The seconds tick by so slowly, it’s like they’re going in reverse. While I wait for Jace to return, I twist my hands, but when I feel a weight on my shoulder, I look into kind blue eyes. Dex’s touch helps me to steady myself, and I find the strength to unclench my hands. He’s smart. He’ll be alright. I tell myself. I nod to Dex that I’m alright, and he moves his hand away. I ignore the small pang of regret that I feel at the loss of his touch. It’s been a stressful day and having never been around guys that aren’t related to me, I’m feeling confused. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.
When Jace finally pokes his head back out through the open space, his dark hair almost camouflaged by the dark night, my heart plummets at his resolute look. My disappointment only builds as he climbs down and walks over to me, and the usual grin I’ve come to associate with him, is now a small frown.
“I’m sorry, Samara, but he wasn’t up there. I looked all over, but I couldn’t find him. I did locate some tracks leading out the door, though they ended at the concrete. Is there any other place he would have thought to go?” Jace asks in a serious tone, and I close my eyes against the panic I feel at him wandering around out here alone. I’d seen firsthand what types of people roamed these forgotten streets, and I couldn’t count on everyone being as helpful as the guys I now stood beside.
“He’s eight, and we’ve never been to the city before. There’s nowhere he could have known to go,” I reply, frustration making my words come out sharper than intended, but none of them look bothered by my tone. Well, except for Nico, but he looks bothered by everything, so I don’t take it personally.
“We need to head back. There’s no telling where he got off to, and the chances of finding him tonight are slim. At least if we come back in the daylight, we’ll be able to see,” Nico says, and begins to walk toward the opening of the small alley.
“Wait!” I call, halting him because I finally remember something. Something that could help. Nico turns at the desperation in my voice, but I can’t make out his expression in the shadows. Instead of feeling intimidated by what’s most likely a glare aimed in my direction, I speak quickly, hope making my words come rushing out. “Before I helped him up there, I told him if something happened to me, he should head toward Sector A. I bet that’s what he’s doing. If we go there, we should be able to find him,” I finish excitedly, but the others don’t appear to share my enthusiasm, exchanging looks with unreadable expressions on their faces.
“Why would you tell him to go there? That would be a death—” Jace starts, but Dex cuts him off and shoots him a look I can’t read.
“What Jace is trying to say is, what do you know about Sector A?” he asks, searching my face as if looking for some clue to my reasoning. Feeling confused by their odd behavior, I answer almost hesitantly, sharing the knowledge my parents had taught me of the sectors.
“Because he isn’t Defective like me. Had I not been born, he would have grown up there and never known of life in The Between. I know my parents broke the law by running, but surely they’ll take him in, he’s just a boy,” I tell them, meaning every word, and I spin to look at Nico when a snort escapes him.
I stand there, glaring at him with my hands on my hips, but he doesn’t back down from the challenge on my face. “What’s so funny? Please enlighten me, because I fail to see how an eight-year-old boy out here on his own is humorous,” I tell him, my temper rising as he continues to stand there, unflinching under my glare.
Instead of looking away, Nico takes a step closer, invading my personal space and giving me a glare of his own.
“Let me explain something to you. Everything you think you know, is wrong. The officials in Sector A don’t care about your brother. It matters not what a brain scan shows, or how young he is. All they care about is maintaining their image of perfection and control, and allowing in a child, whose parents managed to escape their walls, would ruin that image. If he makes it there, he’s as good as dead, and so is anyone they catch with him. Believe me, he’d be better off trying to make it out here alone than face that. And you, especially, would be in trouble,” he says coldly, and I stumble back a step at his cruel words.
Thinking of how I may have doomed Cole by sending him there, I can’t fight back the sob that’s wanted to escape since I woke up and discovered I’d been taken away from him. Spinning from Nico’s cold stare, I think I spot a moment of regret cross his face, but I don’t wait to find out. Instead, I stumble away blindly as tears blur my vision, and run face first into a solid, but warm chest.
“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll help you find your brother. Nico may come off a little harsh, but he’s right. You need to avoid those walls. It’s a day’s travel from here on foot to reach Sector A, so we should have plenty of time and opportunity to catch up. Besides, we have something that will help us out,” Jace tells me, his voice softer than I thought possible for him, and he pulls away to meet my eyes with his own.
Staring into his determined face, I know he means it, and I allow myself a few more seconds of weakness, before I pull myself out of the band of his arms. It would be too easy to lose myself to emotion, to let these guys take care of everything, but that’s not who I am. My parents raised me to survive, and I plan to do just that.
Chapter 9
On the way back to their home, or at least, the place where they’re currently staying, they tell me a little about themselves. They are part of a group that wants to live outside of the sectors but maintain a sense of civility. Unlike the Fleshers, they have base camps set up where people work and live together peacefully, rather than try to take from others. It all sounds so nice, but after living in hiding in The Between for so long, it’s hard to imagine. Which, if Nico has his way about it, that’s all I’ll ever be able to do, since he doesn’t trust me enough to lead me to their actual camp.
It shouldn’t bother me, their reluctance to take me around their friends and families, risking their exposure to an unknown like me, but it does. As they are the only people I have to rely on right now, their distrust hurts more than it should.
“So, Samara, how old are you?” Jace asks, sidling up next to me and giving me that grin of his. I haven’t figured out what it means yet, but I’ve noticed that it seems to be his go-to expression.
“I guess I’m seventeen. I don’t normally keep track of the time, but according to the chill in the air, I should be turning eighteen soon. Why? How old are you?” I ask him curiously, while trying to study his features out of the corner of my eye. I’d guessed they were around my age, but I find I was a bit off.
“That’s cool. I’m the youngest of us at twenty. Dex is twenty-one, and Nico is twenty-three. Though, he acts at least twice his age,” Jace whispers conspiratorially, and I can’t help but giggle at Nico’s furrowed brow.
Jace hadn’t spoken the last part quietly enough, and the others could hear him, yet Nico doesn’t seem bothered. He just gives me a blank stare when he catches me looking at him. Not knowing how to respond, I quickly move my eyes away, grateful to the shadows for hiding my blush.
It’s quiet after that, each of us seemingly wrapped up in our own thoughts, and I find myself thinking of Cole. I’ve failed him. It had been my responsibility to take care of him, and I’d barely made it a day before proving incompetent. I won’t fail him again, though. Even if I have to search every building in this city, I will find him and make a home for us somewhere.
“Sam, we’re here,” Dex’s kind voice says, and I look up to see I have walked right past the door to the small shop they sleep above. I had discovered on our way out that they had converted the top floor into a small dwelling, with bedrolls laid across the floor. I don’t have a mat, but that’s okay. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor. I grew up sleeping in the trees.
Heading back toward where Dex and Luna wait in the doorway, and Jace a few feet past, I feel for the first time since my parents went missing that maybe I really can do it. I still need to find Cole, but with their help, we
might be able to survive in this strange city.
My eyes shoot open, and I lie there, frozen in fear. I don’t move as I try to discern where the sound that woke me came from, but from my position on the chair, I can’t figure it out. Moving slowly, as to not wake Luna where she sleeps at my feet, I rise from my seat and tiptoe around, using the fading light from what Jace called their “lanterns” to see by. It doesn’t illuminate the whole room, but it offers enough light that I am able to step over the prone bodies of Dex and Jace.
Pausing at them for a moment, I look down at their handsome faces, peaceful in their sleep, and see that Nico’s bedroll is empty. Realizing that it was probably him moving about that woke me, I turn to return to my dreams, but draw up short at the figure that stands silhouetted in by the window. The moon casts a soft glow around him, and my breath catches in my throat. He’s so handsome. Even if a bit of a jerk, I think, and force myself to stop staring.
I slowly creep back to the chair but decide not to sleep yet and head toward him instead. Of the three of them, he’s the only one that I’m unsure of. He never said he wouldn’t help me search for Cole, but he never said he would, either.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask quietly, not wanting to disturb the others, and he goes so long without answering that I think he won’t. Yet, rather than tell me to go away, he finally starts speaking.
“I was born in Sector B. Contrary to what Sector officials would have you believe, there are good people there. My mother was one of those people. My father was not. She had the gentlest soul of anyone I have ever met, but because some “scan” said she had the propensity toward violence, she was taken away from her family and forced to live in poverty. But even then, she never complained. She just tried every day to make life as easy on me as possible,” he tells me quietly, but never looks in my direction. Feeling emboldened by his confession, I ask him the question that’s been bothering me since he brought it up earlier in the night.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but for someone who was raised in Sector B, you sure seem to have a lot of knowledge about A,” I say, staring out the window, watching as the black and blues of the night sky begin to lighten with the first rays of the sun.
“I never said I was raised in Sector B. I said I was born there. My father decided when I was five years old, that the best way to solve our problems, would be to remove me and my baby sister from the equation. I’m still not sure how he did it. Maybe he bribed one of the soldiers that police the sector. I don’t know, but somehow, he contacted someone from Sector A, who then purchased my sister after she passed their scan. Those born in B don’t normally receive one, but when her angelic looks yielded pure results, she was taken away from us and sent there. My mother, not having been aware of what he had done, took me and ran. We made it all the way to their walls, where she tried to plead with anyone that would listen to give her baby back,” he says, then stops and takes a deep breath, as if preparing himself for what he has to say. For the first time during our conversation, he turns and faces me, like his words need to be said directly to make his point, and they leave me feeling cold.
“She begged them, Samara, not for help, just for her child. And do you know what they did? They gunned her down and cast me away. I guess the guard on duty that day couldn’t stomach shooting a child, but had no such qualms about leaving one orphaned,” he finishes, and tears escape without my permission, leaving salty tracks as they slide down my face. Nico, not even looking like he’s aware of what he’s doing, reaches up and uses the tip of his finger to catch and wipe them away.
“How did you survive?” I ask, trying to ignore how hot my skin feels where he touches it, and I meet those dark eyes.
“A couple found me wandering through the streets of the city, starved and dehydrated. Had they not taken me in, I would have died. I learned two lessons that day. One, that those who are supposed to take care of us can, and will, let us down,” he says, his finger slowly trailing down toward my chin.
I have to swallow before I can speak.
“And what’s the second thing?” I ask, my words coming out breathy from the foreign touch.
Nico leans in then, our faces so close I can feel our breath mix, but his expression is completely serious when he responds. “And two, anyone that tries to enter Sector A from the outside, is dead,” he adds, and pulls away, turning and walking across the room and out the door.
It takes a few minutes of standing there, trying to process the information before I go back and lie down. The amount of conflicting emotions he’d just put me through had me feeling like I had spun too fast in a circle, and needed to lie down or pass out. I didn’t know how it was possible for someone to be so hot and cold at the same time, but Nico somehow managed it. Yet, despite his continued warnings not to go near Sector A, he still hadn’t said he wouldn’t. I was going to count that as a win.
Chapter 10
My feet ache, and sweat drips off my forehead, despite the chill in the afternoon air. We’ve been walking since first light, and despite Nico’s continued warnings of avoiding the Sector walls, he’s reluctantly tagged along. “Someone has to make sure Jace doesn’t get into trouble,” he had said, to which Jace had only shrugged his shoulders. That had been hours ago, and yet we’d still found no sign of Cole, even with Luna walking out front, sniffing the ground.
“Let’s break for a few minutes and eat something. We won’t be helping anyone if we pass out,” Nico orders, and though I want to agree, I can’t. Not while Cole is still missing.
“Wait! We need to keep looking. Cole is out here alone somewhere! Please? Please!” I say frantically, the press of time beginning to weigh down on me and inciting my panic. I feel like if I stop moving, even for a few minutes, I’ll never find him.
“Hey, it’s okay. Shh . . . we’ll get him. But Nico’s right. We’ll be able to cover more ground if we rest for a second. I promise you, we’ll keep looking.” Dex stands in front of me, his strong hands resting on my shoulders as he tries to soothe me, and his calm voice and kind eyes help to penetrate the manic urge to blindly charge forward.
Seeing that I’m no longer about to run off alone while screaming for Cole, Dex drops one hand to my back, and ushers me along beside him to where Nico and Jace have moved to an open doorway. They, too, must realize I’m better, and both seem to relax slightly. I guess they don’t know how to handle a hysterical girl, I think, and follow them inside.
“Um. Not that I’m ungrateful, but if we’re supposed to be taking a break, doesn’t climbing all these stairs kind of defeat the purpose of that?” I ask, puffing out my breath as we climb another set of steps. We’ve been climbing for minutes now, and my body is starting to slow from the exertion.
“If we head to the top, there should be an access door that will allow us to go out on the roof. From there, we’ll have the best vantage point and be able to plan our next step. The Sector officials aren’t the only ones we need to worry about, as you discovered last night, and I don’t want to get caught unaware by some dirty anthropophagite.” Nico practically spits the last word out, leaving me confused by not only what it means, but by the anger he seems to have for them. Not understanding whom he is referring to, I speed up to trying to get closer to him.
“What’s an anth . . . anthoropagit?” I stumble over the word, not ever having heard it before, and Jace snickers at my back. I turn and shoot him a glare, and he raises his hands in a defensive motion, as if to ward off a blow.
“Sorry, Samara. You just sounded so cute butchering the word.” He shrugs, as if calling someone cute means nothing to him, so I try to not show how it affects me. Too long with only family as companions has made me inept with dealing with the opposite sex, and I find myself blushing far too often.
“It’s anthropophagite. It means they eat the flesh of other people. What word do you use for them? From the way you hadn’t seemed surprised by their appearance, I thought you’d already known of them,” Nico responds, and I turn my
attention back to the stairs before me, resigning myself to the rest of the long climb.
“Yea, I’ve heard of them. In The Between, they’re called Flesh Peddlers, or Fleshers for short. At least, that’s what my parents called them. I never thought to ask if they had known others out in the woods that knew of them by that name, too. I guess I should have thought to ask that, but honestly, it was always just the four of us. Wondering about other people was just that: wondering,” I say, and the small stairwell grows quiet at the admission. The guys don’t seem to know, or have anything to say to that, however, and we finish the rest of the climb in silence. Or, close to silence. My heavy breathing is loud enough for all to hear.
“We’re going to be starting up again soon, Samara. Might want to rest while you can,” Jace says by my side, his words kind, no teasing to be found. Without looking away from my perch at the roof ledge, I only shake my head. I’ve been walking around the edges since we arrived up here, but have seen no sign of Cole, or anyone else for that matter.
“How about this: you go and sit down for a rest, and I promise to stay right here and keep a lookout,” Jace says, once again trying to get me to sit down. I think about that for a second; I am very tired, my feet hurting so badly that just the thought of walking more makes me shudder. If he will keep watch, then I will comply, even if only because I plan to walk for hours more searching for Cole in a little while.
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