by Helena Maeve
Leona landed on her back, the breath leaving her lungs with an audible hiss, and narrowly missed Maity opening her belly.
A sharp kick propelled Maity backward, giving Leona enough respite to right herself. “You’re good,” she said between panted breaths. “I’m better.”
Maity didn’t dignify that with a response. She dove for Leona, feinting when the other woman made to lash out with her knife and nearly succeeding in sinking the tip of her blade under Leona’s ribs before a punch to the cheek sent her reeling backward.
Alana was too far away to say if she had drawn blood. She hoped not, but Leona’s strained grimace didn’t bode well. So far, she had allowed Maity the offensive, parrying her hits as best she could and darting out of her reach when Maity got too close, but bloodthirsty rage got the better of her soon enough.
Their bodies collided with a shared, audible exhale that echoed through the assembly with a ripple of excitement. Maity’s skull hit the ground with a loud, bone-crunching noise. It wasn’t enough to keep her down. She used her strong legs to tumble Leona overhead, grip her by the hair and straddle her ribcage. In a flash of movement, Leona was immobilized, one arm twisted brutally beneath her and the other caught under Maity’s boot.
Alana watched her fingers twitch around the hilt of the blade and leaped from her seat—the movement aborted when she heard Maity give out a vicious, blood-curling howl.
One brief flash of inattention was all it took. Leona wrenched her bloodied knife from Maity’s ankle and sank it deep into the other woman’s gut, thrusting upward.
A crimson flower bloomed around the glossy hilt, soaking into Maity’s linen shirt and slicking down Leona’s arm like syrup. Alana saw Maity glance down at herself, incredulous, then flick a similarly doubting glance at Leona. She made to speak, but only blood bubbled out of her throat in a terrible, sopping gurgle.
Chapter Thirteen
“Murderer!” Gideon bellowed.
Maity’s body was still twitching, but even from afar, Alana could see the life had already left her still open, still questioning eyes. The pool of blood spreading steadily around her was answer enough as to the why.
Leona had spilled her almost tenderly onto the floor, her smaller frame straining with the effort. She was still crouched over her fallen enemy—her friend, not so long ago. She paid Gideon no mind as she stroked the hair from Maity’s blank face. Alana might’ve imagined it, but she thought she spotted Leona shape her lips into a soft, soundless I’m sorry.
It might have seemed trite, if not for the knowledge that Leona had surrendered their neatly drawn plan for something as petty as sentiment. She had a heart, that one. She just hid it well.
The gathered assembly didn’t seem to know what to make of this. There were some shouts calling for Leona’s immediate execution, a few denouncing the claiming in its entirety as unlawful. Alana heard a voice clamor for vendetta—perhaps another friend of Maity’s—but the loudest by far belonged to the leader of Haven.
“Abomination! Seize her—” Gideon’s order was lost to a loud and vicious ringing emanating from the speakers mounted high on either side of the cavern entrance. This wasn’t unusual—the devices were present all over the city and were used to mark the beginning and end of every work rotation.
Alana still jumped when she heard their ear-piercing chime. Something told her the shrill noise wasn’t being used to announce the changing of a shift this time. Panic swarmed around her, faces twisted up by fury and outrage giving way to something much bigger, much more worrisome.
“It’s started,” Jackson growled, seizing hold of Alana’s hand. “Come on, we have to get topside.”
“How?” Alana shouted over the din. There was no competing with hundreds of people simultaneously crying out in fear.
Drifters and thralls alike rammed into her in their rush to flee the cavern. She glimpsed Gideon and his companions being battered by the crowd, before the commotion soon blocked her view of the old man. A part of her hoped he wouldn’t be trampled underfoot, but the rest recalled how he’d smirked as she was undressed, how eager he’d been to sell Finn to another mistress because he believed her to be touched by the gods.
Let him have what he deserves.
They found Leona scrabbling to her feet, Finn holding fast to her with his one good hand. There was no sign of Siggy anywhere. She must have fled when the alarm first trilled. Finn looked awake, unlike the last time Alana had seen him, but frightened.
As we all should be.
“That would’ve been the night guards raising the alarm. Means there’s movement in the well…” Jackson tugged a hand through his hair. “We’re going to have to find another way out.”
“You mean fight our way out,” Leona corrected sharply as she drew the flat of her bloodied blade across her thigh.
“Through what?” Finn asked, squinting at them through his blackened, swollen eye.
“Walkers,” Jackson said.
Leona nodded. “I’m ready. Alana?”
“As I’ll ever be.” Until recently, she had been perfectly content going through life without seeking out the mindless, hungering masses that roamed the badlands. Leaving New Eden was changing her in all kinds of new and exciting ways.
Jackson gave her fingers a squeeze. “Let’s go.”
It was hard work to move through the press of bodies as a group. Alana lost sight of Leona and Finn on more than one occasion, only spotting them again because Finn’s ginger hair caught the eye even in a swarming crowd. Only Jackson’s firm hold on her hand kept her from being torn from his side by the eddying mob. It did the trick, at least until they reached the hollow at the center of Haven and the crowds thinned out. Some people were fleeing upward, knowingly or unknowingly moving closer to danger, but the majority was headed down, toward the marketplace.
Those with guns had already rushed to retrieve them. The rattle of gunfire echoed through the city like the trickle of pebbles in a jar. Alana ducked her head, hoping desperately that the ricochet would spare her.
Jackson had unilaterally made the call to start uphill, but they barely made it one floor before their path was blocked by other brave souls fleeing downwards. A few had claimed the system of cranes and pulleys that rose the platform upon which the trucks still idled, but panic added too much heft to the dais. As Alana watched, it began to tip onto its side, steel wires protesting the added burden, and one of the US army trucks slid a few grating inches to the side. The drifters either didn’t notice or didn’t think it a serious threat. They were wrong.
One of the cables supporting the platform snapped loose. This loose end flew up toward the vaulted ceiling faster than the human eye could follow and promptly came tumbling back down to earth. It coiled in haphazard fashion like a snake tail, its weight tipping the platform another precious two inches to the side. The spirals of metal rolled off into the unknown, destabilizing the platform that much further.
Another winch failed, the opposite corner.
“Everybody off!” Jackson shouted, rushing forward toward the silo.
It was already too late. The platform flipped to the vertical in a spill of metal and flesh. The unfortunate souls barely had time to cry out.
Alana felt a shout catch in her throat as another body tumbled over the ledge above, whooshing past on an accelerated descent. She heard rather than saw the thump of impact when he hit the unyielding concrete, horror paralyzing her. Had it been just one, maybe it would’ve been possible to chalk it up to an accident, but others followed.
One fell with gun still in hand, the muzzle of his automatic rifle sparking as he fired upward.
Alana found herself tugged away, into the relative safety of a brick wall with Jackson’s arms around her.
“Incoming!” Leona shouted, her voice shrill with terror as a pack of a dozen or so walkers came lurching down from the upper floors, their peeling flesh and putrefying bodies doing nothing to deter their hunger.
A scream tangled in Ala
na’s throat, useless. She spurred her feet when Jackson told her to move, but it was like paddling through sinking sand. The more she tried to hurry, the slower her feet seemed to move. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Leona picking up a rifle someone had let fall. Beside her, Finn stumbled as he ran, tripping over his own feet.
Something warm and wet struck the back of her neck, but Alana didn’t stop to clean herself off. There was no time.
A hand seized her forearm as she rounded a corner, pulling her out of the throng.
Alana jerked free with a violent tug, fear choking her. It took a moment for Siggy’s features to resolve into focus, albeit absent her usual smirk.
“In here,” Gideon’s daughter said, a note of urgency in her voice. “Quickly!”
With one look at Jackson and Leona to make sure they were following, Alana stepped through the oval gap of what might once have been a door. Siggy darted on ahead, flashlight in hand.
The corridor was dark and musty. There were no bead curtains to indicate sleeping quarters. In all her peregrinations through the city, Alana had never come through here. What if it’s a trap? The thought flashed through her like a bolt of lightning.
She acted on gut instinct alone, too far gone to worry about propriety or laws or what Jackson might make of her bucking the system he held so dear. The back of Siggy’s skull smacked the wall hard as Alana immobilized her with one arm across her swanlike neck. “Where are you taking us?”
“What—?”
“Where?” Alana shouted, spittle flying onto Siggy’s rosy cheeks.
“There’s another way out!”
“How do you know this?” Jackson hissed.
Even cornered, Siggy could still find it in her to narrow her eyes at them. “My father told me. I can get you out of here alive. All four of you—on one condition.”
She had some nerve. Alana tipped forward, leaning her upper body into the arm she had slung over Siggy’s windpipe. Violence was not her trade, but by God, she’d learn quickly if she had to. “Why should we trust you?” She hadn’t forgotten how Siggy had stood by and watched Maity do battle against Finn. You could’ve stopped it, you who have authority, who were her mistress—
“Because I don’t want to die here any more than you do,” Siggy shot back, albeit a little choked. It was probably the truth, but it wasn’t good enough.
“Do you honestly think I give a damn about what you want?” They had brought Alana into the city as a slave and spent every day since reminding her of her place, telling her that she was one of them now.
Finally, Alana believed it.
Siggy sucked in a breath, jerking helplessly against her hold. “You’ll care when the walkers chew your face off!”
As cathartic as it might’ve felt to squeeze down until the life drained from her body, Alana eased back. “Start talking.” She hadn’t survived the pillaging of her town and a trek through the wilderness to die here, trapped like a chicken in a coop.
“First you have to swear you’ll take me with you,” Siggy croaked. “I know you’re behind this. You’ll take me with you or we all meet our end together, right here.”
“I can’t think of anything more depressing,” Leona snarled, shoving forward to dig the hot muzzle of the rifle into the other woman’s ribcage. Siggy cried out, squirming out of the way. “How about I shoot your fingers off one by one until you talk?” Leona pressed. “See, I’m a little pressed for time and all your yapping is starting to get to me.”
Fear slithered into Siggy’s gaze at last, bolstered by Leona’s recent exploits. “If it weren’t for me, Mai would’ve killed your thrall,” she defended. “I saved his life—”
It was the wrong thing to say. Leona gripped her by the hair. “Is that why his arm’s broken, you lying piece of shit?”
“She’s right,” Finn interjected. “Leona—she’s right.”
Alana gaped. “Have you lost your mind?” She had watched the whole thing unfold. The only thing Siggy had done was speak up and antagonize Maity when her temper was already flaring hot—and this, no doubt, simply to amuse herself at a thrall’s expense.
“She reminded Mai of the law,” Finn insisted. “And it worked. I’m alive. Leave her be.” He didn’t plead with Leona. It might’ve been expected, the law being what it was, but Finn gritted his teeth and said, “Let her go,” like it was an order.
To Alana’s surprise, Leona backed off. “You double-cross us and you get to join Maity. Understand?”
“How could I not?” Siggy drawled thinly, reaching up a hand to touch gingerly at her bruised throat. “Make sure the safety’s on and don’t fire even if you see walkers. All we’ve got going for us is the chaos out there.” She jerked her chin toward the heart of the city where the screams were an almost constant echo, occasionally interspersed with bursts of rapid gunfire.
Leona flipped the safety on her rifle with a pointed click.
It was all the show of good faith Siggy was likely to receive. She led them through another door, past a sign that read Control Room where monitors long silent drooped from a mesh wall. The neon lights above them flickered on and off, as though power was failing. Siggy scoffed when Alana asked as much. “This part of the compound was supposed to be cut from the grid six years ago. Luckily, my father’s no electrician and he put me in charge of oversight. Give me a hand, will you?”
Jackson stepped forward, joining Siggy in pushing open the metal door at the far end of the room. The unoiled hinges creaked pitifully, protesting the movement, and Alana glanced warily over her shoulder. There was no way the grinding noise would go unheard.
“Watch your head,” Siggy advised and stepped through the gap with flashlight in hand. Leona followed, hefting her rifle as though she couldn’t decide whether to toss it or shoot Siggy in the back.
Jackson closed up the ranks, lingering to shove the door shut again. “Go, I’m right behind you,” he said, when Alana made to wait for him.
The feeble glow of Siggy’s flashlight was already receding. Alana could only vaguely make out Jackson’s strained grimace. She hesitated. It didn’t seem right to leave him, but her instincts were urging her to fall into line.
“Go,” he pressed her again and this time Alana forced her feet into motion. She had to jog to catch up to Finn.
Siggy’s warning made sense a moment later as a block of cement appeared in their path, further narrowing the already tight gangway. They had to stoop to avoid it and the pipes that protruded on the other side like some massive animal’s intestines. Cobwebs clung to Alana’s palms as she crouched down. She didn’t want to imagine what was tangling in her hair. The near-perfect darkness was making it mercifully hard to worry about that, but it raised another issue.
“Wait,” she panted. “We have to wait for Jackson—”
“Idaho can make his own way,” Siggy said, her voice muffled eerily in the cramped compartment. “I don’t know how long my batteries will last.”
“No—”
“Jackson will hear us,” Finn gritted out, sounding far less persuasive than he was frantic. It dawned on Alana that he was crawling with a broken wrist and every step was likely to be agony.
Ahead, the wide circle of Siggy’s flashlight focused on a single point, momentarily offering Alana a fraction more light to see by. Any relief she might have felt evaporated when Leona gasped, “Dead end?”
“Not quite,” Siggy said and the angle of her flashlight changed to illuminate six metal rungs set into the wall. It took Alana a few agonizing seconds of dragging herself forward until she could see the open shaft reaching up to unseen heights. “There’s the end and if we’re lucky, we won’t be dead by the time we get up to—”
A growl echoed in the tunnel, back the way they’d come, soon followed by the grisly sound of metal dragging against metal.
“That’s the blast door,” Siggy panted.
“Yeah, and those are walkers,” Leona added. “I suggest we hurry.”
Alana
felt the cold grip of panic snag around her throat like human hands. “Jackson’s still in there!” He had fallen behind in an attempt to close the door in their wake. “We can’t just leave him—”
“We’re drifters, Alana,” Siggy snapped. ”He knows our ways better than anyone.”
“But—”
“You want to wait, suit yourself.” And with that, Siggy slid the flashlight into her shirt and gripped hold of the stepladder.
Leona seemed no more inclined to wait, her sweat-shiny expression set as she strapped her rifle over her shoulder and unbuckled her belt. “Give me your wrist,” she told Finn. He held out his uninjured hand. “Your other wrist.”
To Alana’s surprise, Finn obeyed, barely even wincing when Leona secured one end of the belt around his bent elbow. With a brisk scrape of her boot against the wall, she bound the other end to her ankle, giving it a good tug to make sure it would hold.
“This way I know I won’t lose you again,” Leona said and hoisted herself up.
Finn had no choice but to follow, reaching with his uninjured hand and trusting Leona to hold him up as he left the safety of firm ground.
Alana crouched down as they started climbing, but there was no use peering into the dark tunnel. She couldn’t see a thing. Not Jackson, not the walkers that she knew were coming after them.
When she glanced up again, Finn was already some eight feet up, gasping into the relentless rhythm set by his mistress. He wouldn’t let go, though, because to let go would be to kill them both.
“Jackson, come on…” Alana blinked past the tears welling in her eyes. This wasn’t the time to have a breakdown.
No answer came from the tunnel, but Jackson’s last command rang through her like a death knell. Go. Alana gripped the first metal rung and began climbing.
The shaft rose up above her as tall as the skyscrapers she’d seen above ground. You’ll never make it to the top, you’ll be too tired. Already your strength is flagging. But another voice hissed You will, you must. It sounded a lot like Jackson. If she made it to the top, he’d be there with her. He’d pull through.