Another secret room. It was fitting. Each of the remaining Absolom Four seemed to have one.
She had seen Constance’s secret room. Spied in Daniele’s basement. Then broken into Elliott’s lair where he hid the pictures of his dead son. What was Hiro hiding down there?
Adeline considered going right out the front door.
That was the smart move. The safe move.
Yes.
This was stupid. Dangerous.
She walked toward the front door and gripped the handle. But she didn’t turn it.
Because Daniele was right about one thing: Adeline wasn’t the quitting type.
She spun and crept back down the hall and swerved into the stairway and descended the wooden steps, conscious not to make too much noise.
The basement was pitch black except for the dim light from above, the glow of the moon and the streetlights shining into the foyer and stair hall.
This space was empty too. The walls and floor were concrete. The floor joists hung above like the ribs of a beast that had swallowed her.
With each passing second, Adeline’s eyes adjusted. As she adapted to the darkness, she realized there was one source of light down here: a panel on the right-hand wall. Beside it was a locked door. A metal door. The kind you might see in a prison.
Adeline moved to the panel. It was similar to the one in Elliott’s home, except this one had no place for a key code for the lock. Only a fingerprint and retinal scanner.
But it was the blinking message that sent a chill through Adeline: SECURITY ALERT: PERIMETER BREACH, NOOK, WINDOW 3.
Adeline turned to run.
The door beside the panel opened.
Against her will, she whipped her head around to look.
Hiro stepped out, eyes wide, mouth open.
Adeline leaped forward, ready to run.
Hiro was faster. He lunged and wrapped his arms around her, dragging both of them down to the concrete floor.
THIRTY-FIVE
Sam reached the tree line a few seconds before the herd of charging dinosaurs and large reptiles reached him. There was no question what he had to do: climb a tree.
It was his only chance of surviving.
He jumped up on a fallen tree and walked up it, arms held out to balance, the torch still in one hand, flame dancing as he went. At the trunk it was leaning against, Sam put the bone torch in his mouth and climbed, wincing when the wind carried the fire close to his face. He considered dropping the torch, but it was too valuable. If he had to return to the ground, it was his only defense against the herd.
Below, the animals pounded the forest floor, shaking the tree and the limbs. The screeching was earsplitting. Around him, other trees wobbled. The skinnier ones fell.
Smaller animals were trampled by larger beasts as the herd passed below like a prehistoric cattle drive, the strong grinding the weak into the ground. The carnage was breathtaking. The smell gagged him, but Sam held tight to the grilled fish he had eaten at lunch. He had worked hard for that meal, and he didn’t want to give it up.
Based on what he saw, if he lived through this, food wouldn’t be a problem for a few days. There would be plenty to scavenge.
When the herd had passed, the forest fell silent. Sam was about to climb down when the ground began shaking. At first, he thought it was another herd. But this vibration was different, deeper, the force enough to move the tree trunk up and down.
Another earthquake.
Is that what the animals were running from?
Sam began shimmying down the tree. He got about halfway before the shockwave hit.
The trunk slammed Sam in the face. The last thing he saw was the torch wink out like a bedside lamp being turned off.
*
Sam woke in a bed of twigs and flesh. His nose was filled with the smell of sulfur. The forest was full of smoke.
He had no doubt about what had happened. And what he had to do: run.
He had to run for his life. As far as he could.
There was one problem. His body.
It was bruised and sore and refused to move.
He tried to sit up, but his back cried out in pain, pinning him down. It wasn’t just the impact. Whatever he had landed on had reopened the cut on his back from the fight with the prisoner. He could feel his blood seeping out through the makeshift bandage.
He promised himself he would lie there for three breaths. Then get up.
In. Out.
In. Out.
Mentally, he formed an image of himself stepping out of the Absolom machine, holding his arms wide and Adeline and Ryan rushing to him, hugging him, his daughter whispering “Welcome home, Dad.”
The imagined reunion was like a ghost taking root in Sam’s body, powering him.
He rolled onto his side, face-to-face with the open eyes of a felled dinosaur, its mouth open, backward curving white teeth just inches from his nose.