We have no choice. I have four arrows, and there are ten of them. Seven Initiative soldiers, three Pirates. I drop the bow.
“Atta girl. Now be a good little citizen and come on out.”
The unit tilts. Zephyr pushes me through the blasted-out door just as the entire thing goes careening into the Pit.
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CHAPTER 56
ZEPHYR
The Leeches tie our wrists together so we can’t get away.
Not that we’d be stupid enough to try. They’ve got guns jammed into our backs as they haul us down the streets.
“You know we aren’t worth much,” I say to the two Pirates holding me by the arms. The Leeches walk up front, moving citizens aside. “I’m just a Ward. You really think the Leeches will give you Creds for turning in a worthless kid like me?”
“And the girl’s even worse than I am,” I add. “You don’t want her. She’s crazy.”
“Shut up and move,” one of them grunts.
Meadow glares at me like she’d rather kill me than her captors, even though I didn’t mean what I said about her. I’m trying to get us out of this.
We walk along the train tracks, and I know that now we’re just waiting for the metal machine to show up. As soon as it does, we’ll end up inside of it, soaring right to the Leech Headquarters.
I can’t let that happen.
Most of the crowd is going in one direction, but there’s someone moving towards us, pushing and shoving. It’s a man in a mask.
It’s just a ripped-up shirt tied over his face, with holes for his eyes and mouth, but it catches me off guard.
“Go to hell, Leeches!” the man screams.
He holds up a sign, hand-painted on a thin sheet of scrap metal.
It’s a painting of the Leech symbol, an open eyeball.
But there’s a dagger stuck right in the middle of the eye, and blood dripping from the corner of it. It’s incredible.
“Kill the Initiative!” he yells. “They don’t stop anyone from killing us!”
People stop walking and watch him in disbelief. Everyone knows the last protestor was sent straight to the chopping block.
But today, it’s different, because I’m here. I’m already caught.
“Kill the Leeches!” I scream. “They deserve to die!”
“Go and get him, I can’t get a clear shot,” the Leech soldier tells the Pirates. “We’ll handle these two.” All three of them leave, chasing after the protestor. He keeps screaming as he runs down the street, and people actually part to let him pass.
“Foolish,” the Leech says. He’s about to say something else, but just as he opens his mouth, something amazing happens.
His body kind of seizes up, like he’s been stung by a wasp and can’t handle the pain. For a second, his eyes go wide. Then he coughs, and blood trickles out of his mouth. He clutches his chest, gasps for air, and not a second later, he falls to the ground. An arrow sticks right out of his back.
“Holy skitz,” I hear myself say.
The Leech is dead.
The crowd starts screaming as arrows rain down from the sky.
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CHAPTER 57
MEADOW
My mother’s arrows.
The feathers are black and red, the shaft silver and lethal.
One hits the soldier holding me in his left eye. He falls to the street.
The crowd is screaming. They push and shove and try to get away, but there are so many people. Another arrow lodges itself in a soldier’s heart.
There is only one person I know who can shoot with such precision.
It is my father.
There are two soldiers left, one holding Zephyr, and one holding me. If I wanted to, I could take my captor down, then scramble for the other. But instead, I will give my father the satisfaction of killing them both.
There is a whistling sound, and an arrow flies right past my ear, skimming my hair, but not harming me. It dives deep into the throat of Zephyr’s captor, and the man is dead instantly.
I wait for the last arrow. The soldier holding me drops my arm. He tries to run, but the crowd around us is so dense he cannot get away. People are frozen in place, staring with surprise at the dead Initiative men.
Thirty seconds pass. The arrow does not come, and I realize my father wants to see me do the job. Of course.
In the distance, I can hear a siren wailing. Soon they will come with their pistols and rifles and gas, and there will be no chance of escape. Behind the soldier, I can see my father’s blonde hair as he climbs down an old fire escape. He is coming for me.
Zephyr and I rush the soldier together. We shove him to the ground, but instead of killing him, I retrieve my dagger from his belt loop and hold it to his throat, where it belongs.
Then I look up at the people around us, their starving faces, the hope that is shining in some of their eyes.
“Do what you want with him!” I shout. “He’s yours now.”
We rush into the shadows of the nearest building, where my father is waiting.
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CHAPTER 58
ZEPHYR
Meadow’s father holds the crossbow to my throat.
“Why aren’t you dead?” He asks. His face is covered in sweat and dirt. He looks scarier now than he did on the boat.
“Dad,” Meadow says. She puts her hand on the crossbow. “He’s not what you think.”
“A thank you would suffice, Meadow. I’ve been tracking you all day,” he says to her. But he smiles and places his hand on her shoulder. “Good move back there. You’ve given them hope for the first time in years.”
Meadow’s cheeks flush red. Stars, this guy probably never compliments her.
“Where’s Peri? Is Koi with her? Are they okay?”
Her dad smiles. “They’re fine, we’ll see them soon. You still have your mother’s bracelet?”
It’s not an expected question, not when we’re all huddled in the shadow of a building, just waiting for the Leeches to come haul us away. But Meadow lifts up her wrist anyway, and shows her dad the seashell charm.
His face relaxes. “It’s a reverse transmitter. Your mother made it herself, so that when you had it on, the Initiative couldn’t track your Pin. And anyone else’s within a five-foot radius.”
Meadow gasps, and stares at the bracelet with awe.
“Hold on,” I say, shaking my head. “Those ChumHeads track us? Through our Pins?”
Meadow’s father laughs, and shakes his head. “They can do a hell of a lot more than that.”
A gunshot rings out. “Follow me. Stay close to Meadow,” her father says. “And run fast.”
We duck into an alley and run. Somehow we reach the salt marshes. I’m about to scan my Catalogue Number at the gate, hide us away inside the safety of the Reserve, but Meadow’s father grabs my arm.
“When you scan in, it alerts them. Use your brain.”
I can hear the train rumbling. It comes and goes through the center of the Shallows like clockwork.
We race for the tracks. The engine comes into view. Its hulking mass of rusted metal is covered in old, dried blood.
“Try not to die!” Meadow smiles, and her eyes are on fire.
I jump and cling to the first thing I can find. My legs are dangling over the edge. Skitz, I’m going to fall, or be swallowed up by the tracks and split into a million pieces.
But Meadow’s father grabs me by the wrist and hauls me up. In seconds, I’m lying facedown inside the car, feeling my heart slam against the hard floor.
“
Iss our train! Get the hell out-a here,” a man hisses from the corner. I smell alcohol and sweat. And oh. There’s a young girl beside him with tears in her eyes.
Her dress is all ripped up, her hair is in tangles, and there’s red marks all over her arms and legs. She clutches her chest, and looks at us like she wants to scream for help, but no words come out of her mouth.
Meadow takes the crossbow from her dad. She aims at the ChumHead’s drunken face. “Jump out of the train, you sick bastard,” she says.
“I do what I wan-do.” The man laughs.
“Jump out of the train, before I shoot this arrow through the back of your throat,” Meadow says, stepping closer to him.
“I can kill you slowly. You can drown in your own blood. Or I can use a dagger and cut your eyes out. Your choice.”
“You’re crazy,” the man says, but he stands up, stumbles forward, and stands, toes dangling over the edge of the car, ready to leap from the train.
He doesn’t have to. Meadow shoots him in the back of the neck. He disappears as the train sweeps around a corner. The girl gives us a wide smile.
“Are you a good swimmer?” Meadow asks her.
She nods her head, brown eyes wide. “My mommy taught me.”
“When this train passes over the bridge, I want you to jump into the water. Swim to shore, climb a tree, and stay there until morning. Understand?” The girl nods, and as the train rattles over the bridge, she leaps without hesitating.
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CHAPTER 59
MEADOW
The train stops.
“I was afraid of this,” my father says. “They’re shutting down all transit until they find you two. Meadow, I don’t know what you did. But I’ve heard them talking, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get you. They might even capture your brother and sister if it will draw you in. We’re going somewhere safe. Let’s move.”
We leap out of the train and run, following my father.
He leads us right to the edge of the Graveyard.
It looms overhead like a giant beast, the smokestacks making it look like the Graveyard is alive. A monster breathing in and out, waiting to swallow us whole.
I skid to a stop, and Zephyr does the same beside me. My father turns when he realizes we are no longer following.
“It’s the only place, Meadow. For now, until I can make contact with the others.”
I do not ask who the others are. I swallow my fear and follow my father into the only other place in the city that I swore I would never go.
There are two trash mountains on either side of us. The steam makes it feel like a thousand degrees. My clothing sticks to my body, and it’s hard to breathe. As we walk, I can hear clicking noises, from cockroaches and crickets, crawling amongst the garbage.
“Are Peri and Koi in here?” I ask.
“They’re with an old friend,” he says. “They’re safe.” He leads us to the left, under another steam tower. Through the steam and fog, I can see far too many others, huddled against the trash. There is a woman with an old harmonica, playing a song. I see a man and a woman tearing at each other’s clothes, kissing. A little boy standing knee-deep in garbage hisses at us and backs away. He has a rat in his hands.
I skirt around him, closer to Zephyr.
“Where’s all the Gravers?” he whispers to me.
“They come out at night, I think,” I say. “I don’t like this place even in the daytime. I can’t believe Peri is here somewhere.”
My father leads us deep into the Graveyard. I don’t think I could find my way out of here without him. There’s huts made of old wood and metal scraps fused together, nestled against the piles. As far as I can see are mountains of garbage, pathways twisting and turning. We finally stop before a hut with an old car hood for a door. My father knocks three times.
I hear rustling from the other side, and the door swings open on rusted, makeshift hinges.
I nearly fall backward, but Zephyr catches me.
Because the man standing in the doorway before us is one of the men I saw in my mother’s old photographs.
He is a member of the Initiative.
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CHAPTER 60
ZEPHYR
The man in the doorway looks insane.
He’s got white hair that hangs in dreadlocks to his shoulders. His right eye’s covered by an old eye patch, and I can see a jagged scar sticking out from under it.
The second Meadow sees him, she pulls out her dagger and holds it up to his throat.
“Meadow!” I yell. “Stop it!”
“He works for the Initiative!” she hisses. “I saw him in my mother’s photo!”
The old man gasps. Then he slaps the blade of the dagger away, and Meadow looks so shocked and confused that I actually laugh.
“Put that knife down, child!” he says. “I’m retired, and if you’re near as smart as your momma was, you’d know that. Now get inside before they spot you.”
Meadow’s father laughs and ducks in through the doorway, but she doesn’t follow.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes, you have to trust people. It’s fine. You’ve got your dagger, and you’ve got me. Crazy automatic weapon here, Meadow.”
She almost smiles, and follows me inside.
The hut is empty. Nothing but a bare space, with a dusty tarp covering the floor. The old man sweeps it away, revealing a trap door.
We all climb down into the darkness.
The trap door opens up into a tunnel, a big metal cylinder that looks like it used to be a part of a giant machine. The old man lights up a lantern. It shines with blue light, something that’s got to be pre-Fall.
We follow him through the tunnel, crawling deeper under the garbage. There are boards and poles holding the ceiling up in places where the cylinder is corroding. I’m afraid if I even sneeze the whole thing’s going to come crashing down.
“Found this beauty a while back,” the old man says, tapping the cylinder. “She needed fixing up in places. Helps that I was an architect, way back when. And an engineer. Bah, it doesn’t matter.”
The tunnel finally opens up into a small room. The walls are covered in steel and a mess of wires. “Antitransmitter, just like your little bracelet there, missy,” he tells Meadow. “Keeps my old coworkers from finding me here.”
There’s all kinds of crazy stuff in the room. A pre-Fall wooden desk, filled with copper and bronze trinkets that buzz and whir. I think I see a piss bucket in the corner, and stockpiled bags of rations.
There’s also a small pile of blankets in the corner, and two sleeping figures on it.
Meadow gasps.
“Koi!” she screams. “Peri!” She runs forward and pretty much body-slams them, and I watch her siblings wake up. It’s like some reunion, with all of them smiling and laughing.
I don’t have that. I’ll never have that.
Then Meadow turns and points at me, and whispers something to her brother.
Oh, skitz.
When his eyes meet mine, I swear to the stars he’s going to kill me.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he says. He clenches his fists in his lap.
Meadow and her family sit together on the floor. I sit next to the old man, who introduces himself as Kansas.
“I know what you are,” he says to me. He watches me with his one good eye, like I might explode at any second. “I know all about you.”
“That makes one of us,” I tell him. “Meadow doesn’t trust you. I want you to know that I don’t either.”
“I don’t trust myself no more. Not after the things I’ve done. Now it’s time to eat up. I worked forty years to stockpile this stuff.”
We dig into th
e rations bags and have the first good meal we’ve had in forever.
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CHAPTER 61
MEADOW
After we eat, I excuse myself. The walls are too close. I need a second to breathe. When I get outside, it’s late afternoon. I weave my way through the piles of trash, and as I do, I can’t help but wonder why my father kept all of this from me. A secret Graveyard hideout, ex-Initiative workers on our side. The truth about my mother.
“You know it’s not safe out here,” a voice says behind me.
I turn around and my father is there. I had not heard him sneak up on me. If he were an enemy, I might already be dead.
“Sit with me,” he says. I can tell from his stillness that his thoughts are just as heavy as my own.
“How long?” I break the silence between us. “How long was my mother one of them?”
He sighs, a sound that is heavy and ragged. Full of pain. “You should hold on to the memories that you do have of her, Meadow.”
“I need the truth.”
He turns his back to me, and as he does, something inside of me breaks. I thought I would feel a piece of my world slide back into place. Instead, he’s pulling me into a darkness that threatens to swallow me whole.
“Haven’t the two of you done enough?” I say. “I’ve been chased all over the city. I had to destroy our home, and I’ve had to kill too many. I’m still being chased. I want the answers. I deserve the answers.”
“You deserve what you earn,” he says, and as he speaks, his hand closes over my shoulder.
I know this feeling. I know what he is about to do, and I welcome it.
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