Stung - By Bethany Wiggins Page 0,8

my hand. It is a peanut-butter-filled sandwich cracker dusted with little grains of salt. My mouth waters.

A black weight hits my chest, and I fly backward. The candle wavers and goes out just as my head crunches against cement. Heavy darkness sits atop me, pinning my arms to the ground, clawing the crackers from my hand.

“Air did oo get dese?” Arrin asks, mouth full. She swallows noisily. “I haven’t tasted peanut butter in two years.” She climbs off me. I hear the crackers crunching in her teeth. “These crackers, they can help pay off your debt to me.”

Hunger stabs my hollow stomach. “Not if I die of starvation first. I need food,” I retort, climbing to my knees and rubbing the goose egg on the back of my head.

She laughs, and I can smell peanut butter on her rancid breath. A match scrapes and a flame flickers. She relights the candle, and shadows dance against her greedy, chewing face.

“Here. Gnaw on this.” She tosses something at me. Relieved at the thought of eating, I snatch it out of the air and frown. A leather belt, half eaten and covered with teeth marks, dangles from my hand. I toss it back and stare at her like she’s crazy. Arrin lets the belt fall to the ground and shrugs. “Suit yourself. But there ain’t nothing else to eat down here.” She looks at the last cracker, golden and clean in her discolored hand, then breaks off a tiny piece, barely a morsel. She holds it out to me. “Here.” She says it like she’s just sacrificed something priceless. I guess a crumb is priceless to someone who is starving—someone like me. I take it and swallow without chewing. My stomach growls for more.

Arrin holds the last cracker with the tips of her fingers and nibbles toward its center, like a mouse, beady eyes focused on me as if she’s afraid I might fight her for it. I stare and she glares, but I don’t take my eyes from her. It isn’t the cracker that holds my attention. Something darkens the back of her right hand. An oval with three lines drawn through it like insect legs—two on the left, one on the right. I glance at my own hand. The edge of my mark is showing through the makeup and dirt. My palms turn icy-damp, and I wipe them on my shirt.

“I need some privacy,” I blurt, touching the tube of makeup in my pocket.

“Pee over there.” She nods toward the darkness, and I wander out of the ring of candlelight. “But, Fo. The others. Don’t go far.”

I stumble through the darkness and come to the end of the cement. My feet sink into goo and squelch with each step. When I am sure Arrin cannot see me, I slip the makeup from my pocket and dab it on the back of my hand, smoothing it over the tattoo. Over the ten-legged spider. When I’m done I squat and relieve myself, and as I am retying the drawstring waist on my knee-length shorts, a squelch echoes behind me, followed by a gasped curse.

I flip around and face the black tunnel. Someone could be standing six inches from me, engulfed in darkness, and I wouldn’t be able to see him.

I turn to the flickering candle and hurry toward it, easing my feet onto the slick floor with each step, trying not to squelch. And then I am on cement, inside the glow of candlelight. Arrin lounges on her nest of nasty blankets, hands behind her head, staring at the pipes on the ceiling.

“Arrin,” I whisper.

She looks at me with heavy eyes. “Those crackers,” she says with a sigh. She grins and licks her teeth.

“I think someone is in the tunnel,” I whisper, glancing over my shoulder.

Her eyes snap wide, and she springs to her feet, dagger in hand.

“We know you’re there. I’ll kill you if I see you,” Arrin snarls, her words ringing with violent truth. She slices the air for impact, and I take a step away from her. There is no reply. Crouching beside the candle, she blows it out. We plunge into darkness so thick I can hardly breathe it into my lungs.

“Why did you blow out the candle?” I ask.

“So they can’t see us. If they can’t see us, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to kill us.”

I gasp.

“Stop breathing so loud,” Arrin whispers. “They won’t need the light to kill you if you keep making