Page 79 of Lessons in Power
He’s okay. Henry’s okay.As we took off running for the library, I fought the urge to glance back over my shoulder.No blood, I thought.There was no blood. Not on Henry. Not on the gunman.
“He’s unconscious,” Henry said as we hit the library door. “He won’t stay that way.”
Maybe one of us should have grabbed the gun—but I didn’t know how to shoot it. I doubted Henry did, either.
We have to find a way out of here. We have to find the tunnel before someone comes looking for the man Henry took out.
How long did we have? Seconds? Minutes?
Fueled by adrenaline, I pushed forward. Where had the Secret Service agent been heading?
If I were an entrance to an underground tunnel, where would I be?
“The tunnel’s under us,” I told Henry. “The entrance probably is, too.”
I squatted down, running my hands frantically over the floor. There had to be something. I looked for a flip, a switch, a crack in the floor—
“Here,” Henry called. He threw his weight against a bookshelf. It creaked, then started to move. I hurried to help him, not questioning how he’d found it, how we could have possibly gotten so lucky when—
“This way!”
I heard the shout, and then I heard running—toward the library, toward us. The bookshelf gave way. Something clicked, and a second later, I was looking into a dark hole.
The tunnel—if we were lucky.
“You go first,” Henry told me. “Give me the tablet, and go.”
There was no time to think, no time to waste. I handed him the tablet, then dropped down into the hole and landed hard. I looked up.
“Go,” Henry told me again. There was a finality to his tone, and I realized then why he’d asked for the tablet.
He’s not coming.
“Henry!” My yell was lost to the sound of the bookshelf moving back into place. A second after the entrance closed, therewas silence, and a moment after that, I heard the sound of feet overhead.
Of gunshots.
They won’t hurt him. He’s a high-value target. He has to be—
There was no way back up.
I have to go.
I had to get help. For Henry—and Vivvie and Emilia and all the others. I stumbled in the dark, feeling my way to the tunnel wall. It was cool and damp to the touch. I kept moving—running, stumbling, falling and getting back up.
I’dcrawlif I had to.
They have Henry.I didn’t let myself consider the possibility that there was no Henry anymore, like there was no John Thomas. I didn’t let myself think about Henry’s face belonging to a body and not a boy.They have Henry. They have Vivvie. They have Emilia.
I pushed myself forward. Finally,finally—there was a break in the darkness. The closer I got to the end of the tunnel, the easier it was to make out the slants of light. On the ground, I could make out the outline of two long-dead glow sticks.
Three days.It had been three days since the party, one week since John Thomas had been killed.
It had been less than ten minutes since I’d left Henry, less than an hour since the armed men had fired their first shot.
I put my hands flat on the iron door to the tunnel and pushed. My body protested. So did the hinges on the door, but a second later, it gave. I heard the sound of running water.It must have rained, I thought. The drainage ditch had been dry on Friday, but now I slogged through water to get to a single metal rung. I put my footon it, hoisted myself up. Removing the grate was easy, but getting through was harder wet and alone than it had been on Friday.
I threw my upper body against the ground overhead for purchase. I made it out. I made it to my feet. And then I heard the voice behind me.
