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

can come or stay, but I am going down" I say flatly.

Tristan opens his mouth, then closes it.

"Okay fine. But only for a little bit. Then we should go back to our room before they figure out that we escaped" he finally says.

I nod, then carefully lift the vent open. I jump down first, crashing down painfully on the white tile floor. Then, Tristan jumps down, landing much more gracefully than I did.

Immediately, I rush to Ian's side. When I look at his face, tears well up in my eyes, slowly beginning to roll down my cheeks. He looks sickly and is covered in sweat. I take one of his hands in mine and feel that his is ice cold.

"Ian..." I sob quietly, looking down at him.

Then, I slowly lean down and kiss him softly on the cheek. I let my lips linger on him for a few moments, hoping that he will stir and wake up. But he doesn't. He is out cold.

What the hell have they done to him?

I then rest my head against his chest and am relieved to hear his heart beat. Even though it is beating slow, at least it is beating.

I lean back, glancing at Tristan who is standing awkwardly across the room, looking at us.

"Hey, I'm really sorry Tessa" he says.

I sniffle, wiping the tears away from my face.

"We can go back now" I say quietly.

After taking one last sad look at Ian, I turn away and walk back towards Tristan. Before we climb back up into the vent, Tristan wraps his arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I cry onto his chest for a few moments, soaking his shirt. I wonder how many times Tristan has seen me cry.

I don't want to know how many.

Once I pull away, Tristan jumps up, pulling himself up into the shaft. He holds his hands out and I jump up, grabbing them. Using all of his strength, he heaves me up until I crash down into the shaft. After placing the vent cover back on, we begin to crawl back through the narrow shaft. A few times I bump my head onto the ceiling, making a loud clanging sound on the metal. Each time I pray that no one hears it from down below.

I cannot get the lump in my throat to go away. I cannot stop thinking about Ian, wondering what they did to him. Hal's words echo in my mind,

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

I close my eyes, trying to push all of the bad thoughts out of my mind.

Finally, we arrive back over our room. I am relieved to get out of the cramped, claustrophobic confinement of the air-conditioning shaft. Tristan lifts the vent cover then jumps down, landing on top of one of the beds. He looks up at me, holding out his hands. I hop down and he wraps his arms around me, preventing me from losing my balance.

Once I land, he looks at me, his blue eyes meeting mine. For a few moments we stand there, his arms wrapped around my waist. I realize that it doesn't feel right. I want Ian's arms to be around me. 

I want Ian.

Then suddenly, my thoughts are broken when I notice something behind Tristan that I didn't notice before.

Something that is out of place.

Someone that makes my heart stop.

There, sitting in his wheelchair in the corner of the room, is Hal. Chapter Thirty-Two

My heart stops.

I stare at Hal and he stares back at me, his icy gray eyes burning into mine.

"What is it?" Tristan asks.

He then turns around and jumps.

"Hello" Hal says, his thin, sallow lips curling up into an unsettling smirk.

I suddenly feel nauseous. Neither Tristan nor I respond. Instead, we just stare at him, hatred and anger blazing in our eyes.

Hal slowly wheels forward, the wheels on his wheelchair squeaking.

So badly do I want to jump down on top of him and knock his wheelchair over.

"Look what your friend Ian did to me" Hal says.

"You deserved it" I murmur under my breath.

"What was that Miss Tessa?" Hal sneers, looking up at me.

"I said, you deserved it" I say through gritted teeth.

Hal laughs, a laugh that turns my insides cold. I continue to glare at him, trying not to show the fear that I am feeling inside.

"What did you do to him?" I ask, my voice trembling slightly.

"You already saw, didn't you?" Hal asks.

"Yeah, but what did you do to him?" I demand.

Hal laughs again, his laugh reverberating throughout my skull. God, I truly hate this man.

"I am not going to tell you that Tessa. But you will find out soon enough"

My stomach sinks.

"So, it looks like you two found a way to escape this room. How clever. We didn't expect you to be able to find a way out" Hal says chillingly.

We must be in big trouble.

"We're going to have to move you two to a place where you cannot escape"

Oh no. I have a horrible feeling that wherever they are going to move us to is going to be much worse than this room. Before I can say anything, the door opens and two men in white lab coats enter.

"Take them there" Hal says brusquely to the men.

The men silently nod, then walk over towards us, pulling us down from the top of the table. Before I can fight them off, my hands are tied behind my back with rope. The men begin drag us out of the room.

"Enjoy your new place" Hal says, grinning and revealing his crooked teeth.

We are led down the white-walled hallway. It is eerily silent except for the clicking of our footsteps on the tile floor. With every step the pit in my stomach grows larger and larger. I glance at Tristan and he looks back at me with fear and hopelessness in his eyes.

We take a turn and continue down another hallway that is identical to the other one. Except in this one, the fluorescent lights on the ceiling are flickering on and off, making me feel uneasy. We walk and stop at a large steel door at the end of the hallway.

"Where are you taking us?" Tristan asks nervously as one of the men pulls out a ring of keys from his coat pocket.

Of course, he does not respond. Instead, he finds the correct key and twists it into the door handle.

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Click.

I wait apprehensively as the heavy door slowly swings open. My heart sinks when all that I see is blackness. The next thing that I know, the two men untie the ropes and push us into the darkness.

"Wait!" I cry out desperately.

But it is too late. The door slams shut behind us, locking us inside. Water drips from the low ceiling and there is a strong musty smell. A single, extremely dim lightbulb hangs from the center of the ceiling, barely giving off any light.

I close my eyes, completely defeated, having run out of the energy to cry. All that I feel is emptiness inside.

Suddenly, I hear a voice call out of the gloom.

"Tessa?" a girls voice says, echoing.

I jump, turning around. Barely able to see anything in the gloom, I look around. That's when I see the silhouettes of two people, crouched in the corner of the room. They both stand up.

"Y...Yeah?" I call back.

"It's us. Nikki and Dylan" the girl says.

I am suddenly filled with a flood of relief.

"It's me and Tristan" I say.

Tristan and I begin to walk towards them. When we arrive Nikki pulls me into a huge hug. I can't help but smile.

"Are you guys okay?" Nikki asks.

"Yeah, I guess so. Why are you guys down here?" Tristan asks.

"Dylan caused a little bit of a problem with the doctors when they came in our room" Nikki says.

"What did he do?" I ask.

"I beat the shit out of them" Dylan says triumphantly.

My eyes have began to slightly adjust to the darkness, and I can see that there are bruises all over Dylan's face.

"Why did you two get taken here?" Nikki asks.

I explain how we escaped our room through the air conditioning shafts and got caught when we came back.

"That's genius. I can't believe we didn't think of that Nikki" Dylan says.

A few moments later, Nikki asks the question I knew was going to come up eventually.

"What happened to Ian?"

Immediately, a lump forms in my throat. I swallow hard, pushing it down.

"They...they did something to him. To punish him for what he did to Hal" I say.

"What did they do to him?" Nikki asks.

I shake my head.

"I...I...I don't know. But whatever they did to him was bad. They...they were operating on his head with this huge machine, and he was out cold when they finished" I say.

I don't want to remember what they were doing to him.

"I'm so sorry Tessa" she says.

I sniffle.

"It's okay" I lie.

"Nothing is okay. We're locked in an underground shithole that smells like feet" Dylan says.

I sigh.

"Well at least we're together" Nikki says.

I turn around to see that Tristan is gone.

"Tristan?" I call out, my voice echoing in the darkness.

That's when I hear it. Quiet wracking sobs, from across the room. My heart aches.

I turn back to Nikki and Dylan.

"You should go over to him" Nikki whispers to me.

I nod, then begin to walk towards Tristan, who is standing in the opposite corner of the room. He is leaning the wall, his back towards me and his head down. His entire body shakes as he sobs.

When I reach him, I take a deep breath, then softly say,

"Tristan?"

He turns around, looking at me with red eyes. Tears are rolling down his face, staining his cheeks.

I don't know what to say. There is nothing that I can say that will make him feel better because the truth is, nothing is okay. I am not going to lie to him and tell him that everything will be fine.

So I pull him close, wrapping my arms around him. He leans his head onto my shoulder and sobs again.

My heart is broken.

"I'm...I'm so sorry. I'm being such a baby" he says.

"It's okay" I whisper back.

We stay like that for a few moments; my arms wrapped around him and his head on my shoulder. He then pulls away, looking down into my eyes.

"Like Nikki said, at least we're still together" I say.

He nods, wiping the tears from his cheeks. I look behind me to see Nikki and Dylan walking towards us. Once they arrive we all sit down, leaning against the cold, grimy wall.

We all have nothing to do or say. All that we do is sit there, hopelessly staring into the gloom. I look down to see Tristan's hand brushing mine. Closing my eyes, my thoughts immediately go to Ian.

Where is he right now?

What have they done to him?

Is he okay?

All of these questions explode in my head like fireworks. Questions that I will never get the answers to.

Suddenly, I jump when I hear the door creak open.

Someone is here.

We all stand up and watch as someone walks in. The man is wearing