Chapter Fourteen #2
“I don’t—” I started and then sighed. “I don’t know, Darius.
I know it isn’t your fault, not really. After you were gone, I didn’t have to join the Trials.
But I did and now I’m here and you’re standing there judging me for trying to get back.
I don’t understand you. I don’t understand what you’ve become.
The boy I was friends with before would have done everything in his power to get back to his parents, to get back to Dahlia, to me. ”
“Then maybe I’m not that boy anymore.”
His tone was cold, so cold. I felt then, even more than I had when he'd been Culled, that I'd truly lost him.
“Maybe you aren’t,” I said, my voice a whisper in response as we simply stood there, staring at one another.
“Adrian, please—” Roxy started, but I'd already slammed my empty beer bottle on the counter.
I pushed past her and Darius and headed for the door.
“Adrian,” Kane called out as I reached it.
I didn’t even look back when I wrenched it open and slammed it behind me, storming down the hall of the fourth level to the elevators beyond.
Acceptance. The word rang through my mind again and again as I made my way through the empty halls.
I wouldn't accept this. I couldn’t. Because accepting the Underground meant accepting Dante’s betrayal and my newfound immortality.
It meant accepting that I would live forever.
That, someday, Darius would die. Roxy, Kane, and Hugh would die.
My mother and my brothers would die, having never known I still lived just below them.
Sophie and Graham and Harrison would die.
The Finnegan brothers and Dahlia and Bria and Milo would all die and I would be here, alone, supervising work that meant nothing to me, overseeing labor that continued a cycle without purpose.
We keep them alive, that’s what Tiberius had told me. But alive for what? What was living if it never amounted to anything at all?
I stepped into the elevator and hesitated, my eyes roving over the buttons before me.
I could return to my level, go to my apartment, take a shower, fall into my bed, and wait for my next assignment in the morning.
But that would be acceptance. That would be giving into my fate, forgetting my people, my purpose. I couldn’t stomach it.
I couldn’t go to the tunnels, couldn’t run straight back to Sanctuary, couldn’t go home.
I couldn’t even pass a letter to those above.
But maybe a scrap of paper wasn’t the only way to send a message.
With a plan already forming in my mind, I leaned forward and punched the button before I could think better of it.
I was breathing hard by the time the elevator ascended one level.
Hands clenched at my sides, I pushed through the workers slipping into their blue jumpsuits in the hallway crowded with lockers.
I stepped into the massive room beyond that held enormous barrels filled with water.
The smell of ammonia and something like chlorine assaulted my nostrils as I strolled through them, ignored or even nodded to thanks to my supervisor’s uniform.
I found the pipes in the back, running along the tall flat wall up toward the surface where I had no doubt they would branch out to scatter to the various sinks, showers, and toilets of Sanctuary.
I didn’t even think about it. I just grabbed the nearest pipe wrench, recently abandoned by some off duty laborer who'd been in such a hurry to return to his residence he hadn’t properly put away his tools. I put all of my enhanced strength into my arms and swung.
The first blow made a clanging sound so loud the nearest workers cried out in alarm.
The second cleaved through the thin metal.
Water sprayed, soaking me instantly so my jumpsuit clung to my skin, plastering my hazel hair to my face and neck.
I swung again, slicing another pipe in two.
One end swung away, hanging precariously, sharp metal swaying back and forth so the other laborers at the wall had to scatter to avoid being struck by it.
Several workers were crying out now, running away from me.
I could hardly hear them over my own laughter.
I swung again.
“Stop!” a familiar voice cried.
But I ignored Mosi, even when he ran up to me, braver than all the rest, and tried to pull the wrench from my hands. I simply elbowed him aside and swung again and again, harder each time.
Water pooled beneath my feet. I steadied myself so as not to slip in it and swung again.
“Adrian,” Mosi was screaming over the sound of gushing water, the murmurs of terrified water level workers, and, I realized, my own crazed laughter. “Adrian, stop! Stop!”
But I didn’t. I just kept swinging.
“Enough,” another voice growled, deeper, closer.
I ignored him. Gritting my teeth, furious they'd gone for Tiberius, I swung even harder.
“Grab her,” he commanded.
Then I was being lifted off the ground. I kicked and screamed like a feral beast, water slinging from my drenched hair as I shook my head back and forth, doing my best to wiggle free.
But Roiben and Mosi held me deftly between them.
I saw Roiben’s jaw clench when a well-aimed kick of mine connected with his groin but he held firm.
The pipe clattered to the ground as he and Mosi dragged me away. Tiberius stooped to retrieve it before turning back to the laborers gathered around, staring at us in shock.
“Fix it,” he growled, and then followed after us as our fellow Fallen dragged me out of level three and into the waiting elevators beyond.