The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (44 page)

“
All clear topside,” he
said, and clicked the radio off.

Haven led Bastian and Roku behind a
boulder that jutted up from the sand a hundred feet from the hole.
The rock was large enough to shield all three of them.

“
Now would be a good time
to hit them,” whispered Bastian.

Haven held up her hand for silence
while she squinted into the darkness. One of the soldiers was
cleaning an automatic rifle. He clacked metal against metal as he
worked to disassemble the gun.

“
They just called to check
in,” whispered Bastian. He crouched behind the boulder next to
Roku. “That means they won’t check in again for a long while. We
should move.”

Haven put her back to the rock and
slid down to face him. “I’m not rushing in until I know what’s
going on,” she whispered. “What if my friends are inside at
gunpoint and they die if anyone attempts a rescue? You don’t know
who’s in there with them. It could be anyone.”

“
The longer we stay out
here, the less chance they have,” said Bastian.

Haven looked around the boulder and
studied the movements of the three soldiers. One was inside the
makeshift tent, seemingly napping in his chair; one sat on a small
boulder, cleaning his gun; one walked slowly around the hole in the
ground that dropped down into the main dome room.

“
Can you see a door at the
base of that mountain?” she asked quietly, pointing toward the
garage.

Roku scooted forward, staying low. He
looked into the darkness for a long time. Finally he spoke quickly
in Japanese and looked at Haven, expecting her to
understand.

“
What did he say?” she
asked.

“
I’ve no idea,” whispered
Bastian. “I don’t speak Japanese.”

Roku sighed. “It looks like it’s been
damaged.”

“
I thought Bastian said
you couldn’t speak English!” whispered Haven.

“
He says a lot of things,”
said Roku. “You should learn to tell the truth from lies more
easily.”

Bastian punched him hard in the arm.
“Enough of that,” he whispered.

“
Quiet!” said Haven.
“We’ll have to go in through the hole.”

“
What’s your plan?” asked
Bastian.

“
I’m working on
it.”

“
Old Roku and I usually
prefer the head-on approach,” said Bastian.

“
Big surprise,” said
Haven. She sighed. “Fine. Let’s swing around to the back and
approach the tent from the other side. Hopefully we can catch them
before they use the radio.”

“
I’ll just fry the radio,”
said Bastian with a smile.

“
Actually, that’s a good
idea,” said Haven reluctantly. “Ready?”

Bastian’s answer was drowned out by a
loud explosion. White light burst out of the hole in the ground.
Inside the dome room, people screamed. The white light disappeared,
leaving only darkness. Soldiers shouted to each other down below,
and above all the racket came the shrill voice of a young woman
speaking rapidly and confidently.

Roku and Bastian shared a knowing look
when they heard the woman speaking, but Haven didn’t recognize her
voice.

“
Now’s our chance,” said
Bastian.

Haven nodded and the three of them ran
out from behind the boulder. The soldiers were standing over the
hole, aiming down into the black abyss. Haven, Bastian, and Roku
were only a few feet behind them when the nearest soldier whirled
around and aimed his rifle directly at Haven’s face.

“
Awrite there, boys,” said
Bastian with a grin. “You’re not much for security if you let us
sneak up like that, yeah?”

“
Identify yourselves!”
said the soldier closest to Bastian. He moved forward aggressively
and Haven took a step back.

“
We’re selling life
insurance,” said Bastian. Haven and Roku shared a wary glance.
“Interested?”

The soldier pressed the muzzle of his
rifle against Bastian’s cheek. “Call it in,” he said. The soldier
next to him reached for the small walkie-talkie clipped to his
bullet-proof vest.

“
Tsk, tsk, tsk,” said
Bastian, wagging a scolding finger at the soldiers. “I think ye
should have bought that insurance.” Pale yellow fire crawled up his
finger, and Bastian grinned.

15

C
olton reached for the next rusted metal rung. The handholds
were bolted to the inside wall of the dome like wide, square
horseshoes with their tips stuck into concrete. As the rungs took
him higher and higher from the floor, gravity pulled his body down
with increasing force. The dome wall expanded around him in all
directions like a wide field—he had to crane his neck all the way
back to see the dim floor a hundred feet below. In the sullen
blackness of the massive room, he was a tiny ant crawling up the
wall of an upside-down bowl. A few rungs below Colton, Marius hung
rigidly from a handhold, his arm looped around the thin metal
handle. He closed his eyes and whispered softly to himself in
Russian.

Each rung was about a foot
away from the last, leaving a hundred rungs below them and another
hundred ahead. At the halfway point, the roof slanted quickly
inward on its long curve toward the ragged hole in the peak. Soon
they would be moving from rung to rung along a nearly horizontal
surface, their feet dangling beneath their bodies, far above the
hard concrete floor
. Even now, halfway up the
rungs bolted into the wall, Colton had to lift his legs back up to
the ceiling to hook his heels in place to stop them from
swinging.

It didn’t help that every light in the
room had gone out when Dormer’s bomb exploded. He must have rigged
a short-range EMP burst along with some sort of disorienting flash
bang—all of the soldiers that had been looking directly at the bomb
when it exploded now stumbled around blindly, bumping into walls
and each other as they scrambled madly about the room.

The Electro-Magnetic Pulse may have
been enough to knock out all of the lights, but it wasn’t enough to
hide the dim outline of the floor a hundred feet below. Colton
swallowed hard and turned back to the metal rungs in front of him.
He reached for the next and pulled himself up. His right foot
slipped off and he dangled in the air like a kid on playground
monkey bars, swinging gently forward and backward. Marius watched
him intently—he would be unable to help if Colton slipped. If
either of them grabbed the other in mid-fall, their combined weight
would be more than enough to rip a ladder rung from its mooring and
send both men plummeting to their deaths.

Colton hoisted his legs up to the
ceiling and pushed down on a rung with the bottom of his feet. He
took a deep breath and continued up toward the hole. There was more
shouting below. Kamiko looked like a bright blue glowworm moving
through the darkness, illuminating her immediate surroundings and
leaving a trail of dark blue light behind her wherever she went.
She barked terse orders and shoved aside any soldier she thought
wasn’t doing his job.

She was calling out all of the
residents of the Dome and lining them up in the middle of the room.
A soldier with a clipboard moved down the line, checking off names.
Colton climbed faster. He could hear Marius breathing heavily a few
rungs down. If Corva hadn’t been so ill, he wouldn’t have been able
to force himself to attempt the climb.

Colton counted rungs as they ascended.
When he reached one-fifty, there was no way to keep his feet on the
rungs. He hung in space, reaching forward and moving to the next
rung with just his hands as fast as he could. Forward momentum was
essential, and one slip would mean his death.

Bright red light ignited below as the
soldiers produced flares from their vest pockets and cracked them
open. Red sparks shot violently out into the darkness, casting long
shadows on the kneeling residents of the Dome. Colton saw Noah and
Micah sitting close to each other beside Corva. She swayed upright
as if she was having a hard time staying conscious.

The rungs never seemed to end.
One-sixty, one-seventy, one-eighty—Colton’s arms burned. His hands
shook uncontrollably as he released one metal rung and reached for
the next. The tendons in his forearms felt like they were slipping
toward his elbows, tightening painfully and making it difficult for
him to keep his fingers clenched around the rusted
metal.

One-ninety.

He wasn’t going to make it. Colton
stopped with both hands gripping the same rung. He hung there
stupidly, swaying back and forth like a dangling piñata. Marius
grunted behind him but Colton couldn’t even turn around to see what
he wanted.

“
Go,” said Marius quietly.
He stuck out his leg and pushed Colton in the middle of his
back.

Colton grit his teeth, swung forward,
and reached for the next rung. His fingertips touched the rusted
metal and slipped off. The momentum of the swing carried him
backward. He bumped into Marius, who let go with one hand to grab
Colton’s wrist and lift it back to a rung. Colton gripped the metal
in relief, breathing heavily.

“
Pssst.”

Colton and Marius looked around,
confused. Neither of them had spoken.

“
Pssssssst!
”

The noise was coming from the hole.
Colton strained to see. The tiny amount of ambient light from the
night sky filtered down through the jagged hole in the dome room
and pushed against the darkness within. In the gloom, the
silhouette of a head popped down into the hole. Long hair dangled
from the head as it turned to face Colton and Marius.

It was Haven.

She held out her hand for Colton. With
new resolve, he swung his legs back, then forward. The movement
allowed him to reach for the next rung, then the next, ignoring the
fact that he couldn’t feel his arms, or his wrists, or his hands.
He also ignored the acid sensation burning through the tendons in
his forearms.

The next rung he grasped was softer
than the others, and he realized it was Haven’s arm. She reached
down with her other hand and grabbed him by the collar. He was
hoisted out of the hole and onto cool desert sand. He closed his
eyes against the chill night breeze, welcoming its touch against
his burning face.

16

H
e opened his eyes and saw two other men sitting on the ground
behind Haven as she lay in the sand, each holding one of her legs
to keep her from falling into the hole. On the ground nearby were
the unconscious bodies of three armed soldiers. Colton got out of
the way as the two men holding Haven’s legs lowered her back into
the hole to retrieve Marius. He popped above ground, sputtering and
gasping for air, then rolled over to lay on his back in the sand,
his belly quickly rising and falling as he laughed softly to
himself.

The lights in the dome room switched
on. Bright light beamed up through the jagged hole. Colton backed
away cautiously, knowing that the soldiers would be trying to catch
a glimpse of the men stationed above.

“
We don’t have much time,”
he said, still trying to catch his breath. A man with short red
hair and a freckled face helped him to his feet and brushed sand
from his shoulders, smiling the whole time. “Who are these guys?”
Colton asked Haven.

“
Friends. This is
Bastian,” she said, pointing to the smiling man, “and Roku.” Roku
nodded and went back to watching the dark desert all around. Haven
pulled Colton to the side and went through the same motions as
Bastian, brushing sand from his shoulders and arms, but much more
gently.

“
Are you okay?” she asked.
“How’s Noah? What happened?”

“
I’m fine, Noah’s fine,”
he said. The relief on her face was obvious. “There are a lot of
armed men down there and some woman who says she’s looking for
you.”

“
Me?
”

“
Yeah. Kamiko Masura. You
know her?”

The two men with Haven shared a quick
glance, then looked away. Haven shook her head. “No, never heard of
her. What does she want?”

“
Whatever it is, it’s not
good. She injected everyone with some kind of virus.”

“
Fade,” said Bastian. He
wasn’t smiling anymore.

“
What’s Fade?” asked
Haven.

“
Marius will tell you all
about it,” said Colton quickly. “I have to get back inside before
they notice I’m gone and you need to get out of here.”

Haven looked at him like he was crazy.
“No!” she said. “We have to get them out. We can’t just leave
everyone behind. Not you, not Noah, not anyone.”

“
You can’t do any good by
making yourself a prisoner,” said Colton. “Kamiko is the new
Phoenix. You can’t go up against her, Haven. Not without
help.”

“
I brought
help.”

“
It’s not enough. You
haven’t seen anything like her before.”

“
I don’t care. I made a
promise to Elena and I’m not going to abandon everyone to
die.”

“
Like you abandoned us to
go chasing after Lee in Chicago?” he said hotly, instantly
regretting his words.