Noir (20 page)

“I’m much more familiar with shock therapy, meself.” Livinea grins, flashing her perfect white teeth. I can’t help but think the most prejudiced thought. How did someone so strikingly beautiful end up in a place like this? Like anyone deserves to be here—as if
this
were only reserved for the ugly of the world. But still . . .

“What’s shock therapy?” I turn and say.

Livinea points to a bed with many straps and a metal helmet attached to the end of it. Squiggly wires stretch from the helmet to a nearby machine with dials and screens.

“You mean to tell me they’ve electrocuted you?”

“Yes. Many times.” She says it so matter-of-factly, like it’s yesterday’s postscript. My mind crashes like water over stones. I want to scream,
Not Eyelet, though, right? This hasn’t happened to her.
“They electrocute people around here all the time,” Livinea adds with a smile, and I feel my stomach curdle.

But before I have the chance to say another word, she’s gone, pushing down the hallway through another set of doors.

“Livinea?” I dart after her. She moves so swiftly, it’s hard to keep up. Masheck and C.L. sprint after me. We follow Livinea up a set of cast-iron stairs, then down another hall, where she comes to an abrupt stop in front of a windowless metal door. I slam into her back, excusing myself as Masheck does the same.

Livinea giggles, then something crashes on the other side of the wall, and she pulls a quick finger to her mouth.
“Shhhhh!”
she hisses, then throws out a hand, plastering all our backs to the wall.

My chest heaves under her grasp as we wait. I cringe, expecting to hear footsteps. Instead, a rumbling noise starts up behind us, faint at first and then steadily growing louder until I can feel its movement in my organs. Livinea’s eyes pop open wider. “Oh, no!” she gasps. “We’s too late!”

“What do you mean, too late? What is it? What’s the matter?” I feel the floor begin to shimmy beneath our feet.

“It’s a shift!” Livinea says, darting forward as the walls behind us tremble.

“A what?”

“Come
on
!” she shouts, clutching her skirts up high in white knuckles, breaking into a spirited run. Masheck and I move, him driving ahead of me just as the wall at our back rotates, batting C.L. from his feet before he has the chance to react.

“C.L.!” I shout, turning.

“Get up!” Livinea yells. “Get up and run!”

I reach for C.L., but it’s too late. The wall turns, sweeping him away with it, C.L. caught in the churn.

“NO!” Livinea shouts and bolts back for him, slipping her arm behind the wall, grabbing C.L. by the shirt. With a grunt she hauls him out from behind it. He gasps and sputters, as the turning wall melts.

I burst into a run to try and escape what’s happening, but I’m pulled down into the melting riptide current. C.L. loses his balance and falls in with me, too. Livinea turns back and lunges in after us, but her fingers don’t quite reach. C.L. and I are pulled from her grasp by some strange centrifugal force I can’t explain, and sent spiraling backward into the goop as the wall becomes a giant, grey ocean. The liquid is strangely cool, not hot as expected, more like vapour coming from a block of melting ice. My teeth crash together as my legs are heaved out from under me and I’m forced to swim.

“We’ve got to reach them or they’re dead!” Livinea shouts to Masheck.

Masheck throws down his pack and punts forward, rushing into the ebbing, churning ocean of wall. Livinea throws her hands to her mouth to stifle her screams as metal gears grind and wheels screech.

I look up, seeing the other steel walls around us shifting, being slowly dragged over the stone floors, twisting, turning, melting, dropping, the whole building dissolving.

“C.L!” I shout, looking back. “Where are you?”

He surfaces, blinking molten metal from his eyes. It cools, and steely icicles cling to his lashes. “’Ere!” he says, pedaling his feet, trying to stay afloat. He lunges forward close enough for me to reach him, and I pull him to my chest. My arm around his middle, I continue to swim.

“My hand!” Masheck shouts, reaching out to us. “Grab my hand!”

The wall of water rushes now around his waist, knocking his feet from under him. He staggers back up and reaches again.

“I can’t,” I say, trying to keep my hold on C.L. “If I do, I’ll lose him!”

“Then lose me!” C.L. shouts above the violent roar. “Go on ahead, sir.” He turns to me, thick silvery-black water swelling around his neck. “Go on, save Eyelet—”

“No. I’m not going without you,” I say, heaving him up into the silvery-grey solution. I lunge forward, digging a hand into the thick waters, kicking hard with my feet, launching C.L. ahead into Masheck’s waiting grip.

Another wave of melted wall crashes, slamming against the tide I’m swimming in. Masheck turns, hurling C.L. to the shore of the floor just in time, then turns back for me. I dig into the current, sidestroking furiously against the silvery-grey waters, kicking as hard and as fast as I can. I make no progress. In fact, I lose ground. I don’t understand this.

I look up to see yet another wall beginning to shift.

“’Urry!” Livinea’s voice screeches out over the shifting gears. “If another wall turns, yuh’ll be stuck ’ere forever!”

I look around. If I don’t make it to the shore soon, I’ll be closed in behind the second wall—or drown in it, if it, too, suddenly melts.

“Come on!” Masheck yells.

I suck in a breath and dip my head beneath the silver-grey line of liquid, point my fingers, and drive my arms through its metallic surface, hand over hand, violently thrashing my feet—but still, I go nowhere. It’s as though the principles of physics have all been thrown out the window. I don’t know what to do.

My heart lodges in my throat. I close my eyes and see Eyelet again. Alone in a cell, awaiting God knows what. I cannot fail her now.

I burst forward again as Masheck lunges out. Livinea screeches for him to come back. He doesn’t listen and I thunder toward him, and finally my strokes are starting to stick, digging into the thick edges of the now-cooling, hardening metal sea. The tide has reversed and is pulling me slowly toward Masheck and the safety of the floor. I swim harder, digging my shoes into solidifying river.

“Reach!” Masheck throws out his arm.

All at once I’m inexplicably yanked forward inside a monstrous guttural groan.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhh!

Livinea claps her hands to my shoulders. Somehow she has waded in and reached me, sunk her fingers into the back of my coat collar, and hauled me to safety, up onto the stone floor. “Get up!” she shouts. “We’ve got to run! The walls are not finished!” She scrambles to her feet, yanking me with her. Globs of wall drain from our clothing as we bolt back to the opposite side of the room, Masheck following close behind us.

The last wall dissolves around us as we leap for solid floor, landing in tumbling heaps at C.L.’s shaky feet. I cough and sputter as a fully formed wall shoots up on the left of us and shifts into place, forming a new corridor. I stare at the activity, astonished, my heart a racing dog in my chest. C.L. swoops in, helping first Livinea back onto her feet and then Masheck and me.

“I told you the walls in ’ere moved, sir,” he pants.

“So you did,” I say, finding my footing and slapping him on the back.

“We’d better go!” Livinea says, spitting fragments of melted wall. “Before another shift.”

“Another?” I say, struggling to collect my wits. “Wait!” I say, chasing after her. I grab her by the arm. “I owe you my life.”

“Don’t be sil-ly,” Livinea chirps in her singsong voice. “Yuh don’t owes me nothin’. The pleasure was all me.”

“Eyelet should be somewheres in ’ere.” Livinea comes to a stop in front of a block of cells. Smooth surgical-steel doors line the hall. Eight in total.

“What are these?”

“Holding cells.” She launches up onto her toes, spying through the tiny wire-grid window at the top of one of the doors, checking inside one after another, her hopeful expression dissolving to a frown as she reaches the last in the block.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“She ain’t in ’ere,” she says.

“What do you mean?” I throw myself at the doors, instinctively rechecking the windows, feeling the void of each room hit my stomach as I search.

“They must have already taken her to the laboratories,” Livinea says quietly, wringing her hands.

“Laboratories?”
I storm toward her. “Where? Where is that?”

“I dunno,” she says, and my stomach flips. “I don’t know ’ow to get there.” She shakes her head. “I’m always drugged by that point. I can’t remember the way.”

“Think, Livinea!” I can’t help myself; I shake her by the shoulders. “Think!”

“Look!” Masheck points to a trickle of dried, splattered blood on the floor. It forms a trail from one of the holding cells down a dimly lit corridor to the right.

I’m already running by the time Masheck takes another breath. I grab hold of the stone wall at the end of the corridor and hurtle myself around the corner, following the trail of the spattered blood. Masheck, Livinea, and C.L. thunder along behind me. I push through a set of swing doors and end up in front of an operating theatre.

Livinea races to catch up with me “Wait!” she hisses. “You can’t just barge in there!”

“The
hell
I can’t!”

I throw up a leg and
boot
down the door. It snaps back against the wall inside, wailing out a colossal, spine-jerking clash. Three faces in medical masks snap around, gasping at the sight of us—
me
in particular, my usual fate.

Beyond them, Eyelet lies strapped to an operating chair. Her arms and legs are tied down. Another belt secures her middle. Her head is cranked back at a neck-wrenching angle, her skull held in place by a halo of metal and leather straps. The lid of one of her eyes has been drawn forcibly open, held there by steel metal clamps.

A surgeon hovers over her, holding an ice pick in one hand, a hammer in the other.

All the breath seeps from my chest.

“No . . .”
I lunge toward Eyelet. She gazes aimlessly at the ceiling. Something glass-like inside me breaks. I’m too late. I’ve come too late. They’ve already destroyed her. “Eyelet!” I shout.

“Urlick?” she says weakly. Her pupils flicker, and I draw in the hugest breath.

The surgeon whirls around. His gaze ripens at the sight of me. He scrambles backward like a frightened child as I close in on him, teeth clenched.

“That’s right”—I lean toward him, bringing my anomaly of a face uncomfortably close, glaring at him through blazing pink eyes—“I am your greatest nightmare!”

Th
irty-Six

Eyelet

“Oh, Eyelet, what have they done to you?” Urlick leaps toward me, stroking my head and kissing my brow.

“Nothing yet, thankfully.” A river of happiness surges through me, just seeing his face. My heart roars in my chest. “Though my eye . . .” I flit a glance toward the metal clamps still stretching my eyelid wide, trying not to blink.

“
Oh, yes!
Yes, of course.” Urlick snaps forward, clumsily releasing the tension on the clamp, and my lid snaps back into place. “I’ve been so very worried about you . . .” He races to undo the rest of my straps, releasing first my head, then fervently working his way down my body, his voice as shaky as his hands. “When I got your message about you coming to free me at the stone jug . . . why, I nearly—” He yanks loose my wrist straps, and I leap from the chair, my lips upon his, my hands at his jaw. I devour him in kisses. The deepest, most
blood-warming
kisses I can affect, over and over again, until we’re both left gasping and breathless.

“Oh, Eyelet,” he whispers into my mouth between kisses. “I was so afraid I’d never—”

“Just shut up and kiss me, will you, please?”

He grins that luscious grin of his, boysenberry lips arced up at the corners, and draws me to him, crimson eyes dancing as he lifts me from the theatre chair, our arms intertwined, our mouths pressed. I melt into the warmth of his broad shoulders as he squeezes me tight inside muscular arms. I feel his heart beat against mine, and a small sigh of contentment escapes me.

“Oh, Eyelet,” he whispers into my mouth. “I was so afraid—”

“Not half as afraid as I.”

I pull him to me, fusing my breasts to his ribs, my hands stroking his face. Every fiber of me is aflame with arousal. His hands press into the small of my back, bringing my waist flush with his, and I can feel his arousal, too. I tilt my chin and fall onto his mouth again, kissing him hard and heavy.

“I guess ’e wasn’t kidding when ’e said yuh two know each other.” Livinea giggles, standing behind us.

Urlick kisses me harder, pulling me closer, and I throw my legs up to straddle him.

“Oh, my goodness,” Livinea gasps and turns her face away. “Perhaps we should leave the room.” She peers back through her fingers.

Th
irty-Seven

Eyelet

“Eh-hem.” Masheck clears his throat. “I hate to break up the party, but—” He jerks a thumb toward the doctor and assistants, bound and gagged on the ground.

“Oh, yeah,” Urlick says, releasing me and fixing his hair. His breath is as heavy as my own. The look in his eyes tells me he’s sorry to stop. It’s sinful, I know, but I don’t want to stop, either.

Reluctantly he backs away from me, leaving me cold and yearning. He tugs at the points of his waistcoat. I smooth my skirts, as well. “Masheck’s right,” Urlick says. “We’d better get out of here.” He drags his gaze from my eyes. “We haven’t much time.”

“Right.” I breathe, rolling my tongue over my lips, savoring the taste of him that lingers there.

“I’ll go first.” Livinea steps between us on her way to the door, giggling. “The rest of yuh follow.” She waves her hand as she exits the room.

Urlick threads his fingers through mine and yanks me out into the corridor. His grasp is so tight on my hand it nearly cuts off the circulation to my fingers, yet I feel the same way: that I must never,
ever
again, let go of him.

We run, the clap of our boots bouncing off the walls of the open corridor. I worry we’ll be caught, and look back over my shoulder. Nothing but the light of flickering wall-sconces as far as the eye can see. My heart settles down in my chest.

Livinea stops below a cut in the plaster at the far end of the hall. “Up ’ere!” she shouts, pointing. “We’ll ’ave to travel the rafters, elsewise they’ll catch us.” She signals for Masheck to give her a boost up. Masheck cups his hands together and she springboards off them, hoisting herself up into the ceiling.

“Come on!” Livinea signals for the rest of us to join her, her head hanging down through the hole in the ceiling. One by one, we vault up through the hole—Urlick boosting me, followed by Masheck boosting C.L., then Urlick boosting Masheck, who reaches down to clasp Urlick by the elbows and haul him up last.

We’ve no sooner disappeared than jackboots
thrump
the stone floors below us.
Guards.
We’ve made it in the nick.

“Holy bejeezus!” one of the guards shouts. “They’ve knocked ’em all out!” Their voices stream down the hallway, coming from the operating theatre.

“They’re onto us,” Urlick says, wide-eyed.

“They must have found the doctor,” C.L. gasps.

Livinea claps a hand to his mouth. “Shhhhh!” she hisses. “Follow me.” She turns, walking catlike along the upper beams of the ceiling, her arms outstretched for balance. The guards below us scatter. Boots stomp everywhere. We all freeze in place.

When at last again the hall below us grows quiet, the group carries on. “Watch your step and tread lightly,” Livinea whispers back at me as I teeter slightly, nearly falling off the beam my first few steps. “Look straight on ahead, like yuh’s just walking down the street,” she encourages me. “Chin up, eyes forward, back ramrod straight,” she parrots her instructions to me from earlier in the day.

I take a breath and do as she says, but it takes a great deal of concentration for me to stay square on the beam, shaking as I am. Livinea seems like she’s done this a million times before. Perhaps she has. Perhaps she’s attempted escape in the past.

I bite my lip to keep it from trembling, fighting against the rising coil of fear that stirs in my belly. Guards’ feet thunder up the walls from the floors underneath as they rush through again. I suck in a startled breath. They’re searching for us. The jolt of each of their steps passes up my legs. I don’t think I can do this.

Livinea pauses as the boots grow nearer, hand to her heart, back pressed up against the pipe which threads along through the ceiling beside us. I press back up against it as well and close my eyes, listening to the guards’ angry voices calling out in all directions.

“You take the north hall. I’ll take the west.”

How will we ever get past them all?

“Not to worry,” Livinea whispers to me, as if she’s read my mind. “They ain’t travelling where we’s going. Now come on.” She signals for me to move, taking me by the hand. “We’ve got about fifteen more ticks of the clock before they figure us out.”

We push on through the darkness, taking our lead from the soft tap of Livinea’s shoes. I reach up to catch my balance now and again, fingers groping through spiderwebs. I shudder, flicking them from my fingertips. All at once, alarm bells ring, bleating down the corridor below us.

My heart nearly breaks loose from my chest. Panic slithers through my veins.

The soles of my boots slip on the smooth edges of our metal escape route, and I fall. Urlick catches me. I suck in a frightened breath. The girders have changed now from square beams to round metal pipes, making the passage just that much riskier. “How much farther?” I whisper, trembling.

“Not long now.” Livinea grins, turning her head. Bright violet eyes shine through the darkness, followed by a flash of white teeth. How can she be so calm?

“Where are we going, exactly?” C.L. asks.

“Yuh wanted out, didn’t yuh?” Livinea turns to face him.

“And yuh know the way?”

“Of course I do. I’ve always known.” She winks back at me. She slinks along the pipe a little farther. We follow, bending our heads as the roofline declines. The compartment gets smaller and smaller until soon we’re on hands and knees, crawling, and then on our bellies for a spell. There’s a distinct odour of lichen.

“There!” Livinea points. “There it is!” She slides up to a crouched sit, finally again able to. Flickering candlelight floods up from a hole in the ceiling just beyond. Livinea scurries ahead, straddling the pipe until she’s reached it.

Through the opening in the ceiling I spot a door. Its surface is black and oily. It’s wobbling, just like all the others, only this one has a window in it. I’ve not seen outside since I’ve entered the Brink. Tears form in my eyes. Brethren’s beloved soupy brume drifts past the window, whirling and spiraling through distant trees. My heart pumps warmly, reveling in its nostalgia. Imagine me longing to experience Brethren’s never-ending gloom again!

“This is it,” Livinea says, slipping along the pipe past the hole. She swings her legs around and faces us. “The only known way out.”

Masheck leans forward, then pulls back. “How do you know?” He sounds nervous.

“Do you see the sheen on the door?” Livinea answers. Masheck leans in again. “See how it shimmers blue-black from time to time, like the coat of a raven?”

“Yeah.”

“And the horns. Can you see the horns?”

“Faintly.”

“That means the door is passable. They’s the only doors people can pass through around ’ere unharmed,” Livinea adds. “Well, sort of.” She scratches her head. “This one is the only one with a window. Which means it’s the only one that leads outside. But it takes some doin’ to figure ’em out. They changes the route every day.”

“What do you mean, they change the route?” Urlick asks.

“That’s what makes leavin’ ’ere such a puzzle.” Livinea grins. “The door outta ’ere is never the same. Well, it tis . . . every six days.” She taps her chin and squints her eyes. “Or is that seven?”

“What are you talking about?” Urlick snaps.

“The doors. They’s on a rotation. Some days, the door out is this one. Some days, it tisn’t. They switches the route so’s none of us’ll get wise to it and try to escape. Only I figured ’em out.”

“When, Livinea?”

“Years ago.” She slides back on her haunches as if she’s said too much. “I figured out, when they serves bacon, it’s the southeast corner door. When they serves porridge, it’s the southwest.”

“And today they served sausage,” I say.

“Yeah! Now yer gettin’ it!” Livinea smiles.

A new alarm siren cuts in. Jackboots thunder along the halls beneath us again. I suck in a tight breath and hold it as they pass. The alarm triggers a light over the door below us.

“What’s that mean?” Masheck asks.

“It means we’ve gotta ’urry.” Livinea’s tone shifts. “Quickly. We’ve got to get yuhs through the door before it solids up.” Livinea whirls me around, stuffing my legs down through the hole in the ceiling. She all but shoves me over the edge.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“They know someone’s trying to break out, so they’s changing the door sequence. Yuhs got to get outta this place
now
, before they discover yuhs.”

“What about you, Livinea?” I look back. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I’ve already told yuh, miss. I’ve got nowheres to go if I leave ’ere. This is me home now. I ’aven’t another.”

“That’s not true.” C.L. sweeps in. “You ’ave a ’ome with us. Idn’t that right, Urlick?” He tips his head.

I elbow Urlick in the ribs. “Right,” he says.

Livinea’s concerned expression melts. She drops through the hole, signaling for the rest of us to follow, her skirts up about her ears.

Urlick drops down next, a back pocket of his britches tearing on a loose screw as he falls. His shoes slap like a couple of gunshots when they hit the stone floor. He cranks his head this way and that, checking the corridor for guards, then smiles at me, reaching up. “Let’s go,” he says.

I drop from the pipe into his arms, my front grazing the length of his muscled chest. His hands grip my waist, encircling me almost completely in a band of strength, lowering me slowly to the floor. I gaze up into his eyes—
his gloriously brilliant pink rabbit eyes
—remembering what Livinea said about the treatments and the doors in this place, how they whittle away at your memories: the more times you’re exposed, the more you lose. How for days after passing through, I struggled to remember anybody. Not to mention the aftereffects of being on the pins.

A searing thought jags through me. What if I pass through these doors and I lose my memories again? What if I can’t remember Urlick, or why we’re here? How long will it take for him to come back to me this time? What if this round I lose him for good?

What about Livinea? What will happen when she passes through? She’s endured far more treatments here, than me. My heart rushes like water in a melted stream.

Masheck drops next to me, then C.L.

“Ready?” Livinea says.

Urlick turns me toward the door. “I can’t do this,” I say, pulling back.

“What?” Urlick scowls.

An alarm bell clangs over our heads. Panic jerks through my veins.

“The doors in this place, they strip you of your memories. Especially if you’ve had treatments. Isn’t that right, Livinea?”

She nods.

“So, what if I pass these doors now, and I can’t remember you?” I say to Urlick. “I can’t bear to
lose
you again!”

Urlick reaches out, cradling my face in his hands. “What makes you think you could ever lose me?”

“Because I lost you once, Urlick, when I was exposed to the pins on the way in here. The pins steal pieces of your mind away. I had to fight so hard to get you back. What if we go through this door and it erases you completely from my memory?”

“Then
I
will remember
you
and never stop insisting that you remember me, until I draw my last breath.”

“And what if I can’t? What if I
can’t
remember you?” My voice wobbles.

Urlick’s gaze grows intense. “Then I will court you again, as a stranger, never giving up until at last I’ve won your heart.” He brushes his thumb along the side of my cheek, erasing the tear that falls.

“But—”

He brings his finger to rest over my lips. “How much do you trust me?” he says.

I stare up into his eyes. “As much as the stars and the moon and the pesky ol’ sun.” I grin, kissing him, hard.

“Now, shall we do this?”

I nod and he thrusts himself toward the door, yanking me along behind, alarm bells screaming, Livinea, C.L., and Masheck dropping into line behind. Jackboots crash over stone flooring to the rear of us, guards’ voices closing in.

“Hands out!” Livinea screams. “Stiffen yer elbows, and
push
!”

We rock forward, pressing our palms against the jellylike substance. The wobbling membrane buckles. The door thrashes against our weight. “It’s fighting back,” I say.

“PUSH HARDER!” Livinea shouts. All of us drive the heels of our palms against the goop-like gel, leaning into it with all our force. “HARDER!” Livinea yells.

The gel stretches thin at the centre, then thick again. With the force of a tide it throws us back.

Boots clatter closer. Masheck’s head whirls about. “We’re running out of time!”

“AGAIN!” Livinea shouts as the boots round the corner. We lean in again, a united force.

Livinea’s violet eyes double in size as the membrane stretches and strains thin, bulging, encasing us in a brightly lit bubble of white light before at last it snaps, peeling back around the edges of our fingers like skin, rolling back over our arms.

“PUSH!” Livinea shouts again. We do, and the membrane gyrates past our ears, over our faces, expelling us like we’ve been shot from a cannon. The pressure is incredible, like two spikes being driven into my head. I close my eyes and rail against the pain, fighting hard to hold on to my image of Urlick as I’m slung from the Brink to the outside world—

Free at last.

I land and tumble down a mucky hillside. Bits of membrane cling to me, hanging in sharp severed bits from my fingers, nose, and mouth. They grow hot and sticky, and I spit them away and shake them from my fingertips, shrieking.

“Are you all right?” someone asks, hovering over me. I look up into a face I don’t recognize. A face marred with scars. Bits of membrane hang from a frightening purple welt. It takes my breath away.

He reaches for me, and I pull back, staring up into his bloodred eyes, shaking.

“How much do you trust me?” he says, and my mind fills with moving pictures. Bits of film splice and splinter away. What remains, spirals to the front of my brain: A house on a hill in a remote destination. Tea. Hands. Conversation. A face. A badly marred face.

His
face.

A man at a carnival. A promise. The words “How much do you trust me?”