After the Walls

Chapter 14

Thunder rumbles outside, and the building groans as we traipse down the hallway drained of light and life except for the flickering, broken light bulb halfway down.

"The prison is several corridors down," I say. Memories of my time in the Red Movement flash across my mind like a microcosm of hell. The time Edward killed the sick beast in front of me. His experiments. The misery and blood and stench.

I swallow the bile and memories festering in my throat.

"Are you okay?" he says, glancing at me sideways.

"I'm fine."

My pulse thrums in my ears as we move through the all-encompassing silence and darkness. It feels like Edward's Red Movement was a trial run. A make-believe kingdom before the walls of our real kingdom became his to rule. I shudder to think of all the people who once occupied these hallways. The dorms once resembled pre-apocalyptic universities. Only the beds were small, the rooms were lonely, and the doors remained locked.

Finally, we arrive in my hallway. My palms sweat as we move through the crackling darkness. Doors creak as if ghosts inch them backward and forwards on their rusty hinges. Our footsteps boom like the collapse of the kingdom walls, stabbing my eardrums. My senses remain on high alert, like a prey animal, anticipating a half-rotted, abandoned Red Movement prisoner to jump out from the gloom.

"This is it," Ruben says, a haunted look crossing his eyes as we stand outside the room I spent so many days in.

More images and sounds from my memory blur across my vision. Screaming, wailing. "Kill me!" Blood. Hunger. Drowning.

"Do you want me to go?" Ruben says, grabbing his knife and spinning it. "Spare you needing to go in?"

"No. I can do it." I clench my fists and shoulder past him. Cold air and droning silence linger in the room. It's what I imagine death to be like.

We scour the room, pushing the bricks in the wall, jumping on the floor, and pulling the bed from the screws. But the realisation sinks into me like claws.

"It isn't here." That's all I can say, or I will start yelling.

"It must be. It said so in the note."

"No, it didn't, Ruben," I snap, voice strained and laced with frustration. "We just thought it said so."

Irritation feathers in his jaw muscle. "Then where else could it be? We didn't come all this way for us to be wrong."

I shake my head. "It will be here. In the Red Movement, I mean. But somewhere else."

"Like where? His office?"

My eyes widen and my heart clubs against my ribs. "It must be in the Mecuree sanctuary."

"The enclosure for those birds?"

"Yes." I snatch his hand, which is warm in my cold one, and drag him from the cell, leaving the dust and misery behind.

I lead Ruben up the wide staircases to Edward's old lair, which is now a far cry from the place he once roamed. Water drips from the ceiling. Mould and mildew grow in wispy trails across the floorboards, leaving a sickly sweet smell in the air. We move through the office. Many of Edward's belongings haven't been removed. A small drawing of his mother still sits on the desk. Parchments scatter the tabletop and floor. But most haunting of all is the other drawings strewn on his desk. Drawings of his father.... and me.

Ruben grimaces as I snatch them from the table and fold them into my pocket.

"I want to ask him why he has these." My voice drips with disgust. But I pull the drawing of his mother from the frame, too, tucking it into my pocket.

Ruben's dark gaze softens. "I have a feeling he was, and still is, just a lonely boy who wishes for a family." Then he purses his lips. "Funny how he hasn't drawn me though."

"You don't know that," I say. "He might have brought your drawing to the Floodgates."

He smiles and pink splotches his cheeks. "I dread the day if I ever see such a thing."

I roll my eyes as we enter the Mercuree enclosure. My heart drops. The lush, lively jungle that once filled the room is no longer. Plants and trees have long since shriveled up from dehydration and lack of light. A sweet, rotten stench permeates the room, making my eyes water. Mercuee carcasses, in various states of decomposition, scatter the bridge bisecting the enclosure and litter the dead plants. Bugs and maggots swarm some of the bodies as flies dart over our heads as if they're waiting for us to turn into corpses too.

Plugging my nose, we move along the bride. "I'm not sure it's here," I say in a nasally voice.

"Yeah, nothing appears alive here. We should leave."

But then something catches my eye. A violet flowering plant that sprouts with vigor and determination towards the ceiling.

"Ruben, there it is!"

I dash over and crouch before it, eyes widening.

"This is it?" he says. "It's so small. Almost seems too small to take down Edward."

"Let's hope it's mightier than its size." I pull the plant from the soil and stuff it, roots and all, into the small satchel strapped to my back.

As we march back down the hall to the stairwell leading to the platform, a sharp shout spikes my blood with tiny needles. We whirl around.

Barreling footsteps thunder into the hallway, pounding in my ears to the beat of my heart.

Aston and Ajax careen around the corner, shouting and cursing. Their hair flails wildly and their faces are pale and tight with terror.

"What the hell?" I yell, gripping the door to the stairwell.

"Run!" Ajax barks. "Run!"

I hear them before I see them. The shrill, piercing cackle that plucks at my eardrums. A flurry of broken, and battered Red Movement figures scramble into the hallway, chasing the boys.

"Run!" Ajax screams, throwing his arm at the door.

Ruben grabs his quiver and an arrow, firing before I can blink. The arrow skims through the gap between Ajax and Aston, piercing someone's eye socket. Their eyeball explodes and they shriek into the arms of death. Aston and Ajax slam into the doorway, running down the stairway.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" Aston screams, grabbing my wrist, and trying to pull me.

"We can pick them off," I say, grabbing a knife and throwing it. It spirals through the air like the propeller from the pre-apocalypse world I read about as a child. There's a crunch and a squelch as it hits its target.

"No, Elle. You cannot," he says through gritted teeth. "There are more."

"There's only six of them," Ruben says, releasing another arrow.

As it slams into the victim's ribs, we hear them, then see them. A stampede of dozens of Red Movement people.

I curse. "Go, Ruben. Run!"

We jump into the stairwell and flee as the cackles of the sick, feral people echo in our wake.