Flint and Steel: A Warren Worthington III Series

Chapter Six: Let Me Go

The walk through the earthen passageways is silent, interrupted only by the intermittent buzz of the LED panels guiding your way. Most of those, though, are broken from your fall through the ground, and you have to rely on the light of your fire to see where you're going. You can't see if Warren allows himself to shrink away from the flame in your palm because your back is turned, or because you already know the truth of how he feels. You won't let yourself look.

He tries, though. He tries to speak to you, to apologize, to say that his reaction wasn't what it looks like and he still trusts you. You ignore every call, and after a while, he stops trying. Why waste the breath on something the two of you know well? At the end of the day, he will always see you as a monster, and you will always wish that his feelings would change. No halfhearted lies will make that any different.

Every now and then, you hear the thundering of footsteps on the ground above your heads, sometimes so loud that the very walls of the passage shake and dirt falls down from the cracks in the corners. The passages are well built, you can admit that, but they won't keep Trask away from you for long. He's got many forces of men, all prepared to take down mutants. If you don't keep moving, he'll find you soon enough.

This becomes apparent after about fifteen minutes of walking, in which time you should have traveled most of the distance to the final stairwell leading up to the surface. The sound of boots crashing against packed earth comes again, but this time you hear it not above you, trying as if to tramp through the roof of the passage, but behind you, like they've made their way in. After a few seconds, you realize that the sound is getting louder. They're gaining on you.

At last, you break your Orpheus-like forward movement, and whip around to try and make anything out in the passage behind you. Warren does not disappear back into the underworld once you finally let yourself look at him, although he does seem to have the same regret written into every curve and line of his face, just as he seemed when you first fell into the passage and his true feelings became apparent.

You let a bolt of fire fly from your palm, and track its progress through the passage. About half a mile down, you can see the light from your fire reflect off of moving metal and rigid soldier's armor. You curse under your breath. "They've made their way into the passage. We have to get out, now."

You and Warren turn and start sprinting towards the end of the passage. You don't know how you're going to get out of this, but you have to at least try. After five minutes or so of running, the walls of the passage turn from blocked earth to the brick and concrete similar to the rest of the educational buildings. A few paces more, and you find yourselves at the base of a tall staircase.

You don't think, just take the stairs two at a time, moving as fast as you can. Your breath comes harsh in your lungs, but that doesn't matter. Trask's guards have been gaining on you, and you can't afford to lose even a second. Once you reach the top, your progress is stopped by a locked door. It seems to require a key card, one that you don't have. Your mind is scrambled from panic and the exhaustion of fleeing the soldiers for so long, so you just stand there and stare.

Warren, though, seems to know what to do. He wraps his hand around your wrist, heedless of the fire still dancing over your palm, and presses it against the lock. The smell of melting plastic wafts through the passage, and then you understand what Warren is trying to do. You increase the heat and pressure of the fire in your hand, and after a minute or so, the lock melts away and Warren is able to kick the door open. His hand stays on yours for a moment, and then the shouts of the guards ring in the passageway behind you and you both keep moving.

There are a few solitary soldiers stationed by the door, as expected, but you're able to take them down fairly easily. The only problem is that the fight, along with melting the lock on the door, has taken some time, and the guards are only a minute or so away from finding the staircase, and by extension, you and Warren. You can hear Trask with them, yelling to his soldiers to take care to stop you from using your powers.