always hated it, and you know what? I hate you for making me do it!” I stalk out of the room and slam the door as hard as I can. Now my legs move quickly; my brain races. Maybe he didn’t deserve that. Maybe he did.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, because soon I will be gone.
After all, I didn’t always plan on going aboveground, oh no. Before I broke into the Oracle, I knew only that I was finished with Compound Eleven, and that is something I can still make happen.
I can go to another compound, just like I planned.
Except I have never discovered where the tunnels are that lead to Compound Ten or to Compound Twelve, not on the many miles I’ve covered over the past sixteen years on the Mean floors. That means they probably run from the ground floor or the Preme floor, then.
Think, Eve.
My feet carry me to the nearest stairwell, and I turn down it. It makes more sense for them to run tunnels deep below the earth. Building a tunnel right below ground level would be unwise. It could cave in too easily; the poisonous sunlight could infiltrate it.
The first floor is more dangerous than the rest of the compound combined, but I don’t care. My feet are moving too quickly for that to be a concern, and besides, right now the toxic ache in my stomach is lifting. Right now, I have a purpose.
I have never been down this far before—only to work the Denominators’ food line from the feeding dock off the second floor. Nobody comes here if they don’t strictly have to. It is dark, darker than the Lower Mean floor, and eventually I stop running, pu
ll out my flashlight, even though it is doubtful the Noms carry one. I am marking myself a trespasser from a higher floor, even from a distance. Not wise.
Then I notice something: my feet hurt less down here. When I bend over and slide my hand over the ground, I know why. Dirt. Hard-packed dirt. I crouch to examine it, press my palm against it. Cold and unyielding. I breathe deeply, and it smells of must, a smell that I instantly like. I may never know what the top of the earth feels like, but at least now I know what part of it feels like.
After a while, I continue walking, senselessly stumbling on, always remembering my way back. I may be foolhardy and reckless, but I am not careless. Around me, the corridors are empty, silent, the Noms seemingly elsewhere. Perhaps it is getting close to their feeding, and I wonder who will be feeding them today. Certainly not my mother.
Eventually, though, I decide to change tactics. I turn my flashlight off and take a steadying breath. It isn’t completely black—in every corner, there is a lone bulb encased in wire—but still it takes a few moments before I can see my way. I begin knocking on doors, trying to find someone who can point me in the right direction. When finally someone answers I blurt out, “I need a guard!” because a door out of this compound and to another is an important one. One so important it must be guarded. The woman stares at me coldly—she can probably tell I’m from upstairs—then points along the corridor.
“Two sharp rights,” she mutters before she disappears.
Two turns later, I am still. In front of me stands a guard, his back against the wall, his gloved hands crossed over his chest. I can see a gun in his holster. He looks bored, but then he notices me standing there and straightens. He isn’t a guard I recognize, and that is a good thing, considering my history.
This one is tall and lanky, not young. He isn’t as malicious-looking as most of the other guards, and that is maybe a blessing, maybe a shame. Because I may need to force my way by this man, and that would mean violence. It is the only currency I know.
For now, though…for now, I just need to discover if the locked door next to him is the one I am after.
Escaping Eleven (Eleven Trilogy) Page 25