“You have to get out of here, tonight. If you don’t, I don’t know when the next chance you’ll have is.” Taro declared, the cover of darkness concealing their whereabouts. “Merrick can’t be trusted, he’s up to something here and I’m trying to figure out what it is, but I need you two to get out and be safe. Got it?”
Kit crossed his arms. “Never trusted him from the start. He defines shady.” Kat’s eyes flashed with a hint of rebellion.
“How do we get out, though?” She asked, but Kit was already working out a makeshift escape plan all his own, despite the fact that he didn’t have any clue to the layout of the base or the island.
“I’ll cause a distraction, then you two make a run for it. If you can get out of this specific area, you’ll make it out of the whole place. This is the most heavily guarded area.” The balcony was a blind spot, a place that Grayson hadn’t thought to watch. Taro had met them there without an explanation half an hour before, lulling the guards outside with a couple lies. “Hold up–if you’re gonna go back out into the wild, you need this immunisation.” He stopped them, pulling out two red vials, injecting them gently in their necks.
Two hours later, after a lengthy conversation and the gift of a compass and some rations, Taro left. “You two are smart and capable individuals. When the task presents itself, you’ll rise up to meet it.” He had said.
“I’m not feeling it,” Kit swing his legs off the edge of the chair. Lina laced up her shoes, fingering a shell in her hands.
“Doesn’t matter if we are. We have to figure this out. Ready?” She asked. An unenthusiastic nod. Suddenly, sirens went off throughout the construct and red lights glimmered. A fire.
“I guess that’s for us then–” Kit laughed and they made for the door, packing up what few possessions they had within their new and arguably more suited sets of clothes. At the door, Kit stopped. Then darted back to the nightstand for a bowl of wrapped chocolates. “Wasn’t leaving without those,” he snickered amid the relative chaos. Kat lifted the door handle, waving goodbye to the temporary quarters, a nice name for what was essentially a holding facility. A guard stood behind it, oblivious.
Kit grabbed him by the shoulders and spun around, throwing him into the room while Katalina closed the door, with Kit securing it with the outside lock.
The hallway presented itself, window at the end, few to no other guards. Perfect. Kit checked both ends on a spin before heading to the window. Easy. Too easy, it felt. Lina slid the window slowly upwards after unlocking it, and Kit climbed awkwardly through. What met him on the outside, though, was two men, one on each side of the window. “What up?” Kit chuckled before the two engaged.
Katalina, however, heard sounds from down the corridor, echoing her direction. “Not good.” She sighed. Because of course. Kit landed a fist in one man’s face, knocking him out. But the other was far stronger and less merciful. With an aggressive grunt, he threw Kit down to the ground against the wall, pounding the daylights out of him. Kat’s assailant was nearly to her. Kit was being choked, gasping for breath. Then, with one swift movement, Kat jumped up, pushed off the man with her feet and flew backwards out the window into Kit’s attacker. Both men tumbled down, giving her enough time to pull Kit to his feet, wobbly and drained. Outside, and for one second, safe.
“You know, a compass is worth nothing without a map or a fixed destination.” Kit mused as they made for the nearest patch of woods and whatever safety that may bring.
“About as useful as trying to go north with a needle that points nowhere.” Katalina surveyed the terrain. A spot of dew covered the midnight grass, but a line of trees provided nearby shelter from what they could now fully see as a gray concrete building, two stories at its highest, perched upon a hill.
The pair entered the line of trees, moonlight occasionally glistening down to the lower sets of branches. “Do you hear that?” Kat asked.
Kit perked up. “What?”
“Water…” she stated, her and Kit doing a full 360 out of curiosity. Too busy looking in other places to see that the real danger was right in front of them, looming wide in the form of a deep ravine, a river streaming through the bottom of it, waterfall further upstream somewhere. Too late to stop themselves, their feet slid in the sod and tumbled forward into the black abyss.
