by Ann Aguirre
“I know.” He followed me back into the shop, where I walked along the shelves finding things I might be able to use. Some of them even looked like they might be suitable for tending wounds.
Fade winced when I unwrapped the cloth strips. I tried to be careful, but the dried blood made it stick. With perfect gravity, I stared at the way they’d made the cuts run parallel to his Hunter marks. Now he bore twelve. Part of me wished I could seal them properly, so his arms would say to anyone, I’m twice the Hunter you are. But Topside such symbols were meaningless. They were just scars. Nobody would admire him for having more. I hated that loss too.
Head bent, I washed his wounds and applied the salve Banner had given me. The primitive part of me didn’t think I should use it — whatever power she had given to its making would fail because of her death. But it was all we had, and I wanted him to heal.
He didn’t show further signs of discomfort. I sliced up one of the shirts for bandages, and turned the soft white side to his cuts. The outside was slick like the clothing I wore, and should keep the rain out. It seemed like a very useful fabric. Too bad the making of it had been lost. But then, everything I knew was lost too. I felt like I must learn everything again, like a brat, or face painful consequences.
When I finished tying the cloth, I looked up to tell him he could go, only to find a steely, fixed expression on his face. He didn’t look away. His hands came up to frame my face, warm against my cheeks. Before he bent his head, I knew what he was going to do. Touch his lips to mine. Oh, and I wanted him to. He left me the chance to back away and break his hold. I stilled, hardly daring to breathe. The old refrain of can’t and shouldn’t sank beneath the weight of new words like, please and yes.
This time I did wrap my arms around his neck. I met him on raised toes and melted into him. I breathed his breath and tasted the essence of him. He was the heat of a fire and the sweetness of the moon I’d only just met. No wonder Breeders were so cheerful, I thought, breathless.
“I never belonged anywhere until I met you,” he said, resting his cheek against my hair.
“I thought I did.”
Remembering the enclave gave me a pang. I would always miss Stone and Thimble. I would worry about Twist and hope the brats were doing well, especially Girl26. But it wasn’t my place. I knew that now. There was a reason besides pity I had sacrificed myself for Stone.
“And now?”
I couldn’t lie to him. “I was born there. I expected to die there. If I’d never left, I think I would’ve been content. I believed what they told me about the surface. When we started climbing that day, I thought I’d die of fear.”
“Not you,” he said. “I’ve never seen you defeated. You were so determined to prove to everyone you deserved to be a Huntress, when nobody questioned it but you.”
That astonished me. “What do you mean?”
“You were among the best. If not for Crane’s physical strength, you would’ve been facing me in the finals. But I think you doubted it because from the beginning you didn’t have the same hardness as the rest of the Hunters. It’s not easy for you.”
“No,” I said softly, thinking of the blind brat we’d failed to save.
“And that’s why I—”
Before he could finish his thought, Tegan found us. “So this is where you two are hiding.”
The moment was broken, so I led the way back to the room with the sofas, where we’d left the can of cherries. I handed her the open tin. “Try it.”
“It looks—oh.” After one wary taste, like me, she dug in with hooked fingers.
I saw why Fade had enjoyed watching me eat. Her pleasure was contagious and it found its way to my face in a quiet smile. We let her finish the rest; I figured she deserved something sweet.
“I have a couple more in here. Why don’t you bolt us in for the night?” While Fade locked the door, I rummaged in my bag. “Let’s see what else is for dinner.”
The first can we popped open smelled fishy, but not rancid. Over the years, I’d grown fairly expert at detecting whether such food could be safely eaten. Judging by the color and texture, this actually was fish. The three of us divided it up. I knew we would need the energy, no telling how long before we’d eat so well again. I also had a tin that read, “Mixed Vegetables.” The multicolored stuff in there tasted none too good, and it was mushy, but it filled our bellies.
“Thanks for taking me with you,” Tegan said.
Fade sighed. “Don’t thank us yet. We’re heading north. By the time the journey’s done, you might wish you’d stayed with the Wolves. We don’t know what’s out there.”
“I’d like to find out.” Her look held a sweet kind of hunger, a longing that didn’t devour, only the need for truth.
I understood that look. Since I had let go of the possibility I could change everything for the brats, I had begun to throb with the desire to understand why things happened, why some people lived under the ground, like our enclave, the Freaks, and the Burrowers, and why some stayed Topside and turned into the greatest monsters of all.
“Do you still have that book?” Fade asked me.
Wordless, I laid hands on it in my bag and gave it to him. The light shining through the distant window was sufficient to see the pages. Without asking if we were interested, he opened it and began to read. I listened until my eyes grew heavy, and I slumped over onto his legs. I dreamed of boys who gleamed red-gold, and girls with shadows in their skin.
Pearl
It took us two days to find the part of the ruins where Fade thought his father’s friend had lived. We traveled in the dark and avoided the gangers as best we could. The markings helped with that, and we stayed away from the areas that bore the most paint. Still, it was slow going.
The air smelled different here, sharper, stronger. Each open-mouth breath tasted of that salty, tinned fish. Tegan noticed it too; she lifted her face and then took off. Fade called to her, but she ignored him. I ran after her because I wanted to know what was causing the change too. We drew up short when the world ended. Below, a sharp drop, down to loose earth, and beyond that, water. I had never seen anything like it or even imagined; it met the sky for vastness. In the distance, they kissed in whispering shades of blue, deepening as the stars twinkled in reflected light. I drew in my breath, overcome.
“Have you seen this before?” I whispered to Fade.
“Once. But I wasn’t sure I remembered right. I thought I might have dreamed it.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw him half his height, clinging to his sire’s hand and watching the water tear high against the rocks. I saw no ending to it, just this beginning, or perhaps I had it wrong, and this was the ending of all things. Certainly it felt that way to me, as I gazed in aching silence, and refused to weep for the wonders the enclave brats would never see.
And so I saw the sun come up completely for the first time, rising over the water until it shone with a reflected light that arrowed toward me. I didn’t know how long we stood there, rapt, but eventually Fade tugged on my hand. I hadn’t even realized he was holding it. His fingers were strong and sure. Tegan looked dazed; perhaps it was only weariness.
“I hope we didn’t get you lost,” she said.
Fade shook his head. “No, I recognize that, actually.”
“That” was a building, oddly shaped with a walkway that wrapped around it. Unlike most, it looked like rotten wood, long since given way and hanging in chunks. He continued north from there, following the water until we came to a short red structure. It had a few letters painted on it, but most had peeled away, leaving only the cryptic message OLEA L U GE. I didn’t know what it meant, but Fade seemed sure of himself. He went to the side of the building, where steps led down to a door. The windows here had all been barred with heavy black metal.
He rapped urgently as the day grew brighter. I still didn’t like being out in the sun, so I got out the glasses that shaded my eyes. It grew progressively warmer until I could feel it prickling on
my skin. Fade banged on the door forever and then pulled a string that dangled from the top. We stood outside for a long while.
“Go away!” A female voice shouted eventually.
“Pearl?”
At last part of the door slid open, just enough for the person inside to see us. “Who are you?”
“My father knew yours. You’re Oslo’s daughter? We came to see you.”
She spoke a word that I didn’t catch as the sliding metal clanged shut. I heard the sound of her unfastening many bolts and chains, and then the door swung open. “Get inside, quickly.”
We did as she asked.
She led us down endless flights of stairs to a solid metal door. She unlocked it and as we went in, I took in the place with wide eyes. Everything was clean. New looking. She had relics that looked as if they had just been made the day before. I recognized some of the items: sofa, chair, table, but the rest puzzled me. She also had a whole room devoted to supplies.
“It’s been a long time,” Fade said. “You’ve changed.”
His smile held layers that I didn’t like. Of course Pearl had changed. It had been at least six years since he’d seen her. She was his age, or a little older, and she was pretty. Clean. Her pale hair shone like stars, and her eyes were green as the water we’d marveled at only moments before. And her skin, her skin lacked the sickly pallor that was my legacy from a life underground. Instead it glowed with delicate warmth.
Pearl took in his scars. “So have you. Where did you go?”
“Down below.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I’ve heard they’re little better than animals.”
Funny. I thought the same thing about most Topsiders I encountered. Tegan touched my hand in silent sympathy, and I set my jaw.
“They’re not so bad,” he said. “At least, not all of them.”
I stepped forward and pasted on a false smile. We were in her home, after all. The least I could do was be polite. “I’m Deuce, animal from the underground.”
She had the courtesy to display chagrin. “I’m sorry. I don’t get many visitors.”
“Do you never go out?” Tegan asked. She had to be wondering why gangers hadn’t snatched Pearl yet.
“Not often. I have just about everything I need here.”
Fade nodded. “Your father left you well supplied.”
Apparently his hadn’t, or I would never have met him. All of a sudden, I wanted to know more about him, more than Pearl or anyone else would ever know. But this wasn’t the time or place. I’d had my chance to ask questions, and somehow I still didn’t know as much as I wanted to about him.
“Yes,” Pearl said. “I’m lucky. His great-grandfather built a bunker down here, a long time ago. They were scared of the world blowing up, or something.”
The word “bunker” was unfamiliar to me, but I didn’t ask for a definition, as I might have done from Fade, if we’d been alone. I had the inexplicable impression that I shouldn’t show weakness in front of Pearl, as if it might incite her to a feeding frenzy like a Freak. Tegan watched her with wary eyes, I think for different reasons. She simply didn’t trust people; I wasn’t sure she would’ve trusted us, except that we’d fought together, and that tended to create faster bonds.
“I was hoping you could help us,” he said.
She smiled. “For Stepan’s son … anything.”
Encouraged and plainly pleased, he went on, “We need to sleep and then we’d like to look at his old maps, if it’s all right.”
“I have them boxed up. I don’t have much room, I’m afraid, but you’re welcome to my bed. They can bed down on the floor here.” To us, she added, “You have blankets?” Her courtesy was false; it tasted like bad meat.
She didn’t want Tegan or me sleeping on her floor or under her roof. Fade didn’t seem to notice. He followed her into the other room, where they spoke in low voices. She told him how lonely she’d been. In the silence that followed, I knew he was hugging her and they were sharing childhood memories.
Since Tegan didn’t have her own blanket, she had to share mine. That meant lying close and wrapping up together. I didn’t mind. It reminded me of sharing space in the brat dorm. It cured some of my homesickness.
“I don’t like her,” Tegan whispered. “Why are we here?”
I explained what the library was and why we wanted to go there. She listened with a frown building between her brows. When I finished, she asked, “Does it matter why anything happened? I thought you were leaving and going north. That’s what I want — out of this place.”
“We are,” I said. “But we want to find answers first. I thought if we knew what happened, we might be able to prepare better for what’s out there.”
“That makes sense,” she acknowledged.
I lay back and gazed at the gray ceiling. “I don’t know anything about this world. Well, nothing but what Fade tells me. And sometimes he doesn’t seem sure either because he’s spent years underground.”
“I might be able to answer some questions,” she said.
After thinking a bit, I settled on, “Your mom wasn’t a ganger?”
“No. She and my dad were part of a small group that managed to stay hidden. It wasn’t just us, at first. But people got sick. My dad died first. My mom was the last to go. And then it was only me.”
Fade said his dad got sick too. A common thread?
“There was a disease in the enclave, a long time ago. The elders told us about a time when nearly everybody died of it. Do you think it was the same thing?”
Tegan shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Do you know why you didn’t get it?”
“I wish I did. When the Wolves had me, I asked myself why I didn’t die too.”
Her mind surprised me. In the enclave, I’d never questioned why some brats lived and some died. There seemed no pattern to it. Sometimes brats I thought were small or frail, like Twist, would wind up thriving. Sometimes a strong, hardy one died in his sleep. The world made no sense at all.
“Maybe it was to make you stronger,” I suggested.
“It did.” She rolled on her side to face me, her eyes angry. “That’s why I’ll be watching that girl. I won’t give anyone a chance to hurt me again.”
I was glad she’d said it. Now I didn’t have to wrestle with the uncomfortable suspicion that I didn’t like Pearl simply because she knew more about Fade than I did. We listened to them talking until Tegan fell asleep. Rest wouldn’t come for me, though. I kept waiting for something — a bad something — and expectancy coiled me tight.
Eventually, I slept. I dreamed of Stone and Thimble. When I woke, I wondered what they were doing, whether they missed me at all or if they still nursed righteous indignation about my exile. I missed them, regardless. They had been my best friends from the first.
That morning, I also discovered we’d been right to dislike Pearl. Her voice carried from the other room; I’m sure she didn’t know I was awake.
“You can stay as long as you like, of course, for old time’s sake. But I don’t have enough food to provide for your friends. I’m sorry.”
Fade said, “Don’t worry, we won’t be long. I just need to finish looking over these maps.”
So he was already working on finding the library. Good. I started to sit up, and then froze at her next words.
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Pearl said softly. “I’ve thought of you often. I know your father wouldn’t want you to leave me alone.”
There was something off about her, something wrong, and not just because she was trying to talk him into abandoning me. I thought being by herself might’ve driven her crazy. I didn’t like the way she looked at Fade.
His tone was gentle, almost conciliatory. “You’ve been fine all these years. Deuce can’t make it without me.”
I set my jaw. I didn’t want him sticking with me out of pity. With Tegan’s knowledge of the surface, and my ability to fight, we’d probably be fine. I almost said so, but then I’d have to adm
it I was pretending to be asleep so I could listen to them.
“Safe doesn’t mean fine. I’m lonely, Semyon.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said. “He died in the dark. And maybe what I meant when I said that about Deuce is I don’t want to do without her.”
Oh. My heart made that funny little turn again, as if I were frightened, but it was better and warmer than that.
“I see.” Her voice went sharp and hard, covering hurt or some darker emotion. “Then whenever you’re ready to go.”
“I’m set. Thanks for your hospitality and the use of your father’s maps.”
I sat up then and nudged Tegan. Her hair tumbled into her face, making her look younger than she had before, too young to have suffered what she had with the gangers. Maybe she’d never be Stone or Thimble, but I already knew we would be close friends.
“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome,” I muttered.
She assessed me and then whispered, “Did you hear him?”
Mutely I nodded, and her smile made me feel both pleased and ridiculous. It shouldn’t matter that he’d picked me, but … it did. From her expression, she knew it. I wondered that she could trust us, even a little bit. Maybe, like Jengu, she didn’t trust anyone completely, but we were better than anything she’d known since her family died.
By the time he came out of the back room, Tegan and I were ready to go. We both mouthed the right words to Pearl, but she just wanted us gone. I’m sure she felt rejected by Fade, but she hadn’t spent long nights in the tunnels with him, or guarded his back when Freaks were determined to eat him. All she had to offer were maps, and he didn’t need those forever. Apparently, he did need me. I quietly savored the feeling.
Outside, the night was chilly. My breath puffed from between my lips and I blew it out several times to make sure it wasn’t a coincidence. The shirt I wore had an extra bit of fabric at the back so I tugged it up and was pleased to find it covered my head. Tegan did the same, as we wore matching clothes, just in different colors.
Fade guided the way back toward the water. I heard it and smelled it before I saw it. Instead of going down toward the wider body, he turned toward a narrow channel that angled into the land itself.
