Free Abandon by Elana Johnson Page A

enough air. They know it; they come fill it every few hours.
    How long has it been? I don’t know. I take another breath, but I can’t tell if it’s filled with oxygen or only my own exhalations.
    There’s only darkness—and the memories inside my own head.
    I don’t like remembering. It makes me feel weak, like I should’ve done something different—like I could’ve done something different, if only I had been stronger. Better.
    Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.
    I’ve been buried alive. I try not to think it, but the horror is always there.
    The capsule is so permanent.
    The darkness is so heavy.
    It’d be so easy to die.
    My eyes are already closed. My body is already in the tomb. My girl is already gone.
    At the thought of Vi, I force another breath through my body. Her face, fair and fierce, floats in the recesses of my mind.
    I can’t give up on her. On us. She’s sustained me through difficult situations before, maybe she will this time too.
    I can’t feel my feet now. Or my fingers—even the painful, blistered ones. I slump against the metal behind me. Hot, burning threads snake down my back, but I can’t move. Don’t even have the energy to whimper.
    I’m dying, I think. They’ve won.
    Pure, unadulterated fury accompanies that thought. I thrash against the darkness, but I can’t clear it away. My eyes are open; my voice screams.
    “They will not win!” I yell so loud my throat rips. “You will not win!”
    Inside my metal prison, I’m met with only an echo. No one comes. No one comes. No one comes.
    There is no rescue from this hell.
    *   *   *
    I clawed at something that had been put over my eyes. My heart pounded in my throat; I swung my free arm to feel the space around me, and I made contact with a soft body.
    “Jag, it’s Indy.”
    My head throbbed. I blinked, trying to see. Indistinct shapes hovered in the room; the lights were too dim to really see who was there.
    The light meant I was not in the capsule. I inhaled. Oxygen existed here.
    “Relax, bro,” someone said. My brother.
    “Pace.” An endless depth of relief surged through me. “Help me.”
    “We’re trying,” he said. “You’re beating us back.”
    My leg pulsed with my heartbeat. The skin along my back pulled, as if a thousand little teeth had found a home there. “What happened? Where’s Vi?”
    “She’s here,” Pace said. “She just stepped out to get a bite to eat.”
    “You’re all busted up,” Indy said. “Pace has been attending to your injuries.”
    Little by little, my vision cleared. I felt a bandage on top of my head; my fingers brushed another binding on my thigh. Indy and Pace knelt in front of me, worry etched into their eyes.
    “My head hurts,” I complained.
    Pace chuckled. “I bet it does. Just a sec. I’ll drug you up again.” He stepped out of the hospital alcove, leaving me alone with Indy.
    I couldn’t catalog all the body parts that hurt. “Hey,” I said, looking at Indy and trying not to cry.
    She inched closer, one hand held tentatively toward me. When I didn’t punch her in the face, she threaded her fingers through mine. Her chest rose with a deep breath. “I was so scared.”
    Those four words said it all. Indy had a whole I-never-get-scared thing going on. And she usually didn’t. I choked back my own fear—my own memories—and gathered her into a hug. Fire erupted along my shoulders where she touched me. I gave a strangled moan.
    “Sorry,” she murmured, removing her hands, but not moving away. “Your back is sort of shredded.”
    “Explain,” I said.
    “Vi’s been in here, bawling for hours.”
    “That’s not an explanation.”
    “She shattered the glass in the lab, thinking it would debilitate the Directors, buy you guys time to get out. Zenn and Raine and everyone escaped, but you were also debilitated. Took a lot of glass in the back. Pace worked on you, picking out shards for hours.”
    I felt shredded inside and out. I held Indy tighter,