Jerren kissed his fingers and placed them tenderly on his parents’ sleeves. “I’m not sorry,” he said finally. “For years, I’ve known something terrible happened to them. And I’ve spent the whole time feeling guilty, wondering if I should’ve tried to rescue them. Now I know it wouldn’t have made any difference. I can stop feeling like a coward . . . a failure.”
With a single deep breath, Jerren stood and turned his back on the grisly scene. The lingering doubts were gone now. He’d be able to move on at last.
He wrapped an arm around Nyla and tried to ease her away too. But however cathartic the situation was for him, Nyla obviously felt differently. Maybe she’d heard her brother talk about this for years but had never really believed it. Perhaps she’d held out hope that when she came face-to-face with her parents again, they’d be alive, just hiding, waiting for their children to join them. Whatever she’d envisaged, it clearly hadn’t included anything like the scene confronting her now.
“We’ll bury them,” Jerren told her. “Give them a proper resting place. Somewhere we choose, that we’ll remember . . . no matter what.” His tone was intended to be comforting, but Nyla still didn’t move. She didn’t even blink.
Alice cast me a nervous glance. “Jerren’s right, Nyla,” she said. “We’ll come . . .” Her voice trailed off as her eyes drifted past my shoulder and down to the floor. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
I spun around. Halfway along the corridor, the floor rippled with something even darker than the cold stone.
Rats were advancing on us.
CHAPTER 29
Get off the ground,” yelled Alice.
She leaped against the bars and pulled herself up so that she was half a yard off the ground. I followed her lead. Jerren launched himself at the bars on the other side of the corridor.
Nyla was still staring at her parents. She seemed locked in, and no words, however horrifying, could reach her. As the rats closed to within a couple yards, I jumped down and lifted her up so that her feet rested on the horizontal bar.
The rats were right underneath us now. Kell had warned us that they were growing desperate and aggressive, but the way they loitered just below our feet didn’t feel desperate. It felt calculated, like they were conserving energy, just waiting for their prey to fall to them.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.
Alice looked along the corridor. “If we stay on the bar, we can make it to the stairs.”
“And then what?” demanded Jerren.
There was no good answer to that, but staying still wasn’t an option. So Alice began the slow process of shimmying along, feet sliding by tiny degrees along the horizontal bar as she moved her hands from one to another vertical bar.
I wanted us to move quickly, but Jerren and Nyla were looking back at the place that had become their parents’ tomb. He’d just wanted to know the truth, to give his parents the burial they deserved, but now it would never happen. Especially not when the rats divided, some lingering around us, while others scurried into the room. A moment later, snuffling sounds were replaced by the noises of something, or someone, being consumed.
I meant to tell Nyla that she needed to keep moving, but what came out was “I’m sorry.”
She seemed to look straight through me. Escaping was going to be impossible if I couldn’t get through to her.
Alice climbed back to us and placed a hand on Nyla’s arm. “Come,” she said gently. “It’s time.”
Nyla didn’t say anything, didn’t even blink, but she followed Alice now, placing her hands and feet precisely where the older girl showed her. On the other side of the corridor, Jerren continued his progress. No one commented on the sound his breath made as it caught in his throat, or the way he sniffed back tears. Or the way his sister showed almost no emotion at all.
We kept going and the rats followed, patient and organized, flanking us on all sides. We were within three yards of the stairs when Jerren stopped suddenly. “No more bars,” he said.
Sure enough, the bars on his side ended. There was no way he could get to the stairs without first dropping to the floor, which wasn’t an option.
“You have to jump to this side,” said Alice.
We were less than two yards away, but there was no room for error. “I don’t know if I can,” he admitted.
“We need you to.”
Jerren took a deep breath and braced himself, lowered to a crouch and prepared to leap across. With one hand he clung to the bar behind him, while the other stretched out before him, ready to grab something on the other side.
A distant scream filtered into the corridor. It was faint, but the suddenness of it surprised us. Nyla slipped from her perch and onto the floor.
The rats, so lethargic a moment before, whipped themselves into a frenzy. She tried to pull herself back onto the bars, but before she could clear the floor, one of the rats jumped. It scrabbled at her leg, nothing but beady black eyes and sharp teeth.
There was a deafening sound and the rat exploded in a mess of blood and fur. Jerren was still stretched out across the corridor, but now there was a gun in his right hand, pointed at the carnage.
I pulled Nyla up to the bars and she gripped them tightly. She was shivering. The rats had retreated along the corridor now—not hiding, but keeping a safe distance, weighing up our ability to kill them all.
“That was Rose’s voice,” I said. “We need to get back.”
“The rats’ll chase us,” replied Alice.
Jerren stared at the gun in his hand. “I don’t have enough bullets to kill them all. I don’t even have enough to kill more than two or three.”
Another scream. It was definitely Rose, and there was only one reason for her to scream.
“We go,” I yelled.
Alice stared at me then. She raised her left hand, palm out, and I understood: She wanted us to combine elements. But fire was her secondary element. Even on Hatteras she’d found it hard to conjure large flames. Who knew if she’d produce anything at all out here?
She tilted her head questioningly. It was a risky thing for us to try, but not as dangerous as doing nothing, so I nodded in response.
“Jerren, Nyla,” Alice said calmly. “On the count of three, jump down and run for the stairs. Don’t stop and don’t look back. You hear me?”
Jerren exchanged glances with Alice and me. Then he waited for Nyla to show that she understood too. She watched him blankly.
“One,” began Alice. “Two.” Her eyes were on me. “Three.”
Jerren jumped down and grabbed his sister roughly, dragging her along behind him. Straightaway, I leaped toward Alice. We landed awkwardly, but our hands were joined, and though I wasn’t facing the oncoming rats, she was. Her teeth were gritted and her right hand was stretched out before her, fingertips pressed together.
As another scream from Rose pierced the air, I sent all my energy and anger and fear through Alice. I didn’t know how much power we’d wield, but it was our only chance. With the rats almost on us, she summoned a single all-consuming flame. Fueled by our panic, it erupted before us, igniting at least half a dozen rats before it disappeared just as suddenly. By then, the other rats were scurrying away, retreating to the end of the corridor and the dead bodies of Jerren’s parents.
“Go,” I shouted.
Alice spun around and we ran. We didn’t get far though, because Jerren and Nyla were standing halfway up the stairs, watching us.
“I said, go,” I yelled, pushing them away. “Go!”
Hand in hand, Jerren and Nyla sprinted after Alice. I stumbled along behind, the shock of losing so much energy slowing me down, making my steps awkward. The others waited for me halfway across the fort grounds. I wanted to scream at them to keep moving, to help Rose, but I could see that Alice was scared for me—that I wouldn’t make it, or that the rats would regroup and catch up with me, the easy target in our group. She held out her hand, ready to pull me along if need be. I might have taken it too, but then I saw the way Jerren was staring at it, as though another flame might arise as suddenly as the last.