Fear of God (Trials of Strength Book 1) (18 page)

‘
Hmmm,’ I
laughed. ‘Weren’t you the one trying to convince them to hand
themselves over to the crazy killing machines for
lunch?’

Grace narrowed her eyes
and spat at my feet. I decided to cement the group back together
with my last card.

‘
Oh, and did I
mention we know a way out?’ I said.

The room went silent. The
group turned almost in unison, hope lit up their faces. It was what
they needed to hear. Chris stepped forward into the silence, and
explained the situation. He glossed over Bonnie’s part in the
information though, and no one asked about how we had learned about
it. Everyone was too drunk on the possibility of finally
escaping.

Excited voices erupted as
soon as Chris had finished. He didn’t move to stop it, but motioned
for Paul to join him. Paul’s face was covered in sweat and his eyes
were wide. I wondered how close he had come to opening fire on
Grace, and how stable he was.

‘
You okay?’ I
asked.

He shook his head and
fumbled for words.

‘
Take a
breath, okay?’ Anna said.

‘
How did you
do that?’ he directed at me once he had stopped shaking.

‘
Long story
that I don’t even know,’ I answered and shrugged, ‘another
time.’

‘
Yeah, right
now we have to move on this escape plan,’ Chris whispered. ‘Before
your father closes it off. He must already know about Bonnie
betraying him.’

I nodded, but part of me
couldn’t help but wonder if Bonnie was still following my father’s
orders, at least in part.

‘
There’s still
another problem,’ Jane said, taking a shaky breath. ‘We might have
an exit, but what about those monsters up top. I doubt they’ll let
us just walk out, and the snipers that stopped us
before?’

‘
We need to
draw everything away from there,’ Chris sighed. ‘Get the snipers to
move, and draw the creatures somewhere else.’

‘
No,’ I said
and shook my head. ‘I know what we can do.’

They stared at me with
knitted eyebrows, but I squeezed past them and into the centre of
the room. My heart banged against my chest and my palms grew
sweaty. It might be a long shot, but I was pretty sure everyone
there felt the same way I did. It was time to stop being afraid, to
stop cowering in the dark little maze our captors forced us
into.

I knew what kind of
distraction would move everything into place, but it was
dangerous.

‘
Guys!’ I
shouted, the room quieted and turned.

Their faces almost made
me swallow what I was about to say. It could rip us apart again,
but we had to be strong.

‘
I know you’re
still scared, that a way out is good news,’ I called, meeting their
gazes. ‘But we still have problem. I meant what I said when we move
as one, and we have decision to make.’

I looked at Anna and she
nodded.

‘
We might have
a way out but there are still obstacles,’ I continued. ‘We still
have those things up top to worry about, and the people who are
behind this to contend with, but there might be a way to kill two
birds with one stone.’

‘
What do we
have to do,’ a man said.

I smiled at his
determination, and as I looked into each of their faces I saw the
same fire.

‘
Fight,’ I
said simply. ‘We have to fight.’

They nodded in turn, some
wide-eyed and terrified, but surprisingly no one spoke up against
it. It was time, time to leave the shadows and show our enemy who
the town truly belonged to.

‘
Lucas,’ Anna
cut in. ‘She’s gone.’

I was about to ask who
she meant, but doing a once over of the room it was easy. Grace was
no longer there.

The
Armoury

With news of a way out,
and the surprise of my newfound abilities, Grace’s disappearance
was forgotten quickly. Most shrugged it off as a crazy woman who
had lost control, ignoring how eager they were to rip each other
apart. I wasn’t so sure. For someone who was regarded as mentally
unstable, Grace showed an unnerving amount of manipulation, and she
was gone. I didn’t like it, but after a quick sweep of the
surrounding tunnels we had to get back to our plan.

I paced, filled with
energy that bubbled under my skin. We couldn’t figure it out, and
the conversation finished almost instantly. How, when everyone
affected up top had changed into raging killers, was I in control?
I rubbed my forehead, a headache forming. I was stronger, faster
and my senses had doubled in strength. The excitement from before
was gone, replaced with a drowning anxiety. What was happening to
me?

Chris, Paul, Anna, and
Jane were in the middle of the group discussing options. We might
have a way out, if Bonnie was telling the truth, another problem to
ponder, but even if it was true, we still had major hurdles. People
wanted to fight, but we had no means to do so.

‘
There are
still those things up top,’ Jane reminded everyone. ‘Plus what
about the snipers from before, no doubt some of them or others are
watching the way out.’

Chris sighed and rubbed
his temples. ‘First things first,’ he said. ‘We are in no condition
to wage war on them. We need more than a few guns.’

Paul folded his arms.
After the Grace fiasco it was almost as if he had come to his
senses with the group. His anger had ebbed away and he no longer
looked at Chris or anyone with the haunting suspicion he usually
did. Sweat drenched his face, and he looked like a drug addict
coming down from a high, which he probably was.

‘
What about
the place you got your weapons, Chris?’ Paul said. ‘Can we go
there?’

‘
Maybe,’ Chris
replied. ‘But I only managed to grab a few things when everything
started. Most of the guards had been gone, but now there will be
more. It might be too dangerous.’

‘
It’s not like
we have much of a choice,’ Anna said. ‘If we’re going to fight
back, we need those supplies.’

Chris nodded in silence.
I noticed the change in all of us. Chris had opened up and let us
in, no more was he a lone leader, afraid of what his secrets could
cause. Anna was the same, she had tried desperately to stay strong
and help the group, but also help her brother. Paul had realised he
hadn’t handled anything well and was trying to fix it, and Jane?
Who knows what she had lost to get there, to be an ever constant
pillar of support for everyone. Who knows what any of us had given
up of ourselves to get this far.

‘
So we deal
with that first,’ I chimed into the silence. ‘Without weapons we
don’t stand a chance.’

‘
But then what
do we do?’ Jane said. ‘We’re outnumbered and we can’t fight the
creatures on the surface and then fight the people keeping us in
here.’

My mind spun back to what
I said earlier, ‘We might not need to,’ I thought aloud. ‘If we can
cause a distraction and get the men guarding the exit to move, we
might not need to fight them. We can start with the armoury Chris
knows, that should rattle them.’

It was bleak, dangerous,
completely guaranteed to fail and get us all killed, but everyone
nodded. Anna was right, we had no choice. We couldn’t stay in
hiding while we were being picked off one by one until all of us
were dead. I had a feeling it would be over soon anyway. I had
changed, but not like the others, and my father’s voice echoed
through my mind.

You’re almost
ready.

‘
Okay,’ Anna
whispered. ‘So how are we going to do this?’

‘
A small
group, Anna, Lucas and I,’ Chris said.

Paul narrowed his eyes
slightly, the suspicion kicking back in, but Jane stepped forward,
as if she too had sensed it.

‘
I’ll go,’ she
said.

Chris’s gaze hovered over
Paul, and they both nodded.

‘
We leave in
an hour,’ Chris said, and we started to prepare.

*

I sat with one of the
backpacks we had filled with food, emptied now. The plan was
simple, get in, take what we need and get out. Simple, but there
was an uncountable amount of problems that could, and more than
likely would, happen. I had my gun tucked at my waist, Anna and
Chris had theirs. There were two more guns leftover, the ones Paul
and Grace had used, but there wasn’t enough ammo left to fill them
both, and Chris left the one he could fill with Paul.

Jane joined me halfway
through our hour respite. She smiled and sat opposite
me.

‘
How about we
take a look at those bandages, huh?’ she said.

I had completely
forgotten about that. My wounds hadn’t been acting up, and with
everything, they had slipped from my mind. I unravelled the
bandages around my hands, dreading to see the wounds from where I’d
attacked a wall. Jane gasped, and I could only gape. The wounds
were gone, no marks whatsoever, completely healed. For a second I
sat frozen, and then I removed my top and started on the bandages
there. The bullet wounds were still there, but drastically healed,
the stitches were gone and in their place were two faint
scars.

‘
Wow,’ I
whispered.

‘
Looks like
yet another plus to your new, um, condition,’ Jane said.

I nodded, and she put the
bandages in her own bag.

‘
How do you
feel, Lucas?’ she asked.

‘
Great,’ I
replied. ‘I feel great. Like I’m light and heavy all at once, but
it’s good. I can move fast and I’m stronger, and apparently I heal
quicker too.’

I shook my head in
disbelief.

‘
I’m also
terrified,’ I confided. ‘What’s happening to me? What am I
becoming? What have I already become?’

I sighed and
stared at the floor. Part of me was glad to get that off my chest,
I
was
terrified,
more than ever. I didn’t know who I was anymore, and that was worse
than the guilt and anger and fear.

‘
You’re who
you’ve always been, Lucas,’ Jane said as she patted my knee, ‘a
strong, smart young man who’s only trying to do his best. I mean,
it was
you
who
saved Anna. You saved me and pulled this group back together. Now
look at them, they
want
to fight, not just because there might be a way
out. But because seeing you, and how strong you are, it’s inspired
them.’

I smiled and shook my
head.

‘
They just
needed a push,’ I said. ‘They did it themselves, not
me.’

‘
Wrong,’ she
replied. ‘Think of Anna. You forgave her after what she had done
and put your faith back in her. You backed up Chris and stopped him
from destroying himself and gave him back the will to lead. You
stopped Paul and Grace from ripping the group apart. They respect
and trust you, all of them.’

Before I might have felt
overwhelmed, but I couldn’t be that way anymore. We all had to
stand together, as one, or else we’d all collapse.

‘
Is this my
pep talk?’ I smiled, and she laughed.

‘
Yes, now get
inspired and let’s go get ourselves some guns shall we?’ Jane
replied and grimaced. ‘Never thought I’d ever say that.’

‘
I am right
there with you,’ I agreed.

We stood up and put our
backpacks on. I checked my gun was still at my side and we joined
Chris and Anna at the exit. I waited for the pounding of my heart
and the shallow breaths that usually afflicted me when we went out,
but they never came. Jane was a miracle worker.

‘
Ready?’ Chris
asked.

We all nodded. Anna
positioned herself beside me and on a whim, I took her hand. She
shook and I squeezed it to reassure her. We left the room of
survivors and headed on our suicide mission.

It was slow and steady
progress. Around an hour had passed and we stalked the corridors of
pipes and weak light, primed for an attack. None came, and finally,
the corridors began to change. The pipes became less rusted and the
thin line of lights above changed to square panels of bright white,
the heart of the maze, where the enemy no doubt took better care of
things.

‘
So,’ I
whispered to Anna, ‘how are you feeling?’

‘
I’m alright,’
she replied. She tried to smile, but grimaced instead. ‘Kinda
drained, I don’t know how long I can keep this up.’

Her face sagged and the
dark circles under her eyes had gotten darker. I put my hand on her
shoulder and squeezed. We came to a corridor where the floor
changed from stone to metal slabs. Our steps echoed, and we could
hear voices at the other end of the hall. When we reached the
middle, we stepped through a doorway that actually sported a door
and my heart picked up speed.

The voices were close,
and the corridor broke off in two directions. Chris pointed left,
away from the sound of people and we slouched forward. We didn’t
encounter anyone, and I wanted to scream into the silence when we
reached a closed metal door. It resembled what I imagined submarine
doors to look like, rounded with a wheel for a handle. Chris
grabbed it and grimaced as he twisted it.