by Ann Aguirre
Page 20
“They threatened you. ”
“Not a threat, so much. I could fight for them or I could die. ” He repeated what he’d said before, and only then, the enormity sank in for me.
All along, they’d known, and they’d chosen to keep us all in the dark. Literally, figuratively. I felt lost, as if I had nothing left to believe in.
“That’s why you never tried to fit in. Why you didn’t talk to anyone much. ”
Besides Banner, the girl he’d said was his only friend—and maybe only because she shared his belief that things needed to change. If I’d helped instead of running away, maybe she wouldn’t have died. For the first time I accepted that the elders’ spies might’ve overheard our conversation. If they’d suspected her, my exchange with her had caused her death.
“I was afraid they’d hurt anyone I cared about. As an object lesson. ”
“So you didn’t feel safe, the whole time you were there. ”
He shrugged. “I had a place to sleep and food to eat. The work wasn’t that bad once I was trained, and people left me alone, mostly. It would’ve been worse up here. ”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea. ”
His silence said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I understood. There was no point in discussing things that couldn’t be changed.
We set off in the direction Fade said was north. Gradually hope sprang up within me, replacing the sick disillusionment. I hated walking off and leaving Thimble, Stone, and the brats, but I had to accept there was nothing I could do.
If a better place existed, we’d find it.
As we walked, I lost myself in the cool air and lashing water. It silvered the buildings, blurring them as if through a veil of tears. Fade watched the dark street and eyed the markings on the doors. The red and white paint hinted at hidden dangers.
“You’re in our territory,” a hard voice said.
The rush of the rain must have masked their footsteps because I hadn’t heard them. They came from behind and were just suddenly there, surrounding us in a full circle—all male, most younger than us, and they all carried weapons. But I couldn’t mistake their youth for weakness. In their eyes I saw a feral anger I’d never noticed in the enclave. I knew then Fade had spoken the truth. I understood why he’d chosen the more obvious risk of the Freaks and the darkness below.
Fade stepped forward, putting himself in front of me. It was pointless, as they’d come at us from all sides. So I turned, facing the gangers behind him. We’d fight back-to-back. He had made it clear what would happen if they took me. I’d die first.
Falling back on my training, I counted them. Eight. They all handled their weapons like they knew what to do with them, and they looked stronger than the average Freak, rested and well fed. This would be the toughest fight we’d ever faced. The prospect made me smile.
“We don’t want trouble,” Fade said. “We’re just passing through. ”
The big one shook his head. “No, you’re not. ”
Clearly he was in charge; the others looked to him for leadership, and they might scatter if he fell. I’d go after him first. In a smooth motion, I drew my daggers.
I grinned over my shoulder at Fade. “Let’s see how many we can kill. ”
Resistance
I brought my knives up into a fighting stance. The weight of my club comforted me; even if I couldn’t use it and stay close enough to Fade to guard his back, I liked knowing I had it. The gangers eyed us as if wondering whether we could be as good as we claimed. I guessed we were about to find out.
The headman rushed me and I met his swing with a dagger in the wrist. Quick in and out, I didn’t want to lose my weapon. He danced back with a cry of pain, his eyes wide with disbelief. Soon I had three on me, but I hadn’t been running in the tunnels all day. I had meat in my belly and a night’s sleep behind me.
I blocked their movements with graceful speed; I never felt beautiful unless I was fighting, and even then it was something that went beyond skin and bone into the kinetic joy of successive movements. Kick, thrust, slash. I never doubted Fade at my back. I never faltered.
The big ganger went down first. I took another one before they broke and ran. Their footsteps pounded away through the rain, leaving me staring at a couple of bodies, and blood thinning away to pink trickles. I turned to Fade and found him smiling down at me, his lashes tangled and damp.
“I don’t think we need to worry about them,” I said.
“Not unless they bring more. And they will, next time. ”
“Then what’re we standing here for?”
He answered by setting the pace. We walked through the night. Fade guided us. He used the compass on his watch. I’d noticed it underground, but I didn’t know what it meant until I saw him using it. I’d always navigated by counting steps; that was how small my world was before.
“It tells me which way is north,” he explained.
“Did your sire ever say how far north you’d have to go?” The distance and space aboveground still bothered me. If I watched my feet as I walked and didn’t think about it, I could manage to function. But it was all so vast, and I felt tinier than ever.
“No. He didn’t say a lot of things. ”
“At least you remember him. Sires and dams never played much part in the enclave. I mean, some Breeder looked after us, but we never knew…” I trailed off, wondering why I was telling him. It didn’t matter.
According to Fade’s watch, we had been walking for two hours when the rain stopped. It left everything clean, though I was wet and cold. The buildings climbed to insane, unimaginable heights—and yet they were obviously dead, relics of the old days. I had the impression of immense solitude laden with expectation, like when we dragged our dead out into the tunnels and left them for the Freaks. We were alone … but not wholly. Eyes weighed on me from unseen hiding places and left me uneasy.
Birds swooped after the small, furry creatures that scampered in the shadows. A fat, brave one paused some distance away, gnawing on a seed. This thing, I recognized; relief surged through me. I knew how to snare one, if we needed to eat. It made me feel more settled—not everything had changed.
Fade followed my gaze and nodded. “Rats live up here too. ”
Other animals prowled the dark along with us, different than any I’d seen before. Herds of something with horns clattered down the streets. Deer, Fade said. The word meant nothing to me, except he promised they made good eating. They were fast, though, and too big for a simple snare. More cries split the silence: growls and rumbles and yowls. I couldn’t imagine what made those noises.
“Where is everyone?” I whispered.
The Wordkeeper had taught us enough that I knew these cities used to be filled with people, teeming crowds of them. Of course, he’d also taught us that the sky blazed fire and the rain would burn our skin from our meat and leave nothing but bones. So I couldn’t count on anything I’d learned before.
Fade hesitated, looking young and unsure. “My dad said they left the city a long time ago. That people went north and west to get away. ”
“From what?”
“I don’t know. ”
“Maybe we can find out,” I said. “We found one book and we weren’t even looking for it. There might be more. ”
He stopped and looked through me as if remembering. “He told me about a place filled with them. A library. ”
“A place for books? Do you know where it is?”
Fade shook his head. “We’d have to ask. It’s too dangerous to stay in the city, roaming around searching. The gangers would take us sooner or later. ”
“Is there anyone we could ask?” I gazed into the darkness, and suppressed a shiver when it seemed to stare back. “And do you think it’s worth it, trying to find out?”
“We can do what we want, now. So I guess the better question is, how much do you want to know?”
“A lot,” I realized aloud.
“Then there might be someone. My dad had a friend. … I’m sure he’s gone now, but he had a daughter. Pearl could tell us—if she’s alive. Her dad had maps. ”
I felt dumb, but I had to ask, “Of what?”
“Where everything is in the ruins. Or used to be. ”
If we had complete maps of the tunnels, I wouldn’t need to count everywhere I went. How many steps, how many turns. I could memorize the paths and hold them in my mind before going into the dark. We had maps of trips we made often, like the route to Nassau, but we’d had no idea where the back ways led, or about hidden rooms full of relics, like the one Fade found.
My awe and elation faded as I recalled that wasn’t my job anymore. I had no purpose. I wore a Huntress’s scars but I had nobody to protect.
“Can you find her?”
“If she hasn’t moved. It’s a lot of ifs. ” He started walking.
“Why didn’t you go to her, after your sire—”
“Because it was too far. I barely made it to the underground. ”
“But you think we can do it now. ”
“You’re tough,” he said. “And we’re not stupid brats. ”
For the remainder of the night, we walked in silence. Fade watched for landmarks and familiar streets. I wondered what it was like for him, if he remembered passing this way with his sire and if those memories felt like another life. I tried to imagine living Topside, and even now, I found it more of a dream than a real thing, as if I would one day wake from this wild, unlikely world with Twist’s foot in my ribs and hear him demand I get up and get to work.
In the dark, I could see as well as anyone, and I noticed the shadows almost at once. I tracked them in my peripheral vision. They seemed to be stalking us, more than readying to attack. But maybe that was worse. Maybe they were, as Fade had predicted, gathering numbers for their next attempt.
“Do you see them?” I whispered.
“Gangers. I told you they’d bring more. ”
“How many are there? Can you tell?”
He shook his head. “But there will be twice as many as last time. They won’t underestimate us again. ”
Even as he spoke, they rushed. There had to be at least twenty, this time. Some were young enough that I’d call them brats. Their size made me hesitate; I’d been raised to protect brats, not fight them, so I didn’t react fast enough. I fought, but they didn’t fight like Hunters. They kicked and bit and scratched and leaped like wild animals. Sheer numbers overwhelmed me and one clubbed me across the back of the head.
I heard Fade calling to me as the world went away.
* * *
When I awoke, it was dark. Not nighttime, as I’d come to know it up here, or the blackness of the tunnels, but a soft, textured darkness. They’d tied something around my eyes. I tried to sit up, found my hands bound behind my back, and slammed my face against a hard floor. I could tell they’d taken my weapons. Another shift told me my ankles had been tied too.