Vaughn locked eyes with Nahum. “I need you to go first,” he said. “Hold on to the hanger, don’t look down. The zip line takes about five minutes to complete. There shouldn’t be anything waiting when you reach the ground, but if there is, holler up so I don’t send Ima into it by herself.”
“Can I at least get like, a gun or something?” Nahum asked. “Or those silver paint ball things? Those were pretty sweet.”
Vaughn smirked. “I just use my fists.”
“Sure you do.” Nahum sat at one corner of the hole and grabbed the hanger. He took a deep breath—Ima could tell he was acting braver than he felt—and dipped into the sewer hole with a whoosh. Ima inhaled unexpectedly as Nahum swung back and forth, suspended right inside the sewer hole for several seconds.
Vaughn ducked his head into the hole. “Get on with it,” he bellowed, giving Nahum a shove.
Nahum let out a yell, then disappeared, his voice echoing softer and softer as he moved away from them into the unknown darkness.
“You’re next,” Vaughn told Ima, grabbing a second hanger from an inset inside the hole. To Ima’s surprise, the inset held hundreds of hangers. Clearly, Vaughn used this route often.
Ima slowly lowered herself into the hole, her heart threatening to jump out of her chest. She breathed heavily, trying not to think of falling, trying not to think of small spaces, trying not to think of darkness.
Vaughn took her hand in his. “Don’t be afraid of the darkness,” he said softly to her, guessing her thoughts with uncanny accuracy. “It’s perfectly safe. I just wanted to scare Nahum.”
“Well, it worked,” Ima said, grabbing onto the hanger with both hands. She closed her eyes and slid off the edge of the hole, dropping rapidly into it. She gripped the hanger as tightly as she could.
Ima felt Vaughn’s fingers on the small of her back. He whispered into her ear, “Do you prefer ‘E’ to Ima?”
Ima’s face flushed, burning so hot she was sure Vaughn could feel it. “What?” Her panic level rose, partly from hanging into a sea of blankness; partly from the intimacy of Vaughn’s hands on her. “I mean, my name is Ima.”
Seconds of silence hung between them. “Then why—“ Vaughn started.
“You can call me ‘E’ too,” Ima replied quickly, kicking her legs out to move herself. She screamed as the hanger slid along the thin wire above her, faster and faster, until she was free-flying through the darkness with no safety net and no knowledge of where she might land. The glide went on and on, Ima screaming the entire way, until finally, the hanger caught. The unexpected halt of motion sent Ima flying. She landed in a soft, springy cloud of cotton, practically on top of another body. Nahum’s.
She scrambled off of him. “Are you okay?” she asked, holding out her hand to help him up. “I’m so sorry for landing—“
To her surprise, Nahum laughed. “It’s okay, you just knocked me over. You flew off the handle, literally.” His laugh deepened, echoing against the dank brick that surrounded them. The underground tunnel looked surprisingly like a train stop on the Blue Line.
A heavy whooshing sound ringed above, and a few seconds later Vaughn landed neatly on his feet in front of them.
“You’re both still alive,” he said. He seemed neither pleased nor disappointed. “I wondered if that pile of synthetic material was still there to catch your landing.”
“Nice of you to tell us,” Nahum said casually.
Ima noticed a large red sign that spelled out “Diversey” rusting on the wall of the tunnel.
YOU ARE READING
Socialpunk (Socialpunk #1)
Teen Fiction"This book would be good for those that enjoyed the Hunger Games!” ~ Cover 2 Cover Blog "When I read the first page, I did not anticipate that I would be finishing the book that night, but I did. I had to. I didn’t care that I was up until 3:00AM."...
