Ever Hayes - Redemption

“But, how did you—”

“Hayley, you have to just accept it, okay? I don’t have it. Doesn’t matter how, why, or anything. It’s the way it is.”

“Danny, what—” I stopped talking as he turned away from me and walked back toward Ava.

Blake grabbed my arm, keeping me from following him. “Let him go. He has a lot on his mind. Even though it feels personal, just let him get through this. He’s as pissed off as I’ve ever seen him right now. That’s probably to our advantage. Let him be.”

I nodded. I understood, even if I didn’t like it. “But he lost the tablet?”

Eddie suddenly spoke up. “I buried it with Cera. Danny asked me to turn it on and leave it with her.”

“Remember how he told us the GPS wasn’t working on it?” Blake asked me and I nodded. “Well, he’s not so sure about that now.”

That would explain how the soldiers found us so quickly . I suddenly felt terrible. I should have just trusted Danny.

“Did he message Hawaii then?”

“No.” Blake zipped up his pack. “It was smashed, but if the GPS was working on it, he didn’t want anyone following us anymore.” He slung the pack over his shoulder. “We should get going.”

According to Blake, we were a couple miles south of Keller Peak in the San Bernardino Mountains, not far from Breakneck Creek—which descended from Big Bear Lake into the town of Redlands.

“There’s usually not a lot of water between Big Bear Lake and Redlands,” Blake said. He showed us on the map where Bear Creek ran all the way down the mountain from just beyond our location to the city of Redlands. “But this is the greenest I’ve ever seen this place in summer,” he continued. “There was such a terrible drought last time I was here. Has to be a strong El Nino year.”

The El Nino reference meant little or nothing to the rest of us. It looked and felt like we were still in Colorado. Guess I really take green for granted . Blake told us the government had built a dam at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, a few miles northeast of Riverside. That’s where all the streams and roads intersected coming out of the mountains—and where he expected the most troops to be waiting. That’s where we were heading.

I wasn’t sure how we’d get to Disneyland from Redlands, or if we even could, but I knew I had to take this one step at a time—all six of us did. Danny repacked his first-aid kit and stood, helping Ava to her feet. “Ready?” he asked me.

“Yes.” I nodded and helped Flynn up. “Danny, I’m sorry for—”

“Forget about it.”

I nodded and remembered Blake’s advice. Just let him go.

Blake took point—leading the way carefully down the rocky stream. Danny’s last words before we followed Blake were ominous ones. “Remember, guys…they’re still looking for us.”

The mud and rubble covering the ground floor of the pink house was deep. It was heavy. It was not moving. The four members of the Pack struggled to clear out an area they could dig in. They were trying to break through the concrete to reach the cell below, but they were having little luck. Deacon and Royce kept sweeping mud and water away, while Trigger and Twix pounded at the floor with rocks as hammers and steel rods as chisels. They chipped away an inch or so every five minutes. It wasn’t enough.

Trigger dropped the large rock he was holding. “Guys, we’ve got less than a half-hour until they’re out of oxygen in there. We’re going to have to blow this damn thing.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” Royce disagreed. “We’ll kill them all.”

“Or make them all permanently deaf,” Deacon added.

“What choice do we have?” Trigger asked. “We’re not going to get through another foot, two, or three and probably rebar with just these stupid rocks. That’s not happening.”

“Say we blow it,” Twix chimed in as he continued to pound at the floor. “How do you see this going, Trigger?”

“Best-case scenario? We find a corner of the floor as far away from where they are as possible and blow it open. We dig out that area to get the water to flow out and create some breathing room in there. That buys us time.”

“What if it caves the whole roof in?” Royce was unconvinced. “That’s what might happen.”

“It could happen,” Trigger admitted. “I’m no explosives expert.”

“But maybe just part of it caves in,” Twix offered. “Maybe it gets us in there.”

Trigger held up the TNT he’d brought along. “We’ve only got one shot, y’all. It doesn’t work—or it works too well and—”

“I don’t like it.” Deacon shook his head, but anticipating the response of the others, he held up his hand. “But… I don’t see a better option.”

They set about finding a corner of the house as far from the cell as they could get and began furiously digging. They needed to get deep enough and chip into the floor enough to plant the explosive so it would at least rip that corner out. With only minutes to spare, they had dug about five inches down into the floor and set up the explosives. There was a chance the girls or Sam could already be out of air.

Trigger decided he needed to swim down the tunnel and into the basement. He needed to be underwater when it exploded to be able to help immediately from underneath if he could. It was another element of the plan the others hated, but it could actually be the lifesaver for everyone trapped down there.

“When I dive under, wait forty seconds, then light that fuse. It should only be a ten- to fifteen-second fuse. I need to try to reach them to get them to plug their ears. You guys need to clear out, then get to this corner as quick as you can to make sure that water drains out.”

Everyone confirmed they were on the same page. They traded quick hugs and fist bumps and then Trigger was in the water. When he disappeared, Twix started his watch. At forty seconds, he tried to light the fuse, but it was wet—it wouldn’t light.

Twix didn’t panic, but he knew he was losing valuable time, and Trigger was down there holding his breath. His watch passed the minute mark.

Underwater, Trigger had reached the cell bars. He grabbed Reagan and pulled her right up next to his face. He couldn’t see her clearly through the murky water, but he hoped she could see him. He gestured for her to plug her ears and get to the far corner of the cell. She swam away—pulling Sam and the girls with her. Trigger grabbed on to the cell bars, bracing himself for the explosion he was expecting any second.

It didn’t come when it should have though, and with each passing second he feared it might not come at all. He was going to have to make a choice to swim away from the bars—toward the dynamite—to get back out the tunnel, or hold on until he ran out of air. If he swam toward the tunnel and it exploded, he was likely dead. If he held on and the explosion never came, he’d die down here with the others. He decided he was staying. It was up to Twix to detonate the explosives.

Twix ran for his pack and ripped it open, pulling out a flare. He fired it up and sprinted back to the explosive device, tipping the flare down toward the wick. It lit immediately, but halfway down the wick. Twix stood to run away, but he only made it three steps before the dynamite exploded. It launched him through the air and ripped a huge hole in the corner of the building. Water exploded out of that corner like the spout of a whale, and Deacon and Royce ran to dig it out more. They hadn’t seen Twix after the explosion but couldn’t afford to look for him yet. They cleared a three-by-three foot hole and the water level dropped enough to create a foot of air space in the basement, but Trigger hadn’t emerged yet.