Taken (Erin Bowman)

easier for you.”
    “If you think I actually want another death on my conscience, you’re even dumber than I thought.” She snatches up her gun. “Do you want to see your father or not?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then shut up and follow me. You try to run, I shoot you. You try to attack me, I shoot you. You do anything else I find to be slightly suspicious, I shoot you. Got it?”
    I nod. I don’t trust her, but what choice do I have? And there’s my father. Waiting. Holding answers. Going forward is the only way.
    “Good. Now let’s move.” Bree nudges me with the gun. It’s not pressed straight into me, like in our earlier encounters, but it’s positioned well enough, screaming that she is in control and I am still a prisoner. I’m certain I could take her now if I really wanted. I feel well enough. But that doesn’t get me to my father, and it certainly won’t help me earn anyone’s trust.
    “We don’t have all day,” she says, motioning more adamantly.
    I raise my hands above my head playfully, as if I am truly threatened by her command. “We’re back to this again, I see?”
    “Always.” She actually smiles a little. Not an angry smile, but a smirk, visible for a second and then gone.
    It turns out I was being held in an interrogation center. We pass Luke on our way through the stone passageways. He holds bloody hands before us, an ugly, twisted tool in their grasp. From somewhere down a dark hallway behind him, I can hear a mangled cry ring out. It sends shivers down my spine that only multiply when Luke shoots me what I’m sure he intends to be a reassuring smile. I’m still attempting to shake off the chills when we step from the dark confines of rock and out into a sunny afternoon.
    There is no path, but Bree leads as though there is one. After twenty minutes of a steep, uphill climb, I am out of breath. At the top of a crest, where the land levels out momentarily, I buckle over and heave for air. Bree waits patiently and then tosses me a canteen when I straighten up. Before I can thank her, we are moving again.
    We hike silently until we come to what appears to be a dead end. The steep slopes of what must be Mount Martyr bear down on us. To climb over them would take days, and before us sits only a towering rockface.
    “We’re here,” Bree announces.
    I look around, thinking she’s speaking to someone, but we are alone. There is nowhere to go but back.
    “We just climbed the lower base of Mount Martyr. And this”—she motions back toward the monstrous wall—“is the entrance to Crevice Valley.”
    “Crevice Valley?” That name wasn’t on Frank’s Operation Ferret map.
    She nods. “Headquarters.”
    I stare at the massive mountain. “It sure doesn’t look like a valley.”
    “That’s because you have to go through the crevice first.” She moves toward the rock towering above us, and as I follow, the passageway becomes visible to my eyes. It is a dark slit, running the length of the stone, from our feet toward the sky, so narrow it’s barely visible. No wonder the Order has been unsuccessful locating this place. The entrance is hard to see even when you are directly in front of it.
    “You first,” Bree says.
    “Through here?” I point doubtfully at the cramped break in the rock. “Isn’t there another entrance?”
    “Yes, but that would require us to hike all the way around the mountain, and we don’t have the time. Now move.”
    Shimmying through the crevice ends up being easier than I anticipate, not because it’s spacious or well lit, but because there is only one path to take. We wiggle sideways through the tiny space, our backs pressed to rock behind us, and our noses nearly scraping the opposing side of the mountain.
    Eventually, the passage begins to widen. Soon I can walk normally, the space large enough to house my shoulders. Moments after that, Bree is at my side. The light from the entrance has nearly faded out completely when a new light appears ahead.
    “What if you need to escape?” I ask as we continue down the ever-widening path. “What if the Order infiltrates?”
    “Then we leave through the rear.”
    “And what if they infiltrate both at the same time? You guys are sitting ducks in here. You’ve trapped yourself.”
    “You give us so little credit.” I stare at her, confused, and she points up into the clefts in the rock walls surrounding us. High up, hidden like insects in the crannies of the crevice’s tall rock face, are armed men.