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I shook my head. “We’ll follow orders, sir. ”
Sacrifice
For several weeks, morale stayed high. Patrols passed with relative ease, we met the meat quota, and I enjoyed being a Huntress. Apart from the occasional clash with Freaks, things stayed quiet. I had the awful feeling that once they stopped gorging on Nassau, they would head for the next nearest enclave. Us. Still, I kept my misgivings to myself.
When I least expected it, disaster struck. But not in the way I thought.
Fade and I were among the last to return from patrol that day. We had to range wider than usual to fill our bags. Half the snares sat empty, worrisome enough, but we managed to take enough prey to justify calling ourselves Hunters. We also dropped a couple of Freaks, but I hardly called that a deed worth mentioning. These had been near death, nothing but skin and bone and bloody teeth.
When we clambered across the barricades, I knew instantly something was wrong. The guards stood facing away from their posts, for one thing. They barely glanced back at us to make sure we were human before returning to the common area just beyond.
I glanced at Fade, who hefted his bag in a shrug. We put the meat in a pile with the rest—Twist would tend to it later—and inched closer to hear what was going on. The Wordkeeper held court with Whitewall and Copper standing to either side. They had a big sandy-haired guy trapped at the center of the circle. Everyone had stopped work to watch events unfold. My movement drew the Wordkeeper’s eye and he smiled at me, as if we shared a secret.
“You stand accused of theft and hoarding,” Whitewall said, his voice hard.
“How do you plead?” Copper asked.
“I didn’t. I would never!”
Oh, no. Even before I cut around enough to recognize his face in profile, I knew Stone’s voice. He cradled a brat in one arm, his face drawn with terror.
“Silk found this hidden beneath your pallet. ” The Wordkeeper held up one of the slim, colorful books I’d brought. “You were seen lurking around the archives. Can you offer any explanation before we sentence you?”
Tears streamed down my friend’s face. The brat in his arms caught his mood and started to cry in little gulping sniffs. “It’s not mine. I don’t know how it got there. ”
Watching them, I knew. With a terrible growing sickness, I knew. Skittle probably hadn’t done anything, either. Every so often, they picked a citizen at random. They put artifacts in his private space and then they accused him of hoarding. They needed the consequences to be fresh in everyone else’s mind. This was how they kept us from questioning their decisions. I’d once believed the elders to be benevolent and wise.
But no more.
Stone had no chance Topside and he had a brat. He’d sired one; it could be the boy tucked into the curve of his arm. I couldn’t watch this happen. If the tunnel brat haunted me, there was no way I could live with watching my friend’s exile.
“That’s no defense against the evidence,” Whitewall said.
“It’s mine. ” I spoke before I knew I meant to.
Unfriendly hands shoved me toward the center. I stumbled and then restored my balance, approaching with my heart thumping like mad. I didn’t want to do this; I couldn’t be doing this. I didn’t want to leave the only home I’d ever known.
The Wordkeeper narrowed his eyes on me. “You claim you stole it? After presenting yourself as a model citizen?” His tight expression said he knew I’d done nothing of the kind.
“Then how did it wind up in Stone’s private space?” Silk demanded.
I don’t know what I would’ve said, but Fade pushed forward then. No, don’t do this. Stay and be safe. In that moment, I tried to will him not to speak. I even shook my head, but he didn’t look at me.
He focused on the elders. “I put it there. I was jealous of their friendship, and I wanted him to be blamed for what she’d done. ”
After the initial gasp, silence.
I could see them weighing the benefit of seeing two former heroes brought low, two sacrifices for the price of one. Fade had proven the best Hunter among us, so he would make an excellent example. See, they would say. Anyone can stray. That is why constant vigilance and obedience is so important. They conferred far too short a time, unlike after my naming day. This was serious, and someone had to pay.
Whitewall said, “I accept your confession. From this moment forth, you are banished, stripped of your titles, and will be offered no aid or shelter by any College citizen, on penalty of exile. Go Topside, lawbreakers. ”
Though I had expected it, the weight of the pronouncement crushed me. I tried to catch Thimble’s eye but she turned away. One by one, everyone else did the same. As a brat, I’d taken part in a shunning; I just hadn’t realized how it felt. I’d been secure in my status. Every year, I realized. We sent people Topside every single year.
With some part of me, I recognized they’d targeted Stone as a warning. Because I cared about him, because we’d been brat-mates. It was a reminder to keep silent about anything I might’ve learned from Banner or Fade. They couldn’t have expected me to react like this. Even I couldn’t believe it.
Stone wore a bewildered look, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. He patted the brat on the back and dried his tears while staring at me with mute hurt. We’d been through so much together. Did he truly think I—
“Thief,” he spat and turned his back, like the others.
He didn’t know I’d saved him. There would be no acknowledgment of the sacrifice. The knowledge rendered me numb.
“You have five minutes,” Silk said. “You will not be permitted to take our food or water. We will allow you your personal effects, but you will be searched before leaving the enclave for the last time. ”
Her eyes reflected a sad, quiet awareness of what I’d done. Of what Fade had done. Though I didn’t like her, I didn’t believe this was her policy; she merely enforced it. I knew why I’d spoken up for Stone; I was less sure of Fade’s reasons for getting involved. Whatever they were, he now had no choice but to follow me into the exile.
With shaking hands, I put my few belongings in the bag I took on patrols: spare clothing, my blanket, the tin of salve Banner had made, and a few of my shiny baubles. All told, there wasn’t much. That left only my weapons, and I strapped them on feeling hopeless and heartsick.
Twist stopped me on the way and tugged me into his private space. I’d never seen it before. “We don’t have much time. ” He rummaged in his crate and came up with an item that looked like a leather harness. He filled the packets with dry meat and the pouches with water. “Here, put it on under your shirt. ”
“They’ll kill you if they find out you’re helping me. ”
His mouth curled. “Like they did Banner?”
“How do you know?”
“Who do you think deals with the dead?” Twist closed his eyes for a moment, but not before I saw his grief. Banner had been important to him. His hands curled into fists, and he slammed one against his palm. “Someone betrayed us. ”
“Us?” This couldn’t be a trap, not at this point. But I still didn’t feel comfortable admitting what I knew.
“I’m one of the rebels. ”
I froze, wondering if he, like Fade, suspected me of playing some part in Banner’s death. But he wouldn’t be helping me if he did. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d helped her, like you’re doing now. ”
He shrugged then. “It’s not that big a risk. They’re going to kill me for what I do after you’re gone. ”
For the first time, I looked at Twist and saw him as he was—not the cowed, scurrying figure who went to do Whitewall’s bidding. His eyes carried an angry fire; his shoulders might be narrow, but they were straight and sure. I almost asked what he was planning, but we didn’t have any time to waste.
“Don’t throw your life away,” I said softly. “Whatever you do, make it count. ”
He nodded. “You were al
ways nice to me, and Stone is a good person. I know he didn’t do this. Neither did you. ”
“Nobody did,” I said softly.
Twist gave a jerky nod, stuck his head through the curtain to make sure there were no witnesses, and pushed me out. The harness made little shape against my shirt. With luck, the guards would only search my bag, not my person.
They spat on me as I passed through the warren toward the barricades. I lifted my chin and pretended not to see them. Fade met me there. We stood mute while they rifled through our things. Pin flung my bag at my head, and I caught it. I hardly dared breathe when she stepped close.
“You disgust me,” she said, low.
I said nothing. Like so many times before, Fade and I climbed across and left the enclave behind. But this time, we weren’t heading on patrol. No safety awaited us. Without thinking, without seeking a direction, I broke into a run.
I ran until the pain in my side matched the one in my heart. At length he grabbed me from behind and gave me a shake. “We’re not going to make it if you keep this up. ”
A choked laugh escaped me. “Are you stupid? We’re not going to make it anyway. If Nassau died, what chance do we have? Why did you come with me? Now I have to feel bad about you too. ”
“You’re my partner,” he said, as if the words meant something different.
“But you lied. I know you didn’t put the book in Stone’s space. ”
“And I know you didn’t steal it. ”
“He didn’t either,” I whispered. “And it wasn’t fair. It was them. ”
“I know. ”
“How long have you known?” Heartbreak and disillusionment cut me like shards of glass.
“Always,” he said simply.
“That explains why you hated them so much. ”
He wrapped his arms around me and my first impulse was to push him away. But there were no rules anymore. I wasn’t a Huntress. Now I was just a girl with six scars on my arms. So I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart.
“You can’t look on this as a death sentence,” he said, after a moment.
“You really think we can survive?”
“Down here? Not for long. But Topside isn’t like they said, Deuce. It’s dangerous, true, but going up doesn’t mean instant death. ”
My teeth chattered at the idea. I’d prepared my whole life for the dangers one faced in the tunnels. I knew nothing else. I tipped my head back as if I could gaze through the tons of metal and stone to the wonders he’d seen and the horrors he’d survived. The surface world sounded like a tale told to a brat during a quiet moment. I couldn’t imagine what it might be like up there.
“If you say so. ”
“Come on. Let’s keep moving. We need to be out of their territory before the next patrol or we’ll have to fight any Hunters we see. ”
I didn’t want that. By his expression, neither did he. “Did you kill Skittle?”
His silence served as its own answer.
“We’re not going to be down here long,” he said eventually. “Remember the platform where we slept that first night?”