by Harper North
I blink open my eyelids and he’s leaning over me. My eyes widen. The pain in my head throbs. He taps my cheek with the back of his hand, a few times soft and then once harder. The stench of his breath makes me turn away and my stomach roils.
“The rat’s awake,” he hisses and straightens.
“Let me go!” I yank my hands and something metal clacks. Chains are wrapped around my wrists and locked around a pipe.
Yasay coughs into his fist, deep and guttural. The fit keeps going, and he takes several steps backward. “Shut up!” he finally yells back.
I try to twist my way out, but the chains are too thick.
Recovered from coughing, Yasay marches toward me, and I see he’s wearing some sort of dark blue military uniform with body armor and tactical compartments holding who knows what. Grabbing my arm, he shakes it to make sure I can’t escape, then retreats, hacking again. Sweat drips from his face and a clump of what’s left of his black hair clings to his forehead. He smoothes it back over the top of his balding scalp.
“Not feeling so well?” I ask. That was probably stupid, but I kind of enjoy the dig.
He ignores me. His face turns red and he spits at my feet. “Disgusting Dweller,” he mutters, then continues into another coughing fit. Same old Yasay. Same old miner’s cough. Disgusting pig.
I try to shift my focus away from him and onto how to get out of here. Panic pulses through me. I can’t go back to that tiny glass jail cell. I scan my surroundings, but nothing looks the same. I’m still underground, but in a dingy, crumbling tunnel. I glance over and spot a set of tracks along the floor—a transportation shaft, like where Sky and Cia used to live in the Slack.
Yasay turns back around, holding one hand to his chest. A smug smile spreads across his stubbly face.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Get me out of these chains.”
He waggles a finger at me as if I’m a misbehaving child, then comes closer. I scuttle as far back to the wall as I can.
“Your little revolt has helped my standing in the world.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your liberation attempt was not so successful, but mine…” he pauses, nodding with a smug grin. “My place with the EHC has grown much bigger.”
I lift my chin. “Then I guess you owe me.”
Yasay laughs, revealing a row of yellowed teeth. He almost slips into another coughing fit but stops himself. “No, I can’t return the favor.”
He crouches down beside the wall, grabs a bottle of water from his own stash, and takes a long drink. A part of me wants to kick the bottle from his hands, but I’m not close enough. Plus, it wouldn’t help me escape. Knowing Yasay, he’d retaliate with a punch and knock me out again.
Once he’s finished drinking, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and steps closer again. “After your little rebellion destroyed my mining operation, I didn’t have many options left.” He frowns and shakes his head. “You almost took everything from me. You even tried to use me to escape.”
“I wish I’d destroyed everything—including you.”
Yasay’s brow furrows. “The EHC held me accountable for your revolt. They didn’t go easy on me. Not fun. Not fun at all.”
I press my lips closed as he backs away into the dim lighting. The shadows it casts over his face make him appear more sinister than he already is. “Then, I helped the EHC track down your little resistance group to Ms. Nejem’s settlement, and that did the trick. I earned my place on the surface. It’s not much, but it’s better than living like a mole. Oh, and thanks for taking such good care of my mod kit. It worked like a charm.”
I grit my teeth together. The day Yasay appeared at Emma’s settlement was one of the worst days of my life—the day Sky was captured and much of Emma’s camp was destroyed. Nothing would please me more than taking Yasay out right now, but even if I did manage to get these chains off me, I wouldn’t be able to get to him fast enough.
A part of me wants to rip that stupid grin off his face, but before I can say anything I catch the movement of several dark figures creeping like wolves along the shadows in the corner of the tunnel. I squint to try to make them out.
“Now I’m a lead op for intel on underground combatants,” Yasay brags, pulling back his shoulders. “Much better than my measly role in the mining camp.” He slaps his chest. “Now the EHC come to me.”
“Good for you,” I say snidely. “So, you’ve captured me. Now what?”
Yasay snaps his fingers. A moment later, two men and a woman outfitted in the same soldier gear as him emerge from the shadows. The woman’s hair is cropped short. The two men are dressed in the black ops uniforms and carry rifles. Off to the side of Yasay is a stockpile of weapons, ammunition, and other gear. Apparently they came well prepared to battle it out.
“This is my special unit,” Yasay says, introducing the others. “Yasay’s Special Underground Task Force.”
“Task Force?” I scan the small mercenary group. The men stand with their shoulders back. The woman has one hand on a plasma gun holstered across her chest in a sling. “The four of you were sent to bring us back?”
“Or whoever survives,” the woman replies.
I take a slow breath and consider my lack of options. “Just take me,” I tell Yasay. “You don’t need the others.”
“Naw... we get a bounty based on finding all the escaped prisoners,” the shorter of the male ops says.
Yasay raises his arms over his head and gently stretches. “I’ll bring you back to the surface,” he says, “don’t you worry. But not just yet. There’s no rush, is there?”
I search his beady, brown eyes. “What’s that mean?”
“You’ll be found guilty just as easily today as you will be tomorrow, but I’m in the mood to hunt some rats.”
My eyes flit from face to face.
“What about you?” Yasay asks the woman beside him. “Are you in the mood to hunt the vermin that scurry around in this sewer?”
The woman smiles and removes her gun from the holster. She nods, and the other two men beside her turn to each other, their eyes gleaming with excitement.
“No need for all of them to stand trial,” she says, pulling back the trigger of her gun.
“Yeah,” Yasay growls. He turns to look at me. “I’ll save this rat for the privilege of an EHC trial.”
My shoulders stiffen. I try to twist free from the chains, but the more I struggle, the more it makes Yasay’s group laugh. “Don’t do this!”
“Sit tight, A298,” he says to me.
The reminder of my number sickens me. That’s not who I am anymore.
“Come on.” He points to one of the soldiers and the woman beside him. “Let’s go kill the rest.”
“What about me?” the lanky male op Yasay left out asks.
“You. Watch. Her.” Yasay jabs a finger from him to me. “Don’t let her escape.”
A second later, Yasay and his two chosen mercenaries disappear down the dark tunnel. My heart pounds. I have to get back to the group. I have to warn Sky. Elias is depending on me.
The remaining op plops down across from me. For the first few minutes, his weasely face is lined with anger. He even slams the butt of his gun into the ground, but then, after a while, he turns a cool eye to me. A slow grin spreads across his face.
I swallow and feel myself stiffen even more, knowing this op is going to take out his disappointment on me.
I’ve got to get out of here.
As the op slowly stands, I scan every inch of my surroundings and quickly calculate the time from when I was passed out to when I woke up, trying to figure out how far Yasay dragged me. In the shadows is a darkened marking. I squint to see it, making out ‘A16’. ‘A11’ was marked on the wall near our camp. It’s got to be no more than a quarter of a mile back based on how markings worked underground. Five to ten minutes to break free before they’re ambushed.
“No one said you couldn’t stand trial a little roughed up,�
� the op says.
I lean back and scream “Help!” at the top of my lungs.
“Stop it,” the op demands, his sly grin replaced by annoyance. “Keep that mouth shut.”
“Please, someone, help me!” I yell louder.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll jam my gun down your throat,” he warns.
Good. Do it.
Opening my mouth to scream again, he marches closer, within three feet. His gun extended, but before he can ram it into my face, I lift my legs off the ground and latch them around the op’s neck.
“W-what the—” the guard snarls, his eyes going wide with fear.
I squeeze tighter.
His gun falls to the ground. His hands reach up to try and pry me off, but there’s no chance. In a quick flick, I twist to the side. There’s a muffled snap, and then the guard’s head falls forward and back. I slowly release him. He collapses to the ground in a heap. Dead weight.
“Now for those keys,” I whisper. I yank my foot out of my boot and work it toward the op’s pocket. It takes a little wrangling, but finally I feel the cold key chain between my toes. I pull back my foot, the set of keys dangling from my toes, and in one swift movement raise them to my hand. Working the key into the lock takes less than a second, and soon the chains follow, clanging to the floor. I grab the guard’s plasma rifle from the ground and charge down the dark corridor, hoping I’m not too late.
CHAPTER 10
YASAY CAN’T REACH THE CAMP. The people there are all I have left, and I won’t let him take that from me.
I race down the tunnel after him. My heart pounds against my rib cage as I sprint harder than I ever have before. My breath catches in my throat. Sweat trickles down my brow and my lungs ache, but I push back thoughts of the camp being caught off guard.
This can’t be happening.
As I pass tunnel marker A12, the sound of gunfire erupts, followed by yells echoing through the tunnel. My chest tightens as I skid to a stop. If only I could have warned them, screamed louder, fought back harder, did something to keep them from being ambushed. Shaking off the worst of my thoughts, I jog closer.
Steadying my breath, I reach tunnel marker A11 and peer around the corner. Ahead of me Yasay and his two ops are at the camp’s still-blocked entrance—I’m not too late, there’s still time—moving around the planks and other building materials we used to fortify the camp. Yasay kicks his way in. The male op keeps his rifle up, targeting the front while the female op quickly finds a way over the blockade.
Gunfire cracks through the air again, but I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from. I swivel my head around but it’s no use, there’s too much of an echo.
“Get the grenades!” Yasay yells to the male op.
I cock my rifle and charge ahead, firing. One of my bullets pierces the male op through the side of the head. He falls dead to the ground. The woman pops around the corner to fire her plasma rifle at me. It misses, but the heat rushes past me, igniting a scattered pile of rags in the corner. I hurry to the side wall and rub the singed hairs on my arm. The acrid scent of smoke is everywhere, but the light from the fire gives me a better view of where the other two are.
“I guess I underestimated you, rat!” Yasay calls out from behind the cover of fallen debris. My eye flits from where Yasay hides to the woman who’s just as determined to drop me.
“You better give up! I won’t back down!” I yell, pressing my back against the cool tunnel wall. Elias and the others have to be advancing. “You think you guys can hurry?” I mutter under my breath, unsure if I can handle killing both Yasay and the female op without their help.
A moment later, something shiny rolls up beside me, stopping right before my feet. I leap to the side just as a bright burst illuminates the tunnel, but the blast slams me into the ground and my chin rams into a rock, dirt filling my mouth. Grappling in the dark, I search for the rifle with shaking hands. Up ahead, I spot it, scramble to pick it up off the ground, and spin in the direction where I think Yasay and the woman are.
But they’re not there.
Above me, part of the ceiling crumbles and a new, wide crack lines the wall. Beams that had only moments before been securely part of the tunnel now jut out at odd angles. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to refocus my mind on the exact location of Yasay and the female op, but as soon as I stand, the female op charges, roaring.
I raise my rifle and clock her right below the chin. The force of it knocks her to the ground, along with my weapon, which slips from my sweaty hands, but she bounces back to her feet as if she’s got springs in them and sends a quick one-two punch at my face.
“You don’t have to look pretty to stand trial,” she says as I try to shield my head. “You just need to not die.”
There’s no escaping her blows. My mind spins, and to stay conscious I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling the blood trickle into my mouth. I have to fight back.
She raises her fist to strike me again and I brace for the hit—but it doesn’t come.
I slowly raise my head.
The woman’s eyes glaze over. A stream of blood trickles from her head down to her arm. A second later, she falls into a heap on the ground beside me. I gasp and struggle to my feet.
Behind her stands Elias, gun still held midair. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, spitting blood to the ground. “What took you so long?”
Elias steps closer and looks me over. “She got you pretty good.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” I still feel woozy, and the pain of the op’s beating begins to surface as I press my hand to the wall to steady myself.
“Get your hands up,” Sky orders, yanking the gun from Yasay’s hands while Talen wraps wire around his wrists, then tugs Yasay to his feet.
“What do you want to do with him?” Talen asks, looking my way.
“We should kill him, but he could be of value to us,” I say, wiping at the blood dripping from my chin.
Sky comes closer. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on,” Elias says, his eyes burning as he glares at Yasay. “We need to regroup.”
Before we can move, Emma and Drape emerge from the camp. A dark look rises over Drape’s face the moment he sees Yasay.
“We can’t get rid of this jerk,” he growls. “He’s like a cockroach.”
“Save it,” Yasay growls. “I don’t care what you Slags say. Your little underground rebellion here is going to be found in no time. Just because you caught me doesn’t mean you won’t be caught, too. Once a rat, always a—”
“No!” I yell as Elias lands a good punch straight to Yasay’s nose without warning.
Yasay crumples to his knees. “My nose!” he cries. “You’ll pay for that.”
Elias’ brow furrows as he leans over him. “That was for my uncle Mason.” He turns and walks away.
Yasay rolls over, wipes blood from his nose, and then slowly makes his way back to his feet. “I guess you’re all one big happy family now, hiding like the rats you know you are.”
“You have a lot of nerve,” Emma says.
He shrugs. “We all do what we need to do to survive. I’m no different than the rest.”
“You stand for nothing,” I say. “You’re only fighting to save yourself.”
“That’s because I’m important. Not like you common terrorists. The EHC believes I can catch dirty Slags like you. I won’t let you take that away.”
Is he stupid?
A part of me wonders if Yasay wants another punch in the face. I glance over to Elias. He tightens his jaw and clenches his fists again, then marches closer to Yasay.
“Wait!” I reach out for his arm and pull him to the side of the tunnel. Elias’s eyes are dark storms. “We can use him,” I whisper.
Talen yanks Yasay’s head back and raises his hand at him. “You move, and I’ll flood pain into every cell of your pathetic body,” he warns.
I lower my voice and pr
ess myself closer to Elias. “I know we can’t trust him, but we’ll use him to gain access to where we need to go. Then we can get rid of him”
“I guess we don’t have a lot of options,” Elias mutters, glancing back to Yasay.
“You have no options!” Yasay shouts. Talen jerks his arm to keep him quiet.
Emma marches over to Yasay’s gear and rifles through it. A moment later, she pulls out restraints and a communications device. “This is exactly what we need,” she says. “We can hack into his device and intercept the EHC secure channels. It will tell us what we need to know to get us out of here.” She tosses the restraints to Sky, then returns to digging through the gear.
Sky secures Yasay’s wrists with the stronger metal bracelets and removes the temporary wire. “No escaping now, huh?”
Yasay’s face relaxes. “If you want to get out of the city, or do anything, you’ll need to take me with you. I can show you—”
Without warning, a loud pop sends me reeling back. I turn to see blood splattered onto the tunnel wall, flecks on Sky and Talen. Yasay falls back to the ground, his body leaning half-crumpled against the wall.
“What the—” Sky yells, backing up.
I rush toward Emma, who holds a gun pointed at Yasay’s lifeless body. “He was going to take us out of here!”
“No,” she says in a calm voice, lowering the weapon. “He wasn’t. He was a waste of a life. He won’t infect our plans anymore.”
Talen backs away from the body while Emma takes the communication device and heads back to the camp. No one says anything as dread fills the area.
Elias’s eyes are vacant, and he shakes his head. “We better take their gear with us,” he mutters. “And look for food.” He walks toward the woman he shot and grabs her plasma rifle. Talen pockets a few flash grenades while Drape collects their food bars and water.
“You okay?” I ask Sky.
“Great.” He wipes the specks of blood from his face with his sleeve then plants his hand against the tunnel wall. “What about you?”
