by Blair Drake
“It’s too thick. They won’t hear us. We’ll move up high beyond the stairways and alleyways after first bell when we can. There will be less people walking around than after second bell.”
“How many tunnels are here?”
She shrugged. “I only got as far as the first quadrant of the city before Endel found me. There were a few tunnels. Most of them are workman walkways.”
“For what?”
“Working on the aqueduct. Probably the power supply, too. Some of the tunnels have tubing on the ceilings and walls. They hiss.”
“Scary?”
She nodded and then giggled. “I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I thought the tunnel would blow up.”
He stopped walking. “Like the energy room?”
She stopped and turned to him. Her eyebrows drew together as she gazed up at him. “No. That was much more…”
“Intense? I did that.” The bravado he’d felt earlier after realizing what he’d done had turned to pure fear.
“I know. I was there.” She chuckled softly but then stopped quickly when she saw his reaction. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to stay here. But I…don’t know if I can keep that from happening again. I mean, what if we’re out in the open and something like that happens?”
Raven shrugged. “Just remember what Endel taught you.”
They continued to walk a while. Reese noticed that the light changed as they walked toward a light bulb. At first, he hadn’t thought anything of it until he stared at the bulb as he walked underneath it.
“Am I doing this?” he asked.
“What?”
He looked behind him and saw that the tunnel was dark.
He sighed. “Never mind. How far do you think it is until we can get through the door?”
“It’s not about distance. It’s about time.”
“It’s always about time, huh?”
Raven smiled up at him. It was a sweet smile that made her look much younger than her experience showed. “I guess. The best chance to get through the major portion of the city is—”
“I know. After first bell,” he said, cutting her off. “How are we going to know it’s first bell if we’re in here and can’t hear anything through these thick walls?”
“Don’t worry. Your stomach will tell you,” she said with a chuckle.
Reese rolled with his eyes to hide the embarrassing memory of the way his stomach growled earlier. “I hope my stomach doesn’t give me away while out in the city.”
“This part of the city is full of small tunnels. I saw them on the map. If someone gets suspicious of us, we can climb the stairs and slip into one of the tunnels. We can sleep there too. No one goes in the tunnels after second bell.”
An uneasy feeling settled over him. “You mean, we might see someone in the tunnels right now?”
Raven glanced up at him and shrugged as if it were no big deal at all. “Maybe. I usually sneak out of the nearest door and get lost in the marketplace.” She lifted the sides of her baggy pants. “That’s why I wear these.”
“Good for you. What the hell am I going to do? This blazer practically has a sign on it that says ‘shoot me’.”
“No one is going to shoot you. There are no guns down here.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “None that I’ve ever seen or even heard about. If trouble finds you, you can run away. You said it yourself that you’re a good runner.”
He felt his ego inflate just a bit that Raven seemed impress by that.
“Once you get to the outskirts of the city, people will be out and about even after first bell. There are small tunnels you can slip into that will hide you.”
“Even if I’m glowing?” he teased, using Endel’s description of him.
She giggled. “Yeah. But we don’t want that to happen. So remember what Endel taught you. The only time we really have to worry is if we meet up with somebody while in the tunnel.”
“How do we do that? We’ll be stuck.”
“We’ll run to a doorway. There were plenty of them on the map. And then we run. But let’s hope that won’t be an issue.”
Reese ran his fingers against the rough concrete wall as he walked. “What about you? Can you run?”
She flashed him a sarcastic glance. “Of course I can run. I do have feet, you know. How do you think I managed to stay down here all this time?”
“No, I mean really run. Fast.”
Reese dropped his gaze to the shoes he was wearing. They were the dead wrong kind of shoes to be running in. But he’d be able to manage. Then he glanced at hers. Hers were better. But even in lousy shoes he could still probably outrun her.
They’d walked a while before he realized he was sweating beneath his blazer. He touched his face and felt the heat of his skin warm his fingers. Somewhere above him, Reese could hear the sound of a drip. Drip. Drip. That couldn’t be good. Reese wasn’t a genius, but it didn’t take one to know that water and electricity didn’t mix.
“How far do you think we’ve gotten?” Raven asked.
“We’ve been walking this tunnel for so long I can’t seem to get my bearings. The epicenter was supposed to be just beyond a series of short tunnels on the east side of the city that come close to the aqueduct. I hear water dripping, but not running water. Are we supposed to hear it?”
Raven nodded. “We’re hearing pipes, but it’s faint. It’s not the same as it is on the south side of the tunnels. I used to listen to the water rushing through the pipes at night when the water flowed out of the city. It kept me awake. But I was always glad for it because it also kept me alert.”
He could have sworn he’d heard her teeth chattering as she talked. But when she clutched both of her fisted hands to her chest and turned her head down the tunnel, he knew he hadn’t imagined it.
“What is it?”
Raven shook her head. “I…nothing. I just thought I heard something. But…I guess not.”
She hugged herself tighter.
“Come here,” he said. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her small body. She was soft and slight and Reese felt if he squeezed her hard enough, she would crush in his arms. And she was freezing.
“How can you be so cold when I’m sweating?”
She chuckled. “You’re trying to tame your energy. It’s making you overheat.”
“Is that right? And how do you know that?”
“I can tell. Haven’t you noticed the lights?”
Reese had, but he’d thought it was his imagination. Apparently not.
“When you walk under it, they flare. Sometimes when you’re not paying attention, they become brighter. But when you’re really paying attention, they barely change.”
“I didn’t realize I was doing it.”
“I noticed.”
Uncomfortable with the subject being him, he extended his hands. “Let me cover your hands for a minute. Your hands are like ice, but mine will warm you. As soon as we get out of this tunnel it should be better.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “The epicenter is where they power the entire underground city. To give off energy enough to power a city, it has to create a lot of heat. That heat has to go somewhere. Since I know it’s not here in the tunnel, it has to be out there or it’s being piped out somewhere else.”
“We’re still a long way from the epicenter.”
“Are you sure?”
She glanced up at Reese but not enough for him to fully see her face. He did notice that color had returned to her cheeks and she was flush. “I’m not shivering anymore,” she said quietly.
“Just take a minute or two. We can spare that, right? The portal isn’t going to close up because we took a few extra seconds. It’ll do no good for us to try to cross the bridge freezing. You need to be able to feel your feet in order to run—”
“Quiet,” she said quickly.
He turned in the direction she was facing. The h
all behind them was dark.
“Is someone there?” he whispered.
“Ssh.” She listened again. “We have to go. Now.”
She took him by the hand and quickly began walking in the direction they’d been going for hours. Every few yards, she ran her hand across the concrete wall.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“A doorway,” she said almost breathlessly as she moved. She glanced over her shoulder into the darkness behind them. “Calm your thoughts.”
“What?”
“The lights are getting brighter. They’ll see us.”
“They? Who?”
“Hurry.”
She began to run. To Reese’s surprise, he needed to quicken his pace in order to keep up with her.
“Stop, Reese. The lights are getting bright.” Raven was frantic as she glanced over her shoulder and pushed herself harder.
He could feel the energy flowing through him, but given the pace they were now running, he felt powerless to stop it.
He focused as he did earlier in Endel’s energy room, but it was no use. The more he tried to stop the energy flowing through him, the brighter the lights got.
The footsteps behind them were louder now. Reese could clearly hear odd clanking on the concrete floor. The steps, however clumsy, showed that whoever or whatever was behind them was moving at a fast clip.
Raven ran her hand over the wall.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I can’t find the doorway. I don’t remember it being this far down the tunnel. It’s not here.”
Reese glanced over his shoulder. He still couldn’t see anything into the darkness down the tunnel. But the light around them had become so bright, he had to squint to see.
“Here!” Raven said, pointing to a spot high up on the concrete wall. “You need to help me get up.”
He didn’t initially see what she was fiddling with. But then a small door popped open to reveal a hidden tunnel high up on the wall.
“What is this?” he asked.
She glanced down the tunnel as the sound of the metal on the concrete floor got louder.
“I need your help,” she said. “It’s too high for us both to climb into the tunnel on our own. I’ll give you a leg up and then you can pull me up after you climb inside.”
Reese’s heart pounded. They didn’t have much time to get away from whoever was behind them, and they certainly had no time to argue.
“Do you even know what we’re going into?” Reese asked, glancing down at Raven as she cupped both hands together. What did she expect? That she could hoist him up to this opening? He was too heavy for her and she weighed practically nothing.
When he didn’t put his foot on her hands, she quickly shook them in an attempt to get him moving. “I hid here once before. Hurry. We don’t have time.”
Reese wasn’t altogether sure he liked the idea of climbing into a black hole. But Raven was right. They had no choice.
He placed his left foot on her hands and used his other foot to push himself up while holding on to the edge of the opening. As he’d expected, she didn’t have the strength to lift him. But what little help she provided was enough for him to grab the inside of the doorway enough to climb up. As soon as he did, he scrambled in the darkness to turn around and reach over to Raven’s waiting hands.
It took nothing to lift Raven up through the opening. As soon as he did, she quickly turned and slowly eased the door closed, plunging them in darkness.
“You stayed here? Alone?” he whispered.
“Not my favorite place, but the alternative is worse. Right now, you’re going to have to trust me on that.”
He thought of what he’d been taught by Endel and tried to channel his energy the way he’d done in the energy room to turn on some lights.
“There are no lights in here,” Raven said, as if she knew what he was doing. They weren’t touching. She couldn’t see him. But she knew. “If you try too hard, you might be able to transfer your energy through this doorway and light up the opening.”
“Shit!” he said under his breath. “I thought I was helping.”
She reached through the darkness and touched his hand. “You’re still warm.”
“We just ran to get here.”
“No, this is different. Breathe slowly.”
The touch of her hand was strangely intimate. He was a guy and she was a pretty girl. They were sitting in the darkness as if they’d just played spin the bottle and were sent into the dark room for a kiss. And in that moment, when he knew he should be paying attention to the sound of movement on the other side of the door, all he could think about was kissing Raven.
They’d just met. He knew next to nothing about her, and when he’d gotten to the underground, he hadn’t really wanted to. All he cared about was getting out of here and how Raven could help him. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about her now. Just her.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered.
“No.”
He listened. But for the life of him, he couldn’t hear anything above the pounding of his heart in his chest.
“They’re outside the door. You can’t hear that?”
He shook his head and then realized she couldn’t see it. But if they, whoever “they” were, were really outside the door, he didn’t want to risk saying anything.
Something hard was scraped against the concrete on the other side of the wall. It was faint, but distinct and he could only imagine that whoever it was had been trying to find the trap door they’d gone through.
He breathed slowly. Steady.
Raven squeezed his hand just as a very loud bang against the metal door reverberated around them. Reese winced at the sudden assault against his eardrum. But he didn’t cry out and he didn’t move even though he knew all they had to do was open that door and they’d see Raven sitting in front of it.
He had the sudden urge to run. To yank Raven away from the doorway, just in case. But he stayed still. Someone was talking but he couldn’t make out anything that was being said. After a few minutes, he heard Raven’s slow sigh of relief.
“I think they may have moved on,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t hear anything out there anymore.”
“Except for that last scrape, I couldn’t hear anything. How do you know they haven’t moved down the tunnel just a little to fake us out?”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t know. They might have. I don’t think they’re smart enough.”
“Who?”
He heard her heavy sigh. “I don’t know what they’re called. I’ve never actually seen one. But I know we need to make it to the first bridge before second bell. It won’t be safe for us to be out in the square after that.”
He chuckled, amazed that he could even find humor in their situation. “I think you just want to get out of this cubby hole we’re in. Aren’t you afraid a spider or something is going to crawl out if we stay in here?”
She didn’t seem to share his amusement. “I’m not afraid of just one.”
He let that sink in while she pushed at the doorway just enough to crack it open. A burst of fresh air flooded the small space around them. Earlier he’d thought the air in the tunnel they’d been traveling in had been stale. But they’d been sitting in this dead space for a while and the fresher air was welcomed. With the small sliver of light that pushed past the opening of the doorway, he saw Raven lean forward, turning an ear toward the opening as if she were listening.
“Wait,” he whispered. “You said first bridge. How many bridges are there?”
He was almost glad he couldn’t see if she rolled her eyes. But the dip of her head gave him a good idea she was probably doing just that. “I thought you read the map.”
“I did.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. There are two. Bridge, epicenter, bridge and then the portal. Let’s get out of here. I don’t hear anything.”
She swung the door open fully, eased her legs through the small doorway, and then poked her head out into the tunnel and looked around. With one quick movement, she jumped to the tunnel floor without making a sound. At least, Reese couldn’t hear anything.
He quickly positioned himself in the doorway and then jumped to the concrete below. When he did, the lights began to flicker, then glow bright. Raven panicked and reached for the doorway again while frantically searching up and down the hall.
“You need to stop doing that,” she said, breathing in short bursts as if she’d just run a mile.
“I can’t help it.”
“Try. Or this this journey is going to be over before we get to the first bridge.”
“Okay, okay.”
Reese closed his eyes and thought of the energy room again. Nothing. He felt nothing but Raven’s heavy sigh. Funny how he couldn’t hear it, but he could feel her exhaling slowly as if she didn’t want to disturb him.
“I’m scared,” she said quietly.
His eyes flew open. He could say a lot of lame things that could make her feel better. He could lie to her and tell her that he had it under control. They were going to make it all the way to the portal and wherever it took them. Hopefully home. He hoped it was at least a place he recognized in some way.
But it would be a lie, and she’d probably see through it as the lame ass line it was.
“I know,” he admitted. “If it’s too much, you can go back and live like a cave dweller again.”
“Tried that.” She chuckled softly.
“Yeah, I guess you did. I don’t know how you lasted as long as you did. But if we’re not going back, then it leaves us with the one choice. We move forward.”
The light above them flickered. Reese breathed easy. He thought of a time when he was young when he and his dad had been in the back yard of their house and taken a nap in a hammock under a big oak tree with huge branches that stretched out over the house and the neighbor’s yard. He’d forgotten. How old was he? He couldn’t remember. The only thing he remembered was being sandwiched between his father’s chest and his arm and feeling safe.
He pushed the thought away. Why the hell was he thinking of shit like that now?
He kept himself focused. He could tell Raven was still jumpy about whatever it was that had chased them earlier. Every few steps, she glanced over her shoulder. The least he could do was help keep the lights low so they could move quietly, even if it made it difficult to see too far ahead.