The Ward

20


4:15 A.M., SUNDAY


“You hear that?” Callum asks once we hit the bottom of the stairwell.

The dripping that led me to the spring the last time—he hears it too. We’re close. “Point the flashlight along this side of the tunnel,” I tell Callum. “Over there—”

Right where it should be, the triangle of bricks that looks newer than the rest. I swing my boot into it. A rush of pain tears through my toes, now crunched together at the tip of my shoe.

“Brack! My foot.” I resist the urge to hop up and down. “It’s all been cemented together. They weren’t”—I swing again with the other foot—“like that before.”

Even though I’m not sure I’m making any progress, I don’t stop kicking. “The cement can’t have had time to harden yet.” Sure enough, as I say that, one of the bricks gives way. You fight with a thing long enough and it’s bound to budge. One more go should do it. “Someone was here not long ago.”

Callum grips my shoulder. “Who else knows you were here, Ren? Who else have you told?” His voice is suddenly hard-edged.

Confused, I shake him off. “No one, Callum. It’s just as much of a mystery to me.”

He waves his arms around and starts pacing back and forth in the tunnel. “Well, it couldn’t have been the DI—with today’s rally, if they’d found freshwater . . . trust me. We’d know. And I doubt your sick sister is responsible. So there must be someone you’re forgetting.” He takes a swipe at the cemented bricks. They crumble a bit.

I don’t like him accusing me, especially when I done nothing wrong. “Callum,” I start, through a seriously clenched jaw. “I—” My leg itches with wanting to kick something. “Didn’t—” Something like bricks. Bracing my hands against the wall, I ready myself for one final swing, Just as I finish my sentence, my foot connects with the wall. “Tell anyone.”

The bricks collapse into a pile, and every ounce of blood rushes to my now-smashed toes. I can feel my heartbeat pounding away straight down to my toenails. “Okay?”

He doesn’t answer, just nods and scowls a bit, lowering himself onto his knees. One by one, he moves the bricks away and inches through the crawl space.

“Don’t go too far or you’ll fall in,” I say at the last minute. And though that would be funny, I still tap him on the back of the thigh to make sure he heard me.

“Damn,” he groans. “My knee—I think I cut it open on this effing cement.” Some shards of the stuff lie scattered around the floor.

“You need a hand?”

He continues forward. I watch his body disappear into the gap behind the wall. I can hear him sliding farther and farther in, cussing all the while.

But, no splash. No fall. Why doesn’t he fall?

“What’s going on, Ren? Is this some sick joke?”

Is what some sick joke?

I drop to my knees and start to shimmy through the hole, fighting my gag reflex as I shake a rat from my knuckles. “What?” I ask, poking my head through. “What did I do?”

Callum sits, one knee bent upward, in the middle of the space. He flicks the light from the flashlight around, stopping at nothing.

Nothing. We’re sitting on mud.

That can’t be—“I swear, it was here. . . .” I scramble to my feet and take the flashlight from his hand, looking in the silliest of places. Behind him. Behind me. Above me. Like a river can flow from a ceiling.

Nothing.

My palms turn slick as eels. I’ve never understood claustrophobia. That is, not until these tunnel walls start contracting in on me. Breathing becomes an afterthought, a thing to remember to do.

“Without the spring, I’ve got nothing.” I choke the words out like they’re made of glue, and then force myself to my knees, fighting off the feeling of being swallowed from the inside.

The spring isn’t here, the spring isn’t here. It’s all I can think.

And if this wasn’t done by the DI . . . The next thought puts me in a tailspin. “What’s Chief Dunn going to do when he gets here?” I groan, folding my head between my legs. “I’m so dead. He’s going to think I’m lying. . . .”

Callum doesn’t speak, just rips the hem from his pants and wraps the fabric around the wound. I shine the flashlight on it for him so he can see. His whole knee is red, the flesh there gaping. “Ugh,” he mutters.

“Wait . . .” I say. “Do you think I’m lying?”

“No.” He’s curt. “Unfortunately, I believe you.”

“What do you mean ‘unfortunately’?”

“Nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” I snap. “Why is it unfortunate?”

His sigh fills the small, dank space, makes everything feel tense. “There’s more you should know about the spring I’ve been searching for. I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. But the signs are evident.”

“Signs?” My voice is low, but in here it carries nonetheless.

“Ren, the reason I accused you back there of having told someone was because I’d hoped it was true. Because the alternative—that someone else knows—is worse.”

“What’s the alternative?” I ask, though I can see he’s about to tell me like I’m tied to railroad track waiting to get hit.

“The building. It wasn’t flooded before you told the chief. The bricks were cemented overnight. Now a mud pit sits where freshwater should be. Whoever knows you’ve found the spring is trying to sabotage any efforts you might make at finding it again.”

I look around the empty, cavernous space, despite the fact that I can barely see. “Who would . . . Why? Why would anyone do that? A spring that heals—in the Ward, of all places,” I say. “Why hide it?”

I hear Callum sigh through the dark. “I don’t know. I just know, this isn’t the first example. During my research I found many other instances of explorers who were close to finding the spring, only to have their efforts thwarted. Sabotaged.”

All that useless hope drains out of me, leaves me tired. The spring is gone.

Callum and I sit together for what feels like hours, nothing at all to say. The drip-dripping of condensation coming down from the ceiling punctuates our silence.

I’m about to ready myself to leave—sitting here is worse than useless, it’s dangerous—when I hear Callum jump to his feet. “Of course . . .” he mumbles. Then, louder—“Of course!”

“What of course?” I ask, weak-voiced. I’m tired of hoping. I just want to go see Aven, be with her for what time she has left.

He unhooks his satchel from his back, rummages through the bag. “I’m an idiot—how did I not think of this before? Ren. What are you sitting on?”

“Well, I’m not totally sure, Callum—my brain isn’t quite at large as yours—but I’m gonna go with mud,” I spit, not caring in the least that I’m being rude.

He ignores my snark. “And what is in the mud?” he asks.

It takes me only a second of thinking. Holy mud balls. Water . . .

“You can actually do that?” I ask, the words echoing shrilly through the cavern.

“Yes, it’s quite simple, actually. I’ll just need a cheesecloth and a few . . .”

No need to let him finish. Not sure I’d get it anyway. “Callum, you really are a genius!” I turn myself into a great, big, muddy meteor and blast myself toward him, giving him a bear hug on impact.

“Hey, whoa!” He falls back and has to steady me with his arms so I don’t end up in a face-plant on his chest.

I pull myself away and flick the flashlight around. “What do I do? Will there be enough?”

“We start by filling up these.” On cue, four glass jars appear from his bags. “At the very least, it will be enough to test with. Remember, I still have to learn why it made Aven’s condition worse.”

“But once you do—is there enough to make a medicine?” My voice goes high with alarm. We’re so close. . . .

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” His answer is quiet as he lowers himself back onto all fours, starts pushing globs of mud into the first jar. “I’m going to try.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Not good enough. If you get it wrong . . . it could kill Aven.”

“She’s already dying, Ren.”

The sister in me wants to set him on fire. How dare he say it like it’s nothing. I bite my tongue though, and we pass the next minutes in silence.

When I’ve filled each of my containers, I stand, still angry. “Hurry up. My boss should be coming soon, if you haven’t forgotten.”

Callum looks up at me from his spot on the ground. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive. Of course I won’t administer anything to your sister without first being sure of its effectiveness. If I can turn this gunk into a cure, I will.”

Reluctantly, I give him my hand to lift him up. A peace offering.

But when he takes it, tries to stand, his feet slide on the muck. He reaches for my shoulder. I catch him, and his palm smears brown across my sleeve. “Sorry,” he says again, and I shrug.

“It’s nothing. And . . . thank you,” I muster, no good at apologies—giving them, or hearing them.

Then his foot slips again, hand gliding from my grip, nearly landing him back in the mud pit. The way he wobbles, his feet racing to prop himself up, finding only more mud to slide on—it’s like a cartoon, and it sets a crack in my anger.

I can’t help but laugh at his whoaing and uh-ohing. As he latches on to my shoulder, we see each other as we are: mud-covered, in a tunnel 150 feet below sea level, looking for the fountain of youth of all nutty, impossible things. And for a moment, the madness of it all, it’s like uncorking a bottle of fizzy water and watching the bubbly spritz everywhere. We laugh and laugh and laugh until it seems our abs might split from the hurt, and our cheeks might blow open, and only then could we really, fully 100 percent smile without the boundaries of a body to stop us.

It reminds me of being with Aven.

Our laughter dies almost as quickly as it began. The tunnel feels quieter than it did before, and if for one moment we were someplace else, we’re back now. The real world is still dark. We look at each other, we move away, uncomfortable with the silence.

And if it weren’t for the sound of nothing, I might have missed the sound of rumbling.

“You hear that?” I ask as we gather our bags and shimmy through the hole in the wall, emerging into the subway.

“Hear what?” Worry ripples in his voice.

“I can’t tell.” I think I feel a slight vibration, but I could be wrong. If it is the Blues, they’re still too far away to be sure. “But let’s move.”


Callum and I race between the tracks until we reach the platform, both hopping onto it simultaneously. Except Callum’s got the advantage of longer legs, so I end up following him into the stairwell.

Together, we dash up the stairs, skipping two, three at a time. At first we’re both doing okay; Callum’s footsteps echo only a few feet behind me. But somewhere around five flights up, I notice that the clambering noises are solely my own. Callum’s fallen behind. No use in stopping, though. It’s not like I can carry him.

The distance between us grows, and pretty soon I can’t hear him at all. I stop moving, and that’s when I’m sure the helis are on their way. “Callum, they’re coming,” I call out.

Above, the rumbling gets louder by the second. We probably have eight minutes . . . not much more, judging by the vibrations.

“You okay?” I call again when I hear no answer. “Callum?”

So maybe there’s no use in stopping, I think, but there’s no use in going either. This whole trek will have been for nothing if the doc gets caught. I backtrack a few flights to find him slumped across the stairs sucking down air, on the verge of retching.

“Look, put one arm over my shoulder. We’ll do it together.” My free hand clutches him on the other side, around his waist. I start up the stairs with him by my side before he has a chance to fight me.

Callum slings a few wheezy insults . . . but strangely, they’re not for me. They’re for him, something about “needing the help of a girl,” like he seriously disapproves of it. But his legs move just the same, and that’s the part I care about.

I wonder if all guys are like this?

Why’s it so much easier for a girl to take the help of a guy than it is the other way around? Sure, I hated being Derek’s damsel in distress, but that’s different because . . .

Because, what?

Weird. I don’t know. I don’t know why it bothered me so much.

Our joint climbing has slowed, but not too far off we both spot a pinprick of light from the floor we came in on.

“Almost there, Callum. You see that?”

The harder I squeeze air down into my lungs, the more my windpipe constricts. Each time I feel like I need to stop, though, I look up into that light and watch it grow larger and larger. It gives us the last bursts of energy we need to reach the top. When we do finally hit sea level, the brightness—compared to that subterranean pitch black—hits our eyes and it hurts. Always thought it was ironic that something too bright can blind you.

Our feet plant themselves on a flat surface and that’s when Callum does better. We run as fast as we can—which is still not that fast—and stop on either side of the window, peering out.

The building quakes. Three small helis’ props slice through the air. We can’t see them. We don’t need to. They circle the whole of Quadrant Nine, probably looking for the building with the red star. Then they start closing in—they’ve spotted it—and begin circling this building, once, twice. I wait for them to finish the rotations around the building, counting the seconds between the moment one leaves the frame of the window and the other passes into it.

“Six seconds, Callum. We’ve each got six seconds to climb out the window, down the ladder, and into the Omni.”

Callum’s still catching his breath, his hands resting on his knees, his torso bent forward. “So long as they keep circling.”

There ain’t no way he’ll make it in six seconds. “After the ladder, you’re going to have to jump down,” I tell him.

That gets him standing straight. “Into my mobile? No. You’re joking.” He gives me a look that says he thinks I’ve lost it.

“Not joking,” I say, thinking of those old Westerns where the guy jumps off a building, onto his horse’s saddle. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. “And . . . you’re going first. Totally doable, no more than a four-foot drop.”

“Wait, no. You should be first, you’ll be better at steadying the thing.” He eyes the canal from behind the window.

“Yes, but . . . you’re not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be here, but I’ll think of something. Plus, you’re the one who knows what to do with the mud.” I look past the pane, waiting for one of the aeromobiles to pass. “Soon as you’re in, submerge her. Then I want you to check the periscope so you’ll know the heli’s gone. Got it?”

I don’t wait for him to answer. The heli crosses out of view. I press down on one of the Omni key’s many buttons, the one that’ll bring her to the surface.

“Now! Swing your leg over! I’ll drop you the keys after the roof is open.”

“Impossible,” he mutters.

Don’t know if he’s referring to me, or to the jump, but out he goes. Without a fight, to my utter surprise. He even thinks to climb down the backside of the escape ladder on his own—a quicker approach. His legs shake, the ladder shakes, while I keep count from above: Four . . . three . . .

The Omni surfaces, but the glass roof is still shut. I fumble with the key, feeling for the button that opens it. “Jump!” I call down as the roof slides open.

Callum listens. He lets go of the ladder and falls into the mobile, sending it side to side. But he straightens himself and looks up. I drop the key.

Catch it, Callum. Catch it.

The key falls into his open palm. I laugh. He’s actually pulling it off.

As I spot the next heli, Callum brings the Omni under. Water passes over its roof, and I catch sight of the periscope, brass glinting in the sun. He’s waiting for the next heli to pass to resurface, just like I told him.

I hold my breath. Wait for the helis to continue their rotation.

They don’t. The heli turns in the sky until it faces the building head-on.

And me.

I can’t even tell Callum to get out of here—though the comm he gave me is untraceable, at this close range with the Blues, it wouldn’t be hard to tap. Just gotta keep myself hidden behind the window, waiting, watching the periscope.

Callum gets the picture—the brass slides below the surface. His purple Omni shimmers, then submerges till it’s disappeared.

He’s gone.

And I’m trapped.