Underground (19 page)

Jordan's dad flew down the stairs.

‘Hey –!'

I twisted around, punching Calvin right in the groin. He grunted violently, and the air above my head blasted apart as he fired his rifle. There was a strangled shout from the stairs.

‘Dad!'
gasped Jordan, twisting under Barnett, who was sprawled on top of her now.

But it wasn't Mr Burke. The other guard – the one who'd disappeared upstairs – was up on the landing, gazing down at himself, like he still wasn't sure what had happened. Then his legs gave out and he went crashing down the stairs.

Jordan's dad leapt over him, horrified, and pounded down the rest of the stairs.

Calvin was doubled over, more worried about his own pain than the officer he'd just shot. I scrambled away from him. Too late. Calvin let the rifle fall to his waist and raised his pistol again. I shrank back, shielding myself with my hands. Something blurred over my head.

Calvin cried out and sprawled sideways as Jordan's dad screamed past, swinging the fallen guard's rifle like a baseball bat.

SMACK!

The pistol slipped out of Calvin's hand.

I steeled myself and charged at him, before I had the chance to talk myself out of it. We crashed back into the wall. Somewhere across the room, I heard Barnett cry out in pain as Mr Burke moved in to help Jordan.

My right hand slipped up to Calvin's head and came away sticky with blood.

‘Luke!'
Jordan yelled. ‘Put your hand in his mouth!'

Wha –?

But then my mind flashed back to Calvin's bizarre freak-out at the airport.
Oh.

I put my bloodied hand to Calvin's face, clawing at his mouth, trying to force open his clenched jaw.

He grabbed at his rifle, feet flailing as he pushed back up into a standing position. I threw down my other hand, trying to keep the weapon pinned to his stomach, but he was too strong.

My fingers slid over Calvin's face, drawing bloody trails down his cheeks. He gave up on the rifle, shoving me with both hands, knocking me back to the carpet.

Jordan's hands grabbed me from behind. ‘Luke –
come on!'

I looked up at Calvin. He was staring back, shivering with – With what?

Fear?

‘Barnett!' he called shakily.

Across the room, Barnett was struggling to his feet. ‘Sir?'

‘Stand down,' Calvin ordered, pressing closer to the wall. ‘We're not –' He took a shuddering breath. ‘Stand down.'

Jordan gave my jumper another tug and I got up. She was sobbing.

‘Chief –' Barnett's rifle was gone, but he reached for his pistol.

‘No!' said Calvin. ‘Please. Drop your weapon.'

Please?
I thought dizzily, edging toward the door.

‘Do it,' said Mr Burke, still brandishing his rifle at Barnett like a club, completely confused at Calvin's sudden change of heart.

Barnett threw up his hands. The pistol thudded to the carpet. Mr Burke backed away from him, joining Jordan and me at the door.

Montag was on the stairs, tending to the injured guard. He peered at Calvin like he was seeing something we weren't. Then his gaze fell on the three of us. ‘What are you waiting for?
Go!'

I backed through the door. As soon as we were out-side, Mr Burke turned and ran.

‘Wait!'
I called. ‘We need to –'

But he was already sailing over the fence.

The next-door neighbours stared, open-mouthed, from their front porch. There were others too, crouching behind fences or leaning out their upstairs windows.

‘Where did they go?' Mr Burke called. ‘Which way?'

The neighbours shrank back, no idea whose side they were supposed to be on.

‘Mr Burke!' I said, running out after him. ‘We can't!'

He walked into the middle of the street, dark eyes shifting from neighbour to neighbour.
‘WHICH
WAY?'

Jordan overtook me, shuddering with tears. ‘Dad!'

Mr Burke darted around the corner to meet her. The two of them took off, back toward Peter's place, and I realised Jordan wasn't heading for safety. She was running in the direction that the guards had been going in her vision. I took off after them.

On a good day, Jordan is easily faster than me. But this was not a good day. She was borderline hysterical now, and it was slowing her down.

I heard shouts from the other end of the street. A whole new batch of guards. I threw out a hand, catching the edge of Jordan's jumper. Mr Burke kept running, oblivious.

‘Let
go!'
Jordan stumbled forward, like she'd just drag me along behind her if she had to.

‘No,' I said, holding tight. ‘Call your dad back!'

She jerked sideways, trying to shake me. ‘Go, then! Go! Just get out of –' ‘You're coming with me,' I said, grabbing her arm with my other hand.

‘Let go!'

‘The cameras are back on! And those guards are going to be here in –'

‘I don't care!'

‘Jordan –'

‘Stop! I'm not –'

‘YOU CAN'T SAVE THEM!'

And for a second, she stopped fighting.

Behind her, I saw Mr Burke wheel around and start coming back.

‘I –
have –
to!' Jordan choked.

‘You can't,' I said. ‘Not like this. Not if it means –'

Mr Burke thundered up to us. He reached out to tear me away from Jordan.

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?' he shouted, almost as distraught as she was. ‘LEAVE HER!'

‘No – Dad –' Jordan elbowed him away.

I let her go. She stayed put, breathing hard, throwing another glance at the approaching guards with a look on her face that made me feel like my chest was caving in.

Jordan grabbed her dad around the wrist. She gave a spluttering cough and dragged him away into the bush.

Chapter 25

S
ATURDAY
, J
ULY
4
40
DAYS

Back underground. Back down the dark, spongy stairs, Jordan's shaky breath rasping in my ears the whole way.

Security had been only metres away when the entrance sealed shut above our heads. I just hoped it had still been dark enough to keep them from seeing where we'd disappeared to.

I heard confused voices downstairs. So Dad and the others were safe, at least.

I raced through to the surveillance room and found Dad huddled over the computer image of the entrance. Kara was leaning down behind him, holding a bloodied scalpel. I panicked for half a second, then realised what was going on. She was dealing with Mr Weir's suppressor.

‘We okay?' I asked, pushing past Soren. Something was nagging at me, fighting for my attention, but I couldn't work out what it was.

‘Yes,' said Dad in a weirdly hollow voice. ‘I think so.'

I looked down and saw a couple of guards racing under the camera, into the bush.

Kara turned as Jordan and her dad came in. For a second, I thought I saw a flicker of sympathy, but then she pursed her lips and said, ‘Oh, good. Another visitor.' She held up her scalpel. ‘Does he have one too?'

‘No,' I said hurriedly. ‘Just Mr Weir.'

Kara ducked back into the lab.

Jordan ignored her, running a ring around the table, trying to take in every screen at once.
‘Where are they?'

‘Here!' I said, spotting them. Jordan and Mr Burke loomed up behind me.

An unmarked door, out the back of the medical centre. Coffee Cart Guard was pushing Mrs Burke and Georgia inside. The curly-haired guard stood behind, rifle raised at their backs.

Ten seconds later, they were gone. Jordan collapsed on the desk. Mr Burke backed silently away from the screen, clutching the rifle in his hand even tighter.

I moved closer to Jordan, head spinning, still dizzy with adrenalin, no clue what to do for her. I put my hand on her back and she slumped down across my lap.

‘I'm going to go and get dressed,' Soren announced, oblivious as ever. He left the room.

I glanced over at Dad, and I realised what had been nagging at me. It was like someone had just plunged a knife into my gut.

‘Where's Mum?' I asked.

Jordan looked up.

Dad opened his mouth to answer and I realised that he didn't need to, that the hollowness in his voice before was answer enough. ‘She's not here,' he said. ‘I tried, but she wouldn't – She wouldn't come with me. She's still back at the house.'

‘She'll be okay,' said Jordan. ‘Montag'll look after her.'

‘Jordan, we've already –' I almost tripped as she shifted her grip on the bed frame we were carrying. ‘The whole reason Montag called us up there was because he
couldn't
look after her anymore.'

I lifted up my end of the bed, angling it around, and we finally got it in through the doorway. We lugged the rusty frame across Kara and Soren's living room and set it down against the wall.

We'd spent the last half-hour or so converting this place into another bedroom. Dad, Jordan and I had still been crashing on the couches every night, but now that there were nine of us down here, we'd decided it was time to work out some more permanent sleeping arrangements. As much as anything, I think we just needed something mindless to do.

The eight hours since we'd come back underground had felt like a movie I'd watched while I was half asleep. Like my brain had called a time-out and refused to take anything more in.

Jordan wiped the grime off her hands and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘At least your mum's got
someone
looking out for her.'

‘So does yours,' I said, coming around to join her. ‘As soon as we find a way into the medical centre –' ‘Yeah,' said Jordan, and it was enough to tell me she didn't want to go over it all again.

Once the initial panic of the morning had settled down a bit, Dad had dragged Jordan and me into the kitchen and forced us to eat something. By the time we'd finished, we'd both pulled ourselves together a bit.

Still, it didn't take Jordan long to get into another shouting match with Kara. This time, it was the suppressors. When we'd first got back this morning, Kara had shut Mr Weir's suppressor down without actually removing it, just like she'd done with ours. But then, somehow, Jordan convinced her it was about time she got us all back on the operating table and got rid of them completely.

It was possible that ‘somehow' was Jordan's dad looming over Kara through the whole conversation. Mr Burke was in there now, keeping an eye on Mr Weir while she did the surgery.

I watched Jordan out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing the shirt I'd had on the day Mum and I arrived in Phoenix. One of the few things I still owned from the outside world. Clothing options were pretty limited down here, so I'd given her some stuff from the bag Montag had packed me. It was totally a practical decision, but it changed the way I looked at her. Or maybe that wasn't the clothes.

Jordan turned to face me. She didn't say anything. She just fixed me with that same barely-holding-it-together expression she'd been wearing all day.

I wanted to do something. Hold her hand. Put my arm around her.
Something.
I wanted it to be simple. But there was nothing simple about any of this.

I leant forward. The springs from the mattress were starting to dig into my legs. ‘I hate this,' I sighed.

Jordan bit her lip, like I'd said something wrong. ‘What?'

‘All this,' I said, waving a hand at the makeshift bedroom. ‘Moving beds out of storage. It feels too much like – I don't know. Like we're settling in.'

‘Yeah,' said Jordan, shoulders relaxing slightly. ‘Well, better down here than up there.' She stood up. ‘Come on. One more bed.'

We headed back into Kara's room. What used to be Kara's room, anyway. She'd reluctantly agreed to move her stuff in with Soren so that Peter's parents could have some space to themselves.

More beds were piled up against the back wall, unused for years since the original team had abandoned the place.

‘We should go see Peter later,' said Jordan, hauling one of them down. ‘Fill him in on everything.'

I nodded, taking the other end.

‘We could even –' Jordan hesitated. ‘
Couldn't
we let him out for a while? He should be in an okay mood, right? Now that he knows his parents are safe.'

‘Yeah. Maybe.'

The Weirs had spent most of the morning in Peter's room. Mrs Weir was still down there with Dad. We'd explained the situation to them – as much as we
could
explain, anyway – and they'd both seen what he'd done to those guards back at their house, so they'd agreed to let us keep holding him there for now. But I could tell that was a conversation we'd have more than once. Especially after Peter told them it was Kara and Soren who'd abducted him in the first place.