Ordinaries

Chapter 14

It wasn't long before our jog became a heart-pounding sprint. After less than a minute, I heard the loud slam of the gate we'd come through, and shortly after, footfalls of boots on concrete began thundering through the tunnel. We all doubled our paces, and soon we were sprinting through the darkness.

"How close do they sound?" Camila yelled from somewhere ahead of me. I tried to listen for an approximate answer to her question, but the sound of running filled the entirety of the tunnel. I could barely make out the difference between our footfalls and the bounty hunters. I dared a glance behind me, but with no luck either; it was way too dark to see anything.

"I can't tell!" I yelled. "Just run faster!"

No sooner had the words left my mouth than I ran straight into a wall, knocking the wind out of my stomach. I gasped for air, vainly trying to draw breath. A small, dim green light glowed above what looked like a doorframe. Camila's face came into the light, a small scrape on her left cheek.

"Dang," Eric said. "That looks painful, Camila."

"I'm good. Just a little scrape. I'm not sure about Luke here though. He looks like he's trying to vomit."

I drew in a big breath, coughing as I regulated my breathing. "We need to go." The footfalls down the tunnel were growing louder and louder, and I could feel the ground vibrating more and more violently.

"Good idea," Eric agreed. He pushed hard on the door below the green light, but it didn't budge. "What the hell?"

I heard a jingling of keys before Camila popped up beside me and started inserting keys into the lock on the door. "Don't worry. I'm pretty fast with these now."

"Well I hope you're quicker than fast, because we're about to be stampeded."

"I know, Luke, don't pressure me!"

I watched anxiously as she stuck and unstuck key after key, her agitation becoming clear as she progressed. She inserted a small, black key and turned it with a satisfying click!

"Come on!" Camila urged, swinging the door open. We all flew through it and immediately slammed it shut after we were all safely on the other side of it. Camila stuck the key back into the lock and sealed it again. "That should buy us some time, but not much."

I turned around and tried to figure out where we were—long, dimly lit hallways extended in both directions, doors interspersed along the walls. Camila's eyes shone with fear under the same shoddy lighting that had illuminated the coliseum.

"Where are we?" Her voice quavered. "This place is creepier than that arena was."

In the silence after she spoke, her words seemed to echo down the hallways. The only other sounds were the flickering of the light beam above our heads and the muffled pounding of footsteps on the other side of the door we'd just come through.

"I don't know, but we need to move," I said. "Does anyone remember what tunnel Jade and Noah went down?"

Eric pointed down the hallway on the right. "That way. I'm not sure which tunnel exactly, but it was in that direction."

Camila and I nodded in acceptance; there was no time for arguing. We started jogging down the hall, and as we did, the door we'd come through began shaking and rattling. Again, we were forced to speed up our paces. If we were lucky, I thought, the hunters would split up down the hallways in an attempt to find us.