Marked

“Yes, Mr. Wilson. Lockdown initiated.” Corina announced a few moments too late.

Shortly after, Corina zapped Rachel in the hand and she let her go with a gasp. She cradled her freshly burnt hand to her chest and looked at Nicolas’s still form.

She searched his pockets, ignoring the pain in her palm. She only found a metal pen and in his second pocket, the lock of hair.

She paused when her fingers ran over it. Maybe seeing her lock of hair had softened something inside her so that she found herself feeling sorry for him. Whatever terrible things he’d done, she didn’t doubt that he loved her.

But she could never love him back. She might have been able to, if he had been willing to change but that had been before she’d found out what had happened to Jed. For his death, she could never forgive him.

She stood. Corina buzzed around her quietly, seemed to watch her through the red blinking light in her center.

“Open the door.” She ordered.

“Rachel Nicole Wilson. Unmarked. Access denied.”

She thought it was a long shot, but she’d tried it anyway. How long did she have before Corina reported what had happened there to someone else? Or did she only report to Nicolas?

She wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to find out. She moved towards the doors, searched for a button, some type of way to open it, but her hands found nothing. Slipping her fingers into the crevice created where both doors touched, she struggled to pry it open.

“Access denied.” Corina said behind her.

“Oh, shut up.”

The door opened a few inches and then slammed back into her fingers. Stifling a gasp, she dug up the pen she’d taken from Nicolas’s pocket.

Once again, she slipped her throbbing fingers into the door. Her hand, where it had broken before, screamed with pain.

Throwing all her weight into the task, she managed to maneuver the pen between the two plates of metal, tried to use it as leverage before it snapped in two.

In the same moment, she managed to wedge her foot between the doors. That was enough that when she put all her weight into pushing, the door flung open.

Her head swam as she took in the cylindrical shaft awaiting her. There was a metal ladder built into the wall to her right a few feet away. The ladder stretched down all the way to the bottom of the shaft, to where the light could no longer penetrate, making it look never ending.

The elevator Nicolas and her had used before was suspended about thirty feet above her head.

Which way, she thought.

She figured up was her best bet.

Ignoring the long drop beneath her, she steeled herself and stretched until her fingertips brushed the cold metal. It was a little further away than she’d anticipated.

She dried her sweaty palm against her sweatpants, made contact with the ladder and swung a leg out to catch the first wrung. Her stomach plummeted to the soles of her feet until she secured both hands and feet on the ladder and was able to relax.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

She gripped the bars in front of her as if her life depended on it. She supposed in that moment, it literally did.

Inside the tunnel, it was damp and humid, the walls all around her a washed out brown.

The space seemed to close in on her the further she climbed, though she knew it was just her claustrophobia taking hold. She tried to pretend that she was inside the compound, making her way down the secret ladder that led to her home.

But there were no familiar sounds or scents of home awaiting at the bottom, only a black pit of nothingness that would end in her death if she fell.

Something rattled above her and for a moment she thought the ladder was coming loose. What was worse, as soon as she realized that the ladder was stable, she figured out that the rattling noise was coming from the elevator.

It was groaning with weight, as if someone had just stepped onto it. Her heart jumped into her throat, a vein in her neck pumped out an erratic beat. She searched around her, touched the bare walls in a panic.

The lift could descend any moment, taking her with it. Going down wasn’t an option. She remembered how fast the elevator had moved and decided she’d be dead long before she could even reach the floor she’d come from.

A few feet up she caught sight of two doors. With a new goal in mind, she quickly put one foot in front of the other. Her hands were clammy; one hand slipped and she crashed against the ladder, striking her shoulder while scrambling to keep her other hand on the metal bar secure.

Her heart in her throat and with a white-knuckled grip, she used both her hands to hoist her up a few more feet. When she jumped onto the landing she found that the space between the doors and where the elevator would pass through was almost non-existent.

She was thin, but not thin enough to press up against the crevice and survive. She slammed her hands against the doors in front her. She tried the same technique she’d used before but the door wouldn’t budge; her fingers, made sweaty with fear, kept slipping out.

A whirring sound announced the elevator’s decent. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Hoping it’d be over quick, she readied herself for the pain, her entire body pressed against the cool metal in front of her. Her heartbeat thudded against the steels doors as if it were knocking in a last desperate plea for someone to come and rescue her.

Air whistled through the tunnel as the elevator fell down, down-and the doors in front of her flung open. She fell into the hallway, landed on her hands and chest, knocking the air right out of her.

Someone grabbed her and yanked her out of the tunnel just in time for the elevator to whiz by. Air brushed by her ankle, the elevator grazed her shoe, left a burning, searing sensation on the sole of her foot.

She looked up to see the face of her savior. Her heart stuttered and her mouth fell open in disbelief.

Because it was Hector on his knees in front of her, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His hair hung in sweaty tangles around his face, his cheeks were smeared with dirt, but somehow, he was still the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“That was so stupid.” He breathed. He cupped her face in his large hands. She scrambled to her knees, ignoring the pain in her foot, ignoring the gawking stares of the infiltrators behind him and threw her arms around his shoulders.

He made a small oof sound as she buried her face into the crook of his neck and shook with silent sobs.

She couldn’t help the tears that streamed down her face when no words came to her and all she could do was feel. Her fingers curled and uncurled around the fabric of his shirt.

Was this even real, was she even still alive? Or was this her personal version of heaven, being reunited with Hector?

"It's real," He whispered against her hair because for whatever reason this man always managed to see right through her thoughts and feelings.

“But that was so stupid,” He repeated again. He pushed her back gently by the shoulders, and took a good look at her face. “You could’ve been killed. If we hadn’t hacked the surveillance cameras and seen you climbing...God, I don’t even want to think--“His hand cupped the back of her head, and pulled her to him, his lips going to her forehead.

“You’re alive.” She replied. She couldn’t come up with anything else because nothing else mattered.

"You’re alive.” He said, and his voice cracked. “I thought for sure I’d been too late. When they caught us I thought there was no way Tom would be able to get the antidote back to you. I thought you were gone.”

She touched his face, ran her fingertips over his cheek, his lips, just to make sure he was real. She threw herself back into his arms and sobbed.

"Oh, Hector I didn't mean it. I'm so sorry. About what I said to you when I was dying. I just--I didn't want you to see me die."

"I know, I know, sweetheart."

"You'd already lost so much. I'm so sorry."

"I know why you did it," He said, pulling back to look at her. His hands cupped her face. "You did it to protect me. I know. I've known this whole time."

"You went to the capital for me...you're here, in the capital--"

"For you," He said feverishly. "I've been through hell and back and I'd go through it again, I'd do it ten times over for you, Rachel."

Rachel's bottom lip trembled. Hector crushed his lips to hers, and the world, for just a few seconds, melted away.

“Hector, we’ve gotta go. The bug won’t last much longer. We’ve gotta get out of here before the system restarts and the lockdown continues.”

Hector and Rachel pulled apart at his words. The man behind Hector pulled down the mask covering his face.

He had a kind, skinny face, a red beard and a long, hooked nose. She remembered him from the board of missing people back at the bunker.

“You’re right, Aaron.” He turned back to Rachel. “We’ve gotta get out of here. Ray, are you ready?”

“What about the others? Juan and Yalina--”

“We’ve got someone working on getting them out now. They’re being held in another part of the city, in a camp where they await to be Marked. We don’t have much time to get out of here, the back-up lock mechanism can kick in at any moment.”

He helped her onto her feet. With the way adrenaline was pumping through her veins, she hadn’t felt the pain in her foot until she stood on it. She gritted her teeth; she couldn’t be a liability, not now.

As the others began to move forward, Hector grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her to him and kissed her. His hand rested against the back of her neck, his lips pressed against her, not gentle, but with desperation as if they both knew this kiss might be their last one.

It was over quick and she found herself feeling a little dizzy, the same effect his kisses had always left on her. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“I didn’t. I had some help.” He pulled out a gun from his back pocket. His jeans, like his face, were also covered in dirt.

She couldn’t stop staring at him.

He pressed a gun into her hand, stroked the back of her palm with his thumb. “That universal call you sent out with Abby’s confession? We intercepted it and that’s how I knew you were still alive. We went to the bunker to help but you all had already come here. We were right behind you but we were a little late, as you can see.”

“We? Who's we? Who are these people?”

“I promise I’ll explain everything later but right now we’ve gotta move.” She nodded her head. The small group of five, including Aaron, wore brown clothing, plastic masks attached to their faces, guns hoisted on belts slung over their shoulders.

They made their way down a hallway. Two of them pressed up against the corner. One covered his partner’s back as the other wound around the next hall.

Rachel tested her foot. It burned, as if the entire bottom part of her foot was on fire. She clenched her teeth and moved forward, not allowing it to stop her. The last thing she wanted was to slow them down and for them all to become Nicolas’s prisoners again.

He would wake any moment. There wasn’t much time.

Gunfire erupted from around the corner, coming from the masked men as they squared off with a group of poachers. Hector placed an arm protectively in front of her and motioned for her to stay back.

He unloaded something from the vest he wore and chucked it around the corner. A thick, gray smoke quickly enveloped the hall, making it difficult to see anything. How the others could see through this was beyond her.

“Come here,” Hector said. place a mask over her face, gently stroking her cheek in the process. The mask seemed to merge around every crevice of her mouth and nose, creating a perfect seal; a small belt looped out and connected around the back of her head all on its own.

He fixed his own mask over his face and his next words came out sounding distorted. “Let’s get out of here, we’re not too far from the exit.”

Around the corner she found that Aaron’s group had efficiently dispatched at least ten poachers. The smoke around her made her eyes water, each step caused her foot to scream out in pain.

They moved on towards a door labeled with a picture of a staircase. Aaron pressed a small, black device against the door. As it rumbled, he pressed a few buttons and something clicked into place. He shouldered the door open and they all piled into the narrow stairwell.

It was cold inside. Aaron ushered them forward, Hector brought up the rear. He waited at the bottom of the stairwell, his gun pointed towards the doorway. She hated that he was at the end, that he was so vulnerable if the poachers came after them.

All she could hope for was that Nicolas would remain knocked out for at least a few more minutes giving them just enough time to make it out before Corina had the chance to finish up the lockdown.

Her foot was slowing her down. Pushing herself to her breaking point, she rushed up the stairs. When they reached the final floor, Rachel let out a small cry of relief.

“Are you okay?” Hector asked. He spared a glance at her before he shut the door they’d come through and took the rest of the steps two at a time.

“I’m okay.” She lied.

Aaron and his group were waiting outside the door where the stairwell had deposited them into a lobby. Marble floors stretched out before them, white columns held up the vast ceiling. Floor to ceiling windows let in sunlight and an uncanny scene lay beyond them.

There was a thick fog weaving through the streets of the capital making it look as though it were sunset instead of midday. Ordinary people, dressed in their day to day attire littered the floor.

Only a few of them wore the grey city police uniform. The rest of them looked like ordinary people. The elderly, women, children, all piled on top of each other as they passed out.

Red tapestries and a giant chandelier cluttered the ceiling, creating a guide towards two massive, white doors.

“Put these on.” Hector told her, pointing down at his shoes. She took the thing he offered her-two stretchy shoe covers made out of rubber. As they ran, she struggled to place them onto her feet, pausing momentarily each time. They wrapped perfectly over her shoes but seared her skin where it touched her injured heel. She didn’t inspect the wound, too afraid that seeing it might make her freeze up with panic.

They’d almost reached the doors when a hoard of poachers erupted from an adjacent hallway. Their weapons were not guns that sprayed bullets; instead, they shot darts that she was all too familiar with.

She’d seen something like it before, in one of her simulations. The darts caught one of the masked men in the thigh. He hollered in pain, his leg becoming a dead weight as he struggled to drag it forward.

She remembered Nicolas’s orders not to kill.

“Rachel,” a voice announced. “Rachel, stop.”

She couldn’t see Nicolas but his voice was streaming through speakers hidden somewhere in the room.

“Stop this nonsense now before any of your friends get hurt.”

Two of the masked men sent grenades skittering across the smooth, marble floors. Hector abandoned the gun that he’d had trained on the poachers to wrap his arms around her, shield her head and body from the explosion.

The doors by the entrance imploded, letting a thick swirling mist into the open foyer. The room was quickly overrun by the fog, slipping delicately into every crack and crevice, leaving nothing untouched.

Metal doors began to descend from every visible doorway. The poachers jumped out of the way of the closing doors behind them like lost animals without a shepherd. They flung their elbows over their unmasked faces, continued to shoot darts at them.

“Don’t stop.” Hector ordered as he pushed on the small of her back to get her moving. She glanced behind her, tried to keep up with how fast the others were dashing for the now destroyed entrance.

A massive metal plate was beginning to peer out from the ceiling. Their masked comrades made their way out the doors. Aaron went down on one knee and shot at the poachers while he motioned with his left hand for Rachel and Hector to run through.

“I’ve got your back,” Hector shouted to Aaron. They had nearly reached the doorway, the metal gate now level to his shoulder. He turned around and shot at the poachers.

Aaron picked himself up, grabbed her by the arm and steered her towards freedom.

“Stun her.” Nicolas ordered through the speakers. “Do not let her out of here!”

The remaining poachers cocked their weapons, unable to disobey the command in their brains. The darts flew out, hit with wild inaccuracy. Aaron was struck in the arm, sending him crashing out into the sunlight.

Hector turned to throw his body in front of her but he was a few seconds too late. A stun dart struck her in the back, knocking the air right out of her lungs. She fell to the floor as if she no longer had limbs or a functioning body.

Hector’s arms caught her and they hit the floor together. He cradled her in the circle of his arms and pressed her close to him as they rolled under the closing metal door at the last possible moment.