Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  Trapped in the small opening created between the crates, I tried to find a way out. I turned my head toward the front door of the tent and saw an orange glow, increasing in brightness.

  It hit me too quickly that the canvas tent was on fire.

  Unable to think, I forced my injured body to crawl over the crates to my right, pushing the heavy canvas up, though I could only barely managed to wiggle in the narrow give the canvas had, slipping over the top of the several crates.

  Amazingly, I was not panicking, even as I thought about the explosive weapons in the supply tent and the fire was getting closer. I was calm, trying to find a way out, wishing I had a knife.

  I crawled on my elbows over another crate, pulling myself toward the edge of the tent, wondering if there was a space at the bottom I could crawl through.

  My hand slipped off the edge of the crate in front of me and I tumbled to the floor once again, rolling and feeling a sharp bite against my lower back. Quickly moving away, I saw a part of the canvas floor already on fire, which I had rolled next to and caused my jacket to catch fire. Rolling immediately, I attempted to put the flames out, scrambling to my hands and knees when I was no longer on fire.

  The flames were closing in around me.

  A ripping sound somehow made it to my ears over the crackling of the fire. I saw a knife in the canvas to my right, slashing the part of the roof that was not yet engulfed in flame. Creating a hole, I saw two faces peek inside.

  “There!” Celina gasped, pointing.

  I ducked as the knife returned to the canvas and cut away the tent that was quickly being devoured by flame. Two hands grabbed my arms, pulling me sharply through the slashed canvas and falling backwards to the dirt ground.

  Mark did not allow me any time to regain my bearings. He got up from under me and grabbed my arm, pulling me upright and running. I forced my legs to work, running, too disoriented to look around.

  Just in front of us, Celina stumbled and fell, a torrent of blood jutting from her leg as a bullet bit into her calf.

  Mark let me go and ran to her, helping her up as I turned to see who had fired.

  I saw one man silhouetted by the growing fire of the supplies tent, pointing his gun at Mark and Celina.

  Without thinking, I grabbed the gun on my leg and clicked the safety off, pointing at his dark form, which was distorted by the heat of the fire behind him. I fired four shots, hoping I at least scared him to buy us some time.

  Mark’s other hand grabbed mine just as I watched the dark shadow of a man collapse.

  Mark pulled me to the front gate while he held Celina around the waist, who was using Mark as support.

  The area past the mangled gates of the compound was dark and cold compared to the wild chaos of the fire inside the walls. Mark did not stop moving, pulling the both of us into the darker woods. After a few moments, when I adjusted to the sudden chilly air, I pulled my hand from Mark’s and returned the safety on my gun, replacing it in the holster as I followed Mark, focused on Celina’s injury.

  Realizing we were going toward the van, I ran ahead, finally finding Tori and Josh, who were snapping at the final people to follow the practiced escape plans.

  “Lily!” Tori hissed, running to me. “Are you—”

  “Celina’s been shot,” I snapped. “Hurry!”

  I led Tori to Mark and Celina. Tori immediately took Celina’s other arm and the two carried the wounded experiment to the van. Josh helped bring her into the van. I took the board away from the tracks and closed the door, feeling a painful twinge, though I ignored it.

  I closed the door as Tori and Josh went to the front of the car, pushing it as quietly, but quickly, as they could manage back on the path we had come. I turned to Mark, who was rifling for something near the passenger’s seat.

  “Celina, are you okay?” I asked stupidly.

  “I’ll be alright,” she nodded tightly. I could just barely make out her silhouette until Mark found what he was looking for and clicked on the flashlight. He shined the light on the bullet hole in Celina’s calf. My stomach turned at the sight, but I forced myself to calm down and study it, worried about Celina. Mark put the flashlight in his mouth and used both hands to move the leg of her pants out of the way, cutting one of the strings off a nearby case and tying the fabric out of the way.

  Josh jumped into the car and turned it on as Tori climbed into the passenger’s seat.

  “How bad is it?” Tori asked, turning to look at Celina. The other experiment shook her head.

  “It’s fine…”

  “The sooner we get you back, the better,” Tori declared with a nod. She turned to me. “Are you alright, Lily?”

  “Yeah,” I answered quickly.

  Less than ten seconds later, I was reminded otherwise. A particularly large bump in the dirt road caused me to jolt and my back to hit the upholstery, which made me cringe in surprising pain. That was when I remembered the fire. The scramble getting out of the compound had made me forget my pain. Now that it was brought back to my attention, it was acute and strong, amplified by the other aches of my body from where I had fallen.

  I tried to hide my pain. We had Celina to worry about.

  Josh took another route, getting on the freeway and driving another direction.

  “Where are you going?” Tori gasped.

  “We’re going another way,” Josh answered. “It’s not clean enough through the old sewers.”

  He drove as close to the hilltop entrance in the cave as he could and stopped, helping Mark get Celina out of the van. I climbed out after her, being sure to remain facing Mark so he could not see my back. I did not know what the burn looked like, but I could tell that my burnt clothes were not covering the area. I turned to keep Josh and Tori from seeing as well, closing the door, trying not to cringe as the edges of my clothes rubbed the burn I was now painfully aware of.

  “We’ll unload and return quickly,” Tori called.

  They drove off and Mark helped Celina up the hill as I followed close behind. By the time we were half-way up to the rocky slope, I was in agony. I was trying to hide my pain, not wanting to worry Mark any more than I already had that evening. My head was spinning and I felt nauseous as the pain radiated through my entire body from the burns. My pained limbs from the fall were not helping either, making it difficult to climb the hill at my normal pace.

  However, with the slow climb with Celina’s injury, neither experiment noticed my sluggish pace.

  We finally made it to the entrance to the fort. I was unsure if I was going to throw up or pass out from pain, but I almost told Mark to stop moving. I bit my tongue, deciding it would be better to tell him I was hurt when we were in the fort.

  Gritting my teeth, I closed the heavy door, locking it. I tried to convince myself that the tunnel vision I had was just because of the erratic flashlight along the walls of the tunnel and not due to my pain.

  It seemed like eternity before we found ourselves in the main bunker.

  The bright lights overloaded my hypersensitive brain and I recoiled. Several who had been on the raid had already returned and were greeting the new people in the fort, celebrating another successful raid. I smiled when they called to me, but thankfully their attention was immediately deterred to Celina. They cleared a path to the medical room, calling for Peter as Mark walked with her. I moved along the wall, trying to keep my back to people to hide my injuries.

  “Lily! Lily!” Clark called, running to me, leading a man with him who was wearing a blue jumpsuit with a number on the left chest. “This is Jerry Parker, CEO of Carolina Media,” he introduced. “This is Lily.”

  “Hello, Lily,” Jerry smiled, extending his hand. I took it and immediately regretted it as he shook my hand and jarred my entire body. I hid my cringe behind a smile.

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “I want to thank you for everything,” he said. “All of you. I mean, you have exposed the Commission and just when I was about to become a vi
ctim myself, you swoop in and save me.” He smiled. “I am here to help however I can. I will help you take down the Commission of the People.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “We will need all the help we can get.”

  “Speaking of…” Clark said nervously. “Mr. Parker, why don’t you find your colleagues? I want to meet them.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said, walking into the crowd that was growing as more people were brought into the bunker. Clark turned to me.

  “We might have a problem,” he said quietly. I sighed and closed my eyes, seeing the black start to encroach on my vision. I was in no condition to be hearing about problems.

  “Okay, just let me go check on Celina and then we can—”

  “The mafia boss is here…and his colleagues,” Clark whispered, interrupting me.

  “What?”

  “They say they know Mark. They want to help us and we can use their contacts to get supplies,” Clark elaborated.

  “They know Mark? How?”

  “I don’t know, that’s why I said it might be a problem.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll deal with it later. Let me go check—”

  “There you are,” a relieved voice said. I turned quickly and managed to see Mykail through my tunnel vision. I forced a smile, though I was starting to feel extremely sick. “I was getting worried.”

  “Sorry…” I murmured. He moved to hug me and I backed away quickly. Both Clark and Mykail blinked at me.

  “What is it?” Mykail hissed.

  “Nothing…I…I just need to go to the medical room, alright?” I babbled desperately.

  “Okay,” Mykail said quietly, reaching his hand out to lead me. I hesitated, knowing that if I turned, both of them would see the wound. The pain finally got the best of me and I quickly moved in front of Mykail, making my way to the medical room.

  Judging by the gasp and the hurried pace at which Mykail followed, I knew he had seen the burn.

  “What the hell happened?” he hissed.

  “An accident,” I breathed. “I’m alright, really.” Judging from his reaction, the burn was bad.

  I opened the door to the medical room and stepped in, seeing Peter sitting on a stool while Celina sat on one of the examination tables, watching him treat her leg. Mark was standing near the table, watching. All three of them turned when we entered the room.

  “Lily is badly burned,” Mykail said before I had a chance to speak.

  “What?” Celina gasped.

  “Let me see,” Peter said quickly, standing, careful to keep his hands from touching anything. Mark also approached, his eyes wide with concern. Mykail took my shoulders and turned me, showing my back to the others in the room.

  “Oh, God…” Peter said. “Okay, Mykail, help her get the clothing away from it. Lily just lay on your front. Mark, get some of the heavy painkillers and give her two. I’ll be over there when I’m done with Celina. That should let the painkillers work into her system a little.”

  I did as I was told, moving closer to the table as Mykail pulled the sweater over my head and then helped me extract myself from my shirt, though I bit back a cry of pain as my body protested all movement.

  Mark held out two pills for me along with a bottle of water. Forcing the pills down, I felt the tears spill down my face. Mykail stroked his thumbs over my shoulders. Both Mark and Mykail helped guide me to the table, supporting me as I lowered myself, trying to find a way to lay down without being in pain.

  I was finally on the table, cold and shivering, the tears coming down my face as Mykail kept my hand in his.

  Mark continued to pace by me. I could not see his face, but I could tell by his movements that he was worried.

  Peter finally came to me and injected me with something to numb my lower back, letting it take effect before he started cleaning the burns. I did not say anything about my fall over the crate, knowing that no bones were broken, and not concerned with the forming bruises. The burn was bleeding in a few places, but was not as severe as first believed, much to my intense relief. Peter did the best he could considering his limited training, and dressed the burns. He told me they would have to be checked every day and cleaned to avoid infection.

  I remained in the medical room long after Peter had finished my treatments. I did not want to deal with the problems in the bunker yet, waiting until I felt stronger.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Already haunted by the nightmares of a shadow falling to the ground after I shot him, I did not sleep as long as I wanted. When I woke, people were still celebrating in the bunker, reminding me of when we broke everyone out of the Commission.

  Mark and Mykail were still in the medical room, Mykail holding my hand, though it was obvious the two had been in conversation when I woke up.

  Mark brought me clothes that were loose enough not to aggravate my burn. When I was dressed, I went into the bunker, feeling exhausted but slightly better.

  Clark quickly stood from his conversation with Tori, Griffin, and four men I did not know. I looked over the strangers worriedly, wondering if they were the mafia members that we had agreed not to release.

  “Lily, are you okay?” Clark asked.

  “I’m fine. Who are they?”

  “The men I was telling you about.”

  I nervously walked forward, Mykail and Mark beside me. The man next to Griffin jumped when he saw Mykail and laughed nervously.

  “Seriously, I don’t know if I’ll get used to seeing you,” he chuckled apologetically.

  “It’s okay,” Mykail assured. I sat down, Mykail following suit, though Mark remained standing behind me, watching.

  “I heard you know Mark and that you want to help us.” I got right to the point, feeling safer and braver with Mark standing guard.

  “That’s right,” one of them said.

  “How do you know him?” I demanded.

  “He used to be a Cleaner,” the man chuckled, looking at Mark. “The most expensive one, but he sure as hell got the job done. Had an incredible reputation”

  “A Cleaner?”

  “A hit man,” Griffin clarified quietly. My eyes were wide as I turned to Mark.

  “How in hell did you manage that?”

  Mark sighed heavily, looking at his feet.

  “Your boy there was the best Cleaner, but I only met him face to face once. When we saw him being a part of this, we knew it had to be something good,” the man who had been startled by Mykail said.

  “And what do you gain from this?” I asked. “No offense, but you’re in organized crime, and we’re not starting this revolution so that the Commission won’t be a threat to crime anymore.”

  “I understand, little miss,” the second man nodded. “I like how you get straight to the point. No playing around.”

  “We don’t have that luxury here,” I said. “After we get some inventory, we might ask you to use your connections to get us some weapons and ammo.”

  “You got it,” the fourth man said.

  “Yeah, we owe you,” the first agreed. “You got us out before we got sent to the Commission.”

  I did not like having them involved, but we needed supplies. We had not been able to get much from the supply tent, and that left us in need.

  The following day, inventory had been taken and we came away with even less than I thought. The food rations were minimal, particularly with the influx of people living in the fort. When the breach had been announced and the explosion happened, all cells had been opened for evacuation due to fire. There were some people I was wary of. It felt as though outsiders were intruding on our family.

  However, I was not about to turn down getting weapons from the mafia leaders.

  With precaution, the strategy group agreed to send them to one of their contacts, leading them out of one of the entrances, telling them that was the only way into the fort before we posted people along the route, armed, in case they brought more people with them when they returned.

  Three days later, they h
ad yet to return.

  Our supplies were becoming too strained and the main strategy group had to figure out how to combat the dwindling food. It was finally decided that we would send teams out in pairs to procure food, whether it was from dumpsters or if they had to lift food off of trucks being unloaded at supermarkets.

  In order to feed the people of our revolution, I had to put aside my moral issues with theft.

  On the fourth day, Mark decided to see what had happened with the mafia members. I demanded to go with him, my burn close to being healed, though he strongly denied. We fought with one another for at least twenty minutes, with him angrily trying to find a way to tell me that I was not going with him.

  I finally gave up and stormed off. Mykail found me fifteen minutes later and tried to talk me down, telling me that Mark was just worried about my safety, particularly after the raid. I agreed, but I was still angry with how much Mark was protecting me. It made me feel like he didn’t trust me.

  When Mark returned, he showed a picture to Griffin, but refused to let anyone else see it.

  “What is it?” I asked, trying to ignore Mark like a petulant child throwing a tantrum.

  “They’re dead…” Griffin hissed.

  “Dead?”

  Mark pulled out his notebook and wrote four letters.

  “Dana.”

  Dana was not only connected with the international community, but also the underbellies of society.

  The news had been flooded with images of people celebrating our success of breaking out the captives of the camp, calling it a triumph, though there were some who were unhappy with the information that we had freed dangerous criminals.

  The social support was at an all-time high. People were posting messages online and on the streets, telling us that they wanted to join our cause, though they did not know where to find us.

  I was unwilling to let more people know where we were. The people in the fort were there because they had to be, because it was not safe for them anywhere else. Letting people in at random would compromise our safety and would also strain our already dwindling resources.