Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

“What’s happening?” Luke dropped beside him, and then Tom felt the boy’s hands on his arms, trying to tug him back. “God, Tom, be careful! You’re going to fall in!”

He paid no attention. “Alex!” he bawled. “How far down are you? Can you see me? Can you see my light?”

“Who’s Alex?” Luke said.

“Quiet.” There was a very long pause, and he felt like he would burst, but he shoved a knuckle into his mouth and waited. He heard Weller thrash his way over but didn’t look around. He said she was in Rule, but she’s here, she’s—

“Far.” Her voice was like those silver bubbles that had boiled from his lungs to break into empty air and they were the last of his life, and he was drowning. “Can’t . . . see . . . you.”

But I hear you, I hear you, oh God, I hear you. “Hang on! I’ve got rope! I’m coming for you! Can you climb? Can you—” He broke off as Weller grabbed his right arm and twisted him around.

“You can’t,” Weller grated. “Tom, she’s got to be a couple hundred feet down. We got twenty feet of rope and that’s it! She’s too far, and we don’t have time!”

“No, give me the goddamned rope!” Tom shouted. “You and Luke go, but I’m staying!”

“To do what? You think you can help her?”

“We came together; we leave together!” Luke cried. “I’m not going without you, Tom! I’m staying!”

“You hear that? You’re gonna kill this boy.” Weller was right in his face. “You want to be responsible for that? You want his blood?”

“Don’t put that on me!” Tom shouted. “No one’s telling you to stay! Both of you just go!”

“Then you might as well put a bullet in your brain for all the good you’ll do that girl! This whole rise is gonna go! Even if it doesn’t, those Chuckies aren’t going to stop, and they’ll be here!”

“Then I’ll kill them!” Tom roared. His face was wet, but he didn’t care. One more second and he would murder this old man. He twisted away with a curse. “You said she was in Rule, you said she was in Rule!”

“I don’t know about that!” Weller shouted. There was a high crack that was not a bullet but the sound of wood shattering, and then Luke was screaming something about trees breaking and Weller was shouting: “You hear that, you hear that? You’re gonna kill this boy and yourself for nothing!”

No, no, not for nothing. For her. She was calling him again, but her voice was so faint. He wasn’t sure now if what he heard was real or an echo. Or maybe he was trapped in some endless flashback from which he would never shake free, because there was now also dust and hot sun and gray rock and Jim’s voice: Cut the wire, cut the wire and get out, just grab the kid, grab the kid and go, go, go!

“But, God, please, which one?” he shrieked. He was on his knees, in snow, on a dirt road, under a weird moon, beneath the blazing sun, and there were voices in his head and the pop and bang of weapons fire and the wail of men and women somewhere close and the voices of his friends—all dead now, all gone—and sweat that stung and tears that ate his eyes. “How do I choose?”

Because there was, in that road and on that day, not just one child with a bomb strapped around her tiny waist.

There was the boy, too.

“God, how do I choose?” he screamed again. He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and squeezed. Get out of my head, get out of my head, grab the kid, grab the kid, cut the wire, get out my head, get out get out get out! “How can you ask that?”

“Tom!” Luke cried—but from another life, a different time. “Tom, please, come on!”

Oh God, Alex. Help me stay. He leapt for that crack in the earth, a distant hope, and thrust his head and then his arms into the dark. He felt quaking rubble and snow that melted beneath the heat of his hands. The roar was tremendous, as if there was something alive down there, bellowing, opening wide, ready to swallow them both. “Alex, please, try, try! Climb, Alex, climb!”

“Tom, don’t!” He felt hands grappling for a handhold around his waist. “Leave it,” Weller bawled. “Leave it, Tom! We got to go!”

Got to go, cut the wire, cut the wire, grab the kid, go, go! Kicking, cursing, he reached down the mouth of that tunnel as far as he could, straining so hard that his muscles shook and his joints screamed—and no matter what he did, it was still not enough. She was a voice in a vast emptiness so profound he might fall forever. But he had to try; he couldn’t stop. He had to reach her because they would touch, and then he would save her; he would pull her from this hell and into the light; they would save each other. “Alex!”

“Trying.” Her voice, so tiny. “Too far . . . no time.” Then: “Run, Tom, run. Get out . . . get away before—”

“No!” Tom bellowed. “Don’t give up, Alex, don’t you dare give up! I’m here, Alex, I’m right here!”

“No time. Tom, please, go . . .”

“They’re over the rise!” Behind, above, Luke was screaming: “They’re here, they’re here, they’re over the rise!” A crack and then two more, the bullets whizzing by in shrieks. “Tell me what to do!” Luke shouted, his voice notching higher with panic. “Somebody tell me what to do—do I shoot, do we fight, do we—”

Fight, Alex, fight; say my name again, say my name again, don’t leave me here, I’ll never get out. “Alex!” His fists closed, but there was nothing to grab but the trembling dark. He tried squirming even further, but Weller was battened around his waist and he couldn’t move, only teeter on the brink: nightmare above, his fate below. “Alex, Ale—”

With no warning at all, the ground suddenly heaved and swelled and then came down with a slam that socked him in the gut, straight through to his spine. From the tunnel came a great gasp as the earth shifted, and then he heard a hiss, a sizzle, a ballooning whisper as the rocks under his hands moved and wallowed and gave way. They bounced ahead, hurtling down the chute. Suddenly off-balance, with nothing under his hands but air, he lurched forward and might have tumbled in after . . . and maybe that was, really, what he wanted.

But Weller’s grip was too strong. The old man hauled him back from the edge and wouldn’t let go, and Luke was screaming: “Tom, please, we got to get out; I can’t leave without you. Please!”