"I told them everything Cade. They had to know," I said.
I held my breath as I waited for his reaction and prepared myself for a fight. "I understand," he assured me as he kissed my forehead. His lips lingered on me before he turned to Bishop. "Can you take the stitches out?"
Bishop's eyes flew rapidly over Cade's bare and stitched chest before resting on his face. There were enough stitches in him that he could almost pass for Frankenstein's monster. "They should stay in for at least another week," Bishop informed him.
Cade's midnight hair fell across his forehead as he shook his head. "They can come out now, I'll be fine." Some of the color faded from Bishop's face but he didn't complain as he bent to pull a pair of scissors from his bag. "There's no need for that," Cade told him when Bishop began to heat the scissors under a flame to sterilize them. Bishop frowned but didn't protest. "Or a sedative."
I clutched his hand as Bishop placed the syringe back in his bag. Bishop approached with the care someone would take with a wounded dog but his hand was steady as he began to cut the thread away. Cade's muscles flinched and flexed every once in awhile, but he didn't protest as Bishop worked on him and eventually the doctor began to relax. I somehow managed to keep my mouth clamped shut and remain immobile, but no one else hid their amazement as the stitches from his chest, face and abdomen fell away. The wounds weren't completely gone, but the deep gashes had faded to little more than just scratches with a few deeper gouges.
Bishop finally took a step away from him. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was briefly tempted to pinch myself as I stared at the place where bone had once been exposed but now it was nothing more than a deep scratch on his cheek. I had known how formidable he was, but this was beyond even my comprehension. The cuts would have been deadly to a human, but within hours they would be gone from him. His eyes were unreadable as they met mine, his fingers stroked over my arm as he leaned closer to me.
"My God," Bret whispered. "How..."
"It's only flesh," Cade said when Bret's voice trailed off.
"It's your flesh," I breathed as I traced one of the lines across his sculpted abs.
His jaw clenched and unclenched as his hand took hold of mine and he pressed it flat against his chest. I managed to swallow but I didn't have any words. "Did our blood do that for you!?" Jenna blurted, able to voice the question that remained lodged in my throat.
"It helped," he said.
"Shit," Bret said from between his clenched teeth.
"We need to leave here. There will be more of those things coming down; they'll search these tunnels until they've covered every square inch of them. They won't leave any place unchecked. There are probably more already on their way."
"What are those things?" I asked.
"Scouts. They've been sent out to search the areas that the others can't get into. If there are too many humans down here, or too high of a threat to their creators, they possess a paralytic agent that will hold a person immobile for twelve hours, sometimes even a full day." I recalled that milky liquid dripping from those tusk-like things and shuddered. "The fact that they haven't reported back has already alerted the others that there is something worthwhile down here. The Seekers will be coming for you, for us, themselves."
"The Seekers?" Aiden inquired.
"The larger ones, the ones you've been running from this whole time. We need to get out of here; more Scouts will be coming soon." He shook his head as he ran a hand through his disordered hair. "I was out for too long."
I hated the self condemning tone of his voice. "That's not your fault," I told him.
No matter what I said though, he would blame himself if those things came back. "It doesn't matter. We need to go."
Bret and Jenna looked as if he had just told them that the sun was going to stop shining tomorrow. Bishop picked up his bag while Aiden rubbed his chin and calculated Cade's words. "How much time do we have?" Aiden inquired.
"At the most a day, at the least an hour."
My hand flew to my mouth as dread coursed through me. "We need to find Abby and warn the others!"
"How are we going to explain this to them? How are we going to tell them what is going to happen?" Jenna demanded.
I closed my eyes as I clenched Cade's hand. "They don't know where we've been for the past four hours. We'll tell them that we went back into the tunnel above to see if there were any more of those things around and that we saw more of them coming," Bishop said flatly.
"But what if some refuse to leave?" I asked.
"We can't save everyone Bethany." I would have expected such a callous response from Cade, but not Bishop and his words knocked all further protest from me. "We have to save who we can, and we have to go now."
"Are you ok around me now?" I asked Cade quietly when the others moved ahead of us in the tunnel. His eyes flickered away from me, his jaw clenched as he gave a brisk nod. "Cade..."
"I'll be fine Bethany, I promise. Their blood helped to ease some of my thirst."
"But it hurts you to be around me."
"It hurts me far more to be away from you. I can control this Bethy; I can do anything for you."
A lump formed in my throat but before I could shed my tears Cade's nudging hand in my back got me moving toward the exit.
***
I was struggling not to scream as I burst free of the air duct and inhaled heaping gulps of fresh air. I was shaking and my muscles felt like I'd run a marathon from being tensed while crawling through the duct. The sweat on my back had the effect of an ice cube sliding down my spine as the chilly October air hit me. Cade clasped hold of my arms and helped lift me to my feet.
"It's ok, it's almost over," he whispered in my ear. I couldn't open my eyes to look at him; I could only bite on my bottom lip as I managed a small nod. "Only a few more feet, keep your eyes closed if you want."
I desperately didn't want to see anything around me again. I could feel the walls, but at least I was out of the air duct. I'd been able to make it through the tunnel systems for the past week so I knew I could do this.
"I'll be fine," I whispered as I forced my eyes open. I recoiled involuntarily as I caught sight of the walls pressing against me, but somehow managed to gather the last dregs of my courage for the remaining leg of our journey.
Swallowing heavily, I tilted my head back to look at the manhole cover twenty feet above us. We were almost free, almost back into the real world. I should be thrilled but instead I was terrified. We didn't know what awaited us up there. Not anymore.