“Sam is going to kill me,” Brianna muttered.
Then, as she bent a knee, “Ow.”
The roof was a few hundred feet long, one third as wide. She trotted—slowly—from one end to the other. She found the access door easily, a steel door set in a brick superstructure. This would lead down to the turbine room and from there to the control room.
“Well, of course there would be a door,” Brianna muttered. “I guess I should pretend that was my plan right from the start.”
She tried the doorknob. It was locked. It was very locked.
“Okay, that sucks,” Brianna said.
She was desperately thirsty. Even more desperately hungry. Thirst and hunger were often extreme after she had turned on the speed. She doubted she’d find any food up on this roof the size of a parking lot. Maybe water, though. There were massive air conditioners, each the size of a suburban home. Didn’t air conditioning always create condensation?
She zipped at a moderate speed over to the closest AC unit, ow, ow, owing as she ran. Brianna let herself in. Found a light switch. Her heart leaped when she spotted the Dunkin’ Donuts box. In a flash she was there. But there was nothing inside but some tissue paper smeared with the crusty remains of pink icing and a half dozen brightly colored sprinkles.
Brianna licked the paper. It had been so long since she’d tasted anything sweet. But the result was just a sharpening of the pain in her stomach.
She found what she hoped was a water pipe, white plastic. She looked around for a tool and found a small steel box containing a few wrenches and a screwdriver. In seconds she had popped the pipe and was filling her stomach with ice cold water. Then she let the water pour over the burns on her skin and cried out at the agony of it.
She next carried the screwdriver—it was large and heavy—to the steel door. She inserted it into the gap between the handle and the frame and pushed. There was no give. Not even a little.
In frustration she stabbed at the door. The screwdriver made a spark and a scratch. Nothing more.
“Great. I’m trapped on the roof,” she said.
Brianna knew she needed medical attention. A visit with Lana would be great. Failing that, she needed bandages and antibiotics.
But all of that was nothing compared to the hunger. Now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, the hunger was attacking her with the ferocity of a lion. She had started the night hungry. But then she had run perhaps twenty-five miles. On a very empty stomach.
It was a ridiculous situation to be in. No one knew she was up here. She probably couldn’t yell loud enough to make herself heard over the noise of the plant. Even if she could, she probably wouldn’t want to because if Sam had failed, somehow, then the guy who heard her would be Caine.
Then she spotted the pigeon.
“Oh, my God,” Brianna whispered. “No.”
Then, “Why not?”
“Because, ewww.”
“Look, it’s no different from a chicken.”
She retrieved the donut box. She tore the paper into little strips. She found an ancient newspaper and tore it up as well. She found a wooden pallet and with a saw from the toolkit, and superhuman speed, she soon had a small pile of wood.
It was unfortunate that none of the workmen had left matches behind. But steel struck with super speed against cement made sparks fly. It was tedious work, but she soon had a fire going. A cheerful little fire in the middle of the vast roof.
And now there were two pigeons, dozing and cooing in their sleep. One was gray, the other kind of pink.
“Pink,” she decided.
The chances of a regular kid catching them was close to zero. But she was not a normal person. She was the Breeze.
The pigeon never had time to flinch. She grabbed it, hand around its golf ball head. She swung it hard, snapping its neck.
Two minutes in the fire burned off most of the feathers. Five minutes more and the bird burst open.
That was the end of her patience. She used the screwdriver to pry slivers of meat from the pigeon’s plump breast and pop them into her mouth.
It had been weeks since she had tasted anything half as good.
“The Breeze,” she said, squatting by her fire. “Scourge of pigeons.”
She lay back, savoring her meal.
In a minute she would get up and figure out how to escape this rooftop trap.
But with food in her stomach the weariness of a day spent running at insane speeds over insane distances caught up with her.
“I’m just going to rest my . . .”
Duck sank, facedown, mouth full of dirt and rock.
He was choking, gagging. No way to breathe.
His head was pounding. Blood pounding in his ears. His chest heaved, sucking desperately on nothing.
It was over.
He was going to die.
Wild with panic, he thrashed. His arms plowed through packed dirt with no more effort than if he had been swimming in water.
He was no longer acting consciously, legs and arms kicking in a sort of death spasm as his brain winked out and his lungs screamed.
“Duck! Duck! You down there?”
A voice from a million miles away.
Duck tried to sit up, very quickly. He had managed to turn himself over. But his head slammed into dirt, and he took a shower of gravel in the face for his efforts. He tried to open his eyes, but dirt filled them. He spit dirt out of his mouth and found that he could breathe. His thrashing had made a space for him.
“Duck! Dude! Are you alive?”
Duck wasn’t sure he knew the answer. He cautiously moved his arms and legs and found that he could, within limits.