Chapter 13
After a hard day of obstacle training, Arie and the boys dropped Wendy off at her room. No one said much, but Kev's grin didn't fade.
Wendy finally broke the silence. “I'm sorry I tripped that trap.”
“Don't be sorry,” Arie said. “You saw it before you triggered it. That's good.”
“Yeah,” Kev said, “we for sure would have lost if you'd gotten doused in green paint.”
“Still, it won't happen again.”
“Wendy,” Cal said, “you're allowed to be afraid of something. I hate the dark too. It totally freaks me out.” He pointed at Arie. “And see what happens if you toss a snake at this one.”
“Don't even think about it,” Arie said.
“See?” Cal patted Wendy on the shoulder. “It's fine. We're here to watch each other’s backs, right?”
Wendy looked at each member of her team.
“Right?” Kev asked.
Arie raised her eyebrows.
“Fine. Yes. Right.” Wendy said.
Ever since the movie, a part of her heart had been working its way loose. Now it broke off, leaving a small hole. Wendy hadn’t wanted to like these kids, but she did. They were her friends—the first she'd ever really had. Now she understood why Kenzie had spent so much time trying to bond with her. It felt good to have people to rely on, to laugh with and maybe cry with. People who actually liked her, not just respected her because Ed was her father, or because she could take them apart piece by piece in a fight.
“Good,” Kev patted her on the head.
They reached Wendy's room. Arie met her eyes. “Get some sleep. Jeff will run us all hard in the morning. If you puke easy, don't eat anything beforehand.”
“Sounds fun,” Wendy said in a flat voice.
Cal chuckled. “You are twisted.”
“As twisted as me?” Kev asked.
“No,” Arie said.
Wendy wanted to laugh, but instead cleared her throat.
“Okay, I'll get some extra sleep then. See you guys in the morning.”
“Bye,” they all said.
Wendy opened her door, went into her room, flipped on the light and shut the door behind her. The voices of the others faded as they walked away.
She'd just messed up an entire exercise. Her weakness was going to cause everyone pain and suffering. And yet, she felt happy. A smile pulled at her lips as her memory of the grin on Kev's face when Dennis had punched him played through her mind over and over again.
Wendy let out a chuckle. It was the first sincere laugh she'd had since she'd woken up here.
These kids couldn't know about Mike and his Skinnies. There was no way. Which meant she had to convince them to join her. To help her. To help everyone here get free of the monster that was Mike.
Matt had asked her about the food test. If she could gather most of the ingredients, he might help her. But he wasn't in the complex right now. However, before she did anything, she needed to get her hands on some corn.
Wendy waited until the lights dimmed before she crept out of her room and into the hallway.
There were no rules about being out of bed after dark—Wendy had asked—but she didn't want to meet anyone, so she took the most convoluted path she could to get to the marketplace.
The marketplace was almost deserted. She didn't sneak through—afraid she might draw undo attention to herself—but she kept behind tall booths and did her best to remain inconspicuous. The quiet put Wendy on edge. The soft scrape of a shoe on the floor sounded.
She was being followed.
Did Mike know what she was up to?
Should she go to medical? Act like she wanted to ask Doc a question, or should she go back to her room?
The second would look suspicious, so Wendy took her next left and went toward the stairs that led up to medical.
She moved through the weapons section and spotted a couple of gas balls within easy reach. She pocketed them.
Clothes loomed ahead. Wendy's heartbeat sped up, along with her feet as she turned another corner, and came face to face with Dennis.
His broad, imposing figure stopped Wendy in her tracks. Her hands automatically came up on guard as she took a step back.
“Boo,” he said. His lips were smiling, but it wasn't anything like Kev or Cal's.
It was useless for her to feign innocence, so she kept her guard up and took another step back. “What are you doing?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Dennis said. “Sneaking through the marketplace after dark. Kind of suspicious if you ask me.”
“What do you want, Dennis?” She could barely hear her own words above the warning alarms in her mind. He had to have back up around here somewhere.
“Hey, I just wanted to talk.” He spread his hands out.
“About what?” Wendy shifted her weight to the balls of her feet.
“We've never had a conversation. I thought now would be a good time to start.”
Wendy stared at him. “At night? In the marketplace?”
“I came to your room, but you weren't there.”
That comment didn't help to quiet Wendy's pounding heart.
“Can we do this later?” Wendy asked. “I was headed up to talk to Doc.”
“About your little meltdown earlier?”
Wendy didn't allow her expression to change as her mind considered the best way to take him down.
“Because that was what it was, wasn't it? A meltdown.”
He would spring at her any moment. He was trying to get her riled up and angry before he did so, in the hope that she would make a mistake. She wanted to strike first, but assaulting someone wasn't the best way to stay under the radar. Besides, Mike would take Dennis' word over hers. Jeff might not, but he didn't have any actual power here.
Dennis continued. “You should take yourself out of the training program. You're not fit. Not if small, dark spaces mess you up that bad.”
He waited for her to answer. Wendy didn't even breathe
Dennis flicked a finger, and she twitched to one side. Just as a small, two-pronged metal object connected to wires flew out of the pile clothes to her right.
Wendy tried to dodge, but didn’t get her body out of the way in time, and the needles bit into her shoulder. That didn’t hurt. What did hurt was the jolt of electricity that followed.
Pain had become commonplace for Wendy, but this was different. It felt as if every nerve in her body fired at once. Her scream cut off as her muscles seized up.
Dennis caught her before she fell. A sinister, teeth baring smile replaced the friendly manner he had manifested a moment before.
“Nice catch,” Jordy said as he moved out of the pile of clothes.
Dennis’ eyes met Wendy’s as he stroked her cheek with a finger. “You really are a tiny thing, aren’t you?”
Wendy’s mind raged—she wanted to fight back—but her body remained disconnected from her mind’s commands.
“Is it ready?” Dennis asked.
“This way,” Jordy said.
He went to the stairs and started up. Dennis followed, cradling Wendy in his arms like a small child.
Wendy couldn't move. She was helpless. Dennis could do whatever he wanted to her—there were plenty of options—and she could do nothing to stop him.
She should have taken him out when she had had the chance.
Jordy opened a door and they moved into a dark hallway.
A spasm rocked through Wendy’s body, and Dennis lost her feet. They dragged behind her on the floor as Dennis hauled her through another door.
“Right here,” Jordy said.
Wendy couldn’t see. The dark had closed in around them when the door shut.
Dennis' lips brushed her ear. “You've been hiding something from all of us. I know it. Mike knows it. I'm going to let you think about it for a little while, and when you come back out, we'll chat.”
Wendy's stomach dropped. They knew.
Jordy grabbed he
r feet. The flashlight in his hands illuminated a thick, dust covered, wooden cabinet just big enough to stuff Wendy into, but not big enough to allow her to move once she was inside.
Panic clutched her heart.
No.
Wendy tried to say it. She tried to twitch or move, but nothing happened. She couldn’t even speak.
The two boys gagged her before shoving her into the cabinet and turning her so she faced them.
Dennis held up a thick padlock. “I hope you’re comfortable.”
A gurgling sound came out of Wendy as her first scream forced its way through.
Dennis laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “Sweet dreams.”
The sound of the metal lock sliding into place sent a surge of adrenaline through Wendy's entire body. Her senses went into overdrive, and she heard the ragged breathing of someone close by.
The brush of fingers on Wendy's arm caused her to shrink back from the far wall. Was someone else in here?
A growl sounded. Not animal, but not quite human.
A Skinny.
Wendy brought a trembling hand up and found a small opening big enough for a thin hand to get through. The fingers continued grasping for her. The ragged nails raked her arm, drawing blood.
The stench of unwashed bodies and human waste came through the hole.
Skinnies. The smell of death.
The tunnels. Fighting. A sword flashed, biting into her arm. Pelton found her. They had fought alongside one another, a force to be reckoned with, even with Wendy's bad arm.
But then they'd gotten trapped. Pelton had led them down one of the supply tunnels. There was no way out.
Pelton knew better. Why had he brought them down that hall?
The Skinnies had swarmed them. At first the two of them had driven the Skinnies back. Wendy had thought they would break through, but Pelton had grabbed her and tossed her in a crate. The lid crashed down, and Pelton had started dropping dead Skinnies on top of it.
Blood had seeped through the wood. She could smell it. She could practically taste it. What she couldn't do was move. The crate was too shallow—the lid pressed her nose into the wood beneath her as each body hit.
Her arm was useless. Her legs couldn't get enough leverage to kick.
Trapped. Trapped with no way out. If she screamed, they would find her. If she cried, they might hear her.
Hell opened up and ate her alive. Her mind begged for space, her lungs cried for air.
At some point she had started yelling out loud.
No one came.
Everyone was dead.
Wendy's sanity fled. Her mind slipped, and she let it go into the darkness to witness her death again and again. Eventually her exhausted limbs stopped struggling.
The rattling of the lock jerked her back into reality.
Bright lights hit her like a hammer. Wendy threw an arm over her eyes.
The door opened, allowing Wendy's exhausted body to fall to the ground. Fear had sapped her strength, and only the thought of slowly killing Dennis kept her from curling up into a ball to cry.
Four dark silhouettes stood around her.
They were laughing.
Dennis' voice came from one of the shadows. “Are you ready for our little chat? Are you ready to tell the truth?”
The tunnels faded, but her emotions did not.
Dennis came forward and grabbed her by the hair, forcing her head back. With the lights all around her, she couldn't see his face.
“Are you ready?”
Weeks of pain and anger, hate and sorrow blazed in her mind as Dennis became the focus of Wendy's rage.
Wendy mumbled incoherently through her gag.
Dennis leaned closer, his nose only a few inches from hers. “What was that?”
He removed the gag. She could finally see his triumphant, pride-filled eyes.
She leaned closer to him, her body shaking with fury and anticipation.
“You should have tied my hands.”