The Dark at the End Read online

  “It’ll be okay,” I say to Lucas. “We’ll get out of this, somehow.”

  “I do not understand why he would let you both in here with me, now,” Dedushka says, under his breath. “Isolation makes more sense for him. It is strange.”

  “He didn’t,” I say. “Liesel did.” I lean in close again, whisper. “I’m not sure they’re exactly on the same side anymore. She was trying to make a deal for me to work above ground. Like before. And then Dad took over and dragged me underground again. It seemed like she wasn’t happy about it.”

  He does one of his big Russian shrugs, which can mean anything, and lays a hand on my knee. “We must first stop this activation of Myka. This is first priority.”

  I look at him, really look, for a second. He looks old, beat-down. Sick, almost. He did swear he’d never be underground again, and here he is. Here we all are.

  Lucas circles back to us and sits, his eyes wild. “We have to get away from John and Smith,” he says, low.

  “Agreed,” I say. “But the big question: how?”

  *

  I keep expecting any minute that Dad or his groupies will bust in here and separate me and Dedushka and Lucas again, yell at us, kick us in the ribs. The doctor woman brings us some food, eggs and toast. And then nothing happens. Long enough that we let the lights go off and try to sleep, Dedushka on the cot, me and Lucas on the floor. Long enough that I wonder if we really are the discarded ones now. The ones no one will care about.

  That would be fine with me, if it didn’t mean Myka is the primary target. That’s unbearable.

  It’s a joke to call it “sleep,” really. I lie on the floor, staring into the dark, pondering impossible questions. My head is getting worse, not better. I can barely look at any lights, and sounds make me cringe. If I had Dad’s medicine in front of me right now, would I take it?

  If it was between me and Myka, hell yes. I’d take all of it. I’d down it all so fast it’d make his head spin. Every drop, so there was none left. And then I’d send them out of here.

  But I’d throw myself in front of a train for Myka, so it’s not like it’s much of a question. And it doesn’t work that way.

  I let myself picture Dad or Liesel making Myka tunnel. All the shit she’d have to see, do. Life lived underground in captivity.

  I sit up, the lights snap on, and I moan. Dedushka sits up, stares blearily at me, then lies down again. Soon enough I hear him snoring. He can sleep anywhere. Lucas is asleep too, curled up in a ball.

  I can’t sleep ever again.

  Myka’s supposed to have a brilliant future. In a lab, sure, if she wants, but in one that she’s running. Working out new chemicals. Saving the world and getting a Nobel Prize. Not this. Not ever this.

  We’ve tried to escape this room. There are no other exits, no air ducts except on the ceiling, no handy trap doors or wires I can use to pick an electronic look that’s unpickable anyway. I pound my fist on the floor, but it just hurts my fist. I’m stuck. Dad really has outwitted me, and we’re all stuck, except Rachel, who may or may not be hunted by Smith the Insane.

  The door clicks open, and I jump, flinch at the light. Wait for Dad’s asshole soldiers to come barging in.

  After a second or two it opens, slow, while I hold my breath.

  Liesel pokes her head inside, all stealthy, and gestures for me to come out in the hall with her.

  I’m there in a heartbeat, with one look back at Dedushka still peacefully sleeping away. I close the door, as quiet as possible. Liesel looks worn, with circles under her eyes I’ve never seen—though she’s still dressed perfectly in a suit, hair in a neat ponytail like always. She puts a finger to her lips and gestures for me to follow her.

  Not a problem. I’m out of that room. I’ll follow her almost anywhere.

  We go down the hall only a couple doors before she chooses one. Oddly enough, it’s a shower. Deserted now, but there are five stalls all lined up, gray concrete, with white curtains pushed to the side. It smells like the ghost of old shampoos, and bleach. She sits on a wooden bench along the front wall, pats the bench next to her. I sit. “No bugs in here?”

  “One of the only places in this whole blasted facility.” She folds her hands in her lap and turns to me. “I have the item, from the plane. Can you do it here? Or did that stuff really work?”

  She takes a tiny china cat, one of those ones that wave their arms when they’re in the sun, out of her pocket and hands it to me. I turn it, the china slick under my fingers. For the first time I feel guilty about taking the serum. To whoever this belongs to, someone I could possibly save if they’re still alive. To their family, who I could help just by telling them for sure what happened. To Liesel, a little. Sometimes she does seem to want the best for me, for all of us. She looks at me expectantly, her pale eyes intent on my face.

  Well, I haven’t tried. I close my eyes, take in a long whiff of bleach smell, and focus on the object.

  Nothing, except the headache sends little worms of pain down my neck. I don’t get any sense of the object at all.

  I shake my head and hand it back to her. I stare at the floor, the big circular drain in the middle. “It worked. I can’t do it anymore.”

  It hits her hard, like I punched her in the face. No, like I took her puppy out to the alley and kicked it dead. She sets the china cat down, a ways down the bench. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll break it.

  “You could help us escape,” I say. “All of us, the way we are now. We could run.”

  “And he’d catch you again in a day. Or you’d run into Smith. It wouldn’t work, Jacob. You’re going to have to leave with our protection, one way or the other. Running on your own is over.”

  I don’t know if I accept that, exactly. But I admit I do keep ending up here, or somewhere like here, no matter how I try.

  “This serum,” she says suddenly. “Is it reversible?”

  I snort. “You never give up. I don’t know. I guess Dad’s concoction, whatever it is, might work on me? I don’t know. I’m not taking it.”

  “Right.” She walks away a few steps, one hand pounding on her leg, then spins. “Even if it kept him from injecting Myka?”

  “I’d do almost anything to stop that. Though I’m not sure one would stop the other.” I narrow my eyes. “Do you have a plan? Are you against him using Myka?”

  “With every fiber of my being.” She picks up the china cat again and flips its arm, so it waves insanely at her. “This is from a little girl. Fourteen years old. I personally got it from her grandparents. They’re frantic. They may have lost their whole family, but they don’t know. Can’t know.” She turns it so it’s waving at me. “I need you, Jacob. You and your natural gift, however we get it back. I have never agreed with impressing the gift on other people. Especially not someone unwilling. Especially not someone underage. Ever.” She brings the cat up close to her face, like she’s inspecting it, and I see the sudden shine of tears in her eyes. “And I like Myka very much. She doesn’t belong here.”

  “And I do?” I can’t help it.

  There’s a long pause, and then she sighs. “No. I admitted that I was wrong about that. That John is wrong about that. You belong out in the world, protected. Working, but getting properly rewarded for it.” She slips the cat back into her pocket, and I feel that guilt again. Selfish, like I chose my own life over that little girl’s. I’d find her right now, if I could. I swear I would.

  “Will you take John’s medicine, if I can make that stop him using it on Myka? If I can get you out of here working above ground?” She steps closer, so she’s right above me. Threatening, almost, until she puts out a hand and pulls me up. Her hand is cold. Or maybe I’m hot. “Will you work with me for real?”

  I press my tongue against my teeth hard. I just got rid of tunneling. For a reason. Dedushka and Mom and Myka and Rachel and Lucas, all of them. They’ll be disappointed in me if I throw that away, start again. Disappointed isn’t a strong enough word.

  But t
hey’re still not safe. And I have to admit…I miss it. I feel hollow, empty without the ability that’s been mine my whole life. I can’t even check on Myk if I want to, or connect to Dedushka. I can’t keep tabs on Rachel from in here and make sure she’s safe. I’m blind—but I blinded myself.

  “Okay,” I start, but the headache explodes behind my brain. I could manage it before, keep functioning, but this….

  I moan, hold my head, and sink to the cold floor, my eyes pressed shut. I feel Liesel there, her hands on my forehead. “What’s wrong?” she asks, frantic, but her voice just hurts, driving the ice pick further into my brain.

  I moan again. “Side effect…” I whisper. “I can’t….”

  The ice pick splits, shatters into tiny pieces of pain, and I gasp, wishing I could pass out. Wishing I could just die.

  And then my body gets fire-on-the-sun hot, and I start seeing things.

  Dad blowing a heater on my face, laughing.

  Bugs crawling up the inside of my veins, wriggling out the ends of my fingers. Bright blue bugs, with green wings.

  Liesel poking me with needles, everywhere. Over and over. Even the soles of my feet. I thrash to try to get away from her.

  Mom doing some sort of strange, wild dance around the room, in a suit dress. Rachel kissing me on the forehead, soft and gentle. Dedushka leaning over me, tickling me with his beard. Staring owlishly at me.

  I throw up on the floor, retching. My eyelids are too heavy and hot to keep open anymore.

  “Oh God,” Liesel says, through the fog. “I’m going to have to call John.”

  44

  RACHEL

  Fight Song by Rachel Platten

  I can’t believe this is really happening. Every few minutes my mind takes a step back, realizes I’m in a bizarre horror movie, and tries to convince me to turn it off. Because yes, there are bad guys in the woods with guns. For real. And I’m hiding in a mound of rocks, trying really hard not to move or breathe or…I don’t know, smell like anything. For all I know Smith has someone with the superpowers of a bloodhound, and they’ll find me that way.

  I’ve been hiding for hours. It’ll be dark soon, and harder to see. Now I understand why prey animals like the dark. Maybe I can outlast them, and they’ll give up and go away.

  I can hear them again, not terribly far away. Two men, I think, searching separately. The only hope I have is that they’re looking for two people, not one. And maybe they won’t look that hard?

  Right. They will. They’ve come all the way here from D.C., fueled by Smith’s rage, just looking for us and Lucas. They know the car’s here, and they’ll assume I—we—are here somewhere. Smith wants Jake bad. He’d probably find a use for me too, like he did before. As incentive. As bait.

  I barely keep myself from moaning. I’m wedged in a tiny horizontal space between two giant slabs of granite in this mound, as far back as I could slide in without getting stuck. I hope. I’m trying not to think about snakes, which love spaces just like this. Or rats. Or spiders.

  God, spiders. I hate spiders. I breathe in the musty dirt all around me and close my eyes. Concentrate on listening. I can only hear one set of footsteps now. Good. They split up.

  Bad: They’re a little closer. A voice swears, and I bite my lip to keep from making any noise.

  How did I get here? How did choosing to follow Jake out of the library lead me here?

  I’m definitely not staying in poly sci. If I get out of this, I’m majoring in English. Or Library Science. I’ll become a librarian and never leave those doors again. I’ll move to Hawaii with Dad and surf all day. I’ll live with Mom. Anything but this.

  He’s close. In the rocks, I think. I hold my breath until I can’t anymore, let it out in a long, silent stream. Hold it again. I open my eyes, but I can’t see anything except the rock an inch from my nose, a tiny speck of mica. A sprinkling of dirt falls on my cheeks.

  I hear him thumping, scratching. Banging on stone. My hope now has shifted: that he won’t look in this crevice. He’ll see it, think it’s way too small for a person—Jake wouldn’t fit, no way—and move on past. I wonder how long I’d have to stay here if he passed by to make sure they were gone. An hour, maybe. Two. For safety. He’ll pass by. He has to.

  The feet shuffle to a stop right outside the crevice. The mica above me shines, suddenly bright, surrounded by sister flecks all around I couldn’t see before. A flashlight.

  He found me.

  He doesn’t even say anything. He just grabs me by the arm and yanks me out, scraping my knees and elbows on the sharp rock, out into the sun. I don’t cry out, though. It’s like if I don’t talk to him I can pretend that it didn’t happen. That I’m not caught.

  My knees are bleeding.

  The guy is, unbelievably, dressed in a suit, navy blue, with a bright blue tie. Buttoned and everything. He’s built like the Hulk, his muscles already popped but his suit just holding him in. He keeps one beefy hand on my arm, stares me down, and punches a button on a cell with his other hand. I flail my free arm to stop him, but I can’t reach. “I’ve got one,” he says. “The girl.”

  ‘The’ girl, not ‘a’ girl. That’s bad. That means they know who I am.

  Duh, Rachel. You were hiding in a crack in the rock. They know who you are, and that you know who they are. You’re toast.

  Damn.

  “Yes, sir,” he says. “Coming now.”

  That’s all. He doesn’t say a word to me. He yanks with his ridiculous grip, and I have to follow him down the hill, back the way I ran. I can kind of see my frantic path through the woods in the leaves and broken branches. I guess I wasn’t that hard to find after all.

  At the road the big guy opens the back of the blue car and shoves me in. The locks click behind me.

  Gareth Smith is sitting there, cool and neat, exactly the same as the last time I saw him on his plane. Except even more pissed off, his jaw clenching. And there’s a massive purple bruise on his cheekbone. I stare at it, my chin high. Jake did that.

  “Ah,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “The sweetheart. And tell me, dear, where our beloved Jake is?”

  I swallow hard and shake my head. No words. It will be smarter if I don’t answer at all, right?

  I don’t see the fist coming until it smacks me in the mouth, snapping my head to the side.

  I don’t even know how to react. I’ve never been hit before. I’ve been cut—by his man—but never punched. The pain and shock fill my head. Slowly I turn back to him, my hand cradling my lips, already puffing up.

  “Don’t you mess with me,” he says. Growls. “I’ve had enough of that already. I am very tired of all of this by now.”

  We do a standoff, staring each other down.

  “Where is he?” he repeats.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything.” I lift my chin. This is the only thing I can do.

  He sighs. “Why can’t any of you JUST MAKE THIS EASY?” The last he shouts, leaning in my face, spit flying all over me. I flinch, but I don’t move. After a minute he sits back. Then the fist comes again, on the other side of my mouth. At least I’m not as shocked this time. It still hurts just as much, though. Blood drips from my lips, onto my bare legs, onto my bleeding knees. I glare at him.

  “We can do this all day,” he says, calm. “Jake is mine. Lucas is mine. And I will get them back, both of them. You should not doubt it for a second.” He smiles like the Joker, and I shiver. “Now where is he?”

  I don’t answer. He hits me in the cheek, the same place he has his bruise, and my head flies back, smacks into the door. Black creeps in around the world, the edges, spreading across Smith’s face.…

  “Lovely,” he says, his voice heavy with disgust. “You’re a fainter. We’re going to have to move this somewhere more convenient.”

  Everything is black.

  *

  It’s not a very nice hotel room. I’m sure it’s the best he could swing here, considering who he is, but it’s still dingy and
cheap, and smells like dust and old, stale sweat.

  We’ve moved on from the car. Smith needed someplace he could get more rage-y, have more room to swing. I’m sitting in a terrible pastel 80s chair, my arms held back by one of his beefy guys. My face hurts.

  “Hurts” is not a strong enough word.

  My belly hurts, where he decided to kick it when they were moving me here. My fingers are radiating pain in a way I’ve never felt before. He has hold of my pinkie and is stretching it back. He says he’ll snap it if I don’t talk. Then the rest of my fingers, one by one, until I tell him exactly where Jake and Lucas are.

  I believe him. I’m so afraid I can’t last much longer. Of course I don’t know what would happen if Smith went marching into John’s lair. I don’t know who would win. But I know I don’t want to give Smith anything more than he has already. Not with Jake there. Trapped. Helpless.

  “Don’t you know already?” I ask, trying to stall him. My breath is coming in little gasps. “Don’t you have a tracker or some—”

  He pushes it farther, leaning across to glare at me with his manic blue eyes. “Where?” he asks, so low I can barely hear it. I gasp. It can’t go much further…it can’t….

  The bone snaps, with a volcano of pain that takes me over entirely, every particle focused on that one little finger. I scream, loud and high, until someone slaps a hand over my mouth, and I inhale fresh sweat, feel the meaty hands on my skin. The intense pain recedes a little. Enough that I can think again, see anything but red. Smith comes slowly back into focus. He lets go of my hand and stares at me, sulky. He looks like a little boy whose treat was taken away.

  He sighs. “You are being difficult.” A smile, predatory, flicks on and off across his face. “And I’m being so nice, just breaking them and not cutting them off. But give me a couple more finger bones and you’ll talk. And yes, I had a tracker on Lucas. Someone disabled it before I could narrow it down. Where are they, Rachel?”

  I drop my head and stare at my feet. They look so strange in this context, so normal in their sneakers. They should be bloody or something. They should be on fire. This whole room should be on fire, and everyone should see what’s happening here. My hand throbs, and I can’t imagine having that happen again. Two fingers. Three. Five.