“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 always 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?”
The place with the horrible waste closet—yes, I remembered. I nodded.
“Well, the metal gate on the other end blocks off the stairs. Those lead Topside.”
“You think we can get it open.”
“If not, the Burrowers might know a way out. They have all kinds of subtunnels.”
I nodded. “We also need to warn them about trading with the enclave, assuming Twist told me the truth. We owe them that much.”
“Agreed.”
I fell in behind him. Fade set a bruising pace; I knew what he wanted—out of these tunnels. He could’ve left at anytime, but maybe he didn’t want to go alone. I could understand that.
With each stride, I left the known world behind.
two
topside
She managed to open it, and to her great joy found herself in the other place, not on the top of the wall, however, but in the garden she had longed to enter.
—George MacDonald, The Day Boy and the Night Girl
Unknown
The platform looked the same—with one notable exception. There were no Freak bodies, not even bones, just the smear of blood where they’d been dragged off. Ears sharp, we took a break for food and water, and then Fade strode over to the metal gate.
It had a lock on it, but the gate itself was old and rusted. He kicked it repeatedly until it finally bent and gave enough for us to slip through the gap between the gate and the wall. The fit required us to turn sideways and it scraped a little, but we made it.
Then we stood on the other side. Steps led upward with a metal divider separating the two sides. Fade led the way, and we climbed toward the surface. It took far less time than I expected. If everyone in the enclave knew just how close we were, figuratively speaking, people would’ve suffered some sleepless nights.
The air felt different, the higher we went. It moved against my skin, carrying new scents. But the stairs ended in a mound of rocks. The wind could slip through, not people. We stood there for a moment, stymied in our attempt to escape before we ran into the first hunting party.