by Tracey Ward
I press my forehead against his shoulder, hiding my face in the crook of his neck.
“And I know it too,” he breathes, his voice deep in my ear.
In my blood.
“We’ll side with the psychos,” he whispers against my skin, “we’ll free your friends, we’ll take down the stadiums, we’ll destroy the Colony in the south, we’ll dethrone the guy pulling all the strings, and then…”
“Then what?”
I feel his hand running over my hair, smoothing it along my neck. His fingers brush my skin. “We’ll be free then—all of us. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
He chuckles softly. “What else is there, Joss?”
I lift my head, look in his eyes. Then I kiss him. I kiss him like I’m losing him, because I feel like I am—and even though that’s crazy, even though we’re closer right now than we’ve ever been, I still feel it. I have a sick, sinking feeling that he’s a punishment. He’s a promise dangled in front of me only to be ripped away; I just don’t know when yet. I’ve never wanted anything the way I want him. I’ve never needed anything this way. He’s my weakness, my soft spot, and I love him and I want him but I fear him and I hate him. I should run. I should get away before I’ve fallen too far and it’s too late to turn back, but I think I passed the point of no return a long time ago.
Win or lose, live or die, I’m with him all the way.
Chapter Six
Twelve hours later, as the sun is disappearing behind the ragged Seattle skyline, I find myself once again going down the rabbit hole. We aren’t sure exactly how we’re going to meet up with the cannibals again, so we go to where Andy brought us above ground and hope for the best. What we get is an entourage. Six cannibals are waiting for us and it feels creepily similar to the first time they took us underground just last night. A lot has changed since then. I see them differently now. I understand they aren’t bloodthirsty vampires luring us to their lair to suck the marrow from our bones, but it doesn’t mean slipping down into that dark unknown isn’t still a little freaky.
I assume that we’re going to be led back to the main chamber where the cannibals all live to get another lesson in eating your loved ones, but instead we’re immediately taken in the opposite direction. Even underground, I know where we’re headed.
North.
“So this is really happening, isn’t it?” I mutter.
“Looks like it,” Ryan replies. He looks at me sideways as we slosh through the two inches of standing water in this tunnel. At least I hope it’s only water. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”
“Are you worried?”
“About what?”
“About going back.”
How does he do that? How the hell does he know I’m nervously chewing the inside of my cheek raw at the thought of going inside the MOHAI again?
“Maybe,” I admit reluctantly.
“I don’t blame you.”
“Are you worried?”
“Yep.”
“About what?”
“Getting this close to a Colony. You spend all your time avoiding them, it feels pretty stupid walking right into one.”
I can’t stop the chuckle that escapes my lips and echoes through the tunnel. Ryan smiles down at me.
“What’s funny?”
“I think I’m relieved.”
“Relieved you’re not the only one who thinks this is stupid?”
“Bingo.”
“For what it’s worth,” Trent chimes in behind me, “I think it’s stupid too.”
“That’s pretty comforting actually,” Ryan says.
I shake my head. “So if we all think it’s so stupid, why are we doing it?”
“Because,” Elijah’s voice breaks out from ahead of us in the darkness, “something so idiotic could never be predicted.”
“Are we crawling in through the toilets?”
Elijah comes fully into view, the light from a torch lit behind him giving a grim line to his face. He’s smiling. “Like little baby crocodiles,” he says happily.
“We can’t go in through the basement,” another guy says, all business and stern stares. Oddly enough, I kind of like him. “There’s no clean way to get in quietly. The walls are too thick—we’d have to blast and there goes our cover. But we lucked out. There’s a drain. One nearly the size of a manhole. We’ll remove it, climb up and in. It’s that easy.”
“What kind of drain is that room in?” I ask, feeling sweat break out on my neck under my hair.
“A large shower room.”
“Ugh,” I gag, feeling surprisingly sick.
Flashes of the first day at the Colony flip through my mind: the creepy thorough cleansing I got, the rough scrub of exfoliates, the smell of the harsh soaps, the lice shampoos, the bitter smell of bleach on the floors and the walls.
Caroline.
I feel Ryan’s hand on my elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I reply, pulling it together. “It’s not my favorite room is all.”
His grip tightens gently before he releases me.
“You’ll go in with my people,” Elijah tells us, gesturing to the sixteen men and women he’s brought with him. It’s not the twenty he promised, but if you throw our three into the mix it’s close enough. “You’ll hold back, wait in the shower room. They’ll do a sweep. They’ll take control of the building. When it’s done, when it’s safe, they’ll bring you out in the open.”
“Why aren’t we going up with them?” I ask irritably. “Shouldn’t I be front and center in the fight where the Colonists can see me? I thought that was the whole point.”
“You’re too valuable to risk. Containment first. You’re there for negotiations, not fighting.”
“Ugh,” I groan again.
Elijah sighs with annoyance. “Something else bothering you?”
“No,” I lie.
“Will you wear that sour expression when they see you or do you think you can manage to look at least a little bit more pleasant?”
“If I did, they wouldn’t recognize me.”
Some of the cannibals exchange uneasy glances. I’m losing what little faith we’ve somehow managed to gain from them.
“Ryan will do the talking,” I assure Elijah. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Silent would be better,” someone mutters in the darkness.
“It’ll be fine,” Ryan promises them.
We head off down the tunnels after that, parting ways with Elijah. He’s headed back home to tell his people how perfectly this plan will go. How in sync we all are and how excited he is for the future. They’ll buy his lies, gobbling them up like sweet meat treats, because he’s a good leader and his words can cover up the scary truth that is me.
“Where have you been?”
I scowl to my left. One of the cannibals has crept up beside me, somehow quiet even walking in the water. His face is pale and bright against the dark interior of the tunnel. It sticks out sharply above his black clothing, making it look like his head is floating six feet above the ground. He’s looking down at me with dark eyes and a small smile that gives me chills.
“What do you mean?”
His smile broadens. “I mean, where have you been hiding?”
“With the Westies,” I lie, grabbing the first gang name out of the air that I can think of.
“No, no, no,” the man sings quietly, shaking his head. “You don’t look like a whore. You don’t talk like a whore, and you definitely don’t walk like a whore. You weren’t with the Westies.”
“How do you know I wasn’t someone’s private pet?”
His answer is a long hard stare. He doesn’t blink.
“I was alone,” I finally admit reluctantly.
I look away and pick up the pace. Ryan is a few feet ahead of me, talking quietly with one of Elijah’s men. I’ll feel better when I close that gap.
“Really? How did a small thing like you make it out there alone?”
&
nbsp; I shrivel inside when he matches my pace easily, his long legs striding through the water that I feel like I’m thrashing through. He has a hulking grace that’s seriously annoying, and the way he talks… it’s weird. His tone is too even, the cadence of his voice almost a constant sing-song.
“I managed.”
“All alone,” he muses. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”
“Too bad it’s over,” Trent says. I glance over my shoulder, surprised to find him walking directly behind me. He’s watching the tall cannibal with dark interest. “She’s joined the Hyperion. She’s no longer living alone.”
The tall creeper doesn’t acknowledge Trent. I feel his eyes still on me. “How lucky for everyone.”
Trent pushes against my lower back firmly. I stumble forward a little but I turn the trip into a jog. It only takes a second before I’m walking beside Ryan again.
“—dark in the basement. We couldn’t make out much through the crack in the wall,” the young cannibal is telling Ryan.
“Is that why you decided we couldn’t go in that way?”
“That and the walls were too thick. Making that one crack to look through took forever and it was way louder than we planned. Once we could see in, we couldn’t see enough. Couldn’t get a read on how many were working down there.”
“Two,” I tell him.
He looks me up and down quickly, seeming surprised to see me show up all of a sudden. “You know that for sure?”
“I know that’s how many used to be working in that room. Now I don’t know for sure.”
“They could have strengthened the watch on the place since you left,” Ryan tells me. “I know I would have.”
“So you’re the one who got out?” the kid asks me.
He’s shorter than Ryan—younger, too—with the cannibal pale skin and gleaming eyes they all have. His dark black hair looks glossy like ink in the torchlight.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I admit, feeling weird.
For a hermit, I’ve got a lot of notoriety going on. I liked it better when I was a ghost.
“You’re lucky. My sister was taken. She never came out.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Ryan tells him.
The words come from his mouth so easily, so earnestly. Even if I’d said the exact same thing, I doubt it would have sounded half as genuine as Ryan. Not because I don’t mean it, because I really am sorry. That sucks, there’s no doubt about it. It’s because I’m awkward as hell and it taints everything I do. Trent is right about me: I don’t like liars because I’m no good at lying. I don’t understand how to do it, so how can I ever hope to spot it when other people do it?
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“Thanks, but we’ve all lost someone, right?” the kid replies nonchalantly. “At least I know she’s probably alive. That’s better than most people get.”
“Quiet,” someone whispers from up ahead.
Everyone stops to listen. My hand flexes around my ASP and I become painfully aware of the bodies around me. If zombies are in these tunnels, I don’t think I have the eyesight to tell the difference between a living and a dead—not in the split second you get to make that kind of choice. Plus, I don’t care for how close the tall creeper is. It feels like he’s hovering.
Once the water noises are dead and the only thing I hear inside the tunnels is the gentle sound of living people breathing, I can hear the outside. There’s a manhole not far ahead of us. Dripping down in through the small holes punched through the weathered steel are the moans and groans of a true horde. Suddenly it all comes flooding back to me—the night I escaped. The night I ran through their ranks, blind and freezing in the disorienting dark. My heart starts to hammer but I keep my breathing even. I make sure no one knows.
It’s been over a year for most of us since we heard that sound. Lately the zombie pop has been dwindled down so far you don’t come across large groups anymore. Just stragglers. Loners like me. But out here, close to the MOHAI where they’ve herded the dead, you can get a reminder of the old days. It’s the new nostalgia. No more ‘Remember when we had hot meals every night?’ or ‘Warm showers with soap and water every day? Crazy!’ No, now remembering is horrifying. ‘Remember when you couldn’t walk down the street without being swarmed? Remember when you saw someone die violently every single day? When people were screaming in the dark? Remember when the streets were red with blood and even the Seattle rain couldn’t wash it away?’
Those days are coming back again. I would trade every hot meal, every warm shower I’ve ever had or even dreamed of, to keep those days away.
“It’s the barrier around the gate,” I whisper. “We’re close.”
A few heads bob in agreement. We’re about to go inside the walls. It won’t be long until we’re at the building, and it suddenly bothers me more than I’d like to admit that I’m not going in all the way with them. I don’t know what their version of taking control of the building looks like, but I worry it’s more violent than it needs to be. They don’t know what it’s like in there, how many of the people inside aren’t actual Colonist supporters. That doesn’t mean they won’t fight to save their lives if an unknown enemy bursts inside in the dead of night, though.
The group starts to move again.
“Wait,” I say, stepping forward and talking too loudly.
Everyone looks at me sharply.
“Keep your voice down,” a woman tells me.
“You can’t kill anyone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This isn’t a 7-Eleven. You can’t go in there and start snacking on everyone. No one dies.”
The woman looks at me in disgust, and that is so messed up it’s almost funny to me—because yeah, I’m the disgusting one.
“They’re Colonists,” she spits out.
“They’re prisoners. They’re victims of the roundups. Most of them don’t want to be here. They’ve been separated from their families and I guarantee that you are some of those families.”
“Our orders are to take the Colony.”
“And we’ll do that. Peacefully.”
“You can’t be serious,” a guy says incredulously. “Nothing is done ‘peacefully’ anymore.”
“And that’s why we’re almost extinct. No killing, and he,” I say emphatically, pointing to my creeper still staring at me, “doesn’t even go inside.”
“Bryan?” the guys asks. “Why? He’s one of our best fighters—that’s why he’s here.”
“I don’t like him. He doesn’t go in.”
“He goes in. We need him.”
“As much as you need me?”
The guy gives an exaggerated sigh before he exchanges a quick look with the woman. “What do you think, Macy?”
“I don’t know,” she says uncertainly. She looks angry, but in the end she shakes her head tightly.
“Fine,” the guy says reluctantly, turning back to me. “Bryan will watch the tunnel.”
“And no killing.”
“If they attack us—”
“If one person dies, I’m out. I’m on their side.”
Macy throws her hands up in frustration. “This is ridiculous, Kyle.”
“This is how it is,” I tell her. “Take it or leave it.”
“Maybe we’ll take this place and leave you behind.”
I start to back away slowly, putting my hands up in a gesture of ‘go ahead.’
“Stop,” Kyle tells Macy and I irritably. “We’ve come this far. We’re not turning back and we need her. At least for a little while longer.”
“Let me know when we’re done with her,” Macy says darkly.
“Deal.”
“You’ll have to get in line,” I tell her with a smile. “Andy has called dibs on killing me.”
“He gets to have all the fun.”
“Not too late to back out on this,” Ryan warns me quietly, watching the pair openly threatening my life.
“You heard them,” I tell him, spinning
my closed ASP in my hand. “We’ve come too far to turn back now.”
It’s actually comforting to know pretty much everyone wants to kill me. It’s what I’m used to. Picking and choosing between my enemies and my friends—that’s exhausting. One miscalculation can get me killed with my guard down like an idiot. But this, knowing everyone wants to see me die, that’s an equation I can understand.
It’s easily half an hour later when we finally stop. The cannibals are a well-oiled machine, leaping into action without a single word or sound. They form a three-person human ladder to get underneath a large drain—one I can only assume is the drain in the center of the shower room. The rock around it in the ceiling of the tunnel has been roughly chipped away, leaving jagged edges around the gaping hole. I watch in amazement as the person on top of the people ladder, the young guy Ryan and I had been talking to, makes quick work of the drain. I hear it pop up and clatter quietly to the floor in under a minute.
After hoisting himself inside, the young kid leans over the hole and helps pull me up with him. Once I’m in, I’m sick to my stomach. It’s damp in here. They used this room tonight. Whether it was on newbies or the weekly member showers, I don’t know.
Ryan and Trent come up next, followed by the rest of the cannibals. Everyone but Bryan. Even with the cement floor between us, I still feel like that dude is too close.
I play the obedient princess when Kyle and Macy give me stern eyes and signal us to wait in the showers. Ryan and Trent fall in beside me and I feel even weirder with them standing like knights at my side. When did I get valuable? Since when do I matter so much to so many people?
We watch as the cannibals slip out of the room, silent as the shadow of nothing and gliding on air. They think they’re not fighters, and maybe in the beginning they weren’t, but they’re pretty freaking ninja now.
There’s nothing but silence for a long time. I count it out, listening to my heart, and I think it’s about twenty minutes before one of the boys breaks the silence.
“This place is big,” Ryan mutters beside me. His eyes are roaming over the room, taking in the shelving with the clean towels and the closed cupboards that I know are stocked full of the best soap I’ve seen in ages, the ones you don’t get to touch until after your ‘cleanse.’