Embers & Ice (Rouge) (21 page)

THIRTY-SEVEN

The
girl was terrified, dirt-stained and desperate for help as her fingers wiggled
between the bars.

“Help!”
she croaked again, and Hunter was too shocked to move at all. If she ever
thought her appearance was gaunt looking in the bathroom mirror, she was sorely
mistaken. This girl’s brown hair was shaved nearly to her head, and her teeth
were yellow and stained.

Will
jumped into action. He reached for her, frantic as he assured her that they
would get her out. The door was padlocked, but Will pulled at it anyway. He
made a lot of noise.

Run,
the
fire whispered to her.
Pretend you never saw her. You’re going to get caught
if you try and get her out.

Will
looked back at her. “What are you doing? Help me!”

Hunter
looked from the girl with tears of relief pouring from her eyes and then to
Will. He read her mind before she spoke. “Hunter, we have to help her.”

“It’s
locked!”

“Then
we find a way to open it.”

The
girl sobbed. “Please get me out of here, I’ve been locked up for months, I
haven’t seen another face in days… I’m starving,
please.
”

Her
words made Hunter want to cry. She couldn’t look at her.

“Will,
we can’t even get ourselves out of here, how can we-”

“Is…
someone there?”

The
voice came from two cells down. Hunter and Will left the girl with her hands
hanging out and ran down to the other cell. A man stood behind the bars, the
room dark behind him. He was much older than any of them, maybe early thirties.
As he begged them to help, more voices came from the corridors, more cries and
pleads, more dirty hands dangling from between the bars, and Hunter felt panic
bubble from her core.

“What
do we do?” she asked Will. He was breathing heavily as his eyes darted to all
of the bodies imprisoned around him. It was a nightmare.

“I…
I don’t know.”

“Hey,”
hissed the man from the cell beside them. “Can you get me out?” He stuck his
hand between the bars to reach them, only his hand wasn’t there at the end of
his arm. It was only a stump.

“What
happened to you?” asked Hunter.

“Experiments,”
the man said. He twitched his entire head to the side and it cracked, making
Hunter jump back in fright. “G-get me out, will you?!”

Will’s
hand curled around Hunter’s arm, pulling her back.

“I
don’t like this,” she whispered to him. “There’s something wrong with these
people.”

“Where
are you going?!” the man shouted at them.

“Are
we really going to leave them?” asked Will. “There’s nothing wrong with-”

“
Argh
!”

Hunter
shrieked when a man in a nearby cell threw himself against the door, thrusting
his arm out towards her and snatching a fistful of her hair. She tore herself
away, pain searing her head as he ripped her hair from her skull. Desperate for
Will to put his arms around her and make the sounds go away, she fumbled for
his arms and he held her from the window and the prisoner. But the sight of the
man with no eyes remained glued to her mind even when she turned away.

They
ran, passing many more cells filled with people crying and reaching for them.
Hunter’s stomach rolled over at the sight of a girl who looked normal in the
darkness, but when she pressed her face against the bars, her skin was layered
with burns.

“Please
help,” she moaned. “Please help. Please.”

“What
has he done to them,” Hunter hissed at Will. “What are they doing down here?”

Will
didn’t answer. He started pulling her back the way they came. “Let’s get out of
here. There’s nothing we can do.”

“But-”

“We
can’t help them.
”

She
stared into his eyes, wondering why Will would risk punishment to save her in
the bathroom, but not to save the dozen lives that were locked in the cells
around them. It was true, there was nothing they could do, but they had to try
anyway.

“Hunter?”

She
whirled at her name and started running. From down the end of the corridor, she
saw a bigger and sturdier cell with an arm hanging out, waving at her. As she
grew closer, she knew who it was immediately.

“Alfie,
oh my God!” She grabbed his hand and held it tight. It was ice cold in her
grip. “Are you okay?”

He
looked shabby and dirty and there were blood stains all over him. “It’s madness
down here,” he said. “I haven’t left this cell in days, and they hardly ever
feed me. And guess what: These people don’t have powers.”

“What?
They’re just regular people?”

Alfie
nodded. “He experiments on them. He’s testing
our
powers, trying to
re-create them.”

Hunter
looked back at the cells and saw the girl with the burns on her face. She felt
sick and dizzy.

“Has
he tested on you Alfie?” asked Will. “What has he done to you?”

“Nothing
but starve me.” He lifted his wrists and chains jingled. “I can’t turn anymore,
not even if I tried.”

“We’ll
get you out,” said Hunter and she looked at Will. “That’s a promise.”

Suddenly
there came a crash from behind the locked door at the end of the corridor. A
scream followed it, a scream that chilled Hunter down to her bones.

“What’s
in there?”

“I
don’t know,” said Alfie. “But there’s been noise coming from that way for ages
now. Guards and scientists ran in there and they haven’t come out.”

“Hunter,
let’s leave,” Will pleaded her. “Before we find anything else we’re not
supposed to.”

“I
can’t,” she said. “You can stay here if you like, but whatever is in there
could be the answer to getting us
and
these guys out of here. Will,” she
gripped his wrist. “Are you coming?”

After
only a split-second of hesitation, he nodded.

“We’ll
come back for you Alfie,” she promised him, and with a breaking heart, she ran.
When they came to the door at the end, Hunter took note of the number above it.

“Death
Cave 1,” she murmured. Her heart was pounding in her chest as the noise became
louder. “Here, help me with this latch it looks heavy.”

Together,
they lifted the metal rod that felt like ice beneath her fingers and heaved it
to the right. The latch was oddly soundless, and after unlocking the door,
Hunter pulled it open towards them. She ducked her head around the corner and
found yet another staircase.

The
lower they climbed, the colder it grew. The stairs led down to a smaller door,
this one without a padlock on it. It had a simple old handle, rickety with age.

Hunter
looked up at Will, but it was too dark to see his expression. Instead, she
found his hand. And just like earlier in the theatre room, she squeezed it and
he squeezed back.
It will be okay,
he seemed to affirm. Hunter drew in a
deep breath, slowly turned the handle and eased the door open. Pearly
fluorescent light poured into the stairwell and she pressed her back against
the wall beside Will. After she was sure no one saw the door open – because
there was too much crashing coming from inside for anyone to hear them – Hunter
peered through the doorway.

She
saw what appeared to be a circular dark room the size of a small cathedral. The
roof stretched further than her eyes could see, enclosed in darkness. The only
light was coming from the center of the room, where a glass tank no bigger than
her own cell was surrounded by heavy machinery, cords and wiring and equipment
like nothing she’d ever seen. There were scientists in white lab coats
scattered around the room, hiding behind crates and machines and other various
things Hunter couldn’t name to save her life. Men in White – dozens of them – were
scattered too, though they were grouped in a strong formation around the glass
tank in the middle, all with taser guns aimed at whatever was threatening them.
Hunter craned her neck to see over a pile of crates and as the guards stilled,
she saw that the glass in the tank had shattered on one side. Whatever was
trapped had been freed.

Hunter
knew then and there that she wasn’t thinking logically, because before Will
could pull her back inside the safety of the stairwell, Hunter ducked into the
room, keeping low so none of the scientists would see, and hid down behind what
looked like a bunch of DVD players on a food tray.

Will
hurried up behind her, gripped her arm tight and hissed, “Are you barking mad?”

“Shh,”
she mouthed and pointed at the tank.

From
their view, she could really only see the backsides of the Men in White. They
shifted nervously, some of their faces clenched in fear as their eyes were
trained on whatever was in the tank. Their fingers were fixed firmly on their
trigger buttons.

“This
is some serious X-Men shit,” Hunter muttered.

Will
elbowed her to be quiet.

“We
can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice,” came a voice as soft
and commanding as sin and Hunter and Will peered at the right side of the room
where two double doors had opened and Dr. Wolfe strode in with an alien
confidence that absolutely no one in the room held. Every person moved not an
inch as he marched through the crowd of Men in White to the tank.

In
an irrational attempt to see who – or what – was imprisoned in Death Cave 1,
away from even those trapped in the other smaller cells, Hunter stood from
behind the tray, ignoring Will’s scrambling hands trying to yank her back, and
finally saw him.

The
figure was crouched, like a lion taking a few deep breaths before it pounced.
He wore a shredded jumpsuit, muscles straining against the fabric, as though he
were transforming into some sort of Hulk. He breathed heavily, skin tanned and
hair a dark brown. Hunter pulled against Will long enough to see Dr. Wolfe approach
the tank. He bent down, whispered something to the figure – a boy her age, she
thought – and then the figure rose.

The
first thing she saw was rage. Pure, incomprehensive rage. The veins across his
chest, throat and face strained against his skin. His eyes were almost pure
black, no whites at all. His frame was hunched, everything clenched. Hunter
would have bet her left arm that he was preparing to explode, and she realized
that’s what had happened to the tank. This was why all of the Men in White were
called.

The
side of the glass tank was labeled in giant bold letters ‘TERMINAL 1’.

“Get
down!” Will hissed at her and one of the trays rattled threateningly. She
worried a scientist would hear them, but their eyes were fixed on the angry boy
in the open tank. They all feared for their lives.

Why
don’t the Men in White just put the creature out or lock him in a cell like
they did with all the others?

“You
can’t kill me!” the boy shouted in a deep tone and Dr. Wolfe stumbled back.
Hunter would have liked to give the guy a high five for scaring the doctor, had
he not been so terrifying and unstable.

“Now
calm down, I know you can’t control this rage and we’d like to help you-”

“Help
me?” he growled. “You’ve had me locked up in here for months, shot me with
lasers and stuck me with needles and
now
you’re offering to help me?”

“Actually,
you’re here for a far more important reason.” Dr. Wolfe threw his arms up and
stared around the room. “You’re powerful, young man, and I’d like to turn your
gifts and abilities into something greater. A weapon.”

“A
weapon?” the boy shivered angrily. “I’ll never do it. You’ll create war.”

“Oh,
dear boy,” he chuckled. “War is exactly what I want.”

Hunter
and Will looked at each other, eyes wide. They were both thinking exactly the
same thing: that their situation was much bigger than they originally
interpreted.
He’s crazy. He actually wants to use our powers as a weapon of
mass destruction?
Hunter was almost too stunned to hear the rest of the
conversation.

“No
way,” said the boy, “I’m not helping you. No way in
hell.
”

“You’re
already in hell. So you might as well cooperate.”

In
a moment of panic, the figure moved to run to the exit. One of the Men in White
took a shot at him with a taser and missed by an arm hair. The boy froze where
he stood, turned to the guard and glared with hatred so raw and powerful,
Hunter felt the darkness hit her from her hiding spot at the back of the room.

Then
suddenly, the guard who opened fire started to quiver. His weapon clattered to
the floor. A few of the scientists around him began to murmur to each other.
One of the Men in White grabbed the guard’s collar and shook him, barking out
his name, but the guard looked as though he was having a seizure.

Then,
without even a word, the guard exploded.

Blood,
skin, bone, organs and whatever else was in his body sprayed over everyone
around him.