The Dark and Hollow Places

by Carrie Ryan

  As I’m twisting away from the man’s grasp, Catcher swings at him, fist slamming into his jaw without hesitation. The man stumbles back and Catcher lifts me up as we press forward into the crowd.

  In some places children stand motionless, wailing for mothers they can’t find. In others men stand along the edges of roofs and stare at the Neverlands as if they can’t believe what’s coming. As if they can’t fathom so many dead.

  People beg for help, wanting to know what they should do and where they should go, but I don’t know what to tell them and so I say nothing. It’s like being caught in a deluge, following the crowd east as the buildings around us grow taller, some of them only rusted-out husks of what they used to be. Old steel beams spire above, their ragged ends sharp and broken.

  Midway across the island, the bridges snake erratically around obstacles, weaving several blocks south before turning back east. Most everyone is heading for the docks farther south, but the Sanctuary is on an island directly east of the Dark City, which means we’re forced to shove across the crowds to head in that direction. It’s impossible. People scream at us, one man even swinging at Elias before we give up and descend a fire escape to the street. Down here it’s easier to move faster, fear driving the masses to the air.

  A few blocks away I hear the pounding scrape of Unconsecrated feet. There are so many of them that the ground shudders, their moans so many voices that it creates a discordant vibration through the air. It’s louder than the most violent rainstorm, a thundering hissing mass of bodies and need.

  Elias tries to run but he’s clearly in pain, his steps more like lurches. I offer to let him lean against me, but he refuses. Even though it’s cold outside, especially in the shadows of the towering buildings, sweat drips down his face and darkens the back of his uniform.

  There are fewer people on the streets but still they stream around us, some heading in the same direction we are and others away, making for the docks farther south. Every face is pinched tight, and above I notice frightened eyes watching us from behind tattered curtains gripped tight in white-knuckled hands. People willing to stay and fight, taking their chances in the City rather than running like the rest of us.

  There’s only one access point to the Sanctuary—an old cable-car line—and the closer we get, the more crowded the streets become with voices shouting for help.

  At the base of the cable car the mob thickens, people shouting and pushing toward the gates blocking access to the platform and the car itself. Recruiters line up along the fence stretching to either side of the gates, indiscriminately shooting bolts or lashing out with wicked-looking blades at anyone who gets too close.

  Tension coils in the air, the smell of blood and bodies thick. People pump their fists, scream for access to the Sanctuary or for the Recruiters to do something to stop the tide of dead creeping through the streets.

  Elias slips through the gaps in the mass and I follow, pressing between bodies. I try not to think that in a short while all of them will be dead. Most of them turned Unconsecrated. They’ll be husks of what they are now: the same fierce yearning turned sinister. Though a part of me wonders how thin the distinction between living and dead is in this mob—how quickly they’d turn and kill for the chance at survival.

  Catcher trails after me through the crowd, the tips of his fingers pressing my lower back lightly so that he doesn’t lose me—a reassurance that he’s still there. Elbows dig into my ribs, and some people hiss as I force my way through, but I ignore them. When we near the front of the pack the Recruiters guarding the gate brandish loaded crossbows and yell for us to step back.

  There are already a dozen dead bodies littering the gap between the mob and the fence, and a handful of people hover over the injured. I stop in place but my body keeps vibrating. Everyone’s so frantic it’s only a matter of time before the panic ignites.

  Elias steps forward, holding his hands open and to his sides to show he’s also a Recruiter and unarmed. He tries to shout over the screaming mob, but his voice disappears in the roar of the others. Finally, the Recruiter by the gate motions Elias closer.

  Catcher holds tight to my shoulders as we watch them confer. The Recruiter shakes his head and Elias’s gestures become more adamant and fierce. He’s turning away, his face red and furious, when down the platform a door to the cable car opens and a large man steps out.

  He’s wearing a Recruiter’s uniform—not dingy and frayed like all the others, but crisp and clean with a red sash of fabric over his chest. He strides toward the fence, all his focus on Catcher.

  His mouth moves as he shouts an order, and I think he’s telling the guard to let us through, but I can’t be sure. The crowd surges and screams, shoving against us. A girl next to me stumbles and falls, but before I can help her up she’s trampled and I’m pushed too far away.

  Catcher shoves me to the gate, a throng of Recruiters trying to keep the swarms of panic-stricken people at bay. They begin to climb the fence, not caring about the curls of barbed wire on top. I can’t watch as they tangle through it, as bright stripes of blood stretch over their skin.

  My body seizes at the memory of the razor wire’s pain on my own flesh. At the burn and sting. Catcher punches a man trying to pull me back from the gate, trying to take my place. People scream and wail in my ears and claw at me as the gate slips open a crack.

  Recruiters reach through, yanking me past the fence, and then Catcher’s after me. It’s too much for those left behind. They sense the opportunity and pounce, tearing at the fence and pounding on the gate.

  The Recruiters open fire, not caring who they shoot. I see one Recruiter lighting what looks like bottles of alcohol, tossing the makeshift bombs into the crowd. The flames lick and spread. People try to beat them out but there’s no room and bodies flare and flail.

  I’m pushed along the platform, no longer paying attention to who’s grabbing me and why. Rough hands shove me into a car that’s already moving, the steel cable pulling it up and away.

  Safely inside, the din of the riot drowning all sound, I press my face against the window and watch the shore recede. The few Recruiters left are unable to beat back the tide of panicked people and are soon engulfed.

  Some of them leap for the cable car but we’re already too far away, the metal box swinging side to side as we’re pulled slowly over the river. I feel the steel cable shuddering under our weight, the entire cab stuffed with Recruiters.

  I look around desperately and then I sense the heat of Catcher against my back. “We made it,” he says into my ear and his hands find mine. My body trembles, overwhelmed by our narrow escape. By the number of people left behind.

  Men around me shift out of the way as the large Recruiter with the red sash pushes his way toward us. He stops in front of our tiny trio and I twist to face him. He looks at Elias and then at me and finally at Catcher, and his face breaks into the grin of a predator.

  “Nice to see you again,” he says.

  “Conall.” Elias’s voice is strained. “You promised we’d be safe.”

  I glance at the faces around us, everyone tense after the ordeal on the dock and many still clutching weapons tightly. It’s very easy to see that these men belong to Conall and will do anything he says.

  We are utterly at their mercy.

  “You made the right decision,” he says to Elias. “You promised him to us and you delivered.” And then he turns and shoves his way to the other end of the car.

  I’m left staring at Elias, shock making my breath run shallow and my head light. “You set us up?”

  Catcher’s hand tightens around mine. “Not right now, Annah,” he warns.

  I stare at him in disbelief. “But that man said Elias—”

  Catcher shakes his head once, sharp, and then his eyes scan those around us. All the Recruiters listening in.

  I glare at Elias and then turn back to the window, preferring to watch my city fall than look at a traitor.

  We’re just approaching t
he midpoint of the river when the horde stumbles onto the cable-car landing we just left. People jump from the platform, trying to escape, but it’s no use—the water’s half frozen and there’s nowhere for them to go.

  Boats dot the surface of the river, some struggling toward the Sanctuary but moving away when they see the line of Recruiters patrolling the wall that rings the island, ready to shoot anyone who approaches the shore.

  The scope of what’s happening begins to sink in. This was my home. The Dark City, the Neverlands—this island—has survived against the Unconsecrated since the Return. Generation after generation has struggled and fought—protected and held on.

  And it’s all gone. Just like that. In less than a day.

  I press my forehead to the chilled glass, my breath puffing cloudy circles, obscuring the chaos I’m leaving behind.

  What if this is it? What if we’re only staving off the inevitable?

  As if he’s reading my thoughts, Catcher moves closer against me. But his heat can’t penetrate the cold terror invading my heart and freezing through my veins.

  I know the Sanctuary based on what I could see of it from the Dark City: a small island sitting in the middle of the wide river with a thick stone wall circling the shore. At either end there are clusters of tall narrow skyscrapers and sprawled in between is a long low building painted a dull gray.

  When our cable car lands on the platform in the wall it’s to the gray building we’re taken. A handful of Recruiters confiscate our weapons and huddle around us as the sounds from the Dark City float across the river on the icy wind: screaming, moaning, panic.

  I want to point out to them that they don’t have to worry about us leaving—there’s nowhere for us to go—but instead I shove my hands deep into my empty pockets and hunch my shoulders against the cold.

  Inside the gray building it isn’t much warmer, just dim, without many windows to let in natural light. The floor is dirty, the walls grimy, and everything smells faintly of sewage and garbage. I try to take shallow breaths as Conall, clearly a high-ranking Recruiter, silently leads us down twisty corridors and past rows of empty rooms. Some of them are totally bare; others have papers or broken furniture strewn about. Everything heavy with the weight of abandonment.

  I don’t know what I expected—the opulence of the former Protectorate or at least the spoils of the black market. It makes me wonder if perhaps the Recruiters are just like the rest of us in the Dark City: barely surviving.

  Eventually we enter a dark hallway where thin shafts of light barely shine through dirty windows on one side and a series of closed doors line the other. Conall opens one of them and nods for Catcher to enter. He hesitates, glancing back at me.

  “There are details to be worked out,” Conall says. “Until everything’s in place, we’ll not have you wandering around the island.”

  I can tell Catcher’s uneasy but he does as he’s told and enters the room. Conall shoves Elias in after him.

  “Wait,” Elias shouts, rounding on the door. “What about Gabry? You said I could see her!”

  “All in due time,” Conall says evenly, slamming the door before either Elias or Catcher can do anything to stop him.

  I’m left standing in the hallway with Conall and three other Recruiters. Elias and Catcher pound on the door but it holds firm. I swallow, thinking about what Elias said about why Recruiters would want me on the island.

  I refuse to let them see my fear. “What are you doing?” I ask evenly. My pulse hammers through my body as I straighten my back and raise my chin, waiting to see what will happen next.

  “We’ve got other plans for you.” Conall eyes me up and down, gaze lingering on my scars with an expression of disgust. “You look nothing like her,” he adds, and then turns back down the hallway, indicating that I should follow. I can’t help it—my face burns with embarrassment, and any fear I may have felt is replaced by a comfortably familiar rage.

  I follow him up several flights of stairs, our footsteps echoing loudly in the narrow concrete stairwell. The farther we get from my friends, the more my steps want to falter. I’m used to taking care of myself, I think over and over again just to keep my hands from trembling.

  We come to a door leading outside to the roof and my hackles rise when Conall shoves me through it. I stumble and fall on my knees, gravel digging through my pants and stinging my palms, surprise striking me speechless. I scowl at the man over my shoulder.

  “Ox wants to talk to you,” he says, nodding toward a figure standing on the edge of the roof facing the Dark City. Conall’s glare traces over my scars again and he shakes his head, lips pursed, before going back inside and banging the door shut.

  I get up, slowly, and wipe my hands on my coat. Wind streaks across the river, nothing to block it as it whips against me, invading every seam until my clothes are useless at buffering the cold.

  Flames still eat at the Neverlands, and a part of me wishes the warmth could carry this far. I’m so tired of being cold. I’m so tired, period. And hungry. And dirty. And angry.

  I stand there, refusing to walk across the roof. It’s the only act of rebellion I have left. The man, Ox, looks over his shoulder, sees me and strides over.

  “You must be the sister,” he says. “Annah.”

  He’s a large man: thick neck, shaved head, muscled arms and wide shoulders. He’s much taller than I am, and I feel tiny and delicate but not in a good way. Instead I realize that if he wanted, this man could toss me from the roof with one hand.

  But there’s no malice in his eyes and so I nod.

  “I’m Ox,” he says, and I nod again. I think about throwing open the door and storming back down the steps but there’s nowhere for me to run. No way Ox couldn’t catch me. I’m completely at his mercy.

  We all are. I remember the rumor of all those skulls staked around the City by the Recruiters, erected after the Rebellion to show their might. With one command mine could be one of them.

  Silently, Ox and I stand side by side staring at the Dark City. Clouds have blown in, low and pregnant with snow. People still pile into the river trying to escape, and the Recruiters stationed along the perimeter wall of the Sanctuary are busy shooting anyone who tries to swim or boat ashore. I watch as they take aim at a group of boys crawling their way to the island across the cables. Even from up here I can hear them placing bets on which will fall first—on which boy to aim for next.

  Half of their bolts go wide, but enough hit home that one by one the boys plummet into the freezing river below, their fingers clawing at the surface for a while as the water burns red with their blood.

  Perhaps Elias and Catcher and my sister and I are safe here, but I wonder if it’s worth it, seeing all it takes to protect us. Besides, just how long will this protection last anyway?

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Ox asks, and his unexpected statement leaves me disgusted.

  “It’s horrible,” I spit out. “All those people—they’re terrified. They have nowhere to go.”

  He reaches out a hand and tilts my chin until I’m no longer looking down at the desperation in the streets but out at the line of buildings. They stand strong and still like soldiers marching against the wind, prepared to fight yet another storm.

  I jerk my chin out of his grasp and dig my nails into my palms, trying to keep control of my scattered thoughts. The Dark City’s impressive but I wouldn’t call it beautiful, not with it filled by so much death.

  “Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like before, all lit up at night,” he adds. Surprised at his sentiment, I glance at him from the corner of my eye. I’d always wondered the same thing, wondered how people could get anything done in life back then when they were surrounded by so much color and light.

  I realize that he’s looking not at the Dark City but at me now, and I narrow my gaze at him. Let him know I’m someone who survives having half her body split open. Let him think he doesn’t scare me.

  “It seems so gray now,” he sa
ys, not taking his attention off me. “Don’t you think? Duller. In need of something more. Someone who can see the beauty of it, at least what it used to be.”

  I pull my elbows in tight against my body and stare at the skyline. The rise and fall of the rows of buildings. I think about the canyons between them filling with Unconsecrated. I think about the way we all live, every day a struggle to make it to the next.

  How useless it feels sometimes.

  “What are you doing with my brother, Elias?” I finally ask Ox. “What do you want from us?”

  His mouth twitches as he rolls onto the balls of his feet. “You’re not really his sister, are you?”

  I know he’s waiting for a reaction and I refuse to give him one, but still I can’t stop wincing slightly. It’s unsettling having so many strangers know the truth about Elias and me. We’ve played at being brother and sister so long.

  He stretches his hands behind his back, the image of a commander. “Thing is, I know a lot about you, Annah. And I know a lot about Elias too.”

  “There’s no reason to know anything about me,” I tell him as I shift away.

  But he stops me, grabbing my arm. I jerk back but he won’t let me go. It’s not until I stop struggling that he loosens his grip. “I know my men chased Elias and Gabry and the Immune through the Forest. I know that Elias sacrificed himself so that your sister and the Immune could get away.”

  I wrench my arm free. “His name’s Catcher,” I snap.

  Ox throws his head back and laughs. I scowl. “That’s all you have to say about it?” He wipes at his eyes, damp with mirth-filled tears. “You know how I know Elias isn’t your brother? Because that would make Gabry his sister too, which would be pretty sick since he’s in love with her.”

  My throat closes.

  Of course I knew he cared for her. That was evident when he punched the wall when he found out the Recruiters had her. But I wasn’t willing to admit to myself it was love. I refused to even let it occur to me that it could be love.