I have to stop here and watch the stick before I don’t get a chance. With shaking hands I take the small plastic square from my back pocket, and fat raindrops instantly begin to bead on its surface. I hunch my body over to shield it and then frown, my finger pressing firmly on the play button. Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens. I form half a word in my mouth before I realise I don’t know a curse word strong enough for this particular moment. Cai, albeit sensibly, given his non-functioning-halo status, has screwed me completely by encoding the holostick. I’m furiously wracking my brain, trying to work out if the four-digit code might be something I know, when my feet suddenly go cold.
I look down and the water is fast approaching my ankles. I let out a frustrated growl and close my hand around the stick. Shucking the satchel off my back, I root around inside, pulling out the small black flask that Penny filled with water for me. I open it and empty it out, figuring that water hardly seems to be a problem for me right now, and then I shove the stick inside, fastening the lid on tight. It goes back inside the satchel, and I triple knot the drawstrings so I’m not in danger of losing anything inside.
The food is going to be ruined but there’s nothing I can do about that. By the time I’ve done all of this, the water is inching up towards my knees. There’s no point trying to run now; I wade forward as quickly as I can, but the rushing water against the backs of my legs makes staying upright tough. It doesn’t take long before I lose my balance and fall forward onto all fours. The word 'irony' held very little meaning for me before Cai ripped my halo off, but I’m truly beginning to understand its meaning now. For years I have been thrown into countless scenarios during my amphi-matches where I could easily have died over and over again, and yet I didn’t. And now, when all I need to do is get from one point to another, it looks like my number’s up. I laugh for the second time in my life, only it sticks like a bitter gasp in my throat.
The river surges forward, and I am swept away.
FLOOD
A bright light shines into my eyes, and I briefly think someone’s come into my room and opened my curtains too early. My body feels like it did the day after I fought and barely beat Falin Hetzin. It’s hard to breathe; my ribs ache, and my left forearm burns like crazy. It takes me a while to figure out why. I panic when I crack my eyes open. It’s stopped raining and the sun is shining, but I’m still half submerged in the river. My back is pressed against the siding of a small brick aqueduct. The river roars through it, disappearing down a long, dark tunnel. I’m within reach of the embankment, but I have no hope of pulling myself out of the water, because a huge tree limb is pinning me against my chest, crushing me back against the wall. On top of this, there’s a gash on my arm, and my blood is swirling into the water and rushing away with it.
Weirdly, my jacket is gone, which is bad but not the very worst thing. The worst thing is that the satchel is gone, too. I consider the massive tree trunk pressing me back into the smooth surface of the cool bricks and think how a person wearing a functioning halo would react in this situation. I can’t even begin to imagine. There are so many conflicting feelings stabbing through me right now that it seems impossible that I’ll find a way out of this mess. I need to pick one emotion and go with it otherwise I’m going to be stuck here forever. I choose anger.
I smash my fists against the tree branch for a while, before I realise that it’s not doing me any good, and my knuckles begin to bleed. I focus all the fury that I have pent up inside me so that I can try pushing the branch away from me, but the current of the water is far too strong. By the time I’ve exhausted all of my energy, all of my anger is gone too, and I’m left with little more than fear.
Fear has to be the most unpleasant feeling I’ve ever experienced. It leaves me frantic and filled with self-pity, and I end up getting angry all over again at how pathetic I’m being. I slump forward and lean into the branch, burying my face into my arms, careful to avoid the burning cut.
I’m pinned there for longer than I care to admit before a miracle happens. Another huge log sweeps down the river and collides with the limb trapping me. The thing splits in two with an ear-jarring, splintering noise. I see it all happening in slow motion, and I reach out and grab onto a fistful of tangled tree roots before the log breaks, clinging on for dear life when the current tries to take me, too. I scramble up the embankment, my boots squelching, my legs numb and threatening to crumple. Once I’m safe, I collapse beside the brick aqueduct. It hurts far too much when I try and breathe. There’s a very real chance I have some broken ribs.
Everything is freezing cold. I roll onto my back and concentrate on trying to breathe through the pain coursing through my body. Who knows, though? Maybe I’m not suffering that much pain at all, and if I hadn’t lived my whole life with a damned halo glued around my neck, I would be able to deal with this more efficiently. But I have had the halo, and I’m not dealing with the pain at all. My own muffled cries keep on surprising me with how weak they sound.
I fall asleep for a while, and when I wake up the sun is starting to sink. My clothes have dried out at least, but I still feel like vomiting from the pain in my ribs. I get up stiffly and take in my surroundings for the first time. The fence is still there, of course, and it sweeps out to the left and the right for I don’t know how far. It’s eventually swallowed by trees, but I know that just because it’s hidden doesn’t mean it ends. The river now cuts through the fence via the aqueduct tunnel, and it’s the only way I can see myself getting through.
The thought that Cai has probably stood here, calculating how to swim through this tunnel makes me dizzy. I don’t know if he ever tried it, but if he did then it will have been when the water was less insane. He might have even been able to wade through with his combat pants rolled up around his ankles, and the whole thing had been a pleasant experience. Right now the water is so high and charging so hard that there’s barely a gap at the top of the tunnel. White foam spews up when it hits the brickwork, causing spray to shoot three feet into the air.
I back away from the water and lean against the fencing like I have another option and I’m just waiting for it to hit me. Nothing hits me. As soon as the sun goes down I’m going to be in trouble. I’m exhausted and I’m hurt, and if I don’t get this done now there’s no way I’m going to be strong enough in the morning when the cold, hard ground has leached away what little reserves I have left.
A small voice inside my head suggests that maybe the water levels will have dropped by morning, but there’s no way of telling with how hard the rain fell earlier. It could be like this for days, and then I really would be screwed. I feel half drunk when I stumble back down the embankment and dip my feet in the water.
My body convulses when the biting, icy current skirls around my toes. Doesn’t bode well for how I’m going to react when I have to submerge my whole body in it. I do the only thing I can think of to get this over with quickly and plunge myself in. I immediately regret it. The water is so deep I can’t touch the bottom, but that doesn’t really matter, because it’s moving so fast I wouldn’t have been able stand even if I’d wanted to. In a split second I’m caught up and dragged under the water. When I come up, spluttering, it’s dark and I’ve been sucked into the tunnel. There are only a few inches at the top of the water where I can breathe, and I tip my head back and pull in a wheezing gasp. Before I can take a second something strikes me in my stomach, hard, and I go back under.
The water is filthy and filled with debris, and silt pours up my nose. I thrust my hand out to try and stop myself or grab hold of something. My knuckles smash against the side of the tunnel and a spiralling pain shoots up my arm. It’s only when I breach the surface again and the sun is shining above me that the frigid fingers of fear loosen their grip around my heart. It’s still slamming in my chest, but at least I now know I’m not going to drown in the dark. If I die, it’ll be with sunlight on my back.
On the other side of the tunnel the river spins in a dangerous current, whi
pping the water to create a green-brown foam that floats on the surface. Tree branches and shattered wood clog up my exit to the banks on both my left and my right; the fast flowing water picks some of them up before smashing them up and spitting them out again ten metres away. There’s something up ahead there―a line of black, jagged rocks dam the river, and the water turns white where it collides with a brutal force against them.
I’m considering screaming when I see something flashing out of the corner of my eye. There’s someone beside the river, and they’re rushing forward toward the rocks as quickly as I am. This keeps me from making a sound. If I’m going to be dashed to pieces, then I’m damn well going to retain my dignity while I do it. My boots feel like leaden weights as I start to kick, trying to guide myself away from the scariest, sharpest-looking boulders. My efforts have no effect, and within seconds I’m thrown directly into the middle of the piled rocks. The air huffs out of my lungs as I impact, holding out my hands in the vain hope that I’ll be able to brace myself. A biting pain spasms through the right hand side of my body, and I pull in a startled breath. More water than air fills my mouth. I’m spluttering and scrabbling frantically when the blurry outline of a person steps out onto the rocks with nimble, bare feet.
No way am I hanging around to find out who this is or what they want. From somewhere―I have no idea where―I find enough energy to shove myself away from the approaching figure. Gripping hold of the wet stone until it feels like I’m going to rip out my own fingernails, I claw myself towards the other side of the bank. I’m almost shocked when I manage to reach the other side. I roll myself out of the water onto the mud and lie flat on my back, gasping.
“Well, that was unnecessary,” a low voice calls. I ignore it and tuck my legs up to my chest, wincing as my stomach cramps. I turn onto my side and throw up all of the water I’ve swallowed. It looks brackish and foul even on the way out. When I eventually find it in me to sit up, there’s a boy crouching down on the other side of the narrow river, staring at me. No halo.
His hair is bright blond and tied back into a messy ponytail. It’s so short I can tell he must have to re-tie it fifty times a day. Strands of it hang down into his face even now. His eyes are startlingly dark, a very intense brown. His shirt is filthy—black, or at least it was at some point. It’s splattered with mud that’s obviously been there for a while, because it’s cracked and turned white in places where it’s dried out under the sun. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing tiny, centimetre long black lines that run along the underside of his forearm from his wrist to his elbow. I can’t tell if they keep going but I’m willing to bet they do.
I prop myself onto my knees and spit out the disgusting taste in my mouth. He makes a surprised huffing sound out of his nose, barely audible over the dull roar of the water.
“Charming.”
No way I’m responding to that. Instead I sink back onto my heels and glare at him. “What do you want?”
He folds his arms across his body and pulls up the corner of his mouth into a smirk. I’ve only ever seen a smile like that on Lowrence before, and it makes me want to hit him repeatedly in the face. “What do I want?” he says.
I nod, trying to be covert as I run dirty palms up over my thighs. I relax when I hit the webbing of my knife belt, although my fingers only find my daggers there. Everything else seems to be gone. “Yes. What do you want?”
“No, Who are you? No, Thanks for risking your life to come and save me?”
Now it’s my turn to snort. “I didn’t need saving. I got out on my own, didn’t I?”
The boy nods his head thoughtfully. “Yes. You were very graceful.”
The tone of his voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. “Did my father send you?”
“Depends on who your father is.”
“Lowrence Kitsch, of Household Kitsch.”
The boy thinks on this and then shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Well, then, why are you here?”
He rises slowly from his crouch, revealing that he’s wearing a knife belt over his dark pants, which are as filthy as his shirt. They’re soaking wet at the bottom, presumably from where he waded over the rocks to try and reach me. The handles of his knives look like they’re made out of steel instead of plastic or wood. Expensive. They glint brightly where the sunlight lances down through the surrounding trees.
“Anyone ever told you it’s impolite to eye up a man’s hardware?” he asks. I pull a sour face at him and draw out my daggers, wiping their blades back and forth across my thighs to dry them. “You’re not a man,” I tell him. “You’re a boy.”
This makes him clench his jaw. “I’m eighteen. That qualifies for manhood where I come from.”
“Then we clearly don’t come from the same place.”
He scowls. “Okay. Fine. I’m glad you didn’t drown. Sort of. Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing out here.”
I square off my shoulders at him and lock my jaw. “Thanks.”
He’s still barefoot when he backs away from the other side of the river, the mud oozing up between his toes. He doesn’t turn away from me until there are a good few trees around him. Maybe he suspects I’ll send a knife his way, although I’m sure he must have noticed that my throwing blades are gone. I feel my mouth curling into a weird expression as he melts into the forest, and I raise my fingertips up to my lips to see what they feel like.
KIT
The forest is freezing at night and filled with sounds I don’t recognise. Every shadow or rustling sound is Lowrence or even Cai’s True father coming to get me, and I must only sleep half an hour at a time. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now, and a part of me regrets not wheedling some information out of that stranger on the far side of the river. He did try to help me, I think, but I can’t be sure. I was just so battered both mentally and physically from the water that I didn’t really think properly. I shouldn’t have let him leave.
The ground is unbelievably hard, and when the sun finally steps out over the horizon, I think my bones are more bruised than when I laid down to try and sleep. Everything hurts. Everything throbs. My halo has somehow found its way out and over my shirt in the night, and I’m panicked when I tuck it back under my clothes. The smooth, rigid metal is icy cold. Makes me suck in a sharp breath when it hits my skin. It’s entirely free from my body now. All of the tumbling and the thrashing yesterday must have finally worked it loose from the back of my neck. The skin definitely feels sore there, anyway. I prod the metal with my fingers underneath my shirt, and the whole thing rotates around my neck.
I shake my head and clamber to my feet, and that’s when I notice I’m covered in small, brown insects. They’re everywhere, crawling all over me. I make a very high pitched noise and start slapping at my clothes, my skin, my hair. Their tiny little bodies have worked their way down the back of my shirt, I’m sure of it. I’m not satisfied they’re all gone until I’ve ripped off my clothes and hopped around for fifteen minutes, swatting at any speck of dirt or faint mark on my body.
I don’t hear anybody approaching, and that’s a mistake. I should be paying attention, should be on guard, but I’m too freaked out to realise I’m not alone. When I look up, standing there in my underwear, I meet a pair of sombre brown eyes. My hand automatically goes to my waist where my knife belt should be, but it’s not there. It’s on the ground, still attached to my combat gear. The brown eyes watch carefully as I step back and sink to the ground, reaching out for a blade.
Having a dagger in my hand feels good and helps me think I’m in control, but when he starts walking forward, four legs― four legs!― on the ground, I panic.
“Stop!” My voice jars in the heavy silence of the morning, and something comes to life in a tree above me. Long, extended wings rustle and take to the sky in a flash of black and grey, with a sheen of blue-green. A bird. My first bird. I’ve only ever seen them represented by distant specks of black against the sky before; they nev
er land in the Sanctuary, like they know the place is simply off limits. I’m so shocked by the sight of the small animal taking flight now that I don’t realise the creature in front of me has crept forward. A feeling, a wet rasping across the back of my hand, startles me, and I shriek. Not very smart at all.
The animal drops into a hunched position straight away, looking up at me with curiosity in his eyes. There’s hair all over his body, tan and black, and he smells musky and warm like the earth. I know he’s a dog, I just never expected to see one. He looks equally as astounded to be seeing me, too.
Dogs aren’t supposed to be friendly. They’re supposed to be vicious meat eaters, and I have no trouble believing this when he opens his mouth and a large, pink tongue lolls over his gigantic canines. Ripping, tearing teeth. I stagger backwards and stoop low to gather up my clothes. I’m slipping my legs into my pants when he tips his head to one side and lets out a small bark, which is enough to make me topple over backwards. Lying on the floor, wrestling the rest of my clothes on takes but a few seconds. I’m warily watching the dog, tugging my boots back on, when he darts forward.
For a moment I freeze, unsure what to do. His face is in my face, and his tongue is still lolling as he breathes in and out and in and out. His breath stinks like day-old stew. I’m sure he’s going to attack me, and I brace for it.
He licks my cheek instead.
I resist the urge to scrub at my face with the back of my hand, because the way he’s watching me, his head bobbing up and down as he pants, sort of makes it look like he’s laughing. My apprehension falls away, and I find myself laughing, too. This is the first time I’ve ever enjoyed the sensation of laughing. It bubbles out of me, rises up from my belly, and I listen to it echoing off the crowded lengths of the tree trunks that stretch on forever.
Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) Page 6