Zeus has been whining the entire time we’ve been inside, but I hardly noticed until now.
“What about the blown up train? Won’t the monitors notice that?” I ask, thinking back to the wreckage at the entrance.
“I’m sure Wilson will have a lie up his sleeve, as he always does,” Bruno says. “He’s good at playing mind games.”
“Anyone who believes him is insane,” Grace says.
A shuffling noise comes from behind us.
Bruno flinches and then waves us toward an engine workroom. We’re all trying to be quiet, and I hope the gravel under our feet hasn’t given us away. I hear footsteps not far behind us just as Bruno twists the doorknob to the dark workroom. I cringe when the metal knob grinds against the metal door, as if to say, Here they are! Come and shoot them!
No one breathes as we creep inside, and then we don’t dare move an inch. Even Zeus is stone-still. We’re crouched in the corner, in position behind the industrial workstation with guns drawn.
“They’re in here somewhere,” a voice says from the other side of the door. The sound of loose stones under their boots gives away their position.
I hear a door slam open, and my skin crawls as I listen to them clear a room not far away from where we hide. Bruno moves along the wall, using a hand to search for a way out.
“Hurry,” Grace whispers with a shaky voice.
Another door slamming open echoes from the turntable room. They’re coming closer. My stomach clenches into one big knot.
“Bingo,” Bruno says.
He turns a knob and a door in the back of the room swings open with a loud squealing noise, revealing a hallway. Behind us, the guards’ shadows stop outside our door to the turntable.
“Go, go, go,” Cole says.
We jump to our feet just as the door blasts open. Immediately, they begin firing at us. The sound of the bullets ricocheting off the metal surfaces echoes in my ears.
Bruno grabs Grace and shoves her into the hallway and then I follow, ducking low to protect myself. Cole commands Zeus to go with me, and then he returns fire until he and Bruno scramble through last.
Once in the hallway, Cole slams the door closed behind us. He clenches his jaw and breathes steady and calm. He ejects his magazine and slams in another, nodding his head when ready.
“Follow me,” Bruno says. He takes off, his boots clomping on the cement floor of the hallway.
We sprint past several doors. Fluorescent lights alternate with ceiling tiles like checkers on the ceiling. It casts an eerie pall over everyone’s faces. I’m breathing hard, feeling out of practice. Or maybe it’s just the dust. It seems to creep everywhere. Bruno reaches for a rusted door on the right and twists the handle. It doesn’t move.
The door to the room we just vacated slams open with gunfire and loud voices. Cole fires off a barrage of shots, attempting to hold them at bay. I look at Bruno. Sweat’s rolling down his face. His hands keep slipping off the knob.
“Come on! Open it!” I say.
“I’m trying! The piece of crap’s stuck,” he yells back.
He lowers his shoulder and barges into the door, but it doesn’t budge. The guards are coming down the hall. I hear the clicking of their boots. Their guns are raised. I make eye contact with one of them. He smiles and then lowers his gun.
“It’s her. Hold your fire,” he says.
Cole stands rigid, his gun pointed at them. Zeus is planted at his side, snarling. We’re outnumbered and outgunned. For a minute, everyone’s at a standstill.
Pop! I turn in the direction of the sound, then back to the guards. They won’t shoot us. Not like this. They aren’t animals.
Just like that, the door slides open, and Bruno disappears through it. Grace follows, light on her feet. Cole backs away, slowly, pushing me toward the open door. Already, I smell burning trash, salty, sweaty skin, and sulfur wafting into the hall. I keep my eyes focused on the guards, and I can tell by the way they look from Cole, to me, and then to the door, that they have no idea what do now.
“Don’t fire at her; we can’t take the risk. Wilson wants her alive.”
My shaky knees move me backward, one inch at a time, staying behind Cole. If they shoot him, they’ll hit me too, and I’m hoping they’ll judge it’s not worth the risk. Finally, I feel the edge where the hallway meets the outside. My fingers grasp the doorframe. I take one last look at the guard, whose lips are pressed together in a tight straight line. With a deep breath, I step through the door.
The minute Cole, Zeus, and I are through, we push the door closed, using our bodies to keep it that way. Then one of the guards says, “We can’t just let them go.”
There’s a brief silence before another says, “They won’t get far. We got them now.”
His chilling words echo in my ear and send a chill up my spine.
“Help me barricade the door,” Cole says. He uses his gun to point to a dumpster a few feet away, and Bruno nods. They grunt, sweat, and curse the entire time but manage to push the rancid-smelling orange dumpster in front of the door. “Just in case.” And for the first time in a long time, Cole’s words do not comfort me. But I don’t have too long to dwell on that.
Our ride screeches to a halt in front of us. I see the silhouette of a woman in the front seat. I feel her eyes on us. On me. The tinted window of the truck rolls down.
“Bruno, what the hell have you gotten me into?” she asks, her voice arching upward with every word. “You can’t pay me enough for this shit!”
“Oh, shut your lid, and put your big-girl panties on,” Bruno says.
When he gives us the nod to move, our feet make mini tornadoes in the dust as we run. I glance at the woman glaring at me. Ahead of her truck, in the distance, is a line of black vehicles making a neat, stately procession. A multitude of international flags sit at the corners of their hoods. Beyond that, the walls stand ominous in their majestic terror.
Bruno opens the tailgate. “Get in,” he commands.
“This wasn’t what I agreed to. And a freaking dog?” the woman yells out her window.
“Dammit, woman, this is a done deal,” Bruno shouts as he motions us to get in. “You don’t get us in safely, you won’t see a cent.” He gives me a fleeting grin and winks. Grace rolls her eyes.
“You’re crazy,” I say. “You do know that, right?”
“Miss Lexi, I’ve got mad skills. You should be thankful.”
I’m doing everything possible to be calm and relax. This is my last taste of near-normalcy before I voluntarily go back to the Hole. The place that killed my father and my brother. The same place that made me estranged from my own mother. The place where I first met Cole.
My pulse quickens, and my mouth goes dry. Cole grabs my hand. Of course, it doesn’t help that the driver’s yelling at Bruno. She doesn’t want us here any more than we want to be here. The emotions are overwhelming. Coming back here. Seeing the wall. Knowing that we may not make it back out. My stomach is doing flip-flops. With every thrust of the guards on the other side of the door, the dumpster vibrates, inching forward from its position.
Bang! Shots ring out, echoing off the metal of the door.
We’re all smashed into the back against one another, trying to be as small and quiet as possible. Bruno quickly covers us with a blanket and a tarp. Next, he piles heavy pieces of something on top of us. Whatever keeps us from being caught.
“Sorry, guys. It’s the best I can do. Let’s pray it works.” He shuts the tailgate and locks the rear window of the cab. I hear him run around the truck and get into the passenger side.
“Why’s he sitting up front?” I ask.
“He’s going to make sure she follows through.” And when I hear the sadness in Grace’s voice, I feel a sudden urge to punch the driver in the face.
I know I’m missing something, but I’m too distracted to ask for more details. I feel like I’m suffocating. Not only is it pitch-black, but it’s hot. And there’s Zeus’s breath. It smells lik
e rotting corpses, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about what other bodies might have been in here before. I’m biting my lip so hard, I’m sure it’s almost completely gone.
“Lexi,” Cole whispers from my left side. “Hang in there. It’ll be over soon.” He grasps my hand in an effort to calm my racing heart. I squeeze his hand as hard as I can, and he strokes his thumb over my skin. But hell, it’s not working. What the hell are we waiting for? We may as well have a neon sign on our car that says, “Fugitives inside.”
The engine kicks to life, and we’re soon a jostling, bumping, bruised group of exhausted and wounded people in the back. I try to imagine anything but what we’re doing—the beaches of Lexington Bay, my dad’s smile, when Cole kissed me the first time. But my mind inevitably returns to the Hole. And that’s when I know that somehow, deep inside, it was inevitable that I would return. My heart stops when I feel the truck’s engine slow to idling.
“ID papers,” a muffled voice commands.
There’s a pause. I assume the papers are being handed over.
“You’re part of the convoy?”
“Yes,” the girl says in a soft voice, much different than her yelling at Bruno before.
More deafening silence. Then, a tap on the passenger side. I’ve seen them do this before. One guard questions the driver as the other inspects the passenger side and trunk. I think they call it a “walk-around.” If the guard on the passenger side gets suspicious, he taps the car with his flashlight to signal a search should be done.
“I need to inspect all cargo coming in today,” he says.
Oh, this is not good.
I’m sure the driver answers, but I can’t hear it. My body’s frozen. Please don’t let them find us.
Cole’s gripping my hand so hard, I feel like my fingers are going to snap. Zeus growls, so I swallow my panic and pull his head toward me, hoping the blanket dampens the sound.
I hear the guards unlock the window behind us. My palms are sweating now, my muscles tense. As they get closer, I can clearly hear them talking.
The tailgate slams down, and I feel things being moved around at the edge of the truck bed. We’re going to be discovered. The grim reality of our situation sucks all hope from my bones.
“Can you hurry it up?” asks a third voice. “The line’s almost a mile long, and we’ve got all these cars to check.”
It feels like time has stopped. But really, probably only a few silent minutes pass.
“You’re clear to go,” the first voice says. All at once, the three of us exhale in complete unison. “When you’re done with your delivery, come by my place.”
“Sure thing,” our driver says.
I close my eyes as sweat seeps into them. The truck lurches forward as we presumably rattle through the main gate and back into the Hole.
An oppressive, eerie silence greets us, not like the first time I arrived, when hordes of people smashed against our vehicle and tried to drag me off. No, this time, under the cover of twilight and a political motorcade, no one is around to notice. It’s just us and the shifting of the engine as it snakes along.
I gradually loosen my grip on Zeus’s neck and feel him relax. The objects Bruno placed on us shift around as we begin to move more freely throughout the truck bed. I hear Grace groan.
“Hey, you okay over there?” I ask. I can’t see or touch her because of Zeus’s hulking body.
“Fine, except for the giant furball next to me forcing all the pipes to smash my back,” she says with an edge in her voice.
“Zeus, come here.” I try pulling him back to me to give her some relief, but he’s gigantic and wobbling all over, trying to push the covers off.
That’s when we hit a massive pothole in the road. The right side of the truck sinks down into it. The metal pipes covering us fly into the air and smash back down on us. I grunt as the truck returns to even footing.
We hit another rough patch, and the truck spins its tires. And then it feels like we’re slowing to a crawl. I swallow my fears, shove away the tarp, and sit up. The metal pipes are sprawled all over the bed. Zeus whines as he pulls himself out next to me, using his front paws to creep out from under the tarp as if to ask, “Is it okay?”
“It’s okay, boy. Come to me,” I say.
“Judas,” Cole says to Zeus with a smirk on his face.
“Thanks a lot, doofus,” Grace half-whispers. “Almost squashing me wasn’t enough for you? Now you feel the need to step all over me?” As Zeus moves away from her, she moans and begins to uncover herself. Her tight curls peek out first, then I see the whites of her eyes as she slides upward against the cab. She pulls her right hand to her chest, opening and shutting it, with a grimace on her face. “Crap. I think my hand’s broken,” she says.
Excellent. “Can you move it?”
“I can, it just hurts when I do.”
“I can take a look at it when we get settled,” I say. “Try not to use it much.”
“Lexi, we’re in the Hole. I’d be willing to bet I can’t make that promise.”
“That’s true. Well, at least it’s still attached, right?”
“That’s a brighter way of looking at it, yes.”
The truck speeds up suddenly. It swings a wide and frantic turn, and the momentum hurls us all to the left and then across the bed to the right. We’re all trying to keep still, to resist being thrown from side to side and back to front. My chest’s pinned against the frame, and the nausea hits me again. Then we’re thrown opposite again. What the hell is going on?
“She’s going to kill us,” I say through gritted teeth. Zeus tries to stand, but steps on a pipe and crashes down. His face registers shock, his brown eyes wide. And yet, he keeps trying.
We rattle along in silence. The road becomes more even. No one speaks as we travel further into the Hole. I imagine no one knows what exactly to say. My body betrays me, and I don’t know how much longer I can continue to swallow down the bile that keeps coming up into my throat.
Our driver shifts into lower gears, and we rumble along, slow and steady. The metal piping continues to rattle, the tarp tangled around our bodies.
And then it begins—the sharp, whizzing sound of a bullet piercing metal as it zips over my shoulder. Then more. I count one, two, three holes before it registers in my brain.
“Get down!” Cole shouts as he yanks Zeus and me down with him. A look of horror and fatigue crosses Grace’s face as she too hits the floor.
Metallic zinging echoes over my head. Our vehicle stops. I struggle to gather my bearings, but the tailgate slams open and moist air rushes in. I’m relieved to breathe in even this air.
“Out!” Bruno shouts. At first I don’t hear him over the commotion outside. “Move!”
Cole moves first, ducking his head and jumping out the back. Zeus follows him, and I find myself pulling Grace behind me. I don’t even look at her, I just grab her wrist and yank. We both tumble out the back and land in a mix of dust and gravel. A small poof envelopes us. But that doesn’t give me comfort. From the chattering of guns, I know we’ve landed in the middle of a firefight. Cole grabs me around my waist, helping me back onto my feet.
“Now we run like hell!” Cole takes my arm and leads me.
I grab Grace at the same time and force her to follow me. Tracers light up the sky around me, illuminating the labyrinth of the Hole. Frameless windows stare back at me with black, abandoned faces. I’m afraid. More than I thought I would be. I see the silhouettes of figures on the rooftops amidst the battle, their heat signatures making them targets for any trained sniper. The whole convoy’s been broken up. Vehicles have stopped in the middle of the street, car doors open, abandoned. People are running everywhere, diving for cover. Screams and cries reverberate off the walls of the buildings. My heart rate is off the charts as adrenaline flows to every inch of my body, and I sprint after Cole.
He crosses to the side of the street. I stumble, fall onto my knees, and quickly get back up. But only after I
spot a small, broken flag from one of the vehicles lying in the road. I grab it. The red and white are covered in dirt. It’s weird the things that strike you as important in the middle of a fight.
“Come on!” Grace shouts at me. She grabs my wrist, and we run together.
We’re hoofing it down an alley, weaving through broken glass and the remains of overturned and broken furniture. I hear a deluge of shooting behind us, some hammering automatic fire and some more carefully chosen. Pock! Pock! Pock!
I imagine it hitting my heels. My breaths come fast. I let go of Grace and climb over a pile of old tires. My nose wrinkles when I smell the burned, charred rubber mixed with gun smoke. I struggle to hold it in, but the heavy air settles on me, and soon I’m heaving alongside a cracked, cement wall.
“Go! Go!” Cole yells to Grace and Bruno. He turns and grabs my elbow. “Lexi. We gotta go.” I wipe my face on my sleeve and run with him, dizzy and on borrowed time.
The maze feels never-ending. Pretty soon, the battle sounds muted, like they weren’t gunning for us. I can’t relax though. My shoulders tense up, and my jaws hurt from clenching. I finally catch up with Bruno, Grace, and Zeus. They’ve stopped in a row alongside a familiar-looking building while Bruno surveys the street in front of us. Grace bends over and places her hands on her knees, panting. Bruno checks her for injuries, and when he sees she’s okay, plants a kiss on her nose. I can see the love she holds for him mirrored in her eyes.
“Come on, you guys. We gotta keep moving,” Bruno says. We barely catch our breath before Bruno takes off again. His colossal figure runs across the street and around the corner. Cole and Zeus follow closely behind, and it’s my turn.
I buy myself some time, still suffering from the lack of water and oppressive humidity. I pat Grace’s shoulder and nod for her to go before me. I mentally prepare myself for the energy it will take to make this next run. I don’t have it. As I make an effort to move one foot in front of the other, it dawns on me.
Squinting in the dark, I lay eyes on it—rising from the ground, rusty old fence strewn into the street, the guard checkpoint half-manned.