I press my body against the wall, wondering where Wes is. He should be here by now. What if something happened to him? What if he’s given up on me? I have to find him again. I pull myself up, and I hear a footstep behind me.
“Wes.” I start to turn but freeze when I hear a clicking noise near my ear.
“Don’t move,” an unrecognizable male voice says.
The stranger pushes something into the back of my head. Something cold and metal.
“Or I’ll shoot.”
The barrel of a gun.
CHAPTER 14
“Turn around.”
I automatically raise my hands and slowly pivot. Blood pounding, breath short. The man holding the gun is probably in his late twenties, and he’s dressed in the black guard’s uniform. He’s a little taller than me, and has light brown hair that’s cropped close to his head.
He barely looks at me as he reaches out and clamps onto my arm with one hand. He tugs me forward. I dig in my heels.
“Where are you taking me?” My voice sounds faint.
He doesn’t answer, just squeezes my arm tighter and jerks. I stumble. Before I can find my footing, he starts to drag me.
He pulls me down the hallway. My ears are ringing, and all I can hear is the sound of the screaming from earlier, the noise ringing through the metal vent.
“Faster.” The man’s voice is harsh, like he smokes too many cigarettes. He yanks on my arm and I barely catch myself before I ram into the wall.
Will Wes come for me? Maybe he’s finally decided that I’m not worth the trouble. Maybe I’m on my own here, waiting to be killed by the men behind this project. Or worse, waiting for them to use me in their experiments. That thought makes me straighten up. I’d rather die quickly from a bullet than become one of those subjects.
Using all of my strength, I quickly twist away from the guard. I catch him by surprise and his hand stays outstretched for a moment before he fully realizes what just happened. I see my opening and bring my knee up hard between his legs. He makes a strangled noise and I lunge, ready to run. But he’s faster, and he grabs me around the middle before I can get away. He pushes me up again the wall, my face scraping against the uneven cement.
Suddenly his body jerks and my head hits the wall. The guard starts to fall. I move to the side to get away from his weight. He drops like a stone, hitting the tile floor with a dull thud.
I turn around slowly. Wes is standing there, watching me. He holds out his hand. I take it without a word.
We run through the white hallways of the Facility. There’s no point in saying what we’re both thinking: the fallen guard will be found quickly. Someone will be aware of the breach, and this place is about to go on high alert.
I’m a little dazed from my head hitting the concrete and have a hard time keeping up. Wes notices and slows his pace, but we don’t have much time left. Just when I think I can’t go any farther, he stops and opens a random door on the left. We enter a large room, filled with what look like oil tanks. Wes weaves through the huge containers, and I follow, the scent of grease heavy in the air.
Back in the hallway, he took the gun from the fallen guard. Now he holds it close to his chest as we enter a different room. There’s only one other door on the far wall. He approaches it, glancing back at me.
“I need you to do what I say,” he whispers. “Promise me.”
“Okay.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“I promise, all right?”
“Stay here.” He steps through the door. I hesitate for a moment before I peer around it. The room is filled with blinking machines. There are two guards in uniforms. One stands near the door; the other is over by the machines.
I watch as Wes sneaks up behind the first guard. He brings his hand down in a sharp motion and the guard crumples. Before the second guard can even turn around, Wes kicks him in the chest. The guard slumps onto the machine in front of him. It all takes less than a minute.
I walk into the room. Wes turns at the sound of my footsteps. “I told you to stay back.” I shrug, staring down at the fallen guards. He sighs, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Go,” he says, steering me toward another door.
We enter a new room. This one is filled with cars and trucks of all sizes, gleaming in the bright light overhead.
“Are we taking one of them?” I whisper.
“No.” His breath tickles my ear, and his hand lightly grips my shirt. “Too dangerous.”
He leads me to a door that’s obscured by a big army truck. There’s a combination lock near the handle. He fiddles with it and it slides open.
“Go,” he says again.
I step out into the dark, quiet woods of Camp Hero.
Wes winds through the forest like he’s part of it. I struggle to follow. My arm aches from where the guard yanked on it, and my cheek feels like it’s on fire. I’m not sure where Wes is headed, though I know we’re near the south side of the camp, not far from the vent we crawled through only hours earlier.
“Where are we going?” I ask after a minute. He halts abruptly, and I barely stop myself from colliding into him. He turns around. Only a little moonlight filters through the trees above our heads, but I can see the shape of his features in the darkness.
“Can you keep walking?” His voice is soft.
“Yeah, but can we rest for a minute?” There’s a pounding on the side of my head. I reach up to feel a large bump forming under the skin. “Just a minute, then I’ll be fine.”
He watches
