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“The tunnel’s curving my way. I think we’re coming up to a bend,” I inform him.
“Let me go first,” Chase says immediately.
“No way. You’re barely upright. and your breathing sounds like a rusty can opener.”
He actually sounds almost fine, but his gait has definitely been less steady than mine, and I know he’s sporting a zillion internal injuries. Not that I care, but he’ll give away our position with his Frankenstein-style foot-dragging.
“I’m fine.” His lie falls flatter than half the buildings in lower Manhattan, flatter than the meat factory behind us.
“Fuck the hell off, you’re fine. I’m going first.”
“Aliana, why do you always have to argue? Just let me go?—”
“Why should you get to lead?”
“I’m not trying to lead?—”
“The hell you aren’t.You’re always trying to lead. Trying to put me in my place?—”
“I’m just trying to protect you. If there’s something out there, it’ll get me.” He speaks over me, our words crashing together like cymbals in those radio songs that Tesq likes to listen to, a cacophony of angry sounds.
“Why would you want to protect me, Chase?” My nostrils flare with rage. He’s always doing this. Always fucking doing this. “I’m not goddamned incompetent.”
“I didn’t say that,” he responds, his voice lowered to a whisper.
“It’s implied.” I sneer. “I can protect myself.”
I swear we just had this argument in the underground room I found him in. Or was that with Empty? I can’t see Chase ever calling me mistress, so it was probably the poltergeist.
Amazing. Now I get to have fights on repeat.
I shove forward, needing space, even though I can’t see him. I need to be farther from his footsteps, his breaths, his very fucking essence.
I move so fast that I stagger, but I don’t care because I feel the ground beneath me start to rise. I’m not sure if it’s a trick of my eyes, struggling to find something to latch onto after so much darkness, but the light around me gets a tiny bit bluer, a smidgen less inky.
Behind me, Chase mutters to himself—or maybe to Empty Man. I’m not sure. I try to close off my ears, but since they’re one of the only senses I’ve got right now, they’re unfortunately fine-tuned.
“Yeah, she’s always like this.”
“And you never told her?”
Told me what? Told me off? He’s done that plenty of times…though actually, as I recall memories of Chase, I think I did most of the telling off for his awful sexist jokes or whatever dumb thing he was saying that day. And he deserved it.
He deserved telling off, but not to die, which is why you insisted on saving him. And now, you’re leaving him behind to do just that if he falls or this tunnel collapses on him. Way to go, Aliana,I scold myself.
With a sigh, I stop stomping forward and wait for him to catch up.
“Do you feel like the ground is rising?” I ask, as if that’s why I waited.
“Maybe?” he says.
We walk a few more feet in dimness, in blessed fucking silence, until I definitely see a shaft of light pouring down ahead of us, a lemon-colored wedge cutting through the black.
“Oh my god. We might actually live through this!” Joy fills my chest like bubbles, light and airy and iridescent.
A giddy elatedness that has my hand reaching to the side and grasping at Chase’s for just a moment. A single, solitary moment of unity acknowledging that, against all odds, we’ve made it out together.
I squeeze his fingers. He squeezes back, and his grip is firm and warm.
