“Oh, God, really?” I breathed.
“There’s light,” she confirmed. “Like, starlight. But I have to get this dirt out of the way.”
After spending a lifetime in the tunnel, it was agonizing to wait as Becca dug, to help push the dirt back into the tunnel, first from Becca to the Kid, from the Kid to me, from me to Nate, and Nate finally pushing it behind him. But we had to, or there’d be no room to get out.
“Okay, let me try it,” Becca said, crawling forward. I saw most of her disappear, and then I was looking at just her filthy, bare feet because she was standing up.
“Okay,” she said a moment later, ducking back down. “We’re actually really far away from the prison! I can’t even see it! Your dad did good,” she told the Kid, and his proud smile was visible even in the frail moonlight.
“That’s the good news,” she said. “The bad news is we’re in the middle of the woods, and I have zero clue where. We were supposed to meet Tim on the road outside the prison, but there’s no way to tell where that is.”
“Get me out of this goddamn hole,” Nate said hoarsely. “I don’t give a shit where we are.”
Becca nodded. “Right.” And her feet disappeared as she jumped up, out of the tunnel and into the world.
93
BECCA
THE SUN WAS JUST BARELY spreading a pale-pink mist over the horizon. We must have been crawling for hours—I’d been sure we were going to die in that freaking tunnel. If I’d had any idea what it would really be like, I don’t think I would have done it. Not to mention that goddamn mole dropping down on me…
But now we were out, not behind bars, not behind fences, not shuffling along as guards whacked us with billy clubs. For this second, at least, I didn’t have to dread alarms and calls to the ring for fights or executions. It was a
n amazing feeling, and tears streaked through the dirt and blood on my face.
I flopped down on the grass, hearing the Kid scramble up after me, then Cassie, and finally, with Cassie’s help, Nate. I was exhausted, filthy, starving, cold, and afraid. But as I looked up at the wide-open sky just starting to lighten with the promise of a new day, I knew I’d never been so happy. A couple of dragonflies zipped by overhead, as if relieved to be free also. “Thanks,” I whispered to them.
We lay there, the four of us, as the clammy sweat dried on our skin. I had no idea if I would ever feel clean again.
“Not to be a wet blanket,” Cassie said finally. “But this doesn’t count as an escape until we’re actually somewhere better than the woods outside a prison.”
“I know,” I said, sitting up and looking around.
Immediately I dropped back to the ground and hissed at everyone to be quiet. “Lights,” I whispered. “I see lights.”
Slowly I raised my head and looked again. There they were—lights in the distance. Were they guards with flashlights? Was Strepp out here searching for us? How long had we been underground?
“Thems is headlights,” the Kid said after a minute of watching.
“How can you tell?” I asked him, and earned a sneer.
“’Cause I seen headlights before. Jesus,” he said.
“Is that Tim?” Cassie asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Another light popped into existence, this one wavering, sweeping back and forth. A flashlight. Far in the distance, I heard dogs barking.
“Shit,” Cassie whispered.
I met my sister’s eyes, knowing we were thinking the same thing: only three of us had the slightest hope of outrunning dogs. And probably not even us three. As tired as we were…
“I’ll go see.” I didn’t want to risk standing, hiding behind trees, so I gritted my teeth and freaking crawled again. My knees were so bruised that every movement brought new tears to my eyes. My wrists ached from being bent for so long, and my palms were scraped and bloody. I had knots on my head from hitting roots in the tunnel.
But I crawled, sticking to the undergrowth, being as quiet as possible, no doubt leaving a trail as obvious as a rainbow to anyone tracking us. At least I was making another path for the guards to follow—maybe leading them away from the others.
A few minutes on, I heard the faint idling of an engine. Then I heard it shut off, heard the truck door open and close softly. I didn’t hear guards talking to each other, and the dog barking grew slightly dimmer, not louder. Above my head, the flashlight beam bounced from tree to tree. If there was only one guard, could I take him? With my fighting skills? I just didn’t know.