I’ve got to, for Calix.
I give up pleading with Lox. If he even hears me, he doesn’t care. It’s like he’s not present, really. He keeps mentioning Phalix, Calix’s father. The past and the present must have swirled together in his brain.
Maybe it’s the drugs, but as we descend deeper and deeper into the caverns, I don’t succumb to panic. I don’t have a plan, but I know at the first opportunity I’m going to try to escape. He and Calix must have gotten into an altercation during my surgery. I assume they’d given me something to make me heal so quickly. The microbots Calix had mentioned? If so, those things really are something. Later we’ll have time for all the answers. Later, when we’re safe.
We make the trek back much more quickly than I had with Calix because I don’t need to stop to rest every few hours. Too quickly. I’d hoped Calix would find us before we got there, but I haven’t seen or heard a sign. Part of me is afraid Lox killed him, but I shove that fear deep down inside me.
The alcove where we’d smashed the terrainster into the mountain is different than when we left it. Lox must have been busy when we were distracted or while I was unconscious because there are piles of tools and spare parts. Guts of the terrainster spill out from its undercarriage and the cracked windows have been repaired with some sort of epoxy.
He’s going to escape and abandon us here.
I can’t let that happen.
“Phalix won’t desert me again. He thinks he controls me, but we’ll see how he likes spending solars upon solars alone,” Lox is saying as he shoves me in the terrainster and buckles me in. “You wait here and don’t move.”
Everything inside me is telling me to run, to leave before I’m locked for an eternity with this lunatic, but I force myself to wait. If I escape now, he’ll catch me in a second. I may be healed, but I don’t know how much I can push myself so soon after surgery. I have to wait for the perfect moment.
Tears want to escape, but I suck them back. We made it through the storm, through my surgery. We’ll make it through this. I will find Calix and we’ll get through all of this together, even if it means just the two of us alone in this big mountain.
Lox ambles to the other door and boosts himself into the driver’s seat. I can feel the window of escape shrinking with each passing second.
Please. Please let it not work. Let it still be broken.
But the terrainster starts and purrs as smooth as I imagine a baby sabrevipe would.
The gleam in Lox’s eye brightens, but it’s not from the lightning. Mere seconds separate me from never seeing Calix again. I don’t imagine I’d make it back to the facility with Lox alive. I’d rather run in the geostorm naked.
The best time to make a move would be when he’s focused on driving out of the alcove and back into the storm. The radiation lightning flashes so brightly it’s nearly blinding. It would be the perfect distraction. Risky. Terribly risky. Calix will probably kill me later for even thinking of it, but I have to try.
For him.
Lox carefully maneuvers the terrainster and over the sounds of the geostorm, I can hear the terrible sound of metal grinding against metal. There’s still something broken, but Lox doesn’t seem concerned, not that he’s anything to judge by. I can only hope the damn thing won’t explode before I manage to escape.
I begin to count the number of flashes and the length in between them. They’re sporadic, but generally follow the explosions of radiation gasses. When we reach the exit to the alcove, I carefully, slowly unbuckle while Lox is distracted by the uneven terrain.
The moment Lox pauses at the exit, a loud BOOM rattles the terrainster. This is my chance. I throw open the door and launch myself through it as lightning flashes. It does so only a second after I make my move, allowing Lox to grab hold of my leg. I scream as the terrainster comes to a rocking stop.
“Get back here, mutt!” Lox snarls.
My body crashes into the unforgiving metal frame. I try not to think about what the impact will do to my freshly healed wounds. “Like hell!” I shout back.
I scissor my feet, kicking at his grasp on my ankles. He howls in pain as I grind his wrists against the center console. I may not have on boots like him, but I have motivation and adrenaline on my side. Jerking my foot back, I slam it into his wrist again and again until his grip loosens.
I crash to the ground with a bone-jarring thump as Lox puts the terrainster in park. I cower and scuttle back inside the cave, away from Lox and the storm. He pauses halfway out of the cab, but I don’t understand why until a vicious roar fills the cave.