The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [122]
I want to take a moment for a deep breath, to ease the thundering of my heart and calm the images racing through my mind. I know that acting frantic is an easy way to end up dead or infected, but my body screams at me that I don’t have any time to spare.
The Recruiters will find me soon. They can’t be that far away.
I’m drenched in sweat and my breath is shaky as I reach for the last doorknob. This one’s stuck, the wood swollen, and I kick at it several times until there’s a crack wide enough for me to see inside.
Holding my breath, I hope for stairs only to find a tangle of bones draped in stained strips of tattered cloth. What used to be fingers and teeth are scattered across the floor. Their tomb is my dead end. I spin away, needing to figure out where to search next.
For a heartbeat I think about crawling through that last door and hiding behind the skeleton. Just wishing the Recruiters would never find me. But I know that even if they didn’t, the dead would. The Unconsecrated will inevitably push their way inside.
I sprint down another dark hallway, the wrinkled and rotting carpet tearing underfoot as I run. There are several more tiny empty rooms, and as I race past I wonder if this is what the rest of my life will be: dark hallways, empty rooms, terror.
Just then I stumble into an alcove and find a large metal door with rust spots bubbling up through flaked white paint. I throw all my weight against it. I shout at it as if it were human, as if it can grant me mercy and let me in.
With a loud protest of rusted hinges, the door pops open. I’m greeted with a gust of cold musty air. The darkness is deeper here, older, and my lantern fights to illuminate it. There’s a set of stairs leading down, and just as I’m about to follow them I hear a loud crack. A cascade of shattering follows.
I hesitate, trying to locate the noise, and then I hear men shouting. Moans filter through, no longer muffled by the hasty barriers over the windows and doors. A deep voice booms, “Run! They’ve breached.”
My throat closes. They’re here. The Unconsecrated and the Recruiters, both catching up. I have to push forward, it’s my only hope. I throw myself into the dark, forcing the door closed behind me. I practically fall down the steps and stumble into a smaller room. As I turn the corner a figure clutching a lantern lunges at me from behind a long gleaming slab of wood.
I cry out, stumbling over a broken table as I wave my machete wildly.
The figure falls back as well, disappearing, and I blink several times before I realize there’s a mirror. I clutch my chest, trying to ease the terror-fueled pain. When I stand back up I see my reflection, hunched and small, my hair spiked short and wild around the bright band of the hat Catcher gave me.
My eyes are fierce and determined. Almost feral. And in the mirror I see another door behind me, intricately carved, with raised paneling. I spin around and race to it. This one opens smoothly, easily, to another stairwell. My heart pounds with each step and the air grows thicker as I descend.
Shouts and the sound of feet hammering against stairs chase me. I propel myself faster, stumbling and sliding over the steps until I hit the landing and slam into another door. I’m panting, not even caring that the sound of my choked breathing echoes loudly, giving me away.
I’m trapped.
My heart screams as I wrap sweaty fingers around the knob, the metal of the door freezing cold. It rattles uselessly and I jerk at it, trying to force the lock to catch, and finally it clicks. The door swings open. A blast of frozen air hits me in the face along with a darkness so pure it seems as if it’s never known light.
Taking a deep breath, I push the lantern through the opening and am greeted with the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen: blackness that goes on forever.
Escape.
I jump out onto the subway platform,