Tethered Souls (Tethered Twins Book 2)

Chapter Eight

Grace's body hit the steps with a horrific crunching sound and it was only through lucky timing that I managed to grab her head before her jaw smashed against the floor.

I cried out her name and held her head in my arms. She was all I had now. One of the only people left I could trust. I couldn't lose her. Not now.

Tom came dashing down the steps whilst the sound of more gunshots echoed outside the tunnel. Chris jumped in and pulled a large steel grate across the entrance, sealing us inside and trapping us in an underground cave filled with only darkness.

I held Grace against me and sobbed. Overhead lights kicked into action causing my eyes to sting and I kept Grace close to me whilst Chris and Tom checked her over.

"It's ok," said Chris. He placed his hands around the sides of my face to reassure me but I batted them away. He placed them back there again. "Listen. She has a pulse."

I looked down at Grace to see her eyes open and hear her utter a groan. "I hate bruises," she said.

Seeing the look of shock on my face Grace lifted her shirt to show me a thick layer of orange gel that coated the clothing beneath. "You're wearing it too Emmie."

I lifted the top Grace had given me and sure enough there was a second layer of thick gel on the clothing she had given me. The last time I'd seen this gel it had been worn by soldiers employed at TethTech and acted as body armour, The Deck must have repurposed the technology.

"March, you are a genius. That is all," said Grace to her comms device.

"So we're bulletproof?" asked Tom, presumably wanting to go on an invincible rampage.

"Only when we are wearing this clothing and only from a long distance. A close range shot or a knife will still break through the seal," clarified Chris.

"So can't we just cover our faces with the gel?" asked Tom.

"Sure," replied Chris, "if you don't want to breathe."

With Grace now on her feet we looked to her for guidance on what to do next. In the fall her GPS device had smashed against the floor leaving her without instructions.

"Jill?" asked Grace. "I need directions to the elevator."

The instructions were complicated but Jill promised she would walk us through them step by step.

"But won't we lose signal underground?" I asked.

"Not thanks to TethTech," said Jill, "The earpieces you are wearing were made to be used for warzones in urban areas. So long as they can find signals from other technologies such as the Underground Wi-Fi they will keep us in constant contact. It's the same way March kept in touch with you in the sewage tunnels."

The underground was surprisingly warm, given the mild climate outside and it felt like someone had left the heating on full blast. As uncomfortable as it made me feel, anything was preferable to the dank cold of the sewers.

We proceeded down the stairs and into what had once been the main ticketing area, past freshly printed posters declaring 'A New London, A New State.'

Whilst the city above us had become a twisted shadow of its former self the station was seemingly unaffected.

Its tiled floor shone as if recently waxed and the metal structures around us reflected the interior onto beautifully polished surfaces. The ticket machines looked as if they had just been installed and even the screws and brackets that held in place the fittings had a bright grey shine.

In this broken city the most worrying place to be was not the streets of decay, it was this pristine prison. If the station had been cleaned and renovated then that meant people were here and that this was not a safe place to be.

"The first part of warzone regeneration," said Chris. "They fix the city's infrastructure, so that soldiers and workmen can travel easily and then they get started on the rest."

We jumped over the turnstiles and made our way down a giant double escalator. The room was flooded with light, highlighting the giant stone structures which ran across the ceiling above us. We ran down the escalator knowing that this room would not be a good location for a shootout.

At the bottom of the escalator the corridor branched off to different platforms. A giant bronze coloured circle sat flat on the ceiling above us indicating the end of the walkway. It snaked around to the platforms with white florescent lights shining across it; little glowing beacons perfectly illuminating our location.

Grace went through a passageway marked 'Jubilee Line' and quickly turned back towards us. Her face said all we needed to know; people were here. We quickly looked around for an exit. There was nowhere to run. We'd never make it back up the escalator in time and the room we were in now was completely exposed.

She motioned for us to come towards her and we pressed our bodies up against the wall. Grace stood next to the walkway on one side with Chris on the other. They looked up at the newly polished ceiling and could see the reflection of the soldiers as they approached through the opening.

Working in unison Grace hit the first soldier in the jaw whilst Chris pulled his soldier out from the opening, placed a hand across their mouth and smashed their head against the wall. Grace's soldier lay unconscious on the floor but Chris was not yet finished with his. He retrieved his gun and held it up towards the soldiers' head.

"How many more of you are there?" said Chris, his voice quiet so as not to draw attention but still filled with malice. He removed his hand slightly from the soldier's mouth but the soldier started to scream out for support.

Chris shoved his hand back in place and jammed his gun into the soldier's temple. He clicked the safety off his weapon and asked the question again, louder this time. The soldier looked back at him without fear. The man did not shake or wince, he welcomed his fate.

Angry now, Chris fired his gun several times towards the escalator. The sound of the gun firing made little noise thanks to his silencer but it did make the tip of his gun incredibly hot, something Chris relied on as he pressed the barrel of the silencer across the skin of the soldier where it started to blister him.

"I have a lot of bullets so I can do this for quite some time."

Now we could see fear in the soldiers eyes as he realised he was no longer dealing with a bunch of amateurs. The searing pain caused his eyes to tear up. He nodded his head to indicate he was willing to help, so Chris removed his hand.

As the last one of Chris' fingers gave way the man moved his jaw forward and clamped his teeth around it. He pulled his mouth to the side breaking Chris' finger with a loud crunching sound.

The soldier reached down for his weapon but before he could fire, a bullet ruptured through his skull. We looked towards the source of the bullet to see Tom holding his weapon, a look of horror on his face.

He looked at the gun, then back at the soldier and at the gun again unsure what he had just done. "I didn't mean to kill him," he mumbled.

"It was life or death, kid," said Chris as he cracked his little finger back into place. He seemed untroubled by any pain. "You could have saved my life back there. You did the right thing."

Tom's face seemed to clear as the guilt was lifted from him. It was an easy way to justify what he had done and to gain some connection again to the real world. Tom was not a stone cold killer yet but he was well on his way.

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