Brax doesn’t move.
“Home.” I point towards the Driver barn, towards the sewer where he lives. He whines again and turns the direction I’ve pointed, as though I’ve thrown a ball for him. A second later, he spins back, realizing he must have been tricked. His mouth is open, his tongue lolling out. He crouches low and pounces up towards me in our favorite game. But I push him away.
Kiran comes up beside me.
“The gatekeepers’ll shoot him,” he says in a low voice. I figured this. I don’t need him to say it out loud. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from telling him so.
“Home, Brax.” My voice breaks, right along with my heart. Brax is my best friend. He’s kept my soul alive these past months, kept the mountains alive in my mind. His ice blue eyes are burning me now, the question in them clear.
Because I don’t want you to die, I want to tell him. Because I don’t want to see you shot like Bian.
Brax steps closer, tentatively this time.
“No!” I grab a pebble off the ground and throw it at him. “Go home!” He yelps when it hits him, and edges back. I want to break down in sobs, but I can’t. I pick up another pebble, and this time when I throw it, he growls at me. Dell sidesteps, and Daphne tries to calm her.
The next pebble hits Brax in the neck and with a yelp, he turns and finally scampers away. A weakly thrown pebble is scarier to Brax than a full-grown Watcher. I cling to this thought because it’s so much easier than the fact that he’s running away from me in fear.
When I turn back towards the horse, Kiran is standing very close.
“It’s better—”
“Don’t,” I tell him. Without waiting for his help, I shove my foot into the stirrup, and heave my body upward. Kiran does end up hoisting me most of the way, but I don’t look at him, not even when I feel his stare.
Brax will live because of me. I couldn’t save my ma. Or Bian or Metea. But I’m going to save the twins and Salma. And I saved Brax.
We move on to the edge of the alleyway, and by the time Kiran leads us around the corner, my tears have dried, and my body feels like stone.
Kiran has hunched, his chin buried in his handkerchief. I see the gate station up ahead where there’ll be one or two Watchers on guard through the evening. There is a scanner just above the booth, arcing in slow half circles towards the alley, and it makes the breath catch in my throat.
I’ve only been here one time—when they brought me to the Garden. I’d been bound by the hands and carried in a black jailer’s carriage that was complete with thick metal bars. But I recognize this place as though I’ve visited it every single day.
I steel myself as we approach the decider of our fate, and lean forward to whisper in Daphne’s ear, “If you say a word about Kiran talking, it’ll be your last.”
She sits as stiff as a board.
And with Brax torn from my heart and the dead Watcher seared forever into my memory, she had better know I mean it.
CHAPTER 16
THE INTERSECTION OUTSIDE THE city gates is silent and cold as death. Crumbled pieces of trash stir in the gusts of wind that sneak between the rungs of the heavy steel exit. A large rat with matted fur stalks us. When Dell stomps her front hoof, the creature slips between the iron grates of a sewer and disappears into the darkness below.
Beside the gates is a green-glass box with a Watcher sitting inside. This is the last barrier. The final test.
There’s a pressure in my chest; it feels like someone’s sitting right on my ribs. My life waits just outside. I can feel its grip on me, pulling me right off the back of this horse. I keep my eyes down—I can’t even look through those narrow metal rods. If I do, I will ruin everything. The desperate truth will show on my face, plain as day.
Kiran leads us to the glowing pool of an overhead streetlight. He hesitates at the edge, ever so slightly, as though the brightness will burn his eyes, and once again I marvel at how perfectly he plays a coward. We stay just outside the beam, keeping to the shadows.
“Hold,” comes a deep voice from within the booth.
My grip on the small dagger beneath my dress skirts is slippery with sweat, but firm.
A Watcher steps out into the light.
I stare at him for a moment. He’s wearing the traditional Watcher uniform. Black jacket, high-laced boots. The leather strap running across his chest that holds a messagebox, a wire, and whatever other torture piece he’s been issued. His smooth, hairless face is so similar to the Watcher from the solitary yard, I can’t help but imagine him with a rock-bruised eye and a knife handle sticking out of his neck. It’s enough to make my stomach churn.
In the silence, I realize everyone is waiting for me to speak. Kiran, as far as the Watcher knows, is mute, and if Daphne talks she’s likely to ruin everything.
The pressure in my chest grows tighter.
“Evening Watcher,” I say, adding a little gravel in my tone. Kiran’s act has inspired me. I need to play my part: Skinmonger. Virulent. I can feel the thick makeup on my cheek and the sweat dripping down my face that threatens to smear it. Better make this quick.
The Watcher moves closer and looks directly at me. His pupils take up most of the space between his lids; I’ve heard it’s another modification they’ve made to help him see in the dark. I hope he can’t see too well, otherwise he’ll know the mark is fake and we’ll be done for.
“Won’t you open the gates for us?” I ask before I lose my nerve.
“It’s late,” he says. “Why aren’t you working?”
Good. He believes I’m a Skinmonger. I push myself to continue.
“My cousin. She’s plagued,” I say. “Doesn’t have much longer.” A camera like the one in the rec yard at the Garden makes its slow trip our way, and I look down momentarily to avoid giving it a clear view of my face. Daphne begins to cry softly and hides her face in her hands. She sags back into me, and I hold her upright with one arm around her waist. For the first time tonight, she’s doing something right.
The Watcher’s blank stare sends chills racing over my skin.
“Looks all right to me,” he says.
“On the outside maybe,” I say. “Her insides are all rotten though.”
The guard takes a step forward. Kiran jerks back fearfully, but holds his ground.
“So patch her up,” says the Watcher.
I shiver. I feel Daphne shiver too. I’ve heard the girls whisper about such places. Death houses. For the right price, the docs there claim they can put any Skinmonger back on the market. But they don’t call them death houses for nothing. The girls that go in don’t always make it out.
“And then someone will have to call a Watcher up to get rid of the body,” I argue, trying to think of how the Skinmongers talk at auction. “Look, my cousin’s sick, and she’s going to die. I can’t afford to lose a week of business while you Watchers take your time cleaning up.” My heart is pounding so hard I think that his sensitive hearing must have picked up on it.
He stares some more. Long enough that I think we might have to make a run for it.
“She’s only Virulent, what do you care,” I mutter.
Finally, he asks, “Any weapons?”
You can’t bring weapons through the gates, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get one from an arms dealer in the Black Lanes.
“No,” I answer.
“Apparatuses?”
“Appa-whatuses?” My brows rise.
“Computers. Messageboxes. Texters.”
“Do I look like I can afford any of that?” This is the first real thing I’ve told him.
He takes another step forward. I grip the knife handle. My mind shoots to what kind of weapons Kiran must have on him.
“You going to search me?” I say. It sickens me to add that sultry edge to my voice, but I can’t let him get too close.
The Watcher stops and though no disgust dawns on his face, I can tell he’s rethought getting too close to two Virulent, one of them plagued.
<
br /> “Gates reopen at dawn,” he says, turning his back on us suddenly. “You can return then.” He disappears within the glass guardhouse.
A moment later there is a clicking noise, and the gate rises high, straight up into the air, so that we can pass through. A wave of sick rolls over me as I remember the carriage that brought me through here. I can still hear the way the gate closed steadily behind me, mocking my freedom.
And then Kiran is leading Dell through, and I am staring ahead into the darkness, the real, true darkness beyond the city walls. I feel the tingling of something so much more shattering than pain, but so much brighter than joy, climbing up my body. The combination steals my breath. It makes me tremble like the very ground beneath us is shaking.
We are nearly even with the guard box, not yet outside the gates, and I’m beginning to think we’ve done it when the Watcher steps outside the automatic doorway again, this time searching the area behind us as the camera above his head is doing.
“Have a fine evening,” I say in a hurry. I look over my shoulder back down empty Main Street and around the alley, the way we came, my blood turning to ice. Someone’s after us. We weren’t fast enough.
Kiran keeps walking. Slowly, so as not to make it seem like we’re bolting. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen if someone’s after us. He’s getting ready to pass the Watcher.
The Watcher very slowly removes the wire from his chest strap and grips the handle. In front of me, I feel Daphne choke on her sobs. Without thinking, I squeeze her tighter against me. I tell myself I’m going to use her as a shield, but the truth is I feel safer when we’re close.
I grip the knife in my hand, hard. We just need to get by him. Once we hit the gates, we can run.
But Kiran’s injured and on foot, and Dell can’t carry all three of us.
The guilt comes fast and hard; a punch to the gut. I am the reason the solitary Watcher is dead. I am the reason Kiran and Daphne are in danger right now. If they’re harmed, it will be my soul’s penance in the next life.
It should be the two of them on horseback and me on foot.
Just when I am about to jump, I hear something. A soft but steady pounding against the stones. I hold my breath. The Watcher lifts his wire. And a shot of gray whips by.
Brax.
He is gone, outside the fence, away into the night for his first taste of freedom.
The Watcher jerks around as though he will attempt to follow, but holds still.
“Was that…” asks Daphne between hiccups.
“A stray dog.” I force a laugh but my heart is singing. Brax has returned to me, and we will escape together.
“Go on your way,” the Watcher orders. With Kiran at the lead, we walk straight through the gate. It closes with a loud clang. I don’t turn around to check. I will never look back again.
Ten paces. Twenty. Fifty. The night blackens the farther away we get from the city smog. I look up to the sky and pray that the darkness will eat me whole, that the city will forevermore be blind to the mountains. That this is finally over.
My family, I am coming home.
* * *
WE MOVE ON IN silence for some time, the gates folding into the greenish-black city smog behind us. Kiran keeps one hand on Dell’s neck, leading her this way. Daphne is still sniffling. I feel like my soul has left my body and I am floating above, through the darkness, finally free.
Kiran glances over his shoulder at me.
“Be mindful up ahead. We’re entering the Witch Camps.”
I have only vague memories of passing through this place during my capture, but even then, on that rainy afternoon when I was locked behind the bars of my prison carriage, I remember the cold breath of fear on my neck.
“Why do they call it the Witch Camps?” I ask Daphne. I hope this stops the crying, which is starting to cut into my joy.
She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “This is where the women were taken after they were rounded up by the Magistrate.” She hiccups. “Before the Watchers destroyed them.”
That definitely cuts into my joy.
After the Red Years, the Witch Camps became a dumping ground, a place for things that were abandoned in an attempt to return to the simple life. Cars, trucks, wrecking machines, old-fashioned wagons, all strewn across the land, left to rust in the damp haze.
It’s also where they toss the plagued, and the Watchers and Pips that don’t take to the treatments.
The central road remains clear, but on either side, junk is piled high. Broken, smashed, useless. A reminder that anything left outside the gate will certainly perish.
The bare skin on my legs and shoulders prickles. My ma once said that this place was full of souls stuck with no one to sing them to the next life. I think she was right; I can feel them now. Slipping from the damp ground like steam.
Panting up ahead catches my attention. It’s Brax, coming through the darkness like a silver ghost. He doesn’t look up at me. I know he’ll punish me a bit longer for what I’ve done. That’s all right; I’m just glad he’s made it. He walks by Kiran’s side as if the Driver’s an old friend.
I’m still watching Brax when he lowers his head, and I can feel the hair on the back of my neck rise just as Brax’s does. He starts to growl, a low menacing sound, and to creep forward, ready to pounce.
Kiran’s knife is out, and now mine is too. I don’t know what’s got Brax’s guard up, but I’m in a better position to fight from the ground. Using Daphne to steady myself, I throw my leg over the horse’s hindquarters and land silently.
“What is it?” I ask Kiran. He shakes his head, unknowing.
We sneak forward.
“Where are we going?” Daphne asks.
“Quiet,” I tell her.
“Well, we can’t stay out here.”
“I’m going to gag her,” I whisper to Kiran. He doesn’t respond. His eyes are still searching the darkness.
We approach a barricade of old car frames, stacked up ten high and smelling strongly of rust. There is a sudden movement behind it, and all of us, Dell included, freeze.
Brax’s lips pull to reveal sharp yellow fangs.
Out of the darkness comes a great towering figure. A Watcher, lumbering towards us. An alarm screams in my head. My muscles brace to run, but Kiran motions for me to hold.
The Watcher isn’t wearing a uniform. At least, not anymore. He’s wearing the dark pants, but the jacket is torn off and there’s no strap or weapons on him. The lights from the city reveal knotted welts that gleam in silver crisscrosses over his chest. His hands are stretched in front of him, and he’s groaning softly.
He’s blind.
But that doesn’t calm my heart as he ambles an arm’s length away across the lane, towards the skeleton of an old construction machine.
I wonder how long he’s been out here in the Witch Camps. He’s obviously failed to adapt to his treatments, but unlike the other deformed test subjects, he can’t hack it in the Black Lanes. I can’t imagine how he survives.
I don’t have long to consider it. A moment later there’s another body moving our direction, though this one is much smaller. As it approaches, I see it’s another Watcher, but he’s bent over his midsection, like he can’t stand all the way up. He walks on his hands and his feet, like an animal.
His back may not be able to support his chest, but his arms are great trunks and his legs are twice as broad. As he comes closer I can see that his midsection’s no bigger than Kiran’s.
He stops. His gleaming bald head wrenches back at an impossible angle. He can see us. The breath hitches higher in my throat. He begins to scuttle towards us faster, faster, but without a sound. That’s because half of his jaw is missing. The wound looks recent; blood is still dripping on the ground.
“Oh!” Daphne cries. “Let’s go. Now. Let’s go now.”
She’s right. Together, we veer off the path, away from the blind Watcher and around a pile of old metal wheels. Kiran is still leading Dell, and I
take up the rear, dagger braced before me. Then we’re running as fast as we can through this maze of potholes and machinery. The monster can’t make a sharp turn and he stumbles with a cry that sinks its teeth into my bones. Soon he’s up again, using his arms just as he does his legs. He’s a beast, loping on all fours.
For a moment, I’m frozen. Scared stiff. And then Brax is beside me again, snapping viciously at the half Watcher as I twist my fingers in his coat. We pull backwards, both running sideways.
“Hey! Look up, look up!” I hear Kiran shout.
I spin around, just in time to see the blind Watcher. It’s too late to stop. I slam into him. Brax is barking, the sound of it firing between my temples. I spin off his solid body before I fall, and catch myself just in time to run again.
The bent-over Watcher can’t stop. He plows into the blind one seconds after me, strings of saliva and blood swinging from his missing jaw. The blind Watcher’s hands slash through the air and connect, and in an instant he’s wrapped his arms around the other’s shriveled waist and is squeezing.
A gargling scream. The crackling of bones. And then silence.
I turn. But not before I see the blind Watcher open his mouth, and bite into the flesh of the dead monster’s shoulder.
* * *
I CONVINCE KIRAN TO ride ahead and scout our path. He sits in front of Daphne on the saddle. Maybe she was prissy about him being a Driver before, but that’s gone now. She holds tight to him as they gallop away. Brax stays by my side and together we run hard in their tracks, winding through the piles of machinery, alert to what might lurk just around the bend.
We find nothing. Nothing but an open field marking the end of the Witch Camps.
My heart collapses in my chest, and for the first time, I feel a sense of relief. Kiran and Daphne emerge a moment later behind me. They’ve doubled back after clearing the way and now are leading onward, over the wooden bridge crossing a deep ditch, and into the mountains.
PART THREE
THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER 17
I CAN’T MOVE FAST enough.
The city sticks to my heels like a long-stretched shadow. Always there, right behind me, a black reminder of Pips and cold silver tables and a Garden full of flowers. The wood in the trees makes me think of the auction stage. The rustles in the brush of a boy playing a hiding game. The mountain streams remind me of a Watcher’s body, head under water. All things I wanted to leave inside those tall iron gates.