Miss Quick

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Regroup

 "Do you recognize where we are?" I ask Carlos.

"No, do you?"

"I'm not sure, everything looks the same..." I turn my head around to glance behind me. "Let's go th-" I stop short, my sneakers skidding slightly. Carlos quickly stops too. I hear footsteps, coming from the direction we were going. And it sounds like they're running toward us.

"Go!" I hiss, grab Carlos's arm with my good arm, and tug on it as I start running away. I don't move him at all but he follows me as I pick up speed, carefully cradling my bad arm as I run. In only a few seconds we pass the door to our ruined prison. I time the thunk of my footfalls with the pounding of Carlos's so I don't outpace him.

Soon my heart is beating in time with my feet, not out of exertion but fear. I dare to glance behind me and I see a shadow about thirty feet behind us. I turn back around, finding that I've sped ahead of Carlos by accident. He's breathing hard, and I force myself to let him catch up, even though my feet itch to move faster. I could easily outrun whoever's chasing us, but I can't leave Carlos. It's like being in a dream, feeling like you're running through Jell-O while whatever's chasing you creeps closer.

I hear desperate gasps behind me, and my heart jolts with hope. Maybe we can outrun whoever's chasing us, and it sounds like it won't take much longer.

"Turn," Carlos says between breaths, and, looking ahead, I see what he means. There's a branch of hall to my right. I dart ahead and turn down it. Plastering myself to the wall, I feel relieved, the sense of being followed diminishing. I wait until I can hear Carlos breathing again. When he's close enough I start jogging down the hall, keeping close to him.

As we run my eyes adjust slightly to the dim light, and what I see makes my heart sink. This hall is a dead end. I stop immediately and turn around, desperately trying to reach the end of the hall. Then I see the shadow, no longer running, and it sounds like they're having an asthma attack. It takes me a second to realize that we could easily knock down this person, and by this time Carlos has caught up to me, heat pouring off of him.

In another second, I recognize the shadow.

"Tara?"

The shadow nods, gasping, and holds a finger up. "You guys-" breath "-couldn't-" breath "-have slowed-" breath "-down?"

I almost laugh in relief, my heart slowing back to normal rate. "We didn't know it was you! I'm so sorry! How did you end up here?"

"I was locked in after they dragged you into that big room. It's been like two hours!"  She sucks in a huge lungful of air. "I've been roaming the halls for all this time, not sure what happened or if you were even alive! First Smith and the woman, and then Chaste, I couldn't handle you too...." As she talks, her breaths morph into sobs, and then she's crying. "Ari, thank God you're alive," she blubbers, and reaches to put her arms around me.

I hug her, her dark hair smelling like metal. "It's okay," I whisper, because that's what you say when someone cries over you.

"You found Carlos," she says between sobs.

"Not so much as found, more like 'was taken to'," I clarify. I draw back from the hug and hold her shoulders. "It's a long story, but we escaped. And we're going to escape again. Okay?"

Tara sniffs loudly. "Okay. Sorry." Her voice is clearer, so I let go of her shoulders. "I'm almost done, I swear."

"Did you find a way out?" Carlos asks her.

She faces him and schools her features, stands up straighter. "No, the only thing I found was the door to the big factory room where they took you, Ari. Except I didn't want to hang around there, because..." she trails off, her objective facade slipping. She clears her throat. "That's where Chaste is."

Dread fills me and I bite my lip.

"Explain?" Carlos asks politely.

I  reluctantly fill Carlos in about what happened.

"I'm sorry," Carlos says.

"It's okay. But we should still probably go out that way since we know where it leads."

Tara and Carlos follow me back out to the main hallway. I crane my neck to peek around the corner, which pulls at my shoulder, making me hiss. I relax my neck and look both ways, but it's impossible to tell if anyone's there, since I can only see clearly for about twenty feet on each side.

"Which way?" I whisper to Tara.

"Right," she says. "After that I'm not sure. There are too many halls and rooms, and all I have is my sense of direction, which isn't very trustworthy"

"Ari, can you scout ahead and find it?" asks Carlos.

"I can try," I say, reluctant to go off by myself in the dark hallway.

"Go fast and it won't take very long," Tara suggests.

I nod, and after looking both ways again, I dart into the hall. My footfalls echo against the metal walls, but I keep my mind on the door. I pass several more hallways before I notice something coming up. I can't tell what it is at first, just that it's dark and lumpy, but when I get closer I see that it's a pile of bodies.

My heart jumps up to my throat and I slow down to a crawl, creeping closer. I really don't want to get close to a pile of dead men. Then, however, I see their backs rising and falling. They're not dead, just unconscious.

With a shiver I peer into the alcove on my left, where the pile spills out to more unconscious men, sprawled out in seemingly uncomfortable positions. Past all that is a huge gray industrial door: our way out. I'm relishing in my slight victory when my eye catches something. It's a body not dressed head to toe in black, but in a torn blue button-down shirt. My organs twist inside me a millisecond before my brain catches up, and I take a few steps back before I turn around and break into a run, my breath threatening to leave me. Now I know why Tara didn't want to stick around there.

It only takes a few seconds to get back to Carlos and Tara but it's not quick enough, and once I'm with them I can breathe again.

"Did you find it?" Tara asks, reminding me of my mission.

"Oh. Yeah, I did."

"Great. Lead the way!"

Much too soon, we're running again. I'm bracing myself for the alcove to creep up on us, but it doesn't, we just keep jogging on.

"I can go a little faster," Tara whispers. I nod and my feet respond.

Finally we reach the pile of unconscious men. I slow down and step carefully around it into the alcove. My eyes are repelled by the sight of Chaste's body like magnets of the same charge.

Beside me, Carlos shoves the loops of rope he's been carrying into his pocket and shifts, his stance suggesting he's preparing to charge the door. "Wait," I murmur to him.

"What?" he whispers back.

"Tara, we forgot to tell you about the pendant."

"What pendant?" she whispers.

"This one." I pull it out from under my sweatshirt, making it glow yellow.

"That's the light! From before, the one that got us caught," she says.

I nod. "And thanks to Carlos, I know where this pendant came from." I look at him for permission to divulge, and he gives it with a nod.

"It was his dad's." I tell Tara about what we've figured out and how it helped us escape. Then I tell her our theory that she's the green S.

"Let's see." She reaches out and touches the pendant, and not a second after her fingers brush its surface it lights up in green. She meets my eyes and grins.

Suddenly, someone clears their throat from behind me. I whip around, stifling a scream, and there is Chaste, sitting up and staring at me.

At that moment, nothing could've held back my scream.