by Ann Aguirre
His black eyes studied me. “You willing to take a blood oath on that?”
“Get your knife.”
For obvious reasons, we couldn’t do this in the hallway, so he dragged me off toward the hall we used for ceremonies. That was fitting enough, and nobody would bother us. Once we arrived, he produced his dagger and offered it to me.
I cut a line on my palm and spoke the words. “On my blood, I swear I had nothing to do with Banner’s death. May it boil in my veins if I speak untruth.”
Fade watched me as if he expected it to happen, no matter what I said. He didn’t relax until I handed back the blade. I curled my fingers in as if I could trap the blood. Instead it trickled out between my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “She was my only friend, and I needed someone to blame.”
After our trip to Nassau, I’d thought we were friends. But I didn’t let on that his words bit deep. I kept my face blank. “Maybe I’d feel the same if it had been Thimble or Stone.”
“He’s that big Breeder I sometimes see you with.”
“Probably.”
He hesitated. “I never had a partner pay this much attention to me before.”
That made me feel I’d overstepped. He’d had two before me, so he knew better than I did what constituted normal behavior. Maybe I watched him too closely. It was unsuitable, and Silk would demote me to Breeder if she ever found out.
“I should get back,” I muttered.
“Not yet.” In an unspeakable liberty, he snatched the tie from my hair, so it spilled around my face.
“Why did you do that?” My breath caught when he brushed the strands around my face just so. Touching me. We were on shaky ground here. If someone saw us—
“I wanted to see what you’d look like.”
Back off, I told myself. Walk away now. Instead I froze, gazing up into his impossibly dark eyes.
He bent his head and brushed my lips with his. His hair spilled against my forehead, sleek and startling. Shock held me immobile, shock — and something else. Part of me wanted to lean into him. I shouldn’t want that. A Huntress wouldn’t. Shame, confusion, and longing warred for dominance. Against my better judgment, I let my brow graze his jaw, just a whisper of heat, wrapped around me like a pair of arms. And then I drew back.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Apologizing. I missed you, Deuce. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
Maybe the kiss didn’t mean anything. Maybe it was just an apology, like he said. “Accepted. But if you ever misjudge me like that again—”
“Got it.” He smiled. “Now come on. We’re missing all the fun.”
To my surprise, he took my hand and led me back to the dancing. As a brat, this wasn’t something I’d ever done, but I learned the rhythm easily enough. They circled in a long progression, and the two of us joined at the end. Fade let go of me after the second circuit, carried away by well-wishers.
I danced until I had no breath left. A brat tapped me on the arm. When I turned, I recognized one of the younger ones. She’d joked with me in the kitchen a while back, and I’d shared dorm space with her until my naming day. Her small, dirty face reflected the same kind of admiration I’d felt. I remembered her number too.
Her eyes lit when I said, “What’s up, Twenty-six?”
“Do you think I could ever learn to fight like you?”
“If you work hard and don’t skip lessons, I think you could.”
She confided, “I don’t want to be a yucky old Breeder.”
“I don’t blame you. You can do it, if you want it enough.” Once, those words would’ve meant the world to me. The new bloods were busy trying to impress the older ones, and experienced Hunters had no time for brats.
After 26 ran off, I followed the other Hunters back to the section of the warren they’d appropriated as their own. Nobody else dared come in here. I’d never even been in here, as a matter of fact, although I could have. Torches lit the darkness and the Builders, understanding our importance, had filled the space with proper chairs and cushions. This was the nicest section of the enclave by far, even better than what I’d seen of the elders’ area — unless they had hidden comforts.
Making sure not to look at Fade, I sat down beside Crane, who flashed me a grin. “No hard feelings, new blood?”
“No,” I said, smiling back.
They dealt me into a game they were playing, and I basked in the simple pleasure of being one of them. Deuce. Huntress. This was the best day of my life.
Countless hours later, Silk tugged me aside, wearing a smile. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t ask what I was thanking her for. It only mattered that I spoke the words.
“I run them.” She gestured all the assembled Hunters, who had surrounded Fade to congratulate him. “I told them the two of you are forgiven and part of the team again — that you’ve done your penance, and I don’t expect any more trouble out of you.” She paused. “I won’t get any, will I?”
Ah. I got it now. She wanted me to know Fade had been accepted, because she ordered it, and if I enjoyed the pleasure of being a Hunter, it was only because of her. Which meant I wasn’t to spout off about Nassau or the Freaks or the Burrowers, if I wanted to enjoy such simple things. My job wasn’t to think or to plan. I was a Huntress — and new blood at that. Leave the important stuff to the elders. The more I got to know Silk, outside of the hero worship that lasted through my brat-hood, the less I liked her. But maybe she had to be this way to keep everyone in line.
I shook my head. “We’ll follow orders, sir.”
Sacrifice
For several weeks, morale stayed high. Patrols passed with relative ease, we met the meat quota, and I enjoyed being a Huntress. Apart from the occasional clash with Freaks, things stayed quiet. I had the awful feeling that once they stopped gorging on Nassau, they would head for the next nearest enclave. Us. Still, I kept my misgivings to myself.
When I least expected it, disaster struck. But not in the way I thought.
Fade and I were among the last to return from patrol that day. We had to range wider than usual to fill our bags. Half the snares sat empty, worrisome enough, but we managed to take enough prey to justify calling ourselves Hunters. We also dropped a couple of Freaks, but I hardly called that a deed worth mentioning. These had been near death, nothing but skin and bone and bloody teeth.
When we clambered across the barricades, I knew instantly something was wrong. The guards stood facing away from their posts, for one thing. They barely glanced back at us to make sure we were human before returning to the common area just beyond.
I glanced at Fade, who hefted his bag in a shrug. We put the meat in a pile with the rest — Twist would tend to it later — and inched closer to hear what was going on. The Wordkeeper held court with Whitewall and Copper standing to either side. They had a big sandy-haired guy trapped at the center of the circle. Everyone had stopped work to watch events unfold. My movement drew the Wordkeeper’s eye and he smiled at me, as if we shared a secret.
“You stand accused of theft and hoarding,” Whitewall said, his voice hard.
“How do you plead?” Copper asked.
“I didn’t. I would never!”
Oh, no. Even before I cut around enough to recognize his face in profile, I knew Stone’s voice. He cradled a brat in one arm, his face drawn with terror.
“Silk found this hidden beneath your pallet.” The Wordkeeper held up one of the slim, colorful books I’d brought. “You were seen lurking around the archives. Can you offer any explanation before we sentence you?”
Tears streamed down my friend’s face. The brat in his arms caught his mood and started to cry in little gulping sniffs. “It’s not mine. I don’t know how it got there.”
Watching them, I knew. With a terrible growing sickness, I knew. Skittle probably hadn’t done anything, either. Every so often, they picked a citizen at random. They put artifacts in his private spa
ce and then they accused him of hoarding. They needed the consequences to be fresh in everyone else’s mind. This was how they kept us from questioning their decisions. I’d once believed the elders to be benevolent and wise.
But no more.
Stone had no chance Topside and he had a brat. He’d sired one; it could be the boy tucked into the curve of his arm. I couldn’t watch this happen. If the tunnel brat haunted me, there was no way I could live with watching my friend’s exile.
“That’s no defense against the evidence,” Whitewall said.
“It’s mine.” I spoke before I knew I meant to.
Unfriendly hands shoved me toward the center. I stumbled and then restored my balance, approaching with my heart thumping like mad. I didn’t want to do this; I couldn’t be doing this. I didn’t want to leave the only home I’d ever known.
The Wordkeeper narrowed his eyes on me. “You claim you stole it? After presenting yourself as a model citizen?” His tight expression said he knew I’d done nothing of the kind.
“Then how did it wind up in Stone’s private space?” Silk demanded.
I don’t know what I would’ve said, but Fade pushed forward then. No, don’t do this. Stay and be safe. In that moment, I tried to will him not to speak. I even shook my head, but he didn’t look at me.
He focused on the elders. “I put it there. I was jealous of their friendship, and I wanted him to be blamed for what she’d done.”
After the initial gasp, silence.
I could see them weighing the benefit of seeing two former heroes brought low, two sacrifices for the price of one. Fade had proven the best Hunter among us, so he would make an excellent example. See, they would say. Anyone can stray. That is why constant vigilance and obedience is so important. They conferred far too short a time, unlike after my naming day. This was serious, and someone had to pay.
Whitewall said, “I accept your confession. From this moment forth, you are banished, stripped of your titles, and will be offered no aid or shelter by any College citizen, on penalty of exile. Go Topside, lawbreakers.”
Though I had expected it, the weight of the pronouncement crushed me. I tried to catch Thimble’s eye but she turned away. One by one, everyone else did the same. As a brat, I’d taken part in a shunning; I just hadn’t realized how it felt. I’d been secure in my status. Every year, I realized. We sent people Topside every single year.
With some part of me, I recognized they’d targeted Stone as a warning. Because I cared about him, because we’d been brat-mates. It was a reminder to keep silent about anything I might’ve learned from Banner or Fade. They couldn’t have expected me to react like this. Even I couldn’t believe it.
Stone wore a bewildered look, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. He patted the brat on the back and dried his tears while staring at me with mute hurt. We’d been through so much together. Did he truly think I—
“Thief,” he spat and turned his back, like the others.
He didn’t know I’d saved him. There would be no acknowledgment of the sacrifice. The knowledge rendered me numb.
“You have five minutes,” Silk said. “You will not be permitted to take our food or water. We will allow you your personal effects, but you will be searched before leaving the enclave for the last time.”
Her eyes reflected a sad, quiet awareness of what I’d done. Of what Fade had done. Though I didn’t like her, I didn’t believe this was her policy; she merely enforced it. I knew why I’d spoken up for Stone; I was less sure of Fade’s reasons for getting involved. Whatever they were, he now had no choice but to follow me into the exile.
With shaking hands, I put my few belongings in the bag I took on patrols: spare clothing, my blanket, the tin of salve Banner had made, and a few of my shiny baubles. All told, there wasn’t much. That left only my weapons, and I strapped them on feeling hopeless and heartsick.
Twist stopped me on the way and tugged me into his private space. I’d never seen it before. “We don’t have much time.” He rummaged in his crate and came up with an item that looked like a leather harness. He filled the packets with dry meat and the pouches with water. “Here, put it on under your shirt.”
“They’ll kill you if they find out you’re helping me.”
His mouth curled. “Like they did Banner?”
“How do you know?”
“Who do you think deals with the dead?” Twist closed his eyes for a moment, but not before I saw his grief. Banner had been important to him. His hands curled into fists, and he slammed one against his palm. “Someone betrayed us.”
“Us?” This couldn’t be a trap, not at this point. But I still didn’t feel comfortable admitting what I knew.
“I’m one of the rebels.”
I froze, wondering if he, like Fade, suspected me of playing some part in Banner’s death. But he wouldn’t be helping me if he did. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d helped her, like you’re doing now.”
He shrugged then. “It’s not that big a risk. They’re going to kill me for what I do after you’re gone.”
For the first time, I looked at Twist and saw him as he was — not the cowed, scurrying figure who went to do Whitewall’s bidding. His eyes carried an angry fire; his shoulders might be narrow, but they were straight and sure. I almost asked what he was planning, but we didn’t have any time to waste.
“Don’t throw your life away,” I said softly. “Whatever you do, make it count.”
He nodded. “You were always nice to me, and Stone is a good person. I know he didn’t do this. Neither did you.”
“Nobody did,” I said softly.
Twist gave a jerky nod, stuck his head through the curtain to make sure there were no witnesses, and pushed me out. The harness made little shape against my shirt. With luck, the guards would only search my bag, not my person.
They spat on me as I passed through the warren toward the barricades. I lifted my chin and pretended not to see them. Fade met me there. We stood mute while they rifled through our things. Pin flung my bag at my head, and I caught it. I hardly dared breathe when she stepped close.
“You disgust me,” she said, low.
I said nothing. Like so many times before, Fade and I climbed across and left the enclave behind. But this time, we weren’t heading on patrol. No safety awaited us. Without thinking, without seeking a direction, I broke into a run.
I ran until the pain in my side matched the one in my heart. At length he grabbed me from behind and gave me a shake. “We’re not going to make it if you keep this up.”
A choked laugh escaped me. “Are you stupid? We’re not going to make it anyway. If Nassau died, what chance do we have? Why did you come with me? Now I have to feel bad about you too.”
“You’re my partner,” he said, as if the words meant something different.
“But you lied. I know you didn’t put the book in Stone’s space.”
“And I know you didn’t steal it.”
“He didn’t either,” I whispered. “And it wasn’t fair. It was them.”
“I know.”
“How long have you known?” Heartbreak and disillusionment cut me like shards of glass.
“Always,” he said simply.
“That explains why you hated them so much.”
He wrapped his arms around me and my first impulse was to push him away. But there were no rules anymore. I wasn’t a Huntress. Now I was just a girl with six scars on my arms. So I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart.
“You can’t look on this as a death sentence,” he said, after a moment.
“You really think we can survive?”
“Down here? Not for long. But Topside isn’t like they said, Deuce. It’s dangerous, true, but going up doesn’t mean instant death.”
My teeth chattered at the idea. I’d prepared my whole life for the dangers one faced in the tunnels. I knew nothing else. I tipped my head back as if I could gaze through the tons of metal and stone to the wonders h
e’d seen and the horrors he’d survived. The surface world sounded like a tale told to a brat during a quiet moment. I couldn’t imagine what it might be like up there.
“If you say so.”
“Come on. Let’s keep moving. We need to be out of their territory before the next patrol or we’ll have to fight any Hunters we see.”
I didn’t want that. By his expression, neither did he. “Did you kill Skittle?”
His silence served as its own answer.
“We’re not going to be down here long,” he said eventually. “Remember the platform where we slept that first night?”
The place with the horrible waste closet — yes, I remembered. I nodded.
“Well, the metal gate on the other end blocks off the stairs. Those lead Topside.”
“You think we can get it open.”
“If not, the Burrowers might know a way out. They have all kinds of subtunnels.”
I nodded. “We also need to warn them about trading with the enclave, assuming Twist told me the truth. We owe them that much.”
“Agreed.”
I fell in behind him. Fade set a bruising pace; I knew what he wanted — out of these tunnels. He could’ve left at anytime, but maybe he didn’t want to go alone. I could understand that.
With each stride, I left the known world behind.
Part Two
TOPSIDE
From the cellar she got into a long passage, into which the moon was shining, and came to a door. She managed to open it, and to her great joy found herself in the other place, not on the top of the wall, however, but in the garden she had longed to enter.
— George MacDonald, The Day Boy and the Night Girl
Unknown
The platform looked the same — with one notable exception. There were no Freak bodies, not even bones, just the smear of blood where they’d been dragged off. Ears sharp, we took a break for food and water, and then Fade strode over to the metal gate.
It had a lock on it, but the gate itself was old and rusted. He kicked it repeatedly until it finally bent and gave enough for us to slip through the gap between the gate and the wall. The fit required us to turn sideways and it scraped a little, but we made it.
