Ronja nodded passively and backed into the room, her hands raised. Terra shoved Roark roughly, and he tripped through the entrance. Ronja caught him by the forearms, but Terra yanked him back by his ponytail, forcing him to look up. The tendons in his neck strained, but he did not make a sound.
Ronja dropped her pack, raising a mushroom cloud of dust from the floor.
“This has nothing to do with you,” Ronja said in a low voice.
“It has everything to do with me,” Terra barked, twisting the knife deeper into her hostage’s stomach.
Roark sucked in a sharp breath through his bruised nose, but did not cry out. A droplet of sweat loosed itself from his brow.
“We need Roark,” Terra continued icily. “I can’t allow a mutt to drag him into Red Bay—it’s suicide.”
“He’ll be just as dead with a knife in his gut,” Ronja pointed out.
Terra tightened her grip on the hilt of her blade. Roark hissed as red bloomed beneath the honed metal, seeping through the fabric of his pullover.
Ronja stepped forward cautiously.
“She told Wilcox,” Roark said, his voice strained.
Terra yanked his hair again, arching his back and forcing the tip of the knife deeper into his abdomen.
Ronja took another step forward. Terra was trembling, but it was not from fear. Rage crackled just beneath her tanned skin.
“You’re biding your time,” Ronja realized.
“Wilcox will be here any second,” Terra replied.
“You knew before. How?”
“Roark never should have brought you here,” Terra spat, ignoring her question. “You should have stayed in the pitching slums where she left you.”
“Who—?”
Crack.
Terra’s hazel eyes spread wide, flickered, then rolled back into their sockets. Her fingers slackened around the blade. Ronja lunged and snatched it just before she collapsed, dragging Roark with her.
They plummeted to the ground, a tangle of limbs and blood. Ronja looked up in shock.
Iris, her red braids frazzled, a canvas duffle slung over her shoulder, stood above the fallen pair. She brandished her otoscope over her head like a club.
29: Ruse
Ronja hooked her pack with one hand and grabbed Roark by the back of his coat with the other. He staggered to his feet and narrowly missed stomping on Terra.
“Figures,” Roark grunted as he righted himself, brushing dust off his knees. He shoved his hair from his eyes with a huff and scowled down at Terra’s crumpled form. “She must have heard me and Iris talking. She was always eavesdropping.”
Ronja ignored him and lifted the hem of his sweater frantically. She sighed with relief. The slit in his abdomen was only a flesh wound, far from life threatening. All at once Ronja was acutely aware of the warmth radiating from his brown skin. She had not realized how muscular he was beneath his thick clothing. She forced his jumper back down hurriedly and backed away, unbraiding herself internally. Ronja refused to look at Roark directly, but she could have sworn she saw a slight smile flash across his face in her peripheral vision.
“We need to go!” Iris said shrilly, waving her otoscope around madly.
Roark hoisted his knapsack higher on his back, his elegant stingers clinking like empty bottles. He stepped over Terra carelessly and held the heavy curtain aside for them to walk through. Iris and Ronja looked at each other for a split second, then ducked through the opening in quick succession. Roark followed them out, letting the curtain fall over the unconscious girl with organic nonchalance. He scanned the Belly with calculating eyes. Ronja followed suit.
No alarms were blaring, no one was sprinting toward them with weapons and voices raised.
Yet.
Roark grabbed Ronja by her right elbow and Iris by her left. He began to drag them deeper into the Belly, away from the elevator. Ronja opened her mouth to inquire, but the boy spoke first.
“Follow my lead,” he hissed through the side of his mouth. Ronja looked up at him. He was smiling, but his eyes were flat. He offered a friendly nod to an elderly man hobbling past. “Talk about something.”
“You look constipated,” Ronja whispered.
Iris and Roark both laughed with a shred too much force. Ronja winced internally, but joined them.
They made their way through the village as quickly as they could without attracting attention. Iris spewed her every thought, though this was far from abnormal. Ronja felt sweat beading under her arms. Her jaw ached from smiling. She could have sworn she felt eyes locked onto her back, but each time she glanced around their tail was empty.
The Anthemites moved about them like a well-oiled machine, oblivious to any cracks in their ruse. They called out greetings to Roark and Iris, and some offered Ronja genial nods. She returned the nods with as much grace as she could muster. Her head buzzed; her wound throbbed in time with her pulse.
“Almost there,” Roark muttered in her remaining ear.
Ronja felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She peeked over her shoulder, pushed her curls out of the way to view the meandering walkway.
Her stomach hit the floor. A pin dropped in the halls of her mind.
Ronja parted her lips to scream.
“WESTERVELT!” Wilcox bellowed.
“Run!” Roark bawled.
Before Ronja could launch into a sprint he was dragging her forward like a rag doll. Iris darted ahead, her duffle clanking like a suit of armor.
“Sorry! Sorry!” the surgeon cried as she barreled through the crowd of unassuming Anthemites, her palms out to clear their path.
Cries of shock flew up as the group plowed through the throng. Wilcox’s thundering footsteps studded the bewildered babel, drawing steadily closer. Ronja pumped her arms harder to keep up with Roark and Iris, who were as lithe and swift as stray cats. Ronja thought she could feel Wilcox breathing down her spine.
“Left!” Roark yelled.
Ronja torqued her body, following Iris’s bobbing plaits. Her toe caught on an uneven stone and she flew forward. Before she hit the floor, Roark yanked her backward by the elbow. Gratitude built on her lips, but he was already pulling her onward.
Ronja squinted ahead. Roark was leading them to his tent. She could see it twenty paces ahead, warm light bleeding through its linen walls.
“Why—?!” Ronja yelled.
A scream and a series of ringing clangs tugged her attention backward, but Roark shoved her into his tent just as a reverberating crash and a bellow of pain filled the air.
“What was that?!” Ronja shouted.
“Hurry up!” Iris shrieked, batting a hanging lantern out of her face.
Ronja glanced about wildly, her heart in her mouth. Roark’s tent was overflowing with strange and beautiful objects, half of which she did not recognize. Books of every color and size lined the walls floor to ceiling. A hammock stuffed with a red and gold duvet and several fat pillows swayed gently, suspended from the low ceiling. Everything seemed to have its place, and there was not a speck of dust in sight.
Roark crashed to his knees and slid aside a luxurious, patterned rug, revealing a plywood panel. Before Ronja could ask, he flipped the board aside. A yawning, black hole with craggy edges had been drilled into the stone floor.
“Jump,” Roark commanded.
Before Ronja or Iris could so much as flinch, he leapt into the hole and was swallowed by the blackness. Ronja felt her breath catch for a split second, then she heard him land with a wet splash.
“Come on!” his voice echoed from below.
Iris looked at Ronja, her pink mouth tight and her shoulders stiff. Ronja glanced over her shoulder at the rippling cloth wall. Sprinting footfalls were building beyond it. She turned back around in time to see Iris’s red braids flash and disappear down through the escape hatch.
Ronja sucked in a deep breath, laced her fingers through the straps of her knapsack, and jumped.
Before her toes could kiss the darkness, a staggering
force bowled her over. Her head struck the velvety carpet, rebounded. Electric blue splotches bloomed before her eyes as she tried to breathe through the immense weight crushing her ribs. She blinked away the pulsing light show. Wilcox’s snarling face greeted her. His brawny forearm was pressed to her neck, squeezing the life from her.
“So, The Conductor thought he could fool us with a pretty face, hmm?” he hissed, his breath hot and foul in her face. Ronja kicked madly, trying to strike him in the groin. Wilcox pinned her legs with his own, pressed harder on her neck. “I knew I didn’t like you, mutt.”
Bang.
A shot from below sliced through the air, narrowly missing Wilcox’s knee. The hulking man whipped around, loosening his grip on her by a hair.
It was just enough.
Ronja shook her leg free and slammed her knee into her attacker’s groin. He roared in shock and agony. She rolled out from beneath him, then scrambled toward the exit on her hands and knees. Wilcox lunged and caught her around the waist, wrenching her back. Ronja screamed in frustration, curled her fingers around the jagged edge of the manhole.
“You won’t get a—”
Ronja lashed out with her booted foot. She felt rather than heard her opponent’s nose crack. Wilcox howled and lost his grip. The girl shimmied forward and plunged headlong into the gaping black hole.
A damp wind struck her face. The blackness rushed past her. She closed her eyes, preparing for her skull to crack against the stone floor.
A pair of strong arms knocked the wind from her. Ronja and Roark crashed to the sodden floor with a wet splash. Ronja cracked a tentative eyelid, but found she was blind. Roark had tucked her head into the crook of his elbow. Her face was pressed into his sweater. Even in the dank sewer, he still smelled like himself.
“Now!” Roark yelled.
Metal shrieked against metal, louder than the screech of a vulture. White lights burst in the darkness as the sound scorched Ronja’s remaining ear. There was a resounding clang and a shout of fury.
Then two hands grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her to her feet. “Thank . . . you,” Ronja wheezed, looking up through her curls, expecting to see Iris in the dim space.
Instead, Evie grinned down at her, her white teeth flashing in the light of an electric lantern. A hulking black rifle half her height was strapped diagonally across her back.
“What the hell did you do to him?” the gunslinger asked, squinting up at the round portal. Ronja followed her gaze, expecting to see Wilcox crouching in the bright space. Instead, she found the source of the screeching sound. An iron gate had been slammed over the portal. A long chain dangled from it, squeaking quietly as it swayed back and forth. “He’s probably gone around the other side,” Evie went on, her hands on her hips. “I think . . . ”
The rest of the sentence was lost on Ronja. Roark snatched her by the hand and barreled down the storm drain, kicking foul water in her face. The two Anthemites followed. Iris was for once stoic. Evie howled like a maniac, her war cries bouncing off the curving stone walls.
30: Traitor
Terra
“Terra?”
The voice pricked her foggy brain. Terra blinked rapidly and squinted through her throbbing migraine. A pale face loomed above her. She could not make out its features but would know Ito’s fiery mane anywhere.
Roark.
Terra shot up with a gasp, throwing wild punches at the air. Ito grabbed her forearms with viselike fingers and forced her back down.
Terra looked around wildly. The fight leached from her when she absorbed the familiar fabric walls of her home, her stacks of dog-eared novels, and her oil lamp, which swung like a pendulum from the low ceiling.
“Easy, easy,” Ito hushed her. “You have a concussion.”
“Ito,” Terra gasped. “Did they get out?”
“Roark and the others?”
“Did they escape?”
Ito released her and pulled away slowly, her dark eyes full of inquiry. “Yes, they got out,” she admitted levelly. “Roark had a secret hatch in his quarters. It doesn’t bode well for him.”
“No,” Terra said, rocking her head back and forth against her pillow ferociously. She winced. It felt like her brain was slamming against the walls of her skull. “No, he isn’t a traitor, but . . . I might be.”
Ito narrowed her eyes to slits. Terra felt her mouth go dry. Her heart stuttered. She clenched her sheets with her weak hands, trying not to squirm beneath her mentor’s scorching gaze.
“What do you know?” Ito asked carefully.
“I made a mistake,” Terra breathed, her eyes trained on the shivering flame of the oil lamp.
“Care to elaborate?”
“There isn’t time,” Terra pleaded, struggling into a sitting position. Ito did not assist her, but observed her distantly, calculatingly. “All you need to know—”
“I’ll tell you what I need to know and what I don’t,” Ito cut her off, a warning rumbling in her tone.
Terra dipped her chin, closed her eyes.
“I lied to Wilcox about Ronja,” she heard herself say.
“You lied to Wilcox,” Ito repeated icily. “He told me you said Ronja was a next generation mutt and that she had tricked Roark. Is that not true?”
Terra shook her head, rubbed steady circles into her pulsating temples. Her skin was cold and clammy beneath her fingertips.
“I can’t tell you right now,” Terra insisted. “If we get them back, I swear I’ll explain everything.”
“You know where they’re going.”
It was not a question.
Terra bobbed her aching head in confirmation, snapped her eyes open. Ito regarded her with a mixture of rage and determination.
“I know where they’re going,” Terra said, climbing to her feet haltingly. Ito followed suit, hunching slightly to avoid the linen ceiling. “We’re going to need an airship.”
31: Ties
They exploded to the surface five blocks from the elevator, startling a flock of pigeons into flight. They clambered to the street one by one, silent save for the sounds of their hands and feet scraping against the bricks. Evie exited last and shoved the manhole back into its crevice with the toe of her boot.
She and Roark bolted to the back of the alley and together lifted a sopping wooden crate with a mutual grunt. They worked smoothly, seamlessly. Ronja wondered how many missions they had completed together, and how many of them had been illicit. She wondered how many times they had been accompanied by the child of a mutt.
They let the crate fall over the rusted iron manhole with a reverberating thud. Murky water sprayed across their boots. Iris exclaimed in disgust, the first noise she had made in some time.
Then they were running, weaving through the knotted crowds like a needle through fabric.
Every few feet, Ronja shot a furtive glance over her shoulder, but they were not pursued. Their hatch may have barred Wilcox, but he would doubtlessly lead a team through the main exit. He would catch up to them sooner or later.
Fear fueled her steps, but by the fourth block, Ronja was winded. Years of malnourishment had destroyed her natural stamina. She would have envied her companions’ strong bodies if not for the ink bleeding into her vision and the fire in her lungs.
“Keep up, love!” Roark called from far ahead.
Ronja narrowed her eyes at his back. She swallowed a sharp retort and plunged forward.
They did not wait to knock when they reached Henry’s door. Roark vaulted up the steps three at a time and burst through the entrance, which Henry had miraculously left unlocked. Evie, Iris, and Ronja shot through the portal like train cars trailing a steamer.
“Henry!” Ronja gasped as she threw the door shut behind them. She crouched, clutching her sides. Evie sidled past her and locked the door. “Henry!”
Thundering footsteps commenced. A pair of almost comically large boots flooded her vision. Ronja raised her chin. Henry stood above her, a canvas knapsack swinging ba
ck and forth in his hand. He was dressed for the cold and rain.
The boy shrugged when he saw Ronja’s bewilderment. “I sent Charlotte to our grandmother’s across town. I’ve got to take care of all of my family.”
Ronja climbed to her feet, swaying like a sapling in the wind. Henry reached out to steady her, but he never got the chance. Ronja threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in the thick folds of his coat. He smelled like home and memories she would not mind reliving in their fullest form.
“We’ll get them back,” he whispered into her hair.
Ronja screwed her eyes shut to dam her tears. She could always hear the lie in his voice. She pulled away, blinking quickly.
“I assume by your rude entrance that Wilcox didn’t take kindly to your shiny ass running around with a mutt?” Henry asked Roark, as if the situation was commonplace.
“Right, I could use some clarification there,” Evie cut in. Iris made a noise of agreement. “Terra called you a mutt. Ronja, how could that be?”
“Well,” Ronja sucked in a rattling breath and turned to face the rest of the group. “It’s complicated.”
Evie gestured for her to continue, rolling her wrist like a wheel around its axis.
“Well . . . my mother’s a mutt, but I’m not. At least, I don’t think I am. When I went into The Quiet, the . . . what did you call it . . . ?” Ronja asked, looking to Roark.
“The echo effect,” he replied absently, peeping through the drapes that shrouded the street-facing window.
“The echo effect hit my mother and cousins. Roark thought they might still be at my house, but when we got there . . . ” her voice cracked.
Ronja raised her fingers to her lips in an attempt to coax her tale forward. Henry clapped a warm hand on her shoulder, silently encouraging her. She took another unsteady breath and dropped her fingers. They twitched against her sides, so she tucked them into fists.
“When we got there they were already gone. We think they’ve been taken to Red Bay. My cousins will be turned into mutts and my mother . . . Layla . . . will be killed.”
Vinyl: Book One of the Vinyl Trilogy Page 19