Chapter 130

“Adam?” There was no answer except for the echo of her own voice around the empty chamber. “Adam!”
The light wand was still rotating slightly, casting odd shadows before it stilled. Where was he? It didn’t make any sense. They hadn’t been able to find a way out of this room, but all she had to do was turn her back for a few seconds, and Adam was gone.
Rain’s breath staggered, and she felt her heart start to race. Tears clouded her vision. She pulled her knees up to her chest and did her best to stay calm, but it was impossible. She was all alone, trapped down here. Adam was gone, and she had no idea what had happened to the rest of her squad. As far as she knew, no one else had any idea that she was down here, except for Adam, and he was gone. Had he fallen through another trapdoor? She was certain there was no one else in the room before she tried to climb back up the chute, so it seemed impossible that anyone could have dragged him off or killed him.
So where did he go?
Crying wouldn’t do her any good. She knew that. She needed to stay focused and look around. Maybe Adam had found another way out of the chamber while she wasn’t looking, and he just hadn’t gotten a chance to tell her before the door closed, similarly to the way she’d fallen down this chute to begin with.
But… wouldn’t he have taken the light wand with him?
“Maybe it fell out of his hand,” she whispered, staring at the beam of light on the ground. When she looked directly at it, her eyes ached. She had to look away. Shadows danced behind the light, probably from looking directly at the light for too long. She closed her eyes and squeezed them tight, hoping that when she opened them again, she’d be calm enough to assess the situation and figure out what she needed to do next.
When Rain opened her eyes, she was still alone. It was still a dark, creepy basement with no way out that had swallowed the man she loved.

* * *

“Do you want us to retrieve her, Mother White?” Mother Peahen asked, staring at the monitor that showed the redheaded girl sitting in the melting room with her knees pulled to her chest, her eyes closed tightly.
“Not yet,” Mother White said. “We need the available troops to finish off her friends before we can deploy them. It’s bad enough that Mother Jaguar took liberties to snatch away Twenty-four C. She’s torturing him in the middle of a hostile siege. I do believe that Mother Jaguar has lost her senses.”
“Yes,” Mother Peahen flipped a few more switches to change the angles of the other cameras. At the moment, Mother White could see every single one of the invaders, and none of them were anywhere close to infiltrating the core of the building.
More continued to pour into the hallways from different entrances every few minutes, though. Their numbers were concerning. Mother White only had so many troops to deploy. She’d been using other weapons to try to wipe out large groups of the invaders at one time, but so far, most of them had been able to avoid the halls where explosions were wired or gas was set to go off. The closer they got to the records room, the harder it would be for them to avoid the Mothers’ defense mechanisms. Gas, acid, spikes, floors that dropped away… all of these obstacles, and more, awaited their guests as they did their best to make it through the building. It was too bad that none of them had reached the inner hallways just yet. But there was a group getting close. That one with Mist Gretchintown and the other escaped Dick who had run off with them. While it might’ve been fun to take both of them in and torture them slowly, once they hit the surprises Mother White and the others had in store, it would be satisfying enough to see what became of them.
But Rain…. That was a different story. She was upset now, and it would’ve tugged at Mother White’s heartstrings if she had any. Really, it was too bad, seeing her sitting there on the floor with tears streaming down her cheeks. She’d been so strong before, so brave. Now, she was a sniffling mess. All because 24C had disappeared.
“Who do we have nearby that can retrieve Rain?” Mother White asked Peahen as she reconsidered how long to let the girl sit there.
“Mother Yellow and her detail are in D Hallway, fifteen yards,” Peahen said, pointing to one of the blocks in the screen that showed every camera angle available in the building.
“All right. Give the order. I want Rain Gretchintown brought to me. Unharmed.”
“Yes, Mother White,” Mother Peahen said before pressing the comm button to let Yellow know her orders.
Mother White tried not to show her emotions as she thought about what it would be like to look into Rain’s green eyes in person again. It had been so long since she’d seen her. Right before the rebellion began. If she’d had any idea that Rain would be involved, she would’ve locked her up before the breach happened. Never in a million years would she have guessed that someone like Rain, someone studying to be a medic, someone so intelligent and with such good genes, could turn her back on her country. It just went to show that nurture was far stronger than nature.
“Mother White,” Mother Rabbit said from the seat next to Peahen. “Do you see what Mother Jaguar is doing?”
Mother White didn’t need to see what the other Military Mother was doing. She’d already been told. Mother Jaguar was hellbent on getting some satisfaction from 24C, to torture him for running away, the same way she’d tortured him a few years ago. Then, she hadn’t been alone, but now, the trauma might be even worse for the boy. After all, he’d probably thought his days as a Dick were behind him.
He was wrong.

* * *

Sitting on the floor crying was not helping her at all. Rain knew that, but she didn’t know what else to do. Adam was gone without a trace, and she had no idea where he had gone or how. They’d looked for openings. There were none.
Clearly, there had to be some, though, or else he would still be here. He hadn’t just vanished into thin air. Rain got up and took the few steps over to the light wand and picked it up. She wished she had a comm on her shoulder so she could call Adam--or Seth. But only the commanders had working comms. She was on her own unless Seth or someone else saw the opening in the wall that had sucked her and Adam down to this hellhole.
The light wand cast strange shadows on the wall. They danced across the ceilings and the floor. The floor--she hadn’t checked the floor. Was it possible that they weren’t actually in the basement but that there were more levels beneath them? Was that where Adam had gone?
Bending down, Rain ran a hand along the floor near where Adam had been standing. She didn’t feel anything there, only smooth concrete.
“So where the hell did Adam go?” she asked herself.
With the light wand in her hand, Rain rechecked the perimeter of the room, finding nothing. She needed to find a way out of there, or she was going to lose her mind.
Perhaps the metal slides were the only way out after all. She had already tried to get up there once, and she hadn’t been able to make it up. If she could lay down on her back and force herself up, she knew she’d fit, but there just seemed to be no way.
Rain sat back down on the floor and slid the upper half of her body up into the pipe. With a frustrated sigh, Rain used the light wand to bang on the inside of the metal chute. “Can anyone hear me!” she screamed. “Seth! Adam! Mist!” Of course, there was no response. Seth probably thought she’d just gotten killed or dragged away, and Adam… God, where the hell was Adam?
“Rain?”
The sound was so faint, at first, she thought she had to have imagined it, that her mind was playing tricks on her, but then she heard it again. “Rain? Where the hell are you?”
“Mist?” she shouted. “Mist! I’m down here! I fell down a tube of some sort! Can you hear me?” She banged the light wand on the slide again.
“Rain!” It was Mist. “How did you get down there?”
“It doesn’t matter! Do you have a rope or something? If you can toss it down, maybe you can yank me out.” The possibility that she might be able to leave this concrete jail was almost too good to be true. Then, she had to find Adam.
“Just a sec,” Mist said.
“Don’t leave!” Rain insisted.
“I’m not. I’m just… getting a rope. Noah has one.”
Rain didn’t know who Noah was, but she was glad that Mist knew someone who’d brought a rope. She’d brought a lot of tools and weapons, but she hadn’t considered bringing a rope.
What seemed like an hour went by, but it was probably only a few minutes at best. Rain heard a clattering in the metal chute above her and looked up to see a rope dangling about a foot above her head.
“Thank goodness,” Rain muttered.
“Tie it around you, and we’ll pull you up!” Mist shouted down to her.
Rain stretched up to grab the lifeline, but the second her hand touched the rope, she felt something else.
A hand--wrapping around her leg and pulling down. At first, she thought it might be Adam, but she could see by the shape of the hand that it was not. It was a woman. It was a Mother.
Screaming, Rain kicked with her other foot, slamming her boot into the hand and stretching up to get the rope. “Let go!” she shouted. “Let me go!”
“Come back here, you bitch!” the Mother shouted. Rain lifted her leg and slammed it into the metal. The Mother screamed and let go, but then her other hand shot into the slide. Rain slammed her foot down into the hand and kept kicking as she scrambled up a few inches to grab the rope. She could hear Mist shouting, asking what was going on, but she couldn’t answer at the moment. All she could do was scream--and stretch for that goddamn rope.
Her fingers grappled with the knotted end as she stretched to bring the rope closer so that she could grip it. She pushed with her other hand against the metal, to try to brace herself to stretch the last few inches she needed to grab it, but she continued to slide down.
The Mother’s hand was back again, grabbing onto the toe of her boot. There was more than one hand now; there were several. Rain stretched with all of her might, and her hand finally latched on to the end of the rope. “Pull me up!” she shouted, not caring that it wasn’t wrapped securely around her yet. She wasn’t letting go for anything.