The Ward (20 page)

Built very differently from everything else, but I’ve heard the governor’s home looks just as stately, with fancy columns and the like. Under my breath, I mutter something about how living on the Isle must not be much different from the city Before.

A dull, unobtrusive beep announces that we’ve reached Quad Nine.

I bring the mobile up, lifting her toward sea level. “Almost there,” I announce.

The Omni dips and nods on the surface, though I try and keep her steady for Callum’s sake. I glimpse around, looking for helis in the air or other subs in the water. The glare is wretched out here on the water, so I shield my eyes with the back of my hand. No sign of anyone.

“Looks clear,” Callum says shakily. “We won’t have much time though, before they arrive.”

Pointing east, I say, “That one,” and I steer us toward a tall brick building. About as similar looking as I can hope for. In daylight, it all comes down to height. After you’ve seen one abandoned building, you’ve seen ’em all.

But there, up in the corner—the red star with a circle around it.

Same one
. “We’re here. There’s the escape ladder I used.” I bring the mobile up to the building’s side and I don’t waste any time getting the roof open.

Like a jack-in-the-box, Callum sticks his head through the roof. He stands on the backseat and the boat sways, sending him onto one side. His legs start shaking—I flip on the prop on the opposite side to give a counterbalance. “Try not to move, okay?” I call up, and slowly turn off the prop. He straddles the seat with his feet quaking, grabbing on to the outside of the roof for stability.

“Sorry . . . I’m a bit uneasy on my legs at the moment.” He takes in gulps of the dank Hudson air.

Then, seeing the ladder, “You climbed that thing?” he asks warily.

“Yep,” I say, examining it. Tide’s even lower than yesterday, so the bottom rung is now a few good feet farther out of reach. “It’s easy peasy, don’t you worry.”

He’s clearly not ready. “How safe is it?” he asks.

“Callum. It’s a rusty fire escape ladder on a building that’s been abandoned for over a century, and it’s in the middle of a river. What do you think?”

Together we eye the distance between the Omni and bottom of the ladder.

“How do you plan on getting up there?”

The question strikes me as funny, like it’s a given that I’ve got a plan.

Under the backseat, I find a coiled line of rope. I let out about four feet, the distance to the ladder. Then, aiming for the space between the two bottom rungs, I hurl the remaining line through. When it falls out the other side, I’m able to grab it. I pass both ends to Callum, keeping them taut so we don’t drift.

“I want you to step on both ends, okay? Don’t let one slip. And no slack in the line, either. I’m going to climb up to the bottom rung. After I’m up, you’ll go. Got it?”

“Got it.” A pause. “And how will I get up?”

“We’ll make it work.”

Fighting against the mobile’s wobble, I stand, stepping a foot on either side of the roof. I grip the double lines of rope, one between each palm, and coil the bottoms around my ankles, like they taught in DI training.

Just a few feet, just a few feet
. My arms strain as I haul myself up, but it’s a short distance. Soon the rung is within reach, and I make a grab for it. Then I inch a bit higher and reach for the second rung. “See?” I grunt. When I’ve got that one, a final pull-up allows me to swing my toes onto the ladder and steady myself. “Like pie.” I heave, and I throw the rope back into the Omni.

“What did you do that for?” Callum yells, jumping out of the way.

“There’s a reason I didn’t tie it to your Omni, Callum. We can’t just leave her out in the open. If they come and we’re still here, they’ll know.

“Take my arm,” I tell him, now crouched low, dangling off the side of the ladder. “I’ll hold you steady and swing you in.”

Callum looks up at me, stands on the roof like I did.

“You’re . . . ahhh . . . sure you’re steady?” he asks, voice wavering. When he looks up at me, I see what he must have looked like as a little boy, smiling in spite of the sheer terror he’s obviously feeling.

“I’m steady,” I promise. “As soon as you’ve got a grip on my arm, be ready to lift your foot to the ladder. I’ve got you.”

Despite our agreement, the trust isn’t totally there, but his hand reaches out anyway. I grab for his forearm, wrapping my wrist around it. His palms are slick with sweat, sliding down my bicep. Using the ladder, I stand.

Callum’s toes lift off the Omni and closer to the bottom rung.

“Try and swing one leg up,” I tell him.

He’s able to—he presses the sole of one shoe down on the rung and gasps, relieved. He’s probably just realized he’d been holding his breath all along. As he tries to get his other foot to the ladder, though, more flakes of white paint chip off—they catch Callum’s eye. His mouth hangs open as he watches the chips sink onto the surface of the channel.

This little thing. It’s distraction enough. . . .

“Look at me, Callum. Don’t look down,” I tell him, but his foot is in midair and he’s so busy looking at the water below, his eyes can’t find the ladder.

My arm hurts; he’s gripping it too hard. It’ll come free of its socket if he doesn’t get up here soon. I’m pulled toward him, sliding forward off the ladder. I slip just a few centimeters. This turns him into a shaky mess, legs wobbling like they’ve got no muscle in them.

The one foot he has on the ladder slides off, and he’s dangling; the only thing keeping him from the icy channel is my arm.

But there’s no grip there, he’s too sweaty. “Grab the ladder with your free hand,” I shout, annoyed. It’s right there, right in front of his face.

Which would be perfect, if his eyes were open.

I bend down, bringing the one hand of his I’ve got a hold on to the lowest rung, all the while trying to keep my arm looped. “It’s right there, Callum.”

“I—I—” he stammers. “Swim. I can’t . . . quite swim.”

You’ve gotta be joking!

“For real?” I ask him. He opens his eyes, looks at me like a kicked dog.

Good God.

“Grab the ladder, Callum. It’s right there.”

Slowly, he peels his gaze from mine. It lands on the rung in front of his face and he grabs for it with his free hand. The other arm follows. He uses his upper body to pull himself up one rung, then the next, and at the third, his feet find the bottom of the ladder.

All four limbs, safe and secure.

I exhale, realizing that I too wasn’t breathing. Then I pull the key to the Omni out of my pocket and send her back underwater to wait.

Together, we make our way up the ladder and into the building. Without incident, surprisingly.

“Careful,” I call down to Callum. “The sill’s still covered with glass.” I step carefully, trying not to flick any shards out the window toward his face. Once inside, I hold out my hand. He takes it and collapses onto the floor on all fours. “Hope you’re in shape,” I say once we’ve both caught our breath. Callum eyes me as he rises to his feet. I can see his legs are still shaking from the climb, but he follows without complaining as I start leading the way to the stairs.

“Fifteen floors. Then back up again. And we’ve got”—looking at one cuffcomm—“about an hour till oh five hundred. If we move fast, we’ll have enough time.” I open the door into the stairwell, and add, “We’re lucky that rally’s going on today, or they’d have had enough manpower to section off the area beforehand.”

Callum looks down the stairwell, and I’d bet money that he’s wondering the same thing I did when I first saw it. “I know . . . weird, right? It’s not flooded.” With one hand on the banister, I watch as he pieces it together.

“But these lower levels are below sea level. How . . . ?”

“Someone must’ve bricked up the windows.”

Callum is quiet for a moment. “To keep the spring from going underwater.” Then he looks at me, and I get the feeling I’ve done something wrong without knowing what. “Ren,” he starts, “who else knows what you found? Aside from Chief, I mean.”

Does
anyone else know?

“Well, Aven . . .” I answer, but he just shakes his head, then changes the subject. “Best set the alarm. From down there, we might not be able to hear the helis. And if they come early . . .”

He doesn’t have to finish. I want to ask him what he’s not telling me, but he’s right.

If they come early, we’ve got no way out.

20

4:15 A.M., SUNDAY

“Y
ou hear that?” Callum asks once we hit the bottom of the stairwell.

The dripping that led me to the spring the last time—he hears it too. We’re close. “Point the flashlight along this side of the tunnel,” I tell Callum. “Over there—”

Right where it should be, the triangle of bricks that looks newer than the rest. I swing my boot into it. A rush of pain tears through my toes, now crunched together at the tip of my shoe.

“
Brack!
My foot.” I resist the urge to hop up and down. “It’s all been cemented together. They weren’t”—I swing again with the other foot—“like that before.”

Even though I’m not sure I’m making any progress, I don’t stop kicking. “The cement can’t have had time to harden yet.” Sure enough, as I say that, one of the bricks gives way. You fight with a thing long enough and it’s bound to budge. One more go should do it. “Someone was here not long ago.”

Callum grips my shoulder. “Who else knows you were here, Ren? Who else have you told?” His voice is suddenly hard-edged.

Confused, I shake him off. “No one, Callum. It’s just as much of a mystery to me.”

He waves his arms around and starts pacing back and forth in the tunnel. “Well, it couldn’t have been the DI—with today’s rally, if they’d found freshwater . . . trust me. We’d know. And I doubt your sick sister is responsible. So there must be someone you’re forgetting.” He takes a swipe at the cemented bricks. They crumble a bit.

I don’t like him accusing me, especially when I done nothing wrong. “Callum,” I start, through a seriously clenched jaw. “I—” My leg itches with wanting to kick something. “Didn’t—” Something like bricks. Bracing my hands against the wall, I ready myself for one final swing, Just as I finish my sentence, my foot connects with the wall. “Tell anyone.”

The bricks collapse into a pile, and every ounce of blood rushes to my now-smashed toes. I can feel my heartbeat pounding away straight down to my toenails. “Okay?”

He doesn’t answer, just nods and scowls a bit, lowering himself onto his knees. One by one, he moves the bricks away and inches through the crawl space.

“Don’t go too far or you’ll fall in,” I say at the last minute. And though that would be funny, I still tap him on the back of the thigh to make sure he heard me.

“Damn,” he groans. “My knee—I think I cut it open on this effing cement.” Some shards of the stuff lie scattered around the floor.

“You need a hand?”

He continues forward. I watch his body disappear into the gap behind the wall. I can hear him sliding farther and farther in, cussing all the while.

But, no splash. No fall. Why doesn’t he fall?

“What’s going on, Ren? Is this some sick joke?”

Is what some sick joke?

I drop to my knees and start to shimmy through the hole, fighting my gag reflex as I shake a rat from my knuckles. “What?” I ask, poking my head through. “What did I do?”

Callum sits, one knee bent upward, in the middle of the space. He flicks the light from the flashlight around, stopping at nothing.

Nothing. We’re sitting on mud.

That can’t be—“I swear, it was here. . . .” I scramble to my feet and take the flashlight from his hand, looking in the silliest of places. Behind him. Behind me. Above me. Like a river can flow from a ceiling.

Nothing.

My palms turn slick as eels. I’ve never understood claustrophobia. That is, not until these tunnel walls start contracting in on me. Breathing becomes an afterthought, a thing to remember to do.

“Without the spring, I’ve got nothing.” I choke the words out like they’re made of glue, and then force myself to my knees, fighting off the feeling of being swallowed from the inside.

The spring isn’t here, the spring isn’t here
. It’s all I can think.

And if this wasn’t done by the DI . . . The next thought puts me in a tailspin. “What’s Chief Dunn going to do when he gets here?” I groan, folding my head between my legs. “I’m so dead. He’s going to think I’m lying. . . .”

Callum doesn’t speak, just rips the hem from his pants and wraps the fabric around the wound. I shine the flashlight on it for him so he can see. His whole knee is red, the flesh there gaping. “Ugh,” he mutters.

“Wait . . .” I say. “Do
you
think I’m lying?”

“No.” He’s curt. “Unfortunately, I believe you.”

“What do you mean ‘unfortunately’?”

“Nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” I snap. “Why is it unfortunate?”

His sigh fills the small, dank space, makes everything feel tense. “There’s more you should know about the spring I’ve been searching for. I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. But the signs are evident.”

“Signs?” My voice is low, but in here it carries nonetheless.

“Ren, the reason I accused you back there of having told someone was because I’d hoped it was true. Because the alternative—that someone
else
knows—is worse.”

“What’s the alternative?” I ask, though I can see he’s about to tell me like I’m tied to railroad track waiting to get hit.

“The building. It wasn’t flooded
before you told the chief
. The bricks were cemented overnight. Now a mud pit sits where freshwater should be. Whoever knows you’ve found the spring is trying to sabotage any efforts you might make at finding it again.”

I look around the empty, cavernous space, despite the fact that I can barely see. “Who would . . .
Why?
Why would anyone do that? A spring that heals—in the Ward, of all places,” I say. “Why hide it?”

I hear Callum sigh through the dark. “I don’t know. I just know, this isn’t the first example. During my research I found many other instances of explorers who were close to finding the spring, only to have their efforts thwarted. Sabotaged.”