D. MacHale - SYLO

It took a second for her to register what was happening. I watched her eyes. They went from terrified to knowing. She released her grip. I let her go and without a second’s hesitation she hopped off her cot fully dressed, slipped on her sneakers, grabbed her hat, and led the way out of the barracks. It was as if she had been waiting for me.

She didn’t say a word until we left the building. I took her by the shoulders and guided her to the shadows on the side of the barracks and out of sight.

“What’s the plan?” she asked in a whisper.

“Kent is at the clubhouse. We’re going to hijack an ambulance.”

Tori nodded in understanding. She didn’t question. Just the fact that she was sleeping in her clothes meant that she was ready for anything. My coming to get her was far less of a surprise than I thought it would be. I suppose I would have felt the same way. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all if she had come for me.

“I’ve got to find my father,” she said.

“I don’t think he’s here,” I replied. “I’ve been looking. He’s nowhere in the men’s area or the recreation fairway and I didn’t see him at meals. Have you?”

Tori shook her head. “No, but I’m not leaving without him.”

“I get it, but I wouldn’t know where to begin looking. Not now. We’ve been lucky so far; nobody’s seen us. That won’t last.”

Tori was staring right into my eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I replied, suddenly self-conscious.

She continued to stare at me as if searching for the answer to a question she couldn’t quite grab hold of. Two seconds later, she had it.

“You’re on the Ruby,” she stated flatly.

“I am. Kent and I both are.”

“Damn. Are you okay?”

“Sort of, though I feel like I swallowed jet fuel. I did it to get us out of here. If you want, I’ll stick around to keep looking for your father, but whatever we do, we have to do it now.”

Tori started to argue but then thought better of it.

“Thanks for that,” she said. “And for coming to get me.”

“I knew where to find you. I can’t say the same about your father.”

“Okay, I get it,” she said. “Let’s get out of here and hope the rest of the world will help us get him out.”

I hate to admit it but I was relieved that we didn’t have to find Mr. Sleeper. Not that I didn’t want to rescue him, but looking for him would probably have sunk us all.

“One way or another, we’ll get him out,” I said. “I promise.”

“You can’t make a promise like that,” she said sternly.

“I can promise to try.”

Tori nodded. “I’ll hold you to that. How do we get out of here?”

I grabbed her hand and ran for the fence that would lead us back to the medical fairway and the ambulances.

“Whoa, slow down,” she whisper-yelled.

I had to consciously force myself to go slower because there was no way she could keep my Ruby-fueled pace. It didn’t take long for us to get back to the area I had climbed over earlier.

“There’s a guard outside the gate,” I explained. “Can you climb up the—”

She finished my sentence by hopping up on the fence and scaling it with the confidence of a cat. I stayed below in case she slipped. When she reached the top, I hyper-climbed up and back down the other side to get under her again. A few seconds later, she joined me on the ground.

“That’s just wrong,” she said with dismay.

It was, but I wasn’t about to stop and debate my decision to use the Ruby. We hurried back the way I had come, retracing my steps until we got back to the truck to find Kent still there, cautiously peering at the ambulance that hadn’t moved.

“I was about to give up on you,” he said without taking his eyes off the vehicles.

“Nice to see you, too, Kent,” Tori said sarcastically.

“There’s been some activity down there,” Kent explained. “But no driver.”

Tori looked around the enclosure, the wheels turning in her head.

“Why aren’t there more guards?” she asked. “It’s a prison. Shouldn’t there be more security?”

“Who cares?” Kent said. “That’s their problem.”

“Maybe now’s the time to get in the ambulance,” I suggested.

“No,” Kent shot back. “We could be sitting there for hours. We’ve got to—wait! Look.”

A SYLO guard walked quickly to the ambulance, opened the rear door, and climbed in.

“They’re getting ready to roll,” Kent declared. “Get down there and take him out before the driver shows up.”

“What do you mean, ‘take him out’?” I said skeptically. “I’m not some ninja.”

“You don’t need to be. Not with the Ruby. Open the door fast and punch his lights out. He won’t know what hit him.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Tori asked.

“Because I didn’t take it.”

At first I thought I hadn’t heard right.

“Wait—what?” I asked.

“I didn’t take the Ruby,” Kent said.

I grabbed him and spun him around to face me.

“Are you serious?” I screeched in an intense whisper.

“Why should we risk both our necks? I took the chance of smuggling it in—the least you could do is use it. And one of us has to be thinking straight.”

I wanted to punch the living crap out of him.

“That’s why you needed me,” I said, seething. “You didn’t want to take it yourself.”

“I nearly died on that stuff,” Kent said through clenched teeth. “It killed my father. No way I’d take it again.”

It suddenly made sense why he had been lagging so far behind ever since we had left the barracks. I was angry enough to hurt him, especially since I was fueled by the Ruby. He was lucky. Tori got to him first. She grabbed him by the throat and forced him to look at her.

Kent’s eyes bulged under the pressure.

“If anything happens to Tucker because of this,” Tori snarled. “I’m coming after you.”

“Then let’s make sure nothing happens and get the hell out of here,” he said in a strained whisper.

Tori pushed him away and Kent fell back against the truck, hitting his head and letting out a pained whimper.

“We’re on the same side here,” he complained. “Try to remember that.”

“I could say the same to you,” Tori shot back.

I snuck a peek around the corner and saw a guy who had to be the driver walking down the clubhouse stairs, headed for the ambulance. There wasn’t time to think or question.

“I’m going,” I said.

“You sure?” Tori asked.

“No, but it’s as good a plan as any. After I get inside, wait a second and then follow me.”

“What are you going to do to him?” Tori asked, wide-eyed.

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’ll be fast. I’ve got that going for me.”

I gave her a wink.

She gave me a nervous smile.

Before I could second-guess myself, I took off running. The more effort I put out, the more the Ruby produced. I covered the distance in what seemed like a second and yanked the rear door of the ambulance open. Kent was right about one thing—the guard didn’t know what hit him. I jumped in and tackled him like I was headed downfield on kickoff coverage. That much I knew how to do. The guard let out a grunt because I probably knocked the air out of his lungs. He hit the deck so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d broken some ribs.

Seconds later I was joined by Tori and Kent. They jumped inside and closed the door.

“What the hell are you doing back there?” the driver said.

There was a partition with a sliding glass window between the cab and the back of the ambulance…that the driver was sliding open. In seconds he would look back and see us all.