Chained - Page 38

"How much water?" I hissed, straining my eyes to try and see anything in the blackness.

"Hang on," Evan said and a moment later a light flickered on. He held a small torch out in front of him. Taylor was illuminated in the dim tunnel, his boots submerged in a pool of water which stretched on ahead of him.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"They said I could have one in place of a knife," he replied as if that was an obvious trade to make. I'd rather a knife any day but I was glad he'd taken the torch.

Taylor took a step and another. The water lapped higher up over his ankles.

"The floor slopes away, I don't know how deep it will get," he said. I glanced back the way we had come. I didn't really fancy getting soaked.

"Maybe we should just go back," Evan began but stopped as we heard screaming coming from the tunnel entrance behind us.

"Go," I said decisively, running forwards into the water. I didn't want anything to do with what was happening out there.

The floor dropped away quickly and the water was up to my waist within moments. I shivered as it leached the warmth from my skin. We held our guns above our heads to keep them dry and Evan pointed the torch ahead to lead the way.

The tunnel turned to the right and kept dropping away. I regretted never having learnt to swim but it wasn't exactly an option in the city unless you lived a lot higher than I did.

It was freezing, my teeth were chattering and I couldn't feel my feet.

The screaming behind us stopped abruptly but that didn't fill me with much confidence as we pushed on.

The tunnel finally started to rise. We tried to get a balance between moving fast enough to put distance between ourselves and any pursuers, and slowly enough not to make too much noise.

Finally we stepped out of the water, dripping wet and freezing cold but the tunnel exit loomed bright ahead, making my eyes sting as we approached it. Evan clicked off his torch and we holstered our guns.

"Well, this is fun," I grumbled, trying to stop the shivering.

Taylor emerged from the tunnel first and started down the next trench. He'd barely gone a couple of steps when an opposition fighter jumped over a low wall to his right, a gun levelled at his head.

"We're messengers!" I shouted to her but she just scowled and turned the safety catch off. Before I could react, a knife flew past me and embedded itself in her chest.

"Evan?" I spun round to look at him.

I couldn't quite believe what had happened. The gun fell from the woman's hand as blood started to flow down her chest. Her mouth opened in a silent scream.

"She was going to shoot him," Evan shrugged. He looked away from the woman as the blood started to drip to the dirt beneath her feet. She stumbled to her knees.

"You saved my life man. That's both of us now," Taylor said, looking stunned.

Evan shrugged again and moved on down the path. I holstered my pistol, which had made it into my hand somehow, and reached out to grasp Taylor's hand. I tried not to look at the woman as she collapsed to the ground and stared glassily at the sky.

A rational voice in my head was telling me that it was either her or Taylor but a slightly louder voice was screaming at me that I had just witnessed someone dying. Dying! She was dead.

Taylor pulled his hand from mine. My nails had dug red, moon-shaped marks into his skin, a few of which were starting to bleed. I opened my mouth to say sorry but Taylor held my gaze and I knew that he understood. He always understood.

I clenched my jaw and pushed the vision of the soldier out of my head. She would have killed him and I wouldn't waste any tears on her.

The trenches started to twist and turn, disorientating us.

"I'm not even sure which way is east anymore," I moaned after a good half an hour of aimless wandering.

A guy dressed in the colours of the opposition came tearing down a narrow gap between a wall and a huge lump of twisted metal towards us. He glanced in our direction, realised we were only messengers, and kept running. A few moments later he was followed by three of our unit who didn't pause but just ran by whooping and laughing. They were actually enjoying themselves.

One of them bumped into Evan as they passed and there was a tearing sound as his sleeve caught on the guy's knife.

"Sorry man!" the guy yelled over his shoulder as he chased his friends out of sight. Evan glanced at his tattered jacket and used his own knife to cut away the torn material. As he did I noticed a tattoo, a rose tangled in thorns, that spiralled around his wrist.

Tags: Susanne Valenti Science Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net
readsnovelonline.net Copyright 2016 - 2024