THE TATTERED PAPER of my father’s notebook crinkled beneath my fingers. I traced his writing with a heavy heart. I hated that I was giving away my father’s last words, the words that had kept me safe for so many years. I had already shared too much, given the last part of my parents I had to a stranger. A stranger I didn’t even trust.
Arstid’s pen tapped on the table, her impatience obvious. I ground my teeth thinking of Mouse again. I was doing this to protect the child, I reminded myself, to keep her from growing up alone and angry like I had. I took a deep breath before continuing.
“He wrote about what objects were good to trade. The basic necessities everyone needs to survive like food, water, shelter and clothing. This page is about seeking out other rogues in the city, possible locations they might hide.” I stopped, closing my father’s notebook. “That’s it essentially. I don’t know what else you thought you would find in his notes.”
Arstid sat back pressing the pen to her mouth. “I have to admit it’s not exactly what we had hoped for. The majority is just about survival skills. I had hoped there would be more about The Sanctuary or… I don’t know… something more.”
Disappointment etched her pointed face.
“Well I held up my end of the deal.” I said, reminding her I had played by the rules.
She waved me off. “I can’t believe you survived as long as you did on your own. I assumed your father’s book held something we didn’t know, but apparently you were just lucky.” She spit the word at me, knowing my distaste for it.
My jaw tightened. “Yeah, lucky.”
Because watching your parents get murdered was lucky. Growing up filled with hatred and distrust was lucky. I survived because I chose to, because I learned to take care of myself, because of my parents’ words. To her they were nothing, but to me they were the difference between life and death. And it was my choice, not luck, to withhold things that I knew, things that I didn’t write in the book. Fortunately, the book’s tattered state had hidden the page I ripped out. It was the only page I had ever removed from the book. It was also the best advice my father gave me.
“Don’t write everything down. Your thoughts and your knowledge are your own. If it is written down it can be stolen. The safest place in the world is in your own mind, no one can ever steal that from you.”
He was right. If being callous had taught me anything, it was how to keep a straight face while lying. Whenever Arstid’s keen eyes scrutinized me, I gave nothing away.
She knew how I moved from safe house to safe house at random. That I stole most of my reserves from the Ravagers—my own private attempt to weaken them one worthless bag of dried food at a time. She even knew about the Healer, but there were things I kept from her. Like the locations of more than half of my safe houses, every other outcast I traded with and what my real name was. Arstid knew my mother, but only by her first name. Apparently, The Sanctuary’s rebellion didn’t deal so well in trust either. She had told me very little about my parents except the fact that they were all from The Sanctuary, and that was about to change. It had been a week since we started our little meetings, and she owed me answers.
Crossing my arms, I fixed the white-haired woman in my gaze. “Your turn.”
Her snowy eyebrows rose, “Already bored of our little arrangement?”
“I have upheld my end of the deal and you have yet to uphold yours. I don’t believe you’re a deceitful person. Are you Arstid?” I smiled sweetly.
Her eyes narrowed.
“No, I am not. But the information I choose to share with you is privileged and if you divulge it to anyone outside of our walls, your death will not be gentle.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I wasn’t scared of this woman. “What exactly is your objective here? You once lived within The Wall and yet you chose to leave. That could not have been without reason.”
“How much do you remember of your time within The Wall, Phoenix?”
It bothered me that she had not answered my question.
“Not very much.” This was an honest answer. “I remember reading with my father, my mother pushing me on a swing and my father carrying me through a tunnel to get here. Just small flashes of a meaningless childhood.”
“I know the tunnel you speak of. It is the same one that my family came through. As did the other members of the resistance. In all of your searches have you ever found it again?”
“No.” I had looked too. It was as if the city swallowed it whole.
“As the last of our members were coming through, the Minister had it blown up. Thirty-five people were buried alive in the blast. Only eleven of us managed to escape the city, and of those eleven, there are now only five of us left. Yourself included.”
The room fell silent as she waited for my response. When I said nothing, she continued.
“Your parents were the first through, as they were our leaders at the time. You can imagine how it looked when they were the only ones who managed to escape the tunnels unscathed. Someone had tipped off the Minister about our escape and then, when your parents were the only ones who didn’t make it to the rendezvous point it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. We found their bodies not long after and assumed justice had been served. Now, in hindsight, it appears we may have been a little hasty in our judgments. But you can’t blame me for trusting my instincts.” She cast me a pointed look, implying she still did not trust my parents. And that she also felt the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. “It was presumed you died with them. Apparently, we were mistaken.”
“Apparently.” I agreed with a bitter smile, trying to swallow back the hatred I felt for her. How dare she imply my mother’s betrayal.
The noise of someone stirring behind me reminded me we were not alone. While I would never admit it, I was pleased that Triven had become my new guard.
Arstid continued, ignoring him. “All of our leaders were dead— either killed in the blast or murdered by the Tribes. Your mother, being one of them. Those of us who were left became stranded in this hellhole. If it weren’t for our knowledge of this barracks we would all be dead.”
“Barracks?” I looked closer at the cement walls surrounding us.
“This was an old military bunker, designed to save lives when The Devastation came. Once the world came to a standstill, its inhabitants left and sought out a new society. Soon thereafter, The Sanctuary was built and the Tribes were born. Fortunately for us, this place was forgotten.”
“So we’re underground?” My stomach rolled.
“Actually, we are pressed into the mountains that encase our fair city.”
It wasn’t the sewers, but it still felt harder to breath.
“You obviously hate this place as much as I do. Why did you leave The Sanctuary to come here?” I wondered.
“I suppose it is the Grass is Greener Theory. Tartarus may be a horrific place, but at least the Tribes embrace it. They don’t try to paint it as something it’s not. Inside The Wall, the government covers up their terribleness. Instead of being forthright, the government disguises their horrific actions with things like laws and self-proclaimed morality. At least here, you know you can’t trust anyone.” She looked pointedly at me. “While your mother may not have been the one who betrayed us, she was the one who led us here. And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t harboring a grudge. If we knew what it would cost us, no one would have come. I loathe both The Sanctuary and Tartarus. One city threatened to destroy my family and the other did. This city tore my life apart. It took my husband from me. And now both cities must pay.”
Arstid was right. You couldn’t trust anyone here, but the fastest way to unite people was to give them a common enemy. Regardless of what she thought about my parents and despite our distaste for one another, we sought the same goal, to see someone suffer for the loss of our families. These cities had robbed us of the only things we cared about and someone deserved to pay.
“It is our goal to infiltr
ate The Wall and bring down The Sanctuary from within, but to do that we must first overpower the Tribes. Justice is not something this world has seen in hundreds of years, and it is time someone started administering it.”
If destroying hell meant partnering with the devil, it was a risk I was willing to take.
“I’m in.”
THE UNFORTUNATE