SAVE POINT 13

Re-Loading Somergot Prison Level...77%...100%

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Goran

The two guards at the doorway were child's play.

Insulting, really.

Have they really already forgotten who they're dealing with?

I wipe the bloodstained blade I'd swiped off Demetrius on the thick fabric of my jeans, leaving a maroon streak behind...

...As well as two bodies propped up on the walls where they'd slumped as crimson rivulets ran down from slits at their throats.

I didn't want to do that, Rosie.

I only did it for you. You know I only did it for you.

I slip silently down the hall. I've become good at silent—unnoticed. We did it together for years in New York City. It's an easy dance: keep your head down, keep your hood up, no eye contact, no remembrance to be tracked by.

I taught you to blend, Rosie.

But neither one of us can blend here.

Not in The Game. It's why I was trying to keep you away—keep you safe.

I pull the edges of my dark hoodie even more securely over my face to shadow it.

This is not ideal.

I've passed two security cameras on the way down the second-floor hallway already.

You are on the first level.

If they know you're with me, they will stop at no lengths to get you back. They need you, but, more excruciatingly, they hate me. If I have any chance of keeping you away and safe, I need to make sure they don't see us leave together, which means only one thing: I need to pay a visit to the security camera room before I leave this level.

My Chuck sneakers are quick over the concrete floor.

The prison guards hadn't even had the decency to let me change. I'm still in my Earth, street clothes. Again, hardly ideal. But what about this situation is?

I round the corner.

If I am thinking about this right, the control room will be at the center of the building which means—

I nearly pass it.

A row of windows.

I hastily duck so the prison guards don't see me. Even with my training, my heart rams in my ears, echoing each ragged push of my breath.

God, Rosie. I wish they weren't making me do this.

I wrap my fingers more firmly around the knife in my crouched position, running the numbers and the plan through my head:

Two more prison guards in the control room.

Disable the cameras.

Unlock any doors in the way.

Get to you.

Simple. Solid. Secure.

I don't waste time; you might not have it.

I pounce.

'Be like a panther', my fighting instructor used to say to my brother and me when we were younger, 'Never let them see the attack.'

And they didn't.

Two slashes of the knife and the guards in the control room are on their knees too.

...The way this entire place should have been years ago.

My eyes quickly scan the windowed room—no more guards, only computer screens, buzzing and crackling in a wall full of squares, showing footage of every inch of the prison—a thousand shadowy hallways. Concrete floors, bare walls and an entire desk panel of buttons spread before me...some red lights, some keyboard keys, some levers... Other than a few neglected, black, office swivel chairs and the bodies now dripping red onto the floor, the room is empty. My eyes dart over the controls, attempting to make a decision for which to press.

There's a map of the prison at the center of the panel showing green-lighted lines for open doors and red-lit lines for closed ones.

I quickly do the mental gymnastics to identify which locked doors to open.

A few key presses and I have the entire way downstairs unlocked.

I turn to leave the room, but a thought keeps bugging me.

Niggling at my brain.

Like a strong nudge I can't shake off.

...And it has to do with the row of red-lit lines throbbing on the whole left wing of the prison.

Pulsing.

Like they are waiting for death itself.

...Maybe some of them are.

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It's rows of inmates trapped, like I had been, in cells.

And I can't let it go—I can't not do something when this world has so terribly screwed me and you over, Rosie. If anyone knows the evil that The Game is capable of, it's me.

And, so, I turn back around.

And my fingers find the control for the prison cells, clacking over the keys.

And I set every one of those lucky bastards free.

Hell yeah.

Let them call me a freaking traitor now—not to those people.

I let a sly smile spread over my face as I pivot to the television screens on the wall to watch the bars slide up on every cell in the damn place.

But I hear a roar.

My head snaps to a monitoring screen in the top, right corner.

The damn dragon; I'd forgotten about the damn—

My heart sinks.

My stomach wrenches.

Because I watch its red, rearing head and gnashing teeth. I watch it spewing fire.

A hailstorm of climbing flames.

As a small silhouette darts into a tunnel with a locked door.

Oh, God, Rosie. It's you!

You're—

Cornered.

I've never lunged for controls quicker.

My eyes dart over the labels till I find the one I need, and I switch the door open—

But it's too late.

You've tried tugging on the door, and you think it's locked.

...All as the dragon moves closer—its disgusting nose snapping only inches from you—

Panic consumes me.

NO.

He can't kill you.

I won't let this happen.

I promised!

Heart in my throat, I race down the hall, praying with everything in me that I won't be too late.

My feet pound over the concrete floor.

Thank God for my advanced stamina—

I tear down the stairs, taking three at a time.

I leap towards the metal door that you're trapped against—

Heave all my weight against it—

My breath nearly rings in my ears.

It feels like every motion is in slow motion—

You're cowering behind the door there, your eyes closed like you've accepted your fate against this dragon—like you've already processed and accepted that you're going to die here.

No.

The stink of dragon and burnt flesh stings at my nostrils—

He's hurt you, Rosie.

His fire has engulfed part of your clothes although you've stamped it out. Your cheeks are dirt-smudged and your hair, unruly like when you used to come back from the park as a child...

And the beast is still there.

Snarling at both of us in the doorway.

It's huge snout filling it.

Smoke curls out of its nostrils, choking me, making you cough and gag.

How the heck am I going to kill this thing? Do we stand any kind of chance? I bite down on my lip. We have to.

Suddenly, there's a war cry behind me.

And a million bodies push through the door, jostling around us—the prisoners I set free! All escaping at once!

I clutch you to my body, hold you there, finally safe. Finally okay as long as you're with me. A million arms and legs race past us like the salvation we deserve after all this time, pushing against us—past us—flooding out the doorway, towards the dragon like a crowd of unafraid heathens.

But the beast isn't about to surrender.

The thing bellows, shaking the hallway with its pure fury and loosing a volley of fire directly at us all.

Screams.

Echoing in the cramped space.

Bodies burning.

Crashing.

Hair sizzling.

Arms flailing and bumping and shoving—

A million hands and shoulders.

It's stifling.

I can't breathe from the stink of fear and sweat.

I grip you tighter.

I shove against the crowd harder.

Against these fiends that I unleashed.

They're dying around us.

Shrieking.

Running.

I have to get you out of here.

I yank you out of the hallway enclosure.

I trip over the dragon's tail.

But I pull you with me.

Your despondent head lulls forward. Your creamy skin is ashen against the smoke in the room.

The dragon thrashes, shrieking overhead in fury.

Huge talons swipe towards us, shaking the earth.

More fire.

You catch like a burnt offering.

And I scream.

In rage.

In outrage.

And I pick you up, still burning, in my arms.

I leap for the door out of here—

I know it's open.

We bust forth into the morning that wouldn't have been this pretty if it had known of the slaughter that would ensue.

...Bodies falling into the moat.

The moat around the prison!

You're burning.

My baby is burning.

I smell it.

Your hair blows over my face, ensnaring my vision, but the cattails and lily pads of the moat are still visible.

I have to save you.

And, so, I run.

Into the water.

Full speed.

The murky, filthy waves slap against my sides and arms and soak into my jeans, making each step even heavier.

And you thrash for a moment against my movements; you resist me.

But the cool water flows over your limbs.

Putting out the fire.

And I watch your face smooth over like the waves.

White.

Hanging on by a thread.

But, still, okay again. A sigh of relief rushes over my heart.

Thank God, you're okay again.

I tug us out of the water; you're heavier with your clothes and hair soaked, but the peace on your face is worth it. I slosh onto shore, heaving us both upwards and into the grass.

Where can we run, Rosie, where they won't follow us?

Where can we hide, so they'll never find us?

I think I know.

And I shoulder you like I've shouldered the burden of who you are our whole lives.

And your eyes sink shut as you clutch at my neck, too weak to talk.

Because you know home when you see it.

You know safe.

You're safe with me, Rosie.