The Typhon Project

Chapter Thirty-Two: A Fighting Chance

Someone carried me over their shoulder. I bounced as they sprinted away from the inferno travelling toward us like a freight train. Thuds and cracks rang out amidst a thunderous roar. The fire, like a predator, chased us to devour us. Pain wrapped my body with every bounce. I held my breath. I survived the initial blast--somehow. Now I would die in the tunnel.

"Up here!" a voice, I'd never heard, barely audible above the roar the blaze.  

Another thud. This one in front of us. Then another.

"Hurry! shouted the one who carried me. As adrenaline cleared my head, the voice became familiar. Jace. Jace?

Another boom. The fire reached out its scorching tentacles. The heat burned my lungs.

Jace bolted sideways and then we were falling and sliding into darkness. Orange light followed us then a thud and the light disappeared. My head smacked something solid. A moment of pain. My head swam and then--

* * * 

It hurt. I was breathing. Breathing hurt. I tried to make sense of it. My head throbbed. Every beat of my heart was echoed in my shoulder. I was just a head and a shoulder. Nothing else.

Then there were voices. Far away voices. Yelling, but they sounded . . . happy.

Happy?

It was dark, no, not dark. Red. Something blocked the red and then it was black. Then red again. I tried opening my eyes. My eyelids were heavy. Heavy as manhole covers. I heaved them open, but the effort exhausted me, and they closed before I could make sense of anything. I drifted in and out of sleep.

A warm hand and a voice. "Leah?" the voice that was calling me home. Fingers on the back of my hand. I wiggled the fingers. A lightning bolt of pain. I gasped.

"Please, Leah, wake up."

I forced my eyelids open, but everything was blurry. I blinked hard and then squinted, trying to focus them.

"Leah."

I looked toward the voice. A face came into focus. A smile. A bandage wrapped his forehead.

"Jace." I whispered, my voice as reluctant as my eyes.

He lifted my hand and held it between his warm palms.

"Where?" I couldn't complete the question.

"You're with us."

"Humans?"

"Yeah."

A relieved sigh and then I slowly turned my head and glanced around the room. Dirt walls. Rough beams overhead. The tunnels.

I turned back to Jace. A crease cut deep between his brows. "What's wrong?"

"I was worried about you."

"I thought I was going to die at the coil."

He squeezed my hand. "I couldn't let that happen. I figured the lizards would be too preoccupied with what you were doing to be watching the tunnels." One side of his mouth lifted into a crooked smile.

"You came and got me?"

"Yeah, I barely got us out of the blast zone before the thing went off. I've never run so fast in my life." He chuckled.

"What happened to your head?" I tried raising my arm to point, but a stab of pain shot through me, and I let it drop.

"Just some flying debris, nothing serious."

Memories were starting to come back to me, vivid snapshots.

"The bomb. What happened to the coil?"

"Nothing but a crater now."

"They shot me."

"You're going to be okay. It went straight through. Didn't hit any major arteries."

I gasped, and my throat tightened as another memory flashed. "They shot Dean."

Jace's eyes narrowed. "Dean?"

"Yeah, he was lying on the floor a couple of meters away from me."

Jace shook his head. "No, you were the only one there. Everyone else had cleared the building."

"They shot him in the chest. They left him there to die."

"Leah, I would have seen him if he had been that close to you. Maybe he wasn't hurt as bad as you'd thought. Maybe he was able to get himself out."

I tensed. How could he not have seen Dean? "I know he was there." I lifted my head off the pillow, but winced as stars shot across my vision.

Jace placed his hand on my good shoulder. "You need to relax."

"Is she awake?" A woman's voice called from the door.

Jenna stood in the doorway. I couldn't say I was happy to see her.

"Yeah, she just woke up." 

She smiled at me. A smile? And it looked genuine. What was wrong with her?

"You'll never guess where I was." She glanced from me to Jace. "I was outside. During. The. Day. First time in five years and let me tell you it was wicked awesome."

I gasped. "It worked?"

Jace dug into his pocket and pulled out Dad's watch. He held it up in front of me. "Your compass points south now. See." 

The needle no longer meandered like a lost puppy. It locked on one direction. Tears flooded my eyes. I didn't think I'd ever seen such a beautiful sight.

"I'm going back outside," Jenna said as she spun around.

"The Typhons are still out there. Be careful," Jace called.

"Always." She took a step forward then stopped and turned back. "Oh yeah and by the way, Leah, sorry for the whole 'it' thing."

"That's okay," I said before she disappeared around the corner.

Jace pressed the watching into my palm. "You need to get some sleep, okay?"

I didn't want to sleep anymore, but I was exhausted. I stared up at the ceiling. "We won."

"Kinda," he said.

"Kinda?"

"The battle has only begun. Typhons won't give up that easy. But what you did gave us a fighting chance." He touched my cheek. "By the way . . . welcome home." He walked out of the room. 

I listened as his footsteps grew more and more distant. Maybe the Typhon invasion wasn't the end of the world. If there were survivors here, there might be survivors elsewhere. Maybe I hadn't survived the end of the world. Maybe this was only the beginning.

The End . . . for now.