This chapter is kind of gorily described in parts. It's not too bad, though. Just a warning.

Chapter Fifty-One

Delaney

For one long, terrible moment, we did nothing but stare. Even the two guards were transfixed, standing rooted in place with their mouths agape. The man was looking down at his hands as if shocked at what they had done. His partner, Ana, was shaking. And then there was Trai, on his hands and knees at the edge of the platform, the only one to see his sister's death. As the moments fluttered by, an expression of pain overtook his features, swelling into a look of pure anguish that stabbed at my heart, even from thirty feet away.

Seeing him like that, so crushed and vulnerable, made anger flare up inside me. Anger at Leary, at Miracle, at whatever force had possessed Abby to chase after that train...but most of all, anger at the guard who had sent her to certain death.

Before I knew it, I was moving.

The gun, the Merit Z100 that had fallen from Mason's pocket, lay on the ground only a few feet from me. I reached forward and swiped it up. Its dark metal body felt cold in my hands.

AP stands for armor piercing, Leary had said. That means that if one of these bullets so much as grazes across your arm, your skin will be ripped to shreds.

When he had first explained that to us, I had been stricken with terror at the damage those powerful pellets could inflict. But now, staring down the guard that had killed my friend, I prayed to every god in the universe that Leary's warning had been serious.

With trembling fingers that I couldn't seem to still, I lifted the gun, holding it with both hands the way I'd seen it done in action movies. I was lying flat on my stomach, making it difficult to keep steady, but I bit back the ache in my arms and raised the weapon just a little bit higher.

The guard, entranced by his own disbelief, did not notice me inch forward on my stomach, my finger poised on the trigger. He didn't see me angle the gun so that the barrel was level with the side of his head. His position didn't change once as I flicked off the safety, seeing the word "Merit" embossed in the black metal.

I took a deep breath.

Briefly, in the half-second space before my pointer finger squeezed the clasp, I wondered what I was doing with a gun in my hand, about to send a bullet into the head of a stranger. Only an hour before, I had been quaking in fear of the same weapon that had now become my lifeline. Was this really my job to do? I knew myself; I wasn't a violent person.

So why was there a gun in my hand?

I was a heartbeat away from setting the pistol down when I caught sight of Trai, his face crumpled, jumping onto the tracks, with his sister's name tearing out of his throat in a strangled cry. And that decided for me.

Without taking a breath, stopping to think, or giving myself time to doubt my choice, I pulled the trigger.

I fired eight times, emptying the gun of its bullets. Each shot brought me a sense of sick gratification. I felt a smile form on my lips as the weapon jumped in my hands, emitting a series of deafening cracks. A piercing scream reached my ears, stinging and tearing, but I couldn't see the culprit through the haze of smoke that had materialized before me.

When I pulled the trigger for a ninth time and was met with nothing but a faint clicking, I couldn't help a swath of disappointment from falling over me. I wanted to hold on to the satisfaction I felt when the razor sharp bullets sped from their chamber and out into open air. I wanted to feel the burn of smoke in my eyes. I wanted to pull the trigger again and again, emptying every last armor piercing shell into the body of the man that had put that look on Trai's face. I wanted—

I forgot what else I had wanted, because just then, the last lazy wisp of silvery-gray fled from my sight, leaving my vision clear and unobstructed. And, with painful limpidity, I saw the aftermath.

A couple of my shots had missed; I could see the miniscule holes in the floor and wall where they had struck. But the rest had hit home, burying themselves into the male guard's body.

But really, buried wasn't the right word to describe it. As far as I could see, not a single stray bullet was still lodged in his flesh. Rather, every single shell had gone right through him, leaving at least five tunnels about as thick as my thumb. From where I lay, I could see straight through his stomach and out his back to the wall behind him.

The gun slipped through my suddenly limp fingertips.

As I watched, Mahoney tried to take a step forward, but a bullet had gone through his kneecap, and he stumbled. Blood trickled off his tongue, staining his lips scarlet, and his shoulders quaked as his arms gave out, sending him flopping onto his stomach. He landed with his chin up, though, so that his glassy eyes were staring right at me. I could do nothing but watch in guilty horror as his body convulsed wildly, spewing blood from his wounds that marring the white concrete. I wanted to close my eyes, to turn away—anything to spare myself from the sight before me. But I couldn't move a muscle.

That, I guess, was my punishment: being forced to watch as the guard bled to death, his eyes rolling back into his head. All I saw where his pupils should have been was a milky, veiny white. Beside him, her hands clutched around the bottom of her face, his partner let out a muffled scream before turning and running past me, through the still-open door, and away into the halls.

I stared at the lifeless body of Mahoney, still watching me with those lifeless eyes, and then at the weapon that had killed him. Vomit scrabbled up my esophagus as I shoved the pistol away with the heel of my hand. I watched it skitter in a series of wild revolutions before coming to a rest a few feet from the dead man's body.

Everything caught up with me then: Jeanette's kidnapping; Leary's escape; Abby's death; Trai's anguish. A thousand feelings and pictures and emotions flooded my mind all at once. I saw Caleb picking himself off the ground to my left, tugging at his bloody, shredded shirt. Trai was to my right, lifting his sister's body up onto the platform.

And suddenly, I was crying.

○●○●○●○

It wasn't long that I lay there, sprawled out on the ground with my face in my hands. When a hand appeared in front of me, I caught sight of a watch that read "2:50" in blinking white numbers.

I raised my head slowly to see Caleb, squatting in front of me with a blank expression. As I turned my tear-stained face to his, I caught a flash of pity in his eyes. But it was quickly gone as he shoved his hand out more forcefully, almost knocking off my glasses in the process. I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet.

"Can you walk?" he questioned briskly. I wavered, feeling my legs like jelly beneath me, but bit my lip and nodded. "Good. Then come on."

He strode forward without waiting for a response, and I was left to creep timidly after him, my legs threatening to give out with each step. But somehow, we made it across the station, past the dead guard, and to the edge of the platform, where Trai was bent over his sister's body.

Or at least, what was left of it.

The figure was undoubtedly Abby; I could make out a few strands of black hair and the shredded remains of a band tee. But there was almost nothing recognizable past that. The rest of her body was an indistinguishable mess of mangled, bloody flesh. A thick stripe of red crossed her stomach like a sash, caved in where bones had been crushed. One of her legs hung on only by a thread of a ligament, and her left arm had been severed completely. Her neck had been twisted so that her red-stained flesh was stretched into an impossible position.

The worst part, though, was the state of her head. Only half of it had been hit with the full brunt of the train—from the tip of her nose to that bottom of her chin—and it was destroyed beyond comprehension. All that was left was an empty concave of torn muscles with a few straggling teeth shining white in the crimson remains of her jaw.

It was the upper half of her face that was the most gruesome: but not because it had been violently destroyed. Rather, that area remained completely intact, untouched by the impact. Abby's eyes were wide open, and stared up at the the ceiling in paralyzed shock. And then—slowly, deliberately—they blinked.

It took me a moment to realize it: Abby was still alive. Somehow, though half her body had been smashed and she was lying in a giant pool of her own blood, she was alive. When she caught sight of, her eyes opened even further. Her stump of an arm twitched.

I dropped to my knees and emptied the contents of my stomach on the train tracks below.

My vomit mixed in with a leftover puddle of Abby's blood, a sight that only served to make want to throw up more. But there was nothing left in my stomach; I knelt there and dry-retched until a strong hand grabbed my shoulder and hauled me to my feet.

"We need to go," Caleb said, his face taut. "Now."

Behind him, Trai let out a stifled sob. He clutched his sister's good hand, bloody though it was, and pressed his face into his knees.

"Trai." Caleb's voice was hard. "We have eight minutes to get out of here. Get up and let's go."

"Just leave me," came Trai's muffled voice. "Just leave me here."

I swallowed hard, feeling the residual burn of vomit in my mouth and throat. "There is no way that we're leaving without you, Trai. No goddamn way."

"Maybe you won't," he snapped back, his voice breaking, "but I don't think Caleb would give it a second though. So go on; go!"

He dissolved into a fit of dry sobs, his entire body shaking. Caleb's eyes softened for a moment as he squatted down to Trai's level. When he spoke again, his tone was more gentle.

"Trai,," he said quietly, "it's over. Your sister is gone. She's a fighter, but—"

"Shut up," Trai snarled, "you don't know anything about her."

Abby's eyes stared up at us from her mouth-less face.

"But," Caleb continued, louder now, "there is just no way she can survive this. And if you don't accept that now, Delaney will die too. You're the only way she'll get out of this place alive."

Trai did not raise his head for what felt like an eternity; I was uncomfortably aware of the passing seconds, ticking away like a clock in my head. But finally, he released Abby's hand, stood up, and wiped the blood from his palms on the front of his jeans.

"Where do we go?" he asked flatly. His hands were fists at his sides.

"There," Caleb instructed, pointing across the tracks. I didn't see anything at first—then, I realized that there was a thick rectangle of the stone blocks that looked a little bit too perfectly cut. "What I'd thought was a door earlier turned out to be a scrap piece of metal," Caleb continued. "That, though, is definitely something. It was hidden behind the train." He stared at it with careful scrutiny, as if seeing something the rest of us didn't. "And I think it's our way out."

"It'd better be," Trai muttered.

He didn't look back at Abby once as we walked away, jumping down onto the empty tracks. I, however, couldn't stop myself. And as I lowered myself into off the platform, I saw Abby's eyes following us, betrayal hanging like fog around her face.

○●○●○●○

It took the combined strength of both Trai and Caleb to pull open the hidden stone door. I could see that Caleb wore a pained expression as he tugged, and wondered, given the condition of his back, if he would be capable of opening it. But, thankfully, the door swung ajar after only a moment, revealing a hallway lit with dim bare bulbs.

"I don't think this has always been here," I remarked to Caleb as he ushered us inside. "The Pro-Inferiors must have built it."

Caleb ignored me. "We need to move fast; I don't know how far we'll have to go. I'll hold Delaney to save us some time."

A shadow passed over Trai's features. "It's fine," he growled. "I'm strong enough to carry her."

For a moment, I expected Caleb to start yelling at Trai. But he simply looked him in the eye with an even gaze and said, "I don't doubt it, man. But right now, we need to move quickly. You'll be faster without the extra weight."

We all knew that Caleb was right, and there was no time to argue. Trai looked away, grudgingly accepting, as Caleb scooped me up easily. "Six minutes," he muttered. Then he took off.

I squeezed my eyes shut as he ran, taking comfort in the sound of the boys' footsteps pounding against gravel. It seemed that our trek went on forever, when in reality, it couldn't have been more than three minutes.

Eventually, Caleb came to a halt, his skidded stop kicking up a spray of pebbles that spattered against the walls. I opened my eyes as Caleb set me down gently, my eyes readjusting to the light. Trai jogged up beside us, panting.

"That must be it," Caleb announce, pointing. "Our way out."

We were standing at an intersection, where two lengths of corridor met. I followed his finger down the hall to the right. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me—at the end of the hall, the ceiling seemed to slant lower and lower until it nearly met with the ground. In actuality, though, the floor was sloping upwards. It was a tunnel, and it was heading to ground level.

"Thank God," I breathed, tilting my head skyward. We were home free.

"Hurry it up," Caleb said, "before this place comes down on our heads."

Shivering with anticipation, I allowed Trai to pull me across the crunching ground and toward our escape. But we had only taken two steps before a voice rang out behind us.

"Caleb?"

It was silky smooth, icy, and immediately identifiable. My stomach plummeted as I turned around, willing the voice to have been my imagination. But, impossibly, there she was, only ten feet away. Miracle stood with hair mussed and suit torn, staring us down in all her blinding beauty. Even disheveled as she was, her presence was unquestionably intimidated.

"Caleb," she repeated, not a question this time. His face a picture of shock, Caleb opened his mouth to respond.

But before he could, the sound of an explosion reached our ears from somewhere not too far away. It was just as the movies portrayed it: loud, heavy, and utterly heart-stopping. Like a chain reaction, two more followed in quick succession. Above us, the ceiling began to quake, and we were pelted with a shower of shattering debris. Then, with a deep, vibrating crack, a giant slab of concrete dislodged and came tumbling down to rest at our feet.

Miracle glanced smugly at the gray block and crossed her arms. "And so it begins," she smirked.

A/N: Crap chapter. Just a filler. Whatever. I updated three days in a rows, at least! I'm having some serious writer's flow. If I can keep this up, the story will be done by Sunday. :)