Chrysalis Read online

  I aimed a confused glance at Sarah. She shook her head.

  My whole body went cold. “Where are the others? Tiffani and Kristen? Devin? Are they trapped somewhere?”

  I glanced at Alice, who was staring at nothing. Colleen and Susan were hugging each other and wouldn’t meet my eye. “They’re dead,” Jessica wailed. “The roof caved in and they all died!” She slumped to her knees, sobbing, and covered her face.

  Sarah watched Jessica with distaste. No tears marred her eyes. Then she looked at me and I nearly shivered. “Tiffani, Melissa, Emily, Kristen, and Devin were having dinner in the command center. The rest of us were in the living quarters. The blast door between the two sections was shut, which probably saved our lives. When we tried to open it . . .” Sarah grimaced, the first human thing she’d done since emerging. “It’s gone. They’re gone.”

  Akio turned to stare at the ocean. I shook my head, unwilling to accept what I was hearing. “It might just be blocked. The rest of the shaft could—”

  “I connected to a working camera in one of the storage alcoves,” Sarah said curtly. “The silo’s entire ceiling collapsed down the shaft, crushing everything outside the lab complex. The command center is pulverized, Noah. So is everyone who was in there.” She crossed her arms to reveal cracked, bleeding nails. “It’s not like we didn’t try.”

  I gaped at Sarah, horrified. Five more classmates, dead. What am I going to tell Min?

  “I assume you have a way up from here?” Sarah said. “We’ve been waiting by this door for hours. It’s the only way in or out now, and I was getting worried no one could reach it from above. The lab complex isn’t damaged, and we sealed it, but I want to get topside and see what happened.” She glanced at her companions. “The others didn’t want to stay underground alone.”

  “Up. Yes.” I shook my head to clear it. “We have ropes. Kyle is—”

  A concussion thumped from somewhere deep inside the tunnel, followed quickly by two more. The stone shook beneath our feet. My eyes met Sarah’s as a crunching sound echoed along the passageway, growing louder by the second.

  Sarah flew to the open door, dropping a shoulder against the heavy steel. Akio and I leapt to flank her and together we forced the portal closed. Sarah turned the wheel, then jerked back as something heavy clanged against the door from the inside. The mountain groaned one last time, then went still.

  I slid down on my butt and wiped grime from my eyes. “Will things stop breaking around here, please?”

  “No way,” Sarah whispered, dropping down beside me. The others were all panting like we’d run a marathon.

  I rested my head back against the door. “No way what? The tunnel imploded. Thank God we got here in time.”

  Sarah grabbed my shirt, yanking me close. “Two major collapses in one day? Inside a military-grade disaster bunker that stood for over a million years? Get your head out of your ass, Livingston.”

  I gently extricated myself from her grip, then ran both palms over my face as the last twelve hours fell in on me like an avalanche. “What are you saying, Sarah? I’m too tired for games.”

  She shook her head with disgust. “I’m saying, Noah, that a storm didn’t cause this damage. It’s too much.”

  That got my attention. “If not the storm, then what?”

  She leaned back next to me, staring off into the distance. “Not what, you idiot. Who.”

  3

  MIN

  I was staring at a cake.

  Chocolate. Squat and lopsided. Clearly underbaked in a field oven. No silly candles, but someone had written HOME TOWN and SIX MONTHS & KICKING! on its face with rehydrated vanilla frosting.

  I pressed my temples. Two hours ago, Noah had returned to the village with Sarah and the four other silo survivors. Their news hit like a gut punch. Everyone was stumbling around in shock, numb from the rising body count and being cut off from our refuge and source of supplies. For the first time since exiting the Program, we were truly on our own.

  And yet someone had thought it’d be a good idea to bake a cake. I grunted in disbelief.

  We couldn’t guess the correct date, or even what month it was. There’d been no holidays or birthday parties since emerging from our regeneration pods. In a sense we all had the same birthday, making us a giant group of infants. Or we were all so old as to defy comprehension. Either way, this was ridiculous. Nine people were dead.

  “Idiots.” I hustled the cake out of the community lodge and found the closest occupied structure—Cash, Dakota, Leighton, and Ferris were playing No Limit Hold ’Em in the mess tent, a green nylon-and-fiberglass structure designed to shelter troops in the field. “Here,” I said, placing the dessert on their table. “You four can eat this whole thing without sharing if you promise to never admit it existed.”

  Quick nods of agreement as they pounced. I was already heading back outside.

  I’d called for an official meeting. Only elected leaders at first, though we’d have a full assembly afterward to share our recommendations with the class. We couldn’t wait for someone to come all the way from the Outpost—located off-island and across the channel—but radio calls had been made up to Ridgeline and down to the caves. It would take a while for everyone to get to Home Town.

  Everyone. A sigh escaped as I reentered the lodge, the largest building in the village. Four months ago we’d been sixty-four kids strong and doing okay in our new environment. The whole class had lived in Home Town, or down in the silo within easy reach. Things had been going as smoothly as could be hoped. Then the accident occurred, Carl and his scouting team died, and the group splintered.

  It was the beginning of the end. Aftershocks were still being felt today.

  The next morning Toby and his goons had disappeared, and the count was down to fifty-four. Nobody missed them—Toby had made no effort to fit in since exiting the Program, and the Nolan twins, Josh, Tucker, and Cole had been our only real troublemakers—but where the heck had they gone? Noah was certain they were no longer living on Fire Lake Island.

  That was bad enough, but then even those fifty-four broke apart. Sam refused to live in Home Town after his cousin’s death, probably because of me, though he grudgingly agreed to stay a part of the wider community. He took seven friends and built Ridgeline camp in the western heights, as far from Home Town as you could get. The next day Ethan, Charlie, and Spencer hauled a portable shelter down to a cave system we’d discovered close to the water, and never came back. Exasperated, I put them in charge of our boats to maintain a connection.

  The worst blow came the following week. Corbin announced he intended to establish a farming colony away from the island completely. He promised to build a permanent settlement on the only other habitable landmass we’d discovered, a forested peninsula lurking a full day south across the sea. Nine more people, gone.

  The last defection hurt most. Tack sucker-punched me by joining Corbin’s team.

  I wasn’t over it.

  Still, yesterday the number of classmates under my direct authority in Home Town had been forty-five, if I counted Sarah’s group in the silo. Now it was thirty-six. I could barely wrap my head around the loss.

  Home Town—Six months and kicking!

  Half the class, gone. Thirteen dead. Only twenty people were still rostered in the village at the moment, where I was supposed to be in charge. I’d let class unity slip through my fingers. If Noah hadn’t constantly traveled from one camp to another, keeping everyone in touch by more than just radio, we’d have fallen apart completely. As it was, things were balanced on a knife’s edge.

  The door creaked as Sarah Harden walked into the lodge. My skin bristled. I’d successfully avoided a face-to-face meeting with her for weeks.

  “Thought I’d find you here.” She moved to a folding chair and sat, crossing one athletic leg over the other. Her blond hair was tied back in a lazy ponytail,
which only made her more attractive. Sarah was one of those rare people who looked better the less effort she put into it.

  “This is where we meet.” I took a seat across from her, my shoulders remaining stubbornly rigid. Something about Sarah always made me feel like I was being judged. Being judged, and coming up short. I waved a hand at the now-empty table. “Someone made a cake for the town’s half birthday, but I got rid of it.”

  Sarah snorted. “This group needs a few lessons in tact.”

  “How are the other girls? Did you get them settled somewhere?”

  “Yes. There are spare cabins.”

  I winced. Survivors of one disaster replacing victims of another. What a nightmare. With a sinking feeling it occurred to me that Sarah would almost surely stay in the village now, too.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, fairly certain I meant it. “Is Alice good?”

  She nodded tersely, but I could see that her relief ran deep. Alice Cho and Sarah had been living together since the Program. They’d established the colony of basement-dwellers who valued concrete walls and ceilings above everything else.

  Sarah leaned forward, and it took a deliberate effort for me not to pull back. “We’re in trouble, Wilder. The cave-ins completely sealed off the silo.” She tapped the tabletop as she spoke. “Roof hatch? Collapsed. Front door? Demolished. And I was there when the back tunnel failed. We can’t get inside from any direction, and almost everything we need to stay alive is stored in those alcoves.”

  I swallowed. Eased back and crossed my arms. “We have a lot stockpiled in the village. We’ll just have to make do until we unblock the entrance. It’ll take time, but—”

  “It won’t work,” Sarah interrupted. “I was inside, remember? I got a look at the shaft through a camera feed. The cave-in scraped everything off the walls. The supply crates are still in their alcoves, but there’s no way to reach them.” She ticked off three fingers. “Catwalks. Ladder. Miner’s cage. All destroyed. And the command center was crushed by the avalanche.”

  She paused, sucking her teeth. No doubt remembering friends who’d died in the disaster. But the moment passed quickly. Sarah didn’t waste time on sentiment.

  She cleared her throat. “There are cracks along the outside of the silo, too. I’d bet that the lab complex is still intact—it’s the most heavily fortified section of the whole bunker—but there’s no way to reach it now, either.” Sarah sat back with a huff, frustration bleeding into her voice for the first time. “We just lost the source of our power, fuel, food, heavy equipment, and computing ability. Poof. Gone.”

  I tried not to let her analysis crush me. Sarah was brilliant, but I was in charge. I had to think of positive steps.

  “These are simply problems to solve,” I said, putting my hands in my lap so they wouldn’t shake. “First, we conduct an inventory. The fires destroyed a lot, but not everything. Then we find a way into the silo. Once we do that, we can figure out how to get things out. It’s not impossible, Sarah, just hard. We can do hard.”

  Sarah’s blue eyes locked onto mine. She didn’t say anything. In a flash, I realized she was barely keeping it together. Sarah had lost five friends in a heartbeat, people she’d been living with for months in close quarters. Most of the girls who’d elected to stay underground had been on the cheerleading squad with her back in school. The tiny sliver of human empathy Sarah possessed must’ve been ravaged by their deaths.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “You may be right.” Sarah rubbed both palms on her jeans, then resumed speaking in her typical annoyed tone. “Where are the others, anyway? This meeting might be pointless, but it’s a form to be observed. Not that I care what any of the boys have to say. How much better would things be if we just told everyone what to do?”

  I snorted. But was also secretly pleased by the “we.” After everything, I still craved her approval.

  Sarah rose and took the chair next to mine. My hackles shot up. I might want her respect, but I never wanted her in my personal space.

  She glanced at the door, then spoke in a low voice. “There’s something else you should know. The cave-in—it didn’t feel natural.” Sarah shook her head, squinting down at the floor. “I keep going over the sounds in my head. The sequence. It doesn’t add up. And why would a super-bunker built to survive the end of the world suddenly fail during a thunderstorm?”

  “That was a nasty storm, Sarah. Plus, what else could’ve caused it?” Then my eyebrows shot up. “You’re not suggesting what I think you are?”

  “I don’t trust what happened yesterday,” she said firmly. “Or everyone in our class. I think something’s up. There are things you should know that—”

  The door opened and Derrick ducked into the lodge, followed by Noah and Sam Oatman. Sarah pulled back from me and slid a few seats away. Whatever she’d intended to say would have to wait.

  My eyes met Noah’s, and warmth surged through me. I wanted to bury myself in his arms. He’d been gone for the worst night of my life, and I’d had no one else to lean on. Tack was away on his fool’s errand, and I wasn’t really close with any of the others, except maybe Derrick. I’d felt Noah’s lack intensely, but now wasn’t the time. Instead, I gave him a quick hug and let him brush my cheek with a kiss. It was enough, for now.

  “Where’s Ethan?” Sarah said.

  Derrick dropped a shoulder bag on the table and sat with a noisy exhale. “Not coming. I got him on the radio and he said, and I quote, ‘Not my problem.’ Selfish prick. I doubt Charlie or Spencer show up, either. The Fire Lake cavemen appear to be sitting this one out.”

  I tried not to let my disappointment show. Ethan enjoyed being difficult, but usually his curiosity got the best of him. Why wasn’t he interested in such an important meeting?

  Then I went cold. Sarah’s suspicions danced inside my head.

  Ethan ran our boats to the Outpost from his subterranean lair, giving him a decent-sized responsibility in the wider scheme. I’d hoped that would satisfy him, but maybe not. I glanced at Sarah, but her poker face was back in place. Was this what she’d been hinting at?

  “I came.” Sam was stocky and muscular, with intense, dark brown eyes. I hadn’t seen him smile since his cousin died, and today was no exception. “Ridgeline camp sent me to speak for it.” As if we didn’t know. He sat a bit away from everyone and folded his arms.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said, with all the earnestness I could muster.

  He nodded perfunctorily. It was the best I could hope for.

  Noah sat next to Derrick, across from me. In meetings we tried not to show any favoritism toward each other. Which was stupid, but we did it anyway. “There’s another problem,” he said, face sour. “We can’t reach the Outpost.”

  I stiffened, thinking of Tack. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no answer on the radio. Home Town’s big antenna is down, but Akio was able to reach Charlie in the caves on a handheld, and he bounced a signal over to the Outpost. Charlie says everything is working on our end and they should be receiving our calls. But no one’s picking up.”

  I sat back, thinking. “It must not be getting through.”

  “Charlie knows more about AV equipment than the rest of us put together,” Derrick said. “If he says it’s working, I believe him. Maybe their tech was knocked out by the storm?”

  “I don’t like it,” Sarah said. “Not with . . . everything else.”

  I felt a pulse of pure frustration. More loose strands, even as I tried to stitch things back together. I dug fingernails into my palm. Handle one thing at a time. “We’ll just keep trying them,” I said. “But our top priority is to figure out a way back into the silo. When we speak to the group later, there needs to be a firm consensus ab—”

  The door flew open and Rachel Stein stormed in, her long black hair swirling. I held back a sigh, but only barely. Out of everyone
in camp, I got along with her the least. She held me personally responsible for everything that happened to our class during Project Nemesis, ignoring the fact that we’d all have been fried to a crisp over a million years ago without it.

  Rachel crossed her arms, glaring with dark eyes in stark contrast to her pale skin. “I have a message for the overlords,” she said acidly, her mouth crinkling in a petty smirk.

  “Out with it,” Sarah snapped.

  Rachel straightened as if Tasered, crimson splotches coloring her cheeks. She might think she was the center of the universe, but even a black hole stepped lightly around Sarah.

  “Leighton and Ferris are down by the lake. They say something’s wrong with it.”

  My nose scrunched. “Wrong with it? What does that mean?” Both boys lived in Home Town, but neither ever volunteered to help much.

  Rachel glowered at me, as if to reassert her importance. “I have no idea, Melinda. I was sent like an errand girl to fetch you.”

  “They want us to come there?” Noah looked at me. “That sounds serious.”

  Sam rose and headed toward the door. “Let’s go. They wouldn’t bother us for nothing.”

  I glanced at Sarah, who nodded slightly. The rest of us filed out after Sam, leaving Rachel behind to nurse her grievances. It was a ten-minute walk to the lakeshore. There we found a group of classmates gathered in a knot and staring at the water.

  I strode to Leighton’s side. Our former class president was shielding his eyes as he peered at the shallows, his curly blond hair swaying in the breeze. Noticing me, he pointed to an islet in the lake no more than a dozen yards from where we stood. “Look! Do you see?”

  Several yards of darker mud were exposed on its bank. “What? The silt?”

  “The waterline. It’s dropping fast. The level is down another foot since we sent Rachel.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “How is that possible? Rainwater’s been pouring in from the hills all day.”