The Defiant (19 page)

“Why the hell is it in my neck?”

“Because it's closest to your brain. But cutting the tubes won't paralyze you or anything. It'll just release her hold on you.” Gadya pauses. “You need to slice the tubes in two, horizontally with the knife. Then yank out the roots. The roots are just thin needles sticking into your veins. You won't even bleed that much, promise. Use the alcohol to disinfect it, and the towel to mop up the blood.”

“I lost those things. I only have the knife.”

“That's good enough. C'mon, hurry up. It won't hurt more than a bee sting.”

“How do you know? Did they implant tubes in your neck too?” I'm assuming she's already cut hers out.

There's a pause. “I actually haven't done mine yet—”

“Gadya!” I hiss at her. “Don't tell me it's gonna hurt like a bee sting! It's going to be way worse! And you better get your tubes out fast. Aren't you afraid they'll use the switch and knock you out?”

“I stole the switch and smashed it,” she tells me. “I know I need to cut the tubes, but for some reason it really freaks me out! David said it would be okay. I still can't believe he's alive.”

I wonder if she knows what kind of physical state David is in right now. I doubt that she's seen him in person. I figure there will be time to tell her about it later if she doesn't already know.

“We both have to do this together,” I say. I grab the knife and touch its serrated edge with a fingertip. “A crazy kid from the farm is looking for me. I'm worried he'll go back and tell his mom to use the switch.”

Gadya sighs. “Fine. I'll do mine if you do yours.”

I reach the knife up to the back of my neck. My hand is trembling a little bit. “I can't see too well. I'm inside a hollowed-out tree.”

“Yeah, I can't see either. There are no mirrors in a cistern.”

I sigh. “Count of three?”

“Sure.”

I take a deep breath, and then grab both tubes with my left hand. If David is wrong, this could mean the end of my life and Gadya's too. I press the tip of the knife against the tubes with my right hand.

We begin the countdown.

Both of us gasp “Three!” at the same moment. The sound of the storm outside covers the noise.

I slice the knife upward hard and fast, severing the two plastic tubes at the same instant.

I'm immediately hit with a wave of cold nausea. I struggle to keep my balance, staggering against the inside of the tree. I feel warm liquid dribbling out onto my hands, like I've punctured a water balloon. It's a slimy mix of chemicals, saline solution, and blood.

“Alenna?” I hear Gadya's voice saying. She sounds woozy. “Did you do it?”

“Yes,” I croak.

“And we're still alive.”

“That's good.” I feel sick.

“We should tear the roots out now, or they'll poison us,” Gadya says.

I tug at the ends of the tubes. The whole world is spinning.

“They're not coming out,” I say, my words thick and heavy.

“Try harder. I got one of mine out already.”

I yank on the tubes again. The top end of one of them begins to give way. Then the other. Gritting my teeth, I pull as hard as I can. With a sickening, fleshy noise, the top sections of the severed tubes finally come loose in my hand. Soon, I get the bottom parts out as well. Then I slump against the tree, coughing.

“It's done,” I say. I glance down at the bits of yellow medical tubing in my hand, disgusted.

“Same here,” Gadya says.

“We better move,” I say.

“Agreed. The faster the better.”

I stand there in the darkness, inside the tree. The rain is coming down even harder outside now. The sick feeling is receding. I fling the plastic tubing down to the ground.

I pause. “You have to tell me where I'm going.”

“Keep the radio in your ear, and I'll guide you toward me. The cistern is desolate, and it's a good hiding place for us to regroup.”

I nod. “Great.”

I step out from the tree and into the rain. I'm on the lookout for Mikal, but I don't see him.

The droplets are coming down hard. Within seconds, I'm drenched. I wipe water out of my eyes, pushing back wet strands of hair. “C'mon, Gadya,” I say. “I'm ready. Which way?”

“You need to start running due north. There aren't any trails in this part of the forest. Make your own, through the trees. Eventually you'll come to a trail after about five miles.”

“Five miles!”

“Yeah, for the Hellgrounds, that's close. This place is huge.”

“Fine.”

I take a deep breath, and then push off from the tree. I move as
quickly as I can, using the few stars I can see through the clouds to head north, slipping and sliding between wet branches and massive tree trunks. Trying not to lose my balance on the slippery leaves underfoot.

Fifteen minutes pass.

Then another fifteen.

By now the rain has dried up, and I've left the fields near the farmhouse far behind me. I'm deep inside the forest.

It helps to have Gadya's voice in my ear. She just keeps prodding me to keep running, no matter what.

Finally, after nearly an hour has passed, and my legs are aching, I see a trail. “I think I'm here,” I say.

“Finally,” she mutters.

I pause on the trail, gasping for air. Old hatchet marks line the trees along the trail's edges.

I glance down and see that the dirt looks like it has been trampled by many feet. The noises of the forest are loud around me. I swat insects away from my face.

“Take a left,” Gadya's voice says in my ear. “I'll meet you about three hundred yards down the trail, and then we'll hike down to the cistern.”

“How far are we from it? I thought we were there.”

“No, I've been hiking this whole time so I could meet you partway.” I hear the smile in her voice. “I wanted to surprise you. The cistern is about another five miles away—”

“Seriously?” I burst out. I'm already exhausted, and my feet are blistered. I don't want to keep racing full throttle through this treacherous forest. “I thought it was closer than that!”

Gadya doesn't answer.

“Gadya?” I fiddle with the object in my ear. I only hear static,
like I've lost the signal. “Gadya!” I call out again. If she disappears now, I'll be completely lost.

Then I glance up and see an object moving through the trees ahead.
A light, shining out from the darkness.
I crouch, hiding behind a fallen tree trunk covered with lichens at the edge of the trail. I don't know what this light is. It could be Gadya, or it could be a group of UNA police on the prowl.

“Gadya?” I whisper again, but there's no answer.

I peer out above the tree trunk. The light is moving closer, in my direction, yellow and warm. It looks like the glow from an oil lantern. I want to run, but I'm afraid of making noise.

The lantern grows closer. I hide back down behind the tree trunk, holding my breath. I feel my pulse racing. I smell the damp earth, and feel the wet tangles of underbrush against my skin.

Then I hear a voice call out.

“Alenna, it's me!” the voice exclaims, as clear as a bell.

I instantly stand up. “Gadya?”

I squint to see the figure beyond the lantern. Suddenly, the light shifts, as the person holding it hoists it up, illuminating herself.

“You look stressed out,” Gadya remarks.

“No kidding! Where did you go?”

“Signal failed.”

I rush forward toward her, scrambling up the trail. She heads in my direction just as rapidly.

I reach her and the two of us hug hard and tight. Then we part. She puts the lantern down on the ground. We stare at each other. She has bruises across her face and all over her arms, along with some fresh lacerations.

“We made it,” I say. “I can't believe it! Are you okay?”

“Barely. But now I know why they call it the Hellgrounds. I got beaten and whipped a few times. Nothing I couldn't take.”

I hug her again. I know she's putting on a brave face. She winces as I touch her, so I let her go.

“Sorry. Still healing,” she says.

“Let me take a look.” I pick up the lantern and hold it up to her. I see that some of her wounds are surprisingly deep. “We need to get those cleaned.”

She shrugs off my concern. “I've been through worse.” She gazes at me. “How about you? You okay?”

“I didn't get beaten, but I got attacked by this woman's crazy son named Mikal. He wanted to come with us. He didn't like hearing ‘no' for an answer.”

“Nobody ever does.”

I take the earpiece out of my ear and slip it into my pocket. I don't need it right now. Gadya does the same. I hand the lantern back over to her.

We begin hiking up the trail toward the cistern.

“Who made this path?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No clue.”

We keep walking. The trail starts narrowing a bit more.

The whole time we talk about what we experienced when we were captives. We also make plans for what we're going to do next. I still don't tell her about what happened to David's body. I can tell that she doesn't know about his injuries—or what he's done to himself. I'm not sure why I don't tell her. Maybe I'm just not ready to talk about it yet.

I ask if she's seen Liam, but she hasn't.

“But we're going to rescue him tomorrow,” she says. “David told me where he is. It's not far.”

“Tomorrow? David told you that and not me?”

“Yeah. He said he didn't want to make you emotional, or make you do something rash.”

“Great.” I pause. “Sometimes I feel like David is just jerking us around.”

“Oh, he is. There's no question about that. But we just have to hope he's doing it for the right reasons.”

“So Liam is nearby?”

“According to David, he's at a UNA work camp for boys. I have the directions. We'll go there when it gets light.”

My heart is racing faster. “Did David say if Liam is okay?”

Gadya shakes her head. “I don't think he knows.”

As we hike, we pass a large granite rock with the mutated UNA logo painted on its surface in gold lines. Instead of an eye hovering over a globe, there are five eyes surrounding the globe. Lines connect the pupils of each eye to the globe.

I touch Gadya's arm. “I've seen that symbol before.”

“Really?”

“Before I got sent here. I got called in front of someone named Minister Hiram. He was one of Minister Harka's body doubles, but he was really creepy and seemed to be running New Austin. He kept some sort of giant mutant inside a glass prison in his office. The emblem was in his office too. I'm not sure what it means.”

“Me neither. But that sounds weird as hell. Let's just keep going.”

I glance back as we walk. The rock quickly recedes into darkness.

“Soldiers are probably patrolling this area, now that we've escaped,” Gadya says, urging me forward.

I walk quickly with her. I tell her everything about my experiences with Minister Hiram. Neither of us knows what to make of it. Time passes quickly. Finally, the path broadens until it becomes a wide swath of grass in the forest.

“We're almost there,” Gadya says.

The trees start thinning out on one side of the trail. I don't understand why at first. Gadya moves over to them. I follow. The trees thin even more, until they disappear completely.

She holds up her lantern, and says, “Stop walking if you want to live.”

I stop—right as I realize that we've approached the edge of a cliff. It was obscured by darkness and by the trees. I'm confused. We've been walking at ground level.
How can there be a cliff here?

Before I can ask her about it, Gadya walks over to the edge. Then she hops down and disappears, along with her light.

“No—”
I gasp, thinking she's just thrown herself over the edge of some deep precipice.

Then I hear her muffled voice drifting back up to me: “There's a ledge here. Be careful.”

I inch my way forward.

And then I realize what I'm looking at. I'm not at the edge of a natural cliff, but instead, I'm at the lip of a huge crater dug into the earth. Like a gigantic, ancient bomb crater. Or something made by a fallen meteor. Gadya is standing on a wide ledge made from dirt and rock, about four feet below me, staring out into the abyss.

The giant pit sprawls out in front of us, at least half a mile across, and a hundred feet deep. At the bottom of it are some ruins.

“What is this place?” I ask, gazing down at the crater in awe
and confusion. I sit down and scoot myself onto the ledge, my feet landing with a thud.

“I don't know what it was. Something the UNA bombed, probably. But the bottom has an old cistern in it. Or at least what's left of it. That's where David told me to go and hide. And that's where he told me to take you.”

I nod. “We better get down there somehow.”

Gadya looks at me. “Getting down there is easier than getting back up. It took me twenty minutes to hike my way out of it.”

“So how do we get down?”

Gadya grins. “We slide.” She points to my right. “Look.”

I see a smooth section of dirt with minimal rubble. This will be our path down to the cistern.

“Ready?” she asks.

Before I can answer, she moves herself forward on her hands and feet, like a crab, and then pushes herself off. She slides down the smooth dirt on her butt, heading down toward the bottom of the crater.

I move over and follow, pushing myself off after her. I start moving quickly. The earth and rubble tear at my clothes. I hold out my hands for balance as I descend farther toward the cistern. Gadya isn't far ahead of me.

Finally, the ground levels out and I come to a stop in a cloud of dirt and dust. Gadya is nearby, already standing up and brushing herself off.