by Martha Adele
Sprinting at the woman who opened it, I lunge forward to take her down but am grabbed by the wrist. My arm is twisted behind my back, and I am shoved onto the ground.
“Stop!” she loudly whispers at me as she leans on my back, “I’m here to get you out.”
“What?” I whisper-shout back at her.
The dark-haired girl releases my arm and helps me up. My eyes try to readjust to the light as she leads me through the hallways. “The people who are locked up in here tend to be the people who are on our side. You just happen to be one of the lucky ones I got to before the morning.” We continue running and stop against the edge of one of the hallways. She peeks around the corner and takes out two more guards with her pistol.
“Whose side?” I ask her, stealing one of the guns from the guards.
“The people who support the real Frieden, not the one Oswald and his council have made it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I read your assignments,” she tells me. “You didn’t shoot everybody that night at the river. Why?”
“What?” I stop in my tracks. “How did you know that?”
She smiles at me and extends her hand. “Nice to meet you, Werner Rhodes. My name is Van. I was that group’s guide that night. You spared us.”
I take a step back for a moment as I scan her size. The only real thing I recognize is her hair. The darkness of it seems slightly familiar but still. “You were the guide?”
“Yes.” She drops her hand, and we continue walking. “Tell me, why didn’t you finish your assignment that night?”
I hesitate for a moment. “I saw someone I recognized.”
“And that made you start questioning your orders, correct?”
I nod.
“Long story short, that is how you ended up here, right?”
I nod again.
“All right, then you’re on our side too. You want what Frieden was supposed to be about, right? Freedom?”
“Yeah, but I—”
Van grabs my wrist and pulls me aside and into a cleaning closet. She looks around the room and climbs up one of the shelves and pops out one of the ceiling tiles. “Follow me.”
I watch her climb up with ease and try to follow her steps exactly.
“Van,” I call out to her in a hushed tone. She turns around and places her finger on her mouth to silence me, but I grab her wrist to get her attention. “There’s someone else we need to get.”
“What?” she asks me.
“There’s someone being tortured in one of the rooms on the third floor. It’s a small door leading to the—”
Van nods and shushes me again. She raises her wrist to her mouth and speaks into her cuff, “Q, I need you to go to room 3667. Someone is in there.” Van holds her cuff up to her ear and listens for the man’s or woman’s muffled response. When it finally mutters something back, she points to the ceiling tile beside my foot. “Close it up and follow.”
I place the tile back and mimic her quick and quiet crawls out of the building without another word. We slide out of the back through a small opening I don’t think was there originally and climb down the small indents made into the brick wall. Once our feet hit the ground, we sprint off through the back side of the city and into the woods.
Logan
The gas continues to float throughout the room in the video as the man behind the window chuckles. “You have ten seconds before you are given the same fate as this man.”
Leishman doesn’t count down. He simply lets me do it myself, which is even worse. What if my ten seconds are longer than his ten seconds? What if mine are shorter? What if I waste all my ten seconds thinking about this?
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you!” I thrash about, trying to get my arms and waist untied but realize, even if I did that, I still couldn’t get out. I can’t stand up. I can’t run away. “I heard it from my friend Sam, and he is dead. He heard it from his friend Bram, and he is gone! What do you want?”
Click.
A low hissing noise begins to fill the room. I look to my right to see the red gas slowly floating toward me. I look to my left and see the same. The liquid on my skin has begun to heat up already, causing me to thrash about as much as I can.
“No! Stop!” I shout. “I’ve told you everything. I will tell you anything!”
The gas floats forward. It doesn’t float up to the ceiling or down to the ground but forward to me.
“Stop! Please! I will tell you anything!”
A large amount of rumbling and tumbling noises come from behind the mirror. I stare at my reflection as another click echoes through the room, and the hissing stops.
But the gas doesn’t.
It continues floating toward me as I shout and scream for help. I look down and watch the gas touch my right arm first. It slowly caresses the liquid, causing an even worse burning sensation than earlier as the acid causes boils to grow on my body. I watch in the mirror as the red slowly devours me, causing boils and blisters to cover my body. I watch the welts and sounds grow and explode, causing my skin to shrivel and tighten under the liquid. The open wounds from the exploded boils show blood and pus but let the liquid sink into them, causing the gas to grow more boils under my skin and inside of me.
Just as the pain becomes too great for me to handle, I watch the door in the corner of the room slide open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Werner
We run.
And we run.
She seems to have an unlimited amount of energy while I am struggling to keep her pace.
“Come on, just a little bit farther,” she tells me.
“Until where?”
“There’s an underground rest stop just up ahead on the right.” She continues running and speaking at the same time without gasping for air as I seem to be. “You’ll need to rest for a little bit before I take you to the bunker outside of the wall.”
“What?” I slow my pace and catch her attention.
She turns around and waves me on. “Come on, we don’t need to get caught.” Van continues to sprint off, seemingly not caring enough to see if I’m following.
I speed back up and find myself short of breath. “What do you mean the bunker outside of the wall?”
“Well, there’s a bunker”—she takes a breath as she slows down a bit for me to catch up—“and it’s outside of the wall. What else do you want to know?”
“Well, a lot of things.” I wheeze, trying not to sound too pathetic; but we’ve been running for a good forty minutes now. I think I deserve at least one wheeze. “Who all is down there? How long has the bunker been there?” I take another deep breath. “How long will I be down there?”
“I don’t know. There are some officials down there, the bunker has been there for years but not many people know about it, and you could be down there for a while depending on how long it takes us to restore order.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh no, don’t worry. It’s very nice down there. It’s almost exactly like a little Bergland.” She slows down for a moment and then speeds back up. “Oh, right. You’ve never been to Bergland. Well, trust me, the bunker is lovely.”
“What do you mean restore order? What are your plans?”
She slows her pace again to a speed walk, one pace I am much more comfortable with. “Well, there are a lot of plans. Some plans are already in play.”
“Can you tell me what they are?”
She looks to me and shakes her head. “No.”
“Can you tell me what you meant by restore order?”
Van speeds up a bit into a little jog and makes her way to a random tree. She heads over to one of the small branches growing on it and twists it left three times, right once, then pulls it down like a lever. I hear a small shuffle of leaves on the ground, and
she leads me around the tree to an opening on the bottom of the trunk. She slides in and waves me along. “Well, the officials who are in the bunker are some of the same officials from Bergland. They have quite a few plans on how to restore the government to the way it once was and to improve it for the better without all the corruption.”
We climb down a small ladder and land on a concrete floor. She presses a button in the room that closes the tree trunk, and we walk down the hall into a slightly larger room with two beds and a trunk with an electric padlock.
“So what exactly is their plan to restore order? You still haven’t clarified.”
Van turns to me with a funny look on her face. “Why do you want to know so badly?”
“Considering what all has happened here, I know Frieden’s government is corrupt.” I make my way past her and sit down on the bed, trying to allow my aching body some rest. It seems that my entire body hurts, from my muscles to my new bruises, from my earlier beating. My body throbs and my head pounds as I rest on the squeaky and obviously worn mattress. “I mean, I was one of the men who helped make it that way by taking out those who don’t believe the same.”
“Yeah?” She heads over the trunk and punches in the code.
“I want to help.”
Van looks over her shoulder at me and then back to the chest, finishing the code. “What do you mean?”
“I want to help. I have a lot of skills that have proved useful in the past, and I want to use them now to help.”
She opens the chest and pulls out two water bottles and some protein bars. She tosses me one of each and sits on one of the chairs in the room.
I open the water bottle and watch her unwrap her protein bar. “I want to stay in Frieden and help you guys fix what shouldn’t have gotten this messed up in the first place.”
Van takes a bite of the bar and stares at me. After a moment of silence, she swallows. “You are a target now. You’ve just broken out of a holding cell and will most likely have your face plastered where people can see it. You will be labeled a criminal and have a price put on your head. I can’t have you in Frieden. It’s too dangerous.”
“For who? For me?” I take a bite of the protein bar. “I will be fine. The worst they can do is kill me.”
“No,” she states, “the worst they can do is torture you. They can get answers from you. It is too dangerous for us to have you stay out here.”
“Well, then maybe I can be someone else.”
A small smile rises up on Van’s face. “What do you mean?”
“Dye my hair. Give me colored contacts. I will grow a beard, put on some weight, lose some weight.” I swallow another bite of the bar. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
She takes another bite of her bar as I realize her smirk isn’t going away anytime soon.
Logan
Stop.
I force my eyes open as the pain on my skin wakes me up.
The tight and horrible feeling of a blister on your hand caused by a burn is covering my entire body. That one feeling that everybody hates is covering my body from head to toe.
I can feel it in between my toes.
I can feel it on the back of my knees.
My body is lain back on a bed, spread out so that no body parts are bending, causing the blisters to rub together. I am in one of the best possible positions for this sort of pain but am still feeling an immense amount. The pressure on my backside pushes against the blisters; and the more I think about it, the worse the feeling gets.
After minutes of agony and trying to stay as still as I can, a man comes into my room and sits on the end of my bed by my feet. “Good morning, Logan.” He gives me a small smile and clears his throat. His perfect hair seems to have just been gelled up, and his teeth seem to have just been bleached.
The sound of the medical machines around me comes in to focus as one particular set of beeping increases. I look around to find that I am in another sort of hospital but not the same one I am used to waking up in.
A small feeling of relief slowly comes over me, seemingly starting from the cold rush of liquid coming from my IV.
“You see this?” The man holds up a small handheld button attached to the bed by a wire. “Right now, I am in a good mood, so I am giving you some medicine to help with your pain.”
I continue staring at him, unable to speak. I want to ask what is going on. Why didn’t I die with the gas? Who is he? I don’t recognize his voice.
I try to force out a question but barely get a wheeze out. My throat feels too tight to allow me to do anything but breathe.
“It’s okay. You will get your voice back soon enough. Allow me to explain to you what happened.” He rises to his feet and sets the button back in its little holster on the side of the bed, nowhere near where I can reach. “While you were in the chamber, a set of rebels broke into the room where my good friend, Maynard, was working. They killed him, broke into the chamber, and pulled you out, saving you from death. Sadly enough for you, your rebel friends took out all but three of our guards on that hallway. Those three guards grabbed your friends to take them for questioning, but they were unable to stop them from taking something to end their lives. Your friends killed themselves, Logan, for you.”
I continue to stare at the man. I want to tell him they weren’t my friends. I didn’t know them. It was pure luck that they pulled me out.
“It is obvious that you know something, Logan. Why else would two rebels risk their lives to keep you alive? You are part of their team, and now we know that.”
No. I’m not. You’ve got to believe me.
“So I guess we were kind of lucky they pulled you out. If they had not done that, we wouldn’t have known you knew something. I will give you credit, though, Logan. You have more will than anyone I’ve ever seen.” He chuckles at me and walks over to one of the medical machines. “Hurting you obviously doesn’t work if we need answers.”
Stop. What are you doing?
I watch him slide his finger across the screen of one of the machines. He looks to me with a small smile and pats my arm as another cold rush comes through my IV. “Get some rest, Forge. You’re going to need it.”
Mavis
Another nurse comes by my curtained room. She slides it open and gives me a little smile as I continue to sit in the hospital bed with my arms crossed.
“Good morning, Mavis. How are you feeling?”
I stare at her. I told them when I woke up, I am not speaking to anyone until they say I can get out of bed.
The nurse sighs at me. “You know, I can’t help you unless you speak to me.”
I say nothing. I just continue to stare at her. Not rudely, with an angered face, more with a facial expression that says, “I’m waiting.”
“Or at least let me look at you.” She steps closer to me, and I shift back. They examined me while I was unconscious and said everything looked fine. Why do they need to examine me again?
She sighs. “I won’t do anything until you say it’s okay, but you know that I can’t really help until you let me.”
I look down to my lap. I know that I need to let her help. That is probably one of the only ways I can get out of here, but you know what? I’ve held out for this long. I can hold out longer.
I can keep myself occupied. It’s not like my brain ever shuts down. I have so many things going on in my head that I think I could last a lifetime without having to speak to anyone else.
Not that I’d want to do that.
I don’t enjoy staying in the bed. I want to go and train. I want to go and prepare myself to help fix Frieden. And I can do it too if only they’d let me out of the bed.
They act as if I meant to harm myself. Why would I do that?
And even if I meant to harm myself, if I meant to really hurt myself, I could have. After all, I was the one who found my brother. I
know exactly how he ended his life. If I wanted to do the same, I could have already.
I’m happy he is dead.
I’m happy Mom and Dad are dead.
I’m happy Uncle Randy is dead too.
I’m not happy they died. I am happy they aren’t here. I’m happy they didn’t have to go through the war and that none of them have to suffer as long as I have to.
Janice enters my curtained area with a fake smile on her face as my nurse leaves. “Hey, Mavis, how are you doing?”
I watch her take a seat beside me. I don’t answer.
“You know”—Janice sighs—“if you say something to me, I will get them to let you leave the hospital.” She pulls out a pair of my clothes from a backpack she brought and hands them to me.
I immediately face her with my whole body and tell her, “I want to leave the bunker.”
“What?” Janice’s face falls confused and yet amused. “Why would you want to leave the bunker?”
“I’ve seen people leave. They go and get others from Frieden and bring them back here. They go on missions and do other things that actually help. I want to leave the bunker and actually help.”
“What?” Janice rises to her feet and gives me a nervous chuckle. “Mavis, you can’t go while you’re pregnant. It’s not safe.”
I follow her lead and stand as well. “Janice, I am able to help. I have gotten really good at the simulations, and I have become a very good shot. Just ask Grayson!”
“Mavis, I—”
“With these skills, plus the perfect cover”—I gesture to my stomach—“a pregnant woman, I would make one of the best soldiers you’ve ever seen.”
“Mavis, you can’t leave while you’re pregnant. I’m sorry.” Janice tries to place her hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off as she continues, “You can keep training if you’d like. You will just need to take it easy on the simulations and limit the range practices, okay? Then, maybe after that, we can talk about you leaving.”