Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [157]
“Looks worse than it is,” he says. “Nothing’s punctured or broken, I think.”
Virgil shines his flashlight around. Rusted metal brackets are hanging off the wall. Pieces of bent and broken iron poke out jaggedly from the floor and ceiling.
“This is an old wiring conduit,” he says. “You’re lucky you only got cut, that you didn’t impale yourself. I didn’t even know this tunnel was here. It’s not on any map. Where’s your stuff?”
I look around. My bag’s on the ground next to me. My guitar’s just ahead of me. Virgil reaches for it. He swears as he picks it up.
“What is it?”
“There’s a well. Right here. A deep one. If you hadn’t fallen when you did … if you’d taken a few more steps—actually, just one more step.”
But I didn’t. I didn’t take that step.
I sit up all the way now and notice that Virgil doesn’t have anything with him except his flashlight.
“Where’s your stuff?” I ask him.
“With Jules, I hope. I found them—him and Khadija—right before the cops showed up. By the Rue d’Acheron. I think they got out.”
I remember the Rue d’Acheron. It’s a fair ways from the beach. He could have kept going once he was there. He could’ve gotten out, too.
“You came back,” I say.
“No.”
Guess that was only a dream, too.
“I never left. Come on now; get up.”
He helps me stand. Puts his arm around my waist. I put mine around his neck. I turn my head and take one last look at it—at the tunnel I nearly went down. It’s long and dark, and there’s no light at the end of it. For a second, the smell of cloves is strong and sharp. And then it’s gone.
“Let’s go,” Virgil says. “We’re out of here.”
The first few steps hurt. They’re hard. But I don’t look back.
87
We walk. For a long time. We can’t get out the way we came in because we’d need to go through the beach and the police are still there. We heard them. We saw the glow from their flashlights.
We walk through tunnels, past bones and power lines and pits, until we come out in the basement of an abandoned car factory. South of the Boulevard Périphérique. In Montrouge.
We climb a set of rusted metal stairs out of the basement to the factory floor. The place looks like something out of a slasher film. Broken machines loom darkly. Chains hang from the ceiling. Needles and butts and beer cans litter the floor. There’s a row of windows along one side, floor to ceiling, all broken and boarded up. Virgil finds a loose board. He crawls out, then helps me out, and we find ourselves by an old access road, full of cracks and potholes. A murky little stream, strewn with tires and shopping carts, runs beside it. We follow the road to the front of the factory.
The entrance is boarded up. There’s trash everywhere—chunks of concrete, a rusted refrigerator, an old TV, and the battered backseat of a car. I hobble over to it and sit down. Virgil sits next to me. I feel shaky, but the dizziness is gone. The fresh air is cold and feels good. In the distance, I can see the lights of Paris.
Virgil looks at his watch.
“What time is it?” I ask him.
“One o’clock,” he says, digging in his pockets. “Where the hell is my phone?”
One o’clock. What seemed like days was only about an hour. I don’t know what just happened to me. Was it real? Or not? Was it the Qwell? The knock to my head? The only thing I know for sure is that a few hours ago, I was at the Eiffel Tower, ready to take an elevator to the top. I wanted to kill myself because I couldn’t cope with my sadness. Can I now? I wish I knew.
“I’m afraid, Virgil,” I suddenly say.
He stops dialing and puts his phone down. I expect him to say, “Of what?” And then try to talk me out of it, to make me see that I’m being unreasonable. That’s what everyone else does.
Instead, he says, “Yeah, you’d be crazy not to be.” He gives me a sad smile. “I’m afraid, too. I’m afraid every night in my shit neighborhood. I’m afraid I’m going to get my ass kicked when I leave it and when I come back to it. I’m afraid I’m never going to make it with my music. I’m afraid I’m going to be driving a cab all my life. I’m afraid that after tonight, I’m never going to