A flame flickered into existence.
“Wha?” I whispered in amazement, and then my gaze focused on the Kid, holding a small lighter.
“How did you—” Cassie began, but I stopped her with a wave of my hand.
“Ask him later!” I said. “Kid, let’s see what we have to work with in here!”
The Kid lifted his lighter and moved around. We were in a room of crates, just like every other room on this hallway. The only way in or out was the door that the guards were about to break in. We could push more crates against the door, but at most we’d be buying ourselves a minute or two. In the end, they would come in, we would be captured, and then we would be put to death.
88
CASSIE
BECCA AND I REACHED THE same conclusion at the same time: we were trapped, this was a dead end, and it was really, really the dead end, if you know what I’m saying.
As the sounds of the guards trying to smash the door open surrounded us, we stared at each other, each thinking furiously. Then Nate’s quiet, pained voice said, “Well, we tried.”
The Kid let his lighter flicker out, and we were again in almost complete darkness—the only faint light coming from the tiny crack around the door as the guards pushed it inward.
Looking down, I realized I was somehow still holding the stupid can of peaches. Overcome with tiredness, rage, desperation, and frustration, I drew my arm back and hurled the can against the wall with every bit of strength that I had, almost howling with anguish.
There was a dull, hollow thud and the sound of plaster chipping and falling to the ground.
“What the hell was that?” Becca asked.
“The can of peaches,” I said wearily.
“Oh. Well, we could use it to club the first person in,” Becca said. “If nothing else.”
She was right. From the pounding at the door, that would be soon.
“When did you become the practical one?” I asked. “Kid? Light?”
The small lighter clicked into existence and I peered at the floor, looking for the can. The light went out.
“Kid, I can’t see in the dark,” I said crossly. “Can you keep it on?”
“I ain’t flicked it off,” the Kid said, just as crossly. “It got blew out.”
“I feel cold air,” Nate said. I heard him shuffling a bit. “Here. Maybe it’s a vent or something. You guys, at least, might be able to get through it.”
The lighter clicked and again cast its small circle of light.
There wasn’t a vent. What there was, was a tiny hole in the wall, where I’d thrown the peaches. I put my hand up to it and felt chilly air whistling through.
Looking quickly, I found the dented, bloodstained can and grabbed it. Holding one end, I slammed it against the hole. More plaster crumbled away, making the hole big enough to put my fist through.
“That would be awesome, if we were rats,” Becca said drily.
In the dim glow of the lighter, I saw despair on her face. The Kid looked just as crushed. Nate was white-faced and leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. Outside, the guards had gotten organized, at least three of them pounding against the door.
Then… the tiny light flickered on something. Something iridescent.
“Oh, my God,” I breathed. The light was glittering on the wings of a dragonfly, fluttering into the room from the hole in the wall.
We’d found the tunnel.
89
“OH, JESUS,” NATE SAID, AND hobbled toward it, his face contorted in pain. He reached out and grabbed a hunk of wall in his bare hands and pulled, breaking off another piece.
“See?” the Kid said. “It’s behind a wall, in a room, like I said!”
“We need to get through that hole. Start working!” Becca said.
Then we were all scrabbling at the hole, pulling away chunks of plaster that broke into powdery shards.
“Becca! Kid!” I said. “You guys pull some crates over here! We’ll get into the tunnel and then hide the hole!”
They immediately did what I said, which might be the very first time in our lives that Becca hadn’t argued first. Nate leaned on his good leg, his arms moving like pistons as he pulled away chunk after chunk of plaster. Our hands were bleeding but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting out.
With just the two of them it was harder for Becca and the Kid to move the crates, but we were all seized with a sort of superhuman fury that seemed to make us stronger than we’d ever been. Finally the hole was wide enough for Nate to slip through—he was the biggest of us—and we stood there panting as we tried to figure out how we would get his leg, stiff with a cast, through it.
He shook his head grimly. We had to move fast—the guards had gotten the door open almost an inch and were shouting at us.
“No way else,” Nate muttered, and before I knew what he was doing, he put his arms over his head as if about to dive into a pond… and he dove through the hole headfirst.
His cast slammed against the side of the hole. He didn’t even try to swallow the shriek of pain from that or from his heavy landing on the other side. He’d had no way to break his fall, no way to temper the shock to his ruptured knee. I heard him start sobbing in the darkness, and I quickly scrambled through, trying not to land on him. Becca boosted the Kid through, and he knelt by Nate with his lighter casting a small flame as Becca crawled through herself.
She and I put our arms through the hole, grabbed the brace of a crate, and yanked as hard as we could. It didn’t move. We heard the sound of the other crates scraping across the floor as the outer door pushed open, and we grabbed it again. My fingers locked onto the brace like claws, and with every ounce of strength I had, I pulled toward us.
It moved. It moved a bit. Biting our lips, tears welling in our eyes, Becca and I grabbed and pulled again, moving it another inch closer. Again. And again. My fingers were slippery with blood, a long splinter had shot through my index finger, and Nate was trying to stifle his sobs in the background.
“One more time, babe,” Becca muttered, sweat making her hair stick to her forehead in lank strands. I nodded and fastened onto the crate again.
Somehow we pulled the crate another four inches until it was smack-dab up against the wall. Instantly the tunnel’s darkness deepened. We heard the roar of the guards as they finally managed to slip through the doorway, heard their feet as they swarmed into the room… and heard their cries of confusion as they looked around a completely empty room, with no visible means of escape.
90
BECCA
WE HAD MAYBE A COUPLE minutes before the guards started moving crates around to find out where we’d gone. I hoped they would first open all the crates to see if we had magically sealed ourselves up inside.