Page 27 of What Remains (John Worthy #3)
“Run!” Driver bawled. Grabbing Shahida by an arm, he slung her around with enough force to make her stagger. “Musa, get her out of here!”
“Come on. This way!” Scooping up the boy, Flowers scurried across the cavern then stooped, let the boy down, prodding him into the tunnel and then pushing Shahida to follow.
“Go, keep him moving. You, too, Musa, get going, go as fast as you can. Remember, at the fork, go right and then another right to get you headed back towards the exit.”
“Same goes for you two,” Driver said to Roni and John. “Follow Flowers.”
“Not without you.” Balling her fists, Roni stood her ground. “Put the radio away. Forget Mac. You can yell at him when we’re out.”
“We’re not going to get out if I can’t get him to stop another drone strike. I’m coming, I promise, I’ll be right behind you, but I got to do this.” Driver rounded on John. “Worthy, get her out here.”
“Come on. He knows what he’s doing.” John wasn’t exactly sure about that, but staying didn’t seem the smartest thing to do either.
Hooking a hand around Roni’s waist, John pulled her around and then gave her a push.
To his relief, Roni obeyed and hurried to the tunnel.
As he stooped to follow her inside, another tremor shivered through the walls and rock and into his knees.
A shower of debris, bits of rock and dirt, salted his back.
Uh-oh. Craning a look over a shoulder, he spied Driver across the room and back on his radio.
“Driver!” he bawled. “For God’s sake, come on!”
Then, spinning on the balls of his feet, he lunged into the tunnel.
Ahead, he heard the others splashing and sloshing through puddles.
He couldn’t see Roni, but Shahida’s flashlight was a wavering, bouncing beam spearing the darkness in an erratic sawtooth pattern that reminded John of the terminal spasms of a dying heart.
No one’s going to die. He’d forgotten about the grade.
He was already panting, his breath rasping in and out of a throat full of razors.
His knees were wet, and as his hand came down in a puddle, wetting him to the elbow, he looked, saw water sheet over the back of his hand as the stream hurried downhill and thought, Wait a minute…
But then he sensed the tunnel widening, the ceiling lifting, and the thought evaporated. Struggling to his feet, he spotted Roni’s silhouette in Shahida’s flashlight, and then a second beam came on as Roni swung to spotlight him. “Where’s Driver?”
“He’s right behind me,” he lied. Shahida’s light had already faded. “You need to follow Shahida. Keep going. We’ll both be only a few seconds behind.”
“Are you sure?” She kept the light pinned on him a beat longer. “You didn’t leave him, did you?”
The accusation in her voice stung, but he was saved from a reply as the earth shivered again, violently enough to make the water in the tunnel and underfoot slosh as if someone was trying to walk with a basin filled almost to overflowing.
“Please, Roni, go now. It’s going to take you twice as long to get back as it did to get here.
” He felt a stream of water surge against his boots, part, and then cascade past. “Love, please .” And then he forced out the words he didn’t want to say.
“I will make sure Driver gets out. Just get going, okay?”
A wordless beat slipped by. With the light on him instead of her, he didn’t know what emotion she felt. She might relieved; she might be thankful.
She might pick Driver. The pang in his heart was so painful he tasted salt in the back of his throat. I could be waiting here to save the man who stole her from me.
All suppositions. All maybes. Except for the one sure and certain thing, which he said now.
“I promise, Roni, I won’t leave until he gets here.” When she didn’t speak, he said, again, “I promise.”
A beat. “All right,” she said. “You just better.”
Then she turned and left him, alone, in the dark.