by Abby Tyson
Her nightmare had come true. All these weeks she'd assumed her dreams were twisted memories of being trapped in the basement, but now she realized they were premonitions. She'd been dreaming of this: the moment of her death.
"I knew I'd find you," Jameson said, digging the gun into the back of her head. "Every night since the barn, I've dreamed of killing you."
I guess that makes two of us, she thought, though she'd never give him the satisfaction of knowing his ghost had tormented her. She waited for the paralyzing fear to overtake her like it did in her dreams, but instead found herself welcoming death's darkness. No more nightmares, no more questions, no more running from the Zuun, the Alters, everyone.
"In my dreams," said Jameson, the smile in his voice making her skin prickle, "you beg for mercy."
Savi didn't want her final thoughts to be Jameson's -- or her own -- demented dreams. She focused on her favorite memories of her mom, Hettie, and Marley, willing them all to be okay.
"Beg."
Lost as she was in her fantasy, it took a moment for Jameson's word to sink in.
"What?" she asked, irritated that he'd pulled her out of her daydreams and back into her nightmare.
"Beg," he ordered.
"Why? You'll kill me anyway."
The gun lifted from her head and Savi started to turn around, but Jameson shoved her to the floor. Standing over her, he aimed the gun straight at her face.
"Beg!" he shouted.
As she wiped his spittle off her forehead, Savi realized with sudden clarity that this was no dream. The aching pain in her shoulder, the ghostly orange light -- none of this had been in her visions. There was no hand over her mouth, no arms holding her down. She could hear Jameson's hateful voice, but she could also see his vile, wretched face, and the hunger in his eyes. And she wasn't dead. Not yet.
"No!" she shouted back. She dove for him, but he was ready and kicked her back.
"Beg!"
"Never!" shrieked Savi, her rage only flaring at the pain. Grabbing his foot, she flung her body at him, forcing him off balance. Blind fury consumed her as she bit, clawed, and beat at the body beneath hers. Like the animal Jameson had once been, Savi was aware of nothing but her prey -- the flailing of his body, the stench of his sweat, the feel of his flesh between her teeth. No more would she be his victim. No more would she be the prey.
A blow to her head stunned her long enough for Jameson to shove her off. Seeing double, Savi shrieked as she lunged for him again, but his boot met her halfway, a bruising blow to her ribs that made her breath seize and refuse to return. With empty, useless gasps she tried to scurry on her hands and knees for the door, but Jameson's manic voice pierced through the buzzing in her ears as he latched onto her ankles and dragged her back.
"You killed me!" he screamed. "You deserve to die!" Trapping her against the wall, he wailed on her, kicking and punching until she couldn't help but cry out.
The blows ceased at the sound of her voice, but Savi remained curled against the wall, sharp pain piercing her side with every shallow breath. A moment later, the smooth tip of the gun pressed once again to her temple. His rank, nauseating breath invaded Savi's senses as he leaned over her to whisper one last time.
"Beg me for mercy."
Slowly, painfully, she rolled onto her back to look up at the person who had haunted her. There Jameson stood, sneering down on her with satisfaction, but he was no longer the only one Savi saw. Every detestable person she'd encountered since stumbling into this world -- Marcia, Top, Ebony, Amber, Omar, Berto, Second -- they were all there, wrapped up in and personified by the pathetic, gruesome, vindictive individual before her. She was sick of being used by them -- of allowing herself to be used by them. Even if they killed her, she would never, ever, let them own her again.
Sides burning, legs and arms wobbly and twitching, Savi got to her knees. Meeting Jameson's smug smile with her own, she spoke the last words she ever expected to say in a hoarse, croaking voice.
"Fuck you."
He screamed with rage, and Savi smiled, bracing herself for death.
Footsteps burst into the cell as someone tackled Jameson to the ground.
"Marley!" she cried.
He didn't react to her, beating Jameson senseless with his own gun. When Jameson stopped defending himself, Marley turned to her.
But once again, she'd confused the brothers. It wasn't Marley's bright, joyful eyes looking at her, it was Ren's, dark and somber. With a swollen lip and chunks of his long hair caked in dry blood, he had clearly had a tough night as well. "Can you walk?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, a hand pressed against her aching side. He helped her up and began to lead her towards the back of the prison.
"We should go the other way," said Savi, "towards the front."
Ren kept walking. "There's an exit in a lab back here. A couple Alter guards took me out that way before the lights cut out. I've been trapped in a van half the night. Besides, we don't have time. On my way back in I saw the Zuun placing explosive charges all over the place."
Walking beside him, Savi prayed Hettie had gotten out okay.
Suddenly she stopped and cried, "Your dad!"
"What about him?"
"He's here. I saw him. He --" She smiled at the memory of one thing going right tonight. "He didn't alter. He's human."
If Savi was expecting Ren to jump for joy, she obviously didn't understand him. He stared above her head, twitches in his cheek and mouth the only indication of the swell of emotions he must have been feeling.
"You think he's still here?" he asked.
"If he's anything like Glenn, he won't be able to move for hours."
"Where is he?"
Savi started limping towards him. "Near my cell. I'll show you."
He pointed back the way they had been heading. "You keep going to the lab. I'll go."
Still moving in his direction, she said. "I may not know exactly where he was, but I've got a better idea than you do."
Surveying her battered body, he asked, "We won't make it at that speed. Can you run?"
In reply, Savi took a few jogging steps forward. Her side throbbed in protest, but it was tolerable, and she sped up, with Ren falling in step beside her.
They didn't see anyone on their way. The Zuun troops were gone, but now that Ren had pointed them out their explosives were everywhere. The timers weren't synchronized, but all of them had somewhere around ten minutes to go, their relentless red numbers counting down to the end of the Den and Berto's prison. Savi thought of the hundreds of people who depended on this organization -- flawed and manipulative as it was -- for their livelihoods. Not only the residents, but the employees, like the baker whose name she could never remember, and the volunteers who thought they were helping save their fellow man rather than inadvertently helping eliminate them. What would become of all of them, after the truth came out?
As they neared Warren's cell, they heard voices and slowed down, creeping forward until they could identify the speakers.
"Science has no power next to the might of Zun," came Warren's barely audible raspy voice. "The book is safe; that is all you can know, unless you join the right side of history. All we need is the veru malar -- she is the key!"
"Your time is over!" shouted Second's unmistakable voice. "You and all the other blind believers have had centuries to do it your way, now our time has come."
Second regained some of the composed, calm tone Savi was used to hearing from her. "They say you were one of our best hunters, then you disappeared without a trace. Ezra said you died, but there were plenty of conspiracy theories -- though I doubt anyone guessed the truth. No one knew you'd become your own prey, or about your disgusting vermin offspring."
"I know firsthand what we're working toward," said Warren. "My demon is purged, and I can meet my god knowing that I played my part in the rising. The Zuun will bring forth Zun's power, and we will rid the earth of this curse that blights my family and so many others."
>
We? Did he just say what I think he said?
"Your sun god is nothing but a lie for old fools like you to waste their time on," said Second. "As soon as we recapture the hollow one, the Zuun will at last be able to focus on the true path to humanity's rising. Now where is the book?!"
"Kill me, and you'll never know."
Savi glanced at the nearest explosive charge. They had less than five minutes before it went. She touched Ren gently on the arm and pointed at it. He nodded, then started creeping towards the cell. Before he reached the door, two gunshots sounded from inside. Ren froze.
"You'd never have told me anyway," muttered Second.
Ren ran toward the door at the same time that Second appeared. She aimed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.
"No!" Savi cried, running forward.
Nothing happened.
"Shit," said Second, tossing the empty gun aside and diving to meet Ren head on. He had the greater momentum, and they fell into the cell.
Savi ran in after them and, avoiding their brawling bodies, dropped beside Warren. Still undressed, he was in the same position he'd been in when she saw him hollow. His eyes were open, but blood was spilling from his stomach. He reached out to her, opening his mouth. The memory of her mom, bloody and lying on the floor, kept flashing before her, superimposing itself over Warren. Savi fought back the image and took his hand, leaning in close. Through his wet, gurgling gasps, he said, "Tell my son to keep you safe. You're his savior."
"Which son?" Savi asked. "Marley?"
Warren's chest rattled as he gripped her hand, staring at her with fear and need in his eyes. He had more to say, but there was no breath to say it.
Remembering the poem he'd quoted the day after he'd bitten her, Savi forced herself to hold his gaze and said, "The poets leave hell and again behold the stars." A peace passed over him, but whether it was from her words, or from those spoken by someone on the other side, she wasn't certain.
Ren was standing over them, his knuckles dripping with blood. Second lay unmoving on the floor behind him. Savi couldn't tell if she was breathing, and she didn't care.
A thunderous boom sounded from deep in the prison, and the floor of the cell shook.
"The bombs!" Savi cried.
Grabbing her hand, Ren pulled her up and out of the cell. Neither let go as they raced down the hall, fighting not only their broken, exhausted bodies that demanded rest, but the crippling hopelessness that whispered it was useless, that the next roaring explosion would be the one that killed them and they may as well lie down and wait for the inevitable.
Through the thick haze of smoke, the main door came into sight at the same time a bomb went off in the intersecting corridor beside them. Ren swung Savi across the mouth of the hall and pressed her against the wall, shielding her with his own body. Flaming debris burst out of the corridor next to them, forming a wall of fiery metal where they had been just seconds before.
Savi's ears were ringing as Ren appeared in front of her. She could feel his hands on her cheeks, could see his lips moving, but she couldn't hear him.
His head whipped to the side, and Savi flinched, thinking it was another explosion. But when she followed his gaze, she saw Marley running towards them. She didn't realize until that moment how much she'd already resigned herself to dying down here. She hadn't thought she would ever see Marley again.
Coughing through the smoke and rancid stench of burning metal, she called out to him. She reached out, needing to feel his touch, to prove he wasn't a vision from the afterlife, an angel sent to escort her to heaven. But an angel would never look upon her with such disgust.
Marley was shouting something at them, but she still couldn't hear anything except for the ringing in her ears.
"What?" she shouted.
Ren stepped away from her, yelling something as he started for the door that was hardly twenty feet away. Marley shoved him back, pointing at Savi, and Ren gestured towards the flaming bits of steel and concrete on the floor behind them.
Savi was starting to glean what the problem was, and couldn't believe that Marley was endangering their lives over a stupid misunderstanding.
"Marley!" she screamed. "We have to get out of here!" She reached for his hand, but he wrenched it away.
Her hearing was beginning to return, and she could barely hear his words as he got in her face, casting a long, angry finger at Ren. "Him," he asked, "or me?"
She couldn't believe it. In the middle of an exploding prison, after another night of hell, when she'd seen countless people dead and dying, including her mother, he would trap her here until he got the answer he wanted. That she had even considered the possibility of loving a person like that made her ashamed of herself.
"You are the most selfish and insecure person I've ever met!" she shouted. "I hate you!"
A frenzied pain flashed across his eyes at the same time that another explosion went off nearby. Ren gripped Marley's shoulder and swung him around, thrusting his left hand towards him and crying, "Brother!"
Marley took his brother's outstretched hand, and for a split second Savi thought he was accepting Ren's peace offering. She even felt herself starting to smile at the image of them slapping their hands in a show of solidarity, and all three of them escaping from this hellhole together. But the dream was shattered as Marley swung his fist at his brother. Ren jumped out of the way in time, sending Marley stumbling forward. Without looking back, he ran for the exit and disappeared through the door.
Savi chased a few steps after him, but then turned back to make sure Ren was coming. He raced up beside her, taking her hand again, and they both ran into the control room towards the staircase that led outside. Another explosion sent the iron door they had just passed through flying into the air, sucked back into the prison inferno. The smoke wasn't so bad in the stairwell, but the stench of burning metal followed them, making Savi gag. Her body ached, begging her to stop and rest.
"Savi!" Ren shouted as she tripped on the stairs for the third time. "Come on! We're almost there!"
As he bent to help her up, Ren slipped and struck his head on the metal stairs. It couldn't have been that hard of a blow, but combined with all of the injuries he'd sustained that night, it was enough to send his eyes rolling back in his head. He didn't get up.
"Ren!" Savi screamed, shaking him. She grabbed one of his arms and wrapped it over her shoulders, but he was too heavy, and her body barely had enough strength to keep herself up.
"Ren!" she screamed again.
"Savi!" called a voice from above.
Searching for its source, Savi cried, "Help!"
A figure appeared in the doorway, but Savi's eyes burned from smoke and tears, and it wasn't until they were lifting Ren's other arm that she could see who it was.
"Hettie!" Savi cried, laughing and sobbing all at once. "You're my hero!"
Together they dragged Ren's limp body out of the sweltering prison. The blustering wind and driving rain of the hurricane was a balm for both Savi's scorched skin and charred soul. Below there had been nothing but death, but the rush of air and water above promised life, and she relished it.
They ran until the rattling ground shook them off their feet. Heedless of the mud they were lying on, Savi and Hettie watched the admin building and the entire athletic field beside it collapse, sinking into the earth in a fiery blaze, as if swallowed up by hell itself.
Hettie led them to an ambulance that was tucked between the school buildings, out of the way of the wind and rain that was buffeting them. By the cab light and headlights of the ambulance, Savi saw Glenn crouching against the side of the vehicle, his face in his hands.
"Glenn?" called Savi.
He ran over, reaching out for her, but had to settle for putting his hands on her cheeks when he saw her carrying Ren. "Thank god, you're okay," he said. "You're okay."
Something about how he emphasized you're made Savi's heart stop. The wind fell silent and still, the rain stopped in midair, Ren'
s weight lifted off her shoulders. Nothing existed except Glenn and the ambulance, both ballooning in size until Savi could have fit in Glenn's pocket.
"Where's my mom?" she asked, unsure he would hear her tiny, minuscule voice.
Glenn's glistening, sorrowful eyes hurt Savi worse than Second's bullet or Jameson's boot. Walking on small, unsteady legs, she journeyed to the back of the ambulance. Hiding behind the towering doors, she peered in to see Dave sitting beside someone on a stretcher, weeping on their shoulder. Somehow he saw her, despite her shrunken being, and let out a wrenching sob.
"Savi!" His voice echoed from all around as he reached out to hug her with his giant arms. "They did everything they could," he said, his body intolerably heavy. "She held on for as long as she could."
And Savi had done the same. She couldn't face what was under that sheet. She wouldn't face it. Her mind shut down, and her body, already pushed beyond its limits, readily joined in.
Closing her eyes, she blinked out of existence.
Chapter Forty-Five
A low, soothing voice humming in her ear... warm sunlight on her cheeks... curled up on a soft, rocking body... the scent of her mom's damp hair...
"Why don't I have two parents?" asks Savi.
Her mom stops humming. The rocking pauses.
"All the kids at school have two parents," Savi adds, her eyes closed.
"I guess that means I've got twice as much love as most parents."
The sleepy rocking begins again as Savi considers this.
"Does that mean I only love you half?" she asks.
"You tell me."
Savi opens her eyes at the smile in her mom's voice. She reaches out her hand to catch the white sparkles floating in the sunshine, and her mom kisses it.
"I love you a hundred billion plus forty," Savi says, flinging her arms open. Her mom leans down, eyes glittering as she pretends to drop Savi. The strength in her mom's arms is infinite, and even when Savi's finger grazes against the wood floor, she laughs, knowing her mom will never let her fall.
"That's an awful lot of love for one girl," her mom says, pulling her back up.