Desolation, J. B. Everett [reading a book txt] 📗

to be so optimistic. I have completely lost hope.

"I...I don't know what happened to Ian" I whisper, pulling away from him and wiping the tears from my face.

Tristan looks at me, then asks,

"Did they get him too?"

I pause, the lump in my throat growing even larger. I don't want to recount what happened.

"I...um..." I stutter.

"Just tell me, did they capture him?" Tristan asks gently.

Finally, I blurt it out. I tell him everything. How we were running through the jungle and Ian got shot by the tranquilizer gun. How I hid with him when they arrived. And how I ran away when they found us, abandoning Ian and leaving him for them to take.

The tears begin to stream down my face again after I tell him this. Damn, I am a crybaby.

"I...I just feel like a terrible person. I was so selfish for leaving him behind" I say.

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Tristan shakes his head.

"Tessa, you're not a terrible person at all. You were just trying to save yourself, which is completely understandable. If Ian was here, he would understand"

If Ian was here...

I close my eyes for a moment, thinking about Ian. Wondering where he is and what they are doing to him.

"What happened to Nikki and Dylan?" I ask.

"They got Nikki right away on the beach. And when Nikki got shot, Dylan turned back to get her and got shot as well. I kept running down the beach, thinking that I could outrun them until I felt the tranquilizer dart hit the back of my neck. Then it was blackness" Tristan explains.

I nod miserably.

"Well we're captured for good now" I say hopelessly.

"No, don't say that. We'll find a way out, I know we will" Tristan says.

How can he be so confident?

"Tristan, we're in their underground facility. The only way out of here is through the hatch, and to get there we have to get out of this room. And even if we could get out of here, where would we go? There is nowhere to go on this island; they would find us again" I say.

Tristan walks over to the door, jiggling the handle. Predictably, the door is locked. Then, Tristan begins to pace the small room back and forth.

"What are you doing?" I ask him.

"Thinking of a way to get out of here" he replies.

"Tristan, I hate to break it to you but there is no way out of this room. We are locked in" I say.

But he doesn't reply. Instead, he stops and looks up at the ceiling.

"Aha" he murmurs.

"What?" I ask, looking up at the ceiling.

There is nothing but ceiling tiles and an air conditioning vent. I don't know what Tristan is talking about.

"I think I just found our way out of this room" Tristan says.

"How?" I ask, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

Tristan points to the ceiling, then says,

"Through that vent"

It takes me a few moments to process that Tristan is suggesting we escape via the air conditioning vent.

"You are crazy" I finally say.

"What's so crazy about that?" he asks, looking at me.

"Maybe the fact that you are saying we climb through the air conditioning vents? What if they don't hold us up?"

"Oh c'mon Tessa, they will hold us up. We have barely eaten in a week, so I don't think that we weigh too much" Tristan says, a small grin playing on his lips.

A small smile breaks out on my face.

"So what do you say Tessa?" he asks.

"I don't know..." I say.

As much as I want to escape from this room, I don't know if escaping via the air conditioning vents is going to work. I look at Tristan, and the pleading look in his eyes finally forces me to say yes.

He grins, revealing his perfect white teeth, then hops up onto one of the beds, standing up on it. I watch as he reaches his arms up and wrenches the vent cover loose. We both look up into the dark metal shaft above.

I cannot believe that we are actually doing this. But hey, I never thought that I would be kidnapped on a desolate island by evil doctors.

"I'll go up first then help you" Tristan says.

He then swings his arms and jumps up, gripping onto the edge of the metal shaft. I watch in awe as he swings his entire body up, the muscles in his arms bulging. I honestly don't think that I could ever muster the strength to do that. 

Once he is up in the shaft, he leans over the edge, holding his arms out to help me up. Shakily, I climb up on top of the bed and look up at him.

"On the count of three, you jump up and grab my arms" Tristan says.

"I...I don't know if I can do this" I say nervously.

"Yes you can. I know that you can" he says confidently.

"Okay" I whisper.

Tristan nods, then says,

"Three..."

I take a deep breath.

"Two..."

I look up into his eyes.

"One!"

Squeezing my eyes shut, I jump up, stretching my arms out to him. Bracing myself for the worst, I feel Tristan hands grab my arms. He pulls me up and it literally feels as if he is pulling my shoulders out of their sockets until I finally crash onto the metal floor of the shaft.

Breathlessly, I look at him in the gloom.

"See? You did it" he says, smiling.

I force a smile onto my face, trying not to express how it feels as if both of my shoulders have been dislocated.

"C'mon, let's go" Tristan says.

We begin to crawl through the dark shaft, Tristan leading the way. The shaft is so small that if I move my head up slightly, I will bang it on the metal ceiling. I instantly begin to feel extremely claustrophobic.

We take a few twists and turns. I feel as if I am in a labyrinth; a twisting and turning maze in which I have no clue where I am going. Luckily, the shaft has held as up so far. We are as silent as possible, trying to minimize how much noise we make when we crawl. Every time my knee hits the metal it makes a small echoing sound. I pray to God that no one below us hears it.

I don't know how long we crawl for, but suddenly Tristan abruptly stops.

"What is it?" I whisper, my heart beginning to pound in my chest.

"Look, it's another vent" he whispers, pointing in front of him

I immediately wedge myself next to Tristan to see another vent in the floor. Tristan puts a finger to his lips and that's when I hear it.

Coming from the room below are voices, and the beeping of some sort of machine.

Tristan quietly lowers himself to the floor, squinting through the narrow slits of the vent to see what is in the room below.

A few seconds later, Tristan murmurs,

"Oh my god..."

On impulse, I lower myself down as well, my heart racing as I peer through the slits of the vent. At first, I see three doctors, all wearing white lab coats, and a large machine that is hooked up to someone's head. Quickly, my eyes travel from the machine to the person that it is operating on and my heart stops when I see who it is.

There, laying on a bed, hooked up to the machine is Ian. Chapter Thirty-One

When I open my mouth to scream, Tristan presses his hand against my mouth, clamping it shut. He puts a finger to his mouth, raising his eyebrows at me.

It takes every bit of strength inside of me not to. I want to call out his name. I want to scream at the doctors to stop doing whatever sick operation they are doing on him. I want to jump down and save him. But I can't.

Instead, I watch in frozen terror as the doctors continue to operate on Ian. A large machine, standing upright beside his bed, is hooked to his head. Various wires connect to different parts of his head, and he appears to be out cold. The machine is humming, an ominous humming noise that sends chills down my spine.

I don't know what they are doing to him, but whatever it is, it cannot be good.

I swallow, trying to push down the large lump that has formed in the back of my throat. Angry tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision.

Tristan looks at me, a pained expression on his face. He must know how how hopeless and fearful I am feeling right now.

Just when I am about to look away, I hear a door open and watch as someone enters the room below.

My heart skips a beat when I see Hal slowly wheel into the room in a wheelchair. The leg that Ian shot is wrapped up in a large cast that is stained with blood. Instantly, one of the doctors presses a button on the machine, turning it off. The ominous humming noise is replaced by an unsettling silence.

The three doctors turn around, all facing Hal as he wheels into the room.

"How is your leg feeling Doctor?" one of the doctors asks.

"Never better" Hal says, sarcasm apparent in his voice.

Just his voice sends chills throughout my entire body. Peering through the slits of the vent, I watch as Hal wheels himself over to Ian's bedside. Everything inside of me wants to scream, "Get the fuck away from him!" I literally have to bite my tongue not to do so.

"Is the operation finished?" Hal asks, glancing up at the doctors.

"I believe so" one of them says.

Hal looks back down at Ian, who is still unconscious. My stomach flips when I see that his face is as white as a sheet.

"Excellent. This is the proper punishment for what he did to me"

My blood immediately runs cold.

"You're job is finished here" Hal announces.

The three doctors all nod, then file out of the room, leaving Hal alone with Ian. Once the door is shut behind them, Hal leans in close to Ian. I can barely make out what he whispers to him, but I do hear this.

"You'll regret that you shot me Ian" he says coldly.

I recoil, and the vent moves slightly, making a small grating noise. Instantly, Hal looks up at the vent. My heart racing, I jump backwards. Tristan grabs me, holding me still. Hal slowly wheels himself across the floor until he is right underneath the vent. He looks up at it suspiciously.

For a few moments, Tristan and I stay as still and silent as possible, barely breathing. Then finally, Hal looks back down and wheels himself towards the door and leaves. Once he is gone, I let out a huge sigh of relief.

"That was a close one" Tristan whispers.

I glance up at him and see a sheen of sweat covering his forehead.

"We have to go down there" I say.

"Tessa, we can't. What if they come back? We'll be caught and then who knows what they'll do to us" Tristan says.

I look at Tristan, locking my eyes with his.

"They did something to him Tristan. I have to go down to him and see what happened" I say.

"Tessa..." Tristan starts.

But I cut him off abruptly.

"You