by Carrie Ryan
The sharp frozen air slaps me, blasting through my clothes, and my teeth instantly begin chattering. What little light exists is magnified by all the snow and I notice that footprints mar the thin layer of white, scuffling between the main building and the cable-car platform.
I follow them, my mind reeling over what I just saw. They were killing people for sport. For fun. I’d known the Recruiters had become vicious following the Rebellion but I didn’t realize they were monsters. I didn’t realize men could be this ruthless.
I fall to my knees, my stomach cramping, the tiny bit of food I’d eaten earlier fighting its way up. I heave and I heave, the sound of the man’s terror screaming in my ears. The cheers of the Recruiters watching. The useless brutality of it all.
I wonder how much, if anything, Elias knows about this. If he knows what he’s gotten all of us into. I try to figure out a way he could be a Recruiter but not know what every other Recruiter seems to be aware of. I don’t want to believe he’d be okay with what they’re doing in that cage, that he wouldn’t try somehow to intervene.
The icy ground seeps through my pants and I use snow to wipe my mouth clean. I’m still reeling from everything I just saw and I don’t hear the footsteps behind me until someone’s fingers curl over my shoulder.
I scream, strike out with my arms, knuckles slamming into flesh. I push the body into a clump of snow-crusted bushes but he grabs me as he falls, pulling me on top of him, and it isn’t until I feel the heat that I realize it’s Catcher.
Words tumble from my mouth about the Recruiters and the cages and the Unconsecrated Soulers and the bodies, and Catcher holds me tight, whispering into my ears that I’m safe, that he has me, that I’m okay.
“You don’t understand,” I tell him, jumping to my feet. “The Recruiters are sacrificing people. They’re throwing them into cages with Unconsecrated. We can’t stay here. We’re not safe—we can’t be. We have to leave. We have to get Elias and my sister and find a way off this island.”
He just sits there in the snow staring at me, a red welt rising along his jaw where I struck him. I don’t know why he isn’t moving. Why he doesn’t understand the urgency. I spin away, so frustrated I can’t even look at him anymore.
I hear him stand slowly, feel the brush of his fingers against my arm. “We can’t, Annah,” he says.
I jerk from his touch. “You didn’t see it, Catcher. You didn’t see how much fun they were having—the sick pleasure they took in what they were doing. How bored they were that the poor guy wasn’t dying fast enough. They’re horrible human beings who don’t deserve to live.” I’m shaking uncontrollably from the memories and the frozen night air.
His grip on my arm is strong, his fingers biting into me. “We can’t go back because it’s too late,” he tells me. “There’s barely anything left in the City. Pockets of people fighting. But no place as safe as this.”
He looks almost like a ghost when he adds, “There’s nowhere else to go, and even if there were, we’re trapped. No way off the island.”
In the distance I see lanterns burning on top of the wall ringing the Sanctuary. Watch the shadows of Recruiters as they stand guard, ready to shoot at anyone who attempts to land. I don’t want to believe what he’s saying. The City’s always survived—it’s been so permanent in my life that I’d never imagined it could disappear just like that.
“We can’t stay here,” I whisper.
He tugs on my shoulder until I’m facing him, my frosty hair hanging across my cheek. He tucks his finger around a lock, slipping it behind my ear. As he does so, the heat of his skin trails over my busted cheek and I wince.
“Annah, what …?” His touch hovers over the throbbing pain. “What happened?”
I turn so that he can’t see the welt. My breath comes out in puffs of crystalline clouds. The feeling of helplessness wells inside me, spills from my eyes.
“Who did this to you?” he whispers, and I can hear the rage in his voice that someone would hurt me.
I press my lips tightly together. He’s right that the Sanctuary is our best hope of surviving. That the City is gone. I think of the map and all the black pins. “One of the Recruiters,” I finally tell him. “It’s not safe here,” I add. “They’re monsters.”
Catcher trails a finger down my cheek, burning the path of one of my tears. His face is a war of emotions. “I’m going to keep you safe, Annah,” he says. “I promise you.”
I let him pull me to his chest, let him wrap his arms around me. I swallow back the words that choke me: that I’m not sure he can. Not after what I just saw.
Catcher leads me toward the north end of the Sanctuary. Most of the Recruiters live in the warren of shorter boxlike structures scattered around the headquarters—the main rambling building that contains the map room and the auditorium with the caged Unconsecrated.
Because almost everywhere else was deserted after the Rebellion, Ox allowed Elias to pick a place for all of us to live. He chose a middle floor in the tallest building, hoping that the effort of the climb would discourage most Recruiters from bothering us.
The rooms are small and dirty, long hallways connecting them. Catcher stands now in the doorway of the bedroom my sister chose for me on the corner of the building—a room with huge windows that open to a view of the fire-strewn Dark City and the curve of the black river.
It’s a cozy room, sparsely furnished with a bed, table and chair likely left behind by the family of some high-ranking Protectorate official who fled when the Rebellion broke out. I press a hand against the glass—a rare luxury in this world.
My reflection stares back at me: scars on one side, a raised red ridge on the other. I let my hair fall over my face as I turn toward Catcher. “I’m going to find a way off this island,” I tell him, raising my chin in defiance.
His expression is steady, unreadable. He takes a long breath. “Please don’t do anything that will get you in trouble, Annah. Not right now, when things are so volatile. We’re safe—just let things settle down a bit.”
“I’ll be careful.” His gaze darts to my bruising cheek and then away.
We stand there for a moment. It feels awkward again, as if we don’t know how to communicate except in the face of trauma: running from Unconsecrated or Recruiters. We don’t know how to just be around each other. How to talk about normal things.
We both fidget as this gulf of what might pass as normalcy widens between us.
“They’re sending me back to the Dark City,” he finally says. “Tonight. Now.”
I nod. “Be careful,” I tell him and this makes him smile. He pauses in the doorway like that, grin breaking over his face and hair flopped over his forehead, and something inside me jerks awake, a heat coursing through my blood. I feel my neck start to flush, feel it climbing over the tips of my ears, and I wonder if he notices.
His eyes widen just for a moment as if he feels the same thing I do. Then his grin falters and he slips into the hallway, leaving me pressing my hands against my stomach to keep the want from spreading too far.
I wake up the next morning to my sister’s voice fluttering around my cracked door. I roll onto my side, gently prodding at my cheek with my fingers as I listen to her and Elias’s conversation drifting down the hallway.
“I wanted to build something, Elias,” I hear her say. “That’s what we were supposed to be doing. Together. We were supposed to stop barricading ourselves off.” There’s such loss and pain in her voice that I wince. It never occurred to me that my sister had dreams like this—the same kind of dreams I once had. I realize then just how little I know about her.
I’ve spent all this time comparing myself to her that I haven’t taken the time to try to see who she is as a person.
I hear a rustle of movement and imagine Elias walking over to her, wrapping her in his arms. “I know, Gabry,” he says softly, his words full of understanding and love.
There’s a pause before she continues. “Maybe we weren’t ever suppose
d to survive this long in the first place. Maybe we should just be content with what we’ve accomplished since the Return,” she says. But I can tell she’s just testing the words. She doesn’t really believe them. I smile a little—I know that tone well.
“Do you really believe that?” He sounds a little muffled, and I picture his lips pressed against her hair as he holds her tighter. I think about the way Catcher held me last night after I ran from the headquarters, how nice it was to sink into him and believe that his strength and promises could keep me safe.
I shake my head, hating how vulnerable the memory makes me feel.
“I don’t know,” my sister says, almost a whisper. “It’s just … What’s the point of having fought this long if it all comes down to this? To being trapped here waiting for the horde to find some way across the river? What if this is all there is?”
There’s a little more rustling and then Elias’s voice is clearer, as if he’s pulled away, as if he’s looking at my sister’s face. I imagine him resting a thumb against the perfectly smooth skin of her cheek. “Sometimes life isn’t about the end,” he finally says. “It’s not always about tomorrow and the day after that—what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it’s about today.”
I hear my sister start to interrupt him but he pushes on. “Any of us could die tomorrow regardless of the horde. We could get sick or be injured or anything else. That’s the risk we take waking up each morning and stepping outside.”
Another pause. Another soft rustle and his voice drops. I close my eyes, recognizing the tone. Hearing the smooth huskiness of his words. “Life can be about you and me and right now. If you want to build something together, we still can. And we can worry about tomorrow when it comes.”
I wait to hear what my sister will say in response, but there’s only silence. And then the soft sigh of a kiss that causes me to jerk my head back and slip quietly out of bed. I tiptoe down the shadows of the hallway, stopping just shy of the main room and peering at them around the corner.
For a moment I stand there staring at the edges of them that blur together. Inside wells a want so fierce that it threatens to consume me. But it’s not because she’s in his arms—it’s because she can be so peaceful. As if she’s not worried she’ll wake up one day and he’ll be gone.
I realize that’s how it always would have been with Elias and me if he’d come home alone. I’d always be waiting for him to leave me again, just as we left my sister in the Forest that day.
In the pale reflection of the morning sun, I watch the small rise and fall of Elias’s chest pressed against my sister’s shoulder. Watch the light trace over her smooth face.
I wonder if she’s ever been cast aside. I wonder what it takes to believe in someone else’s promises.
Clearing my throat, I push myself into the main living area where they’ve been standing. They jolt apart, my sister blushing prettily as Elias stammers good morning.
“We were worried about you,” Elias says, and then my sister gasps, “Your cheek!” Her voice high-pitched, breathy. “What happened?”
I twitch my head, covering my face with my hair. “It’s nothing,” I mumble, moving toward a high table where a loaf of bread’s been cut and laid out. I shove a piece in my mouth, thankful that it means I can’t talk.
Elias comes over, spins me around to face him. Tilting my chin, he lets the light from the window wash over the bruise. “Who hit you?” He grinds the words out between clenched teeth.
I stare at him, astonished he doesn’t know. “Some Recruiter.” It should be obvious, but I can tell he doesn’t want to believe it. I’m furious he didn’t realize this would happen—two women on an island full of brutal Recruiters was bound to lead to trouble.
Finally he turns away, grips the back of a chair so tightly that his knuckles burn a bright white. There’s a woodstove in the corner of the room and a log inside shifts with a thump, sending sparks through the narrow grate.
“Ox promised you’d both be safe,” Elias says. “Do you know the Recruiter’s name? I’ll have to go tell him about this.”
I laugh, tiny bread crumbs lodging in my throat so that I end up coughing. “Ox was there,” I wheeze. “He could have stopped it but he let it happen.” A cruel part of me revels in the way Elias’s face drains of color as he realizes how ill-formed his treachery of Catcher has become.
“I’ll talk to him,” he says.
I shrug. “Ask him about the death cage while you’re at it.”
My sister’s pouring a mug of hot water but freezes when I say this. “Death cage?”
I nod, letting any humor fall from my face. “We’re not safe here. They’re killing people for sport. I saw it happen last night.”
“We’re safer here than in the Dark City,” Elias counters, starting to pace around the room. My sister finishes pouring the tea and with shaking hands pushes it toward me.
I step in front of him, blocking his way. “Did you know about it?” I ask. His expression closes down, turns flat. Astonishment crowds my thoughts.
“You knew,” I whisper. I press my fingers to my temples, not wanting to believe it. Wanting him to deny it. But he merely clenches his jaw and stays silent.
“All the Soulers they’ve been rounding up—that’s what they’re doing to them. It’s wrong. It’s cruel.”
I glance at my sister but she’s just staring at the floor, not saying anything. “And you’re okay with this?”
“No,” Elias growls. My sister winces at his voice. “I’m ashamed. But you have to understand that some of those are good men. I fought with many of them—they’re not all sick like that.”
“They throw people in cages and then cheer when they’re too tired to run! They chant for death!” I scream at him, then catch my breath. Try to calm the spinning anger. “We can’t stay here,” I say, my tone more under control.
“And where do we go?” Elias shouts back, exasperated. He grabs the back of his neck. “You’ve seen the maps. There’s nowhere else.”
“What about the town Abigail grew up in by the ocean?” I ask.
Elias appears confused for a moment before my sister corrects me. “Gabry,” she says. “My name is Gabry.”
My cheeks warm and I stammer, “S-sorry.” She shrugs, looking out the window.
“How would we even get there?” Elias asks. “Do you happen to have some sort of airplane or something? If you haven’t noticed, we’re on an island and it’s surrounded by walls staffed with armed men. Beyond that’s water teeming with the dead. We don’t have a lot of options.”
His voice boils with the same frustration that I feel. I throw up my hands. “Look, I don’t know. I don’t know how we get out of here, I just know that we have to. We’re not as safe as we think we are.”
My sister finally speaks up. “She’s right,” she says quietly. I glance at her, at the stubborn set of her jaw, which I know mirrors my own. I could hug her right now, but instead I flash her a small smile, which she returns.
Elias snorts and paces away from us both. “I’ll talk to Ox about the man who hit you and about the death cage. If he wants Catcher to keep supplying the Sanctuary he has to keep us safe—all of us. In the meantime, I don’t want either of you going near the headquarters alone, and preferably not without me. Now isn’t the time to take stupid risks.”
I bristle under the orders as if I haven’t been taking care of myself for the last three years. I’m about to argue when my sister gives me a look and a tiny shake of her head. “We’ll be careful,” she says to Elias, placing her hand over his. At her touch he instantly relaxes, his expression softening.
“I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you,” he tells my sister. His words are so infused with need and adoration that I cross my arms over my chest at the naked vulnerability of it.
And then he turns to me. “Either of you,” he adds, and I bite the inside of my cheek, uncomfortable being loved so easily.
&
nbsp; As soon as Elias leaves to go find Ox my sister turns to me and says, “So where do we start looking for a way out of here?”
I almost choke on my tea, I’m so surprised. She’d said she supported the need for us to leave, but I didn’t expect her to be willing to go against Elias without my prompting.
She’s got such a mischievous grin on her face that I can’t help smiling back. “I have no idea,” I admit. “It seems the only real way off the island is by that cable car, but it’s guarded and leads to a platform crawling with Unconsecrated.”
Her forehead wrinkles as she thinks. “No boat and no way to fly, so …” She wraps the leftover bread in a scrap of cloth, combing crumbs off the table into her hand and then tossing them in her mouth.
“That leaves the possibility of tunnels,” I finish.
Her eyes grow wide and she covers her mouth as she coughs. “Dig a tunnel under the river?”
I laugh. “There are already tunnels under the Dark City and the Neverlands—part of the old subway system. There’s a chance they extended them out to this island back before the Return. The only issue is trying to find the entrance, which could be anywhere but is probably in one of the buildings.”
She leans back on the edge of the table, fingers drumming her lips. “So what you’re saying is that we need to scour the island for something that might not exist?”
I nod. Put like that, the task seems impossible.
She sighs. “I’ll get my coat.”
As promised we avoid the headquarters, which is easy since it’s right in the center of the island. Instead we walk side by side as if out for a casual stroll. She tells me stories about growing up with a mother in Vista and I tell her anecdotes about Elias. For a few brief moments, life seems almost normal.
I can feel the eyes of the Recruiters stationed along the walls following us, though. They shout warnings to the boats bobbing in the river, evacuees from the Dark City on board begging for help. Unconsecrated that have washed ashore moan and scratch at the thick barrier. One of the Recruiters nicks his finger with the barb of an arrow and taunts the plague rat with it before putting the creature out of its misery.