I fly toward Ky and away from Xander and into what is Outer, different.
“Almost there,” the brown-haired Officer calls out. She glances over at us and I see something there—pity. She feels sorry for all of us. For me.
She shouldn’t. No one on this air ship should. I am finally going to the Outer Provinces.
I let myself imagine that Ky waits for me when we land. That I am only moments away from seeing him. Maybe even touching his hand, and later, in the dark, his lips.
“You’re smiling,” Indie says.
“I know,” I say.
Chapter 9
KY
Evening falls hard while we wait for the moon. The sky turns blue and pink and blue again. A darker, deeper blue, the next thing to black.
I still haven’t told Eli that we’re going.
Moments ago, Vick and I showed everyone how to fire the guns. Now we’re waiting to run out on the others and down into the gaping jagged mouth of the Carving.
We hear the sharp beep of an incoming message on the miniport. Vick puts it up to his ear and listens.
I wonder what the Enemy thinks of us, these people that the Society rarely bothers to defend. They gun us down and then we crawl back out in a seemingly endless supply. Do we seem like rats, mice, fleas, some kind of vermin that can’t be killed? Or does the Enemy have some idea of what the Society is doing?
“Listen,” Vick calls out. He’s finished with the miniport. “I just got a message from an Official in charge.” A murmur runs through the crowd. They stand with black-powdered hands and eyes alive with hope. It’s hard to keep from looking away. Words start going through my mind, a familiar rhythm, and it’s only after a few moments that I realize what I’m doing. I’m saying the words for the dead over them.
“We’re getting new villagers soon,” Vick says.
“How many?” someone calls out.
“I don’t know,” Vick says. “All I know is that the Official says they’re going to be different, but we’re to treat them as any other villager and we’ll be accountable for anything that happens to them.”
Everyone’s silent. That’s one of the things they told us that has held true—if any of us kill or hurt one of the others, the Officials come for you. Fast. We’ve seen it before. The Society made it clear: we’re not to injure each other. That’s for the Enemy to do.
“Maybe they’re sending a big group,” someone calls out. “Maybe we should wait until they get here to try to fight.”
“No,” Vick says, the ring of authority in his voice. “If the Enemy comes tonight, we fire tonight.” He points to the round white moon rising along the horizon. “Let’s get in position.”
“What do you think he means?” Eli asks after the others have gone. “About the new villagers being different?”
Vick sets his mouth in a firm line and I know we’ve had the same thought. Girls. They’re going to send girls.
“You’re right,” Vick says, looking at me. “They’re getting rid of Aberrations.”
“And I bet they let all the Anomalies get gunned down before us,” I say, and almost before the words are out of my mouth I see Vick’s hand tighten into a fist and he swings right at my face. I move just in time. He misses, and instinctively I hit him square in the stomach. He staggers back but doesn’t fall.
Eli gasps. Vick and I stare at each other.
The agony in Vick’s eyes didn’t come from the punch I landed. Vick’s been hit before, like I have. We can handle that kind of pain. I’m not sure why what I said caused such a reaction in him, but I know there’s no way he’ll ever tell. I keep my secrets. He keeps his.
“You think I’m an Anomaly?” Vick asks, quiet. Eli takes a step back, keeping his distance.
“No,” I say.
“What if I were?”
“I’d be glad,” I say. “It would mean that someone survived. Or that I’m wrong about what the Society’s doing out here—”
Vick and I both look at the sky. We’ve heard the same thing, felt the same shift.
The Enemy.
The moon is up.
And it’s full.
“They’re coming!” Vick calls out.
Other voices pick up the call. They shout and yell and I hear terror and anger and something else in their voices that I recognize from long ago. The joy of fighting back.
Vick looks at me and I know we think the same thing. We’re tempted to stay and fight this out. I shake my head at Vick. No. He can stay, but I won’t. I have to get out of here. I have to try to get back to Cassia.
Flashlights move and shift in the light. Dark figures run and scream.
“Now,” Vick says.
I drop my gun and grab Eli’s arm. “Come with us,” I tell Eli. He looks at me, confused.
“Where?” he asks. I point in the direction of the Carving, and his eyes widen. “There?”
“There,” I say, “now.”
Eli hesitates for just a moment and then he nods and we run. I leave the gun behind on the ground. One more chance, maybe, for someone else, and out of the corner of my eye I see Vick put his gun down too, and the miniport next to it.
In the night, it feels like we’re running fast over the back of some kind of enormous animal, sprinting over its spines and through patches of tall, thin, gold grass that now glimmers like silver fur in the moonlight. Soon enough we’ll hit hard rock as we get closer to the Carving, and that’s when we’ll be the most exposed.
Less than half a mile later I feel Eli falling back. “Drop the gun,” I tell him, and when he doesn’t, I reach over and knock it out of his hands. It clatters to the ground and Eli stops.
“Eli,” I say, and then the firing begins.
And the screaming.
“Run,” I tell Eli. “Don’t listen.” I try not to hear any of it either—the screaming, the yelling, the dying.
We hit the edge of the sandstone, and Eli and I pull up next to Vick, who has stopped to get his bearings. “That way,” I say, pointing.
“We have to go back and help them,” Eli says.
Vick doesn’t answer but takes off again, running.
“Ky?”
“Keep running, Eli,” I tell him.
“Don’t you care that they’re dying?” Eli asks.