Unbreakable (Unraveling) (20 page)

It’s everywhere, the heat of it coming up through the grate and making me sweat. For a second I think about the extinguisher but quickly dismiss it as something we could use. The volume of the flames is just too great.

As I’m looking down into the sewer, I see the water—and I’m saying
water
because I don’t want to think about what it actually is—but the fire floods the path we need to take in order to get there.

The fire must be coming from pipes in the walls, like a complex system of blow torches, a lot of them going off at the same time.

I count how long the flames seem to last and how long the break is between them. It’s not long. We’re going to have to jump through the fire in order to get out of here.

There has to be a way for us to go through without getting burned. I look back at the room.

The cot.

I run to it and pull the sheets off, then I move to the sink and crank the water. When the sheets are fully soaked, I wrap one around my shoulders and the other around Elijah.

I drag him to the grate.

“You should have fucking left me in that cell,” he says when he sees the flames.

“You need to trust me,” I say. “And you need to hold your breath.”

I have Elijah go first because we don’t have long before guards come barreling through this door, and he’s not going to be able to defend himself if he’s alone. I push him so he’s seated on the edge of the open grate with his legs dangling over the fire. The fire blares for six seconds, and then there’s about a two-second respite from the flames, which means he can’t try to climb down quickly. He’s going to have to jump through the tunnel, and he’s going to have to
start
the jump while the fire is on its last second, or else he’ll get caught in it when it comes back on.

“My feet are fucking burning,” he says, and I can see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows.

“Actually, they’re not yet,” I say. “Fold your arms across your chest, tuck your chin, and close your eyes. When I tell you to hold your breath and go, you have to do it. You can’t wait.”

“Fuck you,” he answers, but then glances at me, presses his lips together, and adds, “Don’t you dare get stuck up here.” His voice is serious and raw, and I think if we make it out of here, we might actually be friends.

“Stay underwater,” I say.

He grunts in acquiescence and looks down, tucking his chin.

The flames die out.

“On six,” I say.

The flames come back on.

“One . . .” I whisper. “Two . . .” I keep my voice as even as possible. “Three . . .” I put my hand squarely on Elijah’s back. “Four . . .” I hope this works. “Five.” And as soon as I say it, I give him a push.

I scramble into his position as he disappears, and I hope he remembers to hold his breath. I see the splash right before the fire flares back up again, and I repeat my count.

One
.

My feet are dangling toward the fire.

Two
.

I cross my arms over my chest and pull the wet sheet around me.

Three
.

I tuck my chin, look down, and fight to ignore the panic welling up in my chest.

Four
.

Sweat drips down the center of my back.

Five
.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and throw myself down into the sewers.

And I scream.

It’s unbearably hot, almost like the first time I went through a portal. Just the heat in the air singes my hair and burns my skin.

Then something cold and grimy hits me, and I realize I’ve made it. I’m underwater. I open my eyes and see something dark that I’m hoping is Elijah. I reach for it, grabbing it. It’s an arm, and it’s warm, which I suppose is a good thing. He moves and his hand squeezes my arm before he starts to swim to the surface. But I grab him and hold on tight. He can’t go up just yet.

Pulling him with me, I try to swim forward.

And when it’s just about time, I jerk him up, and our faces break free. The stench of burning is everywhere—burning plastic, burning hair and skin, burning sewage.

“Another big breath!” I say, glancing around to make sure we’re moving in the right direction. We are.

Elijah takes a huge breath, and we both plunge back into the sewage. The fact that I’m pulling him, that we’re both in our clothes, moving through sludge—it all makes us too slow. We need to hurry. As soon as they realize where we’ve gone, they’ll turn off the fire and head into the sewers to try to find us.

I can feel the moment the fire is shut down. The temperature immediately drops about ten degrees, and even though the air is still thick with the burning smell, it’s easier to breathe.

Pulling Elijah up, we break the surface and I yell, “Swim as fast as you can and follow me!”

Because they’ve found us.

I
hear voices in the tunnel behind us. Because of the poor acoustics, I can’t make out what they’re saying—their voices bounce off the water and the closeness of the walls—and I only know they’re far enough that they can’t see us.

If they could, they’d be shooting.

I put my head down and swim. With every pull, I reach out and grab the water and try to push it behind me, kicking double-time and hoping Elijah can just hold on.

The tunnel splits off into different directions, but in front of us is a ladder that leads up into another tunnel, a vertical one, and above that, as long as he’s kept his word, is Barclay.

“Go first,” I say, pulling Elijah from the water. His hands shake as he starts to pull himself up, but his legs are worse. One is messed up from who knows what, and the other is just dead weight from being shot. I slip underneath him, so his body is resting on my shoulders. He grunts in protest, but we’ve got no other options.

I grab the metal bars and start climbing. All Elijah has to do is keep from letting go.

I keep climbing, driving us into darkness toward a little sliver of light at the top of the tunnel, and I pray that Barclay really is up there. Because if he’s not, I don’t know where to go from here.

“I see something,” Elijah says. Then he grunts, and there’s the screech of metal grinding against metal.

Elijah’s weight is pulled off me, and I quickly climb the last few rungs.

“Hurry up or we’re never going to make it out of here before they spot us,” Barclay says.

Elijah has collapsed onto the ground, coughing. “Did we make it?” he says.

“Almost.” I look at Barclay, and I’ve never been so glad to see him.

He pulls me the rest of the way out of the sewer tunnel, and we both grab Elijah.

Barclay has my backpack on his back and he pulls a quantum charger from his pocket. He’s apparently already set the destination, because he presses one button, and I hear it power up.

The portal opens in front of us, and something in my chest lifts as the cool air and the smell of the sea whips around us. Holding Elijah by the arms, I nod at Barclay, and all three of us step through.

W
e end up in a heap on the ground, chests heaving. My body aches, my skin feels raw, like I have a really bad sunburn, and my mouth is so dried out it hurts.

I glance around, but it only takes a second for me to realize we’re in the same abandoned world Barclay took me to on our way here.

Which means we’re safe.

My eyes burn, and warm tears roll down my singed skin.

Once the portal shuts behind us, Barclay grabs me by the shoulders and turns me to face him. “Are you hurt?” he asks, pulling my wet clothes aside to check for blood.

I’ve never been so glad to see his face in my entire life. Those blue eyes, high cheekbones, and strong jaw. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want to wrap my arms around him, bury my face in his shoulder, and never let go.

At least, I do for a second, then I remember this is Barclay and this was his plan in the first place, and that helps me get over it.

“Janelle, are you hurt?”

His grasp digs into me, and the pain shoots through my shoulders. I shake my head and try to push him away, but he’s holding on too tight.

“What happened?”

“It’s not my blood,” I say, finally succeeding in getting him off me.

But that reminds me. I look down, and all I can see is blood. A lot of it’s been washed away, but it’s still in my hair and under my fingernails. Even my hands look stained.

“Whose is it?” he says, looking to Elijah.

“A guard,” I say, even though I can’t believe these are my words. “I killed him.”

As I say it, it really sinks in. This past fall, I saw someone die right in front of me, and I thought that was bad enough. But now I’ve killed someone. With my own hands, I shoved a jagged piece of metal into his neck and I felt his blood wash over my hands, soak itself into my skin.

I think about his face, and my stomach heaves. I turn away from Barclay, bend at the waist, and vomit acid and protein bar onto the grass.

“Is she okay?” Elijah asks, as I heave again. “The guard, he fucking shot me. Did he get her too?”

“She’s okay, just shock,” Barclay says. He rubs a hand on my back and says, “Don’t worry, this always happens the first time, it’s normal.”

I can’t imagine those words have ever made anyone feel better.

And if it couldn’t possibly get any worse, he adds, “It gets easier.”

I have just enough breath to say, “God I hope not,” before I deposit the rest of the acid from my stomach onto the grass.

B
arclay checks out Elijah’s wounds and gives each of us a change of clothes from my backpack.

Then he crouches next to me. “He’s in bad shape,” Barclay whispers. “I think the bullet was a through-and-through, but I can’t be sure there’s not a fragment of anything in there.”

For a second I just stare at him. I’m not sure what he wants from me.

Barclay must sense that because he adds, “He needs a hospital.”

I nod. Right now, I feel like I might need a hospital too.

“I know a good one,” Barclay says. “It’s a world similar to your home one, where there’s no interverse travel and not a lot of disturbances. We’ll be safe there as long as we don’t stay too long.”

I don’t say anything, and Barclay grabs my shoulders and gives them a shake. My gaze falls on his neck and for some reason, I imagine the mirror sliding into his neck and blood pouring out.

“Look at me,” he says, his grip tight on my shoulders.

I lift my eyes to his.

“Whatever happened, it was not your fault,” he says. “After this is over, you can cry, but right now, I need you to snap out of it.”

It’s not a great pep talk, but it gets me moving. I don’t have to think too hard to remember we’ve only got three and a half days left to take down a trafficking ring and save everyone I care about.

T
he hospital is in a seedy section of town—wherever we are—that Barclay calls Little Beijing. The waiting room is filled with kids with runny noses and coughs, and a guy who has pinkeye.

As we approach the reception desk, the woman behind it blushes, her ivory skin turning bright pink as she sees Barclay and then drops her eyes. She can’t suppress the smile already forming on her lips.

Barclay leans into her, speaking fast in a language I don’t recognize. It might be Chinese or it might be something else entirely. I have no idea.

But it works.

She stands up, gestures to Elijah and me, then escorts the three of us back into an empty room.

A doctor comes in, and the receptionist speaks to him in the same language I can’t understand, then he gestures for Elijah to lie back on the bed. The doctor flicks the extra overhead light on and starts examining his leg.

I try to think about Ben and what it’s going to be like when I see him—how he’ll wrap his arms around me and everything will make just a little more sense.

Only, every time I picture his face, it’s not Ben I’m seeing. All I can see is the guard I killed, his one eye messed up, the jagged piece of mirror sticking out of his neck, and the blood coming like a wave over my hands.

He could have children who love him more than the world. Maybe they quote movies or TV shows to each other and maybe he doesn’t know how to cook or can’t ever seem to remember to lock the front door.

My hands are still stained. His blood, now turning black, is under my fingernails and in my cuticles. Looking at them, I know deep down that it doesn’t matter how many times I wash them. Even when the stains come out, my hands will never be the same.

Someone taps my shoulder and I turn around to the receptionist. She’s offering me a tube of something.

“Anti-burn cream,” Barclay says, coming up next to me. “Try not to use too much. They can only afford to give us one.”

I take it from her.

Elijah groans. I step forward, but his bullet wound is already clean and bandaged. The doctor is working on his bad leg.

The leg is twisted, like it was broken and didn’t heal right.

I feel sick to my stomach. This is the kind of injury that says, “Your life will never be the same.”

Elijah will probably never walk right again. There will always be a hitch in his step. He won’t run as fast and he won’t have the same kind of balance. The leg will have to be rebroken and reset.

But not tonight.

As if he knows what I’m thinking, Elijah gives me a wry smile. “Having regrets?”

“Don’t be stupid,” I say automatically. Because I’m glad we got him out of there.

The doctor says something to me, and though I don’t know what, I can tell he wants me to back away, so I do. I’m not willing or ready to see the damage I’ve done to myself in a mirror, but I open the tube and apply some of the cream to my face while I’m standing there. The cooling effect when it hits my skin makes me sigh, even though it stings a little.

“Here, take this too,” Barclay says as he hands me two pills. I put them in my mouth and struggle to swallow them. It’s hard without water, and when they go down, they leave the nasty taste of medicine in my throat.

“You should sit down,” he adds. “We need to rest.”