Page 121 of Chaos

“Mr. Oink-Oink is on fire.”

I grimace. “Maybe. I’m so sorry. You really love him.”

“Not as much as Shane.” Auden grabs me tighter. “What if you don’t come back this time?”

“I will. It’ll be quick. I was gone for a month last time. It’ll be a few minutes this time. I’ll be back so fast. And Shane will be with me.”

He doesn’t say anything, just grips me tight. Squeezing tighter, tighter, tougher, and then abruptly letting go.

He slides down my body without another word and runs to sit beside his closest friend, Anna, in the circle without looking back.

“I’ll be here,” Shasta says softly.

I glance back at Auden.

And run.

I don’t let myself look back.

I can’t.

I run until my eyes burn all the way up the hill of the back lawn, into the back entrance where the smell of smoke is stronger now, I take the formal staircase down into the basement, and pull open the metal door leading to the auxiliary hallway where they created the prison cells while I was gone.

There’s no smoke in here.

But the lights are all out.

It’s pitch black.

There’s a rhythmic thumping sound.

I pull the flashlight that lives on my belt out and flick it on, training it along the hall below, onto the silhouette of a person, a man—a boy—Shane, slamming his shoulder against one of the cell doors.

Beside him is the open door of Ben’s cell.

My flashlight beam joins his as we stare inside.

At Ben’semptycell.

I play my light over the portal window of the door Shane’s slamming his shoulder into, and find Ephie’s pale, terrified face on the other side staring at us.

And worse, just beyond Shane, lies a body slumped on the floor, blood gushing from a wound at the back of his silver head.

Church.

30 |Live by it, die by it

YORKE

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH HER?”someone shouts from behind us.

Jacquetta squats over Kelly beside me.

So does a medic, a young man with pale pink-tinged skin and thick glasses. He takes Kelly’s pulse and begins a field dressing for her gunshot wound.

“Press here,” he tells me, and I follow his guidance numbly, holding a cloth over Kelly’s abdomen. There’s a lot of explanations. Kelly could be delirious from blood loss. She could be confused. I could have misheard.

But I don’t think any of that’s true.

---