Chapter 17, Part 2

Mariah spent the rest of the day curled up on her bed. Waiting. Freezing every time a guard sauntered by on patrol. This time the terror was ten times worse than when she had punched through Kyle’s hand. This time they knew something was up. Dinner was delivered and she started to relax a little until she had the horrible thought that they were probably checking through all the security footage, looking for any other anomaly. Which meant they would probably find the recent incident. Hopefully they wouldn’t have seen her late night expeditions. Because she needed to do it again.

Staying awake wasn’t a problem. She was wired on adrenaline and the memory of Kyle getting zapped by the tasers. If nothing else, she just wanted to make sure he was ok. Once her watch flicked over to midnight, she began the process; sinking through her bed and crawling out and over the cell block to Kyle’s cell. She cautiously slipped through the wall and under Kyle’s bed.

“Kyle!” she whispered.

“Over here,” a tight voice replied. She turned her head to see Kyle sitting on the floor in the corner under the security camera. Her heart picked up its pace as he opened his eyes – glowing spots of orange in the darkness.

“What happened to your eyes?” she dared to ask.

“My body holds current, so whenever they ramp the voltage up on those things…” His eyes shuttered close.

“Can you do your zappy thing and let it out?”

“I’d fry everything in here.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s not worth it.”

Mariah didn’t want to know what had happened last time.

“Why are you over there?” she asked.

“Figured out a while ago that the cameras can’t really see you in this corner.”

“Oh.” She paused for a second before asking, “What do you think they’ll do to us?” She jumped as sparks flew between Kyle’s hands and he grunted.

“I’m not sure. Nothing like that had ever happened before. They’ll go through everything and try and figure it out first. Probably.”

That’s comforting. “We need to get out of here.”

“You should go. Tonight. You can get out right now,” Kyle said.

“No. I told you we’d get out together. We can both go.”

“I can’t. I’d kill you as soon as you touch me right now. And I’ve got a tracker implanted in the back of my neck.”

“You what?”

“Yeah, they don’t trust me for some reason.” Mariah was glad to hear a bit of humor in his voice. “They’ve protected it from my…ability, but I can still fry it if I need to. Only problem is that much current knocks me unconscious. Last time I was out for thirteen minutes and thirty-six seconds. You aren’t tagged with a tracker yet, so get out of here.”    

Mariah was tempted to take his advice and bolt. Everything urged her to. She could make it out. She knew the exact layout of the building, but she had no idea what was beyond the walls. At least Kyle sort of knew where they were. And there was no way she was leaving him here. She considered them to be friends by now and she thought that maybe he felt the same.

“No, like I said, we’ll get out together.”

“You’re an idiot.” But there was some relief in Kyle’s voice.

“We need to go soon. How long will it take for you to get back to normal?”

“Depends. I’ve been letting it out in small bursts. Maybe by sometime tomorrow.”

“Ok. We’ll go tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow?” He sounded a little panicked.

“Yeah. The parking garage is right underneath us. You can drive, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because I only barely got my learner’s permit.”

“You’re going to have to drive for a while. I’ve got to disable the tracker before we go anywhere.”

“Great,” Mariah muttered. She wasn’t very good at driving. On some level, she was still terrified of them ever since the crash that had taken her family and woken her power. “Then what?”

“I know roughly how to get out of here. If we can make it to a town, you can try and get in contact with Cassie and they can come and get you.”

“What about you?”

“I’m the one who was chasing her. They’re not going to want me there.”

“Too bad. I’m not just going to leave.”

Sparks flew again. “You really are an idiot then.”

She rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see. “I should get back. Whatever happens tomorrow, we’re getting out.” She willed determination into her voice. They had to get out. “We’ve got the start of a plan. I’ll plan a route down to the garage, and you plan from there.”

“This might not work,” Kyle warned.

“We’ve got to try.”

Hey, guys! Sorry for missing last week. I was out of town and thought I’d have internet to post but didn’t. Grr.