The Higher Define (2018)

7

"Where have you been?" The door to a room not far off from where Kayla and I fought is ajar and I see Cali peeking from inside.

I turn to check that no one has followed me before I join him, sliding in through the gap and softly closing the door behind me.

"You're kidding, right? You lost me and left me to fend for myself." I say. The pain that furrows against my jawline doesn't hurt as much as before but I'm almost certain that something's broken.

I quickly summon my code to go through the damage and enter a string of numbers to heal when Cali smacks me on the shoulder blade, hard.

"What's that for?" I hiss, my voice low.

"Don't use your code. I think they're tracking us." Cali answers and I close the tab that runs across my contacts.

"What else do you know? You seem to have a thing for keeping vital information from me." I say coldly.

Cali's eyes darken and he shakes his head.

"Not now. Not here. Our priority is to escape."

"Right. Another thing you didn't let me in on- where the exit is." I reply sarcastically, massaging my arm- bruised and dark from the punches Kayla threw.

Cali rolls his eyes at me, "There's a hidden exit in this room." Without saying anything else, he crosses to the back of the room, gets on his knees and starts to create a dent against the wall with his shoe.

"Are you crazy? They'll hear us!" I race over and try to pull him away from the wall but he's strong and he doesn't budge.

"No, they'll come and get us if we don't leave!" Cali answers as he continues to make indents in the wall. The noise that he creates bounce off the walls of the room and I shiver, praying that Courtney and Kayla are occupied with Kayla's injuries.

"Will you hurry?" I plead. Cali shakes his head but doesn't respond, his focus on making the hole in the wall bigger.

That's when I see it. The material that the walls are made off gives way and crumbles, allowing a thin reel of light to enter the room.

Real light. Light from the moon.

"Is is just this room?" I question as I throw a kick at the wall, silently urging for the wall to give way faster.

"This is the room closest to us. There are other rooms like this that lead out to other parts of the living space- they're here just in case Defines come storming in." Cali answers, slightly breathless from smacking the wall repeatedly with the tip of his sneakers.

I nod, sending a continous string if kicks to the wall. The hole grows big but I fear that we may not have enough time. My lungs ache with fear everytime I pick up a sound that isn't from this room and I estimate how long Courtney and Kayla will take.

"Alright, we don't have enough time to create a man-size hole. We need to crawl through the gap." Cali flattens himself on the floor and turns to me, "Follow my lead."

I jerk my head to acknowledge his order and watch, with bated breath, as he squeezes through the gap. He wiggles right through the upper remains of the material, keeping his arms close to his sides and shoes low to the ground.

When his body disappears behind the wall, I follow suit and drop to the floor, wriggling like he did, forcing my body through the hole. It's big enough that I can squeeze through but I doubt that Kayla can make it, should she find the hole, with her sustained injuries.

I find myself crawling into an compressed area- a square space with three walls and a ladder propped against the wall before me.

"We need to put distance between them and us." I say.

"But where do we go?" There is pain in Cali's voice and as I look at him, I realise that he's right.

I have ruined everything. There's no place for him to return to- not here and certainly not the Hub where he doesn't belong.

I destroyed his only home.

"I- I don't know." This time, my tears defeat me. I let them slowly trail down my cheeks, turn the dirt streaked across my face soggy and saturated.

"Look, Cali. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything."

"What?" Confusion clouds his face as he starts to ascend the rungs on the ladder.

But I don't want to apologise to him while we're both in the midst of escaping.

"N-nothing." I save my apology for later and begin to wrap my hands around the rungs when I see that Cali has made some progress.

The climb feels like eternity.

When I tilt my head up, I can see the moon that hangs in the sky, casting its glow on the silver of the rungs and I wonder if outside will ever be the same.

If it's all in ruins. If I have truly destroyed the only place that the Corrupts have ever known.

When we finally make it to the top, I grab Cali's hand and he draws me out of the hole.

The smell of smoke perpetuates the air as the two of us begin to walk in the direction of the blazing bright light.

The green fence stands close and when we finally reach it, my heart sinks to the bottom of my chest.

There's not a single sound or noise that I can discern. The surroundings are dead quiet and I am left to wonder if this is because everyone is dead or everyone is gone.

Cali looks as if someone has been strangling him this whole while.

"Let's go." He says softly but I catch the tears that swim in his eyes. He plucks at the green fencing and climbs over, refusing to speak another word.

The silence is horrible.

When we descend to the other side of the fence, I try to break the silence.

"When you were in the other rooms, did you see a bunch of files, too?"

That's when Cali sighs and the look on his face turns taut with finality.

"Look here, Aspen. I don't want to discuss about this right now. I want to find out if Parker and my friends are fine, alright?"

I open my mouth to argue but he holds up his hand which causes me to falter.

"You might not have any friends here but I do. This was where I lived, this was where I made friends and had fun. I know that you can return to the Hub at anytime but I've got nowhere else to go."

"Maybe if you didn't choose to be a Corrupt, you would have." The words leave my mouth before I can stop to think about them.

They sound cruel and it makes me wince.

I'm not terrible, am I? I'm not the cruel type of person who would say something like that, right?

Except that I said it.

Pain flashes across Cali's features as he takes a step away from me.

"You know what? I tried. I tried to be your friend, to be there for you but I guess everyone else is right. Spencer said that you only care for yourself and I see that now."

"You have got to be joking! You can't possibly think that Spencer's right! He kept his fair share of secrets from me!"

"Do you even hear yourself, Aspen? Just- just leave me alone." Cali looks at me almost pitifully and I want to slap him. Slap him for ever thinking that Spencer might be right, for blaming me when he's the one keeping secrets. For choosing to be Corrupt when a chance at a better life was offered.

"You know what? Fine! I'll leave you alone! It's not like any of you are up to my standard!" I yell at his retreating back, trying to force anger into my tone.

No matter how hard I try, though, the sadness won't leave my lungs. The anger that I tried to muster won't come, either.

I'm left to wonder if Cali and Spencer are right. If I'm the one who's always ruining everything.