The Believers (The Breeders Series - Book 2) (27 page)

Movement beside me. Clay jumps to his feet. In two strides he's on the gunman, snatching the gun with his good hand and punching him in the jaw with his wounded one. The gunman's head snaps back, coarse curls flying. His legs unlock and he tumbles onto the concrete floor. Clay takes the gun, flips it around, and smashes the pistol's handle into the man's head with a horrible crack. The skin on his forehead opens up like an overripe peach.

The gunman is still.

I push up, standing on shaky legs. Clay breathes a heavy sigh of relief, his chest heaving through his sweat-soaked shirt. But, he smiles. Thank God he's okay. I run a hand over my body. I'm okay. Mage steps into the light. I expect relief on her face, but there's something else. I follow her eyes to the floor and my heart reboots in my chest.

Rayburn lies in a pool of thick red blood. His face is ashen. His glasses are broken, split in two halves that dangle off the left side of his face. His mouth lies open like he's screaming. But there's no sound. No movement.

I drop to the ground. “No! Rayburn!”

His shirt is already soaked in blood. The fabric peels back to reveal a jagged red hole in the center of his chest. The flesh is flayed open like a punctured can. Inside is a bloody mess. My hands flutter over the wound, unable to help, unable to repair the destruction one cylinder of lead did to his heart.

“Rayburn.” I lean over him. His eyes are open, irises staring up. The trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth slips down his neck. “Rayburn!” I press my hands to his chest to stop the flow of blood. My hands are instantly slick. I have to make it stop or he'll die. “Rayburn!”

I look into his eyes, a deep chocolate brown. They’re beautiful, actually, though I've never really looked at them. Never really looked at him until now.

Clay's hand is on my arm, pulling me up, but I can't go. I keep pressing on Rayburn’s wound. Maybe if I hold him like this he'll…wake up. Maybe if I just stay here in this moment none of this will be real.

“Riley,” Clay's shaking me. “Riley!” A yank on my arm draws me out of my trance. “There's nothin' we can do.”

I stare at Clay. Mage steps behind him, her eyes thick with tears. Why is she crying? Rayburn never saved her life. He never took care of her when she was ankle-deep in hell. I turn back to Rayburn. My friend. My family.

“Riley!” Clay yanks my arm again.

I throw him a tortured look. “We can't just…leave him,” I manage to choke out. My head is buzzing. I can't think. I lift my hands. So much blood.

Clay takes my arms and draws me to him. He folds me into an embrace and gently whispers in my ear. “We gotta save yer ma. We gotta save Ethan.”

An image of them floats into my mind, pushing out some of the fog. “What do we…do with him?” I ask. “We can't just leave him,” I repeat.

Clay looks at Rayburn's body, his face lined with sorrow. “We'll tuck him in safe here and then come back later. ‘Kay?”

I feel myself nodding, though I'm anything but okay.

We carry Rayburn into the room. Lifting his feet, a wave of nausea hits me. More blood dribbles from his shirt onto the floor. His hand flops down. The hand he used to help me pull Clay into the van when we were fleeing the Breeders. The hand that stitched up my gunshot wound and Clay’s. That helped my mama come back from death’s door. The sadness crests, ready to drown me, but Clay locks me with a solid glance and I manage to get Rayburn’s body into the room. We lay him out, his arms folded on his chest, his eyes closed.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to focus as tears slip down my face. I think of Mama. Ethan. Rayburn wouldn't want them to die.

Clay shuts the door with a quiet click. The water room is the size of a master bedroom and houses pipes of all sizes, angling from several metal machines. The pipes are painted blood red, but have a thick layer of dust coating them. I stare at all the valve wheels and yards and yards of pipe. The far wall holds a huge metal box, its open door revealing rusting wires threaded through like tangled yarn. On the top there's dozens of red and black switches, none of them labeled. I shove my hands into my hair and pull. There's no way we'll be able to figure out which one shuts off the sprinkler.

“Shut-off valves,” Mage says, pointing, bouncing on her toes.

Pipes the size of three trunks run up from the floor. Giant orange wheels are attached at waist level. We walk over and stare at the six-spoked metal wheels, their paint worn around the edges where countless hands have gripped them.

“Do we just…turn one?” Clay rests his hand on the wheel. Some blood from his palm streaks the grip. Rayburn's blood. I will myself not to turn and look at my dead friend.

Mage shakes her head. “This doesn't seem right.” Her eyes follow the pipes upward, one finger tapping on her chin. “There would have to be a tube or something spliced into the system. I don't see anything like that.” She turns to me. “Riley, didn't you say there was a drum of poison? It would have to be down here, hooked up.”

I press my palm to the cool pipe, trying to think. If the poison isn't here, where would it be?

Suddenly an alarm shrieks down the hall. We run to the door and pull it open. The loud, incessant beeping drills into my ears. Did we trip an alarm? Is there a fire?

Down the hall a watery hiss begins. A sprinkler turns on above the entrance to the stairwell.

We're too late.

“The sprinklers,” Clay says, staring. It's the one enemy he can't fight with bullets.

Mage pulls up behind us, her body trembling against the fabric of my shirt. “Maybe it's just water.”

I look up, hopeful. Yet, the mist floating from the sprinklers is starting to make my eyes water. A deep burn begins in my nose. I pull my shirt up over my face.

“It's not water!” I yell into the fabric. “We have to get out!”

Mage looks at me, frantic. “How?! Our exit is being blasted!”

She's right. The spray from the one working sprinkler at the end of the hall is saturating the stairwell with caustic water. The walls sizzle with acrid steam. If we run through, we'll get doused. It'll burn through our clothes and skin. But we can't just sit here and hope they run out of acid. Mama and Ethan are upstairs and God knows what's happening to them.

My eyes do a quick scan of the room. It's bare except for poor Rayburn and the guard that Clay knocked out. He wears thin clothes, threadbare shoes. Nothing to cover us.

Clay pulls out the gun he took from the guard and aims at the sprinkler.

“No!” I say, putting my hand on his arm. “Save your bullets. You'll only bust it and make the acid spray faster.”

My eyes skip past the box of switches, but then I see the door on the electrical box. It's at least three square feet of solid metal, wide enough for all of us. I run over and examine it. The door is screwed into the electrical box with huge screws. The hinges are solid metal too, but they're covered in a heavy coat of rust. I grip the metal lip and yank the door up. The hinges groan.

Clay's face slides into my line of vision. His damp hair clings to his forehead as he frowns at me. “What're you doing?”

“Help me!” I yank up on the door. It squeaks like hundred-year-old car brakes. The metal lip digs into my palm, but I pull with every ounce of my strength. When I stop, Clay takes over, heaving up with a grunt. One hinge lets go. He yanks down, his jaw locked. There's a metal
twang
and it pops off, clattering to the ground. We run over and pick up the bowed door.

Clay looks at it, shaking his head. “It won't be enough. Hold on.” He runs over to the unconscious guard and begins stripping him.

“How's that gonna help?” I ask, striding over. I look away as Clay tugs off the hairy man's jeans.

Clay tosses me a stiff shirt. “Find a faucet that works. Make sure it's clean water.” He throws Mage the guard's jeans. “We soak these and wrap 'em 'round any exposed skin. Our faces. Hands.” He holds up two socks, nodding. “It might not stop a direct hit of the stuff, but'll protect us from the mist.”

With Mage's help, we find a little wash sink in the back. The water seems to run clean, so we soak all the extra clothes and begin mummifying ourselves. With the wet material over our faces, it’s hard to breathe, hard to hear. And the small slit for our eyes makes it nearly impossible to see. I hope to God we don't run into any more guards. We'd be sitting ducks.

Mummified, the three of us huddle under the metal door and lift it over our heads. It seems much smaller once it's hoisted. Shoulders and arms could easily be exposed if we aren't careful. Clay looks at us through his shirt turban. “We move as a team. Always together. No one leaves cover,” he nods to the door over our heads, “got that?”

I nod. Mage's small round head wrapped wet denim nods. She looks up at me for reassurance. How can I be the one to reassure her? I can barely keep breathing through the fear tightening around my throat.

“Ready?” Clay asks.

My whole body screams no, I'm not ready to walk into a cloud of acid. Yet, I find myself walking alongside Clay with Mage in the middle. Clay and I lift the door, keeping our palms up inside the metal sheet. Then we step into the hall.

The hallway air burns my eyes like fire. My nose and lungs seem okay for now thanks to my T-shirt mask. Will our eyes burn out before we can escape? A horrible image of us stumbling through the mall with empty eye sockets flits into my brain before I can stop it. But all thoughts die away as we get to the hissing sprinkler. I huddle closer to Mage and Clay as the first drops ping against our makeshift umbrella. Will it eat right through?

The drops ping loudly on our heads and then cascade over the sides in a poison rain. The sizzling on our roof worries me, but for now the sheet of steel holds. The outside arm of Clay's shirt starts to smoke. We’ve only taken six or seven steps and we have to get all the way up the stairs. I blink tears out of my burning eyes and will myself into the man-eating cloud.

My toes bump the staircase. At least we've made it this far. Moving together, we manage the first step. The second. The third step is puddled with liquid. Mage slips, her shin banging into the stair. Water flies up, pelting us, but surprisingly the water doesn't burn. If only Rayburn were here to explain why. What will this air do to Rayburn's body? Then I realize Mage isn't moving. I look down. Crumpled on the steps, her hand rests in an inch of water. She starts wailing.

With one hand, I draw her to me, holding the door up with the other. Huddled together, the water pinging off our metal cover, her little body shakes as she cries. She holds her hand like an injured animal. Clay's blue eyes meet mine. We have ten more steps to go and then the rest of the mall to run through. “We don't stop.” He looks at me pointedly. “We
don't
give up.”

I nod. “Mage,” I say, “we're going on. Your hand'll be okay.”

Sniffling, her damp curls poking through her turban, she presses her face to my shoulder and nods once. Onward.

We move in sync, a being with six legs and three thumping hearts, up the stairs. My eyes tear up until the landscape is a blur, but we move mostly by instinct. Finally, through the tears, I see the open doorway. And the pinging on our metal roof is subsiding.

We crest the stairs and enter the ground floor. I look up, expecting a horrible acid rain, but some of the sprinklers are broken or haven't turned on. A few spray here and there and the air still burns my eyes, but it’s better than I expected. The hallways are silent as a grave. I see no one. Well, no one alive. Fifteen feet down, a body lies under one of the working sprinklers. The smoke curling off his red, blistering limbs makes my heart lurch up into my throat.

“We left Rayburn,” I whisper, not sure who I am speaking to.

Clay’s jaw tightens. “We'll come back for him.”

But one look into his face tells me it's a lie. The living doesn’t go back for the dead when doing so might mean handing over their lives. Rayburn would've understood. Still, a sob stutters in my chest. I bite my lip. “Let's get the others and get the hell out.”

We let the metal door drop. The top is corroded, but luckily no holes show through yet. I hoist it in front of me like a shield. My muscles ache, but we might need it again. Clay carries the guard's pistol with six bullets inside. His revolver, tucked in the waistband of his pants, holds one bullet. Better odds than we had before.

He lifts the gun and nods to the right. “We go light and fast. Any working sprinklers, we get under the lid. Keep yer eyes open for believers or mutants. We grab the rest and then we get the hell out.”

“What about the other kids?” Mage asks, her voice muffled by her denim head wrap. She holds her blistering hand against her chest.

I look at Clay. “We get the kids out. Prema and Yusuf too. And anyone who isn't trying to shoot us.” I look at the body slowly sizzling away under the sprinkler. “No one deserves to die like this.”

Mage says nothing, but her face says it all. How could her father be so cruel?

We run. My irritated lungs struggle with the contaminated air and my eyes feel like someone has set them on fire, but we run. A few times we have to duck under our metal lid to slip under the sprinklers, but then there are large stretches where the sprinklers aren’t on. I only hope Mama and Ethan were so lucky.

We pass another body, this one lying in a pool of blood. Mage shifts closer to me, but we don't stop. We don't give up.

It's takes much longer going than coming, but we make it to the Willow Room. In the dimness, the colorful children’s drawings and murals look sad now. Thankfully, there are no sprinklers here, but the air is plenty toxic. The room seems empty and panic blooms in my chest.

“Mama!” I choke out. “Ethan!”

Movement in the back. Yusuf pushes up out of a mound of sheets. Chairs and a piece of plywood are leaning against the back wall, forming a tent. A few more heads peek out. Mama heaves herself up, her shirt pulled over her face.

“Couldn't shut it off?” she asks through her shirt. Her eyes are bloodshot and watering.

I shake my head. “We gotta go.”