by Ann Aguirre
“Are we dismissed?” Fade asked.
“Yes. Be on time tomorrow,” Silk said smiling.
He took my hand in a painful grip and dragged me through the warren of partitions. I didn’t know where we were going, until we stopped at a random living space. By the way he stepped inside, it had to belong to him. One simply didn’t treat anyone else’s home with such disrespect.
For that reason, I stood outside the curtain until he said, “Get in here.”
It wasn’t the politest invitation I’d ever received. Frowning, I stepped in. His space looked more or less like mine. We all had the same amenities. “What?”
He dropped onto a crate, elbows on his knees. His face held an emotion I couldn’t read and had never seen, but it hit me in a raw place. My skin prickled. I needed to go wash up and take care of my weapons; my club especially needed a good cleaning. I was in no mood to spend another minute with him. He’d been nothing but trouble since the first moment Silk stuck me with him.
“They’re going to kill him,” he said hoarsely.
And how I wished I didn’t know that — or care. As a Huntress, I wasn’t supposed to. I should care about the greater welfare of the enclave. My job existed to keep our citizens safe. Protection didn’t extend to brats we found in the tunnels, unless they were like Fade, strong enough to survive on their own. We couldn’t afford to feed and care for weaklings.
“I know.”
“That could be me.”
“It couldn’t,” I pointed out. “You’re not defective.”
He glared with black eyes that burned like coals, lunging to his feet. “That’s disgusting.”
When he stepped into my space, I didn’t back away. “Then why do you stay? I’ll tell you. Because it’s better than being out there.”
“Is it?” he asked. “How would you know?”
I flushed at the implication that I was ignorant and inexperienced, but I didn’t back down. A Huntress wouldn’t. “If you had anything better waiting, you’d be long gone. You hate it here, and you hate all of us too.”
“Not all of you. At least, not until today.”
“Because of the brat.”
“Get out,” he said, wheeling away from me. “I was stupid for thinking I could talk to you, for thinking you’d understand anything.”
Grinding my teeth, I shoved through the curtain and out into the warren. A passing Builder leered at me. “You know you can get in trouble for visiting a boy’s personal space. But if you do something for me, I won’t tell anyone.”
Oh, not today. Yes, I’d broken a minor rule by going in without a chaperone, but I was in no mood for this. “I wasn’t in there long enough for anything to happen. If you shut up and walk away, right now, I won’t shove your nose through your face.”
When I reached for my club, the boy ran. Apparently he had some brains. Sure, he’d probably report me, but it was my word against his. And since I was heading off for Nassau tomorrow — and might not make it back — minor disciplinary action for uncivil behavior didn’t bother me much.
After stopping in my space for clean clothes, I went to the female facilities, a part of the enclave curtained and off-limits to males. A constant trickle of more or less clean water came from the metal tubes arrayed in this area. We didn’t know who had planned this place, but we were glad for the running water. Anything we drank, we boiled, but this was clean enough to wash in.
At this hour, nobody else was around, and I honestly preferred it that way. I didn’t like the way some girls compared bodies. My body was a machine, plain and simple. I worked it to stay strong; I fed it to keep it running.
I got undressed. It was cool in here and the water was cold too, which made it worse. Taking a scoop of soap from a pot on the floor, I washed up quickly beneath the unsteady trickle. If I turned the wheel, I could get more at one time, but then I’d hear about it from Twist, who monitored our resources.
By the time I finished my shower and dressed in my spare outfit, my anger had cooled slightly. It wasn’t fair to be angry at Fade; he couldn’t help his crazy outlook. As we were told from the time we were brats, where you were raised made all the difference. The people in Nassau had some wild ideas for sure; they didn’t have a breeding schedule like we did, so they looked … strange when their trading parties visited, and from their smell, they didn’t care much about cleanliness either. We always offered to let them wash up in our facilities, but they’d smile with black teeth and say, “Why bother? We’re just going to get dirty again on the way back.”
But it had been a long time since we’d seen any of them, apart from the brat.
And Fade came from even farther away. At least, I assumed he did. It wasn’t like he’d told me — or anyone, as far as I knew.
I just wished he hadn’t involved me. If only I’d refused to follow him, if only I’d stayed in the back ways, where we’d been assigned. We never would’ve found the brat, and we wouldn’t be going to Nassau tomorrow. But the second Hunter tenet wouldn’t let me do that, either. First, it was, “the strong survive.” Second, it was, “trust your partner.” My bad luck to be stuck with Fade.
No point dwelling on it — I had chores to do. First, I washed my filthy clothes and hung them up to dry. By the time I finished caring for my club, cleaning and polishing it, so the Freak blood wouldn’t stain the wood, I felt almost resigned. We could’ve been punished worse for disobeying orders. At least we had a chance of surviving this run, so long as we were quiet and careful.
I went to try and relax a little before bed. Thimble and Stone found me in the common area, after their shifts ended. I sat watching random Breeders and Builders play some stupid guessing game. The Hunters socialized elsewhere, but I didn’t feel like facing them. Fade might be there, for one thing, and I didn’t want to see him at the moment. On another level, I wasn’t sure what they thought of me. I was still new blood, and a troublemaking one at that.
“Is it true?” Stone whispered.
I didn’t bother asking what they’d heard. “Probably.”
“You really left your patrol route?” Thimble asked, incredulous.
It was worse than I’d thought. “We did.”
Part of me wanted to lay the blame on Fade. I wanted to say, It wasn’t my idea. He ran off, and it’s my job to follow him. But I hadn’t objected. I hadn’t yelled, Where are you going? Our route is this way. My instinctive response had been to help whoever was making that noise. I could tell myself I’d been investigating a possible Freak presence, but Freaks didn’t signal. They just attacked. So out there, I’d made a choice and now I had to live with the consequences. Stone and Thimble wore identical looks of shock and disbelief.
“Why?” Stone finally asked.
Because I’m weak. I’m not a Huntress. I have a Breeder’s heart. But I’d never say it aloud. That left me with no answer at all. Thankfully, they didn’t press.
Thimble patted me on the arm. “At least we got news from Nassau. The elder Builders had been wondering why we haven’t seen any trading parties in a while.”
They couldn’t know about the brat. Or maybe they did — and didn’t care. Like I wasn’t supposed to. I shouldn’t be thinking about his thin little face or his white eyes.
“Is it true you’re being sent there?” Stone wanted to know.
“It is. Recon only.” Allegedly. I guessed my misgivings showed on my face.
“Oh, Deuce,” Thimble whispered.
When they hugged me from either side, I didn’t fight at all.
Journey
In the morning, at the briefing, the other Hunters refused to meet my eyes. With Fade as a partner, I’d never earn their respect or share in the tight bonds I’d always admired. To make matters worse, I’d compounded the problem with my tardiness, leaving my patrol route and bringing the Nassau brat back instead of following orders. Jaw clenched, I let Silk’s voice wash over me until I heard the customary words:
“Is everyone clear on their jobs t
oday? Then good hunting.”
The others headed off, but Silk stepped in front of Fade and me, blocking our path. “It’s a hard three-day hike. I’ll expect you back in seven days. If you’re not here, I’ll assume you’ve been eaten and promote two likely brats to take your places. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered in unison with Fade.
“Do you have provisions ready?” Silk asked.
Water, dried meat, a blanket, a map of the tunnels, my spare outfit, and my weapons — if those counted, then yes. I nodded. Satisfied with our responses — and that we were suitably cowed — Silk stepped aside. I’m sure she knew that if we survived, she’d have no more trouble with us deviating from our assignments. Next time, I’d keep Fade on task if I had to hit him from behind and drag him.
Heart heavy with dread, I led the way to the barricades. The guards didn’t taunt us, but since they’d been on duty yesterday, one smirked at me. I wondered if he’d been ordered to kill the blind brat personally. Not wanting to think about it, I broke eye contact first and vaulted over the first barrier.
Rules exist for our protection, I told myself. But I couldn’t kill the sick sourness in my stomach. Maybe Stone was the lucky one after all, even suffering through loss of the brats. He didn’t have to deal with punishments like this.
Fade had his map in hand when he landed beside me. His silence burned like the hot knives Twist had used to make my marks. Still without speaking, he brushed by me and jogged toward the first turn. If I didn’t keep up, he’d leave me alone in the dark; I didn’t doubt that at all.
We ran all morning without a break. I sipped from my water bottle on the move. It was made of a light, strong substance, a relic of the old days. Someone had scavenged it from the tunnels, brought it back and cleaned it up. Even as a brat, I’d coveted it, knowing how valuable it would prove to a Hunter. As soon as I got my hands on something good, I bartered for it.
I got used to stepping where he did, running in the dark. Sometimes rays of light through broken stone illuminated the murk, but that only made it worse. Then I had to see the bleak tunnels, dirty water standing in the center, and the things that scurried away from our feet.
Like Fade, I’d memorized our route early on, so I tracked his leadership. I wouldn’t put it past him to head away from College, away from Nassau, and lead me into the black to die. He’d seemed mad enough the day before to make sure I came to a bad end. Not for the first time, I wondered about the death of his first partner.
He wasn’t as good as Silk claimed, he’d said. But maybe what Fade really meant was he’d disappointed him by not sharing his crazy, selfish ideals. Maybe the poor guy had only been guilty of serving the enclave first. Fear tightened my stomach. I would have to be on my guard at all times out here alone with him. At a few points along the way, I smelled Freaks, but we moved too fast for them to hit us. They cried and growled from adjacent passages.
I had no way to gauge how long we’d been running, but he called a halt, long after the stitch in my side became a brand. The tunnels even looked different here, splashed with red and black paint, more remnants of the old days. Our smoke hadn’t penetrated this far. We were unquestionably in the wilds.
The stone ledge to the right permitted us to scramble off the ground, away from the metal and chunks of fallen rock. With a wall behind us, we rested without worrying about threats from all sides. I opened my bag and pulled out a chunk of dried meat. We didn’t have a lot of variety even in the enclave: fresh meat, dried meat, and mushrooms. Occasionally, someone found a tin and once we pried it open, the contents smelled fine and enticing, but that was the exception, not the rule.
I ate and drank a little more water. We had to make it last until we reached Nassau. Worse, there was no guarantee we’d be able to access their supply. If the brat had spoken truly and the settlement was lost, the place might be overrun with Freaks.
“It’s time to get moving,” Fade said, after a while. Those were the first words he’d spoken to me all day. “We still have four more hours to go before we can make camp for the night.”
“How do you know?” At the enclave, we had a few clocks that kept time for us, scavenged in long ago Topside runs. We had no idea whether they reflected the correct time, of course, but it didn’t matter. We only needed to share a common schedule.
In answer he pushed up his sleeve and showed me his wrist. Unlike most, he preferred to keep his marks covered. He wore a small clock; I’d never seen anything quite like it.
“What is it?”
“A watch.”
The glowing hands meant he could see it, even in the dark. That explained how he knew when our patrols were done, and that we still needed to run for four hours. Nodding, I stowed my gear and vaulted down from the stone ledge. We had been lucky to eat undisturbed. Time to get moving again, though my muscles felt weak and watery.
This time, I set the pace. I didn’t like letting Fade run at my back, but I didn’t want him to think he frightened me, either.
Along the way, four near misses with Freaks kept us sharp. They tried to hit us as we ran, but they were weak and slow. By tacit agreement we didn’t stop to fight. Fights risked injury, making us even more attractive targets. We killed them near the enclave as part of defending our territory. Here, it was best simply to keep moving.
By the time we found a place to camp for the night, my whole body ached. Here, the tunnel widened. There were double metal lines and a raised area, littered with broken glass and covered in festive paint. Fade pulled himself up, and then offered me his hand.
Unlike the last time, it didn’t hurt when his fingers curled around mine. His strength surprised me, because he tugged me up using his upper body only. I landed beside him and took stock of the area.
A metal gate blocked off one end. On the other, I saw a couple of doors. Fade was already moving toward them, trying the handles. Though the enclave didn’t use doors, I’d seen them before. One of them pushed open, but the smell was so horrific I gagged.
“Did something die in there?”
“Probably,” Fade said.
The white tile was stained black in spots, filth and dried blood. Doors blocked off tiny rooms, except for the last one, where the metal hung askew, revealing a squat chair with a hole in it. Curiosity got the best of me, then overwhelming disgust.
I took a step into the room, intending to check out the place, when side movement caught my eye. I whirled, knives slipping into my palms. The other girl did the same. When I froze, she did.
The mirrors I’d seen had all been tiny and, most of them, cracked. Though I knew I had brown hair and gray eyes, I’d never seen a full-sized reflection of myself before. Fade came to stand behind me, watching me as I did, and discomfort twined like razors around my spine. He made me feel small. Right then, I felt stupid too.
“I’d rather sleep out there.” I jerked my head toward the open, raised area.
“Me too. You can use the facilities first.”
“Facilities?”
“It’s a bathroom.”
I didn’t see how anyone could bathe in here, but looking at the squat chair, I took his meaning. It held a black, foul water, and probably other stuff too. At home, we did our business above a grate, some distance from the rest of the enclave. The smell in that part of the settlement matched the stench in here, so I got it.
Fade stepped outside, leaving me to it. I was careful not to touch anything, and then I went out to give him a turn. Weird, seeing the echo of how people used to live.
The other door wouldn’t budge, no matter how we pushed or pulled on it, so we took the corner in between the doors, as far back from the edge as we could get. I ate more dried meat and drank a few swallows of water. Thankfully it was cool enough that we wouldn’t lose much fluid through sweat.
“I’ll take the first watch.”
He didn’t argue. “You’ll need this, then.” After unfastening his watch, he passed it over to me.
The leather held warmth from his skin; I couldn’t help but notice as I wound it around my wrist. It fastened easily enough. Now I could keep time too.
“Thanks.”
“Wake me after four hours. That’s four revolutions.”
I spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m not an idiot. I can tell time.”
Even if Twist kept time for the enclave and rang a bell at the important hours, when meals were served and shifts stopped and started, I knew how. That was part of brat schooling, what you learned in between chores. From three to eight, we learned basic things. From eight to fifteen, we took job training. But he might not know that; he’d come into the enclave late, and gotten his name not too long after. He probably hadn’t spent too much time with our brats in their early years.
“I never said you were an idiot.”
“You seem to think it.” The words just slipped out. I didn’t want to fight with him. Out here, just the two of us, it was the opposite of smart. Maybe I was an idiot.
“No,” he said softly. “You’ve just been taught to think wrong.”
And we were back to the blind brat again. I saw in his eyes that he thought I should’ve done something when they took him. Well, he’d stood silent too. I swallowed my instinctive reply and substituted, “You’re welcome to your opinions. Just don’t let them get in the way of doing your job.”
He sent me a hard look. “Are you implying something?”
“Am I?”
“You know you are. You actually believe I let my last partner die because I didn’t agree with him. Yet here you are. Alone. With me.” His black eyes gleamed wickedly.
No, I realized. I didn’t think that. If the death of a worthless brat troubled him, Fade wouldn’t let a Hunter die for any reason, if he could help it. It wasn’t his fault; the odds must have been stacked against them, or maybe his partner made a mistake.
“I’m following orders,” I said mildly. “But no. That wasn’t what I meant. I’m sure you did all you could to save him.”