Page 13 of Glass Rose
He leads us to a service entrance I didn’t even know existed, punching in a code and swiping the dead guard’s access card. The maintenance tunnel stretches before us like a gaping throat, lit by sporadic emergency lights that cast everything in hellish red. My lungs burn from running, sweat sliding down my spine beneath my lab coat.
“Four minutes to evacuation,” the PA system announces.
“Move faster.” Gavin drags me forward with a grip that’ll leave fingerprints on my wrist. Not that I’ll live long enough to complain about it.
“We’re not going to make it,” Dr. Cho pants behind us. “The tunnels extend for half a mile.”
“We’ll make it.” Gavin doesn’t slow. Doesn’t even sound winded.
“You people are fucking monsters.” Alex’s camera bounces on his chest.
I can’t argue with that. We are. I am.
“Two minutes to evacuation.”
The tunnel slopes downward, concrete giving way to packed earth and exposed pipes. Water drips somewhere ahead, the sound echoing. Gavin slows, raising a hand for silence.
I collide with his back. “What?”
He tilts his head, listening. “Something’s ahead.”
“Infected?” Alex asks.
“No.” Gavin’s shoulders relax slightly. “Different sound. Stay here.”
He moves forward alone, silent despite his size, disappearing around a bend. My heart hammers in my throat, counting seconds.
“One minute to evacuation.”
Gavin reappears. “Found the exit. Move. Now.”
We sprint the final stretch, the tunnel opening onto a maintenance yard behind the facility. Fresh air hits my face as we burst outside, gulping it like drowning victims. Metal shutters slam down over the tunnel entrance with a deafening clang behind us.
“Thirty seconds to evacuation.”
Gavin stops at the chain-link fence. “Climb.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can.” He boosts me up, hands firm on my waist. “Or die. Your choice.”
I tumble over, dropping ungracefully on the other side. Dr. Cho follows, then Alex. Gavin vaults the fence in one fluid motion that shouldn’t be physically possible.
The ground beneath us trembles. A muffled whoosh followed by a high-pitched scream of air being superheated.
Silence.
We stand in a scrubby field behind the facility, watchingas nothing visibly changes. The building is intact, peaceful as if hundreds aren’t dying inside its walls.
“That’s it?” Alex asks, camera already up, filming the building.
“That’s it,” I say, throat tight. “Everyone inside is dead now.”
Except us. We made it out.
Gavin stands apart from us, scanning the horizon.
We made it out because of him.
