The Culling (The Torch Keeper)

  Digory saved Cole’s life at a terrible cost. And here I am, wallowing in the empty promises of a liar and a murderer, leaving Digory to die all alone.

  I never even told him that I—

  The hatch starts to slide shut—

  “I can’t.” I wrench myself free of Cassius and his treachery and squeeze out what’s left of the opening, tumbling onto the rapidly shrinking gangplank.

  “What are you doing? ” Cassius yells after me.

  Then I’m dashing across the dwindling walkway, my heart thundering, away from Cassius and his toxic life of endless lies and enslavement to the depravities of the Establishment.

  I leap off the edge of the gangway, across the subterranean depths of the Skein, and crash against the tunnel door, dangling from its threshold by my fingers. I squirm upward and through the doorway—

  Into Digory’s waiting arms.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen him so utterly vulnerable. He sobs against my cheek, his massive shoulders heaving. He teeters from weakness, and I slide down to the floor with him, cradling him in my arms.

  “I couldn’t leave you, Digory. And after what you did for Cole … what it cost you … your husband … ”

  He shakes his head. “Husband in name only. Rafé was a friend and fellow resistance fighter. We married as part of our cover, should either of us ever get recruited. We knew what we were getting into, what the risks were … but Cole’s just an innocent child with his whole life ahead of him.”

  My heart thunders against my chest, and fresh tears stream down Digory’s face. His eyes are opaque from the virus, almost every hint of blue gone. I can tell he can’t see me anymore, and I’m dying inside.

  He clutches my hand to his lips. “I couldn’t bear your heartbreak if you lost him. It was killing me more than this virus could.”

  “Shh. Don’t think about any of that. You’re gonna be fine … ” My voice chokes.

  His words are tumbling out now. “Back at school … all those times I ignored you, was never your friend … I couldn’t risk getting close to you because I was afraid one day you’d be my Incentive and I never wanted you to go through this hell.” He reaches up and caresses my cheek. “I love you, Lucky.”

  “I love you too.”

  And then we’re kissing each other, and it’s like I’ve never lived before. Warm fire feeds my entire body, growing until it’s a blaze of emotion that empowers me, gives me the strength that I need to do what I have to do.

  When we finally break free, I can barely breathe. But this time, I welcome the feeling more than anything in the world.

  Warning. The tunnel leading to the final Trial will seal in approximately one minute.

  Sirens blare.

  I look back down the passageway.

  I may already be too late to save Cole. But I have to go on.

  “Digory, I … ”

  “I know. Here … ” He pulls his ID tag from around his neck and tucks it in my palm. “Carry me with you.”

  We draw close and kiss again, a deep hunger that can never be satisfied. I finally force myself to pull away. It literally hurts my flesh, as if somehow our skin’s bonded together by the most powerful adhesive of all.

  “I’ll come back for you Digory. I promise. ”

  “Don’t worry about me.” He kisses my forehead. “Find Cole. Never give up.”

  I tear myself away and race down the passageway, sobbing, feeling like a knife’s ripping through my innards. Red warning lights twirl from the ceiling in a blurry wet haze, disorienting me, making me dizzy. Up ahead, the sliver of light coming through the opened door at the end narrows faster and faster …

  I slip through just as the door clangs shut.

  The elevator zooms upward at high speed, curling my stomach. Then it jolts to a stop and its doors swoosh open.

  I’m free of the Skein at last.

  I step out onto a small, rocky landing in the middle of the sea.

  The sky’s heavy with black clouds, like the shroud over my heart. The deep rumbling of thunder fills my ears. Before me, a dark ocean looms. White caps churn through its turbulent ripples—

  I gasp.

  Staring down at me, across those choppy waters, is the Lady. The Lady that sparked the stories I would tell Cole every night.

  The Lady of his dreams … and mine.

  She’s real and larger than life—at least one hundred feet tall.

  I hug myself. It’s too much. Emotional overload. Grief over Digory. Shock at this latest surprise. The sound of my own laughter startles me. It’s soft at first. But in moments, it’s roaring from my lips as freely as the tears cascading down my cheeks and into my open mouth, filling it with salty freshness.

  The Lady still brandishes her torch high, about one hundred and fifty feet into the sky. But there’s something different about her that shakes me out of my momentary insanity. No longer standing on a pedestal, she’s partially submerged in the waters that lap against the lower part of her gown. Her towering form lists to one side, as if standing has become a great burden. The spires of her crown are missing parts or are broken off. Her entire body’s riddled with welts and holes in the stone, like gaping wounds.

  My eyes track her gaze across the sea. There are no sparkling lights, no shimmering buildings for her to stand sentinel over. Only a thick mist that hovers over mounds of crumpled ruins.

  Despite her battered state, and everything she must have been through, the Lady still endures … standing strong, regal, and fearless, clutching her book, daring anyone to try and take it from her.

  Never give up.

  A tiny figure crawls out of the water and scales a stone fold of the Lady’s gown, disappearing inside one of the craggy openings.

  Ophelia.

  She may have gotten a head start. But she’s not as fast a swimmer as I am. I can narrow the gap.

  Attention!

  Slade’s voice cuts through the wail of the wind and echoes across the sea.

  Congratulations Recruit Spark. You have made it to your final Trial. Your task is simple. The first Recruit to find his or her respective Incentive in the ruin shall earn a place as a trainee in the Imposer Task Force. All previous restrictions, regarding the infliction of lethal force against your fellow Recruits, have been rescinded. You are free to use any means at your disposal to accomplish this task. Good luck.

  Even though the Lady’s torch is unlit, it’s a beacon that lights the way to my brother, at long last. A soothing calm comes over me. I can do this. Without Cassius’s interference, without cheating. I can do this.

  For Cole.

  For Digory.

  I dive into the cold water and swim toward whatever fate awaits me.

  thirty-nine

  I can’t feel my body.

  It’s as if I’m a spirit, gliding through the ice-cold waters. But not feeling anything is freeing. It allows me to concentrate on staying afloat, and freezes out every other thought except for my immediate goals.

  Reach the Lady. Rescue Cole.

  My arms hack their way through the water. In minutes, I’m bobbing on the surface and clinging to one of the giant stone shackles broken open at the Lady’s feet.

  Guess she doesn’t take too kindly to being anyone’s slave either.

  I spit out a mouthful of freezing water. My breath comes in short, quick bursts. I can barely feel the stone links as I grasp them and haul myself out of the sea, rolling onto my back.

  Goal One accomplished.

  But there’s no time to rest. Ophelia’s still in the lead in a trial where mere seconds will mean the difference between Cole’s life or death.

  Hauling myself to my feet, I grope the huge crumbling manacles, trying to find purchase so I can climb. A couple of times my feet dislodge weak rock and I almost topple back into the ocean. But I clu
tch the stone with an iron grip, wincing as it tears through the flesh of my palms.

  Just a foot or two above me looms one of the jagged holes in the stone I spotted when I exited the Skein. Trying to balance myself against a layer of the statue’s robes, I lift a trembling arm and hook it over the bottom edge, dragging myself upward until I’m scuttling through it.

  I find myself wedged in a narrow steel staircase that spirals upward like a twisted spine to dizzying heights. Handrails coil up this spine, resembling thin nerve fibers. Steel girders crisscross all around; some are torn and curled, trapping me inside a huge fractured rib cage. Everything seems held together by enormous bolts and rivets, like the ball-bearings and joints of a giant. Stale dust wafts through the dimness, clogging my nostrils with dank decay.

  I cup my hands around my mouth. “Cole, can you hear me? Where are you? It’s me, Lucky!”

  My only response is the clatter of booted heels echoing from the top of the stairs.

  Ophelia.

  Squirming out of the cramped space, I dash up the narrow, rickety stairs feeling more claustrophobic the higher I go. Below me, the hole I first crawled through is already half-submerged in the swirling waters created by the incoming storm.

  Don’t give up.

  I take a few slow, deep breaths and continue my climb.

  Creak!

  The staircase shudders. My fingers dig into the rails.

  No need to panic. These stairs have stood for hundreds of years and will probably be around for hundreds more.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Several of the steel pins holding the staircase in place rip free with a terrible clang that ricochets like the sound of gunfire. The entire column of steps lists sharply. I’m thrown against the rails. My upper body sails over the edge and I dig my booted toes into the skeletal framework to prevent myself from toppling completely over.

  A nut and bolt the size of my head crash through the handrail, inches from my head.

  I glance at the obliterated railing, now a clump of twisted metal.

  That was no accident.

  “Stay away, Spark! ” Ophelia’s shrill cry reverberates through the Lady’s innards.

  Trying to hold my balance on the tilted stairs, I stretch my neck out and over the remaining part of the banister, centimeter by centimeter, and peer up.

  There she is, maybe seventy-five feet above me, awash in flashes of lightning that dissect her body into slivers of light and shadow.

  “There’s no way you can beat me,” she trills. “And I’ll hurt you if you try.”

  A blast of thunder rattles the staircase.

  Anger flares through me. “You mean like you tried to hurt me back at the lab by destroying Cole’s antivirus?”

  Ophelia slithers away from the railing and out of sight.

  My eyes dart from the railing to the stairs’ supports.

  Time to do a little destabilizing of my own.

  Gripping the stairs above me, I leap onto the railing. A deep groan reverberates through the murk, as if the Lady’s in pain. I rock back and forth as hard as I can, gaining speed and momentum. Years of exposure to the elements has rendered the structure unsound. Ophelia and I are probably the first people to put weight on these steps in ages.

  “Spark!” Ophelia shrieks from somewhere above. “What are you doing? You’ll kill us both! ”

  The entire staircase teeters for a moment—

  Crack!

  The whole structure lurches forward, collapsing into the dangling network of steel support girders.

  A dense haze of dislodged grit veils everything.

  The impact sends violent shudders through my body as I struggle to hold on. But these are minor compared to the spasms that rock the Lady to her very foundations. A cacophony of screeching metal, buckling walls, and exploding bolts fills the air.

  I lose my grip and dangle from the twisted metal railing by one hand. Below me, a fresh surge of seawater crashes through a new gash in the thin copper of the Lady’s skin, chilling my flesh with its icy spray.

  My slick hand slips—

  I plunge, regaining my grip on the gnarled handrail at the last moment and stopping myself from being impaled on a protruding rivet. Then I’m penduluming back and forth on protesting metal, one second over freezing ocean, the next over jagged steel, over and over, as if it’s fate that’s lost its Trial and now has to decide which manner of death I deserve.

  At least I’ve bought some time, and maybe even narrowed the gap between Ophelia and myself.

  Snap!

  The bar I’m clinging to breaks free of its fasteners.

  As I drop, I swing, arcing into the latticework opposite the collapsed staircase.

  Then I’m tangled in its metal strands, which resemble a huge web. I look up. The crossed metal beams run parallel to where the staircase used to be, extending all the way to the top of the Lady’s head. The open space between each diagonal strip is only a few feet wide, well-suited for hand and foot holds.

  This could work. But it’s not like I have a real choice.

  Wasting no more time, I spider up its length. Even though I tug at each bar before I pull on it or trust it with my entire weight, I try to move fast and not linger too long on any one section, just in case.

  As I skitter the rest of the way up the makeshift ladder, two thoughts tussle in my brain.

  The higher I climb, the closer I’m getting to Cole …

  And Ophelia’s even more unsettling when she’s nowhere to be seen …

  I reach the top and slide onto the platform that used to connect to the spiral staircase.

  My heart drumrolls in my chest.

  Gasping breaths burst from my lips.

  “Cole! I’m here! I’ve come for you, buddy!”

  Only the sound of my own voice replies, its echoes distorted by the mocking wind.

  Before me, there’s a series of panoramic windows spanning maybe fifteen feet. If there once was glass, it’s long gone now. The row of windows looks like a crescent moon collapsed on its side, the ends pointing downward like a frown. Black clouds like billowing smoke stream past these open frames, along with the chilly wind that whips through my hair and weeps into my ears.

  Based on the size and shape of the room, this must be the Lady’s crown I’m standing in. Whoever built this place must have designed it so that its people could come up here and gaze at the wonder of the city.

  My fingers latch onto one of the curved support beams and I pull myself to my feet, staggering toward the center window.

  There’s nothing to be seen outside now except an all-consuming darkness that’s plucked the stars out of the sky and swallowed them whole. Lightning flickers in the sky, reflecting on the choppy sea below. Then there’s a low rumble, as if the night’s growling a warning. The air up here feels like icy teeth biting into my skin.

  Another flash of lightning turns the dark into brief day. A deafening clatter of thunder rattles my body. I back away from the window frames. As much as I rub my shoulders, I can’t shake the tremors.

  As soon as the rumble subsides, I can hear the sound of breathing directly behind me and I spin—

  Crack!

  “Ah!” A volcano erupts against my ribs. The impact sends me reeling across the room. It’s as if my side’s on fire. I clutch the wound, fresh waves of pain slicing through me. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Every breath I take is torture. When I’m finally able to open my eyes, it’s like looking through a rain-soaked pane.

  Ophelia’s wielding a broken pipe—which she just used to shattered my ribs—like a club.

  Another lash of thunder. I flinch.

  She steps closer.

  There’s a blur of metal. I try to roll out of the way—

  Whack!

  My kneecap explodes in agony.

/>   Lightning and thunder struggle to overtake each other, striking faster and louder.

  Somehow, I’m able to use my arms to drag my body backward, never taking my blurry eyes off her. Soon, the cold steel of rivets digs into my back. I’m backed into a corner with nowhere to run … even if I could.

  Rain pelts the window frames like bullets, spraying the interior of the crown with an icy mist.

  Ophelia’s shadow drapes over me like a burial cloth. She raises the pipe high overhead—in direct trajectory to my skull.

  I raise my palm. “Ophelia … please … ”

  She snarls. Drool seeps from her parted lips, scalding my frosted cheek. She slams the pipe down like a mallet, but before it connects, I smash the toe of my boot into her shin as hard as I can.

  She shrieks and drops the pipe, falling to her knees. It starts to roll and I lunge for it, my fingers grazing the tip. But she pounces on top of me, her weight grinding my fractured ribs against the hard floor as she knots her fingers in my hair and whips my head back.

  “I … hate … you,” she growls into my ear.

  Then she slams my face against the floor, pulls it back, and slams it again. Warmth trickles down my forehead … the room spins …

  She pulls my head back a third time—

  My fingers wrap around the rain-spattered pipe.

  Clutching it as tight as I’m able, I swing it backward, jabbing it into whatever part of her I can reach.

  Her body spasms against mine, crushing me harder against the floor. I squirm out from underneath her.

  Pressing against another support column, I grab it and haul myself to my feet, teeth grinding into my lips against the throbbing pain. I stagger to the far corner of the room, away from Ophelia and toward the farthest window, hoping that the torrential rains and frigid air will help revive me.

  But Ophelia’s unrelenting. Hands twisted into claws, teeth bared, she charges. The collision sends me reeling backward—through the open window.

  My stomach lurches into my throat. Instinctively, I grab onto her and pull her with me—

  Then we both free-fall into space.

  forty