Chapter Forty-Five

Delaney

Silence rang out after Abby's calm statement—thick, heavy silence that felt just a little bit too resigned. It was almost as if, between her serene expression and relaxed posture, Abby had just accepted her fate to be one of certain death.

And perhaps she had.

"They have to save us," I insisted, leaning forward.

Abby stared at me for a long moment before shaking her head and laughing almost sympathetically. "Oh, they have to, do they?" She snorted. "They didn't make any promises. And even if they had, I don't think they would mind breaking them."

I glanced desperately at Trai, who shook his head at me, silently agreeing with his sister. I floundered for a response, but wasn't thinking properly; instead, I found myself fighting another wave of dizziness. It was only a moment before the spell had faded away, though it didn't leave me in anything close to a better state of mind.

"What, then?" I demanded, rattling against my bonds. "What happens to us?"

Abby shrugged. "It'd be easier to answer that if Nessa had given us a better idea of the Pro-Inferiors' plan. Since we have no idea what's going to happen, all we can do is wait and hope that someone stumbles upon us eventually. Thing is, though, I doubt anyone will."

I blanched. "That's not reassuring," I murmured, still lightheaded. "At all."

"Yeah, well, it's reality." Abby's tone was dry, harsh, but I could see in her eyes that she, too, was concerned about our plight.

I stared at the glass wall opposite us, looking out into Dr. Leary's main laboratory, where the vats of developing human bodies lurked just out of sight. Despite Trai and Abby's doubts, I couldn't lose the sliver of hope that somehow, we'd be okay. We had to be. Maybe it was the fever playing tricks on my mind, but my desire to be rescued was so strong at that moment that I thought it might actually happen.

Based on Abby's expression, though, she didn't think anything of the sort.

"So that's it?" I demanded fiercely, glaring sideways at Abby. She hung her head, but didn't respond.

Abigail Kaiser, queen of bold remarks and snarky comebacks, did not respond.

I leaned way forward in my seat, ignoring the way the bands tightened, ignoring the pounding of my head and the sheen of sweat coating my skin. Abby wouldn't look at me, but I stared at her until she did. Through teeth clenched in determination and pain, I hissed, "You are not giving up, Abigail. No way; not after coming this far."

I made sure to keep my eyes boring into hers, freezing her whenever she tried to turn away. Yet her expression remained blank, cold—hopeless. I wasn't sure what had happened to incur her change of heart, but at some point when I was unconscious, Abby had apparently found a new perspective. All the dauntless, spitfire energy she usually possessed had disappeared completely, replaced with an acquiescent new guise. And I didn't like it.

I didn't like it at all.

"Abby, please," I begged. "You can't just give up. You're...you're..." I could only shake my head, unable to form the words that would validate my argument. I didn't know how to say that, despite her seeming dislike of me, it was Abby's unending stream of sarcastic positivity that kept me from losing hope on more than one occasion. She had a weird, tactless way of doing it, but Abby somehow managed to prevent us from diving into the depths of self-pity over and over and over again. Now, though, she was teetering on the precipice herself.

"Don't be an idiot," I managed weakly, after a long pause.

Almost immediately, Abby's eyes flooded with a murky emotion that I knew well: anger. Hope boiled up in my stomach in anticipation of an ardent response. But the rage faded as quickly as it had appeared, leaving tepid, dejected expression on her face.

"I'm not an idiot," she said, with only the slightest trace of her usual vivacity. "I'm a pragmatist. Before Leary left, he mentioned a breach. That can only mean that the Pro-Inferiors are here, and have been here for some time. If they intended to save us, they would have done so a while ago. But they didn't did they?" Her last words were whispers.

Again, I looked to Trai, hoping for some kind of support. He stared back and shook his head, his eyes conflicted, but his expression ultimately blank. Evidently, he wouldn't be of any help either. If anyone was going to do anything, it would have to be me.

"Fine, then," I said quietly, "if that's how you're going to be."

Abby sighed quietly, thinking I was done—but I was far from it. As she and Trai turned, angling their gazes away from me, I threw my body forward, straining as much as I could against the iron straps barring me to the chair. The motioned triggered an immediate reaction from the cuffs, and they resisted against my thrashing by tightening even more.

"Delaney, what the hell are you doing?" I heard Trai shout. "Stop it!"

Gritting my teeth, I ignored him, instead struggling with even wilder movements. My theory, farfetched though it was, was that after a certain point, the restraints would be unable to tighten any more, and, being that they were connected at the center, would retract enough for me to get out.

The chances of that were slim, but I didn't feel like I had any other choice. And so, again and again, I threw myself forward, wincing as the metal sliced my skin, carving dozens of scratches all over my body. My mind was reeling, unable to form any thoughts other than don't stop.

I didn't stop. For a short eternity, I thrashed and fought and struggled, locked in a battle with the insentient metal bands that wouldn't let me go. I could feel them crushing my body, squeezing me into a deadly embrace. One, positioned just above my collarbone, was closing in on my windpipe, choking me slowly. Blood coursed to my head in a torrent as my air supply was all but cut off, and I felt a disturbing cracking sensation from beneath the band on my ribs. Through my dazed eyes, I saw my hands turn red, then purple, but I had lost feeling in almost every limb.

I wasn't struggling anymore.

At that point, there was no fight. It was just me, gradually being suffocated by Leary's demented contraption. Through the sound of blood rushing in my ears, I picked up muffled voices, shrieking my name much as they had when the immunity injection had taken effect. I turned my head slightly, feeling the metal tighten and scrape the flesh of my neck, and saw Trai and Abby screaming, trouncing wildly so that their own bonds were tightening as well. I tried to tell them to stop, but I couldn't breathe, and no sound came out except a strangled croak. Fatigue was quickly eating away at my body, weakening it to the point and where I couldn't hardly move, much less speak, and the fever was raging again, my head was pounding, blood was making tracks on my skin, and just when I thought I couldn't take another second of the pain—

The metal bonds retracted suddenly, almost as if someone had torn them apart, and I went sprawling onto the ground.

I didn't move, couldn't move, for a long moment, and simply lay there in a pool of my own sweat and blood and tears until all the residual effects of strangulation subsided. All my senses flooded back to me in a stinging deluge, making me uncomfortably aware of the cuts crossing my flesh and the painful tightness of my chest. I could already tell, without looking, that my throat would be bruised for days to come. But at that moment, none of those things mattered, because I had succeeded.

I was free.

For some reason, Abby and Trai were still shouting, even though that I had been released and was quite obviously alive. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't my name they were saying; it was the name of someone else entirely. Someone whose name had no reason to be spoken at that moment...at least, that's what I thought.

Until I looked up.

And through the glass, saw a face I never thought I'd see again in my life.

A/N: This was going to be longer. This was going to be a LOT longer. But I haven't updated in forever, so here it is, short as it may be. The next chapter will be longer, and it's probably better that this is short because then I'll be able to--anyway. This is short, I'm sorry, it's pretty lame, I'm sorry, but at least it's uploaded, right?