a picture with the word, but come up blank. “I don’t think so.”
“You know, the guys with the big guns? Who patrol the wall and catch Fecs for the lab? And shoot the raiders on sight?”
“Oh. Right. The guys with guns that guard the wall and catch … whatever …” I have no idea what any of that means, and my brain won’t supply the answers.
The shirt tugs against my grasp, and we continue winding through the dark, my feet the only sound.
“Fo, where did you come from?” Arrin whispers after we’ve walked a while. “It’s like you’re straight out of a fairy tale, or another dimension.”
Sleeping Beauty, I think, just woken from a hundred-year sleep. “I don’t know where—” Arrin’s shirt tears out of my clammy fingers.
A wet smack echoes through the tunnel and then I am knocked onto my back, the impact absorbed by the spongy, damp ground. The breath gushes out of me but stops prematurely as a pair of massive hands clamp around my neck. I try to gasp but can’t. The hands squeeze harder, crushing my windpipe, and jagged fingernails dig into my flesh.
I claw at the huge hands, wiggle beneath them, try to force air into my body. But I can’t. I ball my right hand into a fist and swing at the darkness above my face. My fist contacts rough, hairy skin, and the hands on my neck loosen a fraction. My blood starts to boil as fury fills me, seeping fire all the way to my toes. I pull my hand back again and ball my fingers so tightly my fist trembles. This time when I swing, my entire body bolts energy into the movement. My knuckles contact flesh and bone, the fingers on my neck loosen and fall away, and something crumples on the ground beside me. I roll to my side and gasp for air, pressing my cheek against the slimy ground.
Noise fills the tunnel—grunting, struggling, and breathing loud enough to wake the dead. Arrin whimpers and lets out a cry. I climb to my feet, turn toward her voice, and nearly trip over something. A body. My hands flutter over it; feel the gentle inhale and exhale of a living person; feel broad, square shoulders with lines gouged into the bare skin and a face covered in coarse hair. My attacker.
I yank my hands away and stand, shuddering.
The sounds of struggle still haunt the black tunnel. I follow the gasping and grunting and growling and stumble into flailing bodies.
“Arrin?” I ask.
“Help me!” she gasps. I freeze. Help? I can’t see anything. If I start kicking, I might kick Arrin. If I punch, I might hit the wrong person.
“Jump on him, Fo!” Arrin calls.
I take a deep breath and halfheartedly throw myself toward the sound of the human skirmish. I land atop a roiling, lurching pile of arms and legs. And then I can tell which is Arrin and which is the other. He’s big and muscular with arms like fur-covered clubs. She’s a pile of skin and bones. I grab a handful of greasy, coarse hair and yank his head backward. Arrin grunts. Without warning, the man jerks twice and goes limp.
“Get him off me!” Arrin cries. I push the man over, and my hands come away wet. “Hurry. They travel in packs.” Arrin grabs my hand, and we start staggering through the dark. Before my heart has had time to calm, we stop.
“Bloody hell,” Arrin whispers, her hand tightening in frustration on mine.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“We’re lost.” She yanks me forward once more.
After a few minutes of staggering, I make out a hazy glow down a tunnel to my right and tug Arrin to a stop. “Light,” I say.
Arrin curses and pulls me into a crouch. “Don’t say a word,” she warns. “Or make a sound! Walk on the outside edge of your feet, Fo. Because if they hear you, they’ll murder you. And I’m not going to save your sorry, fat butt a third time.”
“Even though I just saved you?” I ask, trying to understand her logic.
“Whatever! I had that under control. Now shut up,” she hisses.
I struggle to balance on the outside of my feet and manage something close to silence. But as we approach the light, confusion fills me. They don’t look like murderers. Arrin stops.
A hollow-cheeked woman sits on the ground beside a candle. Four children huddle at her feet. One child, the tallest, a boy who can’t be more than ten, holds a