Page 19 of The Bleeding Woods

“You don’t have to come.” She shoves him aside, taking her first step into the cavity, into the dreadful unknown. Her flashlight provides a single, pathetic stream of pale yellow that cowers like a mouse against a lion.

“What if you get lost? What if you fall and break your leg? Going down there in and of itself is stupid enough. Going in alone is basically asking for problems.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, then pries Joey’s arms off his torso.

“Clara, could you bring him back to the car? Jade’s really set on this. ”

She’s already gripping the edge of the inexplicable handrail, eager to descend with or without him.

“I’m going with you,” Joey proclaims. “We’re staying together. We have to stay together.”

“Joey . . .” Grayson begins, but before he can counter further, Joey has hurried behind Jade. “No, no, no! Joey! Stop!”

There’s no choice. If we let them out of our sight, there will be too many chances for too many deadly things.

We descend into the cave of rust and limestone like blood cells entering a heart.

It smells faintly of alcohol fermented beyond its native acidity.

The passageway is too narrow for two at a time, so we travel single file: Jade at the front, Joey just behind her, and Grayson behind me.

He ensures I don’t fall. Heat from his hand caresses the edge of my waist, my center of gravity, with gentlemanly concern.

He doesn’t touch me, but still he is a warm current crashing into my icy air.

Where we meet, hurricanes happen. I am grounded in the eye of his storm.

I am grounded, with him.

I am human, with him.

Jade guides us haphazardly through a maze of tunnels.

I’m inclined to suspect she knows where she’s going.

I’m inclined to assume suspiciously acquired schematics of this place were buried beneath the potato chip wrappers on her desk.

I hadn’t seen any, but when Jade wants something bad enough, she’s relentless.

Grayson doesn’t question her logic right now, and I don’t blame him for it.

His paramount concern is our safe return to the surface.

“I see light,” Jade announces, uncharacteristically chipper with pride.

She pries a brick of dusty-white plaster out of our way, and as it tumbles, it leaves us coated in chemical snowfall.

An asymmetrical archway opens up into a much larger space.

Colossal doors of dark metal hang from rusted hinges.

Puddles of ground water have accumulated along the frigid titanium floor tiles.

Eerie sea-green light crawls toward us from bulbs unseen.

Their glitchy, sizzling flickers are audible, though.

“Oh my god . . .” she marvels. “I was right.”

“About what, exactly?” Grayson dusts off his hands and starts to meander. His eyes are analytical as they search for the essentials: food, water, and signs of peril.

“Are you kidding me? There’s a secret complex under Blackstone!”

“There was a secret complex under Blackstone. From the looks of things, it’s been out of commission for a while.” He reaches for a string of signage covered by overgrown roots. They come away in screeching snickers to reveal the words: EHKI Sector Six.

I swallow the lump of congealing saliva in my throat.

This is . . . it. This is my chance to maintain my humanity.

I don’t know what I expected the EHKI to be, but I definitely wasn’t envisioning a subterranean sliver of hell.

It reeks of chemicals and cadaverine. Viscous, flesh-colored sludge sits in clumps at every corner of the room.

A few inches from the toe of my shoe, a bloodstained ID card smiles up at me.

It is identical to the ones in my pocket, save for the fact that it belonged to a woman named Dr. Vivian Baranova.

Her hazel eyes are filled with excitement, and her biometrics declare her to be just twenty-five years old.

I want to search for anything that resembles my pills, but more than that, I want to go back to the surface.

This place feels too familiar, like I’ve witnessed it without eyes.

A memory built of sound and sensation clots up in my prefrontal cortex.

I rage against it, and against the impulse to imagine how, exactly, Dr. Baranova died.

“Jade . . .” I pick up her tragic identification rectangle and offer it to my sister. “I don’t think we should be here.”

Jade’s eyes are too wide, too interested. “The EHKI . . . They exist. I . . . I knew it.”

“Please, Jade. I don’t think this is—”

A loud succession of clanks and crashes makes my skin feel suddenly removable. The two of us whirl around to find Joey standing with his arms tucked tightly to his sides. He’s just disturbed a pile of gadgetry and toppled a cart of flasks.

“Sorry,” he says in a peep.

“I don’t think this is safe,” I whisper, unsure why I’m inclined to stay hushed. Something is listening; he is listening. I’m sure of it. “Look at this place. Whatever caused it could still be—I mean, it’s—listen, I . . . I know you want to know more about Mom and Dad, but—”

“How would you know anything about that?”

Oops.

I scramble for a response. Naturally, it only incriminates me further. Before I can calculate a plan of escape, Jade has grabbed me by the forearms and yanked me close enough to smell stale chocolate on her breath.

“You went digging through the box, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think you were being serious when you said not to touch anything. I thought it was just a—”

“Of course you went digging through the box. You know what? That one’s on me. I shouldn’t have just let you waltz in. You’re you. Since you didn’t bother with my only rule, could you please just shut up for once?”

Grayson’s footsteps hasten toward us. He’s coming to my rescue, but I yank myself away from Jade on my own. My teeth grit against one another. My lips curl into a snarl. I shouldn’t be this angry with her. I don’t deserve it. I need another pill.

“They were my parents too . . .” I’m more honest than I planned to be.

“What?” She takes a menacing stomp forward.

“They were my parents too. You act like you’re the only one capable of missing them. You act like you’re the only one struggling with this. Meanwhile, you have no idea what my life has been like since that day. N-no . . . idea.”

On top of that, her quest is hilariously off-kilter. She’s on the brink of spontaneous combustion, on a hunt for who-knows-what. I need these catacombs more than anyone. I need them to produce a miracle.

Grayson steps in between us, his chest to Jade as his back forms a shield over me.

“Enough,” he says valiantly. Himself. “Jade, come on. You’ve seen what you needed to see.

Clara’s right: We need to head back. This place definitely isn’t safe, and we shouldn’t be away from the car like this.

What if someone drives by and we miss them? ”

“Do what you want.” She glowers. “I’m staying.”

For her, Grayson’s eyes seldom soften. However, as he approaches my sister, he looks more heroic than I’ve ever seen him. He isn’t brandishing an invisible sword, preparing to slay the dragon of Jade’s wrath. He’s gently, deftly, earnestly addressing her with an expression of unfiltered concern.

“I understand this means a lot to you. We’ll come back when we have more daylight on our side.

We’ll get Joey back to where it’s safe, Clara will be on lookout duty, and we will come back.

Whatever it is you’re looking for, I’ll help you find it.

I promise.” Before she can resist, he pulls her into a hug.

She wriggles like a feral cat, but he holds her there.

He just . . . holds her there. “They wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger. You know that.”

I want to be held like that. I want someone to tighten their arms around me, even as I squirm, even as I deny much-needed comfort.

I want unselfish touch, touch that gives more than it takes.

I think of Jasper and how he ravaged me.

His hands scoured, starved and never sated.

Grayson’s would be . . . different. They would be gentle.

They would be tender. Perhaps I could be the grateful princess to his gallant knight.

I’ve only ever deemed myself a dragon, not just polluted, but pollution itself.

Fire scorching all in its path. Ash that blackens the lungs afterward.

But perhaps, for him, I could be . . . different.

Everything could be different.

I need to find more pills so that everything can be different.