fabric and a game. Bowen leads and I follow, from doorway to doorway, alley to alley, our feet as silent as the rest of the shadowed world.
The sun sets and the sky darkens, and Bowen balances his gun over his shoulder, ready to shoot at any moment. I clutch the straps of my backpack with sweating hands. Every so often voices float over the still evening air. When this happens, we pause and Bowen tilts his head to the side, choosing a new direction. Always away from the voices.
Bowen’s stance is as rigid as his gun. Tension oozes from his taut shoulders and finds its way inside me, making me jump at every sound, making my heart pound as we round corners and duck into buildings.
“If we’re lucky, it’s the militia,” he whispers.
Who else could it be? “And if we’re not lucky?” I whisper, wondering if I want to hear the answer. He glances at me over his shoulder, his face lost in shadows, but doesn’t reply.
As we creep through the darkness between two tall buildings with gaping holes where windows used to be, the voices stir again, restless whispers bouncing between the walls. Bowen holds a hand out for me to stop, and when I do, my foot skids on the ground, a grating sound that destroys the silence, sends my heart into my throat, and makes a stream of sweat trickle between my shoulder blades. Bowen grips his gun, swinging it in a frantic circle, eye glued to the night-vision scope. I look around, but see nothing in the darkness.
A pebble falls, swishing the air in front of my face, plunking on my shoe like a fat drop of rain before settling between my feet. Together Bowen and I look up to the roof of the building on our right, Bowen through the gun’s scope. Before I see anything, he yanks me forward, hard. My feet tangle in his, and we crash to the ground, his arm cradling my head. Something pops and echoes, and I expect a firework to bloom overhead, mingling with the first stars of the night. Bowen gasps and his body flinches, curling against mine. An instant later, he shoves me aside and leaps to his feet, pulling me to standing in the same swift movement. With our hands clasped we run, backpacks thumping against our backs, veering through starlit alleys, across deserted streets, and in and out of buildings.
Voices fill the dark, shouts that echo against buildings and disappear down alleys. Feet thud behind us, a staccato mess. I glance over my shoulder and see light dancing inside a building a block away. And then men wearing headlamps swarm out of it. Militia. Energy surges through me. I grip Bowen’s hand and run faster, pulling ahead of him, around the corner of a building.
Gray against the gray dusk, like a plume of smoke, a shadow steps in front of me. My feet skid and grind on the pavement. Bowen slams into my back and throws an arm around my waist to keep me from spilling forward with his momentum.
“Why did you …” His words die and his arm tightens around me. The shadow, slight and wispy as the naked trees, takes my hand and pulls me and Bowen, his arm still around my waist, into the nearest building.
The building has windows, dark windows tinted to block out sunlight, whole windows in a world of broken glass. My eyes widen at the interior darkness, and my skin crawls. The building—there’s something about it, something different from all the others we’ve been in, as if it is frozen in time.
Bowen’s arm tightens and pulls me to a stop. Without releasing me, he maneuvers himself between the shadow and me and raises his gun.
“Who are you?” he whispers to the shadow.
A smell oozes around us, clings to my throat like grease. I breathe through my mouth and taste the oily tang of tunnels.
“Arrin?” I whisper, peering around Bowen.
“Shut up, Fo,” she hisses. “Or we’ll all die.”
Arrin reaches around Bowen and takes my hand in hers again. I tug one of Bowen’s hands from his gun, and we wind our way, a human chain, through frozen darkness.
The voices get louder, the sound of feet pounds nearer to the entrance we just came through. Arrin pulls me faster, her grimy hand damp in mine. After a minute she stops and pushes me against a wall. Bowen stops beside me, his biceps against my shoulder, and, enveloped by the