Chapter Forty
Forty
The lights in the room go from dim to unyieldingly bright. An alarm, like those school fire alarms, starts up. It’s loud down here, but my house is far enough it likely doesn’t carry. The next closest neighbor is certainly oblivious.
Whatever safeguards Holden has in place have been tripped. He’ll know something is going on; he’ll come to find out what it is.
With the drugs still swirling through all of our systems, Cecily strapped to a bed in the other room, and a locked door with a code I don’t know, I can see where this will all end: all of us stuffed into those chambers and sucked dry.
“No, no, no,” I say, looking around the room, unsure what to do first. I can barely think with the screeching alarm.
“What’s happening?” Jasper asks.
“Stay back,” I tell Jasper. To Sloane and Aisha, I say, “Help me lift him out.”
Sloane, usually the steadiest of the ghostly trio at home, falters. Her lips part, but no words come out. Eventually, she squeaks out, “Are you sure that’s—”
“Now, Sloane,” I say. “Or he’s dead.”
She grits her teeth.
“On three,” I say. Sloane nods. “One, two, three.”
The three of us lift, heaving Finn out of the chamber and lowering him onto the floor. He’s lighter than he should be, and we barely manage to not drop him. Aisha and Sloane are wobblier than I am, but not by much. We’re all standing on borrowed time.
The shrill alarm continues around us. After only a few seconds, the lights go dark everywhere but the chambers, like someone cut the power. The alarm stops.
The younger kids are looking at me. Aisha and Jasper, hanging off each other, barely on their feet. Both blinking in a daze. And Sloane, on her knees at my side.
“He’s not breathing,” Sloane says, bending down to press her head to Finn’s chest. She comes back up with a panicked expression. “He’s not breathing.”
Suddenly, I’m hurtling back in time. I’m suspended, hair hanging in a curtain around me, and I’m cold, so, so cold. My breaths come out in white puffs, labored. Everything hurts. And next to me, Harper is suspended, too, but there’s blood, so much blood, and she’s not breathing—
Finn was right when he accused me of trying to placate the survivor’s guilt I feel about Harper by finding the truth about him—trying to save one because I couldn’t save the other. Except Finn was never supposed to be something I could lose.
I drop to my knees, sliding closer to Finn, knees pressed to his side. I nudge Sloane out of the way.
The only sound is the unbreaking beep of his heart monitor.
We’re out of time. And I don’t know how to do this.
Brain damage starts after four minutes without a pulse and without air flowing in and out of the lungs. Or is it three minutes? Five? And how long has it been?
“What are we doing, Jo?” Sloane asks.
I swallow dryly. Take in the room, the kids, and Finn, lifeless at my feet.
“I need you all ready to move,” I say. “And I need some space.”
“Jo, we’re running out of time—” Sloane starts.
“I know,” I snap. “I know. But we can’t leave him.”
A fierce determination crosses Sloane’s face. She moves to Aisha and Jasper. The three lean heavy into each other; there’s no way to tell who is shouldering the most weight.
I force my focus back to Finn.
Finn. He’s not a haunting anymore but a real, physical being beneath my hands.
And for the second time this week, I begin chest compressions. Thirty times, then I tilt his head back, open his mouth, press my mouth to his, and blow.
No change.
Again, and then a third time.
It’s not working.
“Damn it, Finn,” I say, but he can’t hear me.
I have no idea what to do. There’s no defibrillator to press to his chest and shock his heart into beating again.
“We need epinephrine,” Sloane says. “My brother is allergic to peanuts. We always carry an EpiPen around. It increases your heart rate. Maybe…” It’s like she’s speaking underwater, her voice muffled. It’s hard to make out past the pounding of my heart.
And then I understand.
Adrenaline.
I push to my feet, rushing to the only thing other than vats in this room.
A cupboard with a glass front and shelves inside full of bottles with names I don’t recognize.
The middle shelf holds a bunch of thick syringes filled with colored liquid.
There are smudged letters on each of them.
I snag one with what appears to be an E.
I tug open the cupboard, grab one of the syringes, and run back to Finn, dropping at his side. I uncap the syringe and scan Finn’s body, hesitating.
When people have allergic reactions, the EpiPen goes into the meaty part of the thigh. But in biology, we learned all about pathways to the heart. It takes time to travel through the bloodstream. Time we don’t have.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Unlike Sloane and Aisha, Finn wears only paper-thin pants, leaving his chest bare. Before I can talk myself out of it, I plunge the needle into his chest, as close to his heart as I can get, and push the medicine into him.
“Wait!” Sloane cries, too late. “That’s not epinephrine! It’s supposed to be clear.”
“What?” I breathe. “What the hell is it, then?”
Sloane shakes her head. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“What did I just give him?”
“I don’t—I have no idea.”
I swear I can feel my heart splintering against my rib cage. Tears burn and blur my vision, but Finn’s lifeless form isn’t an image I want to focus on, let alone remember. I stare at the empty syringe in my hand. There are no identifying markers apart from a small printed letter. Not an E. A D.
I tug the sensors from his chest, and the infernal shrieking stops. Like I need any more reminders I’ve failed. Like his lifeless body isn’t enough.
The flatline vanishes from the panel, ceasing its taunting. The alarm may have stopped overhead, but Holden must know something is wrong. He must be on his way, if he isn’t already here, heading down the cement hallway.
And Finn is dead.
The sob I’ve been holding at bay since I stepped into this room breaks loose in my chest, and I can no longer see through the tears blurring my vision. My tears hit Finn’s skin in fat droplets.
I drop my head to his motionless chest.
It’s so incredibly, ridiculously unfair. How brutal to make our paths veer so close, run parallel, and then split apart.
“I’m sorry, Finn,” I whisper.
Then a flutter against my cheek.
A heartbeat.
My own heart skips a beat as I lurch up, swiping the tears from my eyes. I reach for his neck, pressing my fingers into the soft skin beneath his jaw.
A pulse. Slow, faint, but there.
My sob turns to a laugh halfway out of my mouth, a strangled sound. Unthinking, I bend over and press a kiss to his forehead. I sit back and sweep the hair out of my eyes.
Something brushes at my wrist. Fingers. Cool, callused.
My attention snaps back to the boy in front of me. His eyes flutter, and they’re the same eyes I remember, clear blue and bloodshot but beautiful.
“Finn,” I say, more an exhale than anything.
His fingers twitch at his side.
“Joanna,” he whispers. I’ve never much liked my full name; I never felt like it was really me. That’s why I let Jo catch on with such a fervor. But when he says it, it’s mine.
“Not cool, Finn,” Sloane says, relief clear in her tone. “You had us going there for a second.” She and Aisha, with Jasper between them, rush over to us, Sloane and Aisha helping Finn off his back.
“M’sorry,” Finn mumbles, blinking hard.
“We need to move,” I say. If I was able to escape my bindings, there’s no reason Cecily won’t. Though fighting for one’s life is a bigger motivator than she has. Survival instincts cull logic in their path.
“Think the three of you can walk out of here?” I ask.
Jasper and Aisha aren’t all that convinced, but Sloane pushes between them and loops her arms around them. Steadies them.
“We’ll make it,” Sloane says. “What about him?”
I look to Finn, who is still clearly under the influence of sedatives and unsteadily pushing himself onto his hands and knees. He stands and falls against the chamber. Before he can hit the ground, I lunge, throwing my arms around his midsection and hauling him up.
“I got you,” I say, low enough only he can hear. Once I have a firm hold on him, I maneuver so we’re facing the door.
He’s a solid weight against my side, and it’s clear he’s trying to hold himself up, but he dips every few seconds. His eyes flutter as they try to focus on things.
“You okay?” I ask, knowing it’s a loaded question with no good answer.
Finn coughs, or maybe he laughs, and says, “Okay enough.”
Which is as good as I think we’re going to get.
“What’s the plan here, Jo?” Sloane asks.
I look between them, these people I’ve risked everything to save. I look at the four walls they were destined to die between. And they are only the latest batch in a string of stolen kids. The newest cast of a two-decades-old horror movie.
So many souls were exchanged to keep one girl alive.
“I have an idea,” I say. And it’s not a great one, but I ran out of good ideas when I woke up strapped to a bed.
So I haul Finn toward the door, Sloane, Aisha, and Jasper behind me, and return to the girl who started all of this. Cecily Holden.