Chief spat on the ground. For a moment, I saw his fear. Even in a heavily guarded fort, he was scared of the one thing he couldn’t control. “I said, raise the divider!” he yelled.
I scanned the room, searching for weakness. The guns against the wall were well out of reach, and Chief had the advantage of numbers. I tried to get Alice’s attention again, but there was no response.
One of the men beside the cube flicked a lever. The machine’s whine grew louder. There was another sound too: the grinding of a pulley coming to life, a wheel turning slowly, and the divider inching upward, pulled by a series of thin, strong cords.
I could barely breathe in the confines of the ductwork. I needed to stop this, but three guards carried guns and I didn’t doubt they’d be willing to use them. Griffin was so near to me, but he may as well have been on another island.
The men in full-body outfits slunk away from the cube, terror written in their jerky movements and rapidly exchanged glances. They exited the area and sealed the door behind them.
Rats snuffled at the gap appearing beneath the divider, and pawed at it furiously. Maybe they’d been starved to make them more desperate. Or maybe this is what they’d been driven to become.
Then they were through.
It happened so quickly. They scattered across the floor, sliding toward Griffin. He tried to move away, but it was futile. His hands and feet were bound, and there was nowhere for him to hide. In a heartbeat, they smothered him, biting and clawing, and now there was a new sound: Griffin screaming so loudly, the noise of the machine seemed to fade away completely.
Blind fury overtook me. I pressed my back against the rounded side of the duct and my legs against the vent cover. Then I kicked off.
The cover flew out, hitting one of the armed guards. As another looked up, I launched myself from the duct and stretched my arms out to make sure I took him down with me. We collapsed onto the ground together. With the wind knocked out of me, I couldn’t move at first, but I caught a glimpse of Dare disarming the third guard. He sent the man to the floor with a single swing of the gun. Chief responded by kicking the gun from Dare’s hands. It landed right next to me.
I grabbed it and stood.
The scene grew still. I pointed the barrel at Dare, then at Chief. When a guard approached the gun rack against the wall, I swung around to face him. My hands were shaking. Griffin’s cries still filled the air.
“Good boy, Thomas,” said Chief, edging toward me. “I can take that from you now.”
I jabbed the barrel at him, making him flinch. “Stay back.”
“What do you think you’re going to do?” he chided. “Kill us all? Escape?” He wiped his sleeve across his mouth and smiled triumphantly. “Tell him, Dare. Tell him how close we are. How we’ve waited years for this. There’s a new world coming, Thomas.”
I just wanted to stop Griffin’s screams, but lowering the divider wouldn’t achieve anything now that the rats were all over him. “Let my brother go.”
Chief shook his head. “I can’t do that. This isn’t about Griffin anymore. It’s humankind’s last chance at survival.”
He moved closer. So did Dare. As I retreated to the railing, the guard edged toward the gun rack again. My legs bumped against the railing. I spun around and fired at the cube’s glass panels. Griffin’s cries were drowned out by the sound of shattering glass. Dare and Chief sprinted toward me as the rats scattered.
I braced for the attack. Instead, the duct rattled above us and Alice jumped out. She landed on Dare and both went sprawling onto the ground. The suddenness of it made Chief hesitate.
Behind him, another guard was arming himself. He ran toward me too, but Jerren launched himself from the duct just in time. He landed on the guard, crushing him.
Chief turned to face me again, fists balled at his sides and jaw twitching. “Shouldn’t have done that, Thomas,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. He’s not a solution. He’s my brother.”
I swung the gun at him, but Chief leaned back. Before I could bring the weapon around again, he lunged at me. He wrapped me up from behind, one arm squeezed against my neck.
On the far side of the room, something banged against the door. I flashed a quick look. Someone was attempting to force it open. More than one person, most likely.
“My reinforcements,” Chief muttered.
He had me in a chokehold. I couldn’t breathe. I flailed my arms behind me, trying to land an elbow, but it was pointless.
Below us, Griffin shuffled away from the broken remains of the cube. The rats scurried around the perimeter of the room, searching for a way out. It gave me an idea.
With my last breath, I placed one hand on the rail and the other behind me, pulling Chief tight against me. He was so hell bent on strangling me, he didn’t resist.
I swung my right leg over the rail. With our combined momentum, it wasn’t difficult to swing the other leg over too. Before Chief could react, we were over the edge and falling toward the glass.
CHAPTER 37
Chief hit the ground first and cushioned my fall. I landed flat against him. The air was knocked out of me so completely that I couldn’t produce a sound when I opened my mouth to scream.
I stared directly upward, but I couldn’t see Alice and Jerren at all. Griffin slithered toward me, a mess of ripped clothes and bloody bite marks. The rats still circled the room, snuffling at every gap.
Griffin got close to me. I knew from his expression that he wanted me to do something, but I was dazed. When he didn’t sign, I remembered that he was bound.
I couldn’t reach the rope around his wrist, so I rolled off Chief, who moaned in response. The knots were secure, but simple. I removed them and Griffin reached down to untie his ankles.
Chief was quiet now, motionless except for his left hand, which he pressed tightly against his neck to staunch the flow of blood. Blood seeped out anyway.
With his right hand, he pulled a key from his pocket. He held it out to me. “Open the door, Thomas. W-we can still get out.”
I stared at the key. “What about the rats? What about your colony?”
Chief knew that he was beaten. He dropped the key onto the ground and eased his hand away from his neck. Blood ran across his tunic in a torrent. A moment later, his head drooped to the side and though his eyes were still open, I knew that he was dead.
One of the rats had found a space in the far corner of the wall. The others were sliding through it too. They disappeared like water into a drain. From there, they could reach the rest of the fort, I was certain. Sumter, Plague-free for eighteen years, was about to become infested.
Griffin was free now, but he was surrounded by broken glass and didn’t know which way to turn. When he pulled to a stand, he smeared blood on everything he touched.
There were sounds of fighting from above. Where were Alice and Jerren?
I stepped over Chief’s body and reached for a metal ladder built into one of the walls. My back and neck were throbbing, but I began to climb anyway. After a couple rungs, Alice and Jerren appeared above me.
“Get back,” she screamed.
I dropped to the floor and grabbed the key beside Chief. I didn’t understand how they’d escaped from Dare, but there wasn’t time to ask. Especially not when a loud bang came from above.
Chief’s reinforcements had broken through at last. They were too late to save him, but that wouldn’t stop them from coming after us.
I tossed Chief’s key to Alice. She jammed the key into the lock and forced the door open. The men in the full-body outfits had left. Alice and Jerren passed through. Griffin and I held on to each other and lurched after them.