by Jaye Wells
“I know enough to know that you’re a damned fool if you think Icarus and Saga are going to let you go if you succeed.”
I crossed my arms. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that if you manage to blow up that mine, it will only make you a more powerful tool for the rebels. You think they’re using you now? Just wait until they can parade you in front of hungry humans as the woman who took down Krovgorod.”
I turned away from him. A large gap between two boards in the car’s wall gave me something to stare at to avoid my discomfort. The void was filled with a blurry landscape of the Badlands—a desolate landscape of gray dirt and skeletal trees. For an instant I thought it looked a lot like how I felt inside: barren. I wanted to yell at Zed and tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about. Icarus and Saga would keep their word. They had to. The alternative was unthinkable—
Cold air from the opening lashed at my face. The thin material of the prisoner’s uniform did little to protect my skin from the temperature. I looked down at the ground speeding by. At my feet, which were only eighteen inches from freedom.
“Carmina.” Zed’s voice was quiet, as if he worried that a louder tone would startle me into action. “Don’t even think about it.”
It would be so easy. So simple. So final. No more scratching out a pitiful existence, and for what? In the vain hope that one day I’d know the sweet flavor of freedom? I’d been so young when the vampires enslaved us that I couldn’t say I even knew what it tasted like. I imagined it tasted a lot like grapefruits—like sunshine and sweetness. But I was lying to myself, wasn’t I? Because if I were being honest, I’d also admit that there was plenty of sour too.
Freedom meant I couldn’t blame anyone else for how shitty my life was. It meant I had to make my own decisions. God, I was so tired.
“Carmina.” A warm hand touched my arm. A single spot of heat in a world gone totally cold. “Come here.”
I looked away from the blur of gray to the face of this boy I barely knew but was now bound to for survival.
“We can do this,” he said. His hand squeezed my arm. The touch felt real, more real than the nightmare out there—the desolation, the gray, the dead-end world. “We can and we will.”
I turned my head to look out the door again, but his hand grabbed my chin, refusing to let me be wooed by the promise of nothingness. He turned my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You have more power than you know.”
I jerked back out of his grasp. “You don’t know me.”
“I know that you use tough words to hide your fear. I know that you want nothing to do with fighting. I know that you fight anyway because it’s not in your nature to surrender.”
I looked away, my cheeks heating with shame.
“You wouldn’t have done it,” he said.
“How do you know?” I asked, looking at my feet.
“Because you could have killed yourself a thousand times while you were in the hands of the Troika. And since then, you know damned well no one could stop you if it’s what you really wanted.” He let those words sink in for a few moments. “But I also know that even if I’m right about Saga and Icarus, you will still find a way to claim the freedom you want so badly.”
I laughed, but the sound had no humor to it. “Oh yeah? How will I manage that?”
He shrugged. “Only one way to find out—unless you’re too scared to try.”
I’d only known Zed for a couple of days, but already he’d figured out the best way to motivate me. I hated him for that as much as I appreciated the kick in the ass. No matter what happened once we reached the camp, I wouldn’t let anyone tell me how to live anymore. I just had to survive long enough to be able to flip everyone the bird before I walked away.
Fifteen
Bravo
The train arrived at sunrise two days later.
I’d just started getting used to the reverse sleeping schedule, so when Matri shook me awake just after dawn, I had trouble reaching full consciousness.
“Rise and shine,” she whispered. “We have to take some of the children and go unload the train.”
The train meant meat, clean uniforms, and other rations. It was daytime, so our work unloading the cars would be overseen by some of the human guards, who I’d discovered were more sadistic than the vampires.
Since my talk with Matri, we’d been busy studying ways that we could make an escape possible. This involved stockpiling some supplies under the floorboards of the barracks and informing the other prisoners that they needed to be on the lookout for signs a breakout was imminent. The only problem was I had no idea what form those signs would come in—or when.
Beyond that, I’d spent most of the previous two days keeping an eye on Mica. Matri had made sure he hadn’t been drained of too much blood for his first bleeding, and also got him extra rations to restore his strength quickly. Granted, those extra rations were just extra potatoes, but it was better than what most of the prisoners had.
The human guard Matri called Judas stood outside the barracks with two other guards to lead us to the warehouse next to the train track. It wasn’t a long walk to the depot, but the guards took us through a part of camp I’d yet to see. The entrance to the mines was located in the northernmost quadrant. We passed nearby, and for the first time I saw the yawning black hole that swallowed most of the camp’s workers every night and day. Even though most of the activity in the camp happened at night, the miners dug and scraped and hauled twenty-four hours a day.
As we passed, a train that looked vaguely like a centipede was chugging toward the hole. Workers, their skin perpetually blackened from coal dust, packed the seats and stared grimly into the mine, which gaped like an empty eye socket.
The previous shift emerged from the hole in a single-file line. Their hair, their skin, and their uniforms—all black. Only their eyes, painfully white, gave any relief to the all-black canvas.
My steps faltered as I gawped, but I quickly received the stab of a gun muzzle to my back as a reminder to keep moving. Honestly, I was relieved to leave them behind. Those artificially bright orbs set in pitch-black faces would haunt my dreams. Even if they got free from the camp, there’s no way they’d live long enough to enjoy their freedom. They were the walking dead.
Soon enough, we reached the warehouse that was set on a raised platform next to the train tracks. The last time I’d been there was the day we arrived at the camp in cattle cars. This train wasn’t here to deliver people, but supplies, so they were all solid metal shipping cars.
A handful of humans whose camp jobs fell under more administrative labor were standing on the platform with clipboards bearing shipping manifests. They directed the workflow for us and all the other prisoners who had been recruited to unload the train. Matri took a small group of children toward the livestock car to begin the process of counting heads of pigs and chickens. Meanwhile, I was instructed to take my group of children toward a car filled with uniforms. We were to count the boxes inside and report them to the administrators before delivering the uniforms to the warehouse for storage.
The door to our car was already cracked open. I thought nothing of this as I pushed it open and shooed the children inside, eager to get started. I’d spent the previous day helping the youngs pick potatoes, and the change of pace appealed to me.
I’d taken two steps inside when a high gasp sounded from one of the children. Before I could locate the source of the sound, an arm wrapped around my throat. Then a woman’s voice—low and mean—hissed in my ear. “Do not scream.”
I swallowed against the knot of fear in my throat but managed to nod.
“Good. Now tell the brats to calm the fuck down. We’re not going to hurt you unless the guards come running.”
I looked across the way to where the three children I’d brought into the car huddled together, whimpering. I held a finger to my lips. Meanwhile, my brain was spinning, trying to catch up. If this person was worried about the guards comi
ng then she wasn’t a friend of the Troika’s. But was she an ally?
“I’m Bravo,” I said.
A shadow moved to my right. A male shape emerged from behind two crates. A shaft of light cut through the open doors and caught his face.
I nearly collapsed in relief, but the damned arm against my windpipe tightened. “Not so fast.”
“Six,” Zed hissed. “It’s her—this is Bravo.”
The arm suddenly disappeared and I stumbled. Zed’s arms crushed me to him. I didn’t fall apart. No sobs broke free from my chest. But I grabbed onto him so hard that he finally whispered in an amused tone, “You’re hurting me.”
I pulled back a few inches to see that his eyes were shiny with tears. “Pussy,” I said.
He chuckled and pulled me in for another hug. “I’m so glad you’re alive.” He pushed me back again to look at my face. “Mica?”
I bit my lip. It was too soon to tell him about the bleeding, but technically the young was okay as could be, given the situation. “He’s okay. We’ve been taken in by a woman who oversees the child laborers.” My stomach twisted with excitement and fear. Excitement because I never would have imagined Zed would come so fast, but fear because his arrival meant things had just gotten way more dangerous for everyone. “I told her you’d come.” I grabbed his shoulders and squeezed. “I knew you’d come for us.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a wobbly sideways grin. “I’m sorry it took so long. I was worried you’d already broken out.”
An annoyed-sounding throat cleared behind us. “If the touching reunion is over, we’ve got work to do.”
I turned to look at the woman who’d had me in a headlock. From the physical assault and the bitchiness, I figured she’d be six feet tall and ugly. Turns out I was half right. She was barely taller than me—probably five-eight, but she looked like someone had beaten her with the ugly stick. Pale scalp peeked out between the dark stubble on her head. Her right eye was swollen almost totally shut. The other one had fared only slightly better, in that it was swollen but a bloodshot pupil was clearly visible. Her lip was split and her jaw was covered in purple bruises. The wounds distorted her face too much to tell what she’d looked like before she lost the fight.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
She snorted. “I’m Carmina.”
Zed stiffened next to me, and I looked up at him to see what was wrong. He gave the female a look I couldn’t read. She just cocked her head at him, as if in challenge. Finally, she looked at me. “And you’re Bravo.”
I nodded toward her swollen face. “Who beat your ass?”
“Someone a lot tougher than you, little girl.”
“All right,” Zed said. “I swear, if you both had dicks you’d be measuring them.”
I didn’t like this Carmina. I knew this was not a rational reaction to have about someone who had come to help save my ass, so I decided to push down my hostility. “Sorry, it’s been a shitty week,” I said.
Her lips quirked into a smile, as if I’d surprised her. And just like that, the tension dissipated. “How many guards?” She nodded toward the door.
“Three. Humans. All have rifles.”
She nodded. “We’ll wait until the unloading gets under way and blend into the crowd.”
Sixteen
Meridian Six
An hour later, we entered Matri’s domain. Sneaking off the train was easier than I’d expected, but the human guards who made up the Troika’s day shift were lazy fools. They leaned against the train depot like slugs, smoking cigarettes and gossiping like old ladies. Bravo had led us and the children into the warehouse to deliver the boxes of uniforms before leading us right out the back door.
We’d met Matri on the path to the barracks. She’d given each of us a once-over with her miss-nothing gaze and nodded. “All right,” she said. “All right.”
Then she’d lowered her head to listen to one of the children. She’d listened to the girl as if the young was an oracle delivering our fates when in fact she’d only been asking Matri when they’d have their next meal. “Soon, sugar. Soon.” Then she’d run her hand over the child’s greasy hair and smiled like they were in a park on a picnic instead of walking through a death camp.
Sure, Icarus had told me that Krovgorod was a labor camp. He’d explained how the mining operation worked and how the rest of the prisoners each had shifts in different sections of the camp, but being there put the entire operation in a different light. For one thing, the people were walking corpses. So thin. And their skin was either gray from the constant plume of ashes from the main warehouse’s furnaces or pitch black from the coalmines.
The barracks she led us to wasn’t much larger than the train car we’d so recently abandoned. The wooden structure was filled with rows of rough-hewn bunk beds. The air stank of body odor and urine. There was no light. No hope. It was little better than a tomb. Stepping inside, I looked at Zed, who’d gone pale. He shot a look at Bravo, who tried to smile, but it came out wobbly, as if she was ashamed for us to see how they’d been living.
But instead of pity, I felt anger. Icarus had warned me the conditions would be bad—subhuman. But nothing prepared me to see thirty-odd children living like livestock in a wooden pen. Their dirty faces had long forgotten how to smile and as they watched us enter, their faces were blank, as if they’d also forgotten how to hope.
“I’ve sent a couple of the children to round up the camp leaders.”
I walked to a long wooden table near the front of the room. My fingers itched for a gun. The minute I’d walked into that room I’d lost the illusion of being a tourist in the camp. The instant Zed and I had revealed ourselves, we’d committed to being prisoners too. I just hoped it was a temporary situation rather than a permanent one.
Zed didn’t join me at the table. Instead, he joined Bravo and a small boy. He knelt down so the kid, who couldn’t have been older than ten, could squeeze his arms around Zed’s neck. As the boy reached for him, I spotted wounds on the inside of his elbow. Perfect little puncture marks like a needle—or fangs—would make.
The sight made my stomach cramp with disgust. The guards didn’t waste their time helping themselves to the fresh blood.
Matri saw me staring and sidled closer. “What’s your name?
I glanced at her, surprised she didn’t recognize me, but then I remembered the state of my face. “Carmina.”
Her eyes widened. “Carmina Sargosa?” she whispered, looking around to be sure no one else heard.
I froze. “You’ve heard that name?” Most of the humans I’d run into had heard of Meridian Six because of the Troika’s propaganda campaign. Carmina Sargosa—the name my mother had given me—was a name even the rebels refused to use because they believed it lacked the power of my Troika-given name.
Matri nodded. “I’ve seen your face every day for the last decade.” A rueful look crept over her face. “Although I wouldn’t have recognized you looking like this.”
I touched the bruises on my cheek. “We were afraid the guards would recognize me.”
She nodded. “Smart. You two got a plan?”
Her segue was so abrupt it took me a moment to respond. “Blow shit up and run.”
She laughed out loud. “No, really.”
I stared at her long enough for it to sink in that I wasn’t joking.
“Where are your bombs, then, girl?”
“The mines. Someone has to know where the dynamite is kept.”
Matri snorted. “We all know where they are. You think we don’t? The problem is getting past the bats and the guards.”
“Look, I got a train and a plan to blow up the mines. You got a better plan, I’d like to hear it.”
She crossed her arms. “Thought you’d come with more.”
“Lady, do you have any idea the risk we took just sneaking the two of us inside?”
“I do,” she said. “I just hope it’s enough. Because if we don’t figure out how to get out of here
by sundown, you’re going to be joining our little resort permanently.”
I frowned. “Why sundown?”
“When the vampires emerge from their underground bunkers at sundown, the first thing they do is take a roll call of all the prisoners.”
Cold sweat broke out on my back. Icarus hadn’t mentioned that detail. “Shit.”
“You got that right, girlie.” She started to say something else, but at that moment, three other people walked in the door. A very tall man of Asian origin entered first. The woman was unremarkable except for the bright red skin of her hands. The second man worked in the mines, which I knew instantly from the artificial blackness of his skin.
“Ah, here they are,” Matri said, moving to greet them. “This is Wu.”
The Asian guy came forward. “My name is Alex. Everyone here just calls me Wu because they’re ignorant.”
I ignored the jab at his fellow prisoners. “Nice to meet you, Alex.”
Matri snorted, as if she thought he was joking, but it was clear from his expression he was not. “Anyway, this is Cleo, she runs the wash house, where they clean the guard’s uniforms.” I nodded to the woman with red hands as Matri turned to the final man. “And this is Tuck, he obviously works the mines.”
He tipped down his chin, but made no other move to greet me. It was hard not to stare at his black skin and white eyes, so I forced my gaze to return to Matri.
“This is Carmina Sargosa. You may have heard her called Meridian Six.”
My stomach dipped. I’d hoped to keep my real identity a secret. If any of the guards caught us and found out who I really was, this was going to go from dangerous to downright suicidal. “Actually, it’s probably best if we all avoid mentioning that.”
Before Matri could respond, Alex spoke. “The Troika’s whore? What the hell is she doing here, Matri? She’s a spy.”
“No,” I said, “I’m not. I escaped the Troika months ago and went underground. I’ve been working for the rebels ever since.” There was no point asking if any of them had heard about the attack on the factory. I was pretty sure the Troika would do everything in their power to keep the prisoners from hearing any news from the outside—especially when it involved embarrassment for the vampires.
