Chapter 22
As we sat in the deafening silence in the back of the truck, I was forced to finally confront all the thoughts that were swirling around in my head making me feel nauseas.
Elation.
Thus far, Kate and I had been successful in our endeavors. As much as I was ashamed to be happy about it, I was. It was cool to be such a, dare I say it, badass. It almost felt as if nothing in the world could stop us. If a plane falling dead out of the sky couldn’t kill us, then what could? I smiled in the dark, the realization making me smile to myself. I was ready for this to finally be over, but then it hit me: What would we do next? After I got this cuff off, what would our next objective be? As far as I knew, Havener and his men didn’t have any of my other friends or family, but what if I was wrong? A pang of fear hit me in my stomach so hard I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I was terrified, there was no use in denying it anymore, and I had to stop trying to. Every trace of the happiness that I’d felt only seconds ago was gone. Every minute, we got closer to the moment that would define my entire existence. Hardly anything stood in Kate and I’s path anymore, but that made it all the more dangerous. One wrong move now would almost certainly spell out death for me, and what about Kate? She could definitely go to prison for who knows how long, or, if Havener hunted her down, it would mean death for her as well. I didn’t want that to happen, but I was trapped between trying to protect her, and attempting to save my own life.
Out of what seemed like nowhere, I heard a giggle in the dark. I jumped, not realizing that it was only Kate. As this thought hit me, I relaxed a little and allowed my weight to sink back onto the box.
“What’s so funny?” I’d posed the question, but it seemed that it needed no answer. I could almost feel Kate’s eyes wandering the spot where I sat as if she could see me through the darkness. She said nothing for a moment.
“It’s almost time, you know.” Her voice rang through the pitch-blackness, and another wave of fear jolted through me. She didn’t need to say it, I already knew.
“I know,” I responded quietly. My voice sounded small and uncertain. It was almost pitiful.
“Are you worried?” At first all I did was nod and let the silence speak for me. Eventually I spoke up, uttering a tiny ‘yes’.
“I am too.”
“I’m just worried for your sake, not mine,” I said finally, after thinking a moment. “If something happens to me…” I trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought. What would she do? Would she be able to keep herself safe from Havener, or would he finally get her for good? I didn’t want to think about it. I couldn’t bare the thought of being gone. I couldn’t bare the thought of being without her, even for just a second. I would never let that happen to her.
I would never let that happen to us.
“Harry, I couldn’t let anything happen,” she breathed out, and I felt her eyes burning holes in my skin. “You’re all I’ve got left in the world.”
I didn’t know how to end that thought other than with an agreeing silence. I said nothing and sat back on my box, just waiting for the truck to arrive at CBRS. I couldn’t help myself when I began to black out from exhaustion. I fought the sleepiness with every fiber of my being, but I didn’t think I could stay awake much longer. If we didn’t get out soon, we were going to get caught. I could only imagine how Kate was holding up, as I felt myself drifting into an uneasy slumber.
***
Everything was black and silent, which was not unlike the inside of the truck, but there was one tiny difference. There was a moon here. It cast almost no light, but I could see it. I knew that it was there. I felt myself stand up, as if I’d been sitting before, and begin to walk. It wasn’t until I started to move that I realized that there were trees overhead, their branches twisting and gnarling together to block out the dim light.
Suffocating my hope of escape.
I wandered around aimlessly, heading mostly toward the moon, or at least what seemed to be, but I never seemed to make any progress. It was almost as if I was stuck, every motion still pending as if the message couldn’t quite reach the muscles. It was endless. Part of me wanted to find a new path to follow, in the hopes that it might lead to a quicker end, but my heart told me to go where I was already headed. I walked on with my feet beginning to ache. How long had I been walking? I was tired, but I walked on. Finally, it seemed as if I was making a difference. I was finally starting to reach that little patch of light in the sky.
I walked on.
A breeze blew, light and misty onto my face. It seemed to whisper, forming words that I couldn’t make out. Maybe it wasn’t the breeze, and instead there actually was someone here with me. I stopped walking for a moment and looked around.
“Hello?” My voice rang into the blackness and seeming to echo on and on. I waited as the sound died down to become nothing but still silence once more. There was no answer. The wind blew again, harder this time, and my cheeks began to sting. Placing my hand against the sore skin, I started walking again toward the solitary light in the sky. Then the sounds came again. More words assaulted my ears. I strained hard trying to understand them.
“Harry.” The sounds were long, drawn out, and held barely above a whisper. The acknowledgement of my name set me on edge, and every hair on my body stood on end. Beginning to get freaked out, I started to jog lightly. My fear got the better of me until I was running, sprinting trying to reach the light.
“Wake up, you little shit!” I was yanked from my sleep by a pen light being shined in my eye, a hard slap to the face, and Kate’s voice whisper-yelling in my right ear. I jumped, and immediately sat straight up, smashing my forehead into hers.
“Are you insane?” The words tumbled from my still drowsy mouth in the near darkness of the truck.
“Yes, actually,” she responded with an irritated tone. “Now get up, we’re almost there.” She stepped back from the box where I had been sleeping and sat back onto her own after shutting the lid that I’d failed to see was open before.
“Where’d you get that pen light?” Kate said nothing, but simply stood up and reopened her box. Inside there were rows upon rows of small tools. Upon further inspection, it became clear that the tools were organized, and grouped based on their main usage. There were scalpels, sets of tiny fabric sheers, and finally, the pen lights. “Oh.”
“I didn’t realize that you were asleep earlier and that I was talking to myself when I said that we should look through some of the boxes,” Kate said eventually. “I was hoping to find-“ she started, and abruptly stopped. I immediately became aware that the truck was slowing down. “Get inside a box and don’t make a sound,” Kate instructed, with her voice a low whisper. I stood up, pulled the lid off the box I’d been sitting on, and furiously shoved supplies to one end so that I would fit inside. Once I finished, I lowered myself inside surrounded by sounds of crinkling plastic wrap.
“Ready?” I heard Kate’s wisp of a voice call from across the bed of the truck before I pulled the lid shut.
“Ready,” I responded. The penlight clicked off, and we were engulfed by darkness once again. The truck’s brakes squealed loudly next to my ear, and the lumbering metal box came to a halt. “I thought you said they didn’t check the trucks,” I called over to Kate in a low voice.
“They’re not checking it, Harry,” she answered, her voice almost inaudible until the loud grumbling of the engine stopped. “We’re at CBRS.” My blood turned to ice. Now was do or die. There wasn’t any quitting now.
No defecting.
“What do we do?” My voice came out small, crushed by the overwhelming blackness as I began to get claustrophobic inside the wooden shipping container.
“We play it by ear,” she responded with an air of confidence that seemed to come from nowhere. It was only moments until the door of the cargo area was yanked open by Andy. The brightness of the light outside flooded through the cracks of the box, and I struggled not to shy away from the light and risk causing the plastic to crackle again. My eyes watered as I struggled to pull them open against the slivers of harsh daylight. Clunky footsteps sounded on the metal floor of the truck, and there was a loud grunt as Andy lifted one of the deliveries out of the back of the truck and hauled it away. I absently wondered if he’d taken Kate’s box. If he had, I was on my own. I was going to get us killed. I didn’t know what I was doing, and even if Kate did, I would doom us both.
But I had to try.
It was a few minutes before Andy came back to the truck. I was silent as my box was pulled forward toward the door. The next thing I knew, it felt like I was flying through the air, and my box landed with a hard thud on the concrete outside. My head snapped back and smashed against the hard, wooden planks of the box. I tried not to cry out in pain with much difficulty. Hot rivulets of tears ran from the corners of my closed eyes, but I forced myself to stay silent to the pain. I tried to reach up and clutch my aching skull as the box was lifted again and carried away from the truck, and toward what I was assuming was the laboratory building. I wanted to call out for Kate so badly. I wanted to find her. I needed to know that she was okay, that she had made it, that everything would work out in the end.
But she was gone.
I had nothing to turn to except myself. I had no one to comfort me, except myself. I was alone entirely. I’d never realized how absolutely terrifying this existence was. Kate was so much stronger than I’d originally thought she was. She’d gone almost entirely alone for years. I couldn’t even last this for ten minutes.
Keep it together, Harry, I coached myself. You’re almost there. You’re almost there. I struggled to keep myself from hyperventilating in the box as the temperature inside began to skyrocket from the hot breath that was coming from my mouth like a heater. Drips of sweat, either from the nerves or the heat, I didn’t know which, rolled down my face and back into my floppy, crushed up curls. I smashed my eyes shut as I tried to block out everything. I needed to focus on keeping myself calm. I needed to focus on the plan.
I needed to focus on getting back to Kate.
Right as I thought I was going to snap, the box was thrown to the floor again, but this time it was a little softer. I tucked my head to my chest quickly so it didn’t smash on the wood like it had before. Loud footsteps walked away before another, lighter pair filed in. I didn’t dare breathe a word. It sounded like a woman’s footsteps, and I silently wondered if they belonged to Kate. Unsure, I didn’t move. After a moment, there were more footsteps entering into the room, and the sound of voices followed.
“We need to start unpacking the crates,” a woman’s voice said. It sounded so close to my box, and I was almost sure that they would check mine first. I didn’t know what to do, and I started to panic even though I tried so hard to keep calm. “Get that one first.” I could imagine a woman pointing to the lid of my crate, and I felt my heart beat speed up at the thought. Seconds of silence stretched out in front of me as I waited for nearly certain capture. It came as a surprise to me when I heard the lid of another box unlatch. I sat still hoping that it wasn’t Kate’s container.
Praying that it wasn’t.
I heard a suffocated cry and loud sounds of struggle. It had been Kate’s box. Deciding that it was time to act, I shoved hard on the lid of my crate sending it flying across the room as I burst out to aid in the fight. As I stood up, the only person still standing was Kate. Three women dressed in white lab coats were lying sprawled out on the floor.
“Are they dead?” I stared at the three bodies, my eyebrows beginning to furrow before looking back at Kate, who was still standing inside the wooden crate.
“No, just unconscious,” Kate responded. “I just hit them in a pressure point on their neck; they won’t be out for long. We need to hurry. Help me get tie them up.” Lifting one leg and then the next, I climbed over the side of the box and stepped lightly onto the white tile floors. I yanked open drawer after drawer looking for duct tape until I finally came across a large grey roll. Tossing it over to Kate, I watched as she bent meticulously over each, taping first their mouths before rolling them over to tape their hands behind their backs.
“Where would the blueprints be?” Without a sound, Kate motioned over to a filing cabinet along the far wall. Wandering over to it while she finished up, I pulled it open, cringing at the loud, squealing noise that ensued. “Someone needs to oil this thing,” I muttered under my breath.
“Just focus on finding the blueprints,” Kate commented over her shoulder to me. “Are there alphabetical separators?” I glanced over at her as she still kneeled on the floor while I thumbed through papers.
“No, there’s just a bunch of numbers,” I responded, scowling as I searched. “I think they could be year numbers. When were these created, do you know?” I stopped for a moment to turn and face Kate. Finally standing up, she walked over to the cabinet.
“I think they were from 2008, but I don’t know for sure,” she said as she thumbed through the files for herself.
“Shit.”
“You’re telling me,” she mumbled. Starting to feel restless, I moved away from the cabinet to search elsewhere around the stark white room. I walked along the perimeter yanking open cabinet doors, and searching through drawers for any signs of the file.
“What if we can’t find it?” I started to lose hope in finding those plans. They didn’t seem to be anywhere, and we didn’t have much time left. These women would be waking up soon, and we still needed to figure out how to get ourselves back out of the building.
“We will, Harry,” Kate said, turning to face me, as I leaned up against the white counter along the wall. “I’m not leaving here without it.” I said nothing in response except to hop up on the counter, and look down at my feet. “Voila!” The crinkling sound of paper replaced the silence in the lab as Kate pulled out a long blueprint from the cabinet. “Grab a scalpel and a set of those fabric sheers, and get over here.”
I jogged over to the open box and removed the two items from their shrink wrapped packaging before making my way to the counter where Kate had moved to. She pulled out a stool to sit on before getting one for me. I set down the tools and took a seat on the cold plastic. I closed my eyes, and tried to take deep breaths, trying to mentally prepare to accept the worst possible outcome: death.
“Are you okay?” Kate’s small voice coaxed me to reopen my eyes. Her crystalline blue gaze locked on mine, and I nodded ever so slightly. “It’s going to be fine.” I cracked a weak, fake smile and looked back down at my feet. I didn’t want her to be nervous when she held my life in her hands. I didn’t want to be nervous, but inside I couldn’t control my emotions. Every thought spun wildly inside my head, and I couldn’t focus on anything. Half of my mind wanted to break down and cry, and to let everything that I’d been feeling out; to be at peace. Another part of me had a desperate need to stay strong and keep it together; I didn’t want to crack under the pressure. I couldn’t. I needed to be brave.
For Kate’s sake.
I lifted up my arm to rest on the counter where she could work on the cuff, and Kate picked up the scalpel as she readied herself to use the tip as a screwdriver while she examined the blueprint. She started to lean over my wrist, but I stopped her before she could start working. Pulling her forward quickly, I pressed my lips to hers before she had a chance to protest. Cupping my large hand around her face, I moved my lips in sync with hers for just a moment before I pulled away and rested my nose against hers, with my eyes barely open and my lips parted.
“Just in case,” I breathed. Kate pressed her index finger to my mouth, hushing me before I could finish the sentence. I pulled away from her and sat as still as stone while Kate figured her way through the blueprint. I wished I could see into her head; to understand what she was thinking, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to risk distracting her by asking. Instead I just closed my eyes, and tried to concentrate on something else, but there was nothing. I tried to bide my time clenching and unclenching my fist until I finally opened my eyes again, unable to bear the stress of not knowing. Kate sat huddled over my wrist, working furiously. Though locks of her deep brown hair fell over my arm, I could make out colored wires underneath being exposed from the metal casing on the cuff. She took a red wire and held it between the blades on the sheers, and looked over at me for a split second. Without looking back at my hand, she cut the wire. I took in a deep breath and waited for the pain to come. Waited for time to slow to a stop.
Waited for my life to end.
I waited until I couldn’t hold that breath anymore, and I let it out in a long sigh. Nothing ever came. There was no pain. Nothing. I was still alive. I was speechless, overwhelmed by the sense of happiness and relief that washed over me endlessly like waves in the ocean.
“Oh thank God,” I heard Kate whisper as I pulled her into a hug. She nuzzled her head into the crook of my neck, and we sat like that for a moment in a comfortable silence.
“I knew I was in good hands,” I said with a smile when I released her from my grasp, and she stood up.
“We’re not in the clear yet,” she responded, grabbing my hand and tugging me to my feet. Hurrying, we skittered to the door of the lab, and checked through the peephole to see if the coast was clear. The carpeted hallway outside was unnervingly empty. The only sounds were those of our own footsteps as we made our way toward freedom.
“Are the cameras still down?” As we walked swiftly down the hallway, I exchanged a glance with Kate with a questioning look on my face.
“No idea,” she replied curtly. “Let’s play it safe and assume not.” Without a proper idea of what the plan was, I resolved myself to stay behind Kate, and stay out of the way. She seemed to be doing fine on her own, and she definitely didn’t need me to question her actions at a time like this. Instead, I kept pace with her absentmindedly and thought about what we would do now. We had no purpose for the immediate days to come, but that was okay with me. It was about time that Kate and I had some downtime. Trying to keep ourselves alive in a world where everyone either wanted to capture or kill us was a difficult job.
It was about time we got to go out and celebrate everything that we’d accomplished, not dying being one of the main ones. I was ready to let everything that had happened to us go, and to move on from it all. I needed to get it off of my mind.
“Stop,” Kate hissed at me over her shoulder, but I didn’t react fast enough to her command and bumped into her. “What part of stop didn’t you understand?” “Sorry,” I whispered back to her. “I was lost in thought.”
“Well could you find yourself please, because I kind of need you here with me right now,” Kate shot me an irritated look over her shoulder. I flashed a sheepish smile in response. “The door for the stairway is around the corner, but there’s no way to get to it without having to go underneath a camera, so we’re going to just have to make a break for it. Once we get to the first floor, we’ll just have to act natural, and get to the front door, and no one will suspect a thing.” After I nodded demonstrating my understanding, Kate crept forward a few inches, and broke into a sprint as she headed for a stairwell. As she reached it, she shoved the door open, and held it after she steeped inside. Peeking her head back into the hallway, Kate nodded at me, and I copied her, sprinting toward the stairs. I decided not to stop there. I continued running, eager to see the sky again. I heard the patter of Kate’s footsteps behind me, but I was too excited to slow down. My feet barely touched the floor as I ran down the steps and stopped in front of the door to the first floor. After a moment, a panting Kate reached the door and stood beside me, blocking me from opening the door while she caught her breath.
“Too fast for you?” I laughed as she threw up her middle finger and smiled at me playfully.
“In all seriousness though, can you not? I mean damn,” she said with a grin. “I’m not a marathon runner.” We stood there breathing heavily for a moment. Finally, I pulled the large metal door open and started to walk out of the stairwell. Kate followed, grabbing my hand and interlacing her fingers with mine. For the first time, the feeling of her hand in mine felt real. It felt the way I’d always imagined it would: right. We made our way to the front doors of the building slowly so that we wouldn’t look out of place. Sunlight glinted off the matted grey tiles, and flashed into my eyes, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that I was free of that retched cuff, and I was with the one I loved.