“Keep crawling, Beck,” I said. Nate had caught up to me by that point. I knew he was close to giving up. He’d been dragging that cast all this time, and twice I’d heard him barfing from the pain.
“Flick dat lighter,” the Kid said.
“I can’t,” she said in a small, tense voice. “Well gas.”
My heart dropped down into my stomach. Of course. Oh, my God. No wonder she was frozen. I felt myself start to panic, the darkness starting to smother me. What could I say to get her moving again? Like, “I don’t wanna die down here?” Or, “What’s the matter, is your ass too big to fit?” Anything, I had to say anything!
“Beck?” I said.
“Yeah?” Her voice trembled.
“I’d like to see Pa again,” I said softly. “Just once. You know?”
She was silent.
A minute later I heard a sound like Becca was swallowing a sob, then she started crawling, her knees scraping the damp earth, her head and shoulders hitting the sides and top of the tunnel. Ahead of me, the Kid followed her.
“Cassie?” Nate whispered just as I was starting to move. “I don’t think I’m going to make it. You guys head on without me. If they get this far I’ll try to stall them.”
Oh, not him, too.
Somehow I kept a grip on my temper and my panic, and took a firm, no-nonsense tone.
“Nate, if we get out of here, I’m going to totally, totally make out with you,” I said briskly. “I’ve been wanting to, and if you give up or die and not let me, I will kick your ass.”
There were a few moments of silence.
“You’re in my way,” he said.
“I thought so,” I said, and began crawling as fast as I could.
92
SO WE HAD PRETTY MUCH decided to crawl until we died, no matter what. A tree root gouged my face, but what was more dripping blood? I was used to it. The hand I’d punched Strepp with was so swollen I couldn’t make a fist, and hurt worse with every passing minute. I crawled one-handed with it cradled up against my chest, throbbing with pain.
Then I ran into the Kid’s bony backside again.
“Now what?” I asked, because I was fresh out of motivational speeches.
“This is where it caved in,” Becca said wearily. “Apparently. I can’t feel any opening anywhere around me.”
All I wanted to do was curl up somewhere and pass out. I almost didn’t care if they caught us again. A nice, quick, painless execution didn’t sound so bad right now, and I suspected the other three felt the same way. And of course there was no way to go back. I didn’t think any of us was up for that.
That was when a mole accidentally tunneled into our tunnel, dropped down onto Becca’s neck, and turned her into a human tiller. She shrieked, flailing her arms and kicking her feet, and the poor mole jumped off her and trundled right into the Kid, who also shrieked and flailed. Then the mole ran past me, making me squeal like a baby pig, then ran into Nate, who went, “Ugh!” and was prevented from flailing because he was too big to move almost anything.
The mole scuttled away down the tunnel as we all twitched uncontrollably, remembering the feel of its dry little paws scrabbling at us.
“Hey,” the Kid said finally. “Lookit.”
As stupid as it was to turn my head and peer into the infinite darkness of an underground tunnel, I did.
And I saw the barest, dimmest bit of light.
“What is it?” Nate asked.
“I… I think I see something,” I said in wonder. “Like, actually see something.”
“You do,” Becca said, a tremulous joy in her voice. “I kicked a hole in the cave-in, and this is where the tunnel ends.”