Underground (14 page)

I surged forward, grabbing at her again, and this time my hand made contact. ‘Jordan! Come on –!'

‘No!' she moaned.

‘Jordan!' I dragged her around to face me. ‘Jordan! Get back here!'

She started shaking again. Gagging with her whole body. I clutched her arms, holding her at a distance in case she decided to vomit on me. I checked the street. No more security yet, but plenty of freaked-out neighbours.

My hands slipped on Jordan's arms, like for a second she was fading away again. ‘No! No, come on – Seriously Jordan, if you don't –' Jordan's body jolted one last time and she gasped.
‘Luke!'

She was back.

‘We need to go,' I said. ‘Peter's –'

A startled shout cut through the chaos in Peter's yard. The last guard standing was no longer standing. He
bounced
across the grass, a human tumbleweed, hurtling away from Peter, until he smacked into the side of the house.

More sounds of horror from the neighbours.

‘Was that –?' said Jordan, mouth falling open. ‘Did
he
do that?'

Peter straightened up, swaying unsteadily. He stared at the crumpled figure across the yard, then turned toward us and clambered over the fence. His steps were slow and uneven, like he'd worn himself out too much to even walk straight.

‘Hurry!' I hissed. Half the lights in the street were on by now. People were keeping their distance, but they were watching.

I couldn't wait to see what Shackleton came up with to make this one go away.

Peter lurched closer. As he moved out into the streetlight, I saw blood glistening on his fists, and more trickling down from his nose.

Jordan took his arm, pulling him toward the bush.

‘Did you see me?' Peter swayed again, flashing her a sickening smile. ‘I did it. I – I saved you.' He pitched forward and slumped to the ground.

Unconscious. Again.

‘Are you
serious?'
I muttered.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and got him up over my shoulder, my legs buckling under his weight.

‘You got him?' said Jordan, sweeping the crowd in case anyone decided to try something.

‘Yeah,' I grunted, and took one last look at the house. I could see the dark shapes of Peter's parents watching from their bedroom window.

I turned away and followed Jordan into the bush.

Chapter 18

W
EDNESDAY
, J
ULY
1
43 D
AYS

The tunnel entrance rolled open.

I looked around, making sure we weren't being watched. But I guess Peter's neighbours had seen enough of his rampage to put them off following us.

Jordan slipped into the ground as soon as the gap was wide enough. I staggered after her, nearly losing Peter for a second, and scratched around for the button on the wall. But someone downstairs was already taking care of it. As soon as my head dropped clear, the entrance started rumbling shut again.

Down was definitely easier than up, but it was still slow going with Peter on my back. More than once, his weight shifted unexpectedly and the two of us almost went sailing over the edge of the stairs.

‘Someone should really let these guys know about the invention of the lift,' I grumbled as we finally reached the bottom, breaking the silence for the first time since we'd left Peter's place.

Jordan turned to look at me, and I stopped short at the expression on her face. She looked pale. Sick. Eyes clouded over with a scarily un-Jordan-like dread. I could tell right away that it was about more than what we'd just seen up on the surface.

More than what
I'd
just seen up there, anyway.

Dad came running up the hallway toward us. Kara trailed after him.

‘Is everyone okay?' Dad asked. He frowned at Peter, then reached out to pull him down from my shoulders. ‘He didn't wake up?'

Kara scoffed, snatching up one of Peter's bloodied hands. ‘He didn't do
this
in his sleep.' She shot a nasty look at Jordan and me. ‘If only someone had warned you about taking him up to the surface.'

Jordan pulled two discs from the pocket of her jumper. Kara snatched them out of her hand.

‘He was – He's worse than before,' I said, as Dad hoisted Peter up into his arms. I stared at the trickle of dried blood streaking down over Peter's mouth.

‘Of course he's worse than before,' Kara muttered.

She was halfway up the corridor before I realised what she'd just said.

‘Hey, what?' I said, racing to catch up. ‘You
know
what's happening to him?'

Kara pushed into the lab and picked up an auto-injector pen. She snapped it open and tipped out a little plastic cartridge. ‘He's deteriorating,' she said, pulling a new cartridge from a box on the bench.

Jordan appeared in the doorway. ‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘It means he needs to be dealt with,' Kara loaded the new cartridge into the pen and clicked it shut, ‘before the situation becomes
truly
unpleasant.'

She jabbed Peter's leg as soon as Dad brought him through the door.

‘Not unconscious enough already?' said Dad.

Kara pocketed the pen and took the discs across to the surveillance room. Dad laid Peter down and we followed her through.

Kara cursed under her breath as she entered the room.

My eyes dropped to the circle of laptops and I saw why. The security feeds were gone, replaced by the same error message on every screen.

Connection lost.

I glanced down at my watch. 12.04 a.m.

The new security system was online. And it looked like the old one had been made redundant.

Kara sat at one of the computers and dismissed the error message, sticking the first disc into the drive. A window popped up with a single audio file.

‘Crazy Bill gave this to us the week I got here,' I told Dad.

Dad raised an eyebrow. ‘You're getting your information from someone called
Crazy –
?'

‘Do you want me to hear this or not?' said Kara, turning to glare at us.

She opened the file. And even though we must've listened to this conversation a hundred times by now, I still held my breath like I was hearing it for the first time.

‘I take it our final arrivals have landed?'
asked a casual voice, over the static.

‘Yes, sir,'
replied a second voice.
‘Aaron is showing
them to their living quarters as we speak.'

‘Nothing concerning to report?'

Kara spun around on her chair again. ‘Who are these people?'

‘Seriously?' I said. ‘That's Shackleton and Calvin. They're the people
running
this place!'

‘No, sir. The boy has a father on the outside with whom
he was quite fixated on getting in touch,'
said Calvin.

Dad squeezed my shoulder. He was smiling, almost triumphant, and for the first time in forever I felt like maybe we'd actually achieved something. It was just one more person against the whole of the Cooperative, but it was
something.

The conversation continued, and Dad's smile vanished. We'd already told him most of what was in the recording, but that wasn't the same as hearing it for himself. There's a difference between a set of facts in your head and actually
knowing
something.

‘In a hundred days, there won't
be
anyone left on the
outside!'
said Shackleton, losing patience.
‘Until that
time, it is imperative that the people of Phoenix remain
under the belief that their lives are progressing as normal.'

Kara was a statue. The colour had drained away from her skin and she was gripping the second disc so hard I thought it was going to snap, but the fierce, stony expression on her face hadn't shifted a millimetre.

‘A hundred days, Bruce,'
said Shackleton, bringing the conversation to a close.
‘That's all. A hundred more
days and then this will all be over.'

Dad's arm came down around my shoulder again. He looked at me like he had something important to say, but couldn't get the words out.

‘You're alive,' he managed eventually.

I breathed out. ‘Yeah.'

And I guess that was an achievement too.

Kara ejected the first disc and slotted in the second. In a minute, she'd be watching a couple of Cooperative employees get torn to shreds in slow motion.

Jordan hovered in the doorway. The same despair was still etched across her face, like she'd just been told she was dying.

‘Come on,' I whispered, as a creepy-looking brown-haired woman appeared on the screen. ‘We don't need to watch this again.'

I pulled her back out into the lab. She turned to face me and my hands reached automatically for hers. ‘What did you see?' I asked.

Jordan tilted her head, obviously surprised that I'd guessed what she was thinking about. Like it wasn't all over her face. She swallowed. ‘They were taking my family.'

‘Calvin?' I said.

‘Yeah,' said Jordan. ‘Well, two of his men. They had Mum and Georgia, at least. I don't know about Dad. Georgia was –' She rolled her head back, trying to stop the tears. ‘She was
screaming,
and they were just –' ‘When?' I asked.

‘I don't know. Morning.'

Jordan bit her lip, thinking. ‘It was a Saturday,' she said. ‘Georgia was in her soccer stuff. But she wears her uniform to bed on Friday nights, so it could've been –'

‘Why does she do that?' I asked.

‘Because she's six!' said Jordan, exasperated. ‘How should I know?'

‘Okay,' I said, searching for some way to be reassuring. ‘Okay, so –'

Dad came out to join us and my mind went blank. He sat back against one of the benches, slowly shaking his head.

Kara walked out after him, arms folded. I'd expected her to look disturbed, and she did, but there was something else in her expression too. Cold calculation. Like she still knew something we didn't and was trying to quickly add it all up.

But Jordan was clearly in no mood to string this out. ‘Well?' she snapped.

‘Yes,' said Kara, exasperated. ‘You may stay here. For the time being. You're hardly giving me a choice, are you?' Not a hint of apology for everything she'd put us through.

‘Thanks,' said Jordan, rolling her eyes. She strode across the room and grabbed Kara by the front of her coat. ‘Now, how about filling us in on exactly
why
you've been watching us all this time?'

Kara glanced down at Jordan's hands. She raised an eyebrow. ‘And why would I want to do that?'

‘Are you kidding?' I said. ‘How about the part where you abducted Peter and held us all prisoner down here? You don't think you owe us a few answers after that?'

But if I'd been expecting those recordings of ours to magically transform Kara from enemy to ally, I was way off the mark.

She detached herself from Jordan. ‘I don't owe you any such thing. I am offering you sanctuary while we resolve this situation. But I am a long way from offering you my trust.'

‘No, of course not,' spat Jordan. ‘We've only risked our lives to bring you proof of who's really behind this. Why should that be any reason to trust us?'

Kara faltered for just a second, like maybe she was going to hear Jordan out, but then she pushed on again. ‘As I said, this is at best a temporary measure. And for as long as you are guests in my home –'

‘Fine. Whatever.' Jordan nodded in the direction of the hallway. ‘C'mon Luke, let's go.'

‘What?' said Kara and I at the same time.

Jordan was already halfway across the room. ‘We're going back for my family.'

‘Now?'
I said. ‘No. We can't. Even if those cameras
hadn't
just – You're only a few blocks up the road from Peter's place. We wouldn't even get close.'

‘We have to!' said Jordan. ‘My mum's about to be –'

‘And my mum is up there playing happy families with Montag,' I cut in. ‘But we can't just –' Dad looked up. ‘Sorry?'

Ugh,
I thought. Not exactly how I'd planned on letting that news come out.

‘Saturday, right?' I pushed on, catching her in the doorway. ‘That's when Calvin's coming for them?'

‘Yeah, probably, but –'

‘So we've got some time,' I said. ‘Three days to figure out a way in.'

‘And what if we can't?' said Jordan.

‘Then we can still go running blindly into the path of danger. But not tonight. Jordan – we can't just keep going like this. We need to
sleep
.'

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realised just how tired I was. Tonight had been nuts, even by our standards, and neither of us had had a full night's sleep since we'd left home a week ago.