Cured (31 page)

Felix looked
me in the eye; for once he didn’t come over to comfort me. Instead
he looked angry, and he turned and walked to the far edge of the
platform, facing out into the Crater.

The others stared at me. Ellina wiped a tear
from my cheek.

“I’ll do it.” Theo said.

“
You can’t,”
replied Ellina. “You didn’t love Meatloaf.”

“I did.” Theo argued unconvincingly, his face
turned to the camera. “I love Meatloaf. He was the… uh… the best
pet that… um… the best pet ever and he saved our lives more than
once. I do. I love him.”

The speech
was so unconvincing that I nearly laughed. Theo was staring right
into the camera lens as he spoke, and his voice was robotic. He was
a terrible liar. He turned back towards Ellina and me.

“
Are you
laughing at me Avery?” he asked.

I snorted a little, and he frowned. “What is
the matter with you?”

“
Sorry
Theo,
” I said to him, “But you are the
least convincing liar I have ever met. Thank you for trying though.
It was really sweet of you.”

Theo smiled sadly back at me and closed the
distance between us. Ellina looked between the two of us, before
shaking her head and muttering something, then she turned and
walked over to where Felix stood. Theo handed me the rock and this
time I gripped it tightly. He put his hand over mine and whispered
in my ear,

“
We will do
it together. I’
ll help you.”

I nodded, squeezing the rock so tightly that
I could feel it cutting into my palm. I tried to take a step
towards the altar but my feet wouldn’t move. Theo effortlessly
scooped me into his arms, and walked over to the altar, setting my
feet down carefully.

“
Look into
his eyes,” he instructed me.

I shook my head. I couldn’t.

“It is the only part of him that doesn’t
still look like Meatloaf, Ave, it’ll make it easier.”

He reached out his hand and pried the beast’s
eyelid open. Its eyeball was bloodshot, and its irises a deep, evil
red. Theo was right, this creature was not Meatloaf. I trembled as
I raised the weapon, Theo’s hand was gentle over the top of
mine.

“Keep looking at its eyes Avery. This thing
tried to kill us, remember.”

I nodded. My arms still raised in the air. My
legs felt like they had been sedated. I couldn’t feel them, but
they kept giving out from underneath me. Theo held me up with his
free hand.

“You remember when we were young?” Theo was
whispering in my ear. I nodded. “I thought I was going to marry
you. I used to think you were a Princess, not in a bad way, more
like my Princess. You always looked so perfect, and you lived in a
big castle, and you were so kind and caring, just like a Princess.
I used to think of all the ways I could ask you to marry me. On the
day that we saved the bird, and I saw how much you wanted to save
its life, how selfless and loving you were, I knew I loved you.
Then your mother banished us. Because of the hierarchy, we couldn’t
be together. If there was no hierarchy, imagine how our life could
have been.”

A tear rolled down my cheek.

“
Think about
Eva,” Theo continued, “Eva tried to save your life, and in return
the Alphas tried to kill her. Think about all the kids like Eva,
like us, who have their lives ruined by the hierarchy. You were
right when you said that we would probably fail, but we have to
try, don’t we?”

Theo’s voice
was thick with emotion. He was angry. I could feel it. His heart
was pounding against my back, and his jaw was clenched. The angrier
he became, the more determined I was. I stared into Meatloaf’s
eyes. They had taken him. They had already killed the Meatloaf I
knew and loved. This was not him. This was a monster. Killing it
would be eradicating part of the system. It would put a hole in one
of their plans that were always so flawless and airtight. I had the
chance to disrupt the system. I tensed my arm, and brought the rock
down, fast, piercing the beast’s skin. I didn’t stop. The weapon
plunged deep into the creature’s side. I felt it cutting through
the beast’s insides, only stopping when the entire rock was
submerged in flesh. I ripped the weapon out of the creature and
stabbed it in again. And again. And again. I was disgusted by how
good it felt to pierce the animal’s skin. It felt like I was
finally fighting back. I felt a hand on my back and I stopped.
Breathing heavily.

I realized
that Theo’s hands were no longer covering mine. I had no idea when
he had let go. My throat was hurting, and I realized that I was
screaming. I sniffed. Tears were rolling down my face. Finally
releasing the weapon I wiped my blood-soaked hands on the animal’s
torso. I turned and buried my face in Theo’s chest. He kissed the
top of my head and stroked my hair. Then he took a step away from
me, extracting his water canister from his backpack, he unscrewed
the lid and tipped the contents over my hands. He didn’t spare any
of the precious water, using much more than was necessary to wash
the blood from my fingers. He rubbed my hands between his own,
transferring some of the animal’s blood to his palms in the
process. Then he pulled his shirt away from his body and wiped my
hands dry. I smiled at him weakly and he squeezed my hands in his
own.

“
Let’s go,
you two,” he called over to Ellina and Felix who remained on the
far edge, but had turned to watch us.

Ellina’s eyes were filled with pity, but
Felix’s were still angry. I knew why, but I didn’t care. I meant
what I said. Now I felt cold and empty, relying on Theo’s hold on
me to ensure I kept standing. We all stepped towards the
entranceway and Theo stuck his head through the arch, his arms
reached out into the darkness and he touched a wall.

“
There is
rock just under a meter from the arch,” he told us. “I think it’s a
chute.”

“
We have to
jump down it?” Ellina sounded nervous. “What if it’s really deep?
What if there is just rock at the bottom? It’s a suicide mission.
We are not jumping down there Theo.”

Felix walked away from the arch as Ellina
argued with Theo, and returned holding the rock that I had buried
into Meatloaf’s torso. It was no longer grey, but a scarlet red,
blood still dripping form the point. Felix reached the weapon into
the opening and dropped it down the chute. There was only a brief
moment of silence before we heard it clutter onto rock below.

“
Not deep,”
said Theo. “I will go first and catch Avery and Felix. You go last
Ell.” 
Without waiting any longer, Theo stepped through the archway
and dropped out of sight. He landed with a light thump, and we
heard a grunt.

“You okay?” Ellina shouted down.

“
Bit of
ground shock. Otherwise fine.”

“
What’s down
there?” s
he asked.

“
No idea.
It’s pitch black,” h
e replied. “Jump,
Avery.”

I didn’t feel
scared. I knew I should, but my limbs weren’t shaking, and my
stomach felt strong for the first time since Felix had pointed out
the Tartarus prison. Instead I felt numb. I stepped into the chute
easily and fell in silence. Theo caught me gently and set me on my
feet, before hollering up to Felix. Felix let out a grunt as Theo
caught him, much less carefully than he had caught me. Finally
Ellina dropped down, crouching upon landing to ease the shock. We
stood in a tight group. Theo had been right. We couldn’t see a
thing.

“
Everyone
should split up and head in a different direction. Arms out. Shout
when you hit a wall,” Theo suggested.

No one had a better idea so we began to
tentatively move around, arms outstretched, completely blind. I hit
a surface first, and yelled out when my fingers brushed rock. Felix
and Ellina shouted out simultaneously soon after. Theo still hadn’t
shouted.

“Theo?” I asked into the darkness.

“
I’m here
Ave,” h
e said.

“You haven’t hit anything?” Ellina’s voice
rang out.

“Nope. I think I have a passageway. Everyone
follow my voice.” Theo kept talking as the rest of us stumbled
around, trying to reach him. I smacked head first into a surface,
not hard enough to be rock.

“
Ow.” Felix
grunted,
and I apologized
quietly.

After much
stumbling and wall hitting we had all found Theo, and stood
gathered in a group again. He started off down the passageway. I
walked behind him, my hand resting on his shoulder. Felix was
behind me, but he gripped a handful of my shirt rather than making
direct contact. Ellina went last. We walked for a few minutes
before I saw a light ahead. Everyone else must have noticed it too,
because we began to move more quickly, hurrying towards the light.
The passage brightened with every step. Soon the passage was light
enough for us to see our surroundings, though it was not bright
with sunlight, but rather a blue-tinged fluorescence, much like the
light that came from energy saving bulbs that were in hospitals
back at home. We neared the end of the tunnel and it became clear
that we were about to step into a large space. Still partially
covered by shadow, Theo took my hand off his shoulder, and held it
in his own. I wanted to reach for Felix’s hand too, but resisted,
since he had been careful not to make any contact since our fight.
Theo’s palm was slippery with sweat. He was as scared as I was, and
from the way that Felix’s hand remained entangled in the hem of my
shirt, he must have been scared too.

We entered
the flood lit clearing. It had been carved from rock, its walls
smooth and sanded down. Bulbs covered the roof of the cave,
lighting the area, but otherwise the space was empty. Theo turned
back to us, frowning in bemusement. There were no other passageways
to be seen. It was a dead end.

“What is this?” I muttered to no one in
particular.

“
Why would
they leave the lights on, if it isn’t used?” said
Ellina.

“
Where are
the torture chambers?” asked Felix.

Chapter 29

As we stood, looking around in confusion,
Ellina began to frown.

“
Can you hear
that?” she asked.

I shook my
head, but I noticed that Theo’s brow was furrowed in concentration
too.

“
I can.”
h
e said. “What is it?”

A few minutes
later I started to hear a low humming sound too. “I hear it!” I
exclaimed. “Sounds like bees.”

“It would be pretty unusual for bees to be
this far below the ground.” Theo said.

After a while
the buzzing became loud enough to trace to a certain point in the
wall. Theo rapped his knuckles loudly on the rock where the noise
seemed to be emitting from, the knock echoed through the cave. I
walked over to another spot of rock and tapped it with my own fist.
The sound was barely audible. Theo must have hit a hallow spot. He
noticed the difference too and lifted his leg, before booting the
wall as hard as he could. The area that he had caught with his heel
crumbled slightly, but no real damage was done to the wall. The
humming came to a sudden stop, and we all stood still, ears
strained.

“
Someone’
s there,” Theo whispered,
his ear to the hollow wall.

There was a quiet beep, and then a rumbling.
The section of the wall that Theo was leaning against started to
shake. He leapt back from the wall and crouched down, ready to
attack whatever was on the other side. The wall rolled up slowly,
mimicking a garage door, until there was another black passage
ahead of us, identical to that we had just trekked through. Theo
held one finger to his lips to hush us. He took a single step
through the passage and stopped. Nothing.

Suddenly
something flew through the air and landed on Theo’s back. The
figure was screaming wildly and thrashing, arms flailing. Theo
easily plucked the attacker from over his shoulder, over his head,
maneuvering until he had the assailant stuck in a
headlock.

“
Who are
you?” h
e asked in an even tone, as though
defending himself had taken no effort.

The attacker
was panting and writhing around.

“
Who are
you?” came the reply. The voice was male, but sounded very
young.

“I asked you first.”

The boy sighed, “I’ll tell you if you let me
go.”

Theo released
his grip around the boy’s neck, but held his wrists firmly
together. Curious, I stepped closer and squinted to get a better
look at the boy. He was very young, probably only twelve, and wore
a cheeky smile. His hair was shoulder length, and I guessed it
would have been as wavy and blonde as my own if mine weren’t so
dirty. His grey t-shirt had a large tear through the center, and
his denim shorts were tattered at the bottom. He wasn’t wearing
shoes, and by the black stained skin of his feet, he didn’t often
do so.

“
I’
m Jett.”

Theo let go of Jett’s wrists and held a hand
out,

“
I am
Theo,
” he shook Jett’s little hand
lightly. “This is Felix, Ellina and Avery. We are a bit
lost.”

Jett started
to laugh. I hadn’t heard such a hearty laugh in a long time and it
made me smile, forgetting for a moment that I was in the depths of
the most feared prison in the land.

Jett began to
hiccup as his laughing died out, “Lost!” he exclaimed. “There is a
sign on the door!”