Page 108 of Resist

Oh no…

“Wes! Give me a different card,” I ordered, my voice thin. I turned around to see him standing behind me, face stoic, as he handed me the other six keycards we had collected.

I snagged them, and I didn’t pay attention to the shift in his eyes, or the stiffness of his body. I was one door away from having my brother back, and nothing was going to keep me from him. I shoved another keycard in front of the device.

Yellow…yellow…red.

I took the second card and scanned it.

Yellow…yellow…red.

My chest tightened. I swallowed hard as I shoved a third one at the key fob.

Yellow…yellow…red.

Shit.This was not happening. This couldn’t be happening. I flashed the fourth one.

Yellow…yellow…red.

Please! Please don’t do this to me.I felt the desperation climb up my throat, forming a tight knot that made it difficult to even breathe as I scanned the fifth card.

Yellow…yellow…red.

I reached for the last card. I could hear the pounding of my heart in my ears. Felt as each pulse pumped blood and desperation throughout my body.

This has to work. Please, dear god, make this work!

Everything went still around me, almost as though we were all holding our breath. And then I reached forward and scanned the card.

60: Stasis

Yellow…yellow…red.

What?I scanned the card again.

Yellow…yellow…red.

This couldn’t be happening. I scanned it again, and again, and again. Each time, the device flashed its lights at me. Each time, those same little lights glowed.

Yellow…yellow…red.

I knew it was stupid. I knew that no matter how many times I shoved that card in front of the device, I was going to get the same result. Those two little yellow lights and then the glaring red one. But I didn’t care. I just kept scanning the same stupid card. And when the realization hit me that the card was never going to work, I reached for the other ones I had already tried and began flashing those at the key fob. But no matter how many times I tried, and no matter which card I shoved in the face of that effing device, all I kept seeing wasyellow…yellow…red.

And then I broke. The tears I had been holding since we left the base were finally released. Because here I was, only yards away from my brother, with nothing but a door between us. I had flown across the nation, ridden a measly boat over threatening seas, climbed 250 feet up the side of a sheer cliff, and infiltrated the most notorious prison in Telvia, only to be stopped by a damn fucking door!

I slammed my fist into it with a scream, feeling pain bolt up my wrist, arm, and into my shoulder. But I didn’t care.

“Mara,” someone whisper-yelled at me.

I slammed my fist into the door again, relishing the way the pain traveled up my arm. And then again…and again. And no one dared to stop me. No one dared to tell me no. And I punched that fucking door as the tears streamed down my face until my knuckles split open, and that stupid white door was defaced with the red smear of my blood. Because I had come so far, sacrificed so much, only to be stopped by one single door.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, firm and heavy, but gentle. I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t care. The simple gesture caused a sigh of despair to leave me as my shoulders slumped and defeat washed over me. I closed my eyes, feeling the sorrow building within, because I was out of ideas. I had dragged all these people here, only to be left empty-handed.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. And it was true. Iwassorry. I was sorry for the sacrifice I made them all take. The risks they all took to rescue a man they didn’t want saved. I was sorry because there was no guarantee we were going to make it out of here alive. And in the end, we failed. We failed fornothing. I felt a few more tears slip down my cheeks. “We failed…” the words fell from my lips in a whisper. I felt the weight of those two words, felt as they sunk deep into my soul, weighing me down.

“Not today, we’re not,” I heard Wes say. I looked up and watched as he marched back into the observation room. Weall followed him, but only just stepped inside when Wes lifted one of the chairs and sent it flying into the window. The thing exploded, shattering into a million shards of glass that scattered everywhere. And suddenly, we were back in the game.

“Shit!” Blondie shouted. “If they didn’t hear us before, they definitely heard us now.”

---