Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly #1)(65)

“No—yes.” I swallowed, desperately trying to wet my mouth. “I do have a weapon. A knife.”

“Where?”

“In my boot,” I said.

The man knelt, and as soon as his knees hit the earth, I moved. I heaved my left leg backward at the knee of the man behind me. My foot connected with the edge of the kneecap. His leg rotated and crunched inward. I pushed my hips against him, and he fell back.

With my right leg I jerked my knee against the kneeling guard’s face and cracked his nose.

It all happened so fast—too fast for the third guard to react. I wormed away and barreled to the nitroglycerin hut.

The nitroglycerin has to stay at seventy-two degrees, and that means it needs a cooling system. If I can change the temperature, the guards will have something else to worry about.

I went to the first vat in the building. There was a thermometer with a knob marked

DO NOT ADJUST.

Footsteps beat nearby. My time was up. This knob had to be it. With all my force, I turned it. It broke off in my hand. I had expected resistance—not for the damned thing to break!

“She’s turned off the water!”

I jerked around and found two guards, eyes enormous in the dim light.

We all reacted at once.

I dropped the broken knob and scrambled from the vat. The two men bolted for the hut’s door. I dashed after them, away from the cloying stench and the now-broken knob. We skidded into the rainy night.

The guards roared a warning down to the riverside—“It’s gonna blow! Run!”—before fleeing toward the distant gate. Their red uniforms glowed in the drizzly darkness.

I sprinted to the shore and scanned for Daniel. He was still bound and gagged, struggling to stand on the slippery grass.

I dropped to his side and yanked the cloth from his mouth.

“What’ve you done?” he asked, his voice rough. Blood oozed from a gash in his lip, and his left eye was now completely swollen shut.

“I tried to scare the guards.” I reached for his bound hands. “I-I just wanted to pretend. To act like I changed the temperature, but the knob broke.”

He jolted away from me. “What temperature?”

“The nitroglycerin.”

“Did you turn off the cooling?”

“The knob broke.”

“What do you mean it broke?” He blinked rapidly and tossed his head to get the rainwater from his eyes. “Did you turn it off first?”

“Yes.”

For a half second he stared. Then the whites of his eyes bulged, and he redoubled his efforts to stand. “Get me up!”

“I need to untie—”

“There’s no time! Get me up!”

At the raw panic in his voice, my heart dropped into my belly. What had I done?

“Now!” he shrieked, and this time I did as I was told. I heaved him to his feet, and we broke into a run.

We sped over the grounds of the factory, past the nitroglycerin hut and up the long slope toward the gate. The factory’s fence formed before us, growing higher with each pounding step but still seeming so far away.

“Faster!” Daniel screamed, and I tried to accelerate. My feet slammed into the damp earth. I ran faster than I’d ever run before, but even with bound hands, Daniel sprinted ahead.

We reached the wagons. A voice in my mind nudged me to get the stolen dy***ite. After all this terror and loss, I couldn’t leave the prize behind. I veered right and surged toward the nearest wagon. I slid underneath. The sack was just where I’d left it, dry and safe from the rain.

“Eleanor!”

I darted back out. Daniel was searching for me, his eyes wide and wild.

“I’m here!” I bounded toward him, the sack slung onto my back.

We flew through the still-open gate and bore left down the long, empty road toward Philadelphia.

I experienced it all in a half-numb frenzy. The slats of the factory fence blurred as I streaked past, the rain hit my skin and soaked my clothes, the awkward weight of the sack banged against me with each step, and my lungs burned in desperation for more air.

But nothing happened. No explosion, nothing. We reached the drawbridge a quarter mile away and still no fires or booms blazed in the distance.

We stumbled to a stop inside the covered drawbridge, and I collapsed to my knees, certain I would vomit. The nausea rose heavy in my throat, and my bladder felt excruciatingly tight. My feet were raw from all the blisters that had to be bleeding by now.

Beneath the bridge, the Schuylkill River flowed lazily by. No carriages, no people in sight, only the gentle rain tapping the wooden roof. The calm of it all clashed with the chaos that still blazed inside me.

Daniel’s breathing rasped nearby, and a glance showed him slumped to his knees. I crawled to him and began to pick at his ropes.

“You must not’ve,” he said between gasps for air, “turned the right knob.”

The words echoed without meaning in my brain. My wet clothes clung to my skin, and I shivered with cold and exertion. My single line of coherent thought was focused on the task of loosening his ropes, on mustering more dexterity into my numb fingers.

Minutes ticked by, and at last the knots came free. I slid my hands beneath the ropes. Daniel flinched—I had stroked raw skin.

“You’re hurt.” My voice cracked.

“I’m lucky that’s all that happened.” He pushed unsteadily to his feet. “You could have killed us.”