7
Chapter Seven
SIN
This fight is getting old.I’m becoming more tired and weaker every moment longer I survive. I have this man in a choke hold as he’s attempting to strangle the life out of the one person I continue to fight for.
He’s not giving up or giving in and I don’t know what it’s going to take to make him release his grip. He’s larger than I thought, stronger than I expected.
The struggle within Reese is motivating me to try harder, but it’s like I’m pounding my fist into a brick wall. I feel weak, so weak that I’m not sure my hands are moving.Something isn’t right.There’s a thickness in the air and it’s strangling me.
“We have to get out of here,” the woman behind me says. “They’re gassing us. It’s not strong enough to kill, just enough to knock us out. We have less than a minute.” Her words sound more like a slur than a cognitive statement. The guard is protected by a gas mask and the reality of what is about to happen sets in. I’m going to lose this battle and I’m going to lose her.
But I can’t. I cannot give up. I don’t hear Reese struggling anymore, and I’m afraid the gas and lack of oxygen has already taken her under. I lift my foot and press it into the asshole’s back, using what feels like hardly any weight. I lean down and swallow hard but I chomp my teeth around the lobe of his ear. My strength and instinctual reactions help my jaw clench harder than any of my other muscles are working right now. I hear, and feel—the crunch—it hits a nerve in the back of my throat and nausea sets in. Trying to push this discomfort away, I continue grinding my jaw until the man lets out an incredible growl, followed by a gravelly, hoarse scream. His focus is finally diverted from Reese as he turns toward me. I lock him in a choke hold and snap his neck to the side. “Run! Take your kid and run!” I yell to the woman.
I didn’t kill the shithead, but he’s out. I tear his mask off and wrap it around Reese’s head. My arms are so weak as I peel her off the ground that I’m afraid I won’t be able to carry her like this for too long, so I push her over my shoulder until her limp body is resting flat against my back. My knees are starting to give out and my lungs feel stale, like they can’t take in any more oxygen—what’s left of it. The hallway, while dark, is blurred and swaying with each step. “Come onnnnnnn.” The woman’s hazy voice breezes over my head, but I can’t see her. Still, I continue forward, fighting a heaviness in my eyelids.I can’t. I can’t.
A hand pinches around my arm, pulling at the material of my shirt. “Jusssssssst a little—“ I don’t know what she’s saying. My head is aching, heavy, it hurts. Hands are on my back now, pushing me forward, but my knees, my knees…I can’t.
Lead weights replace my feet; the heaviness is holding me hostage. Am I even moving?
A door, light, a door. Is that a door? A door.
I fall heavily to the ground. White linoleum meets the side of my face, but the coldness against my skin helps my eyes remain open. While somewhat aware, I’m also incredibly unaware at the same time. I twist my head to the side, as far as I can manage to move, finding a pair of feet sprawled out in front of me—shoes I don’t recognize, but whoever they belong to is lying on the ground like me.
Reese. Where is she? “Ree—“ I try to speak, but the words don’t come out.
A movement passes by the side of me, but I can’t move my head—it’s too heavy. The movement continues around me, seeming more like a blur, until a body leans down against mine, and hands claw at my back. “Sin. Sin. Sin,” Reese whispers in my ear.
“Put your mask back on,” I try to speak again, and while my words come out with an airy sound, they do come out and I hope she heard me. Her hands clench around the fabric of my shirt as she pulls me toward her. During a pause in the movement, the gas mask goes around my face. I want to yell at her and tell her to cut the shit, but my throat feels blocked. Jesus, I want her to have it, but she probably wouldn’t listen even if I could fight with her.
The untainted air I’m able to take in helps clear my mind, but only slightly. The weakness is still prominent, but I’m cognizant. I can turn my head a little more, allowing me to watch as Reese closes the door behind us. The woman and child are unconscious in front of me so I grab Reese’s ankle as she rushes over to help them. “Sin, let go, I have to help them.”
“Put this on the child,” I peel the mask off and slide it across the floor toward Reese’s feet. “Do it.”
She releases a quiet groan, but she doesn’t argue. We have to get the hell out of here before someone finds us and I’m not leaving these two in the hall. With more fresh air replacing the tainted air in my lungs, some of my strength returns, enough that I can lift my body onto all fours. The hallway is still moving around me, like a carousel. Up and down. Side to side. I’m going to be fucking sick if it doesn’t stop.
Reese has managed to rouse the woman and her daughter—a little girl. She couldn’t be more than eight.My God. They both look the way I feel. “We have to move,” Reese says; looking around, worry pooling in her eyes. “I hear them.”
She helps me up first, holding me in her small arms. How is she even holding me up like this? I outweigh her by at least a hundred pounds. “Reese,” I mutter.
“This way,” she says, exasperated. The woman and daughter are struggling behind us, but they keep up.
“How do you know where to go?” I ask her, worried we’re going the wrong way…not that I think there’s a right way.
She points into the distance toward a corner. “The exit sign,” she says, squeezing me with her grip. “You can trust me, even if it’s only a little.”
“You just bit a sick man,” I remind her, ignoring the fact that I had to do the same; although, I’m guessing the patrol isn’t sick like the rest of them. Just in other ways, clearly.
The sound of boots grows louder. I’m praying they aren’t coming from the exit but I don’t know where else they could be coming from since there doesn’t appear to be any other direction besides the prison we were being held in.
Our pace picks up as we near the exit, but as we approach it, when it is almost within reach, the door flies open. Two patrols walk out, the same men who I tried to blend in with. The same men who brought Reese and I down here.Where are the rest of them?
Reese is quick to pull me in the opposite direction, past the woman and her daughter. “Run!” she tells them.Run to where?There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere. No way out. There is never a goddamn way out.
As we’re running—actually, Reese is running and I’m dragging along my limp body—the sound of thudding steps stops and I look over my shoulder to find out why. They’re dragging the mother and daughter off.Shit. I can’t just watch them do this. They saved us, or helped us. Both…at least I think so. I run back toward them, but the patrols are moving faster than I am. They’re on the radio, signaling to whoever that Reese and I are loose. “Let’s go,” I tell Reese.
“What? No? They’ll be right there waiting for us!” she says.
