Future Lost

23

I shove the phone in my backpack. “Let’s go.”

The guard’s keys unlock the door. I slowly it ease it open, checking the hallway. Another soldier patrols at the end, his back to us.

“Come on,” I tell Adam, gripping the guard’s knife in my hand.

He clutches the gun but looks vaguely sick. I can only hope that if the time comes, he’ll do what has to be done.

When the patrol turns the corner, I sprint down the hallway, with Adam behind me. I’m on the guard in a flash, covering his mouth with one hand and stabbing the knife into his neck with the other. He dies before he even fully registers I’m there. Adam gives me a sharp glance as I drop the guard to the ground, but I ignore it and keep going.

I start to backtrack along the way I remember coming from the prison, using the map in my head. If this base has security cameras watching us we’re going to be in a world of trouble soon, but I can’t worry about that. One thing at a time.

A loud rumble suddenly shakes the walls and the ground, raining plaster down on us. Adam and I stop and cover our heads, crouching down until the noise fades and the tunnel stops shaking.

“What was that?” Adam asks.

“That was our ticket out of here, courtesy of Paige and Zahra.”

“They’re alive?”

I nod at Adam and gesture for him to follow me slowly. Shouts sound nearby, along with the rush of heavy footsteps. A siren begins blaring in the distance, somewhere above us. We head for the stairs, but don’t see any other soldiers along the way. They all must have gone to deal with the explosion our friends created as a distraction. Exactly as we planned.

We sneak up the stairs as quickly as we can, until we emerge in the hallway of the first floor of the building. A soldier is running down it, but he slows when he sees us. I ready my knife until he yells, “We’ve gone into lockdown. All civilians are ordered to get to their safe houses.”

“We’re heading there now,” I say. “What’s going on?”

“An explosion along the east wall. That’s all I know.” He takes off again, raising his gun, his boots thumping against the carpet.

Once he’s gone, Adam grabs my arm. “What about Michael? We have to find him.”

I hesitate, glancing back the way we came. I have no idea where Michael is being kept or what they’ve done to him. He might be in the prison where they locked me up earlier, or he might be somewhere across the base—there’s no way for us to know. Rescuing him would take time, time we don’t have, and could get us captured again. But leaving him here might be sentencing him to death.

“Elena?” Adam asks.

I shake my head, even though the decision pains me. “We don’t have time.”

“We can’t just leave him here.” But Adam’s face falls because he knows I’m right.

“Once we change all this, it won’t matter anyway,” I say, partly to reassure myself. “But we need to get back to the aperture to do that.”

Adam nods, his face grim. “Lead on.”

We both glance back one more time before heading through a door that leads outside. It’s pure chaos out here, with soldiers and civilians running around and yelling. Smoke fills the air, making our eyes water, and we cover our mouths with our arms. Gunfire sounds in the east. I share a wary look with Adam and pray they’re not shooting at our friends. No one notices us in all the confusion. We sprint across the grass between the buildings, past the spot where people were eating, now abandoned. Past the empty jungle gym. Past chunks of wall and debris that have scattered onto the grounds as we get closer to where we’re supposed to meet. An old tree in the corner between two of the buildings.

As we approach, there’s movement in the smoke, and three figures emerge wearing all black. They’re heavily armed and even have swords and baseball bats attached to their backs. Their faces are covered with gas masks, but I know who they are. Jesse keeps guard, while the two women step forward.

“You did it,” Zahra says, raising her mask. “Hello, Adam. Long time, no see.”

Paige grabs Adam in a quick hug. “It’s so good to see you again.”

Adam glances between them all. “Thanks for the rescue. How did you get in?”

“We need to get going,” Jesse says over his shoulder.

Paige nods. “We blasted a hole in the east wall, then tossed some smoke bombs inside, then sneaked over the north wall when everyone was distracted. We can escape in the same place.”

She leads us through the smoke with confident, silent steps, making me wonder if she’s been here before. More gunfire sounds from the east, along with shouts and screams. But they’re not shooting at us.

“Halt!” someone yells behind us.

We freeze and turn toward the sound, raising our weapons. Five soldiers stand with the smoke curling around them and their guns pointed directly at us.

“Lower your weapons,” the soldier at the front says.

“Not going to happen,” Zahra replies.

Five against five, and all of us have guns. I’m debating the odds when we hear a snarl nearby. It’s hard to see anything in the smoke, but we all glance around, though we keep our weapons trained on one another.

An Infected woman grabs one of the soldiers and snaps her teeth onto his neck. He screams and tries to fight her off, but before anyone can help him, more of the Infected emerge from the smoke. The soldiers turn their guns on them and begin firing, while we use the distraction to start running. There’s more gunfire and screaming behind us, but I don’t stop to look back, even though my stomach twists at what I just saw.