Page 67
I go to him and kneel at his side, wrapping my arms around him, as he sobs in my embrace. “I’m so sorry, Brandon.”
“It was quick, then?” His muffled voice carries a chord of pain that vibrates his muscles. “He died instantly?”
“I would assume. The mutations didn’t get to him, from what I could see.”
Lifting his head, Brandon sniffles. “Good. A merciful death, then.”
“He was your brother.” At Brandon’s silent nod, Valdys lowers his gaze. “I’m grateful to him for what he did.”
“We need to get out of here.” Cadmus removes his hand to reveal a blossom of red at his stomach, and he seems to be resolved with the wound, as he doesn’t bother to cover it again. “Tanks are reading high pressure. Kenny thinks they’re going to blow.”
“Yes, we have to meet the others at the front entrance. He’s going to unseal the doors.”
Frowning, Valdys shakes his head. “Unseal the doors? And let all those things out of here?”
“I’m getting you out of here. That’s all that matters to me.” Pushing to my feet, I twist toward him. “Regardless of the consequences. Now, let’s go.”
“I’m not leaving Atticus.”
“Then, lets get him and get out of here.”
“What’s happening down there?” Kenny’s voice carries more tension than before. “I’m getting dangerously high readings right now. You need to get your asses in gear.”
“We have a small detour to make first,” Cadmus answers back. “We were wrong. The stubborn prick is alive, after all.”
“Whatever it is you have planned, you better make it quick. Those tanks sit on the other side of the wall where you’re at, and they’re about two hundred liters a piece. If they explode, they’ll displace the oxygen on that floor. You’ll all die of asphyxiation.”
Chapter 26
Wren
Breathing a little easier than before, I watch as Six drops from the ceiling vent to a lab bench, where glass crackles beneath his boots.
He reaches up to help Jed through, the two having decided he should go first, and both perform a second sweep of the room, before exiting out through the door. Another sweep of the hallway shows no sign of the mutations anywhere, none that I can see through the green haze of the camera, anyway. The two make their way to the opposite end of the corridor, and as they push through the door of the stairwell, they’re back on the path to the first floor where they entered this hell.
Though they’re out of immediate harm’s way, I’m far from feeling easy about the trek back. I won’t feel at complete ease until I’m once again lying beneath the stars en route to the east coast, with Six at my side.
“How’d he do it?” Gregor asks. Feet kicked up on the desk, he lounges back in his chair beside me. “Josef. How’d he die?”
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of him as anything but Papa. I forget that he was a colleague to all these men, these progenitors of this place. “Suicide.”
Staring down at his drink, he nods. “Can’t say I haven’t given it thought before.”
“He was bitten. Otherwise, I doubt he would’ve considered such a thing.”
“We’ve all considered such a thing.” He tips back the amber fluid, probably whiskey, from the smell of it. Papa used to drink it from time to time. “A few decades in this world, and you long for the next.”
On the screen before me, Six and Jed reach the first floor where they encountered the cat. Six breathes easy, the lesser shaking of the camera telling me his strides are more casual and calm.
Still, I won’t allow myself to be swept into the illusion that they’re safe, not until he’s at my side again.
“The tunnels … they extend beyond Calico in the other direction?”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
Snorting, Gregor removes a cigar from his pocket, snipping the end of it off before he shoves it into his mouth. He lights it up and takes a few puffs, not bothering to make eye contact when he says, “I wondered when you were going to ask me that.”
