Dead. I think of the shape she left in the crushed grass, the wings of blood. Dead doesn’t seem like the right answer anymore.
Upstairs, I say, in a rare moment of inspiration. What is your rank?
Third, he snaps. Come with me.
I have no time to think or plan. I step up behind him as he turns, grab his head, and kick his feet out from under him. That’s been done to me enough times that I am something of an expert. His knife flashes in the dark as he falls. I hold my hands on his head and twist until I hear a crack, then push his body down the stairs. The knife clinks onto the concrete. Stepping down, I pick it up and stare at it for a moment.
It is easier than I thought it would be, to kill one of my own kind, in cold blood. I killed the one who was attacking Dandelion in the stadium, but that was different, a moment of rage and terror, fueled by the sludge churning inside me. This broken-necked boy on the stairs was a rational choice. I wonder now why I didn’t kill Sixth that day in the rain.
Kill. Dead. Stop. Stopped.
I should just walk away. This Third cared nothing for me, and even less for humans. But I can’t shake my sense of allegiance to him. I flip his lifeless body over. With the knife I dig the transponder out of the back of his neck, dropping it and crushing it under my boot on the concrete floor. At least now if he ever wakes up, maybe he’ll be free like me.
Dandelion is sitting in the dark when I find her, in our apartment, wrapped in a blanket, a sharp knife in each hand, the smell of fear wafting around her. Fear and bees and wildflowers. Her hair is tightly twisted to her head, with feathery puffs escaping the edges. Not a dandelion now so much as a bird. A scared bird. A bold, defiant bird.
Raven.
“I killed a . . . one of you,” she says. There’s a line of blood down one side of her face.
Me too.
“What will they do to you if they find out?”
I draw my thumb across my throat, then hand her coat to her.
I give her the knife I took from the boy and point to the spot under my chin. I’d like to explain that the blades are specially designed to cut through my armor. Why has never been explained to me.
“I know,” she says, sliding the knife into a holster she has strapped to her thigh.
Don’t be scared, I sign. I don’t want to tell her there’s a chance one or both of them will get up eventually.
“I’m not.”
I reach forward and unzip one of the coat pockets. Then I slip in a small pistol I found, dropping two ammunition clips into the other pocket. I tap my chin again.
As we leave the tower that has been our home for so long, we pass the bodies of my two colleagues, one limp on the stairs, one twisted and broken out in the snow.
The beginning of our journey is not as happy as I had hoped. But at least we’re together.
RAVEN
I’m not sure why I didn’t get angry at August for leaving me alone to be attacked by a Nahx in the dark. Maybe I’ve finally realized that none of this is his fault. None of it is my fault either, I now know too. Nothing either of us could have done would have made a difference. I couldn’t have known, and he has no power or influence. I’m not even sure how I know this now—I just do. It’s clear that he is an underling, a foot soldier. He’s AWOL, a deserter, too, which I’m sure is not good, for either of us.
Both of us are on the run now, but only one of us has somewhere to go. As we creep along the dark streets, I wonder what will become of him when we part. I wonder, and I wonder, and I begin to worry and obsess, chiding myself, reminding myself that he’s not my problem. He walks slightly behind me, rifle raised in one hand, the other hand resting on my shoulder. I shove it off periodically, but it always finds its way back there. Eventually, I ignore it. He’s used to walking like that, or he wants us to look like a normal pair of Nahx, whatever. It’s irritating, but at least he doesn’t chatter the whole time the way Xander did.
Even at night I can see that we are walking through a nightmare. I focus my eyes on my feet, so as not to have to bear witness to the devastation around me. After an hour of walking I begin to realize a small voice in the back of my head has been counting, despite my efforts, noticing each of the dead humans we pass. I become aware of it at around five hundred. Many of them are so covered in snow they look like indistinct shapes of white fluff. But I know what they are.
The darkness is still profound when we reach the stadium. It rises above us like looming cliffs against the starry sky. I feel a perverse desire to go inside, to examine the place where I fought with the Nahx, where August rescued me. I’m not sure what I expect to find. My bloodstains, maybe. The body of that Nahx. Did August kill him? I’ve never asked. Or have I? The attacker and rescuer swirl together again. August grabs my arm as I stumble in the snow.
Feel broken?
“Fine. I slipped.”
I tell myself that what happened in the stadium doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. All I need is an escort back to the base, back to safety, and then August will not matter to me anymore, nor what he did or didn’t do, nor why.
We skirt around the stadium, staying close to the wall. We haven’t talked about where those two Nahx came from earlier. August doesn’t seem very worried about it, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of more Nahx behind them. Maybe they were a routine patrol or something. I count on August knowing if more are likely to follow. I count on him to be able to spot the transports, which can fly silently. I count on him for everything. If I ran off, would he follow? Would he let me do something so stupid?
I count on the answer being no.
August hands me a small flashlight when we reach the entrance to the tunnel. He hesitates as I head down the ramp, but follows me as I descend, his hand on my shoulder.
The tunnel is dark and cold and smells of fuel and damp, something I didn’t notice last time I was here. My flashlight, and one August clips to his rifle, provide a small pool of light to guide us. I walk ahead, with August trailing, and I feel his tentative pace, almost as though he doesn’t want to be down here with me.