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“This isn’t funny, Sam. You die in my visions.”
He grabs my hands and kisses my palms, his familiar lips against my skin relaxing me just enough to hold back the tears. “Luke died in your visions. You ran through trees covered in blood in your visions. It’s all speculative, just warnings. I’m not going to die.”
I want to believe him. I need to if we’re going to keep going up these steps. It’s above ground where I see Dean, and it seems insane to keep going, but I trust the boys’ sight more than my own.
“The boys told us to go up,” I say. “But what if Dean’s up there?”
“Oh, I’m sure he is,” Sam says. He wraps his fingers around my hand and walks around me, leading me to the next stairwell. “Now, let’s finish this once and for all.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Blend In
Gratefulnoonehasturned off whatever security Sam has, we make it to the top floor, the place where I’d tumbled down with Alex only a month before. The large elevator shaft looms in the distance where I stepped inside, not knowing I’d find the Assembly below. It’s familiar but foreign, the lights still flickering, blinding us every few seconds. This red out has continued for half an hour, and I worry about our family below, glad Sam told Alexander and Luke to go after them.
I recognize where we stand, and I lead Sam to the large doors that open up to the outside. The smell, though, is very different. My eyes burn from it, the most horrendous attack on my senses I could ever imagine. We gag, turning the final corner, and I fight the vomit that threatens to spew over Sam’s back when he yanks me with him. Stepping into this area, it’s overwhelming, and Sam rips off one sleeve, careful to make it his good arm so his wounds don’t show. He then rips mine and we wrap them around our noses to help. It’s not much, but enough to keep moving.
“It’s rotting meat and what?” Sam muffles through the fabric.
“Shit. Literal feces,” I tell him.
It gets worse with every step, but we have to keep going. The exit is not far away. Shadows line the wall the closer we get, the smell increasing in potency, and I rip the clothing from my face and vomit at my feet.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks. “Fuck, of course you’re not. What is this?”
When I finish wiping the spit from my lips, feeling no better than I did before, I answer him before tying the fabric so tightly around my face I might suffocate.
“Dead bodies.” I knew it when the smell first permeated my nostrils, but I didn’t want to admit the fact. “There was a mortuary crew to take them up and burn them.”
He scans the black bags that line the walls and nods, holding his hand out for me to follow. The smell stabilizes now that we’re in the worst of it, and we reach the steel doors that lead to the outside.
Sam speaks through the covering on his face. “What are we doing when we get out there? Do you have a plan?”
“We need to clear the tunnel,” I tell him. “It’s our only chance. Their only chance.”
“How?” he asks.
I shrug. “I… I don’t know. But somehow we get out there. I’ve seen it.”
Sam puts in his code, and it blinks red. He frowns, opening the panel and placing his hand on the scanner, but there’s the same response. The light around the panel blinks red, and the doors don’t open.
Fuck.
Tears run down my face from the fumes in the room and my frustration. Just when I’m about to tell him we have to leave, that I can’t take this anymore and we need to find another way, I’m blind. The lights turn on, making me see stars. I cover my face, trying to blink behind my palms.
I hear Sam let out a grunt, suffering the same shift from night to day. Blinking through my watering eyes once they adjust, I see the true horror of the room we’re inside.
“There are so many,” I gasp, spinning in a circle. Bodies line up on the walls in black bags, too many to count.
“I can’t get this door open,” Sam says. “But I might be able to get the elevator ceiling open. I’ve seen the layout, and there’s a ladder to the outside if we can get through the ceiling.”
I nod in agreement, walking to the elevator before Sam finishes his thought, but we stop when the numbers above the doors start to move.
18
17
16
