Heartless (21 page)

Sure enough, Lucy stopped heaving and lifted her head from between her knees. “What the hell,” she gasped. “I can’t breathe in here.”

The voice answered, cold and seething. “You see,” it said, “you interrupted our dear friend, the scientist, mid-procedure, when there was no one else around to handle you two troublemakers. But now that you’re here, we’ll have to destroy you both. I’m not sure he’ll get these two closed back up in time. We will add them to the list of girls you destroyed tonight, including yourselves. Just four more
mistakes
. Four more X’s on the wall.”

I looked past the horror show on the tables before us. There was a door at the other end of the room.

“Come on, Luce,” I said, taking her arm in mine. “Keep moving.”

“We can’t just leave them,” Lucy said, still gasping. “They’re desecrating the dead.”

“Good point,” I said. I stared at the bodies. “Got a light? My guess is those chemicals are flammable.”

A lifelong pyromaniac, Lucy always carried matches. She tossed me a half-f pack. “Do it.”

“We don’t know if there’s a way out,” I said.

“I don’t care. Destroy it all. End this.”

“What about all the evidence on your phone? The photos?”

Lucy’s mouth was set in a grim line, her jaw clenched and hard. “What’s more important? Notifying those parents, or stopping these people from ever doing this again?”

“You’re right.” We spoke quietly, our voices heavy with grief.

Above and around us, the voice roared. “What are you talking about? I can’t hear you. What are you saying?”

I struck a match and I smiled. This was right. This was what we had to do. I was only sorry I wouldn’t be able to save Lucy. Or to say goodbye to my parents and Eli.

The match’s flame was small, but sometimes, big things come from small beginnings. I touched the flame to a girl’s toe. She sputtered to light immediately, and then she burned bright green. I knocked an IV pole to the ground, allowing the chemicals to spill and ignite around the room.

“No! Stop it! Don’t burn my beautiful girls!” The voice howled as if in pain.

The other girl caught fire, and Lucy pulled me away. “Come on, come on! You have to come now! We have to try to keep going.”

A little piece of me wanted to stay, to end things there, on my terms. A spark alighted on my parka, and I watched with detached amazement as it began to smolder, working its way down toward my brittle, paper skin. Once it reached there, I knew, it would all be over in an instant.

From another room, pops sounded, like fireworks. The flames had spread rapidly as burning chemicals leaked beneath the door.

Meanwhile, the spark on my arm continued to burn, and I let it.

But then I turned and saw Lucy’s face, flushed and sweating in the light. She was so alive, so vibrant. I couldn’t let things end there. Not if there was any chance of saving her. And not while she still wanted to live.

I held out my arm and she patted out the tiny flame on the parka sleeve. We turned and ran for it.

We ran through door after door, room after room, but the fire kept coming. It roared as it consumed everything in its path. The voice over the speakers continued to yell things at us, but we couldn’t hear over the constant thunder of the flames and small explosions. We passed through more surgical rooms, rooms filled with jarred organs, a room dedicated to brains. Whoever ran this outfit had been doing it for years. It was massive, it was organized, and it was all burning.

And still we ran, down, down, down.

Beside me, Lucy began to cough. Thick smoke surrounded us, and I knew it had to be burning her lungs.

I ripped the scarf from my neck and shoved it into her hands. “Breathe through this!”

She did, but her footsteps became more erratic. She leaned on me even more for support, until I was all but carrying her.

We’re not going to make it,
I thought, staring at Lucy while I pulled her forward.
This is the end.

Her eyes pleaded with me to keep going. I tugged and pulled, holding her up by the back of the pants. I didn’t stop. We came to another door. It looked exactly like all the others.

I ran into it, full force, yanking Lucy along beside me. It burst open, and my nonexistent heart soared with relief. We tumbled back into the outside world, our bodies spilling out to a shallow path on the side of a mountain, surrounded by a raging blizzard. We were free, but the flames followed us through the door, so I kept on running until my feet found ice and slipped, and we began to fall.

Lucy and I flew off the path and slid down through the snow, down the side of the mountain like children on a sled in the winter’s first snowfall. We rolled and tumbled, and when we finally came to a stop, I didn’t think we’d gone any less than two hundred feet. Up above, I could barely make out the flames and smoke pouring from the open door.

Relieved laughter bubbled out of me as I lay back in the billowy snow. I turned to Lucy, smiling, but then I saw her lying there, motionless. Face down in the snow.

I couldn’t tell if she was alive.

Hi Jo,

Look, we need to talk. I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier; I just don’t want you taking stupid chances at this point, you know? I don’t want to see you get hurt.

I tried to call you and Lucy. Neither of you answered. I guess you’re probably pretty pissed. I get it.

Just…don’t do anything stupid, ok?

Love,

Eli

Baby,

Where are you? I tried calling you a few times this afternoon, but you didn’t answer. You’ve seemed a little off lately. I know you have mid-terms and that you had that fight with your boyfriend, but please. My mom-alarm is ringing. Something’s wrong. I know it.

If I don’t hear back from you soon, I’m getting on the next plane to New Hampshire. Daddy too. We’re concerned, and you know how he feels about your safety. AND you know how I feel about the dry New England winters. Please, call me. Email me. I’m here.

Love,

Mom

“L
ucy? Lucy? Are you dead? Oh my God, Lucy! Luce! Wake up!”

She lay in the snow, immobile. I leaned in close to her mouth to try to feel her breath on my face, but with my own diminished nerve endings and the blizzard raging around us, it was impossible. We’d fallen so far, and I was terrified of hurting her neck, but since she was unresponsive, I took a chance. I rolled her over and shook her. Hard.

“Are you alive?” I shouted over the noise of the wind.

Nothing. She was still. So I shook again.

Her eyes fluttered, then flew open. “Ow, ow, Jo, stop!” I could barely hear her.

“Are you alive?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said as she struggled to sit up. “I think so.” She looked around her and shuddered. “I’m so cold.”

We were in the middle of nowhere, far from the car, far from any place we recognized. There was no going up, back to the laboratory, where fire and death awaited us. But I didn’t think we were safe where we were, either. In the middle of the blizzard, in the middle of winter in the mountains, wearing only a coat, her only hat blown away into the abyss, Lucy was a sure goner. If we sat there and waited for someone to find us, she’d freeze to death in a matter of hours.

“We need to walk,” I said. “Down, I guess.”

“But my car?” Lucy looked up, where the flames from the lab were the only real source of light in the snowstorm.

“Later. We need to get you safe first. Can you walk?”

I pulled myself to my feet, struggling with every movement. Balance, coordination—they were no longer my strong suits. Then I leaned over and offered Lucy a hand. She groaned as she put weight on her bad foot. “I don’t know how far I can go.”

“Do you have service on your phone?”

She pulled it out. “No, and my battery’s almost dead. I need to turn it off. Where’s yours?”

“In the car.”

“Oh.”

We were still shouting to be heard over the wail of the wind, and I looked down the mountain. Thin trees were blown nearly in half, flinging massive gobs of snow through the air. “Damn. Should we build a little snow fort? Isn’t that what you do in a survival situation like this?”

“We can’t! We can’t stay here! Someone might come for us!” Panic filled her eyes as I fought to quash my own.

I shook her again. “Luce! I’m not gonna let anything happen to you! I’m here!”

Her eyes were wild, terrified. “You’re not going to leave me again?”

“No! I’ll never leave you again! I told you!” I took my hand and wiped the frozen tears from her cheeks. “I’m so sorry I left you before. I thought it would save you.”

Lucy nodded, and stood. “Okay,” she said, back in control. “Then let’s go. I can walk. My foot’s numb anyway, and the snow should help the swelling.”

“I’m sorry, Luce, but did you just silver-line
this
?” I waved a hand, indicating the forest, the snow, the fire. Lucy was known for her positivity around the dorm, but she’d just carried it to a whole new level. Lucy only smiled.

We started out slowly, carefully picking our way between trees and rocks, hanging on for dear life when wind gusts threatened to blow us both off the mountainside. The thick trees through which we walked provided a bit of shelter and probably saved Lucy’s life. I don’t think she could have survived had she been fully exposed to the vicious winds.

Still, we weren’t getting very far. We stumbled. We fell. Our clothes were soaked and Lucy shook uncontrollably. I tried to distract her by talking.

“So, Officer Strong, huh?”

Through chattering teeth, she smiled for a brief second. “He called me today. I didn’t even know he had my number. Asked me out for coffee.” Her face was already red, but I thought she blushed.

“What? When?”

“That’s where I went when you were resting. I knew you were okay, so I met him at the café on campus. I needed some caffeine anyway.”

“You’re joking!” The conversation seemed to distract her from her pain. She stopped shaking quite so badly, and we covered more distance than we had before. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me till now.”

“Stop. It wasn’t a big deal. And he was sweet! Such a gentleman. Not like the other guys around here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was all worried about me walking in the snow. Wanted to pick me up, take me home, didn’t want me out there on my own.”

Lucy stumbled again, and I grabbed her arm. Of course, then I tripped, and she had to catch me. We were quite the team, on the side of the mountain in the middle of a blizzard, but the near-fall ripped something in my hip, and I groaned. “Wonder why he was so worried,” I said as we limped onward. “It’s not like there’s a chance you could, oh, get kidnapped!”

But we paid more attention to our path again, and moved more slowly lest we tumble over the edge.

Still, I thought about Adam Strong. He was definitely handsome. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and even there, in the driving snow, it was easy to remember his smile. A brief flash of envy lit within me when I realized I’d never again have the excitement of going on a first date. I tried not to let that color my thoughts as I wondered about a policeman taking too much interest in a girl about whom he was a little suspicious.
What did they talk about
, I wondered.
Did they talk about me?

I was lost in thought, still trying my best to support Lucy as my own body threatened to give out with every step, when she called out. “A road!”

“Get out your…” I started to say cell phone, hoping that since we’d made it to a road, Lucy’s service would be restored. I froze when I saw the van, the same one from Primrose Path. Its engine ran, its lights were off, and it looked neither warm nor welcoming.

“Get back,” I hissed, yanking on Lucy’s arm. She tripped and fell backwards, landing hard on the uneven ground. She cried out in pain. Behind us, the lights of the van turned on and flashed in our direction. “Stay down! They’ve seen us.”