Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series (20 page)

“Ah!” Tom suddenly calls out, and I awake from my blankness.

“Ha, ha,” he laughs. “I didn’t want to mention this in case I remembered wrong, but here it is.”

The exit? Already? Thank God! Seven miles instead of ten. I close my eyes and try to guess which part of Upper we’ll see first and how late into the morning it is outside. To breathe the fresh air finally, to bathe in sunlight, to—

“Oof.”

I slam right into Tom’s back, my eyes still closed.

“Hey,” he says. “You asleep or something?”

I’m glad Ginger was paying attention, or we’d pile up like rocks at the bottom of a pit. Plus, she’s holding a torch.

“Something like that,” I mumble. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. But look. Finally, somewhere to spread out!” He walks a few feet farther ahead, and I follow him into a small room.

It’s really just a circular hole someone dug, as rough as a child’s pit dug into beach sand and not much bigger. The ceiling is low, but at least we can sit and stretch out our legs and look each other in the face. Finally, something to look at besides the back of Tom’s head.

The line follows us into the room and spreads out. Exhaustion keeps everyone quiet. Tom takes the torch from Ginger and slips it into a bracket mounted on a wooden support. The light is steady and dim. We’ve spent and abandoned three torches so far, and this was lit only a quarter mile back. We still have a few more, plenty to get us all the way to Upper. Assuming we’re more than halfway there.

Tom flops to the floor at the point closest to the tunnel’s continuation. He doesn’t look tired, but he sits unusually still. The others ring the room, leaning their backs against the wall and breathing hard. We’ve kept a quick pace.

Garrett lowers himself beside me, too close so our hips touch briefly. I pull my knees together and wrap my arms around them. Squeezing and stretching feel so good.

Garrett skootches a few inches away. “God, what a long, boring walk, huh?” If he’s mad at me, it doesn’t show up in his voice.

I nod in response and keep stretching. I reach straight out, twist my back, touch my toes. Parts of me crack and pop, but it’s wonderful to move different after hours of sameness, but within a minute I’m anxious to get moving again.

“I wonder how much farther,” Garrett mumbles, mimicking my movements and groaning a little with the pleasure of stretching.

“Less than three miles,” Tom says loud from across the way.

“Yeah, ghost man?” Shem’s rubbly voice fills the room. “How’d you know that?”

Tom is slow to reply, staring directly at Shem. His stony, white face is so difficult to read, but it’s clear there’s no affection in his gaze. Hatred? Disgust? Even in bright daylight I can’t tell what Tom’s thinking. Here in this dim hole, the shadows make him look sinister.

“I’ve been here before,” he says with a flatness that suggests he’s hiding some information in the statement. But he’s not hiding it very well. Next to me, Garrett stops stretching and stares at Tom.

“Hmm,” says Shem as he slowly rises from the floor and shuffles his feet, kicking around bits of dirt. “When might that have been, I wonder?” He stops his fidgeting and glares at Tom for a moment before leaning back against one of the thick timbers supporting the dirt ceiling.

Tom returns Shem’s glare and slowly, warily stands up. “Ten years ago,” he says. This is not so flat, and it hides nothing.

Garrett tenses. Besides the two men who stand opposite each other, I’m the only one in the room who knows Shack’s version of what happened that night.

“What were you doing in Tawtrukk ten years ago, I wonder,” says Shem airily, as if he hadn’t already pieced the puzzle together hours ago.

“This isn’t Tawtrukk,” Tom says.

Garrett stands up. The rest of us look from one man to another, unsure what’s about to happen.

Tom doesn’t take his eyes off Shem, but he says to everyone else, “Time to go. Still three miles left, and Darius won’t wait for us.” He leans against a thick timber supporting the doorway out, the way we’re going.

I stand, and the others rise as well. The cave’s cool air feels good on my wet, dirty back.

“No,” Shem says. “This ain’t Tawtrukk, is it?” He squares himself at Tom but stays on the other side of the room. “Is this where you brought her?”

“No,” Tom replies. I’m surprised at how calm and cold he seems. But of course, he’s also had hours to think this through.

“Brought who?” Garrett steps between them, looking from Tom to Shem and back.

Tom continues, ignoring Garrett, “I took her down the other corridor. To Subterra.”

“Subterra. What the frick is Subterra,” Shem says, but it’s not a question. Rage is bubbling up inside him, and even from here I can see him trembling.

“It’s somewhere safe,” Tom growls.

“You had no right!” Shem takes one step forward, and Garrett straightens, putting himself between the two men.

“
You
had no right!” Tom erupts. “If I hadn’t taken her away, you’d have killed her. You know it.”

“Killed who? Taken who away?” Garrett is frantic and confused. I try to grab him and pull him away, but he swats my hand hard.

“We were fine,” Shem spits. “You ruined my life, you son of a bitch. You demon.”

“I saved her life,” Tom replies.

“Whose life!” Garrett screams, but I think he knows.

“There, that one,” Shem says, pointing past Garrett at Tom. “That’s the demon that stole away your mama in the night, took her away from us.”

This is not good. Bad time for this. I can’t let this happen. We have things to do.

“I took her to a safe place,” Tom answers, speaking to Shem, and Garrett spins to stare in confusion. “She never really recovered. You beat her so badly that night, her mind was never the same. Slamming someone’s head with a skillet does that to a person.”

“I’ll slam your head, you devil!”

Shem launches himself at Tom, shoving Garrett out of his way. Garrett stumbles back into me, pinning me against the dirt wall. The dirt compresses behind me, soft and moist, and I sink in several inches before I can pull away.

Tom is ready and braced for Shem’s charge. He takes the big man’s full weight with a grunt. They wrap in a brutal embrace and struggle for a moment. Tom throws Shem off, and Shem tumbles into the dirt.

“Stop it!” I scream at them, but they don’t.

Tom stands in the corridor, just in the shadows beyond the torchlight, and Shem jumps up and charges again without any pause. His eyes are wild, his hair flung about like a madman’s. Tom ducks to the side and trips Shem as he flies by, into the corridor. We hear him stumbling in the dark, hear him fall to the ground.

Garrett half steps in that direction, and I grab him. He wants a piece of this, even though he doesn’t understand it. He might take the wrong side. But whose would be the right side?

Either way, I need every one of us if we’re going to save Upper.

“Stop!” I scream again, feeling the burn of the dust in my nose and throat. The screaming hurts my pounding head.

An instant later, Shem hurtles from the darkness, his shoulder aimed at Tom.

Tom deflects him and retreats, and Shem misses and slams into the thick wood that supports the doorway with a slushy thud and a snap that sounds like collarbone. Shem yells in pain and bounces backwards, stumbling into the corridor again. When he rights himself, one arm hangs limp, but the madness in his eyes is the same.

The timber creaks and groans where he hit it.

A crack like river-ice thawing echoes through the room as the timber bows and snaps under tons of dirt and rubble.

“Cave-in!” yells Tom, and he shoves me and Garrett back down the hall where we came from. “Run!”

An avalanche falls in the doorway, faster than I can think. I move where Tom shoved me, run a little way back down the corridor. The sound is terrifying, a crash like thunder inside my head. Will this whole thing fall in? How far do we run before we’re safe? What light there was dims in the fog of dirt and then snuffs out, and I’m running in pitch dark. I fling my hands out before me but keep running.

In a few seconds, it’s over. Rumbling echoes along the corridor as I slow and stop. I lift my shirt over my mouth and nose and gasp through a haze of dirt and dust. My whole body tingles with fear, with little pricks of swirling dirt, with sweat and exhaustion.

The silence that follows the cave-in is like death. It’s possible I’ve died already, but it doesn’t feel like it. At least I’m not squished under a ton of dirt and rock. I’m breathing. And I think I can at least make it back to the cavern where Freda and Susannah wait with the others.

I would give anything for some water to wash the dirt from my tongue, rinse it from my throat. But Ginger has the flask.

Ginger. Oh, god.

Ginger and Steven were still in the little room when the ceiling collapsed. I turn back toward them and start feeling my way along the wall back the way I came. Or am I? Did I turn myself around in my confusion? Am I heading toward the cave-in or away from it?

A blackness fills my inside as deep as the blackness around me.

I yell out, “Ginger!” I stop and stand still, listening for a reply.

“Stop yelling, sheesh,” says Tom, only a couple of feet away from me. “And you almost stepped on my foot. Topsider.”

Hearing his voice is pure relief. I reach out for him.

“Ow, hey.” My fingers poke hard into soft flesh.

Oh, he was only half a foot away. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” His voice sounds muffled, like he’s got socks in his mouth. Maybe he’s breathing through a cloth like I am.

Garrett’s voice comes out of the blackness, not far away. “Hey, where are you?”

Tom puts his hand on my back, maybe to keep me from wandering off or maybe just to give me a human touch in this nothingness.
Thank you.

Tom answers, “About ten feet directly behind you.”

I hear some feet shuffling until Tom says, “Close enough. I’m right here.”

“Thanks.” Garrett’s voice comes from only three or four feet away, and he sounds like he’s got socks in his mouth, too. But I can’t see anything. I peer at the spot I think his voice came from, but it’s no different from any other part of this blackness.

Tom takes my hand and puts it into his. No, not his. Garrett’s. “Here. You two wait here. Hold on to each other, and don’t move. I’m going to see how bad it is.”

“How bad it is?” I want to be calm, but I can’t stop myself from sounding hysterical. “How bad it is? They’re all dead, that’s how bad it is. Ginger. Oh god.”

Tom says softly, “We’ll see,” and he slips off into nothingness.

What will I tell Susannah’s girls? Ginger had become a big sister for them, almost a second mother. I don’t think I can handle this. At least I still have Garrett. Maybe we can try to find Fobrasse. Maybe we could try to live in Subterra. Maybe Garrett and I could eventually make each other… well, not happy. Neither of us will ever be happy as long as we live. Not without Shack.

It hurts so much to think that it was Shem that ruined us after all. The violent drunkard Shack sacrificed himself for. Where would we be if Shack had done the less noble thing? If he’d let his father die? We’d already be in Upper, that’s where.

Garrett squeezes my hand.

I feel sobs starting to build up inside me. I don’t care anymore. I shake. My knees give way, and Garrett lowers me to the floor where he sits beside me. His hand slides over my shoulders until it finds my neck, and he pulls me to him. He sits back against the side of the tunnel, and he draws my head against his chest. The sobs overwhelm me, and I let the tears run down my cheeks.

After a few seconds, Garrett strokes my hair and whispers, “Loop.”

I fight to hold back the sobs. I will be sad forever, but the relief that crying brings lasts only a moment. It releases me and lets my mind go blank. I focus on the slow warmth of Garrett’s chest rising and falling, the soft thump of his heartbeat.

“What were they fighting about?”

“Oh.” It’s all I can think to say.
How could I ever explain it?

“Try,” he says.

Oh. Was I thinking out loud?

“Yes,” he mumbles, and he squeezes me to him.

I’m a fool.

“Well,” I say. Where do I begin? “Do you remember,” I say as gently as I can, “what Shack told you about that night your mother disappeared?”

“He never told me anything.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Nothing real. He made up some story. It made him feel better.”

“Something about angels, right?”

“Yeah. He told you, too?” An edge has crept into Garrett’s words, and I tense a bit. I won’t soon forget how jealous he got when we started talking about my last moments with Shack.

He strokes my hair again, and I feel him relax against the wall. He whispers, “I’m sorry, Loop. It’s just—”

“I know,” I lie.

“I don’t understand.”

Unfortunately, I do.