Black City

by Elizabeth Richards

  “He has kyphosis, curvature of the spine. He gets really bad back pain sometimes.”

  “I’ll get you some painkillers,” I say.

  They all turn and look at me, dumbfounded. I bite my lip. Is it really such a surprise that a Sentry would offer to help them?

  “I have access to a laboratory. We have lots of medicines; no one would miss a few painkillers,” I explain.

  “No, thank you. We don’t want you getting into any trouble, not for us,” Michael Senior says, when what he really means is “we don’t want your charity.”

  “Michael,” Sumrina whispers, glancing at their son.

  He takes a deep breath, then resignedly nods. “Thank you, Miss Buchanan. That would be very generous of you, if it wouldn’t get you into any trouble.”

  “It won’t.”

  “Thank you,” Day says quietly. “Most people treat MJ like he’s some sort of freak. But he’s not—he’s just special.”

  “I have a sister, Polly, and . . .” My voice cracks a little; it’s always so tough talking about her. “She got hurt, and now she’s not very well, and people can be really mean to her, so I know what it’s like to have people be cruel to the person you love.”

  “Then you understand?” Day says, smiling a little.

  I nod. “We have to protect them.”

  Michael Senior studies me with curiosity.

  “Did you know Dayani’s applied for the Fast-Track Political program?” Sumrina says to me, trying to lighten the mood.

  “She mentioned something about that,” I say.

  “We’re so proud of her. To think one day our little girl will be an Emissary living in Centrum!” she says.

  “I haven’t even been accepted yet, Mama,” Day says.

  Sumrina waves a hand. “A technicality. There’s no one smarter or better qualified than you, sweetie.”

  Michael Senior wipes his spectacles, then puts them back on. “This country will be a better place with a Workboot for an Emissary. It’s time we had someone who understands the needs of the working man.”

  “Not now, Michael,” Sumrina snaps.

  There’s a knock at the front door, and a moment later it opens, bringing in a gust of icy air that makes the fire flicker in the hearth. My heart smashes against my chest as Ash Fisher walks into the room, followed by an older man dressed in a gray preacher’s smock, who I presume is his father. They’re both carrying crates of food.

  The atmosphere in the kitchen drops by a few degrees when Ash spots me sitting at the table. Surprise registers on his face.

  He’s changed out of his school uniform and is now wearing dark trousers, leather work boots and a fitted black shirt that accentuates every inch of his powerful, muscular frame. He looks at me, into me, like he can see every secret I have, every rush of my blood. My pulse races with fear and a much more disturbing, unexpected emotion: desire.

  I turn away, horrified at my body’s reaction to him. It’s sick and irrational. He’s a Darkling, a predator that would gladly rip my throat out, given the slightest provocation. Then why are my cheeks burning so red?

  I’m just hot from the fire, that’s all.

  “Ash!” MJ beams.

  “Hey, MJ. I swear you’ve shot up another inch since I last saw you,” Ash replies, ignoring the frosty look from Day. “You’ll be almost as tall as me one day.”

  MJ laughs at this. I doubt anyone will be as tall as Ash. He has to hunch over to stop his head from hitting the low ceiling as he walks over to Michael, passing him a crate of canned goods. It all seems so absurd. Ash is a Darkling, not to mention a Haze dealer. He’s a monster.

  If that’s true, then why is Ash giving Day’s family all that food? my father’s gentle voice whispers inside my head. Is that the action of a monster?

  A Darkling murdered you! I angrily silence him.

  Great, now I’m having arguments with my own imagination. That’s how much Ash Fisher’s unsettling me.

  “Thanks, Ash,” Michael says, inspecting the tinned food. “Look, Sumrina, peaches. Not had them in a while.”

  Sumrina takes the food, casting an anxious look in my direction, like I’m the person she’s most afraid of in this room, not Ash.

  Day barely conceals her contempt for Ash as she helps her mother put the tins away. I don’t blame her: if he’d got someone I cared about hooked on Haze, I’d hate him too. Haze is one of the worst drugs out there; it’s so addictive and destroys lives.

  He slides another look in my direction, and the air between us crackles with tension.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Ash? Like under the canal bridge?” Day says abruptly, referring to the place where he meets his clients.

  Ash’s lips tighten into a thin line.

  “Well, it was lovely seeing you, Minister Fisher, Ash. I’m sure you’ve got plenty more homes to visit before curfew, so we won’t keep you waiting,” Sumrina says, rushing them out the door as fast as possible.

  Minister Fisher glances at me, and his mouth twitches. He knows who I am.

  “You’re right, we should go. I hope to see you at my service on Sunday,” he says, ushering Ash outside.

  “That was rude. The Fishers are our friends,” Michael says to his wife the instant she shuts the door.

  A glimmer of fear crosses Sumrina’s brown eyes. She’s really afraid of me. I never thought of myself as threatening before, but when I think about it, I am the Emissary’s daughter. I can get her family into a lot of trouble for mingling with “race traitors” if I want to, and crush any hope of Day getting onto the Fast-Track program.

  Michael Senior watches me from the corner of the room. He’s not scared of me; he’s not ashamed of the fact he’s friends with the Fishers or frightened to voice his opinions on the Sentry. In many ways, he reminds me a lot of my father.

  The rest of dinner goes by smoothly, and I’m having such a nice time, I don’t notice the night sky rolling in. The wail of the air-raid siren, signaling the start of curfew, surprises us all. I leap up, panicked. Mother’s going to kill me!

  “I have to go. Thanks for a lovely evening,” I say.

  “I’ll walk you home,” Michael Senior says, going to the cupboard to get a can of anti-Wrath spray, which every family owns, no matter how poor they are.

  Day follows me to the door. “See you at school tomorrow?”

  “I’ll speak to Mother about inviting you over for dinner sometime,” I say, remembering the deal we made earlier.

  “That’s okay. I didn’t really expect you to do that.”

  “I want to,” I say, and it’s true.

  I’m hoping Day and I can be good friends. I have a small spark of hope that maybe my life in Black City won’t be so awful after all.

  9

  NATALIE

  THE NEXT DAY at school isn’t as nerve-racking as the first, mainly thanks to Day. She walks me to all my classes, even though she then has to run to get to her own lessons on time, which is no mean feat with so many books to carry. I don’t know how she does it. It really reminds me of my first-ever day at school, and how Polly took care of me. The recollection makes me smile, and I make a mental note to buy Day a satchel the next time I go to the market.

  The bell for lunch period rings. I shrug on Ash’s jacket, which I’ve decided to keep because I actually like the way it looks on me—plus I guess I like how irritated he gets when he sees it—and follow the other students out into the corridors. I check my antique wristwatch as students jostle and bustle against me. I’m supposed to meet Day in a few minutes by the cafeteria. I think I remember where it is.

  A boy from my homeroom, Chris Thompson, smiles warmly at me as we pass in the corridor, a cute dimple forming in his right cheek. Color floods
my cheeks, just like last night when I saw Ash Fisher at Day’s house. My skin tingles at the memory. I rub my arms, forcing the sensation away. I don’t want to remember the attraction I felt toward Ash, no matter how fleeting it was.

  I manage to find the cafeteria, where Day’s already waiting for me.

  “I need to take my medicine before I eat,” I say to her, then add in a lower voice, “I’ve got the drugs for MJ, but I don’t want to give them to you here. I’ll get in trouble if anyone catches me with them.”

  She nods, and we go to the girls’ restroom.

  “What are those for?” she asks as I wash some tablets down with tap water.

  “I was born with a hole in my heart, and I needed a heart transplant when I was eight. I have to take these pills every day and try not to get ‘overexcited’ about things. It’s no big deal.” I put the medicine back in my satchel, and take out the painkillers. I pass them to Day.

  “Thanks. You don’t know how much this will help MJ—he’s always in so much pain,” she says quietly.

  “That’s what friends are for,” I say.

  She smiles. Her glasses slide down her nose, and she impatiently nudges them up again.

  “You don’t happen to have any new spectacles in that laboratory of yours?” she teases.

  I laugh. “Nope, sorry. Hey, do you want to come over to my place tonight? I can’t guarantee my mother will be there, but if she is, I’ll introduce you. You can sleep over too, if you like.”

  “I’d love to,” she says.

  We exit the girls’ restroom, stepping into the stream of students. I’m so busy chatting to Day that I don’t spot Ash Fisher crossing our path and almost smack face-first into him. I manage to flatten my back against the door just before we collide.

  He glares down at me with sparkling black eyes—eyes that could be considered beautiful on anyone else but him. My heart wrenches, the feeling more intense than ever before. Why does it always do that when he’s nearby?

  We’re standing so close, his cool breath spills over my skin, sending frissons of pleasure down my body until I’m tingling all over. Heat rises up my neck—I’m horrified by the way my body is reacting to him.

  “Watch where you’re going, blondie,” Ash snarls.

  That brings me crashing back to reality.

  “You’re the one who should watch it,” I snap back. “It’s not my fault your gigantic Darkling body gets in everyone’s way. You should come with hazard lights or something.”

  He growls, flashing his fangs.

  I recoil, my mind bursting with images from the night Father died: fangs dripping with venom, a pool of dark blood, my father’s face contorted with pain.

  I hear someone whimper and realize it’s me.

  Ash steps back, alarmed. “I wasn’t going to bite you.”

  I nod, unable to speak. Day puts a comforting arm around my shoulder.

  “I think you’ve frightened Natalie enough for one day, don’t you?” Day says to Ash.

  He takes the hint and leaves, muttering curses under his breath.

  Day leads me to the cafeteria and gets me some food, although I don’t have much of an appetite. The sensation of Ash’s breath against my skin still lingers in my mind.

  “You all right, Nat? You look a little flushed,” Day says.

  “I’m fine, just flustered about what happened with Ash. He scared me pretty good,” I say, telling a half-truth.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of Ash. His bark’s worse than his bite, no pun intended,” Day says, tucking into her meager lunch. “He may be a Haze dealer and a total jerk, but he’s never attacked a person, even when they’ve been beating the living daylights out of him.”

  “Do people attack him often?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “Not so much now that he’s bigger, but when he was younger? Sure.”

  I find it hard to understand why Ash wouldn’t defend himself when he’s being attacked. He can’t possibly care about injuring a human, can he? He’s a Darkling. Since when did they care about hurting humans?

  After lunch, we head to our next period: history with Mr. Lewis.

  “Hey, where are we going?” I ask as Day leads me outside.

  “To the library. We have to enter via the fire exit, since the normal entrance got blasted during the raids last year. Twelve people died. It was horrible.”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, like it’s my fault. But in a way it is: guilty by proxy. The raids were a “desperate move by a desperate man,” at least that’s what Craven told me once. The Darkling rebellion—the Legion Liberation Front—was gaining control of Black City. They were winning the war, and the Sentry was about to lose one of their most important strategic strongholds. If Black City fell, the next stop would be Centrum, and then all would be lost. Something drastic had to be done. So Purian Rose ordered an airstrike on the city. It didn’t matter whom he killed—men, women, children—just as long as the Legion Liberation Front was crushed and the Darklings surrendered, which they did. Rose’s plan worked, but at what cost? Black City and everyone in it were in ruins.

  I pull Ash’s oversized jacket tighter around myself. Across the town square, several Darkling guards watch us from the Boundary Wall. I shudder.

  We’re running a bit late by the time we get to the library. The room is enormous, crammed to the rafters with Sentry-regulation books. Above each shelf is a sign indicating what type of books they are. It’s the only way to tell the difference, as all the covers are the same, black and red.

  There are only two available seats left: one next to Beetle, the other beside Ash. His jaw tightens as he spots me.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Day mutters.

  She drags her heels across the room and reluctantly sits next to Beetle. I groan, scanning the library for an alternative place to sit. Lacking any other options, I sit beside Ash. He looks around the room, at the floor, the ceiling, everywhere but me. I take out a packet of mints from my satchel and pop one in my mouth. I roll it around, letting it clank against my teeth.

  “Could you stop that?” Ash hisses, finally acknowledging my existence. “It’s annoying.”

  I bite down on the mint and munch it loudly. He mutters a curse under his breath.

  The Thompson twins, Gregory and Chris, sit at the table next to us. Chris leans toward Day, his wavy brown hair falling over his gorgeous hazel eyes.

  “Hey, babes, do you have a pen I can borrow?” he says.

  She flushes, fumbling around her pencil case for a pen and handing it over. Beetle rolls his eyes. It seems no girl is immune to Chris’s charms.

  Chris then turns to Ash, his voice low. I try not to eavesdrop, but it’s hard when Ash is sitting next to me.

  “Hey, have you heard about this new Golden Haze doing the rounds?” Chris asks.

  Ash shakes his head. “That’s a new one on me, but I’m not really interested in the crap the dens are dealing. Why are you so interested in it?”

  Chris looks sheepish. “I just heard it was meant to give you a really pure high, with no Haze Headaches afterward. I thought you might’ve heard of it.”

  “I only deal Haze straight from the fang. You can’t trust those street blends; they could’ve been mixed with anything. You shouldn’t touch that stuff with a barge pole,” Ash says.

  Chris nods, sitting back. “Yeah . . . yeah, you’re probably right.”

  Gregory turns his liquid hazel eyes on Ash, hatred burning in them.

  At that moment, Mr. Lewis—a mousy man with a big bushy mustache—enters the library, a projector wheel under his arm. He sets it up at the front of the class.

  I shrug off Ash’s jacket and sling it over the back of my seat. Ash leans toward me, his lips right next to my ea
r. My heartbeat quickens.

  “I want my jacket back, blondie,” he says quietly.

  “Tough luck.”

  “I’m warning you, give it back or—”

  “What? You’ll kill me? You know that threat’s really starting to wear thin.”

  He shakes his head. “Keep it, I don’t care. It reeks of you now anyway.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the way I smell,” I say.

  He cocks an eyebrow, saying nothing.

  I don’t know why this upsets me. Why should I care what he thinks about me?

  Mr. Lewis turns off the lights, and everyone in the room giggles and goes ooh as we’re plunged into darkness. I can see Ash’s eyes sparkling from the corner of my vision. I try and concentrate on the lesson, the origins of the Blood Wars, but I’m finding it hard with Ash so indecently close, his knee almost touching mine.

  Ash picks up a pen and taps it against the desk—tap tap tap—watching the screen at the front of the class, his face somber.

  Click: a photo of the city prewar, the filthy streets lit by neon lights.

  “The United Sentry States was drowning in corruption,” Mr. Lewis says. “Drug and crime rates were at their highest since records began, and overcrowding was fast becoming an issue as more Darklings migrated to the cities in search of work and food.”

  Mr. Lewis looks around the class. “Does anybody know what the biggest killer of humans was during this troubled time?”

  Day’s hand shoots up. “Haze addiction.”

  Mr. Lewis nods. “Over seventy percent of the human population of the United Sentry States was hooked on this highly addictive drug. It was a very dark period of our history.”

  Gregory scowls at Ash.

  Click: a partially built concrete wall.

  “Purian Rose, as the newly elected head of the United Sentry States, realized the nation’s best chance of rehabilitation and recovery was to segregate the Darkling population from the humans, and in every city across all nine megastates, he ordered that Darklings be relocated into walled ghettos.”