Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,12

to listen to besides the monotonous banging of the picks hitting rocks and the ominous rattles and tremors that followed.

And also, it kept her mind off Henri.

Because Dead Azelle knew better than to talk about him.

One ghost to distract you from another.

“Is this how it’s going to be every day?”

Chatine reared back her pick and slammed it into the wall, bringing down a fresh cascade of rock to add to her pile.

“How long do we have to be down here? It’s really dark. I didn’t think it would be this dark. Cold, yes. You always hear about the cold. But no one ever tells you about the darkness.”

Chatine sighed and pitched her pick back again, letting Azelle’s quiet prattling voice continue to envelop her like a blanket.

“Excuse me. Can you hear me? Or are you just ignoring me? People often do ignore me.”

The pick paused over Chatine’s head. She looked to her right, where a slender girl in an exploit coat too big for her small frame was waving her hand back and forth, trying to get Chatine’s attention.

How long had this girl been talking? She sounded just like Azelle.

“I know we’re not supposed to talk,” the girl went on in a low voice.

“You’re right,” Chatine snapped with a cautious look over her shoulder for nearby droids. “We’re not.”

“But I’m going a little bit insane,” she said, shaking her head. Her helmet—like her exploit coat—was too big, and it rattled haphazardly, causing the light from her headlamp to flash and bob. “No one here talks to anyone. It’s my first day, and I haven’t been able to get anyone to say a single word to me.”

Chatine sighed. Of all the people she could get stuck next to, she’d ended up with a babbler.

“And why is everyone so mean here?” the girl continued.

“They’re not mean,” Chatine whispered harshly. “They’re tired and cranky. And don’t want to get tazed for talking.”

“I’m Anaïs,” the girl went on, clearly interpreting Chatine’s dismissal as an invitation to introduce herself. “What’s your name?”

Chatine didn’t reply. Maybe if she just ignored her, the girl would give up and stop talking.

“Did you come from Vallonay?”

Chatine kept digging.

“I came from Delaine in the Northern Région. Do you know it? Probably not. It’s a very boring town. Mostly just sheep. You’re probably wondering why I’m on Bastille.”

Actually, Chatine thought bitterly. I wasn’t.

“I got rounded up for being out after curfew. They’re being really strict now. Anyone out after hours gets sent straight to Bastille. It’s not fair. I wasn’t even doing anything wrong! I swear. I was just—” The girl’s voice was cut off by her own scream as her body convulsed violently and her pick fell to the ground. Chatine glanced over to see the nearest droid retracting its tazeur.

As she watched Anaïs’s eyes roll back into place, Chatine couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit sorry for the girl. But also the slightest bit relieved. Maybe now she would finally understand the consequences and shut up.

“Look down, keep digging,” the droid admonished.

Whimpering slightly, Anaïs picked up her fallen pick, and the basher moved on. Chatine watched as the girl wiped tears from her face and tried to shake off the lingering effects of the tazeur. Then she hoisted back her pick, nearly collapsing under its weight, and brought it crashing clumsily and noisily down into the rock, mere centimètres from the nearest anchor bolt.

“What are you doing!?” Chatine hissed. “Are you trying to kill us?”

Anaïs sniffled. “No.”

“You have to dig around the rock bolts. If you knock one out of place, you could bring the whole tunnel down on top of us.”

Anaïs glanced in confusion between her pick and the tunnel wall.

Chatine huffed. “Watch me.” She demonstrated, carefully aiming her pick at the space between the two nearest anchor bolts. “See?”

The girl nodded but didn’t go back to work. Instead, she leaned on her pick and let out a melancholy sigh. “Do you think he’ll wait for me?”

Chatine’s grip around her pick handle tightened as she buried it into the wall with more force than she’d ever used before. Rock skittered around her feet, and there was a flash of blue under the light from her headlamp. It was a thread of zyttrium laced through a shard of rubble. That would barely make up five percent of her quota today.

Anaïs turned her head upward and stared at the ceiling of the tunnel, as though she could see right through it, all the way back to Laterre. “We were