Shards and Ashes

  It’s wide open.

  My pulse quickens, and I bolt up the stairs. Sky would never open the door for anyone. She knows better. “Sky?”

  I glance around the room. She’s not here, but someone else was. Blankets are strewn all over the floor, and the shelter is shredded.

  “Sky!” I know she won’t answer, but I keep calling her name. This can’t be happening. Children have been disappearing from the streets, not from the domiciles.

  I run for the door and trip over the shredded strips of Firestall. My face hits the cement floor hard, and for a second, the room sways. I push up onto my knees, and something glints under the black strips of material.

  A glass bottle the size of my thumb. It has a silver cap with a hole in the top, but the bottle is empty. A white label is peeling off the front. I’ve never seen anything like it in the stores along the alleyways.

  I hit the stairs and notice the open door a floor below me. Clothes and personal items are strewn across the floor. Sky might not be the only kid missing.

  I’m back in the streets, running down the alley under the neon signs. “Sky?”

  I check the shops she frequents, like the one with hand-sewn dolls that cost more than we spend on a week’s worth of food packets. Or the store several blocks away where they sell tea made from roots and the salve that heals burns.

  I stop a woman selling bread packets on the street. “Have you seen a little girl with blond hair?” It’s Sky’s most recognizable feature.

  Almost no one has blond hair or blue eyes anymore. My father said they made people more vulnerable to the sun, a vicious sort of natural selection. It’s the reason I rarely take Sky outside during the day, and keep every inch of her skin covered when I do.

  The woman shakes her head. “Haven’t seen no blond hair.”

  I stand in the middle of the street, the black doors stretching out in front of me, the vid screens above me.

  She’s not here.

  I think about my sister’s smile and the way she never complains when we don’t have enough to eat. I can see her blue eyes, bright and curious. My mother named her Sky because of her eyes. She said the real sky was just as blue once. I look up at the Dome and the red sky beyond it.

  I would trade a real blue sky in a second to find her.

  Faces flash across the gigantic vid screens one by one.

  Sky’s will be up there tomorrow.

  I’ve never been inside the Protectorate. Protectorate officers are dangerous—as quick to draw their guns as the criminals they hunt. And Burn 3 is full of criminals, men with nothing left to lose who will cut your throat over a few coins or a food packet. I try not to imagine Sky in their hands.

  The building is made of Firestall, the same material used to construct the Dome. It’s only used for government buildings, and the Protectorate is the only government facility in this part of town.

  I burst through the doors, and the scanners go off. There’s nothing in my pockets except the glass bottle. I don’t own anything but the clothes on my back, and I spent all the coins I had this morning.

  “Stop right there,” an officer shouts. His weapon is pointed at me, the red glow signaling that it’s armed. He’s prepared to use the heat we all fear to kill me.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammer. “My sister—she’s missing. I think someone took her.”

  “Scan her.” He nods at another officer, with smooth hands a few shades darker than the flesh on his face and neck. Skin always takes on a darker shade after it heals from a burn. Judging by his hands, he was burned badly. Only the expensive salves can smooth the texture of the affected skin.

  The officer waves a small electronic device over my body. “She’s clean.”

  The weapon lowers, and I struggle to catch my breath. I notice the cages hanging above us—at least twenty feet from where I’m standing. Arms hang between the bars. There are men inside.

  “Someone broke into our room at the domicile, and my little sister is missing. She’s only ten.”

  Please help me.

  “How do you know it was a break-in?” the Protectorate officer with the scanner asks.

  “The door was wide open, and everything inside was destroyed.”

  He shakes his head. “Maybe she left in a hurry. Don’t you watch the vid screens? You know how many kids run away every day?”

  I try to make sense of what he’s saying, but I can’t. “You think they’re running away? Where would they go?”

  The one with the weapon leaning against his shoulder shrugs. “The Abyss maybe. Who knows? Lots of kids like it down there. Plenty of stuff on the black market to help them forget about their problems.”

  “My sister doesn’t have problems.” I realize how ridiculous it sounds as soon as I say it. “No more than anyone else.”

  I don’t know how to make them believe me. For a second, all I can think about is my father. He died two years ago, slowly poisoned by toxic fumes he and the other evacuators inhaled decades ago when they risked their lives to save others. My father would know what to say to make these men listen.

  I shove my hands into my pockets, my fists curled in frustration. The cool glass slides against my skin, and I remember the bottle safely tucked inside. My hand closes around it, but I hesitate. What if they take it? I don’t trust these men, and it’s the only clue I have.

  The officer with the scanner looks bored. “I’m sorry your sister’s missing, kid. But we can’t chase down every runaway.”

  I take a deep breath and swallow my anger. If I lose control, I’ll end up in one of the cages hanging above us, and I won’t be able to look for Sky. “Did you ever think that someone might be taking them?”

  They both laugh. “Why would anyone want extra mouths to feed?”

  “Maybe they’re not feeding them.” It’s hard to believe these idiots are responsible for protecting us. But I have to convince them to believe me.

  I start to pull the bottle out of my pocket—

  “Sounds like a conspiracy theory.” He shakes his head. “Did you come up with that on your own, or are you one of those crazy evacuators’ kids?”

  My whole body stiffens, and I push the bottle back down into my pocket.

  The evacuators are the only reason you’re alive.

  That’s what I want to tell him, but the familiar shame eats away at my stomach instead. My father was crazy, a fact I tried to hide when he was alive.

  But he taught me to trust my instincts, which is the reason I slide my hand back out of my pocket. Empty.

  A cage above us rattles, and something falls, nearly hitting one of the officers. His head jerks up. “Throw something out of there again, and I’ll rip your arms off. You hear me? Then I’ll send you back down to the Abyss, and we’ll see if you can steal without them.”

  His partner looks at me. “You kids think the Abyss is one big party because there are no rules, but it’s full of criminals. If you spend enough time down there, you’ll end up in a cage too.”

  Full of criminals . . .

  These men aren’t going to help me find Sky. I’m going to have to do it myself.

  But at least now I know where to look.

  The entrance to the Abyss is a round metal plate in the street. A ladder leads to what’s left of the underground city where everyone lived until scientists figured out how to build the Dome. I climb down until the ladder reaches the damp ground, the mouths of stone tunnels surrounding me. Names and arrows are painted on the walls, directions to places I don’t recognize.

  My father brought me down here once when I was Sky’s age. I remember the darkness punctuated by dim strings of tiny bulbs that led to a crowded market of open stalls. He was looking for a friend, one of the guys like him who helped thousands of burned and injured people find their way down here during the Evacuation. He bought me a piece of dried meat from a stall—the first thing I’d ever eaten that didn’t come from a sealed silver pouch—and left me to play games with the other children wh
ile he spoke to a man with one arm. My father didn’t explain the visit, and made me swear never to go down into the underbelly of the city again.

  He would understand why I am breaking that promise now.

  I don’t remember the name of the place my father took me, so I choose a random tunnel and follow the steady stream of water and rats. I can’t imagine Sky down here. Everything about her is clean and bright.

  I try to imagine my father guiding me, but all I can think about is the last thing he said before he died. When the toxicity levels in his blood rose so high we had to admit him to a clinic. “Be brave, Phoenix. Take care of your sister.”

  Another broken promise to my father.

  My feet are soaked by the time I hear voices and notice a pool of pale light in the distance. The tunnel opens up, and I see the stalls. They’re lined up in crooked rows, the ripped awnings forming aisles. Tiny strings of white bulbs dangle above them. I’m not sure if this is the same market I visited as a child.

  I scan the crowd, searching for any trace of my sister’s blond hair. I move closer to the stalls and watch as customers haggle over the price of burnt books, medicine long past its expiration date, and sweets in clear plastic wrappers instead of pouches. Everything the merchants are selling here is illegal. Things the Protectorate officers would throw you in the cages for possessing aboveground. But here, people are bartering for drinks in dark glass bottles and matches—a controlled substance in Burn 3. The sight of them makes my skin itch as if it’s already on fire.

  “Whatcha lookin’ for, kid? Jerky? Cigarettes?” a man with an eye patch shouts.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about. “Have you seen a girl with blond hair? About this tall?” I hold up my hand to match Sky’s height.

  His eye narrows, and he glances over his shoulder. “Little girls don’t buy cigarettes.”

  I try again. “Have you seen her? She’s wearing a black tunic and outercoat.”

  He strikes a match in front of me and watches it burn.

  “Do you know what this is?” I hold the glass bottle with the printed label in my palm.

  His eye grows wide, and he covers my hand with his, closing my fingers around the bottle. “Not here,” he hisses under his breath.

  “I don’t—”

  He jerks my arm so hard it feels like he’s trying to break it. “Got me those cigarettes back here,” he yells loud enough for anyone listening to hear.

  I don’t know what cigarettes are, but I know I wouldn’t buy them—or anything else—from him.

  “Come on.” He slips between the stalls and gestures for me to follow. The opening to another tunnel waits, but there are no strings of lights hanging across this one. It’s completely dark. Even the water trickling from the mouth looks blacker.

  I shouldn’t follow him. I’ve heard stories of kids being hacked to pieces in the alleys of Burn 3. Down here, it could be worse. But at sixteen, I’m not a kid anymore—only a year younger than my father was when he saved hundreds of people—and my sister is missing.

  “Where are we going?” My voice echoes against the slick walls.

  “Shh!” He waves a scarred hand at me. The skin is darker and rough, the mark of a severe burn. I picture a pack of lit matches in his hand and the flame jumping from the matchstick to his clothes.

  I blink the image away and listen to his footsteps to be sure they stay ahead of mine. If he stops walking, I want to know. But he doesn’t, moving quickly until we reach a dead end.

  A lopsided wooden shack leans against the tunnel wall, its windows covered in black tape. Who blacks out their windows when they live underground?

  Someone crazy.

  The man glances around as if he thinks we’ve been followed. Satisfied, he sorts through the keys attached to a long chain at his waist, carefully matching them to the rows of locks on the door.

  He’s just like the evacuators who were exposed to burning plastic and other chemicals. Paranoid. The ones who didn’t die immediately went crazy, their minds rotting away from the poison they inhaled to save others. I should know.

  I don’t want to go in, but what if he knows something about Sky or the bottle I found?

  “Get inside.” He opens the door and shoves me through.

  A cracked bulb buzzes to life, and when I see the room, I realize he is crazy. The walls are plastered with papers, strange numbers and symbols scrawled all the way to the corners. And photos—not digital scans, but actual photos—of children with dirty faces and tired eyes. One stands out.

  The boy has blond hair like Sky’s. I can’t take my eyes off his face.

  “Who are all these kids?” I point at the pictures, the edges water-stained and bent.

  He takes a long look at the photos and swallows hard. “Mind your own business,” he snaps.

  I step away from the images and the numbers I don’t understand. Boxes of dirty beakers and lab equipment are stacked along the far wall, next to torn and partially burnt books. He must have salvaged the books from somewhere. I doubt he could afford to buy them.

  “Know what those are?” He points to the strange symbols and numbers and shakes his head before I have a chance to answer. “’Course you don’t. Those are equations. Scientific compounds.”

  “I’m just trying to find my sister.”

  He points at my pocket. “Show it to me one more time.”

  I hand him the bottle, and he holds it up to the light. “Ketamine. Give a kid enough of this stuff and they lose consciousness—or worse.”

  I clench my fists, imagining someone dragging my sister’s limp body out of the domicile.

  “Makes it easy to take them to the Skinners.”

  The word makes my skin crawl, even though I don’t know what it means. “What’s a Skinner?”

  He turns quickly, so he can look at me with his good eye. “Are you messing with me? If you’re holding that bottle, you know who they are. Or you will soon.”

  “Please tell me.” I don’t know what I can say to convince him to help me. “My father is dead, and my sister is all I have.”

  “How did he die?” The man’s tone is suspicious.

  “What?” I don’t know why he cares, but he waits for me to answer. “My father was an evacuator,” I say as if that’s explanation enough.

  He flips his eye patch up, and there’s a hollow recess where his eyeball should be. “Then you know what it’s like when they take someone from you.”

  Those are the delusions talking. This guy is too far gone to give me any information, and I’ve already wasted enough time. I turn to leave. “Thanks for your help.”

  The man starts pacing in the cramped space, muttering and biting his nails. I remember the way my father paced at night when he thought we were asleep. Sometimes his mind was sound, and others I could see the effects of the poison he inhaled during the Evacuation. Toxins that were slowly killing him.

  “Wait here.” The man disappears behind a folding screen, and I can hear him rummaging around. He emerges wearing a heavy black coat that makes his thin frame look much bigger.

  “I really think I should—”

  He slides a rotted panel of wood along the back wall of the shack, revealing the opening to another sewer tunnel. “Do you want to find your sister or not?”

  I have no way of knowing if this man has any information—if the symbols on his walls are scientific equations or the delusions of a damaged mind. But something about the photos of the children convinces me he knows something, even if he is insane.

  My father had moments of clarity when every word he spoke was the truth. This man reminds me of him, the flashes of sanity grappling for footing on the sliding rocks of madness. If one of those moments can help me find Sky, I have to follow him.

  We step into the darkness, and a flame illuminates the void. The man is holding a gold object between his fingers. A small flame rises up from the wick inside it. “Never seen one of these before, have you?”

  I shake my head
and take a step back. No one produces fire intentionally in Burn 3. The risk of starting a fire is too great when there is so little water to extinguish one.

  I picture the flame catching his skin again and wonder if that’s how he got the burn on his hand.

  “It’s called a lighter. You fill this part with oil.” He taps on the bottom half of the rectangular object. “Then you turn this dial and it strikes the flint.”

  I nod as if I understand, and he seems satisfied.

  We move deeper into the sewage tunnel, the device he calls a lighter illuminating barely a few feet in front of us. “Kids started disappearing down here first. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?”

  I remember the photos from his walls. Were they missing children from the Abyss?

  “The vid screens don’t broadcast news outside of Burn 3.”

  He shakes his head at my ignorance. “We aren’t outside of Burn 3.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  He waves me off. “Forget it. Children who live aboveground with hair the color of the sun will always be more valuable than ours.”

  “But the boy in the picture on your wall had blond hair.”

  His body tenses and I realize I’ve made a mistake mentioning it. “Don’t worry about the kids down here. Your sister’s the one you care about.”

  Heat creeps up my neck, and shame settles in the pit of my empty stomach. The Abyss—the underground sewers I’m walking through—were the only safe place to live for years. Now people don’t venture down here unless they want to buy something on the black market. He’s right. No one cares if kids in the Abyss go missing.

  Yet I expect this stranger to care about my sister. A little blond girl from a world that treats the people in his like rats. “I just meant—”

  He cuts me off again. “I know what you meant. Now shut up. We’re getting closer.”

  Closer to what?

  The cement cylinder stretches out in front us, murky water splashing under our boots. The stench of mold turns to something more nauseating, one even worse than flesh burning.