“So, you want to try this alone?” I said. “Or do you want some help?”
Kieran looked like he was about to explode, go mental on me. But he held it together and took a deep, ragged breath.
“Fine. Whatever,” he hissed. “Just get me in there.”
Kieran drove fast, slaloming between cars on the highway. The glow of the city was behind us, the dark city limits ahead. The DMA site was less than forty-five minutes away from the city center. But it felt like I was heading off the map, away from everything that I knew.
I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Asha.
I’ll make everything all right again, I texted. Promise.
I hit the Send key, then put the phone back in my jacket pocket. The rest of the ride, I waited for the vibration from the phone that might be Asha texting back. But I felt nothing.
It was a warm spring night. The full moon was bright enough for us to see, even without our headlamps. We left the car by the side of a dirt road and picked our way through the thin woods on the edge of the DMA facility. The only sound was the hollow roar of traffic on the highway in the distance.
I’d taken some maps we needed from Kieran’s laptop and dumped them onto my smartphone. The maps were pretty good, and I was able to quickly lead us to where I thought the tunnel entrance might be. Then it was a matter of hunting around to actually find them in all the bushes and undergrowth. After about an hour, I was starting to get cold. Then I heard a low whistle from Jake.
Kieran and I arrived at the same time. Jake was pulling overgrown black-berry bushes from a huge round metal grate made of thick rebar. It was set into the slope of a hill that rose gently toward the DMA facility, about half a mile away.
The metal bars of the grate were about the thickness of my finger. I clicked on my headlamp and shined it in. All I could see were the concrete sides of a tunnel, heading off into murky shadows. I flicked on my phone, activated the gps and checked the digital map on the screen.
“This would make sense,” I said. “This is it.” I saw Kieran smile in the faint moonlight. All that stopped us from lifting the grate aside was some thin wire attached to the concrete. Jake snapped that with bolt cutters. Then we all grabbed part of the grate.
“On the count of three,” I said. It was heavy, almost too heavy to move. We grunted and heaved. The grate finally flipped away from the tunnel entrance onto the ground. It made a ringing sound that quickly died away. Just the same, we turned off the head-lamps right away. I scanned the moonlit darkness around us to make sure no one heard. There was no sign of anything, just a bit of wind rustling the leaves.
We went in.
The tunnel was big enough that I could stand up and stretch out my arms, no problem. But that didn’t make it easy to travel through. The floor and walls were curved and slimy. There was a steady stream of knee-deep water running down the middle of the big concrete tube. I tried to stay to one side but kept slipping and landing in the stream, swearing at the shock of the cold water every time.
Occasionally there was a weird gust of damp wind like the tunnel was taking a deep breath. Single file, we kept marching through the tunnel in silence.
Fifteen minutes later the only thing different was that the stream was deeper, up to our waists. The water was cold, but we got used to it. The deeper it was, though, the harder it was to push against the current. To keep me going, I kept thinking about Asha. What she’d say when I gave her the money. What we could do in the summer, the places we could explore together.
We were all getting tired and cold. I wasn’t sure how much farther we could go on tonight. I was pretty sure we’d have to turn back. We hadn’t brought the right gear for something this wet. Beyond bolt cutters and a few other basic tools, we hadn’t brought anything serious.
“Kieran,” I finally said. “Kieran!” I saw his headlamp stop up ahead in the tunnel, then spin around toward me.
“What?”
“We need to go back and take another run at this tomorrow. The water’s getting deeper, we need different equipment. I’m not even sure if this tunnel is going the right way.”
“Can’t you check the map on your phone?”
“No. The GPS doesn’t work underground.”
“Hey.” Jake had slogged back toward us as well. “Did you guys see that?”
“What?” said Kieran.
“Turn off your headlamps, then look up ahead.” We did. At first, the darkness was complete. The gurgle of water around us sounded louder than ever. Then, faintly, a circle of moonlight appeared, way up ahead.
“That’s the exit to DMA!” shouted Kieran. “Let’s go!” With new energy, we splashed up the tunnel.
We were exhausted and not thinking straight. We were sloppy. So when things went wrong, we were totally unprepared for it.
It started with a slight splash up ahead, almost like a small rock dropping in the water. I didn’t think anything of it. It took me a second to realize that the light from Jake’s headlamp had disappeared.
“Jake!” I screamed. Kieran spun around to face me, then back toward where Jake had been a second ago. We both shouted his name.
But he was gone.
Chapter Nine
I shoved Kieran to one side, and surged forward along the tunnel toward where Jake had been. What the hell had happened? How could he just disappear?
Beneath the water, I felt a hand grip my ankle.
And pull me under.
Cold water pressed against me as I went down. I kicked and thrashed. But I was being pulled into some kind of underwater pit.
And then, just as quickly, I was being yanked back to the surface. Kieran had reached down and gotten hold of me. By the time my face broke the surface, I had figured out what was going on. I gulped in some air.
“Let go of me!” I said. “Jake’s down there!”
Taking a final breath, I shook off Kieran and sank down again into the pit. It must have been some kind of drain tube, heading vertically down from the main tunnel. There was a small but steady current pulling at me as I dropped down four or five feet. When I hit bottom, I thrashed around. I could feel pieces of garbage, scraps of metal and torn up coils of wire. Then I connected with Jake’s leg.
It was wrapped up in some of the wire. The more he kicked and tried to free himself, more entangled he became. But I could tell that his movements were getting weaker. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been underwater, but it felt like forever. I had to get him back up to the surface. Now.
Fumbling around in the cold water, I reached into the pocket of my cargo pants for a wire cutter. I got it out, then pointed it down around his leg. I cut blindly, hoping I wasn’t connecting with any flesh by accident. A couple of snaps, and Jake was freed of the wire. He started floating toward the surface. I pushed off from the bottom, trying to get us both up as fast as possible.
We broke the surface at the same time. Kieran helped me up, and together we half-dragged, half-floated Jake back down the tunnel toward the entrance. Jake was conscious. Coughing up water. But he was breathing.
It wasn’t until we reached the tunnel entrance that I realized how badly Jake was bleeding. There were still pieces of wire wrapped around his leg. It was a bloody mess of torn jeans and steel. Like I’ve said before, I’m brave but I can’t handle gross. I panicked.
“Stop,” I said. “I’m going to call for an ambulance.”
“No!” said Kieran. He looked at me across Jake’s body. “You want to explain to the cops what we’re doing here?” We kept going toward the car, Jake stumbling between us through the dry leaves of the woods. When we finally got there, we put Jake in the backseat. The bleeding seemed to be slowing down. I wrapped the leg in an old blanket, then put my jacket over Jake. He was shivering from the cold. Maybe from shock. I got in the front
