Chapter 16
We’re leaving tomorrow. For today? We’re going everything we can to be prepared because—though no one is saying out loud—there is a very good possibility that this might be our one and only chance to snag Gwen.
And, to do that, we need to have a plan.
I’m looking at it and super grateful that I’m not doing this alone because, for fuck’s sake, I have no idea what I’m looking at. Jules’s maps are like the scribblings of a madman, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.
There are currently twelve of them spread out across one of the picnic tables at camp, and while I recognize the island of Manhattan on the biggest one, the rest might as well be treasure maps leading to some long-lost pirate booty.
There are streets and tunnels, arrows and circles, sections crossed out in red, and so many handwritten notes crammed into the margins that I have no idea how Delilah makes sense of any of it.
Thankfully, she does.
She traces one finger over a narrow blue line. “Here. This is the place we start. The sewer.”
Excuse me? “Did you say ‘sewer’?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going into the sewer.”
“That’s right.”
“New York City’s sewer. Where the ninja turtles were probably eaten by lurkers almost a year ago.”
Maverick raises his eyebrows at me. “You know about the turtles?”
“I had an older brother,” I remind him.
“Raphael was my favorite,” offers Chase.
“I liked Donatello.” That’s Aaron, and I’m almost shocked that he added to the conversation.
“You’re all wrong,” says Veronica. “Mikey was the best. And it doesn’t matter.
There are lurkers who end up in the sewers and the subway tunnels underground, but with so many grates built into sidewalks to let hot air out and fresh air in that it’s not as dark down there as lurkers prefer.
Add in how there are still plenty of electric lights, especially illuminating the subways, and you have better odds of running into Splinter than getting trapped by a horde of lurkers. ”
I really hope so. “It’s not just the lurkers I’m worried about. Sewers are fucking gross.”
Delilah looks at me over the top of her sunglasses. “Would you rather walk through the front door of the NRI again with Winston and his men as your guides?”
No.
Chase nudges me in the upper arm with his elbow. “You could stay back here. Hold down the fort while we take Manhattan.”
The withering look I give Chase as him holding up his hands. “Just a suggestion, babe.”
Right.
I tug Rory’s jacket tighter around me and look down at the map again.
Julian Flynn was Delilah’s partner and the facilities manager at the NRI before the bastards running Project Phoenix decided to find out if one of their lurkers would eat someone who had taken the first version of the Injection.
Spoiler alert: they did.
But before Jules became another one of Project Phoenix’s victims, he apparently made it his life’s work to know every inch of the NRI and the surrounding government buildings.
More importantly, he didn’t trust the official blueprints of the facility.
He drew his own maps of what was actually there, including maintenance corridors, old utility access points, and the sewer system beneath it.
Today, those maps are what we need before we head back into Manhattan.
Because Gwen Martin is still alive, and if our intel can be trusted, we finally know where she is.
Delilah’s contact back at the NRI Kristian finally managed to get that information for Veronica.
Gwen was moved to another Project Phoenix facility connected to the main NRI building through a series of underground passages, and if Jules’s maps are still accurate, we can get close without Winston knowing we’re there until it’s too late.
That’s the plan, and I’m holding out hope that the second time is the charm.
Veronica purposely keeps the strike team small: me, Chase, Veronica, Delilah, David, Aaron, and Maverick.
Kira is going to be left in charge back at the camp while we’re gone.
We’re taking two SUVs, filling each car with a handful of people.
Simon and Nicky are coming as drivers. Their job is to stay with the cars and be ready to pick us up after we finish the mission.
Veronica is going to keep one sat phone with her.
There’s one in each SUV, too. She’ll dial out when we need a pick up, though if everything goes according to plan, I’m sure those two will be able to tell when we’re done…
The way Veronica explains it, we’re going with enough people to fight if we have to, but not so many that it’ll be impossible to hide. And, if everything works out like we’re hoping it will, we’ll be returning with one extra.
Gwen.
The genius who is the only one who might be able to make more antidotes.
The scientist who might also explain why Maverick Brooks is still alive.
I glance at him again.
He’s standing across the table, arms folded over his chest, currently studying the maps as though he didn’t get a chunk torn out of his shoulder by a lurker a little more than a week ago.
Just like Simon told me, whatever’s going on inside of him, he has advanced healing properties.
He’s perfectly healed now, but Delilah has been studying him like a science experiment ever since he was found unconscious in the woods.
It’s obvious that Maverick isn’t a big fan of her scientific nature. Still, he lets her, and it’s his case in particular that has Delilah hanging all of her hopes that Gwen can explain what the hell the antidotes did to him.
Once he realized that he survived Eileen’s attack and that he still hadn’t Turned, he put aside his suicidal ideation.
Especially when we got word that we could go after Gwen and that Veronica was game to give Maverick another chance to blow up the NRI.
As long as we get the scientist out without tipping off the Men in Black, we’re going to use Jules’s map to go from one facility to the other and hopefully destroy them both.
Hell, we’ll blow up all of New York City if we have to, and take thousands of lurkers with us.
And I can’t wait.
We leave Sunnyside before sunrise the next morning.
I already knew that the cars would only take us so far.
As David reminds us, Gas is too precious to waste, and Veronica refuses to drive straight into Manhattan and announce our arrival to Project Phoenix.
So we piled into two SUVs, following routes that her people had already cleared long before we came to the Hills.
Nobody talks much. We’re all buzzing, ready to get this mission stated.
I’m squeezed between Chase and David in the backseat of the first SUV while Simon drives and Delilah rides shotgun with Jules’s maps spread across her lap.
In the second SUV, Nicky is behind the wheel with Veronica sitting next to him, with Maverick and Aaron in the backseat.
Gwen’s seat is currently occupied by the duffel bag that Annie gave Mav to hold the latest round of IEDs he built specifically for his return to Manhattan.
Chase holds my hand, and I rest my head on my shoulder as we drive.
My stomach begins to knot once we begin to approach the George Washington Bridge.
They’re not cramps; at least, not the sort I get when I sense lurkers.
Instead, I’m feeling nervous, and I have every right to be.
The last time I went to Manhattan, I wanted to kill the lurkers.
Burn ‘em all down because that’s what Xandra would have wanted.
Then Project Phoenix caught us, and the Doctor tortured me until I admitted I wasn’t my dead sister. We barely made it out alive—and now I’m willingly going back.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but since I’ve considered myself broken for a long time now, that’s nothing new.
Veronica already gave Simon and Nicky express directions of where to drop us off.
She didn’t want to risk getting too close and catching the attention of those in charge of Project Phoenix.
Now that we know that, even in the before times, the NRI isn’t just contained to one building, I have no idea how far their reach extends.
Well, no. That’s not true. Thanks to Jules’s map, we have some clue, and that’s why we get out of the SUV more than thirty blocks away.
Veronica reminds Simon and Nicky what she expects from them, double-checks the sat phone she has on the sling-bag backpack she’s wearing.
Delilah puts all but one of the maps into Veronica’s bag, and then we’re off.
From there, we walk a few more, taking in the sights. Manhattan is still Manhattan. It’s dead, but undoubtedly recognizable, and my stomach twists again as I’m thrown back to that morning more than a month ago when Maverick, Chase, and I arrived in the city for the first time.
Now, like then, cars sit where people abandoned them. Storefronts have been smashed. Windows stare down at us from buildings that once held thousands of people and now hold God knows how many lurkers.
I know we’re surrounded by them. My uneasy stomach makes that loud and clear.
Because it’s so early in the morning, we don’t have to worry about them coming out for hours yet, but they’re there and it takes everything I have not to throw up breakfast every time we pass a building that must be crawling with them.
I think I’m hiding it pretty well, but I should’ve known better.
Chase notices the first time my hand goes to my belly. His thumb brushes the back of my neck, drawing my attention to him as he murmurs, “How bad?”
“I’m fine.”
“Holden.”
I should shake him off. I don’t. “I can feel them. We’re not alone, but we knew that the largest nest of lurkers on the East Coast is in this city. Of course I can feel them. I’ll get used to it.”
His jaw tightens. I’ll give him credit. Two months ago, he would’ve told me we were turning around because he cared more about me than the outcome of Mav’s mission. A few weeks ago, he would’ve tried to convince Veronica that I should stay with the SUVs and Nicky could risk himself in the sewers.
Now?
“Tell me if it gets worse. Okay?”
Not that it’ll change the plan, but… “I will.”
“Love you.”
I brush my hand against his hip. “Love you, too.”
Though we’re on enemy territory, surrounded by lurkers who will descend on us if we’re still here after dark, and there’s no knowing if the Men in Black are watching us until they make their move… Chase tugs me to him, kissing me quickly and pulling away before any of the other survivors notice.
I noticed, though, and the taste he leaves on my tongue is enough to keep me going.
So it turns out that Jules’s sewer entrance is hidden behind what looks like a maintenance enclosure. David and Aaron have to pry the rusted gate open before Delilah—following the map in her hand—can lead us down a short set of concrete steps.
Then she stops.
“Once we’re below, stay close. Some of Jules’s maps are from before Project Phoenix expanded after the Turning. The main passages should be accurate, but I can’t promise nothing changed.”
My stomach flip-flops.
“What happens if it did?” I ask.
Veronica answers for her twin. “We figure it out.”
“Gotcha.”
Maverick snorts.
Chase doesn’t. He’s too busy staring into the hole in front of us. He’s not afraid of the dark, I know that much. Oh, no. I can tell from the worried look on his handsome face that he’s concerned because I’m about to climb down there.
I move toward him, rubbing the back of his arm. It’s my turn to comfort him, and that’s what I do. “We’re going to be fine.”
Chase quirks his lips. “Here’s hoping you’re right.” He holds out his hand to me. “Ladies first?”
I roll my eyes at him even as I place my palm against his. “I’m ready when you are.”
And maybe I’m completely full of shit, but I came all this way. I’m going down there, and I’m just super fucking grateful that I’m not going down there alone.
Before we start to descend, Veronica reaches into her bag.
Tucked beneath the folded maps and sat phone, she has enough pieces of treated wood for all of us.
Once the maps made it clear that most of journey would take place underground, a couple of survivors back at camp whittled down collected tree branches before prepping handheld torches similar to the much larger ones that protect Sunnyside.
They’re easy to make, and a lot less volatile than Xandra’s firebombs.
I did want to bring a couple glass bottles with me so I can prep a few, just in case, but Chase pointed out that the sewers were narrow and enclosed to mess around with throwing fire around.
Especially when a well-made torch provides the fire we need to burn any lurkers we come across, plus illumination to help us see where we are going.
All we had to do was cut up a donated cotton shirt into strips of fabric, tie them tightly around the top part of the whittled wooden stick, dip the fabric into kerosene or gasoline.
That way, the improvised wick will catch much faster than it did when I lit my non-saturated tank top on fire in order to save Mav.
All of the torches are ready to go. Before we left, we soaked the torches and wrapped the upper halves in scavenged plastic wrap to keep the accelerant on the top of the torch instead of dripping down to the handheld part.
Now we wait for Veronica to pass them out to each of us.
David pulls his lighter out—though we all have one on us, Veronica’s second is the first to grab his—and lights one torch.
After that, we use that torch to light the rest.
Veronica makes sure we all have lit torches. “Okay, team. You know what to do.”
She’s right. We do.
And I only hope we survive it.