CHAPTER 36 - BEATRICE
Today, Caleb does not come to test a new batch of serums. No one comes to see me.
Not even George comes to tell me how much longer I have to live.
So I lay there on the metal, staring at the ceiling and wondering what my life would have been like without this abduction. Would I be safe at home right now, waking up with my parents? Or meeting with Tobias and pecking him on the lips before he drives us to school.
I may not survive to find out.
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The door in the corner of the plain grey room opens and two guards walk in. They each take hold of one of my arms and quickly lead me out into the hallway. It is a long, straight passageway leading down at least two hundred feet in either direction, only to end at a door. Neither of my guards is George. I am led to the door to the left.
"What's going on?" My voice cracks from the lack of water. I haven't had any since last night right after Caleb left my cell. One guard opens the door without letting me go and pushes me up the stairs rather harshly. This hallway is darker than the last one. We climb what feels like a hundred steps before we reach a door. They had me in a basement this entire time. A deep basement, too.
One of my escorts knocks on the door and it swings open. I squint to see through the bright light that blinds me. And then the cold hits me. It's like a blast of ice in my lungs, hardening them into stone. For once, I can breathe clean air again.
The guards shove me out into a dank and dark alley. Huge buildings loom over each side of the alley, forming a barrier from the rest of the city. We were in Chicago city all along? One of the guards releases my arms, the other one still holding my left arm, and pulls out a device from his pocket and raises it to his lips.
"We have the girl. What is your next order?" he says in a gruff voice.
The communication device has a wave of static before a clear message gets through.
"Say goodbye to your dumb a**es," a familiar voice shouts from the other end.
Was that… Zeke?