* *** *
Both Mykail and I were slow moving as we washed, both trying to help one another without leaving lingering touches on soapy, hot skin. I felt my heart nearly racing by the time we turned off the water.
Even though I had mostly recovered from the intense orgasm in the shower, my legs were still shaky and weak as I tried to remember how to walk.
Mykail toweled me dry tenderly, laughing as he rubbed my hair, causing it to fall in everywhere in my face. We giggled, giddy and happier than idiots on a honeymoon, but neither of us cared.
I finally combed my hair as Mykail went to his room to strip the bed down and wash the sheets. When I walked into my room, braiding my hair, I halted, shocked when I saw the time on the clock.
“Shit!”
I ran to my purse, rummaging through it and finding my phone, which had been on silent all night and now had three missed calls and eight text messages.
Clark: Hey, are you coming over?
Clark: Are you on your way?
Clark: Where are you? Are you even awake yet?
Clark:…you’re starting to scare me. Are you alright? Why haven’t you answered your phone? You said you would be here an hour ago. Call or text, please.
Clark: Seriously, You’re scaring me.
Clark: Mark is having a panic attack and is about five seconds away from getting in the car and driving to your house to make sure you’re alright. And I’m about to go start the car for him. Please answer your phone.
Clark: We’re in the car. I hope you’re just sleeping.
Clark: We’re pulling into your neighborhood. See you in a few minutes.
As I hissed a few colorful curse words, I threw my towel on the bed and ran to my dresser, pulling out fresh clothes, hurriedly pulling them on as Dexter stared at me, confused by the frenzy.
I was buttoning my jeans when the doorbell rang.
“Fuck!” I snapped, rummaging through my drawer for a turtleneck to cover any marks Mykail might have left.
“I’ll get it,” Mykail assured, sticking his head into my room.
“No! No, no, no!” I called, darting across the room faster than I have ever moved in my life.
“What?”
“It’s Mark and Clark. If you answer with wet hair and I come down with my hair wet, they’ll know we were showering together!”
He looked me over as I stood in my jeans and bra and I quickly pulled on my sweater, tugging my hair out of the collar and straightening myself up. He sighed.
“Alright. Then, I’ll see you after the meeting tonight?”
“I’m sorry…” I whispered, nodding, kissing him tenderly. He smiled and kissed me back before pulling away when the doorbell rang again.
“You better get that before they break down the door,” he chuckled, sensing the urgency.
I pecked another kiss on his lips before flying down the stairs, through the living room and kitchen and sliding clumsily to the door, fumbling with the lock just as the doorbell was rung a third time.
I threw the door open, surprising both Mark and Clark, but I was more shocked to see the snow falling behind them.
“Thank God you’re alright,” Clark breathed, stepping forward. “What happened to you? Did you just get out of the shower?”
“Yeah,” I laughed nervously, trying not to let the blush creep over my cheeks as I thought about the shower again. “I was exhausted last night and I didn’t feel too good, so I came home and…just sort of collapsed into bed,” I rambled, motioning them both in. “I woke up twenty minutes ago with makeup smeared all over my face and…ooh, it was bad,” I finished lamely. “Sorry, I only got your texts a couple minutes ago.”
“That’s okay. You just had us both worried,” Clark assured with a nervous chuckle. “You look a little flushed. Are you coming down with a cold?”
“No, I’m just…you know, not sleeping as much,” I made up quickly.
I could tell he didn’t entirely believe me, but I just smiled and clapped my hands, rubbing them together slightly.
“So, sorry about all the concern. I’m just going to get my bag and I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, where is Mykail?”
“Oh, he’s, um, taking a shower I think,” I made up before disappearing through the kitchen and living room, running up the stairs, mentally smacking myself for my rambling. I grabbed my bag, making sure I had everything before grabbing a hat to cover my wet hair and slipping over to Mykail’s room as he pulled the fitted sheet off the mattress.
Grabbing his face, I kissed him deeply for a few seconds before darting back downstairs and joining Mark and Clark in the snow storm, heading to the fort.
I was surprised to hear that Josh and a female member of the Eight Group named Rin would be joining us to make sure we knew the procedures for Thursday.
I tried not to cringe whenever I moved a certain way that reminded me of my sore muscles. At one point Clark asked me if I was alright, which I quickly had to make something up, telling him that I must have slept wrong because my back was sore.
I wished I didn’t blush so easily. He continued to ask me if I was alright, worried about me being sick despite how often I reassured him. Even though I could not see Mark’s eyes through his dark glasses, I could feel his eyes on me every now and then through the rear view mirror, also worried.
We pulled into the park where we had met Josh before and parked between a few other cars that belonged to families who lived near the park and had brought their children to play in the snow.
Mark locked the car, nodding to us and motioning to the cave entrance on the hill. The climb was going to be hell with the constant reminder of last evening’s activities giving me flares of pain.
“Wait,” I said, glancing back at the car as we waited for the pedestrian light to change. “If Josh is there…who is going to move the car?”
“He removed the GPS last night,” Clark told me, stepping into the street when the light turned. We darted across, eager to get out of the falling snow. “He’ll replace it tomorrow to keep suspicion down, but today we have Josh and Rin to talk to for as long as we want. People are covering for them.”
“Mark, it kinda scares me how careful you are,” I chuckled. He smiled, bowing his head against the snow as he led us to where I assumed the path was. I made my way through the snow, my boots sinking to my ankles in the blanket of white and causing me to move my legs more than I wanted to. The pain in my pelvis was now constantly present.
Mark helped me up a particularly difficult section of the trail where I was struggling, but I could tell with the way he was looking at me, even through his glasses, that he was particularly worried. I assured him that I was fine and ducked into the cave, shaking the snow from my coat and brushing it from the top of my hat. I shivered, watching Clark dart into the cave, shivering as well.
“It is getting so cold!” he complained.
We made our way down into the passage and followed the correct twists and turns to the main bunker, where Rin and Josh were speaking to one another quietly.
“Good morning,” Rin said, her accent almost non-existent. I remembered her from the marina, but this time she did not have her glasses on, and I was able to see how beautiful she was. “We were worried about you three.”
Mark pinched his earlobe to apologize.
“Lily, Clark, my name is Rin,” she greeted, shaking our hands. “Do you remember me? I’m part of the Eight Group.”
“Yes,” I smiled. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Are any of the other kids from the Commission coming?” she asked, shaking hands with Clark as well.
“No, not today,” I shook my head. “We’ve told them the date and assigned their roles, but we thought that if they came here this weekend it might be too suspicious since more than half of them have not removed their tracers, yet.”
“Are they going to take them out?” Rin asked, her tone concerned.
“A few of them already have, so I
’m pretty sure the others will. They know it’s dangerous to have them for this.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “We need to pick a day for them to go to the water towers and see where they are going to be stationed.”
“We’ll bring them in groups,” Clark assured. “We just want to make sure Dana doesn’t suspect anything.”
“We have five days…” Josh said, looking between the two other experiments with a knowing look. “Me and Rin went through the wards and told experiments about Thursday.”
“Hiroki and Sunjin are going through the holding cells over the next few days,” Rin added. She turned to Mark. “Did you talk to Griffin?”
Mark nodded.
“So, everyone knows about the plan on Thursday? Or, almost everyone?”
“Everyone involved,” Rin nodded. “But not everything. Everyone in the holding cells is being told they are going to be broken out and told that they have to keep silent and follow your instructions. We told them that they would be swimming, also, so they won’t be surprised.”
I took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“We have one hour,” Josh said, glancing at his watch.
“Okay, let’s go.” Rin turned to us. “We’re going to take you to the pipe where everyone will get out of the Dome. Sean and Dana are gone for another hour, so we need to move quickly. We can come back here afterward.”
Mark began leading us through the passage under one of the bunk beds in the larger lodging room. As we slipped into the dark passageway, Clark and I tried to make conversation.
“Were you childhood friends with these two as well?” Clark asked, motioning to Mark and Josh as he turned on his phone light to illuminate the tunnel.
“No,” Rin shook her head. “I was brought into the Commission two years before they were. I was from the Mid-South Region.”
“Really?” I asked. I had assumed that everyone in the Eight Group was part of the same group that Mark had been brought in with.
“Yes,” Rin said. “I was in the holding cells for three and a half years before I came to the table. Once I was next to Josh, though, I remember that,” she smiled, pointing at the shorter man.
“I remember, too,” Josh nodded, glancing back at her.
“Next to one another in the cells?”
“No, next to one another on the tables in the lab,” she corrected. “Most of the Eight Group was made around the same time. That’s how we all became such good friends. I feel like I’ve known them my entire life. We’ve been through a lot together.” She dropped her head as her expression fell. “Like when Hyunwoo had his throat…” she breathed, looking at Mark’s back, her sentence trailing off.
“Hyunwoo?” both Clark and I tried to repeat, quickly looking at Mark. The silent experiment bent his head at the name and Josh glanced at us over his shoulder.
“That’s his name.”
“…does he mind if we call him Mark?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
“I think he prefers Mark, now,” Rin chuckled. “Easier for everyone on the Eight Group, too, since a lot of us speak different languages.”
“Why did Dana do that to him?” I pressed curiously, trying to ignore the way both Mark and Josh tensed.
Rin’s face fell as we turned down the final stretch of hallway toward the ladder that led to the hedge-covered door in a hill by the reservoir.
“It wasn’t like he was the loudest in the group, actually, I think you were,” she pointed at Josh, who looked sheepishly to the ground. “But he was the best in the Eight Group. He was the strongest and fastest, and when we all tried to organize an attack against Dana…Mark was the one who took the punishment when we failed.”
I looked at Mark’s tense shoulders as he approached the bottom of the ladder.
“Dana made us watch, telling us that the same thing would happen to us if we disobeyed further. We were not allowed to speak in our own languages…we weren’t really allowed to talk to one another at all. Dana made a big show of it, too, just to scare us into obeying…”
Mark stood to one side and Josh began climbing the ladder to open the door, both of them pretending that they had not heard us. I felt my heart break when I barely caught sight of Mark’s scars as he watched Josh get to the top of the ladder.
The open door caused a rush of cold wind and snow to careen into the tunnel, and the story ended as we climbed out into the storm, focused on our present task.
Clark and I stood in the trees, looking at the snow that fell through the branches as the other two experiments climbed the ladder. After Josh closed the door, Mark nodded to Rin, who turned to Clark and me.
“So, this is the entrance everyone should use since it’s the closest to the water towers. The other water tower entrance has a gate,” Rin said, pointing to the nearby water tanks. “Use these trees as an area to hide people as they start to go down the tunnel if they’re moving slowly. All tracers should be removed as soon as they get into the fort. We have to destroy those as soon as possible.”
Mark motioned for us to follow him as Rin continued explaining.
“Have one person stationed at every bend in the tunnel to guide people to the main part of the fort and two at the top helping people up. You should have one person standing near the hedges that is visible to everyone coming out of the pipe, so they know where to go.”
I glanced back at the hedges, taking note of where they were as we crossed the open expanse down the hill to the water tanks, where Mark yanked the padlock on the gate down, unwrapping the chains that held the fence closed.
“Did you just break that?” Clark blinked.
Mark shrugged, opening the gate and walking between the two massive water tanks, the rest of us following quietly.
Mark bent down to two metal panels that were also locked. Breaking the padlock with ease, he grabbed one of the heavy metal doors and pulled it open with little strain while Josh opened the other side. Below the cover was a dark drain, covered by a large, thick grate.
Both of them reaching down, Josh grabbed one end of the grate and Mark grabbed the other, pulling it, struggling to move the immense iron grate out of the hole.
“Lily, always let the boys do the heavy lifting,” Rin teased. I laughed, though the sound came out strange around my chattering teeth.
“Right now, the Dome is off,” Josh told us, brushing his hands off. “But we need to be quiet anyway.”
Mark began climbing down the iron ladder rungs into the dark tunnel.
“Be careful,” Josh told us, reaching a hand out to Clark, who grabbed his hand and carefully stepped down, grabbing the first rung and beginning his descent. I followed shortly afterward, feeling the rust on the rungs rub off on my hands as I started climbing into the encroaching black.
The ladder was a lot longer than I expected and I was started to get worried when I finally caught sight of Clark’s phone light at the bottom.
Mark helped me down the final few steps and then helped Rin as I looked around the large tunnel with Clark. I could hear the sound of water running distantly.
Josh finally joined us and Rin leaned over, whispering quietly to keep her voice from echoing.
“Someone will have to be standing here to guide people up the ladder, and another two people at the top to help people out,” she hissed. “We go down that small tunnel,” she pointed to the left of the ladder, where Mark and Josh were walking.
I followed them, Clark behind me. As we crouched and made our way through the tunnel, the sound of water became louder. Moving down a slope, we drew closer to the next tunnel.
Once we had reached the larger tunnel, I looked around, barely making out the water flowing a few feet in front of me. We were standing on a thin walkway next to the bubbling water and across the stream was another walkway. The high ceiling amplified the sound into a near roar, and it covered our voices.
“The water comes from there,” Josh said, pointing to the nearby wall where the water was flowing from under a grate
d archway. He pointed down the other direction and Clark flashed the light to illuminate the other end of the tunnel. There was a short distance before a steep half-wall rose to a sharp point.
“We have to climb that,” Rin said.
Mark walked to the wall first and jumped, his fingers grabbing the top of the slope and he pulled himself up, sliding down the other side. When his shoes hit the puddle of water on the other side, it was the signal for the next person to climb over.
Everyone decided that that next person was me.
Josh helped boost me to grab the top of the sharp slope and I pulled myself to the top, trying not to cringe in pain as I hooked my leg over and sat to slide down the other side. Mark caught me and stood me up. I brushed off, looking around.
I waited for everyone to be on the other side wall before I asked my question.
“Why is that wall even there?” I whispered. Rin laughed and looked at the obstacle.
“There used to be a grate over that whole area,” she explained. “These two spent three weeks disassembling it.”
“Wow, you really have spent time on this…” Clark mused, turning to Mark and Josh as he turned on his phone flashlight again.
“That’s where the fan is for the Dome,” Rin explained, pointing to the solid wall in front of us where the wall stopped the water, ripples showing where it flowed under. “This is what it will be like when the Commission power is cut. The Dome is not on now, so the water won’t be as turbulent.” She tapped Clark’s shoulder and he turned around, shining his light where she was pointing. “Hiroki and Minsoo will attach ropes to those bolts where the grate was and help people to swim under the wall. When we have everyone, you will need to cut the ropes on both sides and take them with you so that we leave no evidence, just in case.”
“Won’t they notice the grate is gone, though?” I pointed out.
“Maybe, but that’s not as bad as leaving the ropes,” she admitted. “We’ll get everyone into this tunnel and over the walls, then they have to get to the ladder, and out to the fort.”
Inside, Pt. 2 Page 29