by Anni Taylor
Some of them were advancing again.
“Kara!” Constance screamed. Running back, she thrust her daughter behind her, shooting at the Saviours.
“Out!” Jennifer yelled. “Out now! All of us!”
We fled behind the door and slammed it shut.
Kara shot at the keypad lock. “They can’t get through it now.”
Constance grasped Kara’s face between her hands. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.” Kara stared back with the same large blue eyes as her mother, suddenly seeming as young and fragile as the seventeen-year-old that she was.
Jennifer spoke in sharp, ragged breaths, her fist clenched on the gun. “What’s happening? Why did Sethi—?”
I shook my head. “We need to run. This whole place is going to blow!”
Constance gasped, looking to her daughter for an explanation. Jennifer stared back at me as if gathering herself for a moment.
“We’ve got ten minutes,” I roared. “Go!”
Rain slashed down in the garden as we charged out—wet, leafy branches whipping our faces.
We entered what Kara had called the cloister and then rushed inside.
A voice rang out from the hazy darkness at the other end of the hall. Three Saviours charged towards us.
Before I had a chance to react, Jennifer and Kara shot them dead.
“They all know now. They’ve all been told.” Kara gestured frantically in the direction of the cellar. “We have to get out of here. More of them will be coming.”
The cellar was eerily empty as we raced down the spiral stairs.
Everyone gone.
Just broken chains.
Dark blood on the walls.
The dead hanging in the torture room.
Endless years of bodies caught in a rusting cage in the cenote.
I heard Constance and Jennifer’s gasps and cries of shock.
Kara slipped across the room and entered a code on the keypad.
I inhaled a short breath of rancid air, turning quickly to face Constance and Jennifer. “Here’s the plan. Sethi’s attempting to swim through the cenote and out to sea. There’s a lever down there that drops a contact mine into the cenote. He’s got a twelve-minute leeway. If it works, the cenote’s going to blow. We need to get out. Sethi will meet us at the beach.” Even as I spoke the plan, it sounded impossible.
Jennifer’s eyes were huge as she nodded, but she didn’t speak.
She knew as I did this plan had the smallest chance of working.
Were Evie and the others still alive out there?
Evie, if I don’t survive this, I need you to survive it. Get to the boats and leave this island.
Kara’s code set off a click within the door. She pushed it open.
We slammed the door shut behind us as we sprinted through the tunnel.
Breaths like charging bulls.
I forced my mind to shut down.
There was only the tunnel and darkness and getting through to the end.
79. EVIE
WE HUDDLED INSIDE THE CHAPEL LIKE the damned seeking refuge. The light of the approaching dawn seeped into the sky in tones of the darkest grey. Each thrash of the ocean far below set my bones on edge as I waited for the explosion.
Louelle hadn’t made it home. We’d found her in the tunnel on our way out. Her family would never know the Louelle she wanted them to know.
Ruth had vanished as soon as we travelled through the passage and climbed up into the chapel. We were to guard Gray, Constance and Kara when they emerged from the tunnel, but she hadn’t bothered to stay and help us. Who knew what her game was?
A dozen or more Saviours had been combing the hills since we’d entered the chapel. We’d taken turns watching them. They couldn’t see us behind the thick stone walls with their infra-red viewers, but they could see a human face peering through the glass-less chapel windows, so we had to be quick.
A swift change came when all of a sudden they were running and shouting. I knew then that they’d been radioed about Gray and Sethi. About the plan.
Sethi, Gray and Kara must have made it to the remembrance hall.
What happened? Did the plan work? Did they get out?
Some of the Saviours had run towards the chapel—no doubt rushing to get to the cellar to check that their precious collection of lambs was still chained and ready for slaughter.
Richard held up a hand to us, letting the Saviours come closer. Closer. Closer.
My heart jerked against my chest wall.
Richard, Cormack and Yolanda jumped up with their guns—the semi-automatics that we’d taken from the supply room.
A terrifying back and forth of gunfire rattled the air, louder than anything I’d ever heard before.
Like a war.
It was a war.
We’d reached a place of savagery and entered it. It was fight or die.
Bits of sandstone flew across the small space, shattered by the Saviours’ guns. But so far we were all alive. We were partly protected by the chapel walls, and we’d had the element of surprise in our favour.
Then, quiet.
I stole a quick look past Yolanda. Men and women had dropped dead on the rocky ground, the rest fleeing.
I turned to Richard. He shot me a tense grin. “Got them on the run.”
At that moment came a sound like the earth splitting apart. A roar from hell itself.
Sethi had done it. The mine was detonating.
Columns of water thundered through the centre of the monastery, seeming as high and wide as a skyscraper, stone blocks flying into the night air.
Pieces of the monastery smashed repeatedly into the chapel, tremors running beneath our feet.
“Get out of here!” Cormack’s eyes were wild in the thin, dark light.
Arms over our heads, we headed to the doorway.
Gray, make it out of there.
Please.
I hung back, the last to leave.
Richard spun around, grabbing my arm. “Don’t stop now.”
We both turned around to the monastery then, stunned by the sight of the immense water spout plunging back to earth and the buildings beginning to collapse and sink.
Gray, where are you?
Where are you?
You promised . . .
80. CONSTANCE
OUR URGENT SCREAMS AND SHOUTS ECHOED in the narrow tunnel.
My last thought before the explosion was of Kara.
Far behind us came the roar of the world breaking and the glass windows of the cenote shattering.
A mass of water and glass was headed our way. The door wouldn’t hold it back.
The ground swayed and pitched dangerously.
Kara ran faster than I could, forcing me along, breath raw in my chest.
The maelstrom surged behind us. I could hear it filling the tunnel.
Oh God.
Light.
Sky.
The exit.
The chapel was gone. Just rubble.
I heard Gray’s anguished cry.
Were Evie and the others trapped under all that?
If they were, they were dead. All dead.
We climbed out and over the stone blocks and remains of the chapel.
An ear-splitting sound boomed—the rubble tumbling beneath our feet and then dropping.
We were sent downward, on top of what used to be the roof of the chapel. In terror, I jerked my head around. The ground had formed a pit about ten feet deep, and it was still dropping.
“Get out of here!” Jennifer screamed.
The sides of the pit were tumbling, while the ground below us sank farther and farther.
As we tried to climb the steep sides, torrents of dark seawater burst from the tunnel, pushing us down, drowning us.
I fought my way to the surface. “Kara! Kara!”
Gray and Jennifer surfaced just after me, coughing and spluttering, bright red blood seeping from cuts and slashes in their skin.
Glass. Swirling around and around us.
I glanced down at my arms—they were covered in blood.
Stone continued to fall in from the sides of the pit. The ground could continue to cave in, with the rubble above falling onto us, sealing us in.
“Kara!” I swam frantically, needing to get to her.
I gasped and shivered at the sight of bones in the water. Body parts. All the dead from the cenote in the cellar. And others—Saviours, their bodies fresh. I searched among them, looking for my daughter.
Then, a girl, white and unconscious, floating.
Kara.
Jennifer, a deep gash across her nose and cheek, stroked towards me, Gray following. We hauled my daughter onto a stone block at the side of the pit. Jennifer took charge, checking her breathing and then immediately starting to pump her chest.
Kara’s body jerked within ten pumps, her head turning as she vomited.
“Thank God,” I breathed, putting my cheek next to hers.
Gray gestured towards a set of staggered stone blocks. “We have to find a way out. Now.”
Jennifer nodded. “You first, Gray. Constance and I’ll help Kara up from this end, and you grab her from up there.”
I didn’t know how we were going to do that. The sides were so steep. All I knew was that we had to.
Two figures in black hoods peered down at us from the top of the pit. The weak light of dawn showed surprised sneers on their faces.
Saviours. A woman and a man.
The woman, red wisps of hair lifting in the breeze, took out a gun as she stared from us to Kara. “Fish in a barrel.”
Kara stared back at the woman, unflinching. “They’re all gone, Poppy. It’s over.”
“No, it isn’t over, Sister Kara,” said the woman, stressing each word in a cold, terrifying voice. “You destroyed everything. The only real home I ever had. And you killed Vito. You and your mother and whoever these people are killed the man I loved. Sage made a big mistake when he brought you here to the monastery.”
“Then take care of Sage’s mistake. But leave the others,” Kara told her.
“No!” I cried when I realised what Kara meant. “Leave my child alone. You people have done enough.”
The redhead gazed in the direction of the ruined monastery, tilting her head. “The monastery has to be built again. Somehow. None of you can stay alive. You’ll only get in the way. Isn’t that right, Harrington?”
The tall, lanky man beside her bit into his lip as he grinned. Taking out his gun, he took aim and shot at the water, laughing at us.
The Saviours turned sharply as a woman approached, her face and body silhouetted in the warm light of the sun.
The redhead gaped at her in shock. “Evie . . . ?”
I didn’t even see the gun that Evie fired. The redhead fell to her knees.
“Evie!” Gray screamed as Harrington raised his gun.
Harrington screamed as a bullet hit his arm, his gun tumbling into the pit. Wheeling about, he ran off into the piles of rubble.
Two men emerged from the rubble, the smaller of them with a rifle over his shoulder.
81. EVIE
A FLOCK OF STARTLED PEACOCKS RAN across the distant hills, lifting into the air.
Richard and Cormack stood together, Richard lowering the rifle he’d just fired. “You didn’t think we’d let you go back there alone, did you?”
I gave them a nod, jamming my eyes shut for a moment, my throat too tight to reply.
Stalking up to Poppy, Richard bent to snatch up her gun. “You won’t be needing this, sweetheart.”
Poppy raised her eyes to him, her sneering face turned ugly in defeat.
I ran to the pit, terrified at what I would find below.
The rocks and rubble beneath my feet lurched as I made my way to the edge.
Gray. He was there. Covered in cuts and bruises.
Kara and the two women I’d seen on the cellar monitor were with him—all of them in the same condition as Gray. But alive.
Alive.
Blocks of sandstone shifted, and I crouched to the ground, balancing.
Any second now, this pit and everything surrounding it could collapse inward. Everything was hanging on a thin wire.
“Evie, you were supposed to get off this island,” Gray yelled at me, his voice hoarse and broken.
Tears wet my cheeks. “Hold on . . .”
“Kara, we’ll get you out. We’ll get you all out,” Cormack called down to her.
In desperation, I eyed the slopes of the pit. They were steep, dangerous and threatening to collapse.
The curve of something smooth and large caught my attention, its surface brass and partly covered in a greenish patina.
The church bell.
It must have come loose in the pummelling from the explosion, as it was now lodged tightly between the rocks near the top of the pit. I remembered a rope that had hung from that bell. My eyes followed the line downward. The rope was still there, attached but covered in a number of stone blocks.
I twisted around to Richard and Cormack, pointing at the bell. “This! We can use this!”
Together with Richard and Cormack, I climbed down and levered the rocks to allow the full length of the rope to descend to the pit.
We got Kara out first, then Constance, Gray and Jennifer.
I wrapped myself around Gray. He was shivering. Cold, wet. Had he lost too much blood?
I lightly touched his wounds. “We need to bandage these.”
“I’m okay. I’ll be okay,” he answered.
He pressed his forehead down to mine. A flock of peacocks in flight made us both look up, their pink-tipped wings spread wide as they came in for smooth, elegant landings. I hadn’t even known peacocks could fly before this morning.
Poppy remained doubled over on the ground. She pushed her face up to me, a thin line of blood streaking from the side of her mouth. “The boyfriends I told you about? They didn’t die of accidental overdoses. I killed them. Because they looked at girls who weren’t me.” Her lips pulled to one side in a small, cold smile.
I stared back. I hadn’t known the first thing about her.
Turning my back on her, I walked away with Gray.
I didn’t know how far it was to the nearest island. Hours? Could any of us even find our way to another island through the ocean? We could be lost out there for days. We needed Sethi, but none of us knew whether he’d made it out or drowned.
I turned to face Jennifer, catching her eye. Her eyes were terrified above the bright smears of blood on her face, and I knew that terror was for Sethi. “Let’s go find him.”
The seven of us made our way off the cliff top, through the hills. We found Mei and Thomas on the way. Both dead. Both seemed to have fallen off the cliff edge. Whether they were pushed or had chosen to jump rather than allow themselves to be captured, I couldn’t tell. But I guessed they’d made the decision to jump. The Saviours would surely not allow any of their quarry to die so easily.
We closed Mei and Thomas’s eyes as a sign of respect and continued on down to the beach.
“Stay here,” Jennifer told us. “I’ll go find Sethi.”
Gray and Cormack stepped across to Jennifer.
“I’ll be back soon,” Gray said. “Sethi saved our lives. We need to find him.”
The three of them sprinted away.
Richard tried to hold my arm, but I shrugged him away. Gray had almost not returned to me once. I needed to be beside him.
As I rounded the bend, a figure emerged from behind an outcrop, her eyes large and filled with adrenaline. Ruth. Instinctively, I reached for my gun.
“What do you want?” I asked her, pointing my handgun at her.
“You don’t honestly think I’m going to hurt you, do you?” Her face was covered in cuts and bruises.
“Why did you take off on your own?” I demanded, choosing not to answer her question directly.
She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been
picking off any Saviour that I can find. I didn’t want to wait for them to come to us. I used to go hunting wild boar with my father. I’m a good shot.”
“I’m supposed to believe that’s what you’ve been doing?” I said, my voice catching. “So many good people died. But you’re still here.”
“I didn’t push you in Challenge Four in order to gain some kind of glory, Evie.”
“Why did you push me?”
“Hear me out. I didn’t trust Harrington. Not from the first day. So I kept him close. You know that saying about keeping your enemies close? I made him think I was just like him, just so I could try to figure out who the hell he was. I even told him I just pretended to lose my shit in the mirror challenge—because I was damned sure he was pretending.”
I exhaled tensely, waiting for her to finish.
“And in Challenge Four,” she said, “the moment I knew we were working with dangerous elements, I was watching him like a hawk. When you were bringing your puzzle piece up to me, Harrington was racing up behind you. He had his puzzle piece out in front of him. I caught the insane look in his eyes, and I knew exactly what he intended to do. He wanted to catch you in between the two magnets. There wasn’t any time. And there was a bird swinging your way. I did my best to save you. Sorry you got hurt.”
My knees weakened, and I replayed those moments in my mind. Harrington had been behind me. And I knew now what kind of man he was. I lowered my gun. “Thank you . . .”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
It was too late now to follow Gray. And I couldn’t go on my own. I barely even knew how to use this gun. I leaned against the outcrop. “What happened after you were told you’d been eliminated from the program?”
She shrugged. “I thought I was going home. Of course. But I was taken straight down to the cellar. For a celebration wine, they told me. When I caught sight of their little celebration down there, I fought like an alley cat. They beat me up and chained me. And that’s all I knew.”
“I’m sorry I left you behind the first time. We couldn’t take you.”
“I know.”
“We’re going to get away from this place. We are. You said you’ve got two girls?”
Her eyes clouded. “I haven’t seen them for two years. They were taken away into foster custody seven years ago. They’re teenagers now. They don’t know me. I’m a stranger to them. I hoped I could clean myself up, rent a small apartment. Keep away from heroin. And then try to start again. I can’t be a mother to them, but maybe I could be a friend.”