by Erin Johnson
“You did dat?” Yann blinked.
I nodded. “Was that bad?”
Wiley grinned. “You kidding?” They carefully set Annie down on the hard concrete floor. While I crouched down and cradled her head in my hands, the guys dragged the guard into the storage closet. Scuffles and snaps came from inside the little room. I looked up and down the hallway, my heart pounding.
“Guys? What’s taking so long?” I kept my voice down.
Wiley reemerged, the guard’s black chest plate slung over one arm. Yann scooped up Annie’s head, while Wiley handed me the armor.
“Figured you could use a little extra protection.”
I nodded my thanks as Wiley slid the heavy vest over my head. I readjusted my bun.
“Ready?” Yann nodded at Wiley, who grabbed Annie’s feet and they hefted her up again. I fished around in my purse and grabbed the lighter and opened it so Iggy could see. He spun right and left.
Ding!
The lift arrived and scratched metal doors slid open. My heart nearly stopped as they did, but thankfully no one was inside.
“We’re getting lucky,” Wiley muttered as we clambered inside.
“Don’t even say that.” I shook my head. “You’ll jinx us.”
“We want the third floor.”
I smiled down at my flame. “You look so cute that tiny.”
“Just hit the button.” He frowned, but I did as he ordered.
My heart thundered in my chest as the lift rose. All four of us kept our eyes trained on the metal doors. I edged behind Yann. Ding! The lift stopped and I’d swear my heart did, too. The doors parted onto an open stretch of concrete hallway. I let out a small sigh of relief.
“Head left,” our tiny navigator directed.
The guys, carrying Annie between them, shuffled out the door, with Iggy and me sneaking along behind. All was going fairly smoothly until we moved around the curve to the long straight stretch of the oval.
“Hey!” A man’s deep voice thundered at us.
My stomach clenched and I froze.
“Zap him!” Iggy hissed.
I took a shaky breath, but felt like I couldn’t quite get enough air.
“Hurry!”
“Oh, uh, we were headed to the infirmary but the lift is down,” Wiley called to the guard.
“That’s strange, it was working a minute ago.”
Footsteps sounded, boots getting closer. Still I hid behind Yann, panicking.
“Imogen…,” Yann muttered to me over his shoulder.
I closed my eyes, swept the hallway in my mind. It was as if I could feel who and what was where on my skin. My arms prickled as I located the guard. I took a deep breath in and pulled more of his energy to me. I took it in, more and more, swallowing it.
Thunk!
The noise made me pop my eyes open. I peeked around Yann to where the guard lay crumpled on the floor. Wiley, Yann, and I exchanged wide-eyed looks.
“The control room is at the end of the hall on the right.” Iggy’s flame burned brighter and bigger. “Hurry!”
“Should we—” I gestured at the guard. “Hide him or—” I glanced back toward the lift. Maybe there was another storage closet beside it on this floor?
“No time.” Wiley jerked his head behind him. “Come on.”
We shuffled forward.
Wiley jogged backwards, his head turned to watch over his shoulder. “It’s only a matter of time before Urs checks in with the infirmary and realizes we’re not there.”
My stomach dropped and I glanced back at the crumpled guard. The first person to see him would surely sound the alarm, and that could be any moment.
“Here!”
We skidded to a stop in front of two nondescript gray metal doors set into the wall. I frowned, expecting a sign or anything that indicated it was the control room. “You sure?”
“Oh, are you the map expert now?” Iggy opened his eyes wide at me. “The left one is to the control room. Right leads to the containment theatre.”
Wiley carefully set Annie’s feet down, and Yann lowered her torso to the floor. I stood with my back to the door and kept watch. Wiley grunted. “It’s locked.”
“What? They lock doors in prisons?” Iggy rolled his eyes.
I made a face at him. “Tone down the snark a little?”
His mouth disappeared and his flame grew and shrank, grew and shrank, as if his chest were heaving. “I’m a little stressed, okay? The more stressed I get, the more snarky.”
“Then you must be pretty stressed every day.” I leaned forward and looked left, keeping an eye out for anyone.
“Don’t test me. I’m in a burning mood.”
I flashed my eyes, but kept watch and tried to ignore my flame.
Knock! Knock!
I glanced back at Wiley who held his fist to the door. He shrugged. “Can you think of another way in?”
I shook my head.
A speaker to the right of the door crackled. “Yes?” The gray speaker and keypad below it blended into the wall so well, I hadn’t noticed them before.
Wiley cleared his throat. “Requesting admittance.” He grimaced at Yann and me. I nodded some encouragement.
A long pause followed. My heartbeat thumped in my ears.
“You don’t need to request admittance. Either you have the code, or you don’t.”
Wiley tilted his head to the side and tugged at his uniform’s high collar. “I, uh—forgot it.”
The speaker crackled. I glanced up and down the hall. My hands shook.
“Is this a test? Did the Bear send you to test us?”
Wiley lifted his palms. “No! No. I was—just joking.”
“Identify yourself. You have seconds to do so or to enter your code, or we’re enabling protocol B7.”
Wiley whirled away from the speaker. “What do I do?” He gritted his teeth.
“B7.” Yann grimaced. “Eet ees bad.”
“How did Horace not give us a code?” I grumbled to myself as I stalked past Wiley to the speaker box. “Wait.” I froze, an idea creeping up.
“Officer!” The voice on the other end of the speaker shouted with urgency. “Enter your code or give us your name!”
“These are letters and numbers.” I scanned the keypad. “Rhonda’s vision—she was giving us the code!”
“Sweet sand banks, you’re right.” Wiley’s mouth slid sideways into a grin.
My hands shook. “Guys. What was the code she gave us? Does anyone remember?”
Iggy made a face. “Remember the vision she thought so important she gave to us twice and insisted we remember?” He shook his head. “No. Not even a little. I think there was a seven in there?”
Yann clomped forward and I slid out of the way so he could stand in front of the keypad. “I tink I do. I try to remember all Rhonda says.” He gave me a serious nod. “She’s always right, ju know.”
“Three… two…” The impatient, increasingly tense voice over the speaker counted down.
Yann’s beefy fingers whirled across the keypad. “T6E5H7J8.” He muttered the code as he typed.
I held my breath and stood absolutely still, though my hands and jaw trembled slightly.
Click.
The door unlocked. The speaker crackled again. “Jenkins, is that you? What did I tell you about practical jokes?”
Wiley and I exchanged wide-eyed glances. He let out a heavy exhale, then jerked his head to the side. “Come on.”
I nodded. I held my hands behind my back and Wiley grabbed my wrists in one hand while he held his wand up with the other. Yann opened the door and entered first, with Wiley pretending to shove me forward right behind him. I glanced back. Annie lay splayed in the hallway. Her head turned and her eyelids fluttered. I let out a sigh of relief—she was waking up. She’d be okay. Well, unless we ended up arrested. Then she’d be alive, but far from okay.
“Heddo!” Yann called out a sing-songy greeting as we entered the control room. About ten men loo
ked up from desks and control booths sprinkled with blinking lights and buttons. The control room itself was fairly small, but appeared large due to its height and the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the right side of the room. I gasped at the enormous sunken room beyond the windows, and the hundreds, maybe thousands, of emaciated bodies that stood still on their feet below. I recoiled. It was as if a zombie uprising had been put on pause.
“What is this?” The man closest to us rose from his seat.
Wiley pointed his wand at my head. “Move and she dies! Hands up!”
Another guard with glasses frowned. “Don’t move? Or hands up?”
I knew any second someone would push a button and sound the alarm. I had my eyes closed already. I’d found all ten men scattered around the room in my mind’s eye. I pulled hard—every second counted and I need them out, fast. My eyes flew open as the energy of nine strong men rushed into me. They dropped to the floor, limp and hopefully only unconscious. That left one guy standing by the windows. He raised his hands, his round eyes full of fear. My chest heaved and my heart raced. My teeth chattered and I shuddered—then shuddered again.
The guard’s eyes slid to me. “What’s wrong with her?”
“You okay?” Wiley hissed, too quiet for the guard to hear.
The energy of so many men, on top of Annie and the other guards, ricocheted around inside me. I felt like I’d had twenty espresso shots and a cup of pure sugar. I simply couldn’t be still; my entire body itched and my mind and heart raced. I gasped for air and pulled my dress away from my neck as my mind zipped from one certain disaster to the next, unable to focus on anything. “We’re all gonna die. This is bad. This is bad.”
Wiley flashed his eyes at me, then at Yann.
Yann kept his wand leveled at the guard. He squared his beefy shoulders. “Open da door to da containment theatre.”
The guard’s chest heaved but he didn’t move.
“Do it. Or we kill her and we kill you, like da oders.”
The guard’s eyes dipped to the control panel beside him.
“Do it!” I screeched, unable to hold it in any longer.
That did the trick. The man jolted, then reached for the board and hit a button. Through the glass we could see another door swing open from the hallway we’d just been in.
Wiley jerked his chin at Yann.
Yann sniffed, lowered his brows, and then fired a spell at the man. It ricocheted off his black vest, hit the glass, and left a black scorch mark.
“Hey, you said you wouldn’t hurt me.” The guard lunged for a big red button on the wall, but Yann moved quicker. He raised a meaty fist and bonked the man on the top of the head. His eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the floor.
I gave Yann a shaky grin. “Nice job.”
Yann folded his arms. “I don’t like being bully.” He grinned. “But yah, I did good, right?”
Wiley nodded. “Yeah, you did.” He glanced at me. “I don’t think she can take any more.”
My hands shook so violently that Wiley slid my purse from me and slung it over his forearm.
“Thank you!” Iggy shouted from inside the lighter. “I’ve thrown up three times in here.”
Wiley jerked his head towards the door behind us. “Come on.”
“H-how long w-w-will they b-be out?” My teeth clattered as I fought to talk.
Wiley and Yann grabbed my arms and escorted me out.
“Not sure, but it’s only going to be minutes at best before someone realizes that no one in the control room is responding.” Wiley clicked his tongue when we stepped into the hall. “Lying down on the job?”
Annie propped up on an elbow and narrowed her eyes. “As soon as I can stand, I’m going to pinch you.” She blinked her unfocused eyes at me. “You pack quite the punch, dear.”
“You okay by yourself?”
I nodded at Wiley, and he and Yann left me to help Annie to her feet. Our unsteady group shuffled to the door on the right, which stood slightly ajar. It swung open with a small whine and I led the way into the containment theater.
21
The Hoard
Our footsteps clanked along the metal grating of the catwalk that overlooked the huge pit of prisoners. I understood now why they called it a theater—everyone was on display. I led the way toward the prisoner in the corner. A skeletal woman with clumps of graying hair blinked at me with sunken eyes. I held my shaking hands up as I approached.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
I wasn’t sure that she saw or heard me. She blinked but slid her eyes back to the prisoners below.
“You can stop casting the spell.”
She held one bony arm out toward the theater below. Her knobby index finger trembled. Her glassy eyes slid to Wiley and Yann behind me, then to Annie, supported between them.
How long had she been in here? What had she done to deserve it? I shook my head. Did anyone deserve this? I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, not wanting to take my eyes off this wraith of a woman. “I think she wants a guard’s permission.”
Wiley, in his uniform, readjusted his hold on Annie’s arm. “Stop casting the spell.”
The woman slowly lowered her bony arm and hung her head. She looked as limp as the gray-brown sack she wore. I edged past her, staying as close to the railing as possible. I glanced down as I moved by. She didn’t wear shoes and her thick, yellow nails curved past the ends of her toes. I hugged one trembling arm around my middle and held on to the metal railing for dear life as I started down the steep staircase. The others followed right behind. Our footsteps made the metal ring. None of the prisoners looked up, but now that they weren’t under the spell that left them in a state of stupor, they were bound to start waking. The thought sent chills up my spine.
I made it onto the theater floor, as Wiley and Yann struggled to help Annie down the narrow stairs. I took a shaking breath and raised my palms. Hank had taught me the finding spell a while ago. I had this one. I pressed my eyes closed and shook my head, trying to clear it. My teeth still clattered together, though not as badly as a few minutes ago. Focus, Imogen. I held Nate and Pritney’s faces in my mind, though they were about the last two people I wanted to think about, much less risk my life to break out of prison. I sighed and tried again. Intention mattered with spells. I thought of how relieved I’d be when we found them and got out of this place. A little zip of magic tickled my palms and I awoke to a bouncing ball of blue sparkling light. It did curlicues in space.
I glanced back. “Hurry.”
“Go ahead.” Wiley nodded at the ball of light, then carefully tossed me my purse.
“Ahhhh!” Iggy screamed from the lighter inside.
I caught it and hugged the bag to my chest. “Wiley! I could have dropped it.”
“Yeah, she could’ve dropped it,” Iggy hissed.
Wiley ignored us. “We’ll catch up. You need time to enlarge the mirror. I put it in your purse.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t even want to think about that part yet, but he was right. As the others made their way down the last twenty steps, I followed the light as it wove through the crowd of prisoners.
“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” I muttered to myself.
“Let me out.”
I paused between two tall men. Their ribs stuck out from under their sacks and they stared, unseeing, straight ahead. I fished around in the purse and flipped the lighter open. I held Iggy aloft. “I’m too creeped out to do this alone.”
As Iggy looked around, one of the men blinked.
“Gah!” Iggy and I yelped and I jumped back and slammed into another body. I whirled and slowly, slowly the man turned his head toward me.
“Run!” Iggy screeched.
I bolted and followed the bouncing light as it snaked through the hundreds and hundreds of emaciated, packed-in bodies. Men and women stood with scars, sunken eyes, clumps of hair missing and bloody scabs on their heads.
“Put me away!” Iggy yelled.
<
br /> “No chance I’m doing this alone,” I hissed.
Eyes began to blink and heads turned as we passed. As I skirted around a tiny older woman, her hand darted out and she grabbed my wrist, her jagged nails digging into my skin. I winced from the pain and pried at her bony fingers.
I gasped in a panicked breath. “I can’t get her off!”
Iggy’s lighter burned in the hand the woman had grabbed. Iggy took a deep breath and puffed himself up, growing his flame longer until he touched the woman’s hand and burned her.
She hissed and shrank back and the moment she released me, I ran after the ball of light. I dared a glance back through the maze of bodies. She followed, slowly pushing her way through the path we’d left behind us, her face grinning a toothless, malice-filled smile.
I uttered something unintelligible, my insides made of an odd mix of Jell-O-like fear and buzzing panic. I stumbled over my own feet and followed the light on through the shifting, waking bodies until the light stopped and winked out. I blinked at the man and woman I stood before.
“I pictured Pritney and Nate, but these two aren’t—” I pressed my free hand to my mouth.
“Son of a sea snake,” Iggy murmured.
I hadn’t recognized them at first, but it was them. They’d only been in Carclaustra less than a year, but Pritney’s once perfect skin hung sallow and limp from her cheekbones. Dark bags circled her eyes and her blonde hair drooped gray and straggly around her face. Her chapped lips cracked and bled and dark bruises covered her arms. Nate hadn’t fared any better. He still had a tall, broad-shouldered frame, but all his muscles had wasted away. He looked sunken and his skin was yellow and rough. I frowned. He’d lost a few teeth.
Nate blinked at me and I jumped back. He uttered a low, gasping sound and Pritney’s glazed, bloodshot eyes flew open. She looked right and left until her gaze landed on me. She blinked. Her pupils narrowed and she hissed.