I stepped back, arms held up to block the blow, and more by luck than anything else I managed to weave out of the way. The momentum of the missed punch carried the Skull past me, flying into the crowd, who turned him around and pushed him back. The second thug advanced, feigning a strike to my face but changing his angle of attack at the last minute and raising his fist into my gut. It hurt, but he’d missed his target and I wasn’t winded.
Fueled by adrenaline and fear, I lashed out, my fist scraping the side of the Skull’s head. Before he could recover I struck again, this time connecting more firmly. I wasn’t sure whether it was my knuckle or his nose that broke, but he reeled backward clutching his face. I went to finish him off with a kick to his stomach but before I could I felt something slam into my lower back. I tried to turn but the pain came again as one of the Skulls rammed his fist repeatedly into my kidneys.
I shouted, looking into the crowd to see Donovan stepping forward. But the inmates blocked his way, a wooden shank held at his neck to ensure he didn’t break the rules by entering the ring.
I swung an elbow around, missing my attacker but forcing him back. I’d only been fighting for a few seconds but already my energy was fading, my limbs seizing up. I screamed, then threw myself at the boy, arms wheeling like a toddler in a tantrum. He raised his hands to defend himself and I took the opportunity, kicking him hard between the legs. A collective groan rose up from the crowd as the kid collapsed.
Spinning around again I saw the last Skull run toward me. I jabbed my fist at him but he was too quick. The punch missed and he grabbed my arm, twisting it until I was bent double. I saw a shadow approaching from behind, the strike almost shattering my spine. My legs buckled and I collapsed onto my knees. Another blow caught me on the back of the head and I sprawled forward.
If I didn’t get up I was a dead man, but every time I pushed myself off the ground a foot sent me crashing down again. After a couple of attempts I gave up, curling myself into a ball as the kicks rained down. My head, my back, my stomach, my chest, nothing was out of bounds. They landed everywhere, each sending a bolt of pain through my body until it seemed like every part of me was broken.
I felt like I was sinking into the ground, blackness creeping over my vision. I heard the jeers and the cries as though through a coffin lid, muffled and distant and growing increasingly faint. I risked one last look at the arena, seeing past the blurred legs to Donovan. He had moved around the ring, and was pleading desperately with Gary. The psycho wasn’t listening, he wouldn’t take his eyes off me as I was pounded closer and closer to death.
Then, as if he’d been stung, Gary snapped his head around and stared at Donovan. I knew what my friend had said, I knew what he was doing, and I tried to call out for him to stop. But it was no use, I could barely even breathe, let alone shout.
I watched Gary grab hold of Donovan’s throat, watched Donovan nod frantically. Then the Skull jumped into the ring and wrenched my attackers away from me, pushing them back out into the crowd. There was a chorus of boos from an audience denied their bloodlust, but Gary didn’t seem to care. He bent down and grabbed my dripping overalls, pulling me up until his face was an inch away.
“Your lucky day, little man,” he hissed in my ear, confirming my worst fears. “Looks like I’m hitching a lift out of this place with you.”
BACK TO WORK
“WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?”
It must have been the tenth time Donovan said it as we made our slow way out of the gym. I was so battered and bruised that I couldn’t even pick myself off the ground, Donovan had to haul me up and drag me from the arena. I tried to put one foot in front of the other, but even the smallest of movements made me cry out in pain. It felt as if all my joints had been filled with grit, my bones laced with razor wire. I spat out a mouthful of bitter blood and tried to tell him it was okay. What came out was a low groan.
“I couldn’t let them kill you, man,” he said, helping me across the yard. Zee and Toby were waiting by the stairs, and ran over when they saw us, but none of the other inmates looked the least bit concerned.
“Oh no,” said Zee when they reached us. “Is that him?”
“Of course it’s him, you moron,” said Donovan. “Who else is it going to be?”
“It’s just . . . his face.”
“What’s wrong with my face?” I tried to ask, but all that emerged was another groan.
“Let’s get him back to the cell,” Toby said. “You think you can get him up the stairs?”
“You think you can help?”
Together they pushed, pulled, and carried me up six flights of steps. A couple of times they folded under my weight and I almost toppled over the railings. Right at that moment the agony was so great that I didn’t really care. Let me fall, let it be over. But a few minutes later I ended up on my bed, trying unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position to lie in while Donovan recounted my embarrassing attempts to defend myself. He left out the deal he’d struck with Gary, eyeing me nervously as he told them that the Skulls had just let me go after a beating.
“You were lucky,” said Zee, perched on the bed next to me. He reached out as if to touch my face, then pulled his hand back. “You don’t look it, but you were lucky.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. One of the bottom ones was missing. By the way my face was throbbing I thought that was the least of my worries.
“I wasn’t lucky,” I said, the words coming out like I was chewing a mouthful of toffee as I spoke. “Donovan saved me.”
“Donovan?” said Zee, looking at the bigger boy who stood by the cell door, staring out into the yard.
“He saved my life,” I went on.
“Nice one, big guy,” said Zee. “You go in and show ’em who’s boss?”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Donovan spun around and faced us all.
“What was I supposed to do?” he shouted. “Leave him to die?”
“Whoa,” said Zee. “I don’t blame you, I’d have done the same thing if my arms were as big as yours.”
“He didn’t fight,” I said. “He made a deal.”
“A deal?” Both Zee and Toby looked worried. “What kind of deal?”
“We’ve got another passenger,” I slurred. “Gary.”
“No way,” said Zee. “No way, Donovan. You didn’t tell him?”
“It was that or Alex died,” Donovan spat back. “You want that?”
“Well, what . . . I mean, we all get a plus-one now or something?”
“Zee,” I said. “It’s fine, it just means one more person. Donovan did the right thing.”
“But Gary’s a psycho, he’ll tell all the Skulls and then there’s no way we’ll get out. We’re all going to the hole. Either that or he’ll stab us in the eyes just to get out first. This is a bad idea. This whole thing’s a bad idea.”
Donovan slammed his hands on the bars and stormed out of the cell, disappearing down the walkway.
“Leave it, Zee,” I mumbled through swollen lips. “He did the right thing.”
Zee just snorted, but his expression was one of fear. If my face had been able to move at all, it would have probably mirrored it. The thought of having Gary on board was terrifying. He really would snap our necks if he thought he could get out alone. Hell, he’d probably snap them even if we made it to safety, just for fun. But I couldn’t complain. The alternative was having my guts spilled out across the gym floor.
“It will be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t sure how much I believed it.
_____
THE REST OF that day I spent drifting in and out of sleep, with endless dreams of being beaten senseless. Each time I woke I thought the pain had been part of the nightmares, until I tried to move.
Donovan only returned when the night siren blew. I didn’t ask him where he’d been, but he apologized for storming off and reassured me that he hadn’t told Gary anything about the escape except for the fact that it would be happening soon.
“He can’t give anything away and he can’t do it without us,” he said as the lights shut off.
I went to hard labor in the morning even though I thought I was going to die. I didn’t have a choice—anyone too injured to work was dragged off through the vault door to the infirmary, a place that few returned from. Fortunately we were on trough duty and Donovan sat me in the corner, happy to do my share of the work as well as his. Despite the fact that my skin was purple and unbearably tender to touch, I still managed to squeeze a couple of gas-filled gloves against it. Donovan managed to smuggle out eight, and we were back on track.
It was on that morning that Donovan had a brain wave about the fuse for the explosion. He spent an hour trying to weasel off the end of one of the giant stove lighters, draining the fluid inside into a glove and filling it with string from one of the crates. He slipped the flint free from one lighter as well.
“Something to spark up with,” he said.
“Nicely done,” I muttered weakly as he stuffed the fuse into his overalls.
We didn’t have many run-ins with Gary for those few days. Every now and then we’d see him in the yard and he’d track us with his insect eyes, and four days after the fight he came over as we were sitting in the trough room.
“Better not be going anywhere without me,” he said, leaning over the table.
“As soon as we know when it’s happening we’ll tell you,” I replied. “You’ve got my word.”
He just stared at me for a few seconds until I thought my blood was curdling, then he walked off. He threw another comment at us over his shoulder as he went, one loud enough for most people to hear.
“I’ll kill you if you try and leave without me.”
“He’s going to ruin it for all of us,” said Zee when Gary had left the room. “Half the hall must have heard that.”
If they had, they showed no sign of understanding it. For most, the idea of escape from Furnace was so unthinkable, so impossible, that they’d probably have dismissed it even if there was a hole in the wall and a staircase marked “To Freedom.”
“Relax, Zee,” I said. “There’s only a few more days.”
THERE WERE EIGHT, to be correct. Eight days of fear that everything would go horribly wrong. Eight days of panic that we’d be caught, tortured, then executed in the most violent ways possible. But also eight days of hope that we’d actually manage to break free of our prison, that we’d be able to see sunshine once again.
For the next week it was the hope that carried us. Even though I was exhausted, and never fully recovered from my beating, it was the smell of fresh air that kept me going. So many times I thought I couldn’t go on, couldn’t handle the stress of smuggling out any more gloves or secreting them behind the panels in Room Two. But just when things seemed at their bleakest I’d recall something from up top—birdsong, the feel of the grass on my bare feet, the sight of the sea bounded only by the horizon—and the hope would be like fuel, urging me on.
It was the same for the rest of them. Where there should have been tired faces there were always smiles, jokes instead of tears, bravery when we should have all been cowering in our cells. We pushed ourselves to the limit. By day two we’d smuggled another fifteen gloves into the tunnel. By day five it was thirty-three. By day seven the pile was fifty-one deep and more than big enough to blast us out of here.
Day eight found Donovan and me back in Room Two, stripped and dragging our gas-filled overalls across the rough floor to the rift. We were relieved to see the rest of our stash still in place. A couple had deflated slightly, but it looked like they were all fit to go boom.
“You start slotting them in,” Donovan shouted above the roar of the river. I could swear the sound was louder now, like it knew we were coming for it. “I’ll get the fuse sorted.”
He rummaged through the gloves until he found the one full of lighter fluid. Giving it a shake for good measure, he opened it up and pulled out the string, which reeked of fuel. Tying the strands together, he laid one end by the balloons then walked backward and unwound the rest, the fuse snaking for several meters until it disappeared behind a massive chunk of rock.
“That should be enough,” he said, his head popping out from the stone. “The explosion will probably set off another cave-in and kill us all anyway.”
“Better that than any more time in the cell,” I replied, struggling to squeeze another glove into the packed rift. “Especially with your farts.”
Donovan laughed as he made his way back over. He looked at the bulging crack in the ground, then at the twenty or so gloves we still had left in his overalls.
“Spares?”
“Looks like it,” I said, grimacing as I tried to stand up. “You want to just scatter them around?”
Donovan scratched his chin, then shook his head.
“No, I got a plan.” He picked up his overalls. “Let’s get back to the tunnel.”
“The tunnel?” I asked, but he just grinned at me and set off across the cavern. I followed, my limbs screaming at me with every step, and arrived at the passageway to see Donovan wedging the remaining gloves into the crevices in the ceiling. He wasn’t having much luck in the dark, as they kept dropping to the floor with a wet slap.
“I’m sure there’s a good reason for this,” I whispered. The equipment room was dead ahead; deserted, but you never knew when the blacksuit was going to return. Donovan managed to cram a couple of gloves into a particularly big crack above his head, then turned to me.
“What if we have to leave in a hurry?” he asked. “The guards’ll be on our tail like rats after cheese. If we demolish this tunnel after we’ve got through, then we’ll have all the time in the world to blow the floor and get into the river.”
“Makes sense,” I replied, nodding. I picked up a couple of gloves and looked for suitable holes in the ceiling, stretching up with considerable pain to fit them all in. By the time we’d finished, the top of the tunnel looked like the underside of a mutant cow—all bulging udders and no legs.
“Moo,” I said, as Donovan unwound the last of the fuse, jamming it between a glove and the wall, then running it down and out into the cavern. There wasn’t much string left, but hopefully enough to give us a bit of distance before the tunnel collapsed. He tucked the lighter flint under the end of the fuse so he’d easily find it again.
“So,” he said, climbing back into his overalls and rubbing his hands on the material to get rid of the pungent smell of lighter fluid. “We’re done.”
“Finished,” I added. “All we’ve got to do now is get everybody here without anyone seeing us, blow a hole in a solid rock floor, and jump into a raging underground river.”
“Easy,” he added, laughing quietly. I couldn’t really see his expression in the dark, but he suddenly fell silent, and I could sense an intense gaze in my direction.
“You don’t just wanna go now?” he asked. I stared into the shadows where his face was.
“And leave the others?”
“We might never get another chance,” he went on. “What if something happens?”
“Donovan,” I said gently. “I know you don’t mean that. You risked everything to save me the other day. I know you’re not the kind of guy to abandon his friends. I know it.”
“What did I tell you when you first got here, Alex? You don’t have friends in Furnace.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “Play the hard man all you like, but I know you’re not going anywhere without Zee and Toby.”
There was a moment of silence, then Donovan laughed.
“Jeez, look what you’ve done to me. You’ve turned me into a sentimental old fool!”
“Come on,” I said, leading the way back to the wooden boards. We’d left the tunnel so many times it was almost automatic now, and we returned to the chipping room without incident. It was only when we’d started hacking at the walls with our picks that Donovan winked at me.
“So . . . tomorrow then?” he asked.
I
rested my pick over my shoulder and nodded.
“Tomorrow.”
THE LAST NIGHT
AFTER HARD LABOR WE showered and ate, then retreated back to our cell. Toby and Zee were already there, chatting excitedly about something or other when we strolled through the door. Their heads jerked up, their faces creased with anxiety.
“So?” asked Zee, drawing the word out.
“Guards caught us,” Donovan answered. “They destroyed the gloves, sealed off the room, and took Alex and me through the door. They turned us into monsters, and now we’re back to eat you.”
He threw himself at the two smaller boys and they jumped back to avoid him.
“What’s got into him?” Zee asked as Donovan fell onto the bottom bunk, giggling. “Did he inhale some gas or something?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered, pushing Donovan out of the way and sitting on the foot of the bed. But I did know: he was drunk on hope, on excitement. We all were. “Everything went to plan, though. It’s all ready to go. Tomorrow’s the day.”
“Tomorrow?” Toby said, turning pale. Zee grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“Don’t cave now, Toby old boy,” he said gleefully. “Too late to back out.”
“I just didn’t expect it to be so soon,” he replied as the color slowly returned to his face. “Are you sure we’re ready?”
“Nope,” I said. “You’re welcome to wait here for a couple of years, but I’m going now, ready or not.”
“And me,” said Zee, adding a soft little whoop as he punched the air.
“So what are you gonna do when you’re out?” asked Donovan. “First thing I’m gonna do is grab the biggest burger I can find, all relish and onions and bacon and—oh mamma, my mouth is dripping.”
“I just want the air,” I said. “Give me a beach and a sea breeze and the sound of seagulls and I’ll be the happiest man on earth.”