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"They got away," a man’s voice said from inside the lab
"You!" someone else shouted--an order, "Take a teaet too far But suit up, and be careful These kids are dangerous I don’t want any Code Reds on nition The voicethe ent Truh bio-suits for everyone," the other ht-filled pause, and then Agent Truman answered, "So pick your best men and suit them up We need to shut this down And fast"
My eyes ide as a flurry of activity carew soht on the other side of that wall My head swam as I considered just how close he was How easy it would be for him to find me To capture me
Not only that, they kneas us they were after
"We have to go!" I halfbecause Jett hadn’t been wrong about that hue
Ahead of us, there was a staircase I had no idea where it led, except down But since our alternative was to turn ourselves in to those Daylighters in the lab, I figured it orth a shot
Theso to have the upper hand, I repeated the words he’d used on me back in the lab: "It’s okay Trust me"
I half worried Simon would trip since the stairas so steep and I was practically running down the I’d spentJett’s blueprints
It was as if we’d entered a giant hamster maze, those colorful plastic ones you find at pet stores Except instead of being plastic and colorful, like the ha in were industrial and metal and supersized We wouldn’t have to crawl on our hands and knees
It was the sound that made me realize what this was: the kind of ductwork that circulates air through office buildings, the constant whoosh-whoosh And I was right, there were fans every twenty paces or so all along the corridor behind these enorer than the one we’d crawled through And e rushed past the sucked at creeped rew louder and my hair whipped my cheeks
I leaned close to Simon’s ear so he could hear !" Siive you the word, then whatever happens, don’t breathe!" He said the last tords super slow,sure I knew this part was extra important
Like instructions: Don’t breathe
"What’s that supposed to mean?" I asked "What word?"
He just repeated hiain, he shoved ht No ti noise of the fans had me rattled, but I didn’t need to be re: I was sure that the others--not the good-guy others of our teaht behind us any second, and I hurried to get past the next vent
The tunnels felt endless, and there were several places where we had to ht I was the one who could see, but it was Siot the sense that he understood this place, and the layout of it, far better than I’d realized As if he’d not only studied the sche never got lower, but the passageways definitely got narrower, and it was the narrow part I wasn’t thrilled with I wasn’t crazy about narrow It wasn’t that I was claustrophobic per se, at least not in the sense that I was going to have a full-on panic attack or anything, but I definitely wasn’t in love with confined spaces
I guess you could say I was claustrophobic-light
Just knowing that Si back made my heart trip over itself whenever I spent tooabout it And the farther ent, thethat these tunnelsheavy and solid and real
Then so the bones of ht hard inmy exit, I would have fallen over for sure
"GO!" I shouted, trying to shove Sied tohoever had ahold ofout fro for us, I was sure, in an opening in the passageways I could see hiht, and it was rowled, looking ht down to the black grease paint smeared across his sharp features He wasn’t suited up, which was a scary thought, because if this guy wasn’t one of Truman’s best, then I definitely didn’t want to run into one of the suited-up dudes!
His eyes were a shade of blue so pale they were virtually colorless and downright chilling I could aline that even his teeth, if he were to show them to me, would be polar-bear sharp He raised his hand and before I realized as happening, there was a flashlight shining directly into my face