When the Sky Fell on Splendor(89)

Empty, I thought with relief, then lurched forward as fast as I could at the sensation of Levi’s face colliding with my butt. He was caught at the shoulders, Sofía stabbing through the material in hasty swipes around him. I reached out to try to tear more open but withdrew my hand just as fast as the knife swiped toward it.

A panel fell away and Levi was through, Sofía scrambling in after him. I faced the inner wall, a clear plastic panel with a zipper running through it to form a door. There was a small metal table lined with paper on my right, and on my left stood a jar-topped cart, full of swabs and cotton balls and medical tools.

It was an exam room.

Outside, the storm was picking up. A gust of wind tore down the side of the tent, rattling it, slapping the torn flap against the side. The whole structure stretched upward, shivering, then relaxed again, plunging the dark tent into silence as the wind let up.

“What now?” Levi whispered. Sofía gave a shake of her head and closed her eyes, a crease drawing between her brows as she concentrated. My eyes went instinctively toward her elbow. The scar had shrunk again, shriveled up like dehydrated roots. There was no more than a half inch left.

What happens if we get to him? I thought. What if we get in but can’t get out?

Sofía’s arm flew out and grabbed a fistful of my sweatshirt, keeping me still and low to the ground seconds before voices drifted toward us, muffled by the plastic.

My throat clenched. Pain pulsed behind my eye and throbbed in my bad ankle as two figures, blurred by the material, appeared in the hallway outside the exam room.

They moved past at a steady clip. When they’d disappeared, Sofía’s grip loosened and she moved forward, whispering, “We have to get to the center.”

Levi and I followed, bent like cartoon bank robbers. I pressed my face to the plasticky wall, trying to see down the hallway as Sofía unzipped the door and beckoned me and Levi through with a tip of her head.

The wall on our right was obscured, a nearly opaque white, but two more empty exam rooms were visible through the plastic sheeting on the left, metal tables and tool carts barely visible in the darkness.

The hallway dead-ended, jerking to the right at a ninety-degree angle, but Sofía stopped us just shy of the corner, waiting and listening.

Another trill of wind hit the top of the tent, punching the material down so loudly I bit my tongue to stop from shouting in surprise.

I looked up, peering through the darkness to watch another breathy smack hit the material, followed by two more. I pulled my focus back to the tent, instead of the storm brewing beyond.

Sofía peered around the plasticky corner, then took off running again, her steps crinkling in the post-wind silence against the squishy material lining the ground.

As Levi and I jolted after her, a pulse of pain went through my ankle, so severe that my knees buckled. Levi caught my arm, hauling me upright on a diagonal without slowing.

Halfway down the back hallway, Sofía stopped abruptly, and when I froze, I heard the soft squish-squish-squish of even footsteps coming from the tunnel that bisected the one we were in.

Sofía turned and pointed frantically back the way we’d come, shoving us along.

We sprinted back, spinning clumsily around the corner. Sofía grabbed a handful of my hood and stopped me from going any farther. Through the dark, I could see her pantomiming listening, cupping one hand around her ear.

The steps were getting quieter, until they were altogether gone. I studied Sofía, trying to communicate, WHAT THE HELL NOW. She nodded and turned back, and then we were off again down the back hall.

We paused at the intersection to listen, but the wind was pummeling the compound walls like massive fists. It was impossible to hear anything over it.

A sudden cramp in my abdomen doubled me over, and the shift in my weight made my ankle feel like it was cracking in half. I stuck out a hand to brace myself against the tent, but the whole wall was bucking now, waving and billowing.

It’s going to come apart, I thought dizzily. The storm’s too much.

Levi pulled my arm around his neck, balancing me against his side.

I shouldn’t have come with them. I was slowing them down. I wanted to tell him to go on, but I couldn’t do anything except grit my teeth through each new spasm and burst of pain.

Sofía leaned around the bend, checking that the coast was clear, then shot a look over her shoulder that was somewhere between ecstatic and terrified.

“This is it!” she whispered. “Droog came this way!”

She turned the corner and ran, Levi and I stumbling through a three-legged race after her.

The walls and zipped-shut doors on either side of us were opaque, but Sofía knew where she was going now. She stopped at the third door on the left and bent, pressing her ear to the wall.

Outside, the tornado-watch siren started to wail.

Even if Remy had been in there screaming our names, we might not have heard him.

Sofía stepped back from the door, appraising it.

There were no tears or scratches in the door panel. If Droog had made it in there, she’d done it without ripping through it.

More likely someone had found her. If she was lucky, maybe they would’ve just tossed her out, chalked it up to more strange animal behavior like the cow stampede or the suicidal birds.

But what would stop them from hurting her?

The world swayed. I could still taste globs of blood trapped around my molars, and the back of my skull throbbed where I must’ve hit the cement when I passed out in the theater parking lot. The inside of my body felt like hot, burbling poison, and the outside felt brittle. Levi pulled hard at my arm, keeping me on my feet as I sagged.