by Terina Adams
Nada pushed around Azrael. “Get in.” He sounded like an adult. He sounded like Jax.
Nada closed the door behind me, drawing large bolts into place. The safe room. There would be a safe room inside this place. But the sweepers would’ve seen the children, which meant they would tear each building apart to find them.
“This way,” Azrael whispered and took my hand.
Anyone from this house was already hiding, or maybe they never made it home in time.
Much like Azrael’s place, we headed down a dimly lit passage and into an expansive room full of light. Overhead, there was no roof, which allowed the moon to shine down on the open-aired atrium, throwing a bluish hue like a delicate bruise across the tiled floor. Stairs led to a second story with a wraparound balustrade. Minus the deep-blue tiling on the floor and the draping plants from the story above, this was a replica of Nada’s home.
The children moved with purpose. Asking questions would hold them up, so I followed but only made it halfway across the floor of the open space when shouts from outside filled the atrium. Nada acted like nothing happened. Azrael followed his example. Me, the only adult, froze like a spied rat. The sweepers knew we were hiding somewhere close. They weren’t going anywhere.
A cylinder bounced beside me with a loud thwack. Two, three times it rebounded before rolling across the floor. Nada doubled back, his eyes going wide when he saw what caused the noise.
He hissed at me from across the open space. “Hurry.”
The cylinder came to life, jerking up into the air once more. When it clattered to the tiles, it spun about spewing a dark mist ankle height. I remained locked as the mist rose and formed filaments that wound in a corkscrew fashion around the atrium.
Nada jerked my left arm, and the resultant pain from my wrist sent a sharp jolt to my brain, like the slap it was supposed to be. He’d pulled his dirty shirt up over his nose and mouth. Behind him, Azrael had done the same. Already, the air smelled like ozone mixed with sickly sweet treacle. I relented, running after Nada as he pulled me like a rag doll toward another passage. Where could we hide from something as thin as air?
More shouts studded the walls around us. A loud thunk hammered the door. Nada pulled to the mouth of the passage as a man’s head loomed out of the shadows.
“Quickly,” the man said, not bothering to hide his voice with the chaos erupting outside. I barreled toward him, driven partly by Nada’s strong tug on my arm, until I was swallowed by the impenetrable dark.
I gripped the walls so I wouldn’t fall over, because my eyes were useless to me now. Nada kept hold of one hand.
“Azrael?” I whispered. Someone touched my elbow. I fingered the air until I finally found the top of her head.
“You must put these on.”
The man was close beside me. With surprising dexterity for being in the dark, he slipped something over my nose and mouth, securing the strap over my head. His hands disappeared. “Here, let me help,” he said as he no doubt attended to Nada and Azrael.
There was nothing natural about the darkness. This man was ungrafted. Phonus. As Phonus, he saw through his fabrication.
“The safe room is this way.” The man grabbed my hand, guiding me along at an uncomfortable pace for someone who was blind. I clenched my hand tight over Azrael’s and dragged her along with me through the dark.
My other senses sharpened now that I couldn’t see. I felt the roughness under my fingers as I ran my hand along the wall, heard our footfalls as reverberating smacks in the desolate darkness. Outside, the noise had diminished, shouts now the whispered communication through any tech they carried, the silence a prickle up my spine. It was better when they were yelling, providing us with a vocal map of their position.
I stumbled after the man, refusing to release my hold on Azrael’s hand. Now that I’d found her, losing her would be akin to losing Ajay all over again.
Who was this man? An ungrafted, no friend to the sweepers. I had to trust him. But the dark made destruction twitchy. A little fireworks would make a terrible situation worse. It was already responsible for landing us here.
A loud thunk back down the passage made me jump, my shocked shout muffled by the mask.
The man grabbed my elbow, pushing my back against the wall. With my senses acute, I could feel his body in front of me even though his hand at my elbow was the only thing touching me. “Stand here.”
I felt him leave me, swirling a soft feather wind the moment I heard another heavy thud from down the passage. The darkness turned my mind in on itself, spiraling into bad, bad scenarios. This was destruction’s playground. My fear it loved best. Like a war cry, it rallied against those feelings that stifled me inside, constricted me, suppressed me. Destruction turned into a sea of wild waves, surging and relenting, surging and relenting, looking for the weakness in the dam wall.
With the noise overhead and yet more from down the passage, I pulled Azrael close to me, wrapping her up in my arms as if that would be enough to keep her safe. My next instinct was to call for Nada, but anything above silence seemed too loud.
When a hand touched me, I jerked, the mask muffling my cry. “You must duck low,” the man said as he pressed down on my head. Creaking hinges followed his whispered warning. The pressure of his hand guided me into a semi-crouch. Cool air, saturated with the smell of confinement, touched my face.
“Go forward, there is nothing to trip on. After a few steps, you may straighten.”
I did as instructed, shuffling forward into complete blackness. After counting a few paces forward, I straightened like my back had multiple aches. Behind me, the others came through, their feet the shuffles of awkward movement. With hands held out, feeling for anything solid, I moved away from the doorway to give them space. Someone brushed alongside me. I reached out and felt an arm then glided up to Azrael’s head, her height and ponytailed hair the giveaway.
A soft breeze preceded a gentle click as we were locked in.
“Let me get us some light.” At least the man had not locked us inside by ourselves in the dark. “The darkness in the passage was my doing, but alas, the darkness in here is outside my control.”
Small crunching sounds helped me follow his movement through the room. He didn’t go far, so the room wasn’t large. He fumbled away in front of us before a low glow came to life, silhouetting his outline against the wall, perhaps a head taller than me, with broad, sloping shoulders. He turned with a candle in its holder—no gift of trylite from a lover—and came to us.
“You may remove your masks. No air from within the house will get in here. Ventilation is via ducts that open up on the roof.”
I slid the mask over my head. “Thank you for your protection.”
He crossed the room, his eyes crawling over my face as if I had facial features that were otherworldly and not the same as his. The candle cast shadows under his nose, his eyes caves set within the ridges of his cheekbones and brow. Scruffy hair stretched down to a long beard at risk of catching a light by the candle flame.
“It’s been a while since they’ve treated us to such a spectacle.” Amusement. Not the tone I expected to hear in a fringe dweller’s voice, especially at a time like this.
He held the candle up to my face. With fingers on my cheek, he turned my head to the side. “Are you responsible for what is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
He removed his fingers but kept the candlelight close. He was close. Our eyes met. The candle flame was not enough to separate his eye color from hazel, brown, or black, but I was close enough to read what was written on his face. He was waiting—most of them were waiting—for a sign that would bring the day of reckoning, that would bring the storm of destruction, that would bring the end of their suffering.
I took the gamble to trust him. “Yes, I am. They’re after me and my friends.”
He glanced over his shoulder to a chair behind him then shuffled back and eased himself to sitting. My eyes followed him all the way
then expanded to the rest of the room. Small and tight, like Alithia’s safe room, but with enough furnishings to keep the occupants safe for days. Beds were pushed against the walls. There were even some chairs with hard-looking cushions.
“Then we must keep you safe,” he said. “For anything the senate wants, we want more.”
Chapter 21
Tucked in the safe room, we were sheltered from the looming threat outside.
“They will not find this room, so don’t worry. I’ve lived through enough sweeps to know we’re adequately hidden.” He extended his hand. “Arlo.”
“Sable.” His fingers wrapped tightly around my own, his shake hard. “How often do they conduct these sweeps?”
“Enough times for everyone to keep their safe room adequately stocked. It’s of great importance for the senate to keep us cowering. We’re the unstable ground that could dismantle their control. They know that. They fear it. And so they send their might to remind us. But six utility? Now that is something I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“One of their sweepers is dead.” Another might as well be.
“That’s perhaps enough to warrant the show of force.”
“What will happen?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“But they saw us. They know we’re here somewhere. And if they really want their target—”
Arlo gently patted the air to calm me. “We’ve lived through much. We can live through yet another sweep.”
I flicked a look at Azrael and Nada who’d seated themselves on one of the beds, side by side, shoulders touching like brother and sister. Neither looked frightened, but both unconsciously sought comfort through bodily contact.
How long would it take before the not knowing drove Alithia out of her safe room and onto the streets? How much would the fringe people have to bear because of me?
The silence we sat in became a prison with no way to mark the passing of time. If there was anyone in the house, I couldn’t hear them. Nothing came from outside, no shouts of command from the sweepers, no gunfire or any of the usual sounds that accompanied a war zone. As far as I could tell, no one in the fringe had weapons, at least not weapons that weren’t in their minds, and some didn’t even have that.
Noise would’ve given me a reference, but the eerie quiet prickled my reserve. My body wanted to prowl alongside destruction. I jerked up from the bed, a coiled spring about to unwind. Aware how that would’ve looked, I said, “I can’t sit still.”
Arlo opened his mouth to reply, but sudden harsh cries filtered down the air duct from outside, shouts and the unmistakable pleas of mercy.
I spun to Arlo. “They’ve caught innocent people.”
“They’re not who they want. They won’t do anything to them.”
“You can’t be sure. They could use them to lure us out.”
“Only if you let them get to you.”
“But I can’t just hide like this while they round up innocent people.”
“Most here defy the senate, which means every day, every breath we take is a risk. To defy the senate means to accept that your life is a gamble. It’s a silent oath we all take.”
“I can’t accept that. I can’t allow people to suffer because of me while I hide.”
Arlo stood. “If you can’t, then you let the senate win, because that’s what it means to fight a war. The silent oath is the choice we make when we choose to remain ungrafted, when we choose to love who we want, when we choose to lie by taking another tattoo.” His pointed look was understood. “We all know we must accept to stand alone with our fate, however it may come, if we are to win. Because the senate will use the weakness within our hearts.” He approached me. “The senate is powerful; we could not hope to go up against them as we are. The way to win this war is through silent rebellion. We work unseen. We build our knowledge first before we fight with our minds. The way to win is through stealth and cunning. The way to win is to accept sacrifice and be prepared to be that sacrifice.”
I backed up, strangled by his declaration. He spoke like Jax when I first met him, holding strong to the same conviction Jax uttered when he explained the rules of survival in Dominus, but it wasn’t just for Dominus that he’d spoken with such finality. I looked over at Nada and Azrael, who heard every grizzly word he said. How deep had those words sank into their psyche, so they too would feel this impassioned, this willing to risk everything?
More cries echoed down to us from outside, pleas from innocent people, people now caught in the net woven from my mistakes.
This couldn’t be the only way. I wanted to argue against him. Tell him that losing everyone special wiped any meaning from life. To truly believe and to hold that belief to the end meant to sacrifice parts of myself, such as separating myself from the suffering of others when it was all because of me. I wasn’t all right with that.
“I’m not one of you. I don’t live here. I haven’t made a silent oath.”
The quiet settled like lead between us. “I’m not reason enough to allow people to die.”
“We’ve all chosen our path.”
“Then I’ll choose mine. And it’s not hiding here.”
I spun and headed for the door.
“Wait.” He pushed past me before I could turn back to him. “Stay here. I will see what is going on.” He looked over his shoulder. “I have made a silent oath, so there is no reason to come looking for me.”
He disappeared out the door so fast, closing it behind him, it was like he’d never been there. But his words remained an echo in my brain. Did Jax mirror Arlo’s thoughts?
I gave Arlo a few breaths then unlatched the door.
“No, what are you doing?” Nada leaped to his feet, rushing toward me, Azrael on his heels.
I gripped his wrists tight. “Listen to me. You are not to come out. Under any circumstances. You are to wait here until Arlo or myself comes and gets you.”
“But you heard what Arlo said.”
“I am not from your world. And so your rules do not apply to me. But they do to you. Is that clear? You are to stay here.” I looked at Azrael. “Both of you. Do not leave each other.”
“But you can’t do anything. How can you hope to do anything?”
“Nada, please trust me. I can do a lot, and they don’t know that, so it’s my advantage,” I lied. They did know, thanks to the sweeper, but Nada knew none of that.
“She’s right.” Azrael came to my rescue. “I’ve seen her. She’s Persal.”
Nada shook his head, pulling himself from my hold.
“Listen.” I took his hands again. “The way to win is to stand together.”
“Then why are you leaving us?” Nada asked.
I smoothed his hair on his head, something I often did to Ajay when he sulked. He hated it and would always jerk his head away. “I have to do something about this.”
“No, you don’t!” Nada yelled at me. “You don’t have to do anything. You’re not meant to. Arlo said so.”
This was about his parents, people he loved and lost. Ajay would be the same way. He’d plead and plead with me to stay hidden. If it were Ajay, maybe I would listen, or maybe I wouldn’t, not when the senate was intent on ripping the fringe apart because of me.
I wouldn’t be able to make Nada understand. “You two can help by staying put.”
At the door, I spared one look over my shoulder. Two mournful children stared back at me in the dull candle glow. They looked like ghosts. “For your mum and grandfather, stay put.” It sounded weak to me.
Unlike when we entered the safe room, the corridor was lit by the large open atrium in the center of the house. The streets were now quiet. The worst possible scenarios built in my head. I headed for the sunlight streaming down onto the tiles but was brought up short with the sound of a frizzle and crackling like a strike of lightning sizzling the air. The noise came through from the roofless atrium, but it was also loud enough to penetrate the walls.
Steps slow, I mad
e it to the end of the passage but stayed in the shadows as I peeked out into the sunlight of the atrium. My gaze followed a line of rope, the bottom coiled on the tiles, up to the roof as my pulse climbed higher. Someone had abseiled inside. I pressed against the wall and looked back the way I’d come, but the passage was dim enough to provide shadow for someone lurking down at the end. Sweepers wouldn’t lurk; they would attack, so it was perhaps safe to say no one had seen my exit from the safe room.
I leaned farther out of the passage, scanning the surroundings, the balustrade to the second story, the roofline. Another fizzle and crackle had me dipping back into the dimness of the passage, pinning myself against the wall. Someone cried out, followed by angry shouts.
The sweepers were close. Fringe dwellers were suffering for each moment I stayed pressed against this wall. Destruction punched me through the chest, kicking me out into the sunlight, across the atrium, and into the short passage that led to the front door, but I slowed when I spied the door open. Arlo would not have left the door wide-open.
I inched to the opening and peered out. To my left, the alley was clear. At the other end, a gathering had crammed the mouth of the alley, pressing close to each other for a better look. Habit now, I scanned the rooftops, but saw no one. Another glance left and still the alley was clear, so I slipped out, shutting the door behind me, and slinked along the walls toward the small crowd.
I couldn’t see past the group of tall men crowding the alley. I scanned the rooflines again. Since most of the buildings joined, you could use their roofs as a highway, but sandwiched between Arlo’s home and the alley mouth was a building short enough to interrupt the trail, which meant I couldn’t use the roofline to reach the end of the alley.
I felt too timid to ask to see, but these people weren’t my enemy. “Excuse me,” I said.
The man in front of me looked over his shoulder. “Are you mad? Go back to your home. This isn’t the place to be.” His voice trailed away to the clothes I wore, the result of a hurried change into a similar outfit as the one I’d first worn into the fringe. Jax had insisted, as there was no disguising me in central Califax wearing fringe clothes.