Exposure (43 page)

“Stop him!” I shouted, clawing dust from my eyes.

“Stop him!?” Hi spread his arms. “How? That’s like stepping in front of a freight train with teeth.”

Emerging from the garage, I saw Coop’s tail as it disappeared down the road.

“Damn!” I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like we could force him to join us. Not that much dog, all riled up.

Think, Blue! Tory’s counting on you!

But I blanked. Felt close to melting down.

Tory was the one who made plans. Not stupid me. Right then, I just wanted to smash something.

Shelton grabbed my sleeve. “Let’s flare, quick! Maybe we can call him back.”

I nodded swiftly, grateful for a course of action. Closing my eyes, I called out the beast.

In the beginning, I’d struggled to light a flare. Even a year later I still needed to be angry. But after months of secret practice sessions—pushing myself, testing my limits—summoning the wolf had become second nature. Seductively easy. Flaring felt as natural as breathing.

A single thought of some monster hurting Tory . . .

SNAP.

I felt the familiar rush. Relished the surge of energy that came with it.

My senses exploded with supernatural intensity.

How can Tory think this is bad? How could anyone deny themselves this pleasure?

I glanced at Hi and Shelton. Both had switched on.

“Now what?” Hi asked. “This is the part where Tory does her thing.”

“She talks about glowing lines.” Shelton was still panting. “Connecting us, in her subconscious.”

Squeezing my lids tight, I tried to imagine what Tory described. Tried to picture Cooper. Tory. Me, Shelton, and Hi. The Virals, together as one. Linked. Body, mind, and soul.

Nothing happened.

Whatever Tory could visualize, it didn’t work for me.

Frustrated, I screamed Cooper’s name in my head. Imagined chasing him down.

Didn’t feel a thing.

“This is stupid.” My fingers curled into fists. “How can I summon a dog with my mind?”

“Coop-er!” Hi cupped his hands and shouted into the wind. “Yo, Coop! Here boy!”

Without a better idea, I joined him. Shelton added his voice as well. The three of us called and called, hoping our Hail Mary would connect.

I was about to give up when a gray streak shot from the brush. Coop raced over, favoring his forepaw, bristling from head to tail.

The wolfdog stopped a few paces away. Flashed gleaming white teeth.

Hi backed up a step. “Easy now, killer. We’re family, remember?”

The wolfdog was clearly agitated.

It occurred to me that we’d never flared near the mongrel without Tory present.

Unexpectedly, Coop sat. Then, tipping back his head, he unleashed a full-throated howl.

My eyes widened in recognition. “He knows.”

I met Coop’s golden eyes with my own. Willed him to understand.

Come with us. Help us find her.

Coop cocked his head. Whined. Then he rose and trotted to my Explorer. Pawed the door.

Despite everything, I smiled. “The mutt’s in.”

“Okay, great.” Shelton’s hands rose. “But where do we start?”

I looked at Coop. He barked. Scratched at the handle a second time.

The image of a forest popped into my head.

A sending from Coop? From Tory? Some trick of our flare power?

I didn’t know. But suddenly, I was certain what to do. “Back to Drayton Hall.”

Surprised, Hi and Shelton started to speak at once.

I cut them off. “We go back to where we lost Tory’s trail. Let Cooper track from there.”

“The kidnapper
drove
away,” Hi pointed out. “There won’t be any trail to track.”

“Not one we can see.” I was already moving toward my car. “But maybe the dog has other methods.”

I opened the door. Coop leaped inside and settled in the passenger seat.

Turning back to Hi and Shelton.

“You two have a better idea?”

I
had a decision to make.

Ella was huddled at the back of our cell, head against the wall, staring at nothing.

I approached the steel bars. Moving down the line, I tested every one. None wobbled or shifted. I wondered how twentieth-century steel had made its way down into a nineteenth-century slave pen. Decades ago, someone must’ve restored this horrible prison to its original condition.

I didn’t want to think about why.

Glancing up into the gloom, I saw a chain hanging fifteen feet off the ground.

“That’s how he lowers the bucket,” Ella had explained bitterly. “Food comes down every twelve hours. Like we’re freaking livestock.”

I can make it. Flaring, I can reach that loop on the end.

But not without showing Ella something I’m not allowed to share.

What choice do I have? Am I supposed to take my secret to the grave?

Because, no mistake, that’s where this was headed.

I didn’t tell Ella what Hawfield had said in the barn. How he intended to “take care of the problem.” Why terrify her? Why take away her hope?

Given what I knew, I couldn’t hold back. Not with our lives on the line.

“Ella?”

My friend looked up. “Yeah?” Weariness dulled her voice.

“I think I can grab that chain.” I pointed into the dim emptiness above. “Climb up.”

Ella shook her head. “I tried myself a half dozen times. You can’t reach it, not even if you climb the bars first.”

“I’m going to try. Can you keep watch?”

“Sure.” Ella’s voice carried zero optimism. “But it might be better if I stood below to catch you. Or boost you. Or something.”

“No. I don’t want to be surprised if Hawfield comes back.”

“Okay.” Ella rose and walked to the bars. “But while I think you’re a born soccer player, there’s no way you can jump
that
high. Unless you’ve got moves I haven’t seen.”

Maybe one or two.

Assuming I don’t just black out instead.

I shoved the unwelcome thought aside. There were no other options.

“I have to try. Keep lookout?”

Ella nodded, peered through the bars to where we knew the entrance to be. “All clear.”

Come on, DNA. Don’t fail me now.

Eyes closed. Mind clear.

SNAP.

As if answering my prayers, the power unfolded easily.

My senses awoke. Amplified. Power flooded my limbs.

For the first time in days, I didn’t have to fight to stay upright.

I
flared,
strong as ever before.

No time to celebrate.

Gauging angles, I took two running steps toward the wall. Leaped.

My sneakers hit the stones four feet up. Legs flexing, I pushed off with every fiber of flare strength I could muster, propelling myself backward, outward, toward the center of the room.

I catapulted across the cell. Body soaring, I twisted in midair like a diver, hands flailing toward the black quadrant of space where the chain should be.

Nothing. Panic jolted me. I was going to fall, and hard.

Then my fingertips brushed metal.

I clawed the slippery links.

My left hand slipped free.

But the right one stuck, my fingers wrapping the wet steel in a death grip.

I spun wildly, one-armed, my body pirouetting across the chamber. The metal links cut cruelly into my palm. My shoulder screamed, the bone nearly ripping from its socket.

The hold began to slip.

Arm muscles burning, I propelled forward, throwing my left hand back up onto the slick chain. With both hands in place, I shifted my weight, easing the strain on my joints.

Panting, I held on tight, my momentum carrying me in lazy arcs above the stone floor five yards below.

“Anytime, Brennan.” Then Ella glanced over her shoulder. “Holy crap!”

She scurried beneath me, staring up in shock. “You did it! How in the world?”

“Beginner’s luck,” I grunted, keeping my eyes slitted to tamp their golden glow. “I’m gonna climb up, and see if there’s a way out.”

“
Go go go!
” Ella bounced with sudden energy. “Then, for the love of God, come back!”

Gathering my strength, I began to haul my body upward, a few links at a time. After five exhausting pulls, I’d ascended high enough to wiggle a foot inside the loop.

I paused, hanging in the fetal position. Breathless. My arms were overjoyed at the unexpected respite. I knew that without the added flare power, I’d never have made it that far.

“Great job, girl!” Eyes blazing, I could make out Ella clearly, fifteen feet below.

I prayed she couldn’t see me just as well.

Concentrate. The job isn’t done.

Hanging like a spider, I cast my hyper-senses out in a net.

Water was dripping from somewhere high overhead. Looking straight up, I could make out the moldy wooden planks sealing off the ancient stonework. Flaring, I could see how misshapen the boards were, twisted and swollen from years of exposure to sunlight and water. Trickles of illumination filtered through the rotting wood.

A covered well. That must open to the outside.

But the distance was another thirty yards, minimum. I couldn’t climb all that way. We were much farther underground than I’d thought.

A cocktail of dank, musty odors filled my nostrils. Mold. Wet stone. Rotting vegetation. I shut off the rancid flow before my stomach emptied.

My fingers burned. The rusty chain bored into my palms. Flare sensitivity was making the ascent doubly painful—my nerves were on fire—but I needed the extra power to keep going.

I couldn’t reach the walls—the chain I dangled from was centered in a shaft at least ten feet across. Harnessing my flare vision, I studied the stonework, searching for some other way—
any
way—out of this terrible well.

There.

Ten feet above me, a rectangular hole cut into the stonework.

“I see something,” I called down to Ella. “A way out, maybe.”

“Okay!” Ella’s voice echoed loudly in my enhanced ears.

“I have to get higher.”

Taking a deep breath, I gathered my strength for the treacherous assent.

I can do this. Ten more feet.

Reach. Grab. Pull.

Reach. Grab. Pull.

Three more lunges brought me level with the opening.

It was a fetid, black maw, with no hint of light. I glanced up again. The chain ran through a small opening in the wooden boards, but the top seemed forever away.

A look back at the dark gap in the wall.

Neither option was appealing.

Gassed, I opted for crawling over climbing.

Shifting my weight, I kicked out with both legs. Began to swing the chain across the shaft.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Slowly, my momentum brought me near the lip of the opening.

Timing was everything.

On the next upswing I flung myself forward, launching my upper body into the crevasse.

My knees cracked against the wall below, skinning painfully as I worm-wiggled into the tunnel mouth. There I paused, gasping for air while I rubbed my bruised and abraded limbs.

“I’m in some type of tunnel,” I called down. “I’ll see where it leads, then come get you.”

“Be careful!” Then, with a slight quaver. “Please hurry back.”

“I will, Ella. I promise.”

Rising on all fours, I began crawling down the passage.

Grimy stonework passed beneath my hands and knees. I traveled as fast as I dared, flare senses on maximum.

For the first twenty feet, the tunnel sloped gently downward. Then the grade steepened, the passage dropping into a black pool of shadows even my flare vision couldn’t pierce.

The floor became covered in a slick wet moss that came loose under my fingers. Wet leaves coated the tunnel’s sides, along with a layer of something sticky I didn’t want to identify.

I inched down the incline cautiously, testing the greasy surface as I descended.

A loud bang sounded ahead.

Behind me, the chain rattled.

I froze, ears probing, but silence quickly reasserted itself.

Distracted by the noises, I failed to place my next hand with care.

My palm slipped. In an instant my body was tumbling forward. I plummeted down the shaft, unable to halt my headfirst plunge along on its filmy surface.

Seconds later, I rolled from the chute onto more wet stone. Scrambling to my feet, I examined the dark chamber in which I’d been deposited. The room was the same dimensions as the prison from which I’d escaped. But no endless well above, no line of bars across.

Wiping muck from my hands, I attempted to get my bearings.

My instincts told me I’d fallen back to the same depth as the cell holding Ella.

Find a connecting tunnel. Free Ella. Then get the hell out of here.

Straining my flare vision, I spotted an opening at the other end of the chamber. I squeezed through, found myself in a smooth, brick-walled tunnel running in both directions.

A flash of light.

“What the hell?”