“Down!” He gripped an iron ladder handle, vaulting over the edge into the darkness below as though it was nothing more dangerous than measuring gunpowder. His hands flipped their grip, his booted feet met the ladder, and he slid into the darkness.
Derek and Nora followed, Florence skidded to a stop. She couldn’t see the bottom of that yawning blackness. She couldn’t see where the iron ended.
But she could hear the screams behind her. The front of the pack was mere steps away. She had to make the leap of faith.
Florence jumped onto the ladder, her feet landing on a rung. She shifted her hands onto the outside, releasing her feet as well. Her stomach shot into her mouth as she free-fell and Florence had to expend every conscious thought on arching her feet around the outside of the ladder, pressing in with as much strength as she could muster to slow.
The iron burned against her bare flesh, catching and ripping. Her arches shot daggers of pain up into her calves. But she didn’t stop.
She fell for a seeming eternity before she finally let out a scream. She was falling into those endless pits she’d seen on the train. The infinite strip mines that spiraled down further and further into the earth, stopping only when they had been exhausted, when the Harvesters had taken everything they could. She was going to fall to her death, and die in the darkness fate seemed determined to condemn her to at every turn.
Two hands grabbed her waist, pulling her from the ladder. They fell together in a heap of momentum. Florence opened her eyes, but was only met with more darkness, darkness so black that she couldn’t even see with her improved Dragon sight.
“You’re all right,” Derek soothed, standing her.
“We have to keep moving,” Powell stressed. “We’re losing time.”
They linked hands once more and marched forward into that endless blackness. The sounds of the other fleeing people began to fade as they were filtered into the worker’s tunnels, splitting at forks and dividing into smaller, equally hopeless packs. Men and women were behind them, but their lead was growing. Florence chose to focus on the sound of Powell’s hand sliding against the rough-hewn walls, instead of the screams behind them, begging for deliverance from the endless black.
Florence had to put faith in the Harvester before her. This man approached these tunnels with years of knowledge and all the fearlessness of a Raven jumping into the Underground. His mind was likely spinning a mental map not unlike Arianna’s would be. The latter thought gave her more hope. If Florence thought of him like Arianna, she could find the faith she needed.
She held Powell’s free hand tighter.
They reached another door, this time unlocked. Light flooded the tunnel the second Powell heaved his shoulder into it. Any relief Florence could feel was abruptly cut short by the squealing hinges and the screams that rose like heat off a pyre.
The four of them ran along a narrow catwalk suspended over Faroe’s under-city terminal station. Three platforms were vacant; the fourth already had a train departing. Men and women flooded over the platform, trying to press themselves against the vessel in some odd hope that they might stick. That left the fifth train, already billowing steam and clouding their vision high above as the engine began to gather heat.
“We have to make that train!” Powell shouted.
Florence’s legs burned, her feet felt like rocks, but she kept pushing forward. She worked through the numbness to the point that sliding down another, long ladder to the chaos on the platform below didn’t even hurt her bare feet. Powell continued to forge a path for them, Derek at his side. Florence kept her shoulder against Nora’s, elbows linked.
“Powell!” a man from within one of the open cars called. “Powell, here!”
“Max,” Powell shouted in reply. Harvesters flooded around them, everyone desperate for the same opening.
“Let us on! Let us on!” the people chanted and cried. They begged and bartered. But those on the car had no solution for them. To make room for those on the platform below required those on the train above to give up their spots.
Powell jumped onto the car, helping up Derek by the elbow. Florence reached for the offered hand when Nora was ripped from her side.
“This train is for Harvesters,” a man screeched.
“Nora!” Florence and Derek called in unison. Their friend became nothing more than a lump on the floor, hidden under the stampede of feet.
“Let me on!”
“Nora!” Florence tried to push back to her friend. The man stepped in front of her.
His hands reached out. He was going to grab for her shoulders just as he had Nora’s. He was going to take her and throw her to the ground, too. She was going to be nothing more than a lump of flesh on the floor, disregarded in the chaos as nothing more than a life less valuable than those of the people stepping upon her.
Florence reached for the holster that now never left her shoulders. One revolver, six canisters. She drew her gun and tracked the barrel right between the man’s eyes.
“Touch me and I will shoot.”
Fight or flight. Florence breathed heavily. Fight or flight. The man grabbed her shoulders. Fight or flight, fight or flight, fight or—
Fight!
Florence pulled the trigger, blowing off half the man’s face at point-blank range. His skin exploded, curling back and away from the epicenter of the blast. The contact shot vaporized his skull and pulverized his brain. It sent blood and gore flying.
Those around were stunned into a brief moment of silence. The world stilled as everyone realized at once what they should’ve known all along. Every choice, every decision now, was a judgment call of whose life was more valuable. And every man, woman, and child, would always put their own life before any others, by virtue of instinct if nothing else.
“Nora.” Florence took advantage of the moment, pushing people aside, stepping through the gore, grabbing for her friend. Black blood smeared Nora’s body, but she remained breathing—dazed, but intact.
The people closed in again, as Florence pulled her friend toward the car. “Don’t touch us,” she screamed again, cocking the weapon. “Don’t touch us or I will shoot to kill.”
She waved her gun through the air, keeping the people at bay. She had five more shots; they could overpower her in a moment. But people seemed to favor the chance of potentially getting on the train somewhere else rather than certain death from the wrong end of her firearm.
Derek pulled Nora onto the train, then turned to help on Florence. She found her spot pressed between Powell and Derek. The Harvester’s side she was flush against was too hot. It was kindling to the spark of her swift and sudden guilt.
Florence swallowed, looking at the body on the platform. She had never killed a Fenthri before. Not like that.