“No more running,” I whispered, trying to block out the sounds of dwellers, focusing all my senses on the boy in front of me. The heavy steps and rotting, loamy aroma of dwellers closing in. The horrible gurgling breaths. All of it vanished. “That’s not how I want my last moments to be.”
“Very well.” His head nodded in the clasp of my fingers. “No more running.” His breath fanned my lips and I lifted up on my tiptoes.
His mouth closed on mine, stealing my breath. Blood rushed to my head, precisely what I wanted—a rush of white noise in my ears to block out the army of dwellers coming at us.
His arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me closer. Everything else melted away. Fowler’s chest mashed into mine, and I even forgot the miserable sensation of my wet clothes sticking to me like a second skin.
I felt his heart pounding into my ribs. His fingers delved through my mud-tangled hair as he kissed me, lips devouring me in precisely the way I wanted, in the way I needed, in a way that made me forget his lies and my shattered heart and the monsters bearing down on us.
FOUR
Fowler
I KISSED HER harder than I ever had before. It was no gentle meeting of lips over hushed endearments. Nothing slow or leisurely. I claimed her mouth, determined that it be everything. Everything a last kiss should be.
The kiss burned and left its mark, burrowing past flesh and tissue to the very marrow of us—to all that would be left. It imprinted on our souls. When the dwellers tore us apart this kiss would still remain.
I slanted my lips over hers, going deeper, my hands gripping her, ignoring the pain that throbbed in my one arm . . . ignoring the dwellers moving in, so close. I kept my eyes closed, losing myself in her taste and texture. One of her hands curved around my head, molding to the shape of my scalp, and I felt her pulse in the press of her palm on me. Luna’s life merged into mine.
My mind reeled, thinking of the first time I saw her, shooting an arrow at a dweller, saving my life—a bold girl who moved as though she belonged to the woods. As though she belonged to this world, as natural as the darkness itself. I’d resisted her, fought the attraction, but now I knew. She was not something I could resist. It was what she asked for, even if not in so many words. No more running.
I inhaled cold air through my nose and dove deep into the taste of her, pushing my fingers into her mud-caked hair.
A sudden scream blasted over the air, long and eerie as nails scraping glass. It jarred us apart. The sound resembled a horn or trumpet, except no instrument had ever created this. It was animal-like and loud enough to make ears bleed, blaring long and deep, tinged with impatience.
With a cry, Luna staggered, colliding into the earthen wall. I held on to her arm as she flung her hands over her ears. The dwellers stopped cold. The nest of sensors in the center of their blocky faces writhed, the only movement made. Dozens of them hovered on every side of us, locked in some kind of frozen spell. One was so close, it only needed to lift an arm and stretch its taloned fingers to reach me. This close, I could make out the dark stain of blood on the tips of those thick talons, bits of human flesh and gore stuck there like meat on a bone.
As abruptly as it started, the screeching stopped. The dwellers still didn’t move. I held my breath, assuming they would lurch back into action. I eyed the one nearest me cautiously. Its mouth gaped, sensors dripping with glistening toxin, but it still made no advance.
I tightened my grip on Luna. “Come,” I whispered.
Her hands dropped from her ears as I pulled her back to my side. She exhaled, and I felt that breath shudder through me.
“Fowler?” she asked, her voice shaky. “What’s happening? Why aren’t they moving?”
I knew her well enough to know that even without vision, Luna behaved as though she could see. There were very few instances where one was alerted to the fact that she was blind.
I eyed the army of dwellers all around us and opened my mouth to reply, but that savage scream started again with renewed force.
I winced, and Luna covered her ears again. I could just barely make out her eyes in the near darkness, jammed tightly shut as she covered her ears, as if that would somehow help ward off the sound. I shook my head, but the action only seemed to bring more stabbing pain to my ears.
The dwellers turned almost as one body, still ignoring us. Several passed us, their cold, pasty bodies brushing against us with slow drags. It was almost unbearable, being this close to them. Feeling them, smelling their stink. My throat tightened as one passed, a chunk of its hairless skull missing, someone’s hatchet still embedded there.
They moved in the same direction, walking away from Luna at the briskest pace I had ever seen them move. I didn’t know they could even move at that speed. Most of the time they doddered, and this was the salvation of many lives.