Shadows of Sherwood (8 page)

The only things Robyn knew called Elements came from a painting Mom had in the manor. It was four separate canvases, arranged together: squares for earth, air, and water. And beneath them was a strip to represent fire. But what
would it mean to gather those things? Or was it a different kind of Elements altogether?

Finally the thin guard, the one Laurel called Burle, came down the line and clattered a plastic tray through a narrow slot at the base of the cell doors. The tray contained two tough rolls, two soupy piles of vegetables adorned with some stringy meat, and two flimsy plastic paddles for spoons. Hardly a meal worth waiting for.

Laurel dived right in as if she hadn't eaten in days. Maybe she hadn't. The so-called meal seemed pretty disgusting to Robyn, but a moment later she had to admit that, like Laurel, she was too hungry to push it aside.

“Okay.” Laurel stood up and began fiddling with the hairpin in the lock. The soft, steady clicking in the otherwise quiet space reminded Robyn that getting out of the cell was only the first part of the problem. There were other doors and hallways, not to mention guards who liked to hit people.

“Wait,” Robyn said. “How are we going to get out of the building?”

Laurel didn't look up from the lock. “Oh, that's the easy part,” she said. “Bring the ropes.”

Robyn gathered the cords that had once bound their hands. Together, the length measured perhaps five or six feet. By the time she had the ropes' full length wrapped around one palm, Laurel was sliding the cage door open.

Robyn was impressed. The small girl had mastered the cell-door padlock in under sixty seconds. Laurel held out the bent bobby pin for Robyn to take back.

“Keep it,” she whispered, and the pin disappeared into Laurel's nest of hair. The small girl edged out into the concrete corridor, keeping her back against the bars. To Robyn's surprise, Laurel didn't head toward the door. Instead, she moved farther down the corridor, away from the other cells, into a deep black stretch of hallway that sent chills up Robyn's spine.

There were more hallways in the building than Robyn had anticipated, and very little light. Every few feet the walls were punctuated by narrow recessed doorways. The doors were all metal and appeared quite thick. These old doors had been fitted with new computer locks. Individual cells, Robyn figured. Very small.

The girls discovered a single metal door in the outside wall, at the end of a dark hall, but it was locked. Impenetrable. The push bar was adorned with all manner of wires and alarms, plus an electronic keypad full of blinking red lights. The alarm wouldn't matter if they could get the door open, but it would matter a whole lot if they couldn't. They hurried on.

Laurel stopped in the middle of one corridor, seemingly for no reason. When she looked up, Robyn's eyes traced the same path. They were standing underneath an air vent at ceiling height.

“Boost me up,” Laurel said. Robyn cupped her hands. Laurel's small bare foot landed at the intersection of her palms. Small fingers balanced on Robyn's shoulders, then released, stretching upward.

Laurel used her fingernail to unscrew the vent's slotted cover. Her knees knocked against Robyn's cheek, until she tipped her face away. Laurel's ragged clothes stank from days of wear.

“Higher,” Laurel whispered. Robyn pushed her upward. It wasn't much worse than lifting a packed book bag; Laurel weighed next to nothing. The small girl's torso disappeared into the wall. Then her hips. Then her thighs.

Book bag . . . Robyn's backpack! The guards had confiscated it, and Barclay's strange tech treasure box along with it. Robyn's heart sank. There was no way to retrieve the bag from the front of the jail. It was lost. Dad's hologram . . . Everything Robyn had in the world now. Gone.

“Come on,” Laurel's urgent voice jarred Robyn out of her distress. Laurel stuck an arm back. “Throw me the rope.”

Robyn unwound the cords from her palm and tied their ends together. By stretching her arm up and jumping a little, she could almost reach Laurel's outstretched fingers. She tossed one end of the cord to the girl and held onto the other.

Laurel progressed farther into the vent shaft. Robyn wrapped her end of the rope around her palm and waited for it to grow taut. Somewhere in one of the corridors, a door slammed. Robyn flinched in the direction of the sound. A man's voice shouted something garbled. It included the words “rats” and “out.”

Thump-thump.
Boots on concrete. Moving fast.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Getting the Shaft

Robyn tugged at the rope. It felt firm. Would Laurel's weight be enough to hold her?

“Hurry,” Laurel whispered, her voice echoing oddly from the narrow metallic cavern.

Robyn was accustomed to climbing walls. Though this one was smooth and quite slick compared to the walls of Loxley Manor, it didn't matter. In gymnastics, she had always been the best at climbing: walls, poles, ropes, piles of mats. If it was tall, Robyn could scale it. No problem.

Robyn let the rope support her as she moved foot over foot up the slick wall. She stuck her head in the opening and saw Laurel spread-eagled against the four sides of the vent, bracing herself and gripping the rope. The girl was surprisingly strong for her size.

“Go,” Robyn said, once her elbows were hooked in the vent.

Laurel relaxed and rolled onto her belly. Robyn followed. They wriggled on their stomachs into the cobwebby metal shaft.

“This is the easy part?” Robyn grunted, half out of breath. She wedged her knees against the angles and nudged herself forward enough to drag her feet up out of the corridor.

Laurel giggled. “It's not so bad. Relatively speaking.”

Robyn pushed forward again, but this time she couldn't gain traction off the wall. Her foot slipped and jutted back out of the opening. Her shoe nudged the vent cover, knocking the last screw loose.

“Oh no!”

Laurel whipped her head around, eyes widened.

The vent cover made a clattering sound as it tumbled into the concrete hall.

“Oh!” Laurel echoed, realizing what had happened.

From the corridor, the guards' call rose. “Did you hear that? This way.” From below, the sound of heavy footsteps grew closer.

“Faster,” Robyn urged. “Keep going.”

Laurel scrambled forward with fresh urgency, Robyn right on her heels.

When they reached the outer wall, they knew it immediately. Slivers of sunlight illuminated the tunnel through the vent slats. They had misjudged the time—it wasn't remotely dark. The bigger problem was, the vent cover was screwed on from the outside. There was no way to unhook it from inside.

Laurel contorted herself until her feet were facing forward. She kicked at the vent cover with all her strength, mindless of the slight echo it made. It didn't budge.

“Come on,” Robyn urged her. “They're going to hear. Kick harder. You can do it.”

Laurel clenched her fists and ground her teeth and pounded with her bare heels as hard as she could. She threw her head back, and Robyn saw tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

“You can do it,” Robyn repeated. The close quarters made it impossible for her to help further. She bent her neck and nudged Laurel's shoulder with her forehead. “I know you can do it.”

Laurel kicked. The slats began to give. Finally one screw broke loose, and a corner of the vent cover sprang free. Laurel kicked until a second one popped. The vent eased open sideways, swinging from its remaining screws.

The instant it was wide enough, Laurel dropped out of the hole. They didn't use the rope. Robyn moved forward, took the girl's hands, and held her, easing her down toward the ground. Their hands remained clasped until Robyn's waist was bent over the open vent, and Laurel's legs dangled a few feet from the ground. Robyn then took the sheer one-story drop easily. No worse than sticking a landing after a vault, she figured.

Well, it was a little worse, landing on pavement instead of floor pads. She felt the impact in her knees, but not too badly.

As soon as her feet touched down, she started running. Laurel had a dozen yards' head start. Robyn followed her path, marked by tiny bloody heel prints.

The jail had no fence, on account of being basically an exitless concrete box. They crossed a large patch of gravelly
pavement, making for the nearest wall they could hide behind.

Within moments, the building was out of sight, though not out of mind. Guards could still be coming after. The girls zigzagged around two corners and into a narrow alley. Robyn, with her long-legged stride, caught up to Laurel and touched her shoulder.

“Stop, stop,” she said. “You're bleeding.”

“We can't stop,” Laurel said, stopping anyway. She tucked into the gap between a Dumpster and a drainpipe. The space smelled like rotting trash and wet cardboard.

“But—”

“It doesn't hurt that bad,” the small girl insisted.

Robyn still had their cords bound around her hand. She cast them aside among other refuse in the alley. “It's leaving a trail,” she said. She knelt and touched the girl's ankle. Laurel obediently bent her knee, raising her foot like a horse getting her hooves checked.

Robyn used her tattered shirt hem to blot at the lines of blood. The slats had left thin slashes across Laurel's calloused feet.

“How'd you know about those vents?” Robyn asked, still breathless.

“I didn't,” Laurel said. “But there's always a way out if you're small. We have to go now.”

Robyn shook her head, amazed. “You didn't have a plan?”

“I guess I just expect things to work out. And they usually do.”

“Things don't always work out.” Robyn reminded her. “I mean, you were just in jail.”

Laurel grinned, displaying her pretty teeth. “And now I'm not. Let's get out of here.”

“Stay on your toes.”

Laurel shot her an amused look. “Like you have to tell me.” She skittered down the alley. Robyn laughed and followed Laurel's lead, assuming the girl had a destination in mind. It was her neighborhood, after all.

Following was nice, actually. It let Robyn push away the nagging truth. She didn't have anywhere to go. At least not until she figured out which way was up on Dad's map. Without Laurel, Robyn wouldn't have the first clue where to run. And Robyn was used to being sure of things.

I just expect things to work out. And they usually do
, Laurel had said. Maybe Robyn could try Laurel's way of thinking.
I expect that my parents are still alive, somehow
, she thought.
I expect to find out what happened to them. I expect that we'll all get to go home again. Together.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE