Escape from Eden (15 page)

“It will have to do for now,” said Thaddeus.

Nurse Ivy stood next to the bed, syringe in hand.

“No,” I said, batting it away.

“It’s for the best,” she said in a creaky voice.

“The best for whom?” I asked, glancing at Lambert.

She wiped my skin with a small white square of cotton. I jerked away, almost toppling over off the bed.

“Get away from me, Ivy.”

“Mia,” she said in a warning tone as she snatched my arm.

The room spun again and I was too weak to fight her off. She held onto me with bruising force, nails digging into my skin.

“Please speed this along,” Lambert said. “It’s quite late and I have a plane to catch in the early afternoon.”

“Yes,” Nurse Ivy said with a touch of impatience and wrestled me down, the tips of her nails digging into the tender flesh beneath my arms. Her bloodshot eyes were fierce and angry.

My arm stung, a tiny pinch. Before she could push the plunger down, the room began filling with thick, black smoke.

I looked up and saw the flames, the curtains being eaten by long licks of fire.

Lambert shouted in French and lunged away. Both Lambert and Ivy ran to the door; he shoved her down to the floor before escaping. She clambered to her feet and didn’t glance back as she let the door slam shut behind her.

I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor, the needle slipping out of my arm. Smoke choked me, burning my eyes and mouth. I clutched the bed and hauled myself up again. I managed a few unsteady steps toward the door before dropping to my knees. I heard a whooshing sound beneath the crackle of the flames and glanced back over my shoulder to see a wall of fire sweep across the room.

“Mia!” The shout came from the window. “Follow my voice!”

Adrenaline pulsed through me, shoving aside the murkiness in my head, and I clawed my way toward the sound. I crouched low as billowing smoke rose to the ceiling.

The curtains fell away, a fiery drape of fabric drifting back into the room. I felt hands on my upper arms, lifting me to my feet, and I tumbled out the window onto something hard, my knees and palms taking the brunt of the blow. Coughing, I tried to stand.

“Come on, let’s move away from the fire,” she said softly in my ear.

I blinked up at her. Juanita?

“How did you—?”

“I’ll tell you later.” A piece of burning lumber crashed next to us. “We have to move away!”

She hiked my arm over her shoulder and half-carried me past a burning fence, toward a planting of trees at the edge of the yard. Depositing me on the ground, she turned and looked back at the burning building.

Burning buildings.

My eyes, stinging and watery, blinked several times before I could see what was happening. Fire. Not just the building I was in, but at least four others were burning. Around us was chaos. People in various states of dress sprinted around, screaming, wrapped in blankets. One woman, wearing only a robe, its hem singed at the bottom, yelled to no one in particular about her purse being inside. Black tears trailed down her cheeks. She clutched her lapels together. I’d seen her before, but couldn’t place where. Certainly not Edenton. People didn’t look like her in Edenton. Security guards screamed into their walkie-talkies, some tugging long garden hoses and spraying the fire to no avail.

“I have to find Gabriel,” Juanita said. “Stay here and I’ll be back.”

“No!” I yelled. “Don’t leave me here. I’m coming with you.”

She glanced around, worry furrowing her brow. Her dress, glowing bright red in the orange light from the fire, was ripped on one shoulder and knotted. Black smudges dotted her cheeks, her forehead, all along her arms. I looked at mine. They were marked up, too. I touched my face and my finger came back stained with black ash.

“Okay, but stay close.”

Juanita hung my arm over her shoulder again and brought me to my feet. My legs didn’t seem as shaky as before, the adrenaline pulsing through me, giving me strength. We lumbered together, through the throng of onlookers and panicked people, scanning the crowd for Gabriel.

“Do you know where we are?” I asked her.

“Not sure,” she answered. “I remember leaving one of these buildings with some man, I didn’t know who he was. But he was dressed like the security guards in Edenton.” Almost absently, she touched the torn shoulder of her dress. “When we got outside, there was smoke everywhere and Gabriel was running toward us.”

“Gabriel?” My heart picked up.

“After he knocked out the man with one punch,” she said with admiration, “he told me what building you were in and to get you out through the window.”

We made our way around the front of the circle of buildings, where the gazebo in the center of the little town burned with the same intensity as the buildings. I realized we were in the little resort Gabriel and I had seen from the ridge—and I felt as if I’d had that same realization before, recently. With Gabriel.

“He told me he’d be around here,” Juanita said.

Out front, people were piling into cars. A line of red taillights formed around the cul-de-sac as they filed onto the long road toward the jungle. Away from the smoke, the night air was cool on my sweaty face.

Juanita craned her neck, looking for Gabriel over the heads of the people dashing around us. I peered through the crowd as best I could, my eyes still tearing from the smoke. Between the bodies I saw him, crouched on the ground. He was rifling through a bag, tossing things aside and putting others in a pile.

“There!” I said to Juanita, pointing.

I felt her shoulders sag in relief. And, I guessed, mine did, too. Gabriel stood, folding the bag beneath his arm. He was sorting through a large keychain when we approached.

“Who carries this many keys?” he asked us casually, as if we’d approached him in the dining hall rather than limping toward him, clothes disheveled and faces streaked with ashes, while the population of a weird resort screamed around us. He easily picked out a black fob, a symbol resembling a peace sign on it. “Are you girls okay?”

Juanita nodded. “I am. You, Mia?”

When Gabriel’s questioning gaze met mine, I instantly remembered the soft pressure of his lips, and I hoped the flush didn’t show through the soot on my face. His eyes, though, showed only concern for me, not glowing with the heat from earlier. That look of his was seared into my memory, one of the few things I could remember clearly from the last few hours.

“I’m good,” I said.

“Good.” Gabriel smiled faintly, his expression warm with relief.

I couldn’t help but think how beautiful he looked just then. Even with the soot streaked down his left cheek and his hair looking as if it were trying to escape his head. Maybe it wasn’t how he looked that was beautiful, but how he looked at me.

He blinked and turned his focus on the cars parked around the cul-de-sac. “Come on.” He waved us forward as he held the fob out, pressing buttons.

“Where are we going?” Juanita asked.

“Away from here,” Gabriel said.

“Why?” she said.

“You want to hang out here in the middle of Armageddon?”

I glanced around at the fires burning, the people, confused. “But where will we go?”

“Back to Edenton,” said Juanita.

Beep.

One of the cars lit up. We rushed toward it, Gabriel leading the way. The car was low and curvy. In the dim light I could see it was a dark shade of red.

“C-class,” Gabriel said, mouth curving up. “It’s no Maybach, but it will do.”

As he opened one of the back doors, we heard Thaddeus’s booming voice.

“Where are the children?” he asked loudly.

We could see him frantically looking between the bodies panicking around him, an envelope of guards searching alongside. He yelled the question again into a walkie-talkie in his hand and more guards appeared at the far end of the cul-de-sac.

“Get in,” Gabriel hissed. “Now!”

“No, wait,” Juanita said. “It’s Thaddeus! Look!”

“I see them!” I knew that voice. It was Grizz. “Over there!”

Gabriel cursed vividly, shoving Juanita into the back seat.

“Wait!” she protested. “They can take us back to Edenton!”

He shoved me into the passenger’s seat. “Sorry, Ricci,” he said as he slammed the door. He scrambled around the car to the driver’s side and slid in. He fumbled with the keychain. It dropped in his lap with a distressing jangle.

“Why are we leaving?” Juanita asked. She stole a look over her shoulder and I followed her gaze. Thaddeus and the security guards pushed their way through the crowd.

“Thaddeus is coming,” I said to Gabriel. “Hurry! What’s wrong with you? Start the car!”

“I’m not shaking on purpose!” Gabriel said, sliding the key into the ignition. It roared to life. I heard his foot slam into the pedal and we idled, not moving forward or back. From the backseat, I saw Gabriel’s gaze dart around the dashboard. “Shit!” he yelled. “It’s a stick?”

“You can’t drive manual transmission?” I asked.

“Not since I was eleven!” said Gabriel.

“Eleven?” I said, mouth agape.

“I was an adventurous youth.”

Gabriel began hitting pedals with his feet and shoved the gearshift into place. The engine made ugly grinding noises. We jolted forward, the sound of crunching metal filling the car.

“Shit, shit!” he exclaimed.

A bang at the window next to me caused me to jump. A building beside us, lapped by flames, illuminated Thaddeus’s face as he stared through the glass into the car. His skin, damp with sweat, shimmered under the orange-yellow light.

“Open this door,” he yelled, his fists pounding the window.

A screeching sound. The car shot forward.

“Wait!” Juanita tried to open the back door, but it was locked. She darted forward, squeezing her arm between the driver’s door and Gabriel’s seat, and pecked at buttons on the inside of the car door.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel yelled, trying to swat her away.

“Trying to unlock the doors!”

“No!” I yelled, frantically searching the buttons on my door, but the symbols didn’t make any sense to me.

Movement at my window. I glanced up and saw Thaddeus running alongside the car. Distantly, I heard a thunking noise.

I fell sideways when the car door next to me opened. Thaddeus clutched my arm, his grip tight and burning against my skin. I heard Juanita call his name.

In a panic, I twisted around. With a vicious grunt, I kicked him in the chest. Pain shot up my leg.

“Faster!” I yelled to Gabriel and the car shot forward. Juanita and I fell against the seats. I pulled the door closed, breathing hard. “How do I lock this?”

Gabriel elbowed Juanita back. “Sorry,” he said and searched the door next to him and jabbed a button.

“Mia!” cried Juanita. “How could you do that to Thaddeus?”

“Juanita,” I said, my voice strong despite how brittle I felt. “I can’t explain why we’re here, how we got here, but Thaddeus had something to do with it.”

Thaddeus had shoved himself to his feet and ran along the side of the car. He rushed the door again. This time, when he pounded the window, it spiderwebbed into tiny cracks.

Gabriel twisted the car around the cul-de-sac. We hit something, hard. The window next to me shattered, showering me with glass. The underside of the car scraped a curb. We bounced onto the median surrounding the gazebo–and stalled. From below the horizon of the car’s hood, I saw people dashing around, diving into cars.

“You okay?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah!” I said. “Just go!”

Juanita was strangely silent. She gazed out the window at the panic-stricken crowd.

“I’m trying!” Gabriel shifted the car and it rolled, back and forth, until we pitched forward.

“They’re coming!” I said, looking over my shoulder. They were so close I could hear the static from their walkie-talkies.

“Come on, baby,” Gabriel growled at the car. “Come on.”

I heard another scraping sound deep in the engine. Then we shot forward, the car bumping down off the median and onto the road. Gabriel steered the car around the other vehicles waiting to exit the resort, unafraid to knock into their pristine, metal surfaces to force them out of the way. A few people stared at us in horror, probably wondering if they needed to leave with the same sense of urgency. Others glared at us with unadulterated anger in their eyes.

Finally, we made it onto the stretch of road leading away from the resort and drove, bookended by cars in front and in back.

“How fast are we going?” I asked staring back out the window.

“Not fast enough,” Gabriel said.

“Go faster!”

“Don’t you think I would if I could? The midlife-crisis-mobile up ahead isn’t being driven to its full potential.”

A white car with long red taillights, like a pair of demon eyes, drove ahead of us at a leisurely pace.

I glanced back at Juanita. “You okay?” I asked her.

“I think so.” She peered at the road in front of us. “This road will take us back to Edenton?”

Gabriel and I exchanged a look. This was it, our chance to escape. Neither of us could fathom going back now.

“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly.

“Screw this guy.” Gabriel swerved the wheel to the right. “He drives like a grampa.”

I saw metal glint along the border of the road. And remembered the spikes I’d seen the other night. “No! Don’t!”

But it was too late. The tires burst and the flapping sound echoed inside the car. We began to wobble, the back of the car spinning around to the front. Somehow, Gabriel steered the car back onto the road where we spun out.

“I can’t control it,” Gabriel said, punching his foot on the brake.

We came to a stop, a sickening metallic screech sounding as we did. The car landed perpendicular, front and back straddling the road, blocking the cars behind us. Gabriel slammed the flat of his hand into the steering wheel and cursed.

“What do we do now?” Juanita asked. “Walk back to Thaddeus?”

I looked back at the cars, all at a standstill. People were exiting the cars; a few came toward us. We couldn’t go back there. I peered through the driver’s side window and saw the white car ahead of us had stopped. The door opened.