I gag. “They won’t be following us that way.”
The officer behind falls over himself to get away. “The fence is back on,” he shouts.
Somehow, Davyd’s bought us a little more time.
We don’t hear our pursuers again until we make the top of the hill. Despite the lingering aches from the Device, I’m half carrying Rael by the time we reach the top.
“Sorry,” Rael murmurs. She repeats it over and over.
I’m thankful Davyd carried her earlier. He was right to make me save my strength, damn him.
As instructed, we turn left at the top of the hill and head through thick undergrowth. I look down at my wrist but the band has remained silent since we left the compound, although it’s lit by a faint glow. As we run, we duck and weave, changing direction every few feet. The agony in my leg fades to a faint throb, and I try not to look at the deep gash.
If they can’t track us, we’ll be difficult to find thanks to the dark and the trees. We pass old vehicles and have to jump over a chasm that appears in the rock at our feet like open, hungry jaws, waiting for one of us to fall.
The trees keep us mostly dry, but muffle and distort sound. I fire my Q twice into a shrub, sure we’re about to be caught by one of the officers on our trail. But both times, there’s no one there.
Rael trips, jerking free of my grasp and lands hard in the mud.
“Come on,” I whisper, holding out my hand. I can hardly speak, my breath comes in wheezing gasps.
She tries to get to her feet but falls again. “Can’t. Stuck.”
Her hand slips from my numb fingers. I kneel at her side, feeling along her leg because it’s too dark to see much. It takes a second but I find the problem. Her foot is caught in a twisted tree root.
I use the faint glow of the horrible thing around my wrist to see better. She’s covered in mud, and her dark hair is plastered against her cheeks. I don’t know whether the red around her eyes is from the rain or the sobs she’s tried to hide as I’ve forced her on.
“Leave me here,” she begs. “Go on without me.”
Ignoring the plea, I use the knife to slash at the root and free her before helping her onto my back. “If not for you, I’d be in Doctor’s hands right now.”
It’s slower carrying Rael, but I’m guessing we’re close. I suck in oxygen and force myself on. Step by step, in time with the pounding of my heart against my ribs. Everything aches, but we’re nearly there, we have to be.
We go over a small crest, and the shed is ahead. The white roof Davyd mentioned shines like a beacon. Relief floods me with fresh energy. We’re going to make it. I up the pace.
“See it?” I whisper to Rael.
I glance back at her, but instead of joy there’s terror in her eyes. “Look out,” she cries.
I drop. Breath rushes from my lungs as I hit the ground. Something hits a tree branch above me, exploding it into splinters, which rain on us where we fell.
The officer came out of nowhere, and he’s not going to miss a second time.
This time there’s no hesitation in me. I bring up the Q and fire. It’s us or him, and damned if it’s going to be us when we’ve made it this far.
He falls, and I don’t stop to check if he’s going to get up. Rael’s hand is tight in mine, and we scramble toward the shed and then behind it. The hollow he mentioned must be here somewhere, but all I see are a few bushes and a sheer rock face.
“Asher.”
I know that voice. Davyd appears from nowhere, his hand reaching out, dragging me and Rael through a narrow crack in the rock wall hidden by brush. Once inside it opens up into a small cave, tall enough for us all to stand and wide enough that when Rael drops to the ground and curls into a ball there’s room for me to let her.
Davyd brushes a hand across his wrist, and the wristband glows like a lantern. He flashes that cocky grin. “Here I am to save you again.”
“Save me?” I scorn, trying to focus on the fact that we’re momentarily safe. Trying not to think of the officer I killed a few seconds ago.
“As usual,” he adds.
I want to tell him I would have been fine without him but the lie won’t come. He’s at home here in the Company stronghold and it gives him an advantage. Unfortunately, he’s the kind of person who always seems to have the advantage.
“You need me,” I say instead. “Without me to rescue, you wouldn’t have a purpose.” It begins as a flippant response to his arrogance but hearing it aloud and seeing the complete, studied non-reaction on his face makes it more than that. It becomes the truth. A truth I roll around in my mouth like a strange fruit you can’t be sure is sweet or sour.
He folds his arms. “I don’t need anyone.”
I don’t waste breath arguing. Knowing Davyd, he’ll trick me into changing my mind and I want to hold on to this. Give it some more thought. As soon as I’m safe.
“What now?”
Rael has stopped crying. Instead, she sits at our feet, staring up. Snot faced and pale, but with determination in her eyes. “We’re trapped,” she says.
Davyd shakes his head and uses his wrist to shine light on what I thought was the back of the cave. It’s actually a tunnel. “You can follow this and come out a long way from the Company base. I’ve left your bike there and some supplies under an old piece of iron roofing.”
“You thought of everything.” Grudging admiration colors the admission.
He shrugs. “Not everything.” He looks at something flashing on his wristband. “You two have to go now.”
“You’re not coming?” It shouldn’t surprise me that he has his own agenda, but I was sure when he talked of escape he meant us all.
“I have unfinished work here.”
I don’t ask what he means. There’s no point. He won’t tell me the truth and I’m so weary of the lies.
I wave my wristband. “They won’t be able to use this to track us?”
He shakes his head. “As far as the tracking system is concerned, you disappeared the moment you went under that fence. Wait a few minutes and then go. I’ll create a diversion on the opposite side of the compound, but they’ll be looking for you in every direction. You’ll need to be careful.”
How stupid does he think I am? “I will.”
With a sob, Rael throws herself at his waist. “Thank you,” she says, sniffing. “For everything.”
I expect him to shake free in distaste. Davyd isn’t exactly the cuddly type, but instead his arms wrap around her slim shoulders, just for a moment, before he gently unwraps her from him. He drops to one knee to look her in the eye. “Catch ya later, Runt.”
She wipes at fresh tears, turning away.
He stands.
I stand.
“I’m not going to throw myself at you if that’s what you’re waiting for,” I say.
His mouth twitches and I’m reminded I once thought he was ice. Back then I meant cold and lifeless, unfeeling. But he’s like a shard caught in the early morning light, reflecting and refracting the sun’s rays with a million faces.
Still too hard to understand and unlikely to melt.
He reaches out and almost, almost touches my cheek. “You’ll be needing me.”
Of all the arrogant things to say. “Don’t hold your breath.”
“Don’t miss me too much, Princess,” he says and then slips through the crack in the rock without looking back.
I hate that I stare at the last place I saw him for long moments. Hate how lonely I feel with him gone. Hate that I can’t remember the last time I thought of Samuai.
***
Time blurs in the tunnel. It climbs steadily upwards and we hear nothing of the outside world. Finally it widens and there’s faint light ahead. It must be nearly morning.
We reach the opening and look out. For all I know there’s a ring of Company officers hidden in the nearby bushes, waiting for us to emerge, but we can’t stay in here forever
.
I step out into the open, bracing for shouts of discovery. There are none. The iron roofing is ahead. Once we’re on a bike, we’ll be almost impossible to catch.
I’m holding onto Rael’s hand as we walk, so when she stops suddenly my arm twists back and I nearly fall.
“Come on,” I whisper. “We’re almost there.”
But she’s not moving. In the soft light of the rising sun the tears in her eyes are impossible to miss. “I can’t.”
“Why? Once we reach the bike we’ll be free.”
I hope.
I cross the fingers of the hand not holding Rael’s. A twitch for luck. I remember Penny would do it whenever she didn’t think anyone was looking. I wonder where she learned the superstition. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again to ask.
But Rael’s not moving. “My parents might be here somewhere. I have to stay.”
I rub at my temples and squeeze aching eyes closed for a second. When I open them again she’s staring at me, resolution in the still line of her shoulders and the defiant tilt of her dirty chin. “You want to go back?”
Rael wipes at her cheek, smearing dirt and tears. “Not back to that underground place but to New City to find my parents. You know that was always my plan.”
“I did … I do … I guess I thought once you saw what it was like, you’d want your freedom.” In my head I add … you’d want to come with me.
It’s selfish, I know it, and I manage to keep the thought to myself.
I didn’t realize how much I’d come to enjoy having Rael with me. I love Samuai and care for Kaih and Lady and others back at the camp, but being with Rael kind of felt like being with family. Problem is that unlike me, she might still have a real family alive, and I can’t blame her for wanting to go looking for them.
She chews on her lip. “It’s not like this is goodbye forever.”
“Of course not,” I lie quickly. Because we both know that chances are, it is. New City isn’t a place to casually visit if you plan to leave again and I’m carrying serum that makes me hunted and taking it back to a rebel camp.
Before I know it, we reach the supplies. I take a moment to bandage my leg and drag on fresh jeans from a pile of clothes. Davyd really did think of everything. It only takes a minute. Too long and not fast enough. I’m not ready to be alone. I slide on the leather jacket left for me and help Rael with a warm coat far too big for her small frame. The wind has picked up but I no longer feel the cold. I’m numb.
“You should take the bike,” I say. “It’s only fair.”
“No, you have much farther to go.” Her lips curve into a sudden smile but she’s looking past me. “How did you find us?” she says, dropping to her knees and holding open her arms.
A brown shape jets out of the undergrowth, tail wagging. Brown Dog flies into her, his whole body wagging with glee, and Rael falls flat onto her back with the weight of him. His tongue comes out and she giggles as he licks her face.
The little dog comes to me next, and I can’t resist patting the matted fur on the top of his head. I feel the bones of his skull, sharp beneath the fur. He’s skinnier than when we left him, and there are fresh cuts on his back, but the warmth and light in his eyes hasn’t faded.
Rael hitches the pack Davyd left her over her shoulder. “I can walk from here. I’ll have Brown Dog so I won’t be alone.” As though he understands she’s talking about him, he moves to sit obediently at her side.
“You could come with me and we could go back for your parents later?” I know she won’t agree but I have to try.
She shakes her head. “I’m here now.”
I can’t argue with that. I sigh, sending a puff of fog into the cold dawn air. “Stay hidden while you travel and take your time heading back.” For the first time in my life I think I sound like my mother, and I miss her with a sharp stab that almost breaks me. “Please, don’t do anything rash.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She offers a mock salute. “I survived on my own before, ya know?” she says, but she’s smiling.
And then she’s crying again, and I have to swallow hard, struggling not to join her. I’ve turned into an emotional wreck. Where’s the anger that used to bubble so shallowly inside me? That was easier to handle than all these feelings rioting inside.
I hug her small body close and then hold her at arm’s length, looking into her dark eyes and imprinting every feature onto my brain. “I will see you again.”
She nods in reply, and I can tell from the wobble of her chin it’s because she can’t speak.
She gives me one more hug, hard and full of silent promise, and then she’s gone. She disappears into the undergrowth with Brown Dog at her side.
I’m alone again.
***
On Rael’s bike, I head over the hills and then along a road toward the ruins of the old city. Davyd suggested I come this way as the Company search will focus on me heading back cross country, the way we came.
I ride for a while through the rain before I reach what was once the edge of the city. Ruined houses are closer together here, their walls fallen in and chasms splitting some open. Interspersed with these sad dwellings are black stretches of barren ground where, I imagine, fires once raged. I think I can smell the distant flames and hear the crackle as they destroyed everything in their path.
Ahead, the buildings stretch tall toward the sky, impossible to miss, and soon I’m among them. I find the market square on Davyd’s map easily. It’s still early, and the streets are deserted. The rattle of the bike engine bounces off the concrete, dampened only by the weeds growing in the cracks of building and sidewalk alike. I turn left, and then right, twisting on roads mostly intact, following the instructions closely. I’ve skirted past enough chasms and seen enough dead ends where the ground has reared up to know not to try to take a short cut. The market square where Davyd promised I’d find allies, shouldn’t be too far ahead.
A bent shape in a doorway catches my eye, but is gone as fast. The old man is the first sign of life I’ve seen since I left Rael. This isn’t the vibrant city the green robes remember.
Where is everyone?
Sure, the green robes are in camp, but there should be others. The undecided. Those neither Green Robe nor Company who kept the remains of this city alive.
I round the corner and stop the bike near the edge of the square in the shadows of one of the old shop fronts. The sudden silence is absolute. I hold my breath and hear nothing but the faint thud of my heart.
If the whirr and hum of the Company facility felt like home, this is the opposite. I’m a tiny, insignificant bug at the feet of giants in the shape of crumbling buildings still towering over me. They’re like a fathering of creaky old men, still tall, but bent and broken and a mere shadow of what they once must have been before the Upheaval.
The patches of sky visible between the buildings are dark. The wind stirs between the walls, jerking the heavy clouds from their momentary slumber. Two drops of rain wet my cheeks, like the reluctant tears of the giant. Mourning the missing humans who once dwelt among them.
Samuai talked about this square. How it bustled with people and noise and the smells of food when he’d been so hungry. He didn’t talk a lot about his time as Blank, at least not to me, but he talked about the life of the city, so different to the ship and the camp.
I check the map Davyd gave me one more time, but this has to be the right place.
“Miss me yet?”
That voice. How could he have beaten me here? Why? I swivel, looking for Davyd, but there’s no movement in the abandoned buildings.
“I’m not in the mood to play games,” I call.
“Not even hide and seek. You used to like it if I recall?”
I pin again. Where is that voice coming from? “Not now. Never with you.”
“Are you sure?”
I pull back the sleeve of my jacket. There he is, in miniature on the screen on my wrist band. �
�What the hell?”
He grins. Waves. “Miss me?”
“You said this would be useless once I was out of the compound.”
“No, I said they couldn’t use it to track you.”
I try to recall his exact words and fail. “How do I get it off?”
“I’m sure Charley will be able to help once you get back to the settlement. In the meantime, I thought you might like the camaraderie.”
“You might call it that. I think it’s more like creepy stalking.” As I talk, I can’t help sliding my nail along the edge of the band. I cut skin but make no progress in removing the band. It will have to wait.
“So that’s a ‘no’ to hide and seek?”
“What would you know about the things I liked as a child?”
I can’t see his shoulders but I imagine they shrug. “Child?” His mouth twists. “I was talking about when you’d sneak off with Lost Boy.”
I can’t help a small smile with the memory. My love for Samuai then was so simple back then. Forbidden, sure, and maybe going to get me punished or my sentence extended, but pure and sweet and I was happy. I wish I’d realized it. “Jealous?”
“Of him? No, I much prefer our little games.”
“I’m not playing with you.”
“Princess, the only people who say it takes two to play are those who haven’t found the right game.”
I shake my head, hoping he can see my disgust on the small display. “And you wonder why you have no friends.”
“I don’t care, and you know it. Friends are simply another excuse.”
I lift my brows.
“I’m glad you asked,” he says. “An excuse for not making the hard calls. The ones that you need to make to be successful.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But you wanted to.”
Knowing arguing is a waste of breath, I return to my immediate problem. “You’ll be with me all the time. Always?” I want to hate the thought, but it’s not simple disgust curling in my belly, although there is plenty of that, too. I don’t want him with me, and when this is done, I’ll be cutting the thing out myself if I have to, but deep down I have to admit there’s something to be said for not being alone.
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