Numbers Ignite (19 page)

He considered that, studying me with those dark eyes of his. “Be that as it may, you have no such protection. I’ve looked forward to ending you for a very long time. Now, I’ll give you one last chance. Tell me how many people live down there, or you’ll join them in death.”

“You may as well put me right back into that hole, because I’m not helping you.”

His face darkened. It was the same expression he’d had the day Vance had confronted him. “Have it your way, then,” he said slowly. “Milton and Jentry, dump her down the hatch, and then blow it all up.”

The soldiers looked stunned.

“Sir,” one soldier said. “We haven’t located a second hatch. We won’t be able to retrieve any survivors if this entrance is destroyed.”

“Survivors were never the objective,” Denoux said. Then he motioned to the soldiers on either side of me. Two of them grabbed me by the elbows and began pulling me toward the hatch while a third jabbed a stunner into my back.

My mom gave a sharp intake of breath. “No! Treena, there’s still time. Just tell him, and we can go home. Do it now!”

“I can’t,” I called back to her.

The guards surrounding the metal hatch stepped aside, their stunners still aimed at the opening.

“Ametrine, just tell them,” my mother shouted. “You’re not saving any lives by throwing away your own!”

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I called back to her. “I love you.”

“Ametrine!”

“It’s still locked,” a female soldier said as we reached the hatch, muttering something that sounded like “Why doesn’t he just shoot her?” She retrieved a laser tool and activated it with a low hum. “Stand back while I slice the—What was that?”

“What’s wrong?” the guy to my left asked impatiently.

The woman stared at the hatch for a moment as if listening, then pulled on the handle. The hatch lifted open, revealing only blackness. “What the fates?”

The man frowned. “You said you tried it.”

“I did,” she snapped. “It was locked before.” She bent over the hatch to peer inside, and then screamed as her legs followed her up and over, disappearing into the darkness. Her shriek echoed from the shaft and then ended abruptly.

It was locked before.
It only took a second for me to figure out what had just happened. As my guards tightened their grip on my arms and leaned over to see inside, I thrashed to the side and yanked myself free.

The soldiers grabbed at me again, shouting, but I had already closed half the distance to the hatch. I ducked just as a shot whooshed over my head, sending my hair flopping forward again.

“Incoming!” I yelled as I leaped, arms extended in front of me, still locked together. As I jumped into the dark tube, feet-first, another shot flew by and grazed my fingers. It stung so badly I missed my chance to catch the opening with my hands to stop my fall.

I threw my feet out and tried to catch something—anything—to halt myself, but there was just air. Had I misjudged the situation? I’d assumed someone had opened the hatch from the inside, which meant there had to be a ladder. But now I was freefalling to my death, just as the soldier had done.

Just as a horrified scream burst from me, I felt arms close around me and tighten, catching me at the armpits. The man grunted and guided me to the side. A rung materialized beneath my foot, and then another one under my hands. I set my other foot down to help support my own weight, and let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

“Good to have you back,” Coltrane said beside me with a chuckle. “Although next time you decide to leap into a thirty-foot tube expecting me to catch you, maybe give me a little more warning first.”

A million questions fought to escape at once, rendering me speechless. Coltrane hadn’t gone to the shelter with his community. He’d come back. Exhilaration and dread settled deep in my stomach.

“Quick, close the hatch,” I whispered. “They’re going to toss a bomb down any second.”

“Oh, no they won’t,” he replied. “Get ready to see something seriously awesome.” He turned and climbed up, then shoved a fist through the opening above. His shout hurt my ears. “Back away, or I’ll use this!”

The shouting of soldiers above quieted. I squinted upward at the object in his hand. The weapon disabler?

His thumb curved around the device as he pushed a button. I covered my head with one arm, ready for an explosion or a light or
something
. Coltrane ducked, holding his device high out the hatch.

Nothing happened.

The shouts began again. Coltrane pulled his hand back down and stared at the disabler in disbelief.

“Shut the door!” I hissed.

He grabbed the hatch lid and swung it down just as the barrel of a stunner appeared. The lid slammed closed with a deep metallic thud.

“Hurry and lock it!”

Too slowly, Coltrane pulled on the handle, then forced it sideways, wincing as he did so. I felt instantly guilty. I’d completely forgotten about his shoulder wound. The metal hatch began to vibrate. They were shooting at it.

“They’re going to slice it open,” I said quickly. “We have to get out of here
now
.”

“I can’t believe it didn’t work,” he muttered. “I was so sure.”

The banging on the hatch above stopped. Seconds later the whirring of a motor sounded. The slicing had begun.

“Come on!”

“I am,” he snapped. I could barely hear him over the shrieking metal above. I focused on working my way down the rungs. It was tricky with my wrists locked together.

Half a minute later something dropped from above and clattered its way down the metal tube, hitting the ground with a
plop
. From the sound, we were about three meters from the bottom of the tube. If the bomb was standard, we had five seconds.

Five.

“Time’s up,” I called, grabbing Coltrane’s leg. Then I jumped, pulling him with me. He yelped as his hands tore free.

Four.

We hit the ground and rolled, thankfully avoiding the explosive. What had been a deep ache in my ankle was now agony, but I forced myself to my feet.

Three. “Run!” I shouted, then stumbled over something in the darkness. The NORA soldier’s body. Coltrane followed, stepping carefully around it.

“Hurry!” I shrieked, wishing more than anything that Coltrane had brought a baglight. I felt around the wall for an opening and found a doorway. The door was still partially open. I shoved my way through it and heard Coltrane do the same just behind me.

Two. He slammed the door closed, then took my arm and pulled me behind him. The darkness didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

We turned the corner. The tunnel exploded behind us.

Dirt dumped onto my head, and I felt something hard slam into my back, but I managed to stay on my feet. Coltrane was still running ahead of me.

“Don’t stop!” he yelled. “Everyone’s in the emergency shelter. We’re the last ones.”

“What were you thinking, Coltrane?” I shot back. “You just tried to take on the entire NORA army by yourself. With a plastic circuit case, no less.”

“If my disabler worked, it would be way more powerful than a stunner,” he said. “Anyway, you weren’t doing so well. Thought you could use some help.”

“How did you know that?”

“The sentinel,” he said simply.

Fates. Coltrane had probably watched me run away, then come back. “I tried to stop them.”

“I know.”

We ran in silence for several minutes. Every step sent daggers up my leg, and soon I was limping so badly I could barely cover distance. We slowed to a walk. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on above us. Had Denoux already reported to Dresden that I was dead? What did my mom believe?

“This emergency shelter of yours,” I said. “Are you sure they’ll even let me in?”

He paused. “No. But I’m not going in without you.”

The shelter’s entrance was situated inside the defense lab. The lab looked much as it had last night, the tables cleared away. The only difference was that the boxes full of stored projects had been torn into and lay on their sides, scattered throughout the room. A hatch slightly smaller than the one I’d just come through lay open in the corner.

Lillibeth stood outside it, a look of profound relief on her face when Coltrane walked through. Her smile froze when she saw me.

“She escaped, Mom,” Coltrane said, heading for the hatch. “We’re the last ones.” He lowered himself down. I did the same, giving Lillibeth a long look. The stunned look on her face was almost comical.

“By the way,” I told her, “I saw your other vials of antivenom. I’m going to answer their questions honestly. You may want to do the same.”

Her shock turned to horror as I lowered myself down the ladder.

Coltrane was waiting for me at the bottom, a new baglight in hand. “Is my mom coming?”

I looked up. “I don’t see her. Maybe she needs a minute. Do you want to wait?”

“Nah. She knows where to go.”

The air was much cooler down here, and the tunnel echoed strangely. It sloped downward for what felt like several hundred meters. That definitely explained how the settlers had survived the bombings above—this shelter of theirs was extremely deep.

I tripped on the uneven ground several times before deciding to keep a hand on the tunnel walls at all times. I kept looking behind me, but Lillibeth didn’t appear.

We’d been walking for about twenty minutes when we reached some black plastic bins bolted into the walls like the medicine cabinet had been. “What’s this?”

“Good old-fashioned dynamite,” Coltrane said proudly. “As soon as everyone is accounted for, they’ll seal this tunnel off. Even if the soldiers decide to stop bombing and come down to investigate, they won’t be able to follow us. It should buy us some time.”

The tunnel ended at a thick metal door. When Coltrane swung it open, my jaw dropped in awe. The cavern was massive. Metal beams reinforced the ceiling in a dome shape. It reminded me of the dome at the block in Olympus, but this was twice the width and packed with people. There had to be hundreds of them, all sitting against walls or propped up against each other. Most still wore their nice clothes from the party. Young children struggled to get away from their parents while older siblings clung to each other. The adults were somber. We weren’t out of danger yet.

Many heads turned toward me as I stepped inside. Mandie broke away from her mother and threw herself at me. “You’re here! Maxim said you weren’t coming back.”

I reached around her for a hug, eyeing her brother as he approached. “Guess he was wrong.”

“Absolutely not,” Maxim snapped, making his way through the crowd. He pulled Mandie away from me. “She is
not
supposed to be here.”

Coltrane faced him. “You have no right to talk, Maxim, after what you did.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The exchange was barely audible over the growing noise. Several others had begun to yell at me as well, motioning toward the door. Women scrambled out of the way with their young children as two men approached, squaring their shoulders. The room was chaos now, with choruses of “Throw her out!” and “Traitor.” I recognized several of my students dotted in the crowd. The children looked at the floor. Clara had tears streaming down her cheeks. Mandie returned to her mother and picked up a long black case, clinging to it like it was a shield. Her violin, probably.