Cradled by Christina Bauer

Author:Christina Bauer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monster House Books, LLC

Chapter Seven

I couldn’t believe it. All the clocks in the decarinth were now pointing to the numeral one. Once they all went to zero, that was it. Some exotic form of death awaited us, according to Kitty.

Speaking of Kitty, she kept sauntering down the decarinth, tapping her metal claws onto various watch faces.

Click, click, click.

I bit my lips together to stop my self from screaming.

Kitty paused before the right-hand decarinth wall. Tilting her head, she eyed a huge glass watch face set into the panel. Once again, she tapped the round surface with her claws.

Click, click, click.

Shaking her head, Kitty approached the next clock face on the wall. This one was smaller than the last, but still fairly large compared to most. Kitty slammed her claws against the glass covering.

CLANG.

While all her other taps were muted sounds, this one echoed. A weight I didn’t know I’d been carrying seemed to slip from my shoulders. There was no doubt about it: some kind of empty space waited behind that watch face. I popped my hands over my mouth to stop myself from cheering. Tank had said the Oculus Warriors patrolled this area. I didn’t want to call any unnecessary attention.

“And here’s a passageway,” purred Kitty. She looked over her shoulder at the four of us. “I’ll need some help to open this.”

“I’m on it.” Myla raced over. Moving with supernatural speed, she jammed the arrowhead end of her tail jammed into the edge of the watch face. With a snap, the face flicked out an inch. Myla then crammed her fingers into the opening and yanked the clock face off to one side. “I don’t know how long that will hold open. It looks like it’s set to snap back in place.”

Stepping closer, I peered over Myla’s shoulder. Sure enough, a tunnel opened up into the wall. The clock face itself stood about three feet high, and the passage appeared to be that tall as well.

Kitty hopped into the tunnel’s mouth. Her gear eyes lit up in the darkness as she scanned the interior. “On second thought, maybe we should find another passageway.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Kitty mewled. “This one will lead out to—”

At that moment, alarms of every kind began to buzz, ring, or wail. A thousand watch faces vibrated along the walls and floor of the decarinth. My heart sank. The clocks had reached the same time.

Zero.

The maze floor rumbled. I sucked in a shaky breath. Something was coming nearer. Kitty stood at the tunnel entrance and hissed. “This won’t do. We must find another passage.”

“That’s fascinating,” said Myla. “Now get into the tunnel already.”

“No!” cried Kitty,

Suddenly, a clock gear as tall as Rowan came rolling down the center of the maze. It was like some kind of insane wagon wheel, only one with razor-sharp edges. I pictured the small round saw blades that had been attached to the Oculus Warrior’s antennae. These looked just as deadly, only at a far greater scale. The gear rumbled past us. Everyone flattened themselves against the nearest wall.

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