by Shiloh White
Halsey chuckled. And rightly so. The way my Handle was going, my words were an empty threat. Only, she wasn't laughing at me because of that.
“Lucy, I have to think much of it,” she said. “It reminded me why I'm here—it's not to just fight who the Depression Force tells me to. It's to help people. Especially Topsiders, like you."
“Thanks, Halsey,” I said. Her determination fueled my heart. Woodstock grunted in agreement.
“I told you not to thank me,” she said. “There's still more to do—your friend's behind this door, but pretty soon there's going to be Officers everywhere—"
WHOOOOOOOP! WHOOOOOOOP!
As if set off by Halsey's words, a loud alarm blared over all of the systems. A bunch of emergency lights came out, drowning the hallways in a pale red.
Halsey shifted from foot to foot. “Shoot,” she said, “We have way less time than I thought."
“What should we do?” I asked.
“Get Chug, and get to the subway,” she told us. “I'm going to send a train you take to the Academy. Just make sure you're on it before it leaves.”
I was grateful for her help, but something dark took that place. I heard the determination waver in Halsey's voice, if only for just a second. She was afraid.
“What's going to happen to you when you do this?” I asked. I shouldn't have. I didn't want to know the answer.
“Don't worry about that, Lucy,” she winked. “I'm pretty resourceful.”
Woodstock put his hand on Halsey's shoulder. “Thanks for busting us out, senorita.” Halsey smiled at him, then looked back at me.
“Just promise me one thing.” she said.
“Yeah, what?” I asked.
“Bring them back.” Halsey studied the floor under my shoes. “I...wouldn't be able to hold on to much if they were gone."
I wanted to tell her we'd save them, but I couldn't bring the words out of my mouth. And I knew them and they really meant Scott. If I was being honest with her—and myself—I was scared out of my wits. My weapons hadn't even been working. What chance did I stand? I didn't know if I could promise Scott's safety, let alone everyone else's...or my own.
Halsey grabbed me by the shoulders, and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Lucy, you've gotta do this. You've got your friends and your Handle. A wicked strong one at that."
“Stark sure seems to think otherwise.” I muttered.
Halsey pursed her lips.
“Listen,” she said. “I heard about what happened to you and Chug when you first got here."
My eyes got wide. “You—what?”
Halsey nodded. “Stark wouldn't shut up about it. He kept complaining to everyone that two weak targets got away because he was ambushed."
“He called us weak?"
“Lucy,” Halsey grabbed my shoulders, “That's my point! You can't focus on what he said, or that you lost to him, or all those other crazy thoughts and emotions. That's exactly why your Handle's there."
I tilted my head and knit my eyebrows at her.
“What do you mean?"
“Think of it like an anchor, okay? It won't move, and if you hold on to it and let it do its job, you won't move either. But every time you give in to your emotions, it's like getting swept away by a crashing wave...or that's what the instructors tell us. I hope it's enough for you."
Me too, I thought.
Halsey gave me a hug and ran back down the other hallway, just as the many Depression Force Officers began bursting out of their barracks and other rooms, looking for us.
33. Who Replaced My Paint With Glue?
We rushed through the door of the infirmary and were met by three Officers in white lab coats. Behind them, Chug laid in the hospital bed, unconscious.
Woodstock wasted no time clotheslining two of the Officers. They ran at him, and he did the same, opening up an arm for each of them to run straight into. They flew up in the air and came down fast and hard.
The last Officer got the message. When Woodstock stepped closer to the bed, he scrambled over to the corner of the room, tripping over his friends as he retreated.
Woodstock and I ran to the bed, where he put his hands on the young boy's shoulders.
“Chug, are you okay?” he asked. Chug's eyes fluttered open and closed. He groaned, and pushed himself to sit up.
“What's up with all the red lights and loud noises?” he asked. “This isn't Mr. Reggie's. Also, I taste rubber."
I pulled out an IV from his arm and showed it to him.
“Oh,” he said.
“We're in the Depression Force,” I said. “It looks like they treated your injury.”
I glanced at Woodstock. “Maybe they're not as heartless Lieutenant Hollister let on."
Woodstock rolled his eyes.
“So we got captured?” Chug said, slowly waking up. Woodstock let out an impatient grunt.
“There's no point in sitting around to explain,” he said. He put Chug on his back and we left the room. “Let's go.”
We opened the door to the room and were surrounded with Depression Force Officers. Woodstock pulled his arm in so his shoulder was in front of him, and charged a path through them. I dashed out next, and followed him around the corner, only to run into another mob of Officers. Woodstock charged through them too, but he wasn't able to knock them over this time. I wasn't able to run after him.
I turned around and saw the other Officers coming to their senses. They rose to their feet and came after us again.
I felt a tug in my gut, and so I pulled out my yellow paintbrush. Something to cling to, I thought.
“Lucy, you can't let them take you!"
“I know,” I responded. But I also knew that the Officers would have the advantage in this small place. They knew their way around a lot more than we did. I needed to do something.
I tried to calm down, but my body wouldn't stop shaking. I stretched my hand above my head, pulling the whip up too. I waited a second longer, two seconds longer, until enough of them were close enough. Then I swung down hard, flicking the whip at the last second. That same tug in my gut directed me to aim not at the Officers, but right below me. The whip smashed into the ground at full force just before the Officers reached me, splattering yellow paint all over the floor and walls.
When the paint cleared, I saw that all of the Officers were either glued to a section of the wall or the floor. When they tried to move, the rest of their body just fell over the person in front of them while the paint pulled their glued limb back.
Perfect, I thought. Honestly, it was better than perfect.
Luck...my thoughts taunted.
But I didn't care. If luck gave me a new power, I wasn't complaining.
“Lucy, that was awesome!” Woodstock said. “Now come on! We need to get out of here!"
✽✽✽
As we turned the corner into another hallway, I brought Chug up to speed on what happened while he was unconscious.
“Wait, who helped us escape?” Chug asked.
“Halsey,” I told her. “The tall Officer with silver hair."
“Ahh.” Chug said. “And she wouldn't have happened to be part of the team Takao and I clashed with in that abandoned building awhile back, would she?"
“The one you shot right in the head?” I asked? “One and the same."
Just then, Chug's face turned red. And something told me it wasn't from the emergency lights. He sucked in air through his teeth. “How...nice of her to do that.”
I thought about it for a moment and realized Halsey could've left him behind. She saw him on the bridge. She also knew where his room was, which meant she must have seen him there too. His face was fresh in her mind. She knew who he was and could have given him his just desserts at any time. She could have just told us she didn't know where he was. We would have been forced to escape without him, or risk getting captured all over again just to find him.
Halsey put aside whatever anger she had for the good of helping us. And
the others; Scott, Dart, and the Agents. Halsey really had helped all kinds of people by letting us go. Even the one who shot her before. We couldn't let her down. And we owed her. If anything, Chug owed her two.
During the thinking, I found myself leading our escape group to safety. I must have remembered something of where the subway was, but if you were to ask me now, I wouldn't be able tell you. Navigating the Depression Force HQ felt like trusting your gut for directions.
But after one wrong turn and a couple of Officers now on our tails, I found the door to the basement. Why they called it a basement when it held a subway station? Beyond me. I flung open the door and we zoomed down the long, dimly lit staircase. More Officers had joined the few that were now catching up to us.
About halfway down the stairs, we ran into two more. Literally.
Woodstock saw them a few steps before I did and nudged past me on the narrow way down just in time to shove them out of our way. One of the Officers fell to the ground, which I had to jump over. The other completely toppled over the railing and was hanging by one hand now.
“Woodstock, we're trying to escape, not kill them!”
“I know!” he shouted back.
We booked it down another flight or two of steps until we reached the bottom, and the station.
“Which train did she say to take?” Chug asked.
“She said to be on the one that was leaving,” Woodstock said as we kept running to the boarding area. “I think we should have asked for more details."
“None of them should be leaving right now,” I explained. “It's late here right now. Just look for one that's on and getting ready to move."
“You mean the one that's halfway gone already?” Chug said, pointing out near the end of the boarding area. Sure enough, one of the subway trains had already grabbed some momentum, slowly chugging away from the station and into a tunnel.
Pretty sure I screamed. Just maybe.
Okay, yes.
I screamed, because our escape plan was escaping from us, while the growing army of Depression Force Officers grew closer by the second.
34. The Escape Plan Falls Apart…Literally
“Get on that train!” Woodstock shouted. With that, we poured on the speed.
I could hear the orders of the Officers behind us echoing in the large room, as they rushed to close the gap between us:
“It's futile!"
“Stop resisting!"
“Come back here!"
“I'm going to knock you over the stairs next time!"
It all just fueled me to run faster. The rumbling of the subway train kept me focused. But we were out of time. The train, slowly chugging along, was almost entirely out of the terminal and into the tunnel now.
“We're not going to make it!” Chug shouted.
“No, we can get there,” Woodstock yelled back. “Just run faster.” And so we did. But in a moment or two, we were going to run out of ground to run on.
“Chug's right,” I realized.
“Huh?” Woodstock and Chug asked at the same time. I pointed up at the ground in front of us that was about to run straight into wall.
“We're not going to make it there,” I explained. “Well, not on foot, but—"
Woodstock smirked. “Way ahead of you, mija!”
He put his free arm around my waist, pushing me to run faster. We were feet away from the edge of the platform, when one of the Officers shouted, “Stop right there!”
Because we were going to listen to him, right?
Woodstock led us up to the edge, but just as he jumped, something hit me in the back of the knee.
“Ow!” My leg buckled and I slipped out of Woodstock's grip. I watched him and Chug disappear into a gray portal, leaving me on the subway.
I turned around to see what hit me, struggling back to my feet. A few inches away laid an Officer's baton. I looked up and saw the one who threw it, and the mob that followed. They closed the distance between me and them just as I pulled out my yellow paintbrush.
Talk about a change in plans, my thoughts taunted me.
“There's no use fighting,” one of them said. He pushed towards the front of the group and I saw it one of the doctors, now sporting a huge lump in his head from where Woodstock got him.
“Shut up,” I muttered, biting my lip. I wasn't going to listen to the Officer or my thoughts. I refilled my yellow paintbrush, and got ready for a fight. All the Officers inched forward now, some of them remembering the power of the whip from the hallway. I matched their movements and backed up a step, but there wasn't any more room.
I lost my footing and fell over the side of the platform.
✽✽✽
“Look out!” an Officer shouted as I went down.
Should have listened to us, my thoughts said.
“SHUT UP!” I wanted to shout, but I couldn't talk. In my first moments of falling, I couldn't even think. My body took over, surrounded by fear. I flailed and tried to grab hold of the platform. No such luck. My hand brushed against the side of it, but I wasn't close enough.
The first few seconds of my mind working again went something like: UUUUUUOOOAAAAAHWE'REFALLING!
The next second or two brought a stunning realization that below me, there wasn't any ground like in a typical subway station. Below the platform was a single rail for the subway train, and underneath was a thin blue glowing energy field. After that, it just looked like open Dust.
A second after that, I remembered Scott’s warning about the Dust so long ago—if I fell in, it'd suck the life out of me in seconds. A split second later came the reality that I was going to die.
I ignored that reality.
The sheer need to survive allowed me to focus on the subway train above.
It was slowly gaining speed now. Most of it had traveled far into the tunnel, and only a bit was still visible from where I fell. I didn't care. It didn't matter how close or far it was—it was my only chance. With all my strength, and the rest of my body threatening to flail around in the air, I flicked my paint whip up at the subway train.
It's an anchor, I thought.
In that moment, time slowed down. What was wind whipping and whistling around in my ears a second ago became calm. Silent, even, as I stared up at the yellow line of paint shooting up toward the train.
I felt like the silence lasted forever, but finally it collided with the train with a huge SPLAT! The subway train vibrated a metallic sound that echoed off the tunnel. It kept moving forward, and pulled me along with it.
I was alive! Except I had a new problem now: at the end of the tunnel, the subway train shot directly into the Dust. Up ahead, I could see a small speck of light coming our way.
“Lucy, is that you?” Chug shouted above me. I was thankful for being in a tunnel, as his voice echoed off the walls almost as loud as the train engine.
“Yes!” was all I managed to scream, hanging on for dear life down below. I had to pull my body up a little to avoid scraping the bottom of the tunnel. It took all my body strength to hold on.
“Hang on! We'll pull you up!” he yelled. I nodded and did as I was told. A moment later, I shot upward a few feet. Then my body jerked back down a little. I looked up and saw Chug and Woodstock yanking me up by the paint whip.
I hadn't planned to have the whip hit near the subway train door, but I was so thankful it did, right then. I was almost to the top when doubt crept in, snugly next to my thoughts.
Are they pulling you up by paint? That's not going to stick together.
But Halsey said if I held onto my Handle, I wouldn't move.
You're going to fall.
My Handle will hold. It's held on this long.
And then inches from the top, when I could almost reach the boys' hands, I fell. My paint whip peeled off the side of the train completely, giving up on all sticky power it had before. I began to sink down, further and further away from my allies.
35. No One Likes The New Plan? Perfect.
A han
d gripped my wrist, and I jostled to a stop. I looked up and saw Chug gritting his teeth.
“You're not goin' anywhere, Luce!” he said through his teeth. Then he slowly turned his head to face Woodstock. “For the non-existent love of Disorder, pull us up, man!”
“I'm trying! You two are heavy!” he said. A small part of me was offended, but it was overruled by the desire to survive. Woodstock's bulky build did its job, pulling us up enough to climb the rest of the way, until we all rolled up into the subway train safely.
For that first moment, no one said anything. We lay on the floor of the auto-piloted subway train and caught our breath. Woodstock was the first to pull himself up to a sitting position on the floor, chuckling a little.
“I’m sorry I dropped you, mija,” he said, “but that was amazing.”
“Thanks,” I panted. “I don’t know about amazing, though.”
I pulled myself to my feet and plopped down in a subway seat. I capped my yellow paintbrush and looked down at it in shame. I'd almost done it...almost used my Handle successfully. But I was still wavering. This was the third time that wavering almost cost my life.
“Uhh, Lucy?” Chug asked, pulling himself into a seat across from me.
“Yeah?"
“You're about to snap your paintbrush in half.” He pointed at my hand. I looked down and saw that I was gripping it so hard, my hand was turning red.
“Oh,” I said. I quickly shoved it into my art bag and looked at the floor, hoping my face wasn't turning as red as my hand. Chug scooted to the edge of his seat, far enough to kick my foot. I looked up at him.
“Lucy, don't feel bad,” he said. “Your paint has saved us countless times so far. So what if it almost failed now? You just gotta focus on next time."
“I—”
Woodstock stood up and nudged me before sitting down next to Chug.
“He's right, mija. Don't go into the next fight thinking of how you lost the last one, or you'll act in fear. Just remember what your friend said about la ancla.”
“La what now?” I asked.
“The anchor,” Woodstock said. “Hold onto the anchor, right?”