Escape from Harrizel (17 page)

“Please,” he laughs, “you think they’d let
us use them if they knew they were here?”

He pushes the door back until it locks into
place and slides it to the left. Diving through the four-foot gap,
he gestures me to follow and I climb in behind him, finding myself
in a compact hall. I run my fingers along the cool marble wall, the
same as the ones outside.

“This way,” Reid disappears into the
blackness.

I hold out the Callix. All I can see are
Reid’s slippers walking their way out of my light’s limited glow.
“Where are we going?”

“You want proof?” his voice escapes from the
dark. “
Real
proof?”

“Of what?”

“That they can’t remember. If what you’re
saying is true, I want more of a test subject than Raj.”

“Well…” I think a moment, “who’s not likely
to forget Hinson?”

“
Exactly
,” Reid turns, walking
backwards. His face catches in the glow of my Callix, the corner of
his mouth perking into a stomach tingling grin. “I’m not one for
gossip but it was a matter of fact—Griffin and Hinson were
inseparable
. The whole star-crossed lover thing…” his smile
weakens for a second, “…or, whatever. It was sickening. The amount
of time they hung on each other, like they’d implode if some part
of them wasn’t attached. You’d think they’d have a million
babies.”

“And they never had any?”

“Nope.”

“How do you know? I haven’t seen a single
baby since I’ve gotten here. And no one’s pregnant either. Isn’t
that what the Dofinikes want? Repopulating?”

“Sure is.”

“So where are all the babies?”

“They’re kept upstairs,” he says without
missing a beat. “That’s what all the building is for.”

“And you believe that?”

“Do you?” he throws me a look. “
No
one’s
seen a baby.”

“A toddler?” I try, “a child?”

He shakes his head.

“Then how do you know—”

“I don’t,” he tosses me another look, his
mouth dropping open. But his words get lost and he shakes his head,
emerging back into the darkness. “We have to get to Griffin’s
room.”

I follow Reid to the stairwell at the end of
the tunnel and after ascending what feels like fifty steps, we come
to a dead end wall with the same nearly invisible outline. Reid
pushes the door in, the wall locking into place and automatically
sliding to the right. We emerge through the gap and into the tower,
a few floors up.

Reid jets down the darkened corridor and I
trail behind, landing on the pads of my feet, right behind his. He
slows, coming to a full stop at a crimson arch. I pause behind him
but can only see the broad span of his shoulders. The door squeaks
open and Reid and I slip in the tiny gap, closing it behind us.

There’s a boy on the bed, hunched over and
staring at the floor. He’s big like a football player with blonde,
shaggy hair and large, ferocious hands. A despairing numbness
paints his hollow face, which, under other circumstances, could be
quite handsome.

“Griffin,” Reid pauses, “you alright, buddy?
You sick?”

So this was Hinson’s boyfriend. I try to
imagine the two of them together. Happy. In love. The cheerleader
and the jock. Fast forward to today. Right now. The rotting corpse
and the manic depressive. Is this what living on Harrizel does?
After a few minutes, as if Griffin hadn’t noticed before, he
finally acknowledges Reid.

“Yeah. I guess.” His voice is weak, thin, as
if it’s about to break.

“Why aren’t you downstairs?” Reid probes
further, crossing his arms over his chest, “What’s going on?”

I pull the chair out, releasing a loud
squeak in the room. Griffin doesn’t look up. He doesn’t hear it. He
doesn’t accept it into his reality because that’s somewhere in his
head. His lost, dark cloud of a head that no longer knows what’s
happening.

“Come on,” Reid huffs, “give me
something
.”

“That’s the thing,” Griffin finally looks to
him with pained eyes. “I don’t know.”

We both pause, waiting to ask the same
question.

“You don’t know…?” Reid beats me to it.

“Anything,” Griffin exhales with an
exhausted shrug, “like the lights are all turned off. Just…” he
shakes his head, trying to find the right words, the right way to
explain the grief we both see, “…nothing important. There’s just
nothing good.” He glances up again, shaking his head with a hint of
fear in his wet, red eyes. “Has it always been like this?”

“What do you mean?” Reid frowns.

“I don’t know why I feel this way… but I
do.” Griffin’s eyes begin to water as he bats them dry, scraping a
knuckle over his left lid to catch remaining moisture. “It’s like
there’s something missing. Like,” he takes a hearty, wet gulp of
air, prepping his voice which still staggers as he speaks, “I
shouldn’t be alive. Like it doesn’t mean anything. ”

“How long have you been this way?”

“I don’t know…” he looks out into space,
studying it, trying to remember a time before all this. “Maybe
always?” Glancing up, it’s as if he’s suddenly aware of who he’s
been talking to, some evident failure flashing across his face.
“Sorry, Rox… I’ll get back downstairs.”

“Rox?” I shift focus from Griffin to Reid.
“
You’re
Rox?”

“Guilty.”

I jump up—anger, surprise and the tiniest
bit of betrayal ripping through me. “You never told me you were
Rox.”

“Didn’t think I needed to.”

“It’s kind of important to leave out, don’t
you think?”

“Why?” he’s intrigued, crossing his arms,
“change your opinion of me?”

Does it?

“I’m really sorry,” Griffin glances between
us, attempting to wedge his apology in. “I promise it won’t happen
again.”

“You really couldn’t have told me?” I
glare.

“I could’ve,” he grins, still amused at my
reaction.

“Then why didn’t you?”

Griffin clears his throat, “But I haven’t
been watching—”

“It’s alright,” Reid breaks our stare, his
hands dropping to his waist. He finds focus with Griffin again,
pacing, “You’re a good Client. Loyal. Trustworthy. Irie’s never had
a complaint. Tell you what… I’ll add a Marowine a week if you come
with us now and don’t repeat anything you see or hear.”

Griffin nods. “Who’s us?”

“You’ll see when we get there. This is
Fallon,” he gestures to me. “You’ll meet the others in a bit. A
Marowine a week,” Reid repeats, “to buy a few answers and keep your
silence. Think you’re up for it?”

Griffin nods.

“Alright, let’s go,” Reid jets from the
room, Griffin rising languidly behind him. I leave last, emerging
into the outside hall, but Reid is already half-way back down the
corridor, racing through the soft, dim glow of the babeebs.
There’re only five Gizella trees the entire length, each with a
handful of the humming yellow spheres. Reid doesn’t bother with
them—Griffin either—both flying past, in and out of the shadows on
the black, stone floor.

Toward the very end of the hall, where the
West side meets the North, Reid stops at the entrance to the
stairwell. He pushes on the rectangular outline of the invisible
door embedded in the marble. It opens like the others and he slides
in, then Griffin, then me, the door closing again. It’s pitch black
on the other side.

“Fallon,” Reid calls. “The Callix.”

I hand it over and he holds it out like a
lantern, taking off down the stairwell. Reaching the ground, he
sprints in a light jog, Griffin and I doing our best to keep up.
After a few minutes, the smell begins to shift and I slow. We’re no
longer encumbered with the dusty, aged marble, but instead, the
scent of dirt. Wet dirt. Or is that plant life I smell?

The footsteps ahead die down as I push
faster, to a near run. Something tells me I’m not going to want to
lose them. Not in here. I fly through the blackened burrow just in
time to see Griffin’s blonde hair dash left where the tunnel forks
in two. Keeping his moving form in view, this sudden feeling of
autonomy deflates. I’m not free, I’m
following
. I can’t
navigate these tunnels on my own.

But Reid can.

I jet past Griffin and reach Reid who veers
left and then right, streams of tunnels interlocking with one
another, the maze growing larger and larger. There’s no longer just
one burrow to follow but a whole underground city of interweaving
roads. I’m at Reid’s side, keeping to his swift pace. He chooses
another tunnel without hesitation.

“How do you know where you’re going?”

He shrugs. “I’m down here a lot.”

“It’s more than that,” I press. He doesn’t
respond but pushes forward as if he didn’t hear me. “Are we going
to pass the Water Pole?”

“Different route.”

“How many are there?”

“Enough.”

“It’s more than just being down here,” I
keep pace with his wide strides, “how do you know?”

“I just know.”

“What gives it away?”

“What makes you think something gives it
away?” his eyes flicker to mine this time, trying to read their
guesses. But I don’t have any. Each burrow looks the same—dark and
narrow and coated with the scent of outside. But there’s got to be
a roadmap to this underground city.

“
Everyone
leaves breadcrumbs.”

He finally stops with a sigh. “It’s the
texture,” he takes my fingers in his and runs them along the
hardened curve of the grainy, wooden wall. A quick shiver races
through my bones, my fingers swelling at the touch of his. “Root or
dirt. Root leads you back. Dirt leads nowhere.”

“We’re running through roots? What kinds of
trees have roots this big?”

“Very
large
ones,” he laughs,
dropping my hand. He turns and picks up speed. “Come on, we’re
almost there.”

We jog the rest of the short distance, my
fingers outstretched and streaming the grainy, wooden walls,
memorizing their texture, until we arrive at the same hovel from
the other night. The others are already here. Vix and Clark claim
opposite ends of the carved bench while Raj stands in the center,
biting her thumb. Pratt and Sampson pace in the middle behind her,
two babeebs atop each of their heads. Sampson looks up as Reid
closes the door behind us.

“Ah, you’ve arrived.”

He motions to Griffin, “Had to pick up
someone up.”

“Now
him
too?” Clark jumps to an
accusing stand, his arms flying wildly in the air. “Why don’t we
just shout out our secret location to everybody?”

“Griffin,” Raj gawks, “what’re
you
doing here?”

“Rox…” he looks at Reid, then scans the
others, “…says he has some questions. Maybe tell me why I feel like
this.”

“And how is it you feel?” Sampson softly
poses. He motions for Griffin to take a seat at one of the open
benches. Raj follows, sitting beside him and the two look up at
Sampson.

“You’re feeling…?”

Raj starts first, though it’s obvious the
question was directed at Griffin. “
Scared
,” she gulps,
awaiting the explanation to all this. “What’s going on Sampson?
Please
tell us.”

“And yourself?” he poses the question toward
Griffin again.

“Empty…” he says without meeting Sampson’s
eyes, “…like… I shouldn’t even be here.”

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this as
soon we as know some information,” Sampson’s voice is strong,
confident. “Now, you both took the pill?”

Raj nods eagerly as Griffin tries to
remember.

“The pill?” his face scrunches in
confusion.

“The one for the berry juice poison,” Raj
fills him in.

“Oh yeah,” he remembers, “I did take a pill.
Earlier. At Lecture.”

“Me too, me too,” Raj looks back to Sampson,
eyes bugged and waiting for a response. “So?”

Sampson steps back to consider this as Reid
approaches them, glancing from one to the other. “And do you either
of you remember Hinson?”

Raj shakes her head emphatically. Griffin,
on the other hand, pauses at the sound of the name. It’s stirring
something in him, but the name alone won’t work. It’s a clue, but a
clue to what? He waits a moment, concentrating on that word—that
name
—before shaking his head in defeat. “No.”

“It sounds familiar though?” I chime in,
“Like you should know it?” I focus on Griffin, who’s still trying
to work out the meaning of the name. “That’s because you
should
know it.”

“And me?”

I nod to Raj, unaware of the defeat in my
own voice. “Yeah, you knew Hinson.”

“Well who is she? What happened?” she
asks.

“We have a theory,” Sampson starts again,
taking my place as I fall back past Pratt. I claim half a bench
across from Vix as Sampson goes on, “This is the earlier phase, so
please don’t be too harsh with us if the mystery is not quite
unfolded tonight. We believe…” he starts, pausing to carefully
select his words, “that the pill you both ingested earlier—the one
for the berry juice—might cause memory loss. Memory loss of a
specific
person.”

“What?” Raj gasps, “How?”

“Well…” Sampson says, beginning to pace
again, “let’s see if we can figure this out. You say the pill was
for berry juice poison, correct?”

Both nod.

“How did they discover this poison? Surely
an incident was reported?”

“Yeah, they said there was some sort of
berry juice infection,” Raj replies, “Someone got it.”

“But who?”

“I don’t know—they don’t know.”

“So…” Sampson sums up, “when you went to
Lecture, Beshib made mention of an infection and advised you all to
take the pill?”

Both Raj and Griffin nod.

“I see…” Sampson goes on, directing his
questions solely at Raj now, who doesn’t seem to mind, “and before
the pill, can you remember us from the other night? Here, in this
very burrow?”