Replaying the scenes over and over again, confusion, fear, and rage tighten in my chest. The monitor attached to me beeps faster. When I turn, expecting to notice the guards noticing me, I’m met with relief instead. Their attention is ahead in the magazine in their hands. There’s a guard sitting beside me, as well, asleep with a gun in his hands.
I don’t allow myself to think. With great effort and my lip trapped between my teeth, I sit up in the bed, careful of the wires and stitching in my chest. When the monitor begins to beep incessantly, a dead giveaway to the pain I’m starting to feel, I worry the guards will turn my way. But like a couple of minutes before, their gaze stays fixed on their screens.
Silently, I blow out a strained breath, already exhausted and beginning to sweat. Despite the stress my body is under, I fight to keep my heart rate calm, needing this fucking machine to shut off. There isn’t enough time to move leisurely, and at my slow pace. So, with my mouth parted, I slide off the bed, reaching for my blades resting on the arms of this guard’s chair.
Unlike the hospital my mother took me to when I was thirteen, the drip stand doesn’t move with me. It’s firmly latched onto the wall, limiting my range. Unsteadily on my feet, with no one paying me any attention, I have two choices to make: struggle or remove everything myself.
The electrodes are easy. I peel them off my chest with no effort. The monitor, thankfully, hardly makes any more noise than before. The IV is a little different, though. When I was a kid, my mom accidentally ripped it out of my arm when she crawled into the hospital bed with me.“I just wanted to hold him! I’m sorry!”she cried when the medical staff came rushing in, themachine screaming endlessly. That type of shrilling beeping is bound to draw their attention—or so I thought. But no. They don’t look this way once.
When the tube dangles against the wall, dripping fluid onto the floor, I work on the needle next, hardly wincing when I draw it from my vein and toss it onto the bed. The blood flows, but it’ll stop eventually, I reassure myself, soundlessly stepping behind the sleeping man. His head is resting in his palm, exposing the throbbing vein in his neck.
Not allowing a second thought to form in my mind, I press my palm over his mouth and nose, shoving the blade into his carotid before he has the chance to wake. He does so anyway, though too late and too slow. His hands paw at mine, weakly attempting to claw me off while his panicked breaths puff against my skin.
Struggling to remain standing, I brace one foot behind me and dig the blade in deeper. “Come on,” I mouth, nervously glancing between us and then the guards at the door, silently willing him to die faster. Eventually, his clawing fingers fall limp by his sides, and his dying breath is a wet spot against my hand. Even though his eyes remain open, void of light and life, I wait, counting my breaths until I’m sure he won’t surprise me.
When I’m confident—and even then, I’m not entirely—he’s gone, I pull the gun from across his chest and secure it to my back, making sure no one can rip it off me, before stalking toward the door. My steps are mute on the cold, stony floor, but my bones ache and creak with every motion. A grunt or two breaks free, forcing me to pause in place. Sweat beads down my temple, ready for them to turn my way, but their page flips at the same moment, distracting them with another set of fake tits. I blink, causing a droplet or two to fall. It’s sweat.
But it’s not.
With lips quaking from my shaky exhale, I resume forward, knife locked in position in my grasp. I thank God their heads are angled down, preoccupied by Christy Shae Marks's centerfold. It prevents them from seeing me creep up beside them. It delays their reaction time while I drag the blade across the right’s neck. Everything happens so fast after that. One goes down, and the other reaches for the trigger. Adrenaline is on my side, though. Fear is on his.
One blade sinks easily into the soft skin of his gut while the other glides in the space beside it. His screams began before the tip even made contact, but now, his gun clatters to the ground, loud enough to draw attention along with his blistering wails. Knowing time is not on my side, I lean all my weight into my knives. It’s not hard with my weakening muscles. When the hilt is buried in flesh and fat, I drag them in opposite directions, tearing the guard open from sternum to pelvis.
He falls to the ground with a pleasing splat, joining his partner in a gruesome puddle. I attempt to pull one free, but it’s lodged too deeply into his breastbone. Knowing there’s no time, I pull the other out, wiping the blade on my blood-stained sweats. I reach down, swiping the keyring from his belt, before hobbling around the dead bodies.
“It’s not too far from where we’re kept. So, I guess that’s good to know.”
“Not too far. Not too far.” In this underground maze, that could literally mean anything. Left, right, or straight ahead, I ask myself when I reach the fork, understanding that one wrong turn will leave me dead. My racing heart makes it impossible for me to catch my breath—that and the wounds leaving me weak—but I can’t afford to wait here any longer. Testing my luck, I turn right, leaning against the jagged wall as I head into the darkness.
Outside the infirmary, a comfortable glow made it easy to inspect my surroundings. Here, though, as the hallways getlonger, the shadows grow deeper, and the screams and weeps of terror bleed through the stone. I ache to call out her name, to know she’s nearby, but echoes of footsteps are all around me. The only thing keeping me concealed is the dark spots beneath the glow. I can’t jeopardize getting caught, not when I’ve made it this far.
Several hallways later and about a million steps down, floor-to-ceiling cages appear before me. Unlike where the other fighters and I stay, each cell contains a broken girl, one after the next. I have to peer closely, my face practically pressed against the blood-crusted bars, to make out who lies still in the dark.
“Bunny?” I hiss as quietly as possible, hoping to see her face appear from the shadows, but each one is still, silent.
“Clara?”
Nothing.
Everything Clara said before comes rushing back in a swift, anxiety-ridden panic.“All we heard were screams, and then eventually, we didn’t hear anything at all.”Fuck.
When I push my body to move faster, the stars dancing in my vision become full black spots, making me miss moments in time. One second, I’m standing before an empty cell, and the next, a girl kneels at my feet, hands stretching through the bars.
“Please help me,” she begs in a quiet, childlike voice, unable to reach me.
“I’m sorry,” I think I mumble before I blink, and I’m gone again.
At this point, the black spots turn into holes, leaving me crumpled against the bars. Bile and blood spill out of my mouth like a broken faucet, dripping in light, little patters on already blood-stained floors.
I’m forced to take a break when the rush of body fluids expelling from my throat threatens to knock me out completely. Right against a stone pillar, I crouch in the shadow, burrowingmy face into my knees. I breathe deeply, five in and five out, just like mom taught me. I imagine, with my head hung, her nails running across my scalp. From the top of my spine to my forehead, she would make tracks in my skin. She was gentle but firm, applying just enough pressure to reassure me she wouldn’t hurt me.
“You need to breathe, baby,”she would drawl, bopping me on the nose with a red nail once I was calm again. It didn’t matter if I was five or fifteen. As long as my dad wasn’t around, she would find a way to comfort me.
My mom.
She wasn’t strong nor brave. She didn’t think she was very bright, not after quitting school after meeting my dad at fourteen. He had just gotten out of the military, Marines, I believe. He was going to save her; she used to tell me… right after he beat her.
My father is a drunk who has never saved a soul in his life. I think he took a couple, though. I don’t know. He never wanted to talk about it.
