Downburst (16 page)

Inside the treehouse, I shower and apply bandages to the scrapes on my arms and neck.
I guess they gave us these first aid kits for a reason.
My ankle is slightly swollen, but it doesn’t seem to be too serious.

After we clean up, we walk to the meetinghouse for lunch. As I eat, I only half-listen to the conversation of Lila’s friends around us. Mostly, I think about Diva and how she’s got to loathe me now.
What will she do?
No one has accused me yet of pretending to be Aura, so I’m still hoping that means she doesn’t really know the truth, but I can’t be sure. And not being sure means there’s still a chance, still a possibility they might … I shudder and cram my sandwich in my mouth.

Lila needs to be at the Aerie half an hour early to get ready for the battle, but I tell her I’m not done eating and I’ll see her there. After she leaves, I casually grab two apples from the buffet table and munch on one as I find a seat at the far end of the dining hall. I look out of the large windows and try to think about my plan, about what I’ll do when I get to the nearest city, but instead my thoughts keep drifting to the race. First to Diva. But then to Rye.

Why was he staring at me? I remember the way he almost said something after the windwalking race, remember how he was going to ask me to dance, remember his head popping out of the lake and spraying me with water. His grin, his bare chest, not an arm’s length away.

And then for some reason, Jeremy’s face replaces Rye’s, and I see teal eyes instead of emerald ones. Feel his breath, his hands. Smell his lemongrass skin … I jerk my head back. Why am I thinking about Jeremy? I need to focus on getting out of here.

When the clock says five to two and everyone except the staff has left the dining hall, I toss out the apple core, stick the other apple in my pocket, and go down the stairs. The first level is empty, so I walk over to the storage room door and peek inside. The paintball guns are gone, and there’s no one around.

Slipping inside the room, I make my way toward the backpacks, picking one up and creeping toward the door with the stairs. It’s still propped open—does that mean someone’s inside? I poke my head through the doorway and listen.

Nothing. It’s now or never. I step onto the first stair, careful to ease the door behind me and rest the latch lightly against the frame. Dim lights illuminate the staircase just enough for me to see the steps in front of me. I slide my hand along the cool, steel walls as I wind around and down, pausing occasionally to listen. I walk for what must be several minutes—the battle will have started by now. I wish Lila luck, and then I wish some for myself.

At last I reach the bottom and, turning the corner, enter an enormous underground room with five small tunnels branching off the sides. The chamber itself is made entirely of cement, the walls, ceiling, floor, pylons, everything. To my right, U-shaped metal pipes stick out of the ground, adorned with shut-off valves and pressure gauges. A natural gas well. We had one like it in Williams. Some of the pipes continue up the wall and travel along the ceiling where they fan out and disappear down the various tunnels, probably carrying gas and water to the
wakemos
.

Like the storage room above, this room also has steel shelves stacked with supplies. I look at one of the racks nearest me and jump back.
Kava!
It’s packed with guns, and they aren’t the paintball guns that scared me the first day. They’re real guns. M16s. There must be a hundred of them.

My knees are shaking and I have to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, but then I brave another look. I pause, lean forward. The rifles are covered in a thick layer of dust. That means they haven’t been used in months, years, maybe. I exhale slowly.
Focus so you don’t screw this up.

I look at the next shelf. It’s heaped with toiletries and supplies for the bunkhouses, including the toothbrushes.
So Jeremy did get it down here after all.
Nice to finally be right about something.

I continue searching, and then I find what I’m looking for. The camping equipment—compasses, pocketknives, mess kits, water purifiers, sleeping bags—it’s all here
.
Moving swiftly, I grab one of everything, including a bivy shelter, and shove the supplies into the pack along with my apple. Then I see the piles of freeze-dried meals and snatch up a handful of those too. The only thing I can’t find is a kayak paddle.
Guess it will be a backpacking trip.
I take a few more dried meals.

Once I’ve filled my pack, I don’t waste any time running back to the stairs. I’ve got to stash this away before anyone sees me. The jog up is hard on my tired thighs and feet, but I don’t slow down. I can’t believe my luck. I just hope it holds out.

It doesn’t. When I reach the top of the stairs, the door is no longer propped open, and no matter how many times I turn the handle, it doesn’t budge. I’m locked in.

I try the knob again. And again. It doesn’t move. The sweat on my forehead increases, and I wipe at it with equally damp hands. What do I do? I could wait for someone to come back and open it, but then I’d be in trouble for sure. Unable to help myself, I think of the guns, of the Incident, and a tremor runs through my body.
There must be another way out.

And then I remember the tunnels. I run back down the stairs, enter the cavern, and try to get my bearings. The staircase is on the south side of the
wakenu
. The five tunnels are in front of me, aimed north. I think about the layout of the camp, the five clusters of bunkhouses.

I grab a flashlight from one of the shelves and shine it down the fifth tunnel. If my theory is correct, the tunnel will lead to the easternmost cluster of bunkhouses, the one furthest from the Aerie. That’s where I need to go if I don’t want anyone to see me when I come out the other side.
If
I come out the other side.

I enter the passageway. The air is cool and dank, and pale lights are mounted every ten feet or so along the cement walls. They don’t reveal much of the tunnel, so I’m glad I have my flashlight. The metal pipes run above my head, and I catch the faint smell of sulfur.

Before long, the shaft widens slightly and branches into four new tunnels. I frown. Three I can understand—they would lead to
wakemos
eighteen, nineteen, and twenty, which would put me below
wakemo
seventeen. But if there are four tunnels, maybe I’ve completely miscalculated. Maybe I’m not at a bunkhouse yet.

I look up at the ductwork, and the pressure in my chest ebbs. Some of the pipes above my head split off from the others and ascend a tube in the ceiling. More importantly, mounted on the wall next to the pipes are the steel rungs of a ladder. I wipe my forehead with my sleeve. It doesn’t matter if I’m under a bunkhouse or not. I’ve found a way out.

I pull out my flashlight and shine it up the tube. It looks like the ladder continues for at least twenty-five feet, maybe more. I reach out and touch the closest rung. It’s slick, so I take off my shoes and socks and stuff them in the backpack. The tread on my sneakers has long worn away, and I don’t want to take any chances. I grasp a rung by my head with one hand, the torch still in the other.

As I’m placing my foot on the bottom rung, I hear something from the direction of the room. I hold my breath and listen. Voices. And they’re coming my way. I turn off the flashlight and scramble up the ladder, smacking my injured ankle on one of the rungs. Pain shoots up my calf, but I keep climbing. The voices are getting closer.

I reach the ceiling, but I can’t fit inside the tube—not with the backpack on my shoulders. The sweat moistens my palms again as I tuck the flashlight under my chin and shimmy out of the straps. Propping the bag between me and the ladder, I drop the flashlight inside the pouch. Then I swing the pack down with one hand so it hovers below my knees.

I’ve just gotten inside the tube when the voices grow much louder, accompanied by echoing footsteps. I pull the backpack up as high as I can so it doesn’t hang through the ceiling. A small stream of sweat trickles down my elbow.

“Everything looks normal down here,” one of the voices says. It belongs to a man.

“Where do you want to go next?” asks another voice, female this time.

“Let’s take the cross tunnel to the next set.”

“Sounds good.”

The footsteps recede, and I allow myself to start breathing again.
That fourth tunnel must lead to another cluster of bunkhouses. A shortcut, instead of going all the way back to the main room.

Suddenly, the Quil begins to flash on my wrist. Someone is calling me. I cover the screen with my hand and pray it doesn’t make any noise.

“Hang on,” I hear the man say. “I see something.” The footsteps return, and my heart pumps blood ferociously through my veins.

“Look at this,” he says. He’s standing right below me. The sweat is pouring off my brow.

“What?” the woman asks.

“There’s a leak in this pipe. We’ll have to get Keith to come fix it.”

“I’ll let him know when we go back up.”

And then they’re walking away. I wait until I can no longer hear their footfalls, their voices, and then I gasp for air, lean my head back against the cement. My arms are shaking.

I give myself a moment to recover and then continue to scale the ladder. There’s no light at all in the tube, and, before long, the faint glow from the tunnel disappears completely, blocked by the backpack. I continue to climb blindly for what seems like eons until I smack my head on a metal grate in the ceiling.

“Ouch!” I pull the backpack up, leaning it against my chest. I rub my head with my hand then raise my fingers cautiously toward the grating. After tracing the metal latticework for a moment, I push against it with my palm.

Nothing happens, so I press harder. And then, slowly, the grate begins to open. The metal grille groans as it swings upward, hinging back away from me. I give it a final shove, and it clangs against the floor.
I hope no one was around to hear that.

Grabbing the backpack, I hoist it through the opening and toss it away from the hole. Then I reach my arms through and prop my elbows on the floor above me. More cement greets my skin, and I wonder where I am. It’s warm and dark, and I can’t see a thing. Pushing off the rungs with my feet, I press down with my arms and then my hands until I’ve lifted myself through the hole. My arms jiggle, but I manage to slide onto the floor. I rest there for a moment, catching my breath.

Suddenly, something hisses behind me. I jump forward, and my arm smacks a metal pipe. I hear more hissing. Now a gurgling sound. I touch the pipe carefully then draw back my hand. It’s hot. I follow it gingerly with my fingers until I find a flat metal surface, the source of the noises. I’m inside a utility closet.

Ahead, I see the crack of light on the floor that tells me where the door is. Reaching into the darkness, I find the doorknob and swing the door open.

I’m in a bathroom. A boys’ bathroom. If the urinals weren’t there to give it away, that smell would. The stale odor of sweat. I listen carefully, but I don’t hear anything. Hopefully, everyone is at the Aerie.

I turn around and lower the grate back onto the floor. The hinge is rusted terribly, which must be why it was so hard to open. Next to the grate are all the pipes—and the water heater and furnace. Grabbing my backpack, I shut the closet door behind me.

I put my socks and shoes back on and hold my nose as I tiptoe through the bathroom. I’m halfway across the floor when I hear a toilet flush. Stifling a yelp, I scuttle toward the door, run through the foyer, and burst out of the bunkhouse. I hurry down the rope ladder and slip beneath the
wakemo
,
crouching behind one of the trunks. I wait, but no one pokes a head out of the treehouse to look for me.

I lean against the tree. No more dank tunnels or stuffy closets or pungent bathrooms. Just clean, fresh air.

My hair catches on the bark, and I turn around, tap the trunk with my fist. The surface feels like a real tree, but now I know it’s not. All of the other bunkhouse trees must also be made of cement and steel, like that one in the
wakenu
. Probably the trees at the windrace course too, the ones that hid the bladeless fans. I look around the forest and wonder if any of the pines I see are actually real.

This whole place is man-made—you’d just never know it.
Peering down at the ground, imagining I can see the tunnels below me, I think about how close I was to being caught, and a shudder zaps my shoulders. I push it from my mind and, rising to my feet, trek into the trees. The first thing I need to do is hide the backpack. After breakfast tomorrow, I’ll retrieve it and make my escape. One day to spare.

I walk for a few minutes until I come to a large river. An enormous tree trunk stretches from one bank to the other, providing a convenient bridge. I tread cautiously across the slippery bark.

Not long after I’ve reached the other side, I find the perfect spot: a tree with a long, thick branch, hidden by the surrounding pines. It’s an effort to scale it, but I finally succeed in hanging the backpack from the branch. Then I return to the ground and admire my work. Bears won’t be able to get to it, and people won’t be able to see it unless they walk right underneath the tree, which isn’t likely with all these bushes and pines, and the river. I think it will do nicely.

Wiping the sap on my hands onto my pants, I turn around and head back across the bridge. I need to get to the Aerie—I promised Lila I would watch her. For the first time, it occurs to me that I’ll never see her again, that’ll she’ll never know why I ran away or what happened to me.

I could leave her a message on her Quil.
And say what? That I was impersonating a dead girl and had to leave before Naira found out and tortured me? No. It will be better for both of us if I just disappear.

I hear the screaming crowd long before I reach the stadium. That’s good. It means they’re still fighting. I climb up the ladder and enter the double doors. The bins with the padded jackets and facemasks are in their usual place, but there’s no counselor. He or she is probably watching the match. I put on a jacket, grab a mask, and walk down the hall.

When I reach the spot where the hall opens into the arena, I see the counselor leaning against the wall, watching the flying paintballs from a safe distance. I hesitate. Will he ask me why I’m only just arriving? Maybe I should go back.

But it’s too late; he’s already heard me. The counselor turns his head, and I feel a surge of blood in my chest. It’s Jeremy.

Oddly, a ruddy color spreads across his cheeks as well, but it disappears quickly. “You’re late,” he says.

I shrug. “I was asleep. My race made me tired.”

He angles his head, piercing eyes taking in every detail of my appearance, and I’m suddenly conscious of my moist hairline, the sap on my face.

“Well, Sleeping Beauty,” he says, “next time you might want to check a mirror before you leave the house. You skipped the Beauty part.”

“And you skipped Charming,” I say, my blood relaxing slightly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment—as least I’m still a prince.”

“Sure. Among thieves and paupers maybe.”

“Don’t mix your allusions,” Jeremy scolds, but he’s grinning. “By the way, you almost slept through the entire thing. We’re on the third round now. Only eight people left.”

I look past him into the arena. Eight paint-splattered contestants careen around the stadium, pelting each other with bullets. Lila’s face is on the scoreboard. I pull on my mask and make my way to a seat on the second row where I see Holly waving at me.

“I tried calling you,” she shouts as I sit down.
So that’s who that was.

“I was asleep,” I yell back. It’s a good thing the sound on my Quil was silenced.

In the arena, the contestants have divided into four pairs. Lila’s current adversary is a stocky boy with broad shoulders. Lila reaches for a clip to reload her rifle, and so does Stocky. But his belt is empty. He looks at her, sees her prepare to load, and dives for her throat.

She fends him off, swinging her gun at his shoulder and pulling out a knife, but Stocky kicks the blade out of her grasp. When she tries to catch it, he stabs at her chest. The tip of his rifle catches the belt strung across her torso, and as he twists the gun, the belt breaks loose, tumbling to the arena floor below. Stocky leaps after it.

Lila isn’t far behind. She dives beneath him, legs spread in a full split, and hammers his stomach with the butt of her rifle. He stumbles back. Moving swiftly, she grabs a clip from the belt lying on the ground and loads it into her gun. Still in the splits, she fires.

It’s a kill.