At that moment I realize I can’t abandon her. I take a deep breath and hold my mouth against my arm. Slowly I exhale, moaning deep and long like the Unconsecrated. The Recruiters’ heads snap up and tilt to listen.
I moan again, the sound urgent and rife with need. My skin prickles at how convincing I am to my own ears. How pained and wounded my voice seems. The moan bounces between the buildings, making it impossible for the Recruiters to pinpoint.
Three times I inhale and exhale, then I dash into the street, breathless. “Run!” I scream as I sprint toward them. I glance over my shoulder as if expecting plague rats to stumble after me.
I’ve known panic in my life. I’ve known a deep clawing fear that crawls along the spine and roars blinding loud. This is what I call on as I race toward the little group, as I yell that they must go and go right now.
I grab the girl’s hand in mine and pull the boy up by the collar of his tunic. I drag them behind me, darting to the left as we leave the alley and weave around buildings to put as much space between us and the Recruiters as possible.
We run until my legs burn and my throat is raw and I half believe my own terror. The girl tugs at me when I slow. “What about the Resurrected?” she pleads, her eyes wide, and I have to remind myself that she doesn’t know I made it all up to save her.
The boy bends over, hands braced on knees as he tries to catch his breath, his face broken with pain.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, holding her close against my side. “We’re fine. I was just trying to distract them from you. You’re okay now.” I’m surprised at how much their safety actually matters to me.
The boy looks up, trying to focus. “You’re sure?”
The girl shudders. They have no reason to trust me, which is the way it should be. They need to learn that no one—no place—in this city is safe anymore.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
“Amalia,” she says.
I think about my sister and the way she looked when Elias and I left her in the Forest. Her knee was bloody from where she’d fallen and scratched it. The scent was driving the Unconsecrated around us into a burning need. They pushed against the fence for us, moans curdling up long-dead throats.
How easy it would have been for me to have made a different decision. To have taken her hand and led us both home. How long I’ve tortured myself for choosing to follow Elias down the path away from her.
“Where do you live?”
She starts to turn and point but the boy grabs her hand and pulls it down. He stands as straight as possible, his arms pressed to his side where he was kicked. “We can make it,” he says, trying to sound as though he’s strong enough to take care of the situation. It’s easy to see neither one of them has eaten in a while—cheeks sharp and eyes smudged with bruises.
“They said they were looking for you—why?” I ask, still not sure I should leave them on their own.
They glance at each other, clearly warring over what, if anything, to tell me. “They’ve been after all the Soulers,” the boy finally says. “We don’t know why. We just know that they’ve taken the ones they find.”
The clouds hugging the mainland have shifted over the island, dropping the temperature, and I’m finally glad to be wearing so many layers. Amalia hugs her arms around herself and I pull a scarf from my neck and drape it over her head and shoulders. The boy pulls her against him.
“I can walk you home,” I offer, not sure how much help I’ll be against another band of Recruiters, but at least we’d have more numbers between us.
“We’ll be okay.” His voice is firm, though I still see the hesitation in his eyes. The lingering terror of what almost happened to both of them.
But what else can I do? And so I nod and turn back toward the Palisades, hoping that somewhere out there a stranger might take pity on my sister and ensure that she’s safe and alive.
Chapter IV
The incoming storm erases the lingering daylight early, and wind smelling of fires and rot curls down the street, seeping through my clothes. Even though I try to make my way back to the Dark City as quickly as possible, I’m still stuck weaving through the Neverlands when night falls. Feet shuffle down an alley nearby and I shiver, rushing toward the nearest fire escape so I can climb up to the roof to escape the claustrophobia of crumbling walls.
It’s safer up high at night, less possibility of the wandering dead sneaking up on you in the darkness.
My sister is near, I think as I hurry toward the Palisades. Abigail’s here just across the river at the Sanctuary. I close my eyes and try to feel her. When we were kids I thought we had some sort of connection, a thread that tied one to the other. If she was sad I could sense it—any intense emotion would reverberate through me no matter where I was in the village.
It was like we shared everything: one heart, one soul, one breath. But standing here in the Neverlands I can’t feel her. There’s too much despair to pick out that of one girl.
I cross a rickety bridge and it bucks under my feet with the force of someone else’s weight. The ropes creak and protest as another person leans against them for support. I pull the knife from my pocket and pick up my pace, skirting an abandoned roof garden and scurrying over another bridge. This is not the place to run into a stranger—no good can possibly come of it.
But the steps keep following me, gaining ground in time with my heartbeats. Keeping my head ducked low, I round the corner of a storage shed and glance back over my shoulder. The person following me is tall and broad, loose clothes draped over his lanky frame and face wrapped in shadows. His hands tense by his sides.
I press my lips together and take a deep breath. To my left shouts ring out from a broken window, people yelling and screaming at each other, and I use the distraction to start running. In my mind I see a crude map of the Neverlands, the pattern of bridges connecting the buildings, the fire escapes leading down to the streets and the places that are too dangerous to venture into.
Just as I’m scampering across a wide low roof another form materializes out of the dark. “Hey, what’s the rush?” he asks, starting toward me with a leer on his face.
I feel so stupid for being here at night. For thinking I could be invisible. In the old days I was always safe enough in the Neverlands—it was the place for people like me: outcasts, smugglers, the desperate people who lived on the fringes of the Dark City.
Sure, I’d get propositioned, but my scars have always kept most people away. Things have been changing too fast and I’ve refused to notice that it’s become so dangerous here, even for me.
The man coming toward me whistles to someone and suddenly there are three men falling into step, one of them blocking the bridge on the other side of the roof, trapping me.
The night suddenly feels like it wants to swallow me whole. I swipe my knife widely, trying to cut a clear space between us.
I curse myself for not having left the island this afternoon. I should have kept going across the bridge and never looked back.
The men circle me, tighter and tighter, closing in. I flick my eyes around the rooftop, trying to figure out a way off. But there’s nothing. They have the bridges and fire escape covered. I tighten my grip on the knife and plant my feet, bending my knees for balance.
“This one wants to fight,” one of the men says. I can’t keep them all in front of me no matter how hard I try. I spin around but there’s always someone behind me. Then arms close around my chest, pinning my elbows to my sides.
Everything explodes inside me with the need to survive and escape and the terror-fueled realization that I might not be able to.
I twist my wrist, flicking the knife up hard, aiming for his shoulder. He ducks but still I feel the blade nick his skin. He grunts and releases me, pushes me away from him, hooking his foot around my leg so that I stumble.
Before I can regain my balance he’s standing over me and he lashes out, kicking my hip. Pain erupts through me, making me suck in a deep breath as the horrible throbbing stabs reverberate with every beat of my heart. I crumple to my hands and knees, dropping the knife as I splay my hands to break my fall. He grabs my shoulder and flips me onto my back so hard that all the air in the world leaves my body. I buck, trying to inhale, but he places his knee on my chest, crushing me.
This is it, I realize. This is the end of me. This man might choose to kill me or keep me alive but either way, who I am is done. A sadness begins to seep through me, a deep regret for all the time I kept my gaze focused on the ground rather than the sky.
But then an acid burns up the back of my throat, a rage coursing through me. I’m not willing to give up that easily. If I were I’d have died years ago.
Blood trails from the man’s shoulder and I focus on that, watch it darken the sleeve covering his arm and spiral over his wrist. I beat at his leg with my fists, trying to find the tender spot between muscles that will make him stop. Trying to breathe. Spots sparkle around me, bright flashes of light that scream in my head.
“Can we sell her?” I hear one of the other men ask. “Is she worth anything?” He walks toward us, hovers over me.
The man with his knee on my chest takes my chin in his hands, turning my face into the light. I bare my teeth. “She’s got a good fight in her,” he says. “And I’m sure we can find someone who’ll want to add to those scars.”
I turn my head fast and catch the man’s thumb in my mouth, sinking my teeth into his flesh as hard as I can. Tasting blood. He rears back, the pressure on my chest lessening as he yanks his hand free.
I roll away just as he swings and his fist brushes my cheek before slamming into the roof below us. He’s about to lunge for me when we both hear something that doesn’t fit in with our desperate surroundings.
Singing. Three figures, a man with a woman under each arm, stumble toward us over one of the bridges that creaks and sways under their combined weight. The man’s belting out an off-key tune, his words interrupted by hiccups, and the women move their lips, trying to sing along, but their words are nothing more than slurred mumblings.
I open my mouth to scream for help but one of my attackers clamps his hand over my face before I can get the words out. He pulls a dagger from his side and pushes it against my ribs and I stop struggling. Slowly, he drags me back from the edge of the roof, toward the darker shadows cast by the storage shed.
The threesome lurches across the bridge from the neighboring building, the women almost falling and the man having to pull them up, laughing loudly at their uncoordination as they weave toward us. I’m desperate to catch his eye, hoping that he isn’t too drunk to understand what’s going on. Isn’t too out of sorts to help me. Or to care.
But his gaze only lands briefly on each of the men, not even noticing me standing here enraged and in desperate pain. The women hardly glance up, stringy hair covering their faces. The large man who pinned me down steps toward the group, blood glistening on his fingertips.
The drunk women both stumble again, and the man holds them tight against him, pressing their faces to his shoulders as his voice booms over us. “Don’t suppose one of you’s looking for a woman tonight?”
The women tug at him and he careens across the roof, closer to the men blocking me. He laughs, head thrown back and neck exposed to the bare light of the moon. When he’s done catching his breath, he leers at the thugs. “I seem to have more than I can handle here,” he says with a wink. “I’m only one man, and I’ve perhaps celebrated a bit too much tonight, if you catch my drift.” He laughs again, swaying as the women tug at him.
The thugs glance at each other and I feel the one holding me hesitate, feel him pull his blade away from my ribs ever so slightly, and at just that moment, the drunk man’s eyes hit mine so sharp and clear that I have to keep myself from catching my breath in surprise.
He mouths one word: Run.
I blink and the man’s back to being drunk. He lets his head loll around on his shoulders and stumbles again. “You see, I’m a sharing man. That’s my motto. Share the love,” he says.
And as the thugs stand there, clearly confused, the man shoves the women toward them. One of the women falls into the arms of the big guy who pinned me down and he catches her instinctively. She looks up at him and opens her mouth and then a clear bright moan slips from her throat as she sinks her teeth into the man’s flesh.
Chapter V
The large man screams and reels away and the other two men rear back in panic. But it’s too late. The Unconsecrated women smell their blood and are after the kill. One of the women snags another man’s coat and tugs, dragging him down and falling on top of him.
I lunge toward my knife, wrapping my fingers around the handle just as the drunk man grabs my arm and pulls me to the fire escape at the edge of the roof, shoving me down the steps. The only sounds shattering the night are the men screaming above me, the women moaning and the drunk man telling me to run as my feet pound down the rusty stairs.
An alarm begins to ring out and I hear other people shouting as they pour out of buildings with weapons bared.
I hit the ground and the man grabs my free hand, jerking me out of the alley and down another street. Chaos erupts all around us and the stranger keeps us hidden in the shadows, where the crumbling walls block the moon.
He asks only once if I’m okay to keep running and I nod, cold air searing my lungs as I try to catch my breath.
His hand grasps my own tightly, pressing me back when we approach intersections to make sure the way forward is clear. More alarm bells start to ring, the night growing crowded with shouting.
Ahead of us a group of Recruiters rounds the corner, shoulders set and gazes intent. They’re wound tight, weapons flashing, and I try to tug my hand from the stranger’s. I need to get away from their advance.