Keira turned to Lily. “I need you to bring up the rear and make sure no one falls back. Can you do this?”
Lily nodded. “I can.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go.” Keira led the way out of the containment facility and ran toward the back of the compound, looking back to make sure the girls were keeping up.
Lily held the hand of one of the younger girls while herding the others forward. Though their faces were pale and eyes rounded in fear, they didn’t make a sound as they pushed forward.
When Keira reached the back wall, she found the huge trash bins and waved the girls behind them. Unfortunately, the bins weren’t close enough for them to use them to scale the ten-foot-high wall. At five feet seven inches tall, Keira couldn’t reach the top of the concrete wall. Lily, at fifteen, though painfully thin, was almost as tall as Keira. Between the two of them, they might reach the top. What they needed was a ladder, more time and a miracle.
“Stay here, stay quiet and stay down,” she said to the girls. “I’ll be right back.”
She left them behind the trash bin and scoured the area nearby, searching for a ladder or anything she could stack to get them over the wall. On the other side of a junkyard of old appliances, she found a stack of wooden pallets. Not enough to stack ten feet high, but maybe enough to get them closer. She grabbed two and lugged them over to where the girls huddled together.
After laying them on the ground at the base of the wall, she hurried back to the other stack and lifted two more. When she turned, she clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.
Lily held up her hands. “I’m sorry. I just thought you could use some help.”
Keira drew in a deep breath and willed her pulse to regulate. She couldn’t be mad at the girl. Lily was right. She could use the help. “Grab what you can. And hurry.”
They carried all the pallets and added them to the new stack hidden behind the trash bins.
Keira studied the pile and shook her head. “It’s not high enough.” It would only bring them three and a half feet off the ground.
Lily moved the last pallet, tipping it up to lean against the wall, making it a ladder of sorts that got them three feet closer to the top. Close enough, she could get up there and cut the concertina wire. Between her and Lily, they could help the others up to the top and lower them halfway down the other side.
Hope surged. It might work.
Knowing they might only have seconds remaining until Jade joined them, Rogue set off the explosion, and suddenly, the entire group of guards discovered the compound had been breached. Keira pulled the wire cutters out of the bandolier she had slung over her shoulder and climbed up on the pile of pallets.
Using all the strength she had in her hand, she clamped the wire cutters onto one of the two concertina wires and squeezed. The hand tool proved to be less than adequate for the job.
She didn’t have any other option. If she didn’t cut the wire, they couldn’t get over the wall. They’d be shredded by the sharp strands. Refusing to give up, she gritted her teeth and squeezed harder, wiggling her hand back and forth until the wire finally snapped in two and immediately sprang apart.
Keira flinched, nearly falling backward off the stack of pallets.
Lily leaped up behind her and steadied her. “Let me,” she said.
Keira shook her head. She now knew how to attack it more effectively and clamped the cutters onto the second wire. The cutters were only halfway through when Lily touched her leg. “A guard is coming.”
Keira leaped to the ground, twisting her ankle in the process. She bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out and rolled back behind the bin with the girls.
Lily kept watch. “Okay,” she whispered. “He kept going around the corner.”
Keira had started up the pile of pallets and the makeshift ladder again when Lily hissed. “There’s a man. He’s running this way.”
Keira eased down the stack, favoring her sore ankle and came to stand beside Lily. As the man came fully into view, her heart swelled. “It’s Rogue.” She checked all around and behind him before stepping away from the trash bin enough for him to see her.
He didn’t slow, but ran faster, waving for her to get behind the bin.
Keira stepped back behind the heavy metal container at the same time Rogue dove in.
An explosion shook the ground, sending dust and debris flying through the air and raining down on the camp.
Shouts echoed in the air.
Rogue leaped to his feet and surveyed the frightened girls. “Everyone all right?”
They all nodded.
