The Wire Hanger

Chapter Twenty

"Up and at 'em, kiddo," Jezebel said quietly. I scrambled to my feet. Noah had already gotten up and repacked his backpack but for the blanket, as I was still lying on it. He gathered it up without comment as I stood.

"How are we getting out of here?" I mumbled to Noah, conscious of my terrible breath.

"No idea," he said.

Jezebel, still standing nearby, said, "Same way as everyone else."

"We're taking the subway?" asked Noah in surprise.

Indeed we were. Obadiah had us all gather at the stairway, then made us disperse so that we seemed more natural. He paired us off, much as we'd done in the Centre, and held the door open just a crack every few minutes. I felt a flash of disappointment when he paired me with Felix, but I was glad that Felix seemed like he knew what he was doing. He hooked his fingers around my elbow to guide me through the crowds of people rushing through the underground hallways. I wasn't sure I had ever seen so many people in one place and the effect made me a little breathless.

We didn't look back at the place where Delilah had lain last night; nobody would have known anything out of the ordinary had occurred. The floors had been scrubbed and the body hauled away, disposed of in some secret graveyard. A woman knocked into me on one side, nearly making me trip.

"You're fine," said Felix. "Just keep your head up. And your elbows out a little. Yeah, exactly like that. We're getting on this next train here, okay?" He frowned and looked over my shoulder, squinting into the crowd.

"Okay," I said. "Is something going on?"

"Nah," he said, "all good. Let the people off first. In we go."

And we were swept in with the crowd. We didn't have seats, so Felix held onto the top bar, and I held onto his arm since I couldn't reach the bar overhead. The ride was jittery, but nobody else seemed to notice; a girl sitting down by the window was actually applying mascara as the train swayed side to side, without missing a lash. I noticed Felix crane his neck, looking over my head down the long line of the train, but didn't seem to find what he was looking for.

After a few stops, Felix tugged me with him into a different station and onto a different train. This one was newer, shinier, with handlebars I could actually reach. We only went three stops before we got off. We climbed the stairs into the sunshine and it was as though I'd been underground for weeks, I was so glad to see it. I could actually feel the sun soaking through my clothes and warming my shoulders, which felt like they would never get properly dry after the steam and damp of the underground.

"And back to the house!" said Felix, sounding chipper. He stretched his neck from side to side, lolling in the sun like a cat. Now and then he looked behind us, but didn't say anything. When I opened my mouth to ask he gave me a sharp warning look so reminiscent of Noah that I didn't say anything. We went through the network of laneways we'd used the night before; in the morning light they looked completely different, freshly washed and cheerful. You could imagine milkmaids more easily than you could imagine a band of rebels creeping through in the dead of night, but there we were.

Three knocks, then two, at the back door, and Hannah opened it, beaming. "Right on schedule, so glad to see you," she said, welcoming us in. I went in first, with Felix nearly trodding on the back of my heels; he cast one baleful look towards the backyard before firmly closing the door behind him. "The Professor's waiting for you in the kitchen. Breakfast?"

I followed her gladly, feeling a wave of exhaustion start to catch up with me. A few hours' sleep on a cement floor did not make for a restful night of sleep. In the kitchen I went right to the cupboards and started making myself some peanut butter toast, while Felix sat in the chair across from the Professor, who was making notes to himself.