“What? No ‘thank you?’” Terra inquired tersely. She peeled off from the wall, prowling toward her like a stalking cat. Evie lodged herself between them before things got heated.
“Not now,” the techi warned sharply, her palms pressed to their sternums. The two girls glowered at each other but did not resist. They both knew she was right. “Trip!” Evie called desperately. “Get your shiny ass up here!”
Scuffling sounds rose from the elevator shaft, punctuated by a muffled curse. Then two tawny hands appeared at the edge of the floor. Roark dragged himself up, wincing visibly as his injured shoulder strained. “Terra,” he greeted the agent as he clambered to his feet. “You’re looking terrible. James should be fine, by the way.”
“Guys, we need to split,” Samson broke in before Terra could respond. Ronja glanced over at the captain. He was as grim as she had ever seen him, his blue eyes drained of their usual mirth. He carried his title well. “Wilcox will be here any second.”
“Doubt it.” The entire party shifted its focus to Terra. She gave a lazy smile. “Wilcox may have some trouble getting out through the sewers. We should have about fifteen minutes, thirteen since Trip took his sweet time getting up here.”
“What did you do?” Evie asked, her thick brows disappearing beneath false bangs. Terra grinned, the first genuine smile Ronja had seen her wear since their escape from Red Bay.
“Another time,” she answered coyly. “We still need to get out of here now.”
Ronja narrowed her eyes, the comment having lit her short fuse. She crossed her arms over her chest, a challenge. “What makes you think we’re taking you with us?”
“Ronja,” Roark warned in a low voice.
“You think we should take her with us after what she did?” she demanded, rounding on him. If he was intimidated by her thunderous expression, he did an excellent job hiding it.
“I mean,” Iris spoke up tentatively. “She did save us.”
“Wilcox will exile her if we leave her,” Evie tacked on.
“Or worse,” Sam muttered darkly.
Ronja bristled, her nostrils flaring. She was vastly outnumbered and they did not have time to deliberate. She threw up her hands in defeat, then jabbed a finger at Terra. “If you betray us, I’ll kill you.” Her insides vaulted at the words, especially since she knew they were true.
“And if it turns out your voice is useless, I’ll bring you to Wilcox myself,” Terra replied easily.
Ronja opened her mouth to bite back but a hand on her shoulder gave her pause. She looked up at Roark, seething. His eyes were steady as a still lake. Calm down, he reminded her silently. “Mouse is in a truck at Hill and 61st,” he said, turning his gaze on the rest of their group. “We leave in groups of two. Sam and Ro will go first.”
“What?” Ronja yelped, turning around to face him directly.
“Thanks,” Samson muttered.
“You and I are far too recognizable as a pair,” he explained gently. At this angle, their faces were scarcely a breath apart. She could smell the musk of his hair, see the tiny freckles that dappled his cheekbones. “We’ll all be safer this way.”
Her heart wilted. He was right, of course. Going out alone was dangerous enough. Together, they were a beacon for trouble.
Roark continued. “Iris and Evie will go next, Terra and I will follow last.”
“Great,” Terra mumbled
Roark shot her a sour look, then moved on. “Keep your heads low, and whatever happens, do not run.” A wave of nods rippled through the knot of Anthemites. A gust of brutal wind threw itself against the walls of the station. Ronja shivered. It had nothing to do with the cold.
Samson zipped his jacket, then stepped toward Ronja. She practically had to lean back to make eye contact with him. “You ready, partner?” he asked.
No. “Yeah.”
Evie reached out and punched her on the bicep. Iris touched her elbow. Roark gave her shoulder another quick squeeze. The ghost of his touch burned through her overcoat. With any luck, that warmth would carry her through the streets unscathed. Ronja glanced over at Samson, who was already halfway to the back door. He had pulled a knit cap over his shaggy blonde hair and was digging for something in his pocket.
With a final glance at her friends, Ronja hiked up her pack and followed.
The exit from the aboveground station was unremarkable to say the least. That was the point. While she understood the strategy, sometimes it shocked her how easy it would be for an Off to break down the wooden door and walk straight in. All that protected them was the power of suggestion, a member of the guard posing as a sap addict, and a keypad with a shifting code that locked the elevator.
A chill passed through her. The faces of her cousins, of Charlotte, flared in her psyche. How much time did they have before the Belly turned from a haven to a tomb?
Ronja came to a halt behind Samson. His callused hand was frozen on the brass doorknob. Unlike Roark, the captain was prized by the resistance for his stability and levelheadedness. He was loyal not only to his cause, but to his commander.
But he was not willfully blind to the threat of annihilation.
Samson twisted the knob and pushed open the door, his hand on the gun at his hip. Silver light yawned, spreading across the floor like encroaching surf. He stepped into the alleyway, peering around suspiciously, then motioned for her to follow.
Ronja felt four pairs of eyes on her back as she passed through the frame, pulling up her hood. The full brunt of the wind struck her and she sucked in a shocked breath. It was frigid. Yet, somehow, it was not as she remembered. She scanned the side street. Nothing but trash bins and frost-sealed crates. She lifted her eyes to the uncommonly clear sky. Carin loomed large and white. Calux, the winter moon, was a bluish afterthought. She had never been able to fully appreciate their majesty under the hands of The Music. Now, they sent shivers singing down her spine.
Samson tugged on her sleeve, pulling her forward. The door shut behind them. Her brain snapped into high gear. She broke away from him, matching his pace as they hurried to the mouth of the alley. She half expected the world to grind to a halt when she stepped onto the main road, but it kept spinning. Her heart thundered as she observed the derelict neighborhood she grew up in.
The cast iron gas lamps. The drab brick houses and cobblestone streets. The gated storefronts and overflowing waste bins. The red-and-white propaganda painted on the sides of buildings and nailed to storefronts.
Passion is perilous.
Emotion is treacherous.
Disobedience is destruction.
“Come on,” Samson muttered. He took off down the empty avenue at a brisk pace, his head low. She jogged after him, her footfalls too loud on the damp street. The wind cut at her, stirring her false hair and trench coat, but it was the silence that made her shudder. Had it always been so quiet aboveground?
The unmistakable rustling of parchment pulled her gaze to the right. Her eyes popped. “Skitz,” she whispered. Sam just nodded. There was nothing to say. Dozens of wanted posters bearing Roark’s name and her own lined the buildings. More than half bore her image. Many where illegible, leeched by the elements. Others were fresh, their print bitingly clear. “300,000 notes,” she said under her breath. When she worked the subtrain and newsstand, her yearly income was 4,500. A wicked grin twisted her lips as a foreign sort of satisfaction flooded her veins. “All this for a mutt from the outer ring.”
Then she remembered who had taken her picture. She tore her eyes from the flyers, stared dead ahead. They were approaching 61st. She recognized the deli with the faded green awnings.
Ronja stiffened, her fingers curling around the straps of her bag. “Sam,” she breathed, forcing herself not to break her stride. “Did you hear that?”
“You, in the hoods, stop right there!”
17: Halted
Ronja and Samson froze, spines rigid and hearts petrified. They did not dare reach for their weapons. For the second time that night
the girl unbraided herself for stuffing her stingers into the bottom of her pack. If they made it to their destination, she vowed to ask Evie for some sort of holster she could wear around her waist. “Keep your head down,” Samson whispered as a pair of elephantine feet lumbered toward them. “Let me do the talking.”
“Quiet!” the Off barked, his footfalls scuffing to a stop directly behind them. “Turn around, nice and slow.”
They followed his command. Ronja kept her eyes on the ground, her hands at her sides. She could not see him but she could smell him. Sour sweat and alcohol. The pungent odor called back memories of her old boss, Don Wasserman. Given the labored quality to his breathing, she imagined he was just as obese. “Is there a problem, sir?” Samson asked meekly.
The Officer ignored him. “What are you two doing out this time of night?”
“My sister and I are going to see our aunt, she phoned an hour ago. Her health has taken a turn for the worse.” Ronja smiled at the frost-bitten bricks. The captain was an excellent liar, his tone fluid and natural. She had not expected that of him.
The Off was not impressed. “Your sister mute or something?”
“No sir, just very shy.”
Ronja bobbed her head in agreement, her eyes still fixed to the ground. Heavy footfalls, then a bloated gut encroached on her vision, barely contained by the uniform stretched across it. A gloved hand snatched her jaw, lifting her face to the sky. Fear spasmed in her chest and she jerked away. Snarling, the Off forced back her hood and released her. By some miracle her wig stayed in place, cloaking her absent ear. She waited for him to raise the alarm, her chin dropped and muscles coiled. Instead, he gave a disapproving grunt. “I was hoping you’d be blonde like your brother.”
“Sir?”
“Look at me, girl.”
Ronja crushed her disgust in her palm. This was not her first encounter with Offs like this. Her status as a mutt had not always been enough to drive them away. She knew how to deal with them. Steeling herself, she let her eyelids droop, her jaw go slack. She looked up. He was shorter than she expected and twice as wide. His beady eyes were shot with red. She held her breath as he drank her in, waiting for a spark of recognition.
“Papers,” he commanded, but the word was drowned out by the series of hacking coughs that exploded from her open mouth. Spittle flew and the Off leapt back, swearing and wiping his ruddy face. “Skitzing hell, does she have the Retch?”
Maybe, pitcher. The Retch was rampant in the outer ring, especially in the winter months. In the past she might have played it off as some sort of fictional mutt disease, but the Retch was just as effective.
“We’re not sure, sir,” Samson answered, blending with her facade fluidly. “We’re taking her to the doctor tomorrow.” Ronja wiped her nose with the back of her wrist demonstratively.
“Get out of here,” the Officer snapped, shooing them away with a thick hand. “Go on, scram!”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” Without wasting another moment, Sam snagged Ronja by the wrist and began to drag her down the street, coughing and wheezing. She started to look over her shoulder, but Samson tightened his grip on her. “Keep your eyes forward,” he warned under his breath. “Slow down.”
Ronja slackened her pace, ignoring every fiber in her body that was begging her to run. It was only when the retreating footsteps of the drunken Off faded completely that her stiff muscles relaxed. The captain released her. She wrapped her fingers around the straps of her backpack to keep them from shaking. “That was too close,” she said. “What about the others?”
Samson shook his head, his false Singer winking in the orange light of the gas lit lamps. “He was too blasted to recognize you; Trip should be good.”
Ronja bit her cheek to hold back her words. The captain had not understood her. Iris and Evie were making the journey to Hill and 61st alone. As formidable as the techi was in a fight, the Officer was a beast … and he was on the hunt for a blonde.
Iris burst into the front of her mind, her lovely face framed by her platinum wig. The rage she had pushed down came crawling back, digging its claws into her throat. Even if the Off missed Evie and Iris, he would find another victim, one who could not fight back by order of her Singer. Ronja stopped in her tracks, only steps from the deli that marked the intersection. Two large wanted posters were pinned to the double doors, both bearing her photograph.
“We have to go back,” she said.
Samson rounded on her. His blue eyes flashed brighter than the metal piece on his ear. “What, why?”
“We have to take down that Off,” Ronja answered calmly, shrugging off her pack and squatting on the cobblestones. She unbuttoned it and dug through the layers of clothing. The cool metal of her stingers kissed her fingertips, causing the wound over her heart to prickle painfully. She yanked the weapons from the pack and stood, radiating reckless confidence.
Samson fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot on the slick avenue. “Ronja,” he began uncertainly. “I get it, I do.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. You feel like you have to protect everyone.”
“I do,” she snapped, wincing as her voice bounced down the deserted street. Her eyes darted about. Nothing but sleepy gas lamps and dark windows. Samson sighed. Ronja sucked in a deep breath and blew it out through her teeth, clutching at poise. “We both know what will happen if we let him go.”
“I know.”
Ronja bristled at the genuine ache in his voice.
“But if we go after him, we’ll miss our ride. Mouse is only going to wait so long, that kid is a piece of work.”
“Then we work fast.”
“Think about it,” Samson implored her. “What if he calls for backup before we take him down? One of them is bound to recognize you and this whole thing blows up. Do you see those posters?” He jammed a gloved finger at the posters on the doors of the deli.
Bloody convenient, Ronja thought gruffly. “I am not blind,” she growled. “But the next woman he finds, the one who can’t say ‘no.’ We have a duty to protect her. Right, captain?”
His title hung between them, a needle hovering over a record. They balanced it for a long moment, watching each other in the strangely warm light of the lamps. Finally, Samson sighed, his bulky shoulders sagging. Weariness seeped from his skin. “If you really want to save this city, you’ll keep yourself alive. You have to pick your battles if you want to win the war, Ronja.”
The fight leaked from her. She did not speak to the captain. Instead, she shouldered her bag and marched toward the intersection, her shadow blinking in and out of existence as she waded through the puddles of light. Samson watched her for a long moment, then followed.
18: Stowaway
Roark
“We good?” Roark whispered. Terra did not answer, nor did she give any indication that she had heard him. She was taking her time checking around the corner, one hand on her nearest blade, the other braced against the brick wall. “Oi, Terra.” The girl slipped out onto 61st Street, striding confidently across the icy cobblestones. He followed with an impatient grunt and a final glance over his shoulder.
Though he placed a fair amount of trust in Mouse, he had to admit he was a bit surprised when he saw the hulking canvas covered truck waiting in the shadows between two street lamps. He half expected the boy to lose his nerve at the eleventh hour, but for once it seemed everything was going according to plan. Almost everything, he reminded himself dully.
“Hurry up,” Terra commanded, beckoning at him from several paces ahead.
“You got here thirty seconds ago,” Roark grumbled, but he sped up. There was no telling when Wilcox and his agents would bust out of the Belly. He still had no idea what Terra had done to keep them pinned down and was not entirely sure he wanted to. Not to mention, they had seen a drunken Off stumble by around 59th Street.
His pulse climbed as they approached the back of the auto. It was an ancient truck once used to ferry laborers back and forth between
the city and the farms and could seat up to fifty. Many of the workers were mutts, forced to work the fields their ashes would one day fertilize. Roark felt his gut cinch. Had Layla been one of them? Ronja never spoke about her mother, not since Red Bay.
The canvas flaps at the back of the truck rippled as he and Terra came upon them. Wasting no time, they hoisted themselves up onto the rough wooden platform and stepped into the compartment. Blackness rushed over him. The fabric was thick enough to mute the streetlight. Roark stepped forward, vaguely aware that Terra was securing the flaps behind him. As his vision adjusted, the faint forms of his family bled into view. They lined the walls of the truck, seated on low benches. “Everyone here?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah,” a knot of voices replied. Relief swelled in Roark when he heard Ronja among them. “You all right, Ronja?” he asked.
“Fine,” came her brittle reply. His brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to ask for the truth, but a burst of static cut him off.
“Oi, everybody ready back there?” Mouse demanded over the radio. “I do not like just sitting here waiting for … ”
Evie shut him up with the push of a button. “Lock and load, hamster,” she snapped.
There was no response from the other end of the line. The engine revved with a guttural thrum. Roark stumbled as the vehicle lurched forward. A hand, callused and strong, snagged him by the wrist. “Thanks, Sam,” he said, squinting down at the hunched form.
“What?” the captain asked from the opposite end of the compartment.
Roark’s body worked twice as fast as his mind. He twisted from the iron grip and whipped out the revolver at his side, his stingers forgotten. “Lights!” he bellowed, cocking the gun. “Get the lights!” The sound of stingers igniting and knives singing twined with the rumble of the engine. Bright light flooded the cramped space as someone lit the lantern hanging overhead. For a split second, Roark was blinded by it.
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