Touch: Awakening

Part Twenty One

The thing has to be upside down. Or sideways. Possibly backwards. The datpad in my hands is one Drew left behind. On the screen is the old blueprint he'd unearthed, and I'm trying to figure out where the exits are located in the dome. I'm failing miserably, because the screen is covered in lines that slash across the picture but never quite end. Fitting, since the dome is round.

I set the datpad aside, pushing my hair away from my face. Brij's latest message is still up on my comm station monitor.

Nothing there.

No seam or bump or ridge in the wall. I have no way of knowing if Brigit actually tried to find it or not. While she didn't dismiss my claims outright, she didn't exactly take my word as gospel, either.

I get it. It's hard to hear something like what the Government's been covering up as the truth when you've been told the opposite your whole life. And I don't blame her. I hadn't found it on my own. Drew did. Or maybe he was told, too. Given the information to entrap me.

Thinking about him brings on a funny chest squeeze, so different from the one before. This one hurts, and the pain never quite subsides.

I huff out a frustrated breath and pick up the datpad. There have to be exits somewhere. I trace lines representing catwalks with a fingertip. The first people didn't magically appear in the domes. They had to willingly walk in.

The bottom. I'm an idiot. They'd be at the base. Which means there have to be stairs, or ladders, or fuck, lengths of rope to get from one catwalk to another. I scan the catwalk lines, squinting at miniscule numbers and words, hunting for something that designates the end. A search of the bottom of the blueprint yields the same result: nothing of use.

Apparently it's too much to ask that the exits be highlighted in bright, glowing colors, complete with arrows pointing me toward the stairs between each level. That leaves wandering outside the cells, searching for the way down. I glance at my comm station. I could ping him, ask him for Brigit's cell number. He owes me that much. He hasn't come by once, hasn't pinged me, hasn't dropped into my office or the library. He isn't waiting outside the lecture hall to walk me to the portal, and when I drop out, he's not coming through the wall, eager to get his hands on me once more. This break is as total and absolute as Bee's death.

My chest squeezes again. The space he used to inhabit is a black hole, growing larger every day, threatening to suck everything in and never let it go. Something tells me running from him won't make it go away.

The far wall splits with its familiar crack, and Drew rushes in. He yanks me off the couch and bands his arms around me, his face buried in my hair. I can't hear what he's saying over the roaring in my ears, because he's here. He stayed away for days and now he's not and I don't care because the pain is dissipating oh so slowly the longer he holds me.

Then his mouth is on mine, there and gone in a heartbeat, his hands cupping my face. "They're coming for you," he says, voice hoarse. "You have to leave now. They're coming, Alexis."

The full impact of his betrayal smacks me in the face again, and I shove him backward. "Fuck you. Making stuff up, right? You said you were making it up. Feeding them lies. So why are they coming for me?" I wrap my arms around my middle, and his gaze lowers to my belly.

"You're pregnant."

Could he tell the truth for once? One time. Is that too much to ask? I stumble backward as he advances, falling onto the couch. "Stop lying."

A loud hiss cuts off his response. Ignoring the noise, I scramble off the couch, away from him. "I want you to leave."

He's staring at the ceiling, not me, and I look up. An opaque white mist is pouring out of an unseen crack or vent and covering the ceiling, drifting down. "What is that?" My voice shakes as I watch the mist continuing to descend.