The Prey (14 page)

Book begins to speak, telling them everything he heard. By the time he finishes, the Sisters' mouths are open, their eyes wide. Hope, in particular, feels like she's seen a ghost. The mention of her father has drained the blood right down to her feet.

“Did Colonel Thorason say when this
elimination
would begin?” Athena asks.

Book shakes his head. “But I got the feeling it'll be soon.”

“So what do we do?” the one named Diana asks.

Athena hesitates only briefly. “Same thing as before,” she answers. “Finish this tunnel and get the hell out of here.”

“And him?”

“He's going to help us dig.” She removes a knife, cuts through the cords that bind his hands, and yanks him to his feet. Then she turns to Hope. “He's your responsibility. Don't let him out of your sight.”

“Come on,” Hope says, crawling on hands and knees down the tunnel. Book follows. Dirt and water rain
down from the ceiling. By the time they reach the far end, their backs and necks are covered with brown muck.

Still, that doesn't come close to the swirling mess inside her head.
Book's come back.
He wanted to talk to her. Ever since they first met and spoke—and
touched
—she's been praying a day like this could happen.

So why isn't she happy?

In part because he's put them in danger—
all of them
—and now her fellow Sisters regard her with a deeper suspicion than before. There's something else, too. Something she can't quite figure out.

She picks up two rusty butter knives and hands one to him.

“Here,” she says, not meeting his eyes.

She adjusts the lantern and begins to dig, the dull edge of her knife biting into the wall. It's as much rock as it is dirt, and it takes a dozen sharp jabs to release anything of substance. Pebbles tumble to the ground.

She stops abruptly and turns to him.

“What're you doing here?” she snaps.

Book's expression is one of surprise. “I told you: I came to leave you that note. And then to tell you about the conversation.”

“Who says we need to be told anything?”

“I thought it was important.”

“You could've gotten caught.”

“I didn't.”

“But you
could've
. And then we would've had Brown Shirts crawling all over this place and they'd find this tunnel and all this work would've been for nothing and there'd be no way we could get out.”

“Okay. I'm sorry.”

“It's a little late.”

Hope returns to her digging. A thin sheen of sweat paints her arms. Neither of them speaks.

It's Book who breaks the silence. “Stubborn much?”

Hope stops and wheels around. “What?”

“I tried to do you a favor. Breaking into your camp was a dangerous thing and I didn't have to do it, but I thought you'd want to know what I heard.”

“You don't have to act like you're a hero or something.”

“I'm not. I'm just saying I was trying to help you out.”

“Maybe I don't need your help.”

“You're right, maybe you don't. I just didn't think you'd bite my head off.” He jabs his knife into the wall.

Hope digs harder than before. Rocks and pebbles arc through the air. She's damned if she is going to apologize. What did she do wrong? Why should she have to say she's sorry?
He's
the one who put them in danger.

This is not how she envisioned their reunion. Not at all. But what did she expect? Book lifting her in the air and twirling her like some fairy-tale princess? She gives her head an angry shake at the thought of it.

“Why are you so mad at me?” Book asks.

“Who says I'm mad?”

“You seem mad.”

“I'm not mad.”
She stabs the knife into the dirt.

They work in silence.

“Tell me again about Dr. Samadi,” she says at last.

“The heavyset man—”

“That was Dr. Gallingham.”

“—asked about his research.”

“Okay.”

“And then he mentioned Dr. Samadi, like their research was one and the same.”

“And then?”

“The colonel said it needed to be completed. That was the only time the doctor's name was mentioned.”

Hope is quiet. What she can't understand—or doesn't
want
to understand—is why her father would have worked with Dr. Gallingham. Could he really have been the so-called Butcher of the West? It makes no sense.

She chips at the dirt wall. For the first time she's aware that just inches away is Book. She can sense the heat rising from his body, smell the same masculine scents as before.

She wonders about him: what his history is, who his parents were. She knows absolutely nothing—other than he's a Less Than and wants to escape to the next territory. All she knows for sure is the few words they've
exchanged . . . and how he first looked at her.

His arm accidentally brushes hers and it sends an involuntary shiver down her spine. She forces herself to inch away. She's still angry at him—although at this particular moment she can't remember why.

She is midstrike when the earth shifts. Dirt funnels from the ceiling. Everyone up and down the tunnel stops what they're doing, placing their hands against the walls as if that will keep them from caving in.

When the last of the dirt has sifted to the ground, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The tunnel is a short-term deal at best, constructed to get them from inside the camp out. Once they're on the other side of the fence, it can collapse for all Hope cares. But only after they've all escaped.

“That happen often?” Book asks.

“When it rains,” Hope says.

Everyone returns to work. The
clink
and
ting
of tools echoes off the narrow walls.

Once more, Book's arm brushes Hope and this time she doesn't edge away. She lets it linger there.

She is just about to ask Book about Camp Liberty when the earth shifts again. This time the sound accompanying it is thunderous. Primal. Overwhelming. Screeching and ripping as the earth separates from itself.

The walls vibrate and sway and Hope is bounced to
the ground like a rubber ball. One moment there's a ceiling and the next it's cascading to the floor, sending an enormous gust of stale wind racing down the tunnel, extinguishing the lanterns. Book falls on top of Hope as the world collapses around them—two bodies pinned beneath debris and dirt.

They wait for the earth to settle.

When they finally raise their heads, the tunnel is cloaked in the blackest black either has ever experienced. There's not a hint of light. Not a whisper of sound. The earth has caved in all around them.

“Y
OU OKAY
?” I
ASKED
, when the last trickle of dirt sifted from the ceiling.

“I think so,” Hope answered. Her voice was as shaky as mine.

“Sorry I jumped on top of you. . . .”

“That's okay. . . .”

“I was just trying to—”

“I'm glad you did.”

Our breathing was heavy and fast and a little panicky.

“Give me your hand,” I said. Our two hands flailed in the dark until they stumbled into each other. Our fingers intertwined, like outstretched vines, and we gripped each other hard, a kind of reminder we were both alive.

“Can you move?” I asked.

“I think so.”

“Here.”

I helped her to her hands and knees and we sat there for a moment, in the dark, breathing the other's exhalations.

“Well,” she said.

Suddenly self-conscious, we pulled our hands apart and brushed away the dirt from our clothes. Like getting clean was a first priority.

“Let's get out of here,” I said. Even though it was pitch-black, I could sense her nod.

We crawled back toward the entrance, picking our way over piles of debris and mounds of dirt. In the far distance, we heard screams. I wondered why they weren't louder. Why they were so muted.

I extended a hand, sensing where there was air and where there was wall. At first it worked, guiding us down the tunnel, but then my fingers led me astray. A side wall was to our right and another was to our left . . .

. . . and another was right in front of us. I didn't get it.

And then it hit me.

“What?” Hope asked.

“This.”

The cave-in had created a barrier at the very midpoint of the tunnel. We could go no farther. Both our
hands began slapping the mound of dirt, searching for a hole, a space—some small passageway.

But there was no passageway. And the screams were muted because they were coming from the other side.

“Hey!” Hope cried at the top of her lungs, the voice bouncing back at us. “Can anyone hear me?”

“Is anyone there?” I yelled.

Echo. Then silence.

“Hey!” she hollered again, more desperately this time.

Still no response.

We were trapped in the far end of the tunnel—just Hope and me—and the blackness surrounding us was utter and complete. I tried to will away the panic.
Breathe,
I told myself.
Don't make things worse. Just breathe.

I could feel my heart thumping against my chest. I wondered how thick the cave-in was. Five feet? Twenty? The answer could very well be the difference between life and death. But then again, the other Sisters were probably digging from the other side at that very moment. Right?

Right?

Hope began clawing at the mound. But this wasn't fine soil; it was rock and thick clay and small boulders. Earth itself.

“It was insane to think we could do this,” she
mumbled under her breath. “Cave-ins and Brown Shirts and not enough time.”

“It's okay,” I said.

“No, it's not okay. It was stupid.
Stupid stupid stupid.
”

“We'll get out of here.”

“No we won't. He told us to separate but I didn't want to and then he died and everything changed. . . .”

I didn't know what she was talking about but I let her go on.

“. . . and then Faith left and by the time I caught up with her the Brown Shirts surrounded us and brought us here and started doing their experiments.”

Although I couldn't make sense of her words, I heard her breath catch. A moment later the tears began.

“Poor Faith,” she said. “She can't make it on her own.”

Something about her tone made me reach for her. I found her in the dark and tried to put my arms around her, but she pushed me away.

“She needs me,” she said, thrashing at the mound of earth.

Again I tried to hug her, to hold her; again she threw my arms away.

“It's so unfair!” she cried. “I want to live!”

“It's okay,” I said.

“I want to live!”

She was ripping at the cave-in, throwing herself into
it like a person possessed, like a desperate dog digging at a hole. Then, slowly, she began singing aloud—some hymn I didn't recognize.

“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.”

I hugged her from behind and this time she didn't resist. My arms wrapped around her and my chest pressed against her back and I didn't let her push me away.

“We're okay,” I whispered, my lips brushing her ear. “We're going to be okay.”

“But Faith . . .”

“Shh,” I said.

“And Mom. And Dad.”

“Shh, Hope. Shhhhhhhh.”

“What'll she do?”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh.”

Her body grew limp until it melted into mine and I was supporting all her weight. It was so still I could hear the beating of my heart, and then hers. I couldn't tell whose beating was whose, or if they'd locked into each other's rhythm. Holding her there, I remembered that first time we met. The way the sunlight outlined the back of her head and neck. Her probing stare.

The look of pain in her eyes.

“We're going to be okay,” I whispered, but even as I said it, the air was growing stale, sour, suffocating.

She sang more of her hymn. “‘Streams of mercy . . . never ceasing.'”

She was gulping breath like a fish out of water, and I felt the full weight of her sink into me. I lowered her—
us
—to the ground, until we were huddled there, spooning in the dirt, my body pressed into her as if we'd been soldered together, lying on the damp earth.

“‘Call for songs . . . of loudest praise.'”

A moment later she blacked out.

She lay there minutes or hours; I don't know. I never let her go. I dozed some, too—my face touching hers. Her breath was slow and steady and I could feel her chest beneath my forearms, rising and falling.

She woke with a start and struggled to sit up.

“What? Where am—”

“It's okay,” I said. “Shh.”

“Where are—”

“We're in the tunnel. It's okay.”

Her body shifted away from me and even in the dark I could imagine first her panic, then her face registering the reality of our situation. Not just being stuck in this blackened tunnel but the fact I'd been holding her, my hands resting on her belly. Two bodies clutched against each other.

“Guess I passed out,” she said apologetically.

“For a bit.”

“Was I snoring?”

“Nope.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. You drooled some, but you didn't snore.”

“What?!”

“Just a little bit. Down your chin.”

“No . . .”

“And onto my arm.”

“I didn't.”

“And my chest.”

“I did not.”

“You're right. You didn't.”

She slapped me hard on the shoulder, and neither of us spoke. Maybe I'm wrong, but I could swear she was smiling. It was too dark to know for sure.