The Line Book One: Carrier (24 page)

After sliding one or two times, I seemed to get the hang of it, but my legs had grown tired and my arms were starting to shake.

“How much farther?”

“Just a little bit more, then we can slide the rest of the way.”

I grunted in response.

After a while, we reached a point when she said it would be safe to let go. “Get as close to the bottom as you can. We don’t want to hurt the babies. Curl up into a ball while you fall. When you see the light, start rolling, but try not to land on your head.”

“Oh, jeez.” My heartbeat throbbed in my temple.

“Just don’t forget to roll.”

Sonya let go, and I watched her fall. A few feet from the light at the bottom she rolled, tucking her feet in with her arms, falling back first. When she disappeared into the light, I heard a thump and a grunt.

“Sonya!”

“I’m all right,” came her response, though I couldn’t see her. “Come on.”

“Okay.”

Closing my eyes and holding my breath, I released my feet and hands from the sides of the shaft and let myself fall. A scream stuck in my throat as I fought the urge to flail my limbs.

Remembering Sonya’s actions, I tucked in my arms and legs and fell back first.

When I saw the light approaching, I rolled onto my shoulder and landed smack on my side on a cement floor.

A sharp pain shot through my shoulder and down my spine.

“You okay?” Sonya was rubbing her shoulder, but came over to help me up.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“This way.”

We were in a room full of electrical cords and large storage containers. The smoke was pretty thick, so Sonya and I pulled our shirts up over our mouths.

She opened the door and we were suddenly on the cement walkway just outside the sleeping compartments inside the Line.

My stomach hit the floor.

The smell was the first to hit me—wet cement and sweaty, sticky bodies. A faint waft of semen. I’d forgotten how humid and disgustingly thick the air was down here.

The next thing that sent me into a tailspin was the feel of the metal grates on my bare feet.

I felt my toes touch the cold steel and never in my life had I wanted shoes more than I did at that very moment. I shut my eyes and tried not to see, but I knew what was there.

The large metal rolling doors of the sleep compartments stared me down. The yellow spray painted squares burned into my eyes like red-hot pokers.

“Sonya,” I whimpered. It felt like my heart had stopped working and my lungs had collapsed. I could hardly catch my breath.

“I know.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a run.

I opened my eyes enough to follow her and saw her dirty face was teaming with tears as well.

At the end of each Line was the red release button for the sleep compartment doors. Sonya slapped it with an open palm, and the bell sounded. The compartments squealed open and chugged to a halt.

A number of women slid out of their chambers.

Sonya and I went down the row, shaking those who appeared to be sleeping, but some of the others were too drugged to walk or, upon further inspection, we realized had already died from smoke inhalation.

Sonya shot me a look of horror but said nothing. I wanted to scream too. But I knew

it would only scare the survivors, and that if we didn’t hurry, we would be next.

We had no choice but to leave them behind.

With only four upright girls from the first Line, Sonya led the pack as we went through the metal doors, connecting one Line to the next. Our numbers grew, but not by many.

The smoke filled the air and the alarm sounded loudly, but no actual flames appeared. This struck me as suspicious.

When we reached Line 12 and slapped the release button, we had a little under fifty naked girls trailing behind us, choking, coughing and hacking in the smoke-filled halls. They looked sickly and frail and walked meekly behind us, huddled together in fear.

More compartment doors chugged and groaned open.

I ran to Peni’s compartment but nearly cried out when I saw her lying there, as still as death. “Peni!”

I shook her violently, but she didn’t answer. Her chest was moving, so I knew she was still alive.

“Come on, Peni,” I shouted, pulling her from the compartment. “Come on!”

Several of the other girls who weren’t already helping their friends walk gathered to help me pull her out.

The smoke in the air was blacker than ever and I hacked dust into my hands. It hurt to breathe and it was getting harder to inhale.

“Naya!” Sonya shouted, then coughed.

Two other girls and I carried Peni to the cement walkway toward the door leading to the infirmary. Sonya tried to pry the last set of double doors open, but they wouldn’t budge.

Some of the women congregated together and pulled and yanked from both sides of the doors, screaming at the others to help, but nothing happened.

Panic set in. Two girls took off running in the opposite direction.

Sonya and I shouted to stop them, but either they couldn’t hear us over the shrill tones of the sirens, or they ignored us. Most of them crowded around the double doors like a swarm of insects, scratching and pulling. Their sticklike arms shook and flailed at the opening, to no avail. I heard one of them cry out in frustration. Another woman looked to me with tears streaming down her dust-covered face. The smoke had turned her lips blue.

When the two girls who were helping me hold Peni dropped her and went to claw at the door as well, I knew we were in trouble.

A couple more from the swarm scattered back into the Line to find something heavy.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t take my eyes off the scanner, flashing red beside the door on the wall.

Maybe...

On a whim, I dragged Peni with me as I walked over and smashed the scanner with my elbow. A searing pain shot up my arm, but the panel sparked, short circuiting, and the doors opened, spilling the girls like a tidal wave into the infirmary hallway.

They crawled over one another, helped each other up and ran down the hallway, trying each door as they ran.

The doors were all locked, and nobody knew which one led outside.

But I did.

I was the only one among them who had seen the way out. I was the only one who had ever come back.

“Sonya, help me! I know the way!”

Sonya grabbed Peni’s other arm and flung it over her shoulder.

Being dragged along, she was slowly gaining consciousness, mumbling to herself words I couldn’t understand. The screams of the women and the fire sirens drowned her out. Peni’s body shook with violent coughs.

“Out of the way—she knows the way out!” Sonya shouted at the swarm clogging the hallway.

The girls who had heard Sonya parted like a magical sea, while those who hadn’t got shoved by those who had.

Sonya kicked a few to move them aside. “Move! She knows which door.”

Soon the girls were coming up behind us, Sonya, Peni and me leading the way.

They followed, a herd of naked, coughing women and girls.

I thought back to that day when I’d left the infirmary and willed myself to remember.

Down this hall, it curved to the left. Then it went straight.

I knew it exactly—even though my release day felt like two years ago, rather than a few weeks. So much had changed since then.

I had changed since then.

Three doors down, it came to me. The nurse had touched
this
scanner.

I went straight for it and smashed it with my bloody elbow.

After the sparks subsided, I yanked the door open and we spilled into the reception area, which was deserted. Even though the front door was locked, it was made of glass. It didn’t last long.

A couple of girls chucked metal folding chairs from the waiting area through it, and the rest burst through the opening like a stampede.

Sonya, Peni and I watched from the back of the crowd, anxious for our turn.

Through the broken glass and smoke, I could just make out the guards standing out front, looking shocked at the wave of women pouring outside.

Then one guard raised his rifle to his shoulder.

Sonya’s hands went to her mouth.

I cried out.

Shots.

More shots.

The sharp pops of the bullets sounded off the inside walls of the reception area.

Girls just outside dropped. Blood sprayed out from their wounds, splattering up the girls’ shocked faces.

There was a roar of shock and anger from the crowd. The guards were shooting the girls as they escaped. The very people we’d just rescued were being slaughtered before our eyes.

Sonya, Peni and I stood inside the waiting area. There was a group of five girls who were too frightened to run into the barrage of bullets. One ran back through the door into the infirmary.

“Stop!” I called after her, but she didn’t listen.

While that girl ran into the smoke, ensuring her certain death, the remaining four grouped together and made a mad dash out the front.

More shots.

More screams.

Two made it past the guards.

Two didn’t.

One of them had been from my own cell block. She collapsed under a barrage of bullets and fell dead to the asphalt.

“No!” I shrieked, my insides burning. “Stop it!”

Sonya gasped and swayed. I reached out with my other arm to steady her.

I heard shouts from behind the guards, cries from the crowd, begging them to stop.

As the three of us stood there, debating our next move, a rock flew past the guards’ heads and landed inside the reception area, rolling to my feet.

From behind the guards, the crowd had grown riotous, pushing against the barricades holding them back, throwing more rocks, bottles and garbage, shouting angrily.

More chunks flew. The shouts took on a thunderous cry.

Some of the guards put down their rifles to subdue the crowd. Others kept firing, turning their fire into the crowd.

People gasped and screamed, dropping like flies.

Inside the reception area my feet were frozen to the floor. Uncertainty held me in position as the chaos erupted right in front of me.

Finally, I heard a woman with a familiar voice cry, “Get them! Get the rifles!” and with a great heave, the barricades collapsed under the pressure from the crowd, and a wave of people descended upon the shooting guards.

Naked girls from the Line, some wounded and lying on the ground, some not and limping away, scattered and bolted, pushing through the approaching horde, trying to escape the mayhem.

I saw our chance. “Come on!”

I pulled Sonya and Peni outside. We were the last ones to hit daylight.

A bullet whizzed by my ear and I flinched. Ducking to the left, I dragged Sonya and Peni behind me.

We were covered in soot and coughing, but we had enough lung capacity to break into a run. I plowed straight into the crowd and they crashed into me. A mass of men and women had swarmed the guards and were beating them with their own rifles, rocks, broken bottles or fists, and with generations of oppressed rage.

I turned to the right and was blocked by a group of men beating a guard to death. They were tearing his uniform to shreds as he cried for mercy.

Disgusted, I turned to go another way, but couldn’t.

We were trapped.

I tried to remember how Sonya had skirted through the streets of Central that night we’d gone to the club. People had bumped, jostled, fell into us, but she hadn’t faltered.

I did the same and pushed around the men. I gripped Peni’s hand and pulled her along. Behind Peni followed Sonya. I cut through the melee like a knife, zigging and zagging like Ric on his motorcycle through traffic. We were knocked and pulled in every direction.

Twice I lost Peni’s hand, and twice I went back and got her.

I would not let go.

I would not give up.

I sliced the crowd with my determination.

When we reached the edge of the crowd, I turned and noticed a billow of smoke pouring out the broken Line door, filling the already smoke-filled street. No flames were visible from the building.

Odd.

Finally free from the riot, I tried to remember where Sonya had parked the car, and that was when I saw her. A skinny woman with a long ponytail stood on top of a broken barricade and was shouting at the guards and ordering the crowd to attack.

“Stop them! Stop them!” she shouted. “Get the rifles! Close the Line!” I watched her bash a guard to the ground with her tiny fist and realized I knew her.

It was Shirel.

A swell of pride consumed me.

I raised my hand to her, but then I heard my name from the other side of the crowd.

“Over there.” Sonya pointed.

Dolore, the red-headed receptionist from the clinic, was waving, just ahead, on the other edge of the riot. I pulled Peni and Sonya toward her.

Dolore looked disheveled as we approached, but she beamed the moment we came within earshot. “Doc sent me. Come with me, quick!”

We followed her to a car she’d parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant, just around the corner.

The irony was not lost on me.

We piled inside. Dolore drove, with me in the passenger seat and Sonya and Peni piled into the back.

After the car started and pulled away from the curb, Peni blinked a few times. She squinted at me. “Naya?” She coughed a thick hack. “Naya? That really you?”

I reached around from the front seat and gripped her pudgy cheeks with my palms. My throat closed with feeling as I said, “Peni, you were right.”

“Right?”

The words almost stuck in my windpipe. “Someone
did
come for you.”

Peni’s eyes shot wide. Her lower lip quivered. Sonya, Peni, Dolore and I wept the rest of the ride back to the clinic.

Chapter Eighteen

Driving to the clinic, the gravity of what we’d done and seen weighed on us all.

Peni couldn’t stop crying, and after weeping a little herself, Sonya had gone silent, staring out the car window with streaks from her tears drawn down her dusty face.

Dolore pulled the car to a stop, handed Peni her sweater and opened our doors. I helped Peni to her feet.

Dolore explained that Anj and Ric had arrived at the clinic together. He had apparently gotten in touch with Anj, and she’d picked him up. Anj and Dolore had then brought Ric into the back office, where they’d cleaned up his bullet wound and begun IV antibiotics to ward off infection, along with and a pint of blood to replace what he’d lost. He had removed the bullet himself, without anesthetic or pain killers, with his own scalpel.

I couldn’t even imagine how badly that must have hurt.

The last Dolore knew, she said, was that Ric was resting in his office, looking peaked. He’d ordered Dolore to go to the Line to bring Naya and the others back to the clinic.

“But he was mostly concerned about you and Sonya running into the Line,” Dolore finished, yanking open the clinic door and holding it open for us. “You’re so brave.” She cried.

Sonya entered the clinic first, followed by a wobbly Peni, me and Dolore, who locked the door behind us.

The waiting room was empty, and all the lights had been turned off.

We walked through the green door leading down the hallway with the puppy and kitty posters and went straight for the back office with the flowery wallpaper and the air conditioner. We found Ric in his rocking chair, tubes coming out both his arms.

Without thinking, and practically knocking Anj out of the way, I ran to him. It was such a relief to see him sitting in his rocking chair I cried out, “Oh, Ric!”

I dropped to my knees beside him. Some color had returned to his face, and he smiled at me. His dimple appeared.

I reached out and touched it. Then burst into tears. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

He wiped the droplets from my face and his hand came back black with soot. He smiled. “You’re late.”

Anj stood in the corner, her arms crossed, looking spent and more than a little angry.

I nodded at her, but I could tell she wasn’t happy with what her little brother had gotten himself into on my account. I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t happy it had turned out this way either. “I’m sorry,” I said through my tears, and Anj’s face softened. But she looked away.

After that, Dolore saw to getting us cleaned up and gave Peni some scrubs to wear. We also each took turns inhaling oxygen from a tank to ease the coughing. I assumed full control of Peni, who was still iffy on her feet, because Sonya had mentally shut down.

We sat in the reception area with the oxygen tank and I tried to talk to Sonya, to thank her for all she had done and seen because of me. But she looked dazed, beyond exhaustion—as if she didn’t hear a word I said.

“Sonya, please talk to me,” I begged as I held out the oxygen mask to her.

She just shook her head, took the mask and breathed into it.

I thought maybe that was all she could handle, breathing. So I let it go.

When at last we were better, Dolore retreated to her office, leaving me, Peni, Sonya, Anj and Ric in the office staring at each other, or the floor in Sonya’s case.

I waited for Ric to speak first, but he seemed so exhausted, I realized it was up to me.

“We need to remove Peni’s tracking chip,” I said. “Or they’ll know where she is.”

“They know. They have to know,” Anj grumbled.

“Still. Better now than later,” I said.

Ric nodded, struggling to his feet.

Anj shot daggers with her eyes. “You sit! I’ll get Dolore to do it.”

Peni didn’t object. Anj took her by the arm and helped her out the door. “We’ll be right back.”

I examined Sonya for some sign of life, but she was still staring at the floor, hardly blinking. “Sonya,” I said. “You all right?”

For the first time since we’d arrived at the clinic, she appeared to notice other people were present. She looked older than before. A shade of sadness had settled into her eyes. “I keep thinking about the girls,” she said. “How many do you think got away?”

I had no response to that. There was no way of telling. There was also no way to keep track of what would happen to the survivors, now that they were out.

Maybe the ones who had lived through the massacre would find their way home. Maybe others would end up homeless or working as prostitutes. Some of them were still drug addicts. Letting them out was one thing, but they were far from rescued.

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty,” I said. The number sounded ridiculously low, once voiced aloud. A thick-rising guilt permanently attached to my soul.

It was a guilt that would never ebb.

Sonya looked haunted by the thought. “We led them right into a slaughter.”

“I never would have thought they’d open fire.” Just when I thought I knew the depths of Auberge’s evil, a whole other level was formed.

Sonya shook her head.

“You did all you could,” Ric offered.

Her face reddened. “It wasn’t enough!”

“Some of them lived,” I said.

“Not enough of them,” she cried. “There should have been more.” Then her eyes darkened again and she didn’t say any more about it, although I saw the unsaid words in the wrinkles of her brow.

“What do you want to do about Peni?” Ric asked. “After her chip is removed?”

“She has family in West,” I said. “We should take her home.”

“Her family is who sold her in the first place,” Ric spat, not bothering to hide his contempt.

“Still,” I answered, understanding his anger but remembering Peni’s love and faith in her family. “That’s where she’ll want to go. For better or worse.” I only hoped they were glad to see her when she arrived. But I knew there was little that would dissuade her otherwise.

Ric scoffed.

“I’ll take her,” Sonya said. “Think I might stay a while too. Hide for a bit.”

“Good idea,” Ric said.

We sat in silence a moment.

Sonya stood up and went to the door. “I’ll go tell her.”

“Come say goodbye before you leave,” he said.

“I will.”

“What’ll you do out in West?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I always find what I need.”

“Probably in someone else’s pocket,” Ric mused.

She smirked at this, then nodded at me and left.

Alone in the office, we stared at each other a moment, he in his chair, and I by the door. He rocked back and forth and we locked eyes. I took the next few moments to explain to him what had happened inside the Line and my concerns about the absence of flames in the building. But the entire time I spoke I only wanted to wrap my arms around his shoulders and bury my face in his neck.

I had nearly lost him twice in the same day, and the fear of that and the physical exhaustion I felt from our escape, and then the rescue at the Line, left me weak to the bone.

I wanted to say all this, but couldn’t bring my mouth to move in that direction.

Instead I said, “You know what bothers me most about all this?”

“What.”

“Auberge still got what it wanted.”

Ric blinked slowly. He leaned his head against the back of the rocking chair and fought to stay awake. “How do you figure that?”

“All those girls who escaped are inoculated, and they’re free. They’ll spread the immunization like wildfire. So either way, Auberge won.”

Ric thought about this and then shook his head. “But you got away too. And the survivors knew you.”

“But I’m still not sure how that helps us. One thing’s for sure, they’ll know it was me. My prints will be all over the inside of the Line.”

Ric sighed. “Little we can do about that now.” He flicked his head to the side, indicating his desk. “Top drawer.”

I walked over to his desk and inside the drawer was a box of latex gloves.

“Until we can get another pair of leather gloves,” he added.

I grabbed the box and stuffed it under my arm then stepped beside him. “Where will we go? They’ll be looking for me now, more than ever.”

“You mean looking for us,” Ric corrected.

I felt my face contort with raw emotion. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, fighting to hold in the tears. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

He reached out with a single finger and touched a tear as it slid down my cheek. “I’m not sorry. Not at all.”

I smiled softly because I didn’t mind that we were in it together. In fact, I wasn’t sure I could continue without knowing he was with me, beside me always. “What do we do?”

Ric thought on this, then said, “Hide. There are some pockets of people who live off the grid. One right here in Central, in fact. We’ll find someplace to go until the babies are born. After that, we’ll figure something else out.”

“So much for moving to North and becoming a chef.” I was disappointed but resigned. It couldn’t be helped.

Ric frowned. “Yeah. That’ll have to wait. For now.”

I just shook my head, trying to clear away the emotion. There were still so many more questions I had, about my family, Auberge, the identity of the babies’ father...but I guess they would have to wait too.

“It’s not total freedom,” he said, reaching out to me. “But it’s something.”

I took his fingers in mine. They were hot to the touch. Then I pressed his hand against my cheek and it warmed me to the depths of my broken soul. I kissed his palm, burying my face in it.

He flushed to his ears and ran his fingers into my hair. Pulling my face to his with a look so intense I felt my heart skip a beat, his mouth melded into mine. Inside me, there was an explosion of soft and wet sensations I had never thought possible. It felt as if kissing him was the most natural thing I could do. I filled with love down to my core and that made me so happy, I smiled against his lips.

When we parted, he was smiling too.

Then I said, “I’ll take it.”

* * * * *