Page 137 of Grave Matter

I think I hear Wes cry out in pain, or maybe that was David, and then something else crashes, glass shattering, metal clanging against metal.

“Michael! Michael!” Everly is screaming. “Oh my god, Michael, are you okay?”

Something heavy falls on my legs, maybe the ventilator, trapping me.

Another gunshot.

This time, it shoots something glass, shattering it.

Then there’s a WHOOSH!

Suddenly, flames sprout up in the corner of the room, lighting the darkness.

From down on the floor, I can see Michael lying lifeless, blood pouring from his head, his empty gaze staring straight at me. His ice-cold stare is worse in death.

I glance up to Wes, with a handgun in his hand, breathing hard, watching the flames. “That’s sodium methylate,” he says to himself, then starts looking around. “Sydney! Sydney!” he yells.

“Here!” I call out just as I see Everly appearing from behind an operating table, running toward the door.

But Rav is standing there in the doorway, Hernandez beside him with a rifle, Munawar peeking between them.

Hernandez aims the rifle at Everly.

“Don’t even think about it,” he says.

Meanwhile, Wes runs to me and lifts the ventilator off my legs with a grunt.

I don’t see David at all.

“We have to get out of here now,” Wes says, pulling me to my feet. “Take short, shallow breaths. Try not to breathe the chemicals in.”

He carries me in his arms and runs to the door, where everyone is gathered and Everly is trying to fight her way through.

“Everyone out now. This place is going to blow!” Wes yells.

Everly starts clawing against Rav, trying to escape, but Hernandez brings the butt of the rifle down on the back of her head, causing her to slump. Justin squeezes through to helpthem drag her up the stairs, the only light in the stairwell coming from the flames rapidly spreading through the operating room.

Everyone clamors up the stairs, yelling, shouting, fueled by the panic of the oncoming flames. Once the door at the top swings open to the learning lab, air blows through and stokes the fire building below us, spreading across to the other room where Clayton is being kept.

“Clayton,” I cry out, trying to get out of his arms. “We have to get Clayton.”

“I’m sorry,” Wes says, holding me tighter as we reach the top of the stairs. “We have to let him go.”

We burst out into the room just as the flames roar out of the stairwell and into the learning lab.

“Go, go, go!” Wes yells as everyone runs for their life through the lab, the heat of the flames at our back. There’s awhoosh, whoosh, whooshas various chemicals catch fire and start burning, the threat of an explosion imminent.

We scramble out into the storm, the wind blowing inside the lab behind us.

“Keep running, keep running!” Wes shouts. “To the docks, head to the?—”

The labexplodes.

Wes and I are thrown to the ground by a wall of heat. My ears ring, and Wes covers my body with his as flames reach above us. I feel like I’m on fire.

I whimper, terrified, and Wes keeps me still, his breath ragged and steady, the only thing I can hear above the din.

“Are you alright?” he asks. “We’ve got to keep moving.”