Contain (34 page)

“
For your protection, of
course.”

“
That's a lie. How can
these walls protect us when we've brought the very thing we're
hiding from in with us?”

He shakes his head. “There's so much
you don't know.”

“
Then educate
us.”

“
No, I don't think I can do
that.”

“
The injections at the
evacuation center,” I whisper. “What were they? If we already had
them inside our bodies, then what were the injections? They
certainly weren't vitamin D.”

“
Ah, and yet another
connection made! Brilliant boy.” Mister Abramson's eyes pierce the
gloom, and everyone waits. “A fix, that's all you need to
know.”

Then he shakes his head, and I realize
that he won't ever tell us the whole truth. Not because keeping
secrets has become a habit he can't break, but because the
knowledge he holds is his only leverage against us now, against us
casting him into the rapids for the heinous acts he
committed.

“
It doesn't matter,” I say.
“We're leaving. We don't need to know. We'll figure it out for
ourselves.”

“
That would be the worst
thing you could do.” He turns to the others. “It would mean the end
of all of you.”

They shuffle their feet
uncertainly.

“
Now, why don't we all just
return upstairs? We'll talk about this in more comfortable
surroundings, get something to eat. I'll tell you what to expect
moving forward.”

He turns around and gestures for
Hannah to join the main group. “You, too, young lady.”

“
No,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Suit yourself.
Stay down here, but you will, eventually, have to return. Get up,
Resnick.”

“
No,” I shout, echoing
Hannah's refusal. “I told you we're leaving.”

I turn to the rest of the group and
say, “He believes it's suicide to leave. Well, so is staying here
with this murderer.”

Their wariness of him is growing. I
can see it in more people’s eyes. But the look of doubt others give
me is even stronger.

“
Stay if you want, I won't
force anyone to leave. But if you do stay, I advise you to lock him
up.”

I focus my gaze on Bren, and my heart
shatters. She looks like she's in shock. But the way she's
clutching to her mother, and the way her mother is holding onto
her, and neither of them is moving, tells me all I need to
know.

Bix and his father step out onto the
catwalk. When he reaches Jonah, Bix offers him a hand, then pulls
him up when he accepts it. I'm surprised when Mister Abramson lets
them pass.

“
Anyone else?” I
ask.

“
Where?” asks Kari.
“How?”

“
Through that door,” I say.
“We're going to find Bunker Twelve.”

I pull the key from my pocket, the one
I'd made Hannah give to me out of a secret fear that she and Jonah
would leave without me. “There's a tunnel that leads through the
mountain and goes outside. Jonah's been through it several times.
It's how he knows the Wraiths are gone.”

Seth Abramson sneers at us. “They
aren't gone. You're a fool if you believe that.”

“
Finn?” Bren says. Her
voice is so tiny, so fragile, and yet it tugs at me with such force
that I very nearly stumble.

Kari steps forward and joins us. But
she's the only one of the group. All the others shuffle back, as if
they might be sucked out with us when I unlock the door at the
opposite end of the room.

I can't blame them for choosing to
stay, despite the killer in their midst. Three years of the same,
ostensibly safe, routine is a hard rut to break out of. I know. I
feel for them, but I also have to trust that they'll figure out how
to deal with what Mister Abramson has done. Maybe they're even able
to rationalize it in some strange, twisted way.

And maybe someday he'll tell them the
whole story. I doubt it though. Why arm them with information they
could use against him? Why give them excuses to leave
him?

They'll stay until the food runs out.
Or the facility breaks down on its own. Whatever happens, I don't
know. I don't care.

Except for Bren.

Can't think about that
now. She's made her choice.

I look at her one last
time, but she can't even meet my eyes. She won't fight for me. Or
for herself. And her words to me just a few days ago echo hollowly
in my mind:
I’ll go wherever you
are.

Let her stay then. She deserves
whatever happens to her.

No, she
doesn't.

But I won't force her. I
can't.

I turn away and begin to cross the
catwalk. I expect Mister Abramson to grab me as I pass. Our
shoulders rub, and the sensation makes my skin crawl. But he lets
me go. It's not until my hand cramps that I realize I'm gripping
the handrail as if it's a rope I'm climbing, up and out of some
dark terrible pit.

One step after the other. And when I
get to the other end and turn, he still hasn't moved. I see the
pile of our meager belongings Bix and Hannah brought down earlier.
It sits in the darkness beside the locked door.

It's now or never,
Finn-meister
, Bix's voice tells me in my
mind.

I ask Hannah if she's spoken to the
people on the other side of the door, and she says yes. “They'll
come with us.”

I nod. There's no reason for them to
stay hidden in the dark anymore, not if their source of food is
gone. And I know they won't want to join the others we leave behind
in the bunker. They've been free to come and go as they please,
tied here for reasons which no longer bear any
relevance.

“
And your
father?”

“
He's waiting in there,
too,” she says, and gives me a smile. I glance down and notice that
she's holding Bix's hand. He wears an awkward grin, but there's a
fierceness in his eyes that dares me to say something. I don’t. I'm
glad to see it.

I give Hannah the key. Then I turn
back one last time. Mister Abramson is still just standing there,
still as a statue. It worries me that he doesn't try to stop us. It
worries me that he doesn't even seem all that concerned that we're
leaving. In fact, he's still got that relentless little smirk on
his face.

“
Finn?” Hannah
says.

Damn you, Seth
Abramson
, I silently curse.
Damn you to hell for what you've done to me, to
Bren. To us all.

And still he just stands there like
he's won. It's infuriating, but I refuse to let my anger
show.

“
Finn, I can't.”

“
Can't what, Hannah? Your
dad's waiting for us. Hurry up. It's time to go.”

“
No, I mean I can't put the
key in. Someone's blocked up the hole.”

“Honey?”

We all spin around at the sound of
Eddie's voice. When Hannah opens the panel, his eyes peer out of
the darkness on the other side, reflecting the pale light from the
caged lantern over the door.

“
Honey, what’s the matter?
What’s taking so long?”

The rest of his hairless head is in
silhouette, backlit by a single naked bulb deep down what appears
to be a passageway rough-hewn through naked rock. His scalp is
covered in oily soot, and a dank, earthy smell wafts out on a cool
breeze. It smells of tamped dirt, but also of filth and human waste
and unwashed bodies, and for the first time I realize that this is
the primary source of the smell down here, not the stagnant water
down below.

What horrible conditions must the
handful of survivors on the other side of that door be enduring? No
climate control. No facilities. Just a little light inside a
cave.

“
Unlock the door,
sweetie.”

“
I can't,
Daddy.”

“
Pass me the key. I'll try
it from this side.”

A laugh echoes through the large
chamber, sending shards of ice through my veins. “You didn't really
think I'd just let you leave, did you? I'm doing you all a favor.
The world out there is a killing field. None of you would last more
than a few hours in it. Stay in here where you'll be
safe.”

“
Safe? Liar!” I scream.
Rage courses through me, and before I know what I'm doing, I'm
charging down the catwalk at him. “Murderer!”

There's a flicker of fear in his eyes,
but he smothers it almost immediately. The smirk, along with that
steely cold glint to his eyes, returns with the ease of a man who
is comfortable masking his true self. “Don't be a fool, Finnian,”
he says, planting his feet and leaning forward to brace himself
against my charge.

I launch my body from ten feet away,
but he deftly steps to the side, swinging his hand down like a
hammer onto my back, driving me to the floor. My shoulder hits the
metal grating, shredding through the thin material of my shirt and
tearing the flesh of my arm. Half sliding, half tumbling, I come to
a stop past him, wedged between the rails. By the time I've
extracted myself, Mister Abramson is already striding away from me
toward the small band gathered around the locked door.

“
No one is leaving until I
say so.”

“
Seth,” Eddie says. The
door rattles, but doesn't open. Whatever Mister Abramson has done
to it, it can't be unlocked. “Be reasonable, man. Just let us
go.”

Jonah steps forward to block him, but
Mister Abramson's fist is a blur as it smashes into his gut. The
sucker punch is totally unexpected, and it launches Jonah back
against Bix, knocking them both to the ground. A second fist lands
on Mister Blakely's temple. He falls like a tree against
Kari.

People are shouting now, crying out in
surprise and dismay, ordering him to stop. I feel hands on my arms,
slipping underneath my back to help me to my feet. Bren cries out.
Her mother calls Seth's name. They're both sobbing.

Mister Abramson wrenches Hannah away
from the door with one hand, nearly yanking her off her feet, and
he slams the metal panel on the door shut with the other. “And you
can tell your friends over there that there will be no more food!”
he shouts over his shoulder.

Eddie slams against the
other side of the door. The sound booms across the chamber,
ricocheting off the walls.
Bam!
BAM!
His voice is muffled as he yells for
his daughter.
BAM! BAM! BAM!

Mister Abramson shoves Hannah before
him, and she screams in pain as her hip hits the railing. She
tumbles to the catwalk, sobbing, calling for her father.

“
HANNAAAHHHH!
”

BAM! BAM!

“
Get up, you little bitch!
Move it!” He gives her a kick, eliciting another wail.

BAM! BAM!

BAM-CRUNCH!

Mister Abramson spins around in alarm.
Eddie slams again, and there's another crunch, then a ping as a
bolt breaks free from the cement and arcs to the floor. It tumbles
off the walkway and plunks into the water below a couple seconds
later.

Everything seems to stop, everything
but Eddie's pounding and his anguished cries.

The stone crumbles around the top
corner of the door, turns to rubble and powder.

This gets Mister Abramson moving
again. He reaches down and grabs Hannah by the hair and wrenches
her to her feet. “Get up! Get the hell up!”

Her shriek of pain rends the air. She
tries to fight him as he drags her away from her father. The look
in his eyes is insane. This is the man who killed four people in
cold blood, including my father, just to keep a secret. He needs to
be stopped. I yell at him to let Hannah go, but there is no more
reason in the man.

“
Move it, Bolles!” he
rages.

I become acutely aware of my
vulnerability out here on the catwalk. He could easily flip me over
the side, sending my body to shatter on the pumps below.

With one last
massive
BAM!
the
door at the far end of the room flies off its hinges and crashes
heavily to the floor, barely missing Jonah and Kari.