Chapter 36
Over the next two hours we extracted supplies we deemed helpful for the illness, using the exit Ingrid and Patrick had found.
Even with the truth laid out before us, the energy was stiff.
Rumi worked with Kaleo and his team while the seven of us worked as a unit.
Isla and Damien gave Ingrid a full rundown on what she’d missed while she helped Patrick run from his anger. Patrick begrudgingly listened.
“But where are the dead men going?” Patrick asked.
“We don’t know. Rumi didn’t say,” Isla explained. Patrick’s hand flew to his cross as he stormed off.
“Do you think he’ll ever get over this?” Damien whispered to several of us.
Levi didn’t hesitate as he placed a box filled with medications deemed useful in line to be carried up. “He won’t.”
I was only half in the conversation. The pod dominated my thoughts. Had I actually seen someone? If I had, where had they gone? Was I losing it?
When the medical tarp was laden with supplies, we left the tunnels. I grabbed a corner next to Tristian as we set off, and I pulled the tarp toward Haven once more.
We stopped near the borderline so Patrick, Rumi, Damien, and Levi could grab the suits they had discarded and at Outpost Three for the rest of us to don suits.
Then we were moving again in total silence as the sun set.
We didn’t head toward Outpost Two. Kaleo had made us all turn off the communication in our suits just as he had relayed in his plan.
He ditched his tablet, slamming his boot into the screen until it shattered.
“Even if our going dark causes Burdon to send a unit out, they’ll go the wrong way,” Kaleo reassured us again. “Your unit didn’t notice us when we did it last time.”
On that mission, Levi had been injured when we walked from Outpost Two to Outpost Three, expecting to run into the Heathens, only to never find them.
“Henderson’s illness works in our favor,” Kaleo continued even as Damien went still. “She doesn’t have a full Exploratory Unit at her disposal.”
“I’m trusting you,” Tristian warned Kaleo as we followed him blindly.
We walked, partners staying close to each other as the lack of communication left everyone vulnerable. It would be a great way to stage an attack. Levi had muttered the same thought right before he shoved on his helmet and we switched it off.
Maybe this was all a trap. We didn’t know. I knew humans had a way of fucking things up. I walked next to Levi, Tristian on my other side. I found myself needing Tristian close. Had it really been yesterday that he had held me? That we had believed we found hope in the supplies?
We trekked across the earth, pulling the tarp. No ghosts found me, and no memories of the dead chased me. Instead, something else walked with me, leaving me vulnerable.
What are you afraid of?
My answer sat heavy in my chest, pulsing through me with every beat of my heart.
Everything. Everything. Everything.
I couldn’t hide from the truth I had set free. I wouldn’t run. It didn’t stop my heart from constricting as I wondered what awaited us in Haven. Would finding the supplies be enough? Was Kaleo’s plan enough? What had transpired in our absence?
My helmet swung to Tristian as Kaleo’s words haunted me, to keep breathing, Hades…if you’d like to stay alive…My heart beat uncomfortably as the words played on a loop. I couldn’t lose him. Tristian hadn’t promised me safety. Only that he’d be by my side until the end.
What if I wasn’t ready for the end? What if for the first time since the war had started…I wanted to live?
Kaleo stopped suddenly, pointing to the earth as two members of his team dropped down and started digging.
They stopped, pulling away a metal door.
Kaleo pointed down, but none of Unit Seven followed him.
His entire suit shifted as he glanced up at the sky, fed up.
The smallest suit among his group brushed against him before descending.
Kaleo withdrew his pistol. My hands flew to my weapon.
It was drawn, safety off, before Kaleo had taken a step.
He raised his hands, handing Tristian his pistol before turning his back to us, hands up, and descended.
Tristian nodded at us. Levi led the way. I glanced up at the sky one last time. A single star peeked through the endless clouds before I descended. Flashlights flared as we adjusted to the dark, and the sound of helmets being removed echoed.
“Why do you know about this entrance?” Tristian asked Kaleo as he shook out his hair. We stood in a rough-hewn earth tunnel. The smell of dirt engulfed us. It was smaller than the tunnels we had just been in and the ones of Haven—rudimentary and bare.
“When I passed sector communications, I felt out Terral’s second-in-command and the shift leaders.
You know he wanted the observatory and Exploratory Unit under Expansion.
I wanted to find out why. He has a secret team; they have been digging toward the Abyss since Terral took over.
No one knows, not even Command. I found it strange that he had succeeded in burying an entire group of people. ”
“Why?” Tristian asked.
“He says he wants options for the lesser sectors,” Kaleo told us. “You were right back then. None of the sector leaders are being transparent.” Kaleo moved toward Rumi. Now that it was in the open, he had to be near her. “Terral calls them Moles. They—”
“Aren’t alive,” I whispered, slowly understanding.
Kaleo nodded at me. “They aren’t, according to Haven’s records.”
“What do you mean?” Levi asked.
“There are some in Haven who aren’t happy with how Command is running it and are looking for more options for us,” Rumi said.
“We need to get the supplies in; I think half of us go up and half stay down to help grab the items we bring down,” Kaleo told us. No one moved. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not trying to murder you all. Rumi can stay down here. She’s more important to me than any of the shit above.”
Unit Seven shifted uncomfortably; Patrick slammed his helmet back on as he stomped toward the entrance. Several others followed him back out as Kaleo leaned into Rumi. “Kill them all if they make a move on you.”
“Real helpful,” Tristian said.
Kaleo grabbed his helmet and headed out.
“You can’t blame us for being cautious,” Levi said slyly on his tail. “You were a traitorous fuckup only hours ago.”
Kaleo’s helmet rested on his forehead as he grinned at Levi, a weird ease between them. “I’m still a fuckup,” Kaleo confessed, pulling down the helmet.
The two disappeared as Tristian addressed us. “Sasha, Damien, Isla, stay here. Come on, Ingrid.”
Isla crossed her arms, turning away from Rumi. She walked toward the entrance. Damien stayed, though, staring at Rumi. Even in the dark, I could see the hurt he carried.
“When?” he asked quietly.
“Two years,” Rumi told him unabashedly.
Damien shook his head, but his tone stayed level. “How?”
“It’s a long story,” Rumi said; she looked tired. I watched her for once. The way she always observed everyone else. Rumi had always seen the things people missed. Was that how this all started? She had seen Kaleo, truly seen him while everyone else bought the mask he had worn?
“We were your family,” Isla bit out from the entrance. “You lied to us for two years.”
“We are still a family,” Rumi told her.
“We are, you aren’t,” Isla sneered. Without her sunshine and smile, the person before me was broken.
“Isla,” Damien pleaded. Rumi didn’t balk at the accusation.
“Do you still think she’s one of us after this?” Isla demanded.
Damien volleyed between them, confessing. “I don’t know yet.”
Rumi held Damien’s somber gaze. “What’s the point of any of this, in surviving, if we’re not defending our loved ones, keeping hope alive for humanity?”
“You love him?” Damien asked.
“I do,” Rumi confirmed.
“So you defend him?” Damien asked cautiously. “And us? Your family?”
“I defend Ikaika. But I was defending you all too. I will always defend my unit,” Rumi told him sternly. “I can do both. It isn’t one or the other for me.”
I thought of the Ward, all the choices I had made since the war had started.
“How in the world do you justify that?” Isla snapped angrily, stomping toward us.
“I did what you weren’t willing to do. I got my hands dirty to keep yours clean,” Rumi delivered harshly. “I make no apologies for that.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. I hated that I understood Rumi.
“I do not need our unit, my life, or my love to be perfect to protect it, Isla. You can hate me for that, but I don’t regret my choices,” Rumi declared.
“Fine, and I won’t regret my choice to hate you. You hurt Patrick,” Isla spat.
Movement sounded by the entrance as the others delivered crates to the opening.
“I know,” Rumi acknowledged quietly. Rumi’s eyes grew cold as they locked onto Isla’s.
“You forget my hands aren’t the only ones dirty when it comes to him.
You hurt Patty and Levi. Difference is I was doing it to save them, and you did it because you’re selfish and insecure.
Too busy chasing false perfection rather than being real.
You’re still the same girl who ran away during the war. ”
“Rumi, it’s too much,” Damien warned.
Rumi walked past Isla without a backward glance, heading to help. Isla walked away from us and the supplies.
Damien sighed next to me. “All I want is my family.” He trudged off to help, his steps heavy, a limp setting in. I glanced back at Isla once before I followed him to help.
“That’s the end of it,” Levi called out, his face shield up, as he shut the metal door. An exhaustion both physical and mental settled in as partners began helping each other out of their suits.
“Now what?” Tristian asked Kaleo.