inDIVISIBLE (25 page)

Stop it, Brynn
, I chastised. I couldn’t freak myself out. Dwelling on that rat in the corner wouldn’t help any more than the images I’d finally shut out of T being gunned down by the man in that helicopter.

I moaned and it echoed down the corridor, the hair on my arms rising higher, moving up my back, making my neck tingle.

I thought of the Pledge of Citizenship, the new verses I’d strung together but I forgot most of the words. Instead I recited poetry, the poems I’d written on my floor and whatever scraps I’d found, the ones the Alliance had stolen after they murdered my dad.

My chills turned to anger and I picked up my pace, my fingers gouging into the rough walls, breaking my nails backward into the quick.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I shoved two fingers into my mouth, the raw skin below my nails protesting. Still I continued, my teeth rattling as I stepped into a gorge, the drop just far enough to make my head ring.
There has to be another way
, I thought as I pulled myself over the lip of the gorge, back onto the pathway to T.

I took a deep breath and recited
,

I commit my life and soul to the
destruction
of One United,

To
the ideals and security that the
Freemen are about to make
possible
…

One step, two … the ground sloped upward—

I commit my life …

I still had opportunity to live, to do something great.

And soul …

I paused. If there was no God, why did we have souls? The wall veered to the left—and the right. I moved left, the ground level, smooth. To the right, the ground grew rockier, the slope increasing upward. I wanted to go left to avoid the rocks and jarring but moving right would take me to the exit as T had described it. I turned right and staggered through the littered stones.

T
he Alliance had written the pledge—at least the parts I hadn’t changed—so why had they said soul?

Maybe they knew about God. Maybe t
hey considered themselves gods—but making themselves gods didn’t explain souls …

I moved faster now, the darkness more familiar, less frightening. “It’s not the darkness,” I whispered as I’d done as a child. “It’s the things in the darkness to fear. Right now, I’m the only thing in this darkness that matters.”

Rocks clattered as I took each step, my shoes making little patting sounds that reverberated down through the tunnels. Another web coated my face and I felt the furry feet of a spider scramble down my shirt, between my breasts. I slapped my chest and goo spurted. I used my hem to wipe the dead critter away and my sleeves to clean my face.

“There’s nothing to fear—”

The ground vanished with my next step. My left foot plunged into darkness, taking my body with it until my right shin slammed on a metal grate. I clung to the grate, breathing, waiting for the shaking to ease when the rocks I’d dislodged made a tiny plink hundreds of feet below.

“No, no, no,” I pleaded. I wrapped my hands around the metal bars that formed the grate and tried to stand but the grate teetered
toward me, toward the gap between the metal and the floor I’d lost.

I
yelped.

I’d made it past killer spiders, a rat,
and pitch black—I would not fall into that hole now.

I leaned forward, offsetting my weight and keeping the grate steady as I lifted my left leg up and onto the metal. I waited, crouched atop the deadly teeter-totter as I fanned my hands out slowly, searching for solid ground, walls, anything.

The tunnel had expanded here
leaving no walls within my reach. Going back made the grate tip so I could only move forward. I crawled now, hands gripping the metals bars in case it flipped so I could at least dangle a while and prolong my death plunge if it came to it. My knees throbbed each time I balanced them on the bars to move my hands forward. Sweat slickened the metal, and I took turns wiping first one palm then the other on my jeans.

I had to c
oncentrate. I picked up the pledge again,

The ideals and security …

“Ha,” I said, flinching when I realized I’d spoken aloud. The security One United offered was less secure than this grate and that was pretty shaky.

I laughed at the joke, the echo sounding maniacal—hollow …
I’d lost my mind
. How could I possibly be laughing while suspended hundreds of feet from my death? New tactic:

There once was a girl from Seven
—

The poem started out pretty badly, I thought, but I was sure I could make it worse. I crept forward, no walls, no ground in reach.

Who dreamt every night about livin—

Livin?
That didn’t rhyme with seven. Besides, where was the
ing
? I sounded like a hick.
Hick
? Where had I heard that word before? I reached out again, a hole in the grate to my right, the metal torn and mangled.

What could have made a hole like that?
I wondered. I couldn’t imagine anything crashing through that grate unless it had fallen from very high above. I arched my neck.

A star twinkled overhead.

I wanted to laugh and cry. I’d found the exit and it was entirely out of reach. The top was narrow, the walls edging out wider and wider like a reverse funnel until they disappeared into darkness.

I will live, she said,

As she climbed out of bed—

I looked up again but the sky was too dark to see details. Maybe ahead the tunnel sloped more gradually and met up with the hillside in a way I could walk it. I placed one hand in front of the other, knees balancing on thin metal rods.

T
he grate shifted to my left, slipping through rock with a deafening screech. I scrambled forward, feeling a thicker web this time, a rough, dangling web that brushed my cheek without falling apart.

The grate silenced.

My arms shook.

It slipped three inches. I yelped. Six more
—I scrambled toward that web, hoping it would hold me if that entire grate crashed before I reached the other side.

Stones plopped below, dull sounds
that felt miles away. I spread my knees for balance and let go with one hand. The grate pitched and my hand shot up, groping empty darkness for the web that had just brushed my face. My head spun, and I tried to counter the sinking by staying upright but I could no longer tell if I reached up, to the side, out … I searched for that single star, found it off to my right and reached my hand toward it. The webbing had been up … straight up.

My fingers brushed the bottom, not firmly enough to catch myself, but enough to know it really existed. I’d have to let go with both hands to grasp it. I didn’t think—I let go wi
th my other hand, stretched out—felt the web along my arm.

The grate
grew weak beneath me, collapsing into the stone, ripping through the walls.

I
planted my foot on one metal rod, shoved forward as the grate rocked out of reach.

I scrunched my eyes closed and fell—less than a foot—pain ripping through my right shoulder as the web caught my arm and held me in the dark, legs kicking over nothing.

I couldn’t see what held me, but I wouldn’t lose it. I reached up with my free hand and found a thick strap with a single loop at the end, my right arm slung through the loop. I wrapped my left hand around the strap, just above the knot and heaved. The pressure lessened on my arm but didn’t reassure me. What if I pulled my arm out and my hands weren’t strong enough to lug me all the way to the top? What if I reached the top and couldn’t pull myself over?

I had to start thinking more positive. I could do this, just like the girl from Section Seven:

I will live, she said,

As she climbed out of bed,

Never thinking she’d be saved by a web.

I snickered. That was one poem I’d never recite to T.

I relaxed my feet—thrashing would only take more strength—and pulled my body higher on the web until I could slip one foot in the loop. Pushing my weight upwards, vertigo set in
again, the darkness spinning as I fought to remember which way was up. The strap—the strap went up. I followed it, toward the hole, the star became two, and I focused on them as I felt higher up the strap, searching for another loop or knot, anything to support my weight.

My arms shook.

I clung to the strap, my breathing strained, my foot pinched, until I felt up higher and recognized a second knot. I wrapped my hands around the knot and lifted, placing my feet on either side of the knot where my hands had been just moments before.

My legs trembled.

I pulled up another knot, the sky becoming real now, the walls taking on shapes and textures.

Again and again
, I pulled and planted my feet. My arms burned and sweat ran down my spine. Still I pushed upward, gasping as my head broke the surface.

Death lay below. Life lay right in front of me, but I could not figure out how to breech the two.

My thighs cramped. My shoulders burned. I had to get over that lip before I lost what little strength remained. I reached higher, where the strap had sunk into dirt and found that it frayed, the weakest point ready to tear free.

I glanced up one more time
and wondered if God could hear me as I pleaded for help. With trembling hands, I let go with my left and felt the ground for anything secure to pull me through. A sagebrush grew over the strap, and I wondered if it would hold. I gripped it and let go with my right hand, my feet still cinched together above the last knot, knees barely bent. I scraped through dirt and pebbles, my hand still empty and feet beginning to slip. I reached out further, groping the earth until my hand closed around a stake, the same stake that held the strap. I gripped it with my right hand and heaved with both arms, shoving off with my legs.

My waist cleared the lip
, and I flopped my upper body on the ground, wiggling forward, rolling from the hole until I lay on flat on my back on the ground.

My heart surged, thundering in my ears
, and I fought to catch my breath. Shock set in as my shoulders shook and a sob started at the back of my throat. I clamped my hands over my mouth.
I’d survived too much to break now.

I closed my eyes and pictured T as he’d been beneath the swings, his face inches from mine. His eyes had been so tender, his breaths so shallow—almost nervous. Could he really have been nervous to kiss me?

I rolled to my stomach and pushed to my hands and knees, a pop in my stitches shooting pain through my hand. My legs wobbled and the world spun on its side. I dropped back down and sucked in three deep breaths—in through the nose, hold for three, out through the mouth.

Clouds passed overhead, hiding
the stars before returning them. I searched out the big dipper, followed the line to the North Star and back to the south. One shape stood out, a jutting mountain silhouette above the sage brush, juniper and pines.

Finding my mark gave me strength to push
to my feet and stumble forward, but what of the marks I’d made getting out of that mine? I turned and did my best to disguise them before following my marker again. T would be waiting for me somewhere. I hoped.

CHAPTER 30

I thought the moonlight would seem bright after the blackness of the mine and it had for the first few minutes—then my eyes adjusted and I started tripping again. I didn’t dare stop though. I had to get to that point I’d mentally marked, that jut in the mountainside that looked like a huge, crooked nose. I focused on it, working my way around bushes and cactus until it seemed just out of reach, then I turned around to find the North Star so I could set a second goal.

The clouds had returned
, enough to obscure the stars I needed for guidance. I waited for them to disperse but they hovered and though I thought I knew right where the star should be, I hesitated. What if I went off course? What if T couldn’t find me?

Perhaps he’d already begun searching. I listened. The air reverberated with crickets. No footsteps. No helicopters.

I focused again on the crooked nose and walked toward it.
More clouds rolled in, the sky becoming black, nearly as black as the mine.

I sped, searching for the crooked nose against the blackness beyond, feeling the first few drops of rain spatter against my arms.

Lightning scribbled across the sky and the nose stood out, directly in front of me. Thunder followed, shaking the ground and rumbling through my chest.

More drops fell in bursts, easing, then dumping. I ran toward the nose, sure if I made it to that marker I’d find shelter from the rain, but I couldn’t escape the deluge. It pounded my shoulders, slicked my shirt to my body, my pants to my legs until my weight doubled, the wet clothing restricting each movement.