Page 48 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

47

ADELE

Enchantments was falling.

“Where’s Chloe?” yelled Malinka as Adele dragged her by the hand down the long hallway toward the stairwell.

“Forget her,” yelled Cody.

“She’s my friend.” Malinka came to a stop, looking back. “I…I love her.”

Adele remembered the picture she’d seen in Malinka’s tent of the two women cheek to cheek. Malinka had come to Enchantments for answers about Chloe. Now she had them. Unfortunately, they were not the answers she wanted. She could see on the girl’s face a look she knew too well, a mingle of confusion and betrayal, disbelief.

“Let her go, Malinka.” But the girl was already moving in the other direction.

“Oh, shit,” said Cody when he reached the stairwell. The space was filled with rubble, no way through. Panic constricted her chest. They were trapped.

“There’s got to be another way out,” said Adele.

“There is.” A form moved from the darkness, slim, young. A boy—no, a young man—in cargo pants and a rain jacket, heavy boots, a pack on his back, phone in his hand.

“Are you Adele?” Thick dark hair and a wide smile. He seemed like a dream, from another universe. “I’m Hugo. Blake sent me.”

“Blake?” said Adele, confused, incredulous. “My son?”

“Come this way,” he said. “We can get out through the tunnels. But there’s not much time.”

She turned to Cody, who gave her a look. “What choice do we have?”

“I’m going back for her,” said Malinka, backing away.

“No,” said Adele reaching for her hand. “She left. She ran.”

Malinka was shaking her head. “I’ve spent a year looking for her. I can’t leave her now.”

“Don’t do this,” pleaded Adele. Cody put a hand on Adele’s arm.

“We have to go now ,” said Hugo. “It’s falling.”

Behind them another beam crashed into to the ground. “I’m sorry,” said Malinka. “I love her.”

And then she turned, running, splashing through the rising water.

“No,” yelled Adele.

“Let her go. We all have to do what we have to do,” yelled Cody. “Let’s get you home to your kids.”

Then Adele and Cody were following Hugo down a hallway, through a doorway, and into a tunnel nearly thigh-high with murky water. They waded after him, a series of crashes behind them and only darkness ahead.