Green-eyed and anonymous, I stumble along the wall, whispering Gabriel’s name and looking for a biohazard suit. I find a closet of them and quickly adjust one over my clothes. There’s a harsh plastic smell inside, like being slowly suffocated. I take deep breaths that fog the face covering. It’s like being in a nightmare. It’s like being buried alive.
“Gabriel!” My whispers are becoming increasingly desperate. I am hoping he will just crash into me, or I’ll turn a corner and there he’ll be, mopping the floor or organizing storm supplies. And as I’m hoping I won’t have to open a door, I won’t have to open a door, I won’t have to open a door, I hear his voice. At least I think it’s his voice. It’s so hard to hear in this thing, and my own breathing is amplified in the confined space.
Something touches my shoulder, and I start. “Rhine?”
He spins me around, and there he is. Gabriel. In one piece. Not etherized on a table. Not bruised. Not dead.
Dead. The word trills through my head like the fire and the hurricane alarms, and I realize that’s what I’d feared underneath everything else. I throw my arms around him, and it’s awkward, with the helmet in the way, but I don’t care. I can feel his sturdy arms around me and I don’t care about anything else.
He eases the helmet off of my head, and sounds of the world outside my own breathing enter my ears. He’s laughing a little. The helmet falls. He squeezes me, says, “What are you doing?”
“I thought you were dead,” I say into his shirt. “I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead.”
It feels good to say the words. To relieve myself of them. To know they’re not the truth. He can hear the fear coming out of me. And his hand runs up my back, along my spine, and it crashes into my hair and holds the base of my skull. Holds me steady. And it’s like that for a while.
When we draw apart, he pushes the hair out of my eyes and stares at me. “What’s happened to you?” he says.
“What? I’m fine.”
“Your eyes.”
“Contacts. I didn’t want to be recognized, in case I ran into someone, and—What about you!” I cry, remembering the situation. “I haven’t seen you for days!”
He presses his finger to my lips to quiet me, and then leads me into one of the horrifyingly dark rooms. One of the places I most fear. But he’s with me and I know it will be all right. He doesn’t turn on a light, and I can smell cold metal, hear water dripping against a hard surface. In the perfect darkness I hold both of his hands and try to decipher his outline.
“Listen,” he whispers. “You can’t be down here. The Housemaster knows everything. He knows about the kiss. He knows you tried to run away. If he catches us together, I’m out of here.”
“He’ll kick you out?”
“I don’t know. But I have a feeling a body bag will be involved.”
Of course. How stupid of me. Nobody leaves this place alive. In fact, I’m not even convinced anyone leaves this place once they’re dead. More bodies for Vaughn to dissect. Is that what Jenna was trying to warn me about?
I imagine my eyes in a jar in one of Vaughn’s medical rooms, and I purse my lips against a wave of nausea.
There’s a good chance this is all one of Vaughn’s traps—the key card, putting Gabriel into the basement where he knew I’d look for him. He could be lurking around a corner, waiting to lock me in one of these rooms. The thought causes my pulse to hammer against my temples, but Gabriel’s presence overpowers my fear. I would never have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t tried to find him.
“How?” I say. “How does he know?”
“I don’t know, but he can’t see us together. Rhine, it isn’t safe.”
“Run away with me,” I say.
“Rhine, listen, we can’t—”
“I’ve found a way out,” I say, and I grab his hand and bring it to the key card hanging around my neck. “Linden gave me permission to use the elevator. And I found a way out. There’s a glitch in the trees that border the property. Some of them aren’t real. They’re a hologram.”
He’s quiet, and in the darkness it’s the same as disappearing, and I grab at his shirt. “Still there?”
“I’m here,” he says. He’s silent again, and I listen for his breathing. I hear his lips part, and he utters a fraction of a syllable, and I know, just know, that he’s going to use logic against me, and that will never do if I want to get out of this place at all before I die, so I kiss him.
The door is already closed, and in this isolated darkness, it’s almost like we’re not in the basement at all.
We’re in the infinite ocean with no continents in sight, and there’s nobody to catch us. We’re free. His hands are in my hair, behind my head, traveling the length of me.
The biohazard suit crinkles, making audible record of his movements.
He tries to break away every so often, getting out a “But—” or “Listen to me—” or “Rhine—” But I stop him every time, and he gives up, and I will this moment to last forever. I will the wedding band off my finger. I will us both to be free.
Until one time when we draw apart and I feel his forehead press against mine, and he says, “Rhine. It’s too dangerous. The Housemaster will do anything to protect his son. If he catches you running away, he’ll murder you and make it look like an accident.”