The Farm (16 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mel

There is a sweet, blessed peace in Sebastian’s silence. I know it’s wrong. I know the noise he doesn’t make is a sign of his not-rightness. Still, there’s a kind of relief in it. Like death.

But the longer I’m here, the less oppressive his silence is. His not-noise feels like the weight of water. Tranquil. Maybe he’s just sitting at the bottom of a different pool.

He’s not a talker, this one. Still, I can feel his attention. It presses against my skin, making me aware, but not nervous. I feel his hunger, but he hasn’t bitten yet. Which makes sense, because even the hungriest sharks leave their pilot fish alone.

I wonder at his quiet. Even at peace most people jangle. I’ve met no one yet this blank and quieter than hushed.

His silence allows me to hear the noise of the others, far beyond this room. The Blue ones rumbling around the building all thump, thump, thumpity thump thump. Why do they all sound the same?

And then there’s the Ladybird, plump as a pigeon up in his office. His music is sour and rotten as dead fish on the shore. Do pigeons even eat fish? Bet he’d eat anything. Wish he’d flown farther.

Which makes me think of Carter. I worry about Lily, sluggish as she is. Will she see Carter’s truths? Will he tell her? God knows she won’t hear them. She’s moving too fast to hear anyone’s music but her own. She’s so set, but I know he could make her settled. I tried to sync their noise into music, but they both pushed back. Too obdurate to be obliging.

Silly Lily. How can she resist someone who brings gum and sounds like math?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lily

Sure, as soon as Carter set the bomb down outside the storage closet, I knew our room would be in the blast zone. But knowing that and hearing the boom were two different things. There should have been something cathartic about blowing up the room that had been both my sanctuary and my prison. But I also felt a pang in my heart. I was already missing the sanctuary that room had provided, even if it had never really been safe.

I didn’t have time to analyze the feeling. There were footsteps pounding past the door. Collabs running toward the explosion to investigate.

As soon as the footsteps passed, Carter edged over to the railing. “Pebbles?” he mouthed.

I was confused for only a second, thinking of cereal I’d loved as a kid. Then I nodded and reached into my pocket. I did the usual routine and watched as the pebble bounced down the stairs. Silence followed. I looked over at him and he held his head cocked to one side, still listening. Then finally he nodded and we moved.

My feet pounded on the stairs, seeming way too loud. Like I was a thundering elephant. Behind me, Carter might have been lighter on his feet. I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of my heart and the slap of my shoes on the metal treads. It was more than fear that drove me forward. We were almost out. Almost free. We’d made it down one flight and then another and another.

He stopped me on the second floor. “Okay, here’s where it gets tricky. Wait here for second.” Then he seemed to remember what I’d said earlier about needing to know where he was going and he turned back to me. “I’m going to go out into the hall. Do a quick surveillance to make sure there aren’t any Collabs out there and then I’ll come back for you. If I’m not back in five minutes—”

“Just come back,” I said.

“Okay.”

Carter slouched his shoulders a bit and his features settled into an expression of insolent disinterest. Suddenly, he really looked like a Collab. Even though the difference between this Carter and my Carter was minor, the effect was huge. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much a part of him that tough military posture was.

Before I could marvel at it, he swung the door open and slunk out into the hall. I waited in the darkness, counting my heartbeats. He came back quickly and ushered me out into the hall. We all but ran to the staff room on the second floor.

Once we were there, Carter slipped his backpack off his shoulder, unzipping it as he walked. I watched with trepidation as he pulled the harness and cables from the bag.

“We’re not really going to use that, are we?”

“We’re not. You are.” He pushed open the door to the second-floor staff room and dread slammed into me.

“I so don’t want to do this.”

Carter dumped his pack against the wall and swung the rope over his shoulder. He passed the harness to me. “Put this on. Your legs go through here.” He indicated two hoops in the harness. “This strap goes around your waist. Snug, but not tight. The belay goes in front.”

I stood there mutely for a minute, watching him move around the room, holding a carabiner in one hand, tugging on various things with the other. The doorknob. The cabinet handles. Even the handle on the hatch to the trash chute. He seemed to dismiss each one. Mounted on the wall opposite the trash chute was a coatrack with a row of two-pronged hooks. A single canvas tote hung from a hook. He pulled the tote off, letting it fall on the floor, then gave the hook a tug. It held. He tugged again. Then he held it with both hands and hung on to it as he climbed up the wall, letting it support his entire weight. He let go and dropped to the ground.

He opened the carabiner and slid it around the base of one of the hooks. Then he glanced over his shoulder and realized I was still standing there holding the harness in my hands. “Hey, you okay?”

I swallowed. My voice quavered when I spoke. “I don’t like . . . small spaces.”

“You did just fine in the closet earlier.”

Yeah, but I’d had him there to distract me. And, yeah, I’d lived in a tiny closet for months, but this was much tighter. And vaguely reeked of garbage. Yikes. “Sure, that was the same. I also don’t like being trapped. Or heights.”

He came to stand in front of me, placing his hands on mine. “You’ll be just fine.”

“Why not just take the stairs the rest of the way down?”

He must have seen through my question to the fear beneath. His tone softened. “Because thirty minutes ago, there were Collabs all over the first floor. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it was the safest, fastest way to get you out of the building.”

I looked down at the harness in my hands, then back up at him. I nodded, but couldn’t talk past the dread lodged in my throat.

He reached out a finger and tipped my chin up so I was looking at him. “Hey, you’re kick-ass. You can build bombs and beat the crap out of a guy. Don’t wimp out on me now. You can do this.”

When he looked at me like that, I almost believed I could.

He held out the harness and I automatically stepped into it. As he buckled it on, he spoke simply and calmly. Like he was trying to soothe a horse. Or a spooked Green. “You’re going to rappel down to the basement. All the offices down there have high windows that open at ground level.”

“How did you—”

“Yesterday, before fourth meal. I did a little exploring. Go to the nearest room with an exterior wall. You should be able to climb out. Wait for me in that spot for another fifteen minutes. If I’m not there by then, you bail. Go straight to the place by the fence where I found you last night. Sebastian and Mel will meet you there.”

Panic started clawing its way free of my throat, but I ruthlessly shoved it down. I couldn’t think about the possibility that he might not come find me. That we might be leaving the Farm without him.

“What exactly are you going to be doing?” I wanted to sound strong and fierce, but my voice came out weak.

“I’m a Collab.” He spread out his arms to indicate his outfit. “Hopefully, I’m going to just walk out of here.”

I wasn’t sure what terrified me more, the idea of rappelling down a trash chute or the thought of leaving Carter.

I didn’t want to abandon him. I didn’t want to think of his fate if he got left behind. But even more terrifying, there was a tiny part of me that was afraid I couldn’t do this without him. He’d been back in my life for less than a day and—

Holy crap, had it only been a day?

How was that possible? How had I become so reliant on him in such a short period of time?

That thought gave me courage. I had to be strong enough on my own. If the past six months had taught me anything, it was that I couldn’t rely on others. I had to be strong. Not just for me but for Mel.

Carter tightened the strap around my waist, talking as he tugged on the bits of gear. “This is your brake.” He held out a piece of aluminum made up of two circles, one on either end, with the rope threaded through it. “Keep your brake hand right here and squeeze the rope to stop. You loosen your hand, the rope slips through. Pretty simple. You don’t have far to go and the space is tight. It would be almost impossible for you to free-fall, okay?”

“Got it. Squeeze to stop.”

“The hook on the wall should hold. You only have to go down two flights. And it’ll be pretty tight. At the bottom, you just step out of the gear, climb out the window—”

“Yeah, I got it.” I cut him off abruptly. I could not stand here thinking about the possibility of plummeting to my death. Or the possibility that Carter might get caught. Instead, I’d think about Mel.

The belay attaching my harness to the rope was right at gut level and he gave it another tug, testing its strength. The action pulled me a step closer to him. He handed me the brake and the extra rope.

“You’ll be fine.”

“Right.” I tightened my backpack straps and then turned to face the trash chute.

“One more thing—”

I turned back to face Carter, only to find him right behind me. The line stretched from my belay to the hook in the wall and back to the brake. All my gear was still between us, but he was standing so close his hip bumped against the belay.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asked.

“Um . . . sure.”

“As soon as I walk out that door, I want you to concentrate on one thing.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to think about the Collabs not seeing me. Them just letting me walk by. Just think it over and over again, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” But I wasn’t sure. “You want me to, like . . . pray for you or something?”

He looked surprised, so I knew that wasn’t actually what he’d meant, but he nodded and smiled. “That’ll work.”

“’Cause you don’t seem the type to believe in prayer.”

“I’m the type who believes in whatever works.” He fiddled with my belay and brake. “Here, give yourself a little slack.”

I fed some of the extra rope through the figure-eight brake, just enough to give me room to climb into the garbage chute. The hatch door was at about chest height. Carter dragged the table over to the wall. “Step here. You should be able to wiggle in from here.”

It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Climbing feetfirst into a waist-high tube that’s two feet by two feet, isn’t easy under any circumstances. The harness and belay only made things more awkward.

I went through the hole on my belly. Once my feet were in, Carter stood up and held on to my arms, easing the rest of me in. With the backpack, my torso hardly fit through the opening.

My heart pounded in my ears. I wiggled my butt farther into the trash chute and felt the rope go taut. Licking my lips in concentration, I felt for the brake.

“Hey, you okay?” Carter asked, giving my arm a squeeze.

“I’m climbing into a trash chute and about to plummet to my death. Do I look okay?”

He chuckled. “Hey, trust me. This is going to work.”

“It better,” I grumbled, easing a few more inches in.

He bent close to me. “One more thing—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, trying to look down the chute past the bulk of my backpack. “I’ll pray for you or whatever. Just go.”

“That wasn’t my one more thing.”

I looked up at him. He slipped a hand behind my head and leaned down, planting his lips on mine in a fast, fierce kiss.

It was over entirely too quickly. Before I could respond he lowered me the rest of the way into the trash chute.

“I’ll see you outside the building under the tree.”

I nodded and then realized he probably couldn’t see me. “Okay.”

My hands were shaking. No, my whole body was. I didn’t want to be trapped here in this stinking trash chute. I wanted—quite desperately—to be back in that closet with Carter’s arms around me in those few moments before the Collabs arrived. Now he was gone and I might never see him again.

I felt the walls of the trash chute closing in on me like my own regrets, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I released the brake and started the long drop down to the bottom.

There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room in the trash chute. The harness squeezed tight on my legs and butt. I’d probably have bruises tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. Assuming this rigging held and I didn’t go plunging to my death in the basement of the science building. And if the Collabs didn’t catch me on the way out. And if I made it across campus to meet up with Sebastian, Carter, and Mel.

God damn it. I was tired of these lists of ifs.

All I could do was inch my way down, knowing that eventually I would reach the basement. Of course, I had no idea what was waiting for me in the basement.

To distract myself, I started keeping my promise to Carter.

“Please let no one see him,” I muttered, alternately squeezing and releasing the brake. “Let him just walk right out of there. Let him be invisible. Please. Please. Please.”

Realizing I’d been squeezing my eyes shut, I forced myself to open them. Was it a little lighter in here? I glanced down. Though I was unable to see the ground below, I could see a faint square of light coming from around the hatch door below me.

Then, from somewhere above me, I heard a voice.

I breathed out slowly, trying to hear past the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears. Then I felt the rope thrum beneath my hand, the way a spider can feel the vibrations of a fly landing on her web. Someone, up above me in the maintenance room, had grabbed hold of my rope. As taut as the rope was, I didn’t think anyone would be able to get the carabiner off the coatrack. Still, someone knew I was in here. Or they would soon.

I hung there frozen for a minute, my gaze pinned on the small square of light above me, unable to move, paralyzed by the irrational feeling that whoever was up there wouldn’t notice me if I was still.

Then something dark blocked out the light. A head poked in through the hatch.

“Hey,” a voice called, “is someone down there?”

The voice was rough and unfamiliar. Not Carter’s. The faint hope that it might be him up there vanished completely.

He would be far away by now. Probably already outside the building, making his way to the stadium. I was on my own.

The head disappeared for a moment, but the rigging was so loud, I didn’t dare go farther down. Still, I had little hope that he’d left.

A second later, the head was back and the bright beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness. It followed the rope down through the trash chute to my location. The light landed on my upturned face, blinding me for an instant. I closed my eyes, turning my face away from the light.

“I found her!” the voice called. “Hey, I found her!”

Shit!

I was out of time. Descending cautiously had gotten me only halfway there. I released the brake again, keeping my eyes closed, ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I dropped several feet at once.

“Hey! Stop!” the voice called again.

The rope slipped beneath my hand as I descended and I felt it twang oddly.

Then I did stop. What was going on?

I looked down, trying to gauge how much farther I had to go. The rope shifted under my hand again. I looked up, but could see nothing. The rope twitched back and forth. My heart leapt as I realized what that movement meant.