The Girl Who Dared to Think 7: The Girl Who Dared to Fight

“Just a—” There was a sharp pop of electricity, illuminating Quess’s face, and he gave a surprised cry, his hand going to his eyes.

“Quess!” Maddox cried, diving toward the opening to try to reach him. I threw my arm across her chest to prevent her from diving back in, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to get him out if she was in the way.

“Calm down,” I ordered her. “Quess, are you okay?”

“Totally fine,” he said back. “I just might have accidently shorted out something important, but that’s okay. I can just reroute power to here, and then crosswire this… Almost there.”

“That’s enough,” I snapped. “Get. Out. Now. Eric, will you help me—”

A sharp bzzt cut me off before I could finish my thought, and the lights overhead flickered and went out. There was a hiss of air a moment later, coming from right next to us, and all three of us scrambled away from the noise just as the lights flickered back on.

My eyes frantically searched for the source—only to find the pressure valve swinging closed.

Fast.

“Oh no!” Maddox cried, her voice breaking, but I was already moving.

“Quess, the door’s closing!” I cried, slapping my hands against the door and pushing, trying to hold it open. The damn thing was already halfway shut, the gap barely wide enough for Quess to squeeze through, but if I could just hold it open long enough, he might be able to escape. I grunted as the force of it continued to bear down, but I might as well have been an ant trying to fight the impending force and pressure of a boot stepping on it. “GET OUT!” I screamed to him.

Hands appeared next to mine, and within seconds Maddox and Eric were wedged on either side of me, trying to help me stop the steady movement of the valve hatch. But even with their help, the hatch continued to bear down, resisting our herculean effort. The door was now three quarters of the way closed, and still going. I strained against it, trying to find a way to leverage more strength into my hold, but we were failing.

Suddenly I caught a flash of something coming through the gap—but knew it couldn’t be Quess. It was moving too quickly. Which meant he had just tossed something up. Something that could help us with the door, maybe? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t want to let go of the valve long enough to find out.

“Doxy!” Quess shouted. “I tossed up the pad! Don’t be upset, but I fixed the door. I…” He paused, his voice growing hoarse with sorrow. “You have to let go now. You’re not strong enough to stop it, and you’ll hurt your fingers if you keep holding on.”

“No!” Maddox cried, and it sounded like Quess was ripping the beating heart from her chest.

Hell, it felt like he was doing that to mine. “Quess, stop it,” I ordered, the hatch now inches from closing. “Press the button—”

“I can’t,” he replied, his voice tight with panic and remorse. “I fixed the door, but I had to short out the controls to do it. I’m sorry.” His voice broke, and then he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Maddox, baby, I need to tell you that I love you. I’ve always loved you. Ever since Cali took me in and you kicked my ass that first time we met. Do you remember, Doxy? You threw me to the floor and just sashayed away, and I fell for you then and there.” His voice was growing frantic, as the gap between the valve and the pipe dwindled down to centimeters, but still he spoke, trying to reassure Maddox. “Please don’t be sad about this, Doxy. I hate it when you’re sad.”

“Quess!” Maddox sobbed, tears spilling from her green eyes, her fingers still clamped around the lid. “No!”

I had to pull her hands away from the hatch to prevent her fingers from being crushed when the massive weight of it slammed down. The red light next to the door suddenly lit up green, and Eric murmured a sickened, “The liquid nitrogen just turned back on.”

“Noooooooo!” Maddox cried, struggling against my hold. “Quess!”

And though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I held her in place as she tried to push past me to the hatch. Tears were leaking from my own eyes, but I kept myself firmly in her way, knowing that it was too late for us to do anything. Quess was gone. He’d sacrificed himself trying to get us in safely, and he’d succeeded. Maddox wouldn’t be able to open it back up even if she wanted to, and she definitely wouldn’t be able to see anything. If anything, she’d break something that would trigger an alarm.

Maddox’s struggles eventually weakened as reality set in, subsiding into rough sobs of sorrow and tragedy that I understood all too well. Maddox had just lost her mother, learned her father was Devon Alexander, then lost him too. And now Quess. It wasn’t right. She was a good person—she didn’t deserve to know that loss.

I glanced over at Eric, to see his own eyes filled with tears, as he undoubtedly thought about Zoe, and I almost broke down. None of us had done anything to deserve this, but we had all lost people we cared about anyway. It wasn’t fair.

On impulse, I wrapped my arms around Maddox, hugging her tight to me as she cried her anguish out against my shoulder, and fought back my own heartbreak. Quess and the others were more than just friends to me. They were my family. Our bond had been forged in the most unorthodox of ways, but they were all I had left, and I was losing them.

Which made the ones still with me all the more precious. It was just too bad that where we were going, none of us were guaranteed to survive.

The thought grounded me, helping me to realize we didn’t have time to stand around crying, and I smoothed my hand over Maddox’s back, hating myself for how harsh I had to be with her. “Doxy, I’m sorry about Quess,” I said, my voice thick due to the constricted nature of my throat. “But we have to move. I don’t know how much longer Grey and Leo have, if they haven’t broken already, and—”

“I know,” she said, jerking away from me and turning around to scrub at her face. “Let’s just…” She sucked in a shuddering breath and exhaled slowly, and I could tell she was fighting for calm. “Let’s go,” she finally said, turning around.

Her eyes were filled with a myriad of emotions: pain, anguish, sorrow, denial, fear, anger, and most importantly, determination. I knew how hard it had to be for her to push the pain of her loss back for even a heartbeat, but Maddox and I were more alike than I cared to admit sometimes, and knowing her, she’d put her pain in a box, lock it up tight, and embrace the void.

Just like I had.

“Eric, grab that pad,” I told my friend, breaking from Maddox’s gaze to face him. “And let’s hope your Cog training has really paid off.”

“I can read a schematic,” he said quietly, bending over to pick up the pad Quess had thrown out. “Just give me a second.”

I turned back to Maddox to find her gazing at the pressure valve, her green eyes threatening to overflow again. “I think we can give you that,” I murmured, wanting to give Maddox a few more moments to mourn. It wasn’t much, and we had to move, but we could all be dead soon, and she deserved a moment alone with her pain. “I’ll help you,” I added, realizing that she didn’t need me watching it, either.





39





I gave Maddox a minute alone with her grief while I discussed the next step with Eric, but it was all we could spare. The directions for getting into the next room were pretty straightforward: on one of the large vats of liquid nitrogen there was a small ladder, which led to the air filtration system, which then fed into a vent that cooled the integration chamber below—which was where we’d find Sage. The schematics indicated that there were several large machines lining the walls, with space behind them for workers to do repairs, should they need to. Plus, the ceiling was high enough that we’d be mostly hidden if we remained on our lashes, so all we had to do was use our lashes to cross the room—without capturing anyone’s attention—drop behind those machines, and then evaluate the situation from there.