Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “We should keep moving,” Vin says, taking my hand again.

  I pull it back. “And go where? Deeper into the tunnels with no clue where we’re going? We could accidentally circle back and end up right under the MOHAI again.”

  “We’re still under it now,” he says impatiently. “We haven’t run very far.”

  “We need to wait for Ryan and Andy.”

  “He told us to go. Besides, does your boy know how to get out of here? Can he see in the dark?”

  “No, but Andy can. He’s a cannibal. He knows the tunnels.”

  Vin chuckles darkly. “That son of a bitch. Don’t think I’m taking him out the second I get the chance.”

  “Take him out how?”

  “Not on a date, that’s for sure.”

  “You’re going to kill him?” I ask in amazement. “Why? He killed Marlow for you!”

  “He didn’t do it for me.”

  “It’s still done.”

  “Not the way I planned.”

  “Oh no!” I cry sarcastically. “Vin didn’t get his way. Poor baby.”

  “It makes a big difference how he did it. The difference between me taking over The Hive and The Hive chasing me into the sewers like a friggin’ rat.”

  “How would you ever have taken hold of The Hive?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he replies with his signature composed calm. Whatever he’s mad about, he’s stowing it. For now. “It’s done. It’s all jacked, and now every member of my Pod is lost somewhere under the city.”

  “I told you, Trent can find his way out. You’ll get your precious followers back. Which reminds me.”

  I take a swing at him. I’m not aiming for his face, but I’m not worried if I hit it. When my fist connects with something solid and slightly meaty, I’m pretty sure I’ve hit him in the chest.

  “Ow!” he cries. “You punched me in the boob!”

  “You were going to let Marlow have me, you ass!”

  “Oh come on. No matter what, he wasn’t making it out of that building alive.”

  “Ass.”

  “Whatever. Be mad, but while we’re talking about betrayal, how did you know Andy was a cannibal?”

  “He ate Marlow, genius.”

  “Drop it. You knew before then, didn’t you?”

  I take a slow, silent step back from him. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “How do you think? I came here with the cannibals. I met him in the underground where they live and I’d seen him in The Hive when I went to Marlow with your ring. I put two and two together.”

  I take another step back.

  “Where are you going?”

  I freeze. “Away from you. I don’t want to get punched in the boob.”

  His laugh fills the darkness with warmth that makes me realize I’m shivering. It’s cold in here. My feet are wet and chilling my entire body, but more than anything I’m nervous. I’m worried about Ryan and part of me is just waiting for an explosion to rip through these tunnels until the sky collapses on us, smothering everyone.

  “They’re taking a long time.”

  Vin quiets, and just like that the warmth is gone. “I know.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “You should always be worried.”

  “Should I be scared?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, and when he does I wish he’d kept his mouth shut.

  “Yeah.”

  “What if Marlow’s guys got them?”

  “Then they’re dead.”

  It’s amazing how fast my throat closes up. How with those words, with the simple, ugly thought of it, my body wants to fold in two until I’m choking on the sobs rising in my chest.

  I take a shaky step. I’m heading north.

  Then I’m heading south—right onto my ass.

  I feel like I’m underwater. My hearing is gone, my sight is destroyed from the sudden burst of bright firelight that flared up and burned out almost instantly. I have no idea which way is up or down, left or right. I try to call out to Vin but I don’t know if I make any noise. Even if I do, he probably can’t hear me.

  I rise up my knees in the water, taking deep breaths that fill my lungs with smoke and dust that I can’t see but I can definitely smell and taste. My hearing is coming back to me, but it’s nearly worthless. It’s a horrible ringing that I think is more painful than the boom from the blast was.

  A hand brushes my arm. I’m shocked when my first reaction isn’t to lash out in defense, to break every finger attached to it, or to run in the other direction. Instead I latch onto it with mine, immediately feeling the familiar hard circle of Vin’s ring under my fingers.

  “Are you okay?” I try to ask.

  Whether he answers me or not, I don’t hear it. His hand takes hold of mine, lacing our fingers together. He pulls me up, then we’re running. We rush blindly through the tunnels, both of us tripping and stumbling over hidden obstacles or over our own feet. My balance feels off and when he falls to his knees, I know his is too. It’s disorienting not being able to see, but with our hearing messed up too it feels like we’re running in nothing. Like we’re nowhere when we could be anywhere.

  I don’t know how long we run and I definitely don’t know where we are, but when a light suddenly appears ahead, I yank Vin to a stop.

  “Who do you think it is?” I whisper.

  It’s stupid and pointless, but I ask anyway.

  The light is beginning to grow. It moves like firelight over the glistening, wet walls and part of me relaxes. It’s a torch, one being carried by someone pretty tall. Someone like Trent.

  The outline of the person is beginning to take shape as they close in on us. They’re not just tall. The blackness of their shadow fills the tunnel behind them, making them look broad. Huge. Not like Trent at all.

  More like Bryan.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The closer the torchlight comes, the more the tunnel fills with darkness. With shadow that’s building behind the figure. Then it’s not shadow. It’s form, full and large. Too big to be friendly. Pale skin. Bright eyes. A malicious smile.

  I look anxiously at Vin, desperate to warn him but lost over how to do it. How do you tell someone who can’t hear you that the man cornering you both in a pre-dug grave is a killer? Worse yet—he’s a cannibal.

  I squeeze his hand hard, pulling his eyes from Bryan and down to me. His brow is pinched in confusion so I hurry to clear up our situation for him. I flip his hand over and scribble franticly with my finger. He’s a smart guy. I’m hoping he can pick up what I’m saying.

  Rebecca.

  When I’m finished, I open my eyes emphatically and I write one more letter firmly across his dry palm.

  X

  He gets it. I can see it in the calm that comes over his face. The confusion clears and suddenly Vin is very, very sure of his world. He reaches slowly for my side. I want to ask what he’s doing but when his fingers close around my ASP, I know. I shake my head, wanting to tell him I need it to fight, but he already has the weapon and he’s pushing me behind him. I hate this and I want him to know it. I want to fight him on it, tell him I can help, but there’s no time.

  Bryan lunges at Vin. He wastes no time trying to get his hands on the smaller man’s neck, but Vin is fast. Scary fast. I’ve never seen him fight before, there was never a reason, but seeing it now reminds me of something Nats said about him once. He’s always lived like this. The end of the world, living in the wild—that’s nothing new to Vin. He was an orphan on the streets when he was just a kid. He’s always known how to fight. To survive.

  But if he was an orphan as a kid, how does he have his dad’s ring? His dad who was killed by Marlow for betraying him?

  Bryan tosses aside the torch. The entire tunnel is instantly plunged into darkness and my heart leaps into my throat. I can hear my blood rushing in my ears and I wonder if that’s my hearing coming back or my body going insane with terror. I’m scared for Vin because he’s obvi
ously Bryan’s first concern, but I’m scared for me too because once Vin is dead, so am I.

  I pull my blade out of my boot as I lower myself into a crouch. I doubt Bryan can see any better than we can, not immediately after using the torch. There’s a very narrow window of opportunity here where he’s just as blind as we are and if we’re going to have any chance of surviving this, it has to happen when the playing field is nearly even.

  I cautiously reach out with my free hand while keeping my knife steady in my right. I creep forward, feeling for legs. I’m hoping I’ll know Vin’s when I feel it—which means I’ll probably know it when I don’t feel it too. I need to find Bryan’s leg. I need to take him out.

  Water splashes against my face. I’m wound so tight I nearly cry out, but then I hear a shout. It’s muffled and distant but it’s there, which means my hearing is coming back—just in time to hear Bryan’s teeth tear through my flesh.

  I shake off the imagery steadily building against the blank canvas of my sight and I reach for the splash. I get hold of wet jeans just for a second before my left arm is kicked sharply. I eat the whimper of pain that shoots through my still healing arm, gagging on it as it lands bitter and salty in the back of my throat. Gritting my teeth, I reach out again and wrap my aching, angry fingers around ankle. It thrashes roughly to get rid of me, but I hang on. Quickly, I slide my hand up the leg to find the calf. It’s huge. It’s a hulking, rippling mass of muscle, and while Vin is an athletic guy, he’s not built this way. At least I definitely hope he’s not because if this is his leg, he’s going to be seriously pissed at me in a second.

  I slash my knife across the back of the leg. Just at the back of the ankle.

  Right across the tendon.

  The man goes down immediately, his right leg made useless by my blade. I feel the spray of water as he hits it along with a loud cry of pain and surprise. It echoes through the tunnel and deep into my ears.

  There’s a second spray, a second cry, a loud grunt, then a sharp crack. I know that last sound. That’s my ASP doing what it does best: laying the dead down.

  There’s silence after that. I know I’m breathing harsh and rapid, but I can’t hear it. Or else it’s so loud and constant it’s a white noise and it’s all I hear. Either way, I’m waiting. I want him to speak, to tell me he’s alive. To reassure me I didn’t help kill the wrong man. That I’m not about to be next.

  “Kitten.”

  I leap for the sound. I stow my knife so I don’t slice him in my rush, but then I throw myself against him. His arms go around me and it’s the hug I wanted to give him when I first saw him back inside the Colony. It’s easier here in the dark with no one watching, no one wondering, no one assuming. When it’s just Vin and I, and we know what we are and what we aren’t. What we are right now is alive. Alive and very, very lucky.

  “You okay?” he asks, his voice close to my ear.

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  He’s right—I’m trembling from head to toe and it’s not from the cold. It’s from reality. It comes from knowing Vin and I just killed again. We didn’t put a Risen down. We killed a person. Yeah, it was in self-defense, but you can tell yourself that all day long but in the end it is what it is: murder.

  Vin insists I’ll get used to it. Ryan says I never will. Based on how I feel right now, I’m starting to side with Ryan.

  “I’m fine,” I lie. “You?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  I pull back to try to look at him. His voice is getting clearer, but also rougher. I can hear him better now and what I hear is pain.

  “What did he do to you?”

  Vin clears his throat. “He got ahold of me. Nearly choked me out. That boy was strong.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? I’m counting myself lucky he didn’t take a bite out of me.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “What the hell are you sorry for?”

  “I don’t know. I never should have let him get his hands on you.”

  Vin chuckles, his voice sounding strained. “I was thinking the same thing about you, Kitten. Don’t be sorry, you did plenty. How did you manage to take him down?”

  “I cut his Achilles heel.”

  “Damn,” he coughs.

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait, he and I were wrestling blind. How did you know you weren’t cutting my leg?”

  I step away from him slowly.

  He grabs my hand. “Kitten.”

  “I was pretty sure I had his leg,” I admit.

  “Pretty sure?”

  I shake my hand free of his grasp. “Are you still standing? Did I cut your leg?”

  “No. But—”

  “Then calm down! We have to get out of here. He’s not the only wolf in these woods.”

  I hear Vin’s feet splashing away from me in the water.

  “Where are you going?” I cry, anxious and annoyed that he’s leaving me behind.

  “I’m looking for the torch he had.”

  “He tossed it in the water. It’s useless.”

  “I doubt it.” I can hear him sloshing around, his hands probably dragging through the water. “These tunnels are full of moisture. They have to be burning something that can stand up to that.”

  “What are you going to light it with if you find it?”

  “I just found it. And we’re going to use whatever he has on him.”

  “I’m not searching him,” I say immediately. “What if he isn’t dead?”

  Vin chuckles again. “Oh, he’s dead. Here’s your ASP back, by the way. You might want to clean it while it’s still dark.”

  I reach out, my fingers immediately connecting with his arm. I trace it down to my ASP which I snap out to length and swish around in the water at my feet.

  “I’m not going anywhere near him.”

  “One of us has to.”

  “Be my guest,” I mutter, stowing my weapon.

  “I just did all the work,” he snaps at me.

  “Did you? Really? All of it?”

  “Search him.”

  “I have flint,” I snap back, reaching into my back pocket.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. Who goes anywhere these days without it?”

  “It’s everywhere you want to be,” Vin grumbles, pulling the flint from my hand.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Before your time.”

  “You’re not that much older than I am.”

  The flint sparks, the torch instantly catching fire in a sputtering blaze between us. The light ignites Vin’s face, casting shadows over his skin, under his eyes, at the corners of his mouth. He looks it then—older than me. His skin has seen more sun, his mouth has formed more frowns. But it’s his eyes that show it the most. They’re hard like glass.

  It makes me wonder what mine look like.

  “I’ve got ten years and a lot of lives on you,” Vin tells me quietly, his voice still gruff from his fight with Bryan. “Even if we were the same age, I’d still be older than you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  He smiles wryly. “Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense. Now come on. I want to get out of these tunnels.”

  I follow closely behind him as he takes us back the way Bryan came. I hope it’s the way out. For all we know it could be leading us deeper inside this underground maze, maybe guiding us into Bryan’s secret lair where he kept snacks locked up just in case. I’m worried every time we round a bend that we’ll run smack into another cannibal or a cave of horrors, but I’m equally anxious to run into Ryan. I know he told me to run to Crenshaw, to leave him behind, but I don’t know if I can. He has to be down here. I refuse to believe he was taken by Marlow’s men. The explosion went off, he and Andy got the job done. But did they do it in time or was it a last resort—an effort made to save the rest of us that cost them both their lives?

  It’s exactl
y the kind of self-sacrificial, heroic bullshit Ryan would pull.

  “We’re out,” Vin says.

  Up ahead there’s light shining down from a manhole. It’s faint—just a few pinpoints coming through the holes in the steel disc—but it means the outside world.

  “Hopefully we can open it.”

  Vin nods in the growing light. “They seal some of them.”

  “It’s to keep people like you out.”

  “You mean people like us.”

  “No, I mean you,” I correct him. “People like you and everyone in The Hive.”

  “Sounding kind of judgmental there, Kitten. You got something you want to say?”

  “Babies.”

  Vin stops, taking my arm to stop me as well. When I meet his stare, it’s angry but controlled. “Do you know what it’s like for a kid to grow up in The Hive? Any clue?”

  “No. But I know what it’s like to grow up without a mom,” I reply hotly.

  He releases my arm, his face disgusted. “Oh boo hoo. We all know what that’s like. Trust me, it’s better to grow up without a mom in a Colony than it is to grow up with one in The Hive. If it’s a girl, she’ll end up right where her mom is. If it’s a boy, he’ll probably end up dead by the time he’s nine and either one of them could end up hooked on Honey, tweekin’ and itching for a fix all day every day. It’s an ugly place to live if you don’t know how to do it right so, yeah, I think those kids are better off getting out.”

  “But no one is given a choice. You can’t take that from people like you own them.”

  “Marlow does own them,” he replies coldly. “Or he did. Whoever takes his place will own them now and they like it that way. You know what comes with being given choices? You make bad ones. You make ones that get you killed. A lot of people can’t handle that pressure anymore. The stakes are too high. It used to be you made a bad choice and you ended up driving a Honda for six years wondering why you didn’t grow a pair and go for the Camaro. Screw the gas mileage, it made you feel alive! But now making bad choices gets you killed or worse—it could get your kid killed right in front of your eyes. People can’t handle that. They gladly hand over their rights and their choices so nothing is ever their fault.” He laughs harshly before it turns into a cough. “I wish you could be in the room when those babies are taken from their mothers.”