Chapter 13
Clary couldn’t tear her eyes from the plummeting elevator. It hadn’t seemed like such a long way down to the floor of the cavern when she’d peered in. However, the elevator seemed to fall and fall as though it could keep doing so forever.
But that was ridiculous, and Clary realized that the moment the elevator landed with a ground-vibrating thud and the wrenching cracks and booms of wood splitting and breaking apart could be heard.
Lizzy and Troy are going to be so angry with us.
Then silence.
“You’re coming with me, boy,” the guard holding her snarled in her ear.
Clary was glad that she had decided to wear men’s clothing. Apart from being practical, it was also a good disguise. No one expected a woman to be involved in such things, now did they?
In the ringing silence, there was a faint crackle. What can possibly be causing that?
Clary looked up at the tall tower that was swaying above them. Is it coming from there?
She drew in a startled breath as she watched the scene above her.
Thomas was climbing down, trying to avoid the guards.
There were two of them, and they were giving chase, but Thomas, despite his still-healing leg, was quite nimble.
His height was helpful too, allowing him to grab handholds and get his feet on something solid that others couldn’t quite reach.
Could he make it down? Clary prayed he would. Losing him wasn’t something she wanted to contemplate. He had become such a steadfast and constant part of her life since she arrived in Unity. Being here without him wasn’t any real option.
Suddenly the air was torn apart by an earsplitting boom, and the ground shook as though it meant to rip apart. A gout of flame and smoke shot into the air. It narrowly missed Thomas but caught the one guard on his back.
He screamed and fell from the structure the last ten feet, landing hard on his back. Clary felt the guard’s grip on her arm falter as he stared at his fallen comrade.
Wasting no time at all, she thrust her elbow into the poor man’s stomach, trod heavily on his instep, and then managed to drive the back of her head with force into his nose.
Free of her captor, Clary ran to the tower. It was swaying unnervingly. Above her, Thomas was descending like a four-legged spider, and behind him, close on his heels, came Mark.
Oh, that’s the last thing we need. He’ll know it’s us for sure.
Looking around, she tried to find something to hit Mark on the head with. If he was unconscious, he couldn’t identify them. Thomas reached the ground.
“Come on,” Clary said, taking his hand. “We have to run.”
Thomas nodded, but before he could take a step, Mark threw himself from his high perch down onto Thomas’s shoulders. The two men went down in a tumble of limbs and bodies. Clary was pulled to her knees. She landed with a sharp pain and gasped.
Two booted feet appeared in front of her.
“Thoughed you’d ged away, huh?” the guard she had attacked sneered. He was holding his nose, from which gouts of red blood and snot oozed. He was trying to stanch the blood with his handkerchief, but it was almost completely soaked already. Clary hadn’t meant to break his nose.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry,” she said, lowering the pitch of her voice. As she went to stand up, she tossed handfuls of dirt into the guard’s eyes. He screamed and grabbed at his face with his bloody hands.
Then she pushed him over and he landed heavily on the ground. His head bounced and he lay still.
Shocked, Clary put a hand to his mouth. She could feel his breath, steadily coming in and out. He was only unconscious.
Clary felt terrible, but she couldn’t be caught. Neither could Thomas.
Mark had the upper hand; he straddled Thomas, who was pinned on the ground, with his pistol pointed at Thomas’s face.
“I never thought it would be you,” Mark said, sounding hurt and bewildered. “I honestly thought you were too good to be a spy.”
“I’m not a spy,” Thomas insisted. “Get Andrew or Michael or Troy. They all know about this. Mark, I swear this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Yeah, sure,” Mark said sourly.
Clary didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to hurt Mark like she had that other poor man, but what could she do?
Deciding that saving Thomas was worth compromising her morals ever so slightly, she pulled a wrench from her bag, unwrapped the cloth, and came up behind Mark. She raised her hand and …
“What are you doing?”
She froze in place.
It was Andrew. He was fully dressed and didn’t seem to have gone to bed. Following on his heels was Troy. He stood with his mouth open.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I caught him,” Mark cried. “I got one of them.”
Clary lowered the wrench but stayed where she was. She was glad that the men who could explain everything to Mark were there. It was all going to be okay.
“Mark, you’ve done an excellent job,” Andrew said kindly. “But we need to sort this out in private before the whole town gets here. So, this is what you need to do. You need to stand down.”
“What?” Mark asked. “But …”
“Mark, lower your weapon,” Andrew insisted. “Please. We don’t have much time.”
The clamor of bewildered people crossing the bridge reached them. Lights were dancing in the darkness, coming up the rise toward them. It was everyone, drawn from their beds, to see what terrible thing had happened now.
“Thomas won’t run; I promise you that,” Andrew said earnestly as the noises got closer.
Mark looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears. He stared at Andrew and then shook his head. “Not you too. First Thomas and now you?” He looked as though his world was crashing in around him.
It wasn’t working. Clary could see that Mark was too much of a good guy.
He wouldn’t let someone he thought had done wrong go.
People were getting closer, and this whole thing would turn into a worse mess if she didn’t do something.
Feeling wretched, Clary raised the wrench again and brought it down on the back of Mark’s head.
He crumpled, falling to the side. Thomas sat up and then got to his feet.
Without a word, he and Clary dove into the shadows. A moment later, the first of the crowd arrived, and Andrew and Troy were bombarded with questions.
“We don’t know what happened,” Andrew repeated as the crowd surged around him and Troy. “We have to investigate.”
Clary and Thomas made their way, moving behind things and buildings until they reached the tent. They ducked into it, and Clary put her dress back on over the pants and shirt. Then she ruffled her hair and made sure that her clothing was a little askew.
Thomas watched her frowning. “What are you do?—”
She rose up on her tiptoes again and drew him into a kiss.
At first he was surprised. He stiffened for just an instant and then wrapped his arms around Clary, sending thrills running through her.
They had done it. They’d pulled it off in spectacular fashion.
The spy would have to be dead not to notice that they had disabled the elevator. It was a relief.
Now, all they would have to do was catch the person setting up their signal. It was such an achievement. She was so glad. She wanted to stay in that tent and keep kissing Thomas for a long, long time. However, if they didn’t show up at the commotion, someone would notice.
Reluctantly, they parted.
As a finishing touch, she messed up Thomas’s hair.
“Okay, now it looks like we were engaged in something other than sabotage,” she said with a grin.
Mind you, her reputation mattered a great deal to her, but these were extenuating circumstances.
Let people think she and Thomas had gotten slightly too friendly before marriage. It was necessary for the subterfuge.
“Right,” Thomas said a little dreamily.
She pulled him from the tent, and they ran right into a little knot of people. It was Mildred, Anders, and Evelyn. They stared at her and Thomas.
“Clary!” Evelyn protested. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Clary said defensively. “We weren’t doing anything.” She hastily straightened her clothing.
Anders and Mildred both wore broad grins.
“Well now, it seems you two were having a little fireworks of your own, you sly dog!” Anders said, elbowing Thomas in the ribs.
Thomas just smiled. It was perfect. Now all they would think was how Clary and Thomas had been engaged in a little private entertainment. There would be no suspicion at all.
Together they all hurried up the rise to the mine.
Evelyn looked angry and upset.
“What is it?” Clary asked.
“You’re a hypocrite,” Evelyn cried. “You wouldn’t let me …” She waved a hand at Clary’s messed-up hair and clothes, “But you go ahead and do it anyway.”
Clary stared at her, open-mouthed. “It’s completely different! I’ve known Thomas a while now, and you had only just met John on the train!”
“I seem to recall that you said there should be no shenanigans until marriage,” Evelyn snapped.
“We’re sorry, Evelyn, you’re right,” Thomas said. “We went for a romantic stroll, and it turned out to be too much for us. We let our feelings get the better of us. We won’t do it again.”
It was odd, but that seemed to mollify her. She nodded, but she still wasn’t talking to Clary.
Seeing the whole disaster from this new angle, Clary was quite horrified at what they had done. The elevator was completely gone, and all three guards lay unconscious in the dirt. The cavernous mouth of the mine was belching flame, and it was all because of her and Thomas.
“I suspect the dynamite we were going to use tomorrow to open another tunnel is all gone now,” a miner named Hunter said.
“I guess you’re using the back entrance tomorrow,” someone else said. Clary recognized Mr. Rossi. He had his clipboard and was making a note on it in the dim light.
“What happened?” Father Sumner asked, looking as confused as everyone did. “Does anyone know why the elevator collapsed like that?”
“No one knows, but it looks like the lift tower, and everything attached to it, just fell into the hole,” Hunter said with a shrug.
“It’s a pity,” Herman said sadly. “It was good construction.”