He isn’t Owen, Seth thinks, but he’s Tomasz. And she’s Regine. And we’re all we’ve got.
“Let’s go get her,” he growls. “And let’s put that son of a bitch down once and for all.”
“I think it went to the prison,” Tomasz says, grimacing at the pain in his hands as he lifts the bike. “I heard the vehicle start up again and drive away.”
“Why wouldn’t it go to Regine’s house?” Seth asks, concentrating on keeping upright. “That’s where her coffin is.”
“I do not know,” Tomasz says again. “Maybe it is only supposed to look after those in the prison. Maybe it thinks that is where we are supposed to be.”
“It was waiting for us here. It was waiting to take us back.”
“Yes,” Tomasz says. “Maybe it knew you would come here. Maybe it learned your memories when you got zapped.”
“Oh, shit, I hope that’s not true.”
“We are needing to be hurrying now.”
“I’m coming,” Seth says. He takes a few steps and loses his balance but catches himself.
Tomasz looks at him, worried. “You must be okay, Mr. Seth. You must. However badly you are feeling, we have to get her. There is no other choice.”
Seth stops for a moment, closes his eyes, and opens them again. “I know,” he says. “We’re not sending her back to die. No matter what.”
He takes a deep breath and forces himself to walk more steadily. He moves faster and then faster again, until he reaches the bike. He swings his leg over the seat, feels himself swoon a bit, but rides it out. “You are okay?” Tomasz asks, climbing up behind him.
“Okay enough.”
“Do you know what you are doing?”
“I know how to ride a bike, Tomasz –”
“No,” Tomasz says, his face pressed into Seth’s back, holding on for the journey about to start. “Do you know what you are doing right now?”
“What? What am I doing right now?”
“You threw yourself at the Driver when it attacked her,” Tomasz says. “I saw it. You did this knowing you would probably be killed yourself. And now you are going to save her, knowing how strong it is, knowing what it can do. You are going to try and save her anyway.”
“Of course I am,” Seth says, irritated, trying to get his feet up on the pedals without tumbling the two of them over.
“This is who you are, do you see?” Tomasz continues. “You are not a boy who hands his brother over to a murderer instead of yourself. You are a man who will save his friends. You are a man who does not even hesitate to save his friends.”
“My friends,” Seth says, almost asking it.
Tomasz squeezes him. “Yes, Mr. Seth.”
“My friends,” Seth says again.
He starts pedaling, fighting to keep the bike level with their combined weight, but pedaling faster and then faster again.
66
“She will be there,” Tomasz says, over Seth’s shoulder, saying it like a prayer. “We will be in time.”
“We’ll save her,” Seth says. “Don’t you worry.”
He pedals along, dodging the taller weeds, thumping over deep cracks. They’re riding through the neighborhood toward Seth’s house and the prison beyond.
“Watch out!” Tomasz says as a startled pheasant flies up from under a blast of weeds. Seth swerves, nearly toppling them, but he’s feeling stronger now, focused on a goal. He’s going to get them to the train station. They’re going to ride down that path beside the tracks and go as far into the prison grounds as they can get –
And then what?
Well, he doesn’t know the answer to that yet, but all they need to do now is get there. He speeds up as they turn down the street his own house is on.
Whatever is true, whatever this place is or isn’t, whether it’s all in his head or whether this really is the way the world turned out, he thinks about what Tomasz said.
His friends.
Yes, that felt right. That felt real. Friends that he couldn’t possibly make up, with lives that he’d never imagine.
Whatever the other explanations were, Tomasz and Regine felt real.
And then he remembers what Regine said, saying it to himself firmly, like a vow.
Know yourself, he thinks, as they sail past his house.
And go in swinging.
They carry the bike up to the train station, take it over the platform and down to the brick path on the side of the tracks. Tomasz loops his hands around Seth’s waist again, and they ride the short distance to the break in the wall.
“Almost there,” Tomasz says nervously as they get off once more and take the bike through.
“I don’t suppose you have a plan?” Seth asks.
“Aha!” Tomasz says, grinning desperately. “Now you are asking. After seeing Tomasz make so many brave escapes and have so many clever ideas. Now you are giving him credit.”
“So do you?” Seth says, setting the bike back down on the other side of the maze of broken fences.
“I do not,” Tomasz says sheepishly, and Seth thinks he’s never looked younger.
“How old are you really?”
Tomasz looks at the desolate sprays of grass growing up in the prison ground. “I was about to become twelve before I woke up. I do not know how old that makes me here.”
Seth grips his shoulders, making Tomasz look him in the eye. “I think it makes you a man here. From what I’ve seen anyway.”
Tomasz just looks back for a moment, then nods gravely. “We will rescue her.”
“We will.” They get on the bike and race down the hill. The buildings surrounding the square seem smaller in the sunshine as they approach. No hidden shadows that could contain endless spaces.
Nope, Seth thinks, the endless spaces are all hidden underground.
“Why would they build it under a prison?” he wonders aloud as they ride. “Of all places, why here?”
“A prison has to be safe, maybe?” Tomasz says. “And this place would have to be, too, for all the people to sleep. It makes a kind of terrible sense.”
“When do you think we’re going to find anything here that makes good sense?”
“I do not know, Mr. Seth. I am hopeful for soon.”
They reach the end of the path, bumping on weedy ground as they approach the first main building. “I can’t hear the engine anymore,” Seth says.
They get off the bike and peek around the corner into the square, but there’s nothing to see, nothing surprising anyway. The buildings look even harder in daylight, more unflinching.