Page 95 of The Hero Within
But Arik surprised her. "They captured Nnedi when we were eighteen. The alpha at the time refused to go after them, so I headed for Cortez. My family practically raised her, so I couldn't just move on the way everyone else expected. Knew I couldn't sneak into the city, so I walked up to the gates. They took me down, and I woke up in Camp Ragnarök. Head shaved, barcode on my wrist, chained and naked. Took me three months to find her. The women have their own barracks."
"Took you another three years to get out," Lincoln muttered.
No wonder Arik pissed dominance and bled arrogance, as Johnny had muttered to her at lunch.
"But we did get out," Arik replied. "I got her back; that's all that matters."
"I'm surprised she didn't want to come along," Eden said.
Arik's shoulders stiffened.
"That's why he brought me," Lincoln replied. "If he took himself out of the equation, I'm the next warg who can rule the pack, which means if we're both not there...."
"Nnedi had to stay behind," Johnny muttered. "Bet that went down well. Nothing like being told you should stay behind so you don't get hurt."
She looked at him.
Johnny arched a brow.
Despite their conversation, she still felt uneasy at the thought of what she was leading him into.
"There's the dam," Arik said, crouching as he paused on the top of a hill next to some sagebrush. He pointed to the base of the wall. "We go in through there. There are all sorts of service tunnels and water drainage pipes. It's not going to be fun, but you can do it if you're strong enough. And the enforcers patrol the top of the dam, but they're not really keeping an eye on the drains."
"Lead the way, Cap," she said, before her aching body could talk her out of it.
They were so close to Cortez City and her cure, that she could almost feel it in her hands.
Tick tock.
"You ever getthe feeling this is too easy?" Eden muttered, as she landed in a tunnel.
Johnny had dropped her through the grate. Water splashed around her ankles. Or at least she hoped it was water.
Johnny landed beside her, water skating up her jeans. Above them, light bled through the grate, but the tunnels were black.
"Wait for it," Arik warned. "The best bit's ahead."
Light bloomed as Johnny lit a torch. Its flame hissed in the near dark, but at least she could see.
"Excellent," she muttered. "A billion steps?"
"Not... quite."
They sloshed through the tunnels, with Arik in the lead. Eden's feet began to numb. She'd never been in water this cold. Most of the time in the Wastelands, water was warm.
A trickle of light began to take the edge off the darkness, along with the rushing sound of water. It sounded like... a waterfall.
And Arik headed straight for it.
"We don't have to jump off anything, do we?"
"Nope."
A sheet of water broke the tunnel ahead of them, and light filtered through it. Arik vanished under the spray. Then Lincoln. Eden squealed under her breath as she darted through it, getting instantly soaked.
Light broke over them as she found herself on a narrow ledge in a man-made cavern of some description. No, a hollow tower. Far above them, she could see the sky. Below them, the water vanished into nothingness.
"How good are you at climbing?" Arik called, peering up through the hollow tower. Water sloshed down its sides, as if they opened grates to change the level of the dam above them.
