Chapter 20
It is like playing capture the flag. Only if we’re caught by the other team, we lose something much more important than a scrap of fabric and a game. Bowen leads and I follow, from doorway to doorway, alley to alley, our feet as silent as the rest of the shadowed world.
The sun sets and the sky darkens, and Bowen balances his gun over his shoulder, ready to shoot at any moment. I clutch the straps of my backpack with sweating hands. Every so often voices float over the still evening air. When this happens, we pause and Bowen tilts his head to the side, choosing a new direction. Always away from the voices.
Bowen’s stance is as rigid as his gun. Tension oozes from his taut shoulders and finds its way inside me, making me jump at every sound, making my heart pound as we round corners and duck into buildings.
“If we’re lucky, it’s the militia,” he whispers.
Who else could it be? “And if we’re not lucky?” I whisper, wondering if I want to hear the answer. He glances at me over his shoulder, his face lost in shadows, but doesn’t reply.
As we creep through the darkness between two tall buildings with gaping holes where windows used to be, the voices stir again, restless whispers bouncing between the walls. Bowen holds a hand out for me to stop, and when I do, my foot skids on the ground, a grating sound that destroys the silence, sends my heart into my throat, and makes a stream of sweat trickle between my shoulder blades. Bowen grips his gun, swinging it in a frantic circle, eye glued to the night-vision scope. I look around, but see nothing in the darkness.
A pebble falls, swishing the air in front of my face, plunking on my shoe like a fat drop of rain before settling between my feet. Together Bowen and I look up to the roof of the building on our right, Bowen through the gun’s scope. Before I see anything, he yanks me forward, hard. My feet tangle in his, and we crash to the ground, his arm cradling my head. Something pops and echoes, and I expect a firework to bloom overhead, mingling with the first stars of the night. Bowen gasps and his body flinches, curling against mine. An instant later, he shoves me aside and leaps to his feet, pulling me to standing in the same swift movement. With our hands clasped we run, backpacks thumping against our backs, veering through starlit alleys, across deserted streets, and in and out of buildings.
Voices fill the dark, shouts that echo against buildings and disappear down alleys. Feet thud behind us, a staccato mess. I glance over my shoulder and see light dancing inside a building a block away. And then men wearing headlamps swarm out of it. Militia. Energy surges through me. I grip Bowen’s hand and run faster, pulling ahead of him, around the corner of a building.
Gray against the gray dusk, like a plume of smoke, a shadow steps in front of me. My feet skid and grind on the pavement. Bowen slams into my back and throws an arm around my waist to keep me from spilling forward with his momentum.
“Why did you …” His words die and his arm tightens around me. The shadow, slight and wispy as the naked trees, takes my hand and pulls me and Bowen, his arm still around my waist, into the nearest building.
The building has windows, dark windows tinted to block out sunlight, whole windows in a world of broken glass. My eyes widen at the interior darkness, and my skin crawls. The building—there’s something about it, something different from all the others we’ve been in, as if it is frozen in time.
Bowen’s arm tightens and pulls me to a stop. Without releasing me, he maneuvers himself between the shadow and me and raises his gun.
“Who are you?” he whispers to the shadow.
A smell oozes around us, clings to my throat like grease. I breathe through my mouth and taste the oily tang of tunnels.
“Arrin?” I whisper, peering around Bowen.
“Shut up, Fo,” she hisses. “Or we’ll all die.”
Arrin reaches around Bowen and takes my hand in hers again. I tug one of Bowen’s hands from his gun, and we wind our way, a human chain, through frozen darkness.
The voices get louder, the sound of feet pounds nearer to the entrance we just came through. Arrin pulls me faster, her grimy hand damp in mine. After a minute she stops and pushes me against a wall. Bowen stops beside me, his biceps against my shoulder, and, enveloped by the overwhelming scent of Arrin, we wait.
The sound of boots grows slowly louder. Flickers of light through the black-tinted windows shine into the building where we hide. Whispers tangle with the sound of blood pulsing in my ears, and then the square eye of a headlamp flashes in the doorway.
“Don’t go in there!” someone whispers. The man in the doorway pauses, his headlamp swooping a wide arc against the floor, touching my toes, reaching deeper into the building.
“But what if they have?” the man with the light asks, his lamp still searching.
“Then, the beasts will kill them.”
The man with the light freezes. Bowen’s arm hardens against my shoulder.
“Beasts?” Headlamp Man asks. His light shines into the darkest recesses of the building, and I forget to breathe.
Pale, dirty, muscular bodies litter the ground, their chests rising and falling. Stringy, long hair hangs in faces, drapes over closed eyes, falls into slightly open mouths. I hear the gentle sound of many bodies breathing, almost masked by my pounding heart, and turn away. If I see more, I will scream.
“That’s a mapped hive. If you go in there, you’re toast,” the man whispers. “And if you’re toast, no way you’re going to live a long, happy life inside the wall if you even catch the Fec.”
Headlamp Man turns, his feet silent, and creeps away from the building’s entrance. The light outside the door dims and fades. Arrin sighs and I cover my nose and mouth against the reek carried on her breath, afraid that I might gag and wake the sleeping hive. Bowen grabs my hand and starts dragging me toward the doorway.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” Arrin whispers. Bowen’s hand tightens on mine and he doesn’t slow. Arrin materializes beside us. “Where are you going?” she asks again, through gritted teeth.
He pulls me to a stop beside the door leading outside and moves between Arrin and me. “What were you thinking?” he hisses at her. “You took us into a mapped hive? They could have killed us. They still might!”
“They rarely stir after sunset. And besides—it’s better than the alternative,” Arrin whispers.
“What alternative,” I ask.
Paper rattles, and the smell of Arrin makes me gag.
“What is that?” Bowen whispers. He drops my hand.
“The alternative,” Arrin snaps, her heavy breath lingering in the air like a thick fog.
Light flickers, a finger-size flashlight, lens pressed against Bowen’s palm. It gives off just enough light to illuminate a wrinkled piece of paper. Bowen hands me the light, pressing it against my palm, and takes the paper from Arrin’s hand. Over his shoulder, I read the words and gasp. Bowen curses.
“See,” Arrin says. “I just saved Fo. Again.”
WANTED:
Fiona Tarsis
Female
Age: 17
Height: 5’ 9”
Hair: blond
Eyes: brown
Level: Ten
Reward: Life inside the wall with no age-limit extermination.
Below the writing is a full-color picture of me. My hair is long and clean, spread over a crisp white pillow, and my eyes are closed. Sleeping Beauty. I blink and look closer. A finely wrought gold chain is around my neck, with a gold treble clef nestled in the dip between my collarbones.
“Where did you get this?” Bowen asks, eyes flickering over Arrin.
“They opened the wall this morning and posted them all over the place,” Arrin says, dangling a pale-blue scrap of fabric in front of me. I take a closer look at the fabric and recognize the bottom half of my jeans. She grins. “I’ve been waiting for you to come out of that warehouse,” she whispers.
Bowen folds the paper into a rectangle and stuffs it into his pocket. It is then I notice the jagged trail of black along his arm. I touch it and put my fingers into my mouth.
“Why are you bleeding?” I whisper, swallowing the coppery tang of Bowen. He glances at his shoulder. The sleeve of his shirt is torn and black with blood.
“The guy on the roof,” he whispers, peering into the building, eyes cautious, as if making sure the smell of his blood hasn’t disturbed the sleeping beasts. “Barely nicked me.”
“Why are they trying to kill me?” I ask, horrified that Bowen took a bullet meant for me.
“They aren’t. They hit their target,” he says.
My mouth drops open, and hot panic surges inside me, mixed with confusion. “You? Why?”
“Because if I’m dead, you aren’t protected. And if you aren’t protected …” Bowen looks at Arrin. “What’s your name, kid?”
She takes another step away and peers at Bowen through her bangs, a sly, devious smile on her face. A smile that makes my skin crawl.
“Arris,” she whispers, the s a slow, drawn-out hiss. She perches on the balls of her feet at the exact moment Bowen points his gun at her. Arrin drops the piece of denim, leaps behind him, and grabs me, clinging to my back, her nails digging into my flesh. “If you don’t let me leave, I’ll kill Fo,” she says, peeking her head around my shoulder. A blade jabs my spine, and I flinch. “And if you shoot me, you wake the hive.”
Bowen lowers his gun but doesn’t take his finger from the trigger.
“Bowen, this is the Fec who brought me to your camp,” I whisper, trying to placate them both while easing away from Arrin’s rusty knife.
“Arris brought you to the camp?” he says, eyes locked on Arrin, hands rigid on the rifle. “I thought you said you were brought by a girl.”
“Arris, Arrin … she is a girl.”
Bowen laughs a whispered laugh—a grating, miserable sound. “No. Arris is the most deadly, conniving, evil thing that lives in the tunnels. Arris is not a girl.”
The knife leaves my back, and in a heartbeat, Arrin is gone. Only the smells of crusty feces and rotting teeth linger in the air. Bowen’s gun is on his shoulder again, aiming into the shadows, but there’s no trace of the Fec.
We ease toward the open door and step out into starlight and fresh air.
“Hold this,” he whispers, thrusting the gun at me. “And don’t hesitate to shoot anything that moves,” he adds. I put the flashlight in my pocket, lift the gun to my shoulder, and let its weight settle, looping my finger through the trigger.
“You hold that like you know how to use it,” Bowen whispers, crouched beside his open backpack.
“My dad taught me to shoot.”
“Your dad?” The skepticism in his voice makes me stand a little taller.
“Just because he was partially paralyzed doesn’t mean he couldn’t shoot a gun,” I snap.
He chuckles. “I’d say the wafers are losing their effect.” He sets the first-aid kit on the ground and opens the lid. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect your dad. He was a good man.”
He takes out a packet and tears it open with his teeth, then peels back the sleeve of his shirt. In the starlight, a dark gash slices through the white bite-mark scar on his shoulder. Blood oozes from the gash and trickles down his arm in a dozen branches, like an upside-down tree. He pours a few pale beads into the open wound and sucks air through clenched teeth. His body stiffens and shudders, and then the air leaves his mouth in a swoosh. Sweat gleams on his shadowed forehead.
“You’d think that would get easier to bear with time,” he whispers through clenched teeth. He takes a water bottle out of his pack and rinses the blood from his arm. “We need to get out of here. But we need to talk first.” He takes my hand and leads us away from the building with tinted windows.
Pressing me against a white brick building, he puts his hands on my shoulders and looks right into my eyes. “Arris, the Fec, was wearing your old clothes?” he asks.
“You want to talk about clothes right now?” I ask.
“Was he or not?”
I frown. “If he was, they’re a lot dirtier.”
“He was wearing a pair of knee-length drawstring shorts and a V-neck shirt. Does that sound familiar?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Those were mine.”
Bowen’s lips thin and pull tight against his teeth. “We have to travel. To night. In the dark. We have to get away from the militia. And that means we run the risk of intercepting raiders.”
The intensity of his voice scares me. “What are raiders?” I ask, my eyes wide.
“They’re ruthless slavers, rapists, and murderers. They keep beasts as pets, tied up, and beat them and then drink their blood. They take pleasure in other people’s pain and hunt—for humans—at night.” He hangs his head. “They’re the reason my mom’s dead.”
I put my hand over his. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“The militia has orders to shoot them on sight. Because the militia patrols the wall twenty-four-seven, the raiders typically avoid the wall,” he continues. “So if we stay near it, we probably won’t run into them. But if we do …” He stares at me, the whites of his eyes visible above the shadowed planes of his cheeks.
“If we do?” I ask.
“If you get caught …” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “You can’t get caught. If they find out you’re a girl … a woman …” His hand leaves my shoulder and cups my cheek. “You can’t get caught,” he whispers, leaning his forehead on mine.
“Okay.”