Black City

by Elizabeth Richards

  Ash is standing at the bottom of the steps, watching me. His black hair stirs in the breeze, whipping across his beautiful face. He smiles. It’s such a small gesture, but it means so much. I’m forgiven. I fly down the stairs to meet him and almost fling my arms around his neck, when I remember the television cameras nearby. I can’t hold him, not here, not now, when the whole country is watching. It’s heartbreaking. We stand a respectful distance apart from each other, so we don’t raise suspicion.

  His eyes widen with alarm when he sees my face: the swollen lips, the bruised cheeks, the purpled eyes.

  “What happened?” he demands.

  “Sebastian,” I say simply.

  “He tried to rape her,” Beetle says as he meets us at the bottom of the steps, followed by Day.

  “I’m going to kill him.” Ash’s whole body is shaking with rage.

  “Natalie, go inside,” Day says suddenly.

  “Why?” I ask. Then I see him.

  Sebastian.

  He climbs out of the black carriage that’s just rolled into the town square. Sebastian’s wearing his Tracker uniform, a gleaming sword strapped over his shoulder. There’s a black-and-blue bruise around his right eye where I smashed him with the jewelry box. He looks hungover and squints against the sunlight. Good. I hope he’s been puking his guts up all night. He barks some orders at the guards, then heads over to Beetle’s aunt, seizing the megaphone from her. Her freckled face turns deep red with anger.

  “Protests are now illegal! You are to leave the town square immediately,” he orders.

  “Since when did we lose the right to free speech?” Roach shouts, and the TV cameras turn on her. “Is that your plan? First muzzle the Darklings, then us? Are you planning on putting everyone behind that wall?”

  “I won’t ask you again. Leave the square immediately!” he says.

  “Or what?”

  He smashes the hilt of his sword into her face. Roach hits the ground, injured but not dead, her blood spilling over the cobbles just like the twin-blood boy’s.

  “Roach!” Beetle cries.

  Fury crosses Ash’s face, his nostrils flaring as he looks at the blood splashed on the ground.

  Sebastian raises his sword, ready to strike her again.

  “Get the fragg away from her, you son of a bitch!” Ash calls out to Sebastian. “You won’t hurt anyone else ever!”

  “Who’s going to stop me?” Sebastian taunts. “You?”

  The Legion guards on the wall begin to aggressively thump their chests, the sound like the beat of war drums, making everyone cower. Everyone except Sebastian.

  The humans look at the guards and then at Ash.

  My heart pauses, waiting.

  A few wise people flee just before Ash gives a faint nod.

  One by one, the Legion guards leap off the wall, black shadows against the stormy skies, their dark robes billowing like wings behind them. The protesters start to scream and scatter as the Darklings land in the square behind Ash.

  “Guards!” Sebastian yells.

  The Sentry guards hurriedly regroup around him.

  The TV cameras continue to film it all.

  Ash and Sebastian stare across the plaza at each other in a silent standoff, waiting for someone to strike first . . .

  37

  ASH

  “HOW MUCH BLOOD has to be spilled before enough is enough?” I say.

  Black storm clouds gather overhead, casting shadows across the square.

  I think of Tom and Jana, the twin-blood boy, my mother. Natalie. How many more people have to suffer? I can’t turn a blind eye anymore. It’s time for action, even if it means war.

  “I won’t let you push us around anymore,” I say, tearing off my copper ID bracelet and throwing it on the ground by Sebastian’s feet. “This ends right here, right now.”

  Sebastian draws his sword, and the Legion guards bare their fangs.

  “Ash, please. Don’t do this,” Natalie begs.

  She looks desperately at me, her golden hair catching the wind, revealing the dark bruising on her face. My fangs flood with venom. I’ll never let him harm her or anyone else ever again.

  The first drops of rain begin to fall.

  “Don’t start a fight you’re going to lose,” Sebastian jeers.

  Beetle comes to stand beside me, a hand over his injured stomach. He’s never been afraid of a fight. Day takes his hand. Roach is the next to join our line, blood dripping down her face, along with several dozen people from Humans for Unity.

  The raindrops start to fall faster, faster.

  “You’re still outnumbered,” Sebastian says.

  The school doors bang open, and there’s a clamor of footsteps as hundreds of students and teachers file out into the plaza. Most stand beside me.

  “One city united!” some chant.

  “Down with the Sentry!” others yell.

  The rest of the students join Sebastian. Gregory catches my eye as he moves past me. The image of him standing over my mom’s bleeding body flashes in my head. He gives me a satisfied grin, his hand curling around his sword, clearly thinking the same thing.

  Rage burns through me.

  This ends today.

  I won’t be a victim anymore.

  TV cameras pan between the two warring sides.

  “What are you and your friends going to do, nipper?” Sebastian taunts.

  There’s a crack of thunder, and the rain clouds burst.

  I charge.

  Sebastian is caught off guard, not expecting me to finally take a stand. He doesn’t have time to raise his sword before I’m on top of him. We crash to the ground, and the sword falls out of his hand, landing beside us.

  It’s the cue to fight that everyone has been waiting for. All hell breaks loose.

  “Death to the Darklings!” Gregory yells.

  “No boundaries!” Beetle shouts. “One city united!”

  Others cry out, “Fight!” at the top of their lungs as the two sides surge toward each other. They clash in the middle of the square, in a cacophony of noise.

  Sebastian and I roll across the cobbles, fists flying.

  “I’m going to fragging kill you!” I yell.

  Tom, Jana, Chris, Mom, Natalie. Their names keep ringing in my head, spurring me on.

  I smash my fist into Sebastian’s face, knocking out his front tooth. Startled, he momentarily loses his grip on me, and I manage to pin him down.

  To our left, a Sentry guard takes a swing at Beetle, but Roach intercepts him and tackles the man to the ground.

  “Don’t mess with my kid!” she screams.

  Sebastian spits blood in my face. “I’m going to make sure that whore Natalie suffers for what she’s done,” he says.

  My poison sacs flood with venom, and I reveal my fangs.

  Sebastian grasps for his abandoned sword beside us. I tilt back my head, ready to sink my fangs into his throat and—

  “Ash!”

  My head whips around at the sound of Natalie’s voice.

  Gregory has one arm around her waist, while the other is holding the blade of his sword up to her throat.

  My heart stops.

  “Get away from Sebastian, or I’ll slit her throat,” he says.

  I release Sebastian, rolling off him. He clambers to his feet, staggering away like a coward.

  “Let her go, Gregory,” I say.

  “Gladly,” he says.

  He thrusts her at me, and we tumble to the ground. Natalie lets out a shocked cry as her head smashes against the cobbles. Intense, raw anger at Gregory bursts through me. My whole body shakes with it. First he killed my mother, and now he�
��s threatening Natalie? I’m going to kill him.

  Gregory raises his weapon, a murderous look in his eyes.

  “This is for Chris!” he yells.

  There’s a clap of thunder.

  Natalie and I reach out for Sebastian’s discarded sword at the same time.

  There’s a glint of metal, a moment of resistance before a gruesome pop! as the blade of Sebastian’s sword cuts through Gregory’s flesh. The rusty smell of blood stings my nostrils.

  I release my grip, and the sword clatters to the cobblestones.

  Gregory stares down at the dark red stain that’s started to form on his scarlet jacket. There’s a look of confusion on his face, like he’s trying to work out how the blood got there. He takes two rasping gasps of air before crashing to the ground, dead.

  His lifeless body lies between me and Natalie, Sebastian’s sword by my feet.

  I look at Natalie, who is staring down at her hands in horror. They’re covered in hot, sticky blood, as are mine.

  The truth of the situation crashes over me.

  Gregory is dead.

  He’s a Tracker.

  Killing a Tracker is a capital crime, and the whole thing has just been caught on national TV.

  38

  NATALIE

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK you’re playing at?” Mother demands, slamming my signed confession on the metal table in front of me.

  The interrogation room is narrow and cramped, the walls covered in sheets of aluminum, giving the impression I’m inside an anchovy tin. My wrists and ankles are shackled, and I’ve been dressed in a simple knee-length gray dress, the uniform of all female prisoners in Black City jail. My feet are bare and cold. The way the table’s shadow falls over my feet reminds me of Gregory’s blood, spilling across the ground. I swallow a dry lump in my throat. All my nightmares have been about him this past week, since Ash and I were arrested.

  Mother’s wearing the same style of gray dress, and it’s strange seeing her out of her luxurious clothes. She was arrested and put on trial within forty-eight hours of the Golden Haze plot being exposed and is now awaiting her sentencing. Purian Rose isn’t wasting any time over this; he wants the matter closed. She managed to bribe a guard to let her visit me today.

  “What’s happened to Polly?” I ask her.

  “Don’t change the subject,” she says, but then relents. “She’s fine. Martha has taken her to a safe house while I arrange to have her sent to Centrum to live with a few of my associates.”

  Polly. She must be so scared without me or Mother around.

  In the corner of the room, a small CCTV camera watches us, the red light blinking. I chew on my bottom lip, drawing blood, frightened and trying desperately not to be. Outside the interrogation room, I can hear the din of the rest of the prison: the industrial sounds of the work rehabilitation rooms, the rattle of chains, the shouts of the male and female inmates.

  Somewhere out there is Ash. The last I saw of him, he was being dragged into the men’s wing by several Sentry guards, his face bloodied and bruised where they’d beaten him up.

  “Why are you trying to protect him? He’s a nipper,” Mother says.

  She looks even thinner than normal, like a stick insect, all sharp edges and bones.

  “Don’t call him that,” I say.

  She paces up and down the room, running a hand over her black hair. “I just don’t understand, Natalie. After everything I’ve done to protect you, how you could just throw it all away for some Darkling boy?”

  “I wasn’t going to let him get punished for Gregory’s death,” I say.

  Mother laughs coldly. “How very noble of you. You do understand that he confessed to the crime?”

  “So did I.” I indicate the sheet of paper on the table. “And I won’t retract my confession, if that’s what you’re hoping I’ll do. They can only charge one of us with Gregory’s death, and that person’s going to be me.”

  I sound a lot braver than I feel. The last thing I want is to go to court and be convicted, but I have to stay strong to protect Ash. I briefly wonder how they’ll execute me. Will I be hanged? Crucified? Shot? My hands begin to shake, my resolve weakening. I think of Ash. He’s who I’m doing this for. He has to live and continue the fight to free the Darklings. His life is more important than mine. Humans for Unity and the Darklings need him.

  “Do you really think Purian Rose will let one of you go unpunished if you’ve both confessed to killing that boy?” Mother says. “He wants the pair of you dead.”

  “He has to. The law’s the law—two people can’t be convicted for the same crime,” I say. The law of joint enterprise was abolished during the war to prevent military and government officials being charged with war crimes if another member of their group committed an atrocity. Until then, they would have all been held equally accountable. “So unless he intends to change the law, which won’t go down well, considering how angry people are at the Sentry government right now, he’ll have to play along,” I finish.

  I hope I’m right; otherwise, Ash and I will both die.

  The guard bangs on the door.

  “Time’s up,” he yells.

  My stomach leaps into my mouth at the thought this might be the last time we meet.

  “What’s going to happen to you?” I ask her.

  “Purian Rose will probably send me to his ‘rehabilitation center’ in Centrum,” she says.

  “What’s that? Like a jail for rich people?”

  “Something like that,” she says. “It’s where he sends people for a special sort of punishment.”

  A shudder runs down my spine. “Mother—”

  “Don’t worry about me, Natalie. I can take care of myself.”

  To my surprise, Mother takes my hand.

  “Please retract your confession. I don’t want you to die,” she says, her normally cold blue eyes filled with worry. A strand of black hair has come loose from her tight bun. I fixate on that small imperfection, finding it oddly comforting.

  “Natalie . . .”

  I stare down at our hands.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” I whisper. “I just can’t. I love him. You must know how that feels.”

  “I loved your father very much. I wish I’d been able to save him. I’ll never forgive myself for letting him die. You’re just like your father, you know that?” she says, and there’s real tenderness in her voice, like she’s proud of this fact.

  “Why did you cheat on Father if you loved him so much?” I ask. It’s not an accusation, I’m just curious.

  She sighs. “Because I’m an ambitious woman and a damned fool. I didn’t deserve your father. He was too good for me.”

  The door opens, and a guard marches in. He hauls Mother to her feet.

  “I love you, my darling girl,” she cries as she’s dragged out of the room, her pale skinny legs kicking at the guard, her hair unraveling in glorious waves around her face. She’s never looked more beautiful or wild. That’s the woman I’m going to remember as my mother.

  The door slams behind her and tears spill down my cheeks.

  “I love you too, Mom,” I whisper.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever said those words out loud. I never truly felt it before, and now she’s gone. At least she’s going to live. I don’t know what this “rehabilitation center” is, but it sounds better than my fate. That gives me some small comfort.

  I look up at the red light flickering on the CCTV camera. Somewhere in the prison, another camera is watching Ash. I don’t want him going to trial, but he’d never retract his confession.

  All I can do is hope I’m convicted. That’s the only way to save him.

  39

  ASH

  THE COURTROOM IS HEAVIN
G with people, and there are thousands more protesters waiting outside. Through the arched windows, placards bob up and down like jack-in-the-boxes. They all say one of two things: NATALIE BUCHANAN GUILTY! or ASH FISHER GUILTY! Opinion is really divided about which one of us should be punished for Gregory’s death. Beetle, Roach and Day are sitting in the viewing gallery. They give me a thumbs-up.

  I scan the room, in search of Natalie. It’s been two agonizing weeks since our arrest, the longest fourteen days of my life. The only thing that’s been keeping me going has been the thought of seeing her again. My heart yanks when I spot her sitting at a table to the right of the courtroom, looking pale and thin in a loose gray dress. Her hands and feet are shackled, like mine.

  Our eyes lock across the room, and I exhale. It feels like I’ve been holding my breath for weeks. A slight smile plays on her lips. We mustn’t look too happy to see each other: no one except our closest friends and family know our true relationship, and I intend to keep it that way. We don’t want to add “race traitor” to our sentence; we’d both be executed for sure, then. At least at the moment, there’s a fifty-fifty chance Natalie will walk free.

  Please, Lord. Don’t let her die. Not for me.

  It hurts me to see that she has no one with her. Then again, I heard her mother had been sent to a rehabilitation center in Centrum. It just makes me more determined to clear Natalie’s name and get her out of here so she can take care of Polly.

  I lightly place a hand over my heart. It’s a small gesture, but she knows what it means: I love you, I miss you, I’m with you.

  The prison guard tugs my arm, dragging me toward my table on the left-hand side of the courtroom, opposite Natalie’s. Dad is already waiting for me. He gives me a quick hug and tries to hide his shock at my bony frame.

  “Where’s Sigur?” I ask Dad.

  “He wasn’t allowed to come,” Dad replies. “He tried—”

  “It’s okay. You’re here. That’s all that matters.”

  An usher enters the room. “All rise.”

  I suddenly feel sick with nerves. This is really happening. It’s not some horrible nightmare. I’m actually on trial for Gregory Thompson’s murder.