she whispers, the s a slow, drawn-out hiss. She perches on the balls of her feet at the exact moment Bowen points his gun at her. Arrin drops the piece of denim, leaps behind him, and grabs me, clinging to my back, her nails digging into my flesh. “If you don’t let me leave, I’ll kill Fo,” she says, peeking her head around my shoulder. A blade jabs my spine, and I flinch. “And if you shoot me, you wake the hive.”
Bowen lowers his gun but doesn’t take his finger from the trigger.
“Bowen, this is the Fec who brought me to your camp,” I whisper, trying to placate them both while easing away from Arrin’s rusty knife.
“Arris brought you to the camp?” he says, eyes locked on Arrin, hands rigid on the rifle. “I thought you said you were brought by a girl.”
“Arris, Arrin … she is a girl.”
Bowen laughs a whispered laugh—a grating, miserable sound. “No. Arris is the most deadly, conniving, evil thing that lives in the tunnels. Arris is not a girl.”
The knife leaves my back, and in a heartbeat, Arrin is gone. Only the smells of crusty feces and rotting teeth linger in the air. Bowen’s gun is on his shoulder again, aiming into the shadows, but there’s no trace of the Fec.
We ease toward the open door and step out into starlight and fresh air.
“Hold this,” he whispers, thrusting the gun at me. “And don’t hesitate to shoot anything that moves,” he adds. I put the flashlight in my pocket, lift the gun to my shoulder, and let its weight settle, looping my finger through the trigger.
“You hold that like you know how to use it,” Bowen whispers, crouched beside his open backpack.
“My dad taught me to shoot.”
“Your dad?” The skepticism in his voice makes me stand a little taller.
“Just because he was partially paralyzed doesn’t mean he couldn’t shoot a gun,” I snap.
He chuckles. “I’d say the wafers are losing their effect.” He sets the first-aid kit on the ground and opens the lid. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect your dad. He was a good man.”
He takes out a packet and tears it open with his teeth, then peels back the sleeve of his shirt. In the starlight, a dark gash slices through the white bite-mark scar on his shoulder. Blood oozes from the gash and trickles down his arm in a dozen branches, like an upside-down tree. He pours a few pale beads into the open wound and sucks air through clenched teeth. His body stiffens and shudders, and then the air leaves his mouth in a swoosh. Sweat gleams on his shadowed forehead.
“You’d think that would get easier to bear with time,” he whispers through clenched teeth. He takes a water bottle out of his pack and rinses the blood from his arm. “We need to get out of here. But we need to talk first.” He takes my hand and leads us away from the building with tinted windows.
Pressing me against a white brick building, he puts his hands on my shoulders and looks right into my eyes. “Arris, the Fec, was wearing your old clothes?” he asks.
“You want to talk about clothes right now?” I ask.
“Was he or not?”
I frown. “If he was, they’re a lot dirtier.”
“He was wearing a pair of knee-length drawstring shorts and a V-neck shirt. Does that sound familiar?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Those were mine.”
Bowen’s lips thin and pull tight against his teeth. “We have to travel. To night. In the dark. We have to get away from the militia. And that means we run the risk of intercepting raiders.”
The intensity of his voice scares me. “What are raiders?” I ask, my eyes wide.
“They’re ruthless slavers, rapists, and murderers. They keep beasts as pets, tied up, and beat them and then drink their blood. They take pleasure in other people’s pain and hunt—for humans—at night.” He hangs his head. “They’re the reason my mom’s dead.”
I put my hand over his. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“The militia has orders to shoot them on sight. Because the militia patrols the wall twenty-four-seven, the raiders typically avoid the wall,” he continues. “So if we stay near it, we probably won’t run into them. But if we do …” He stares at me, the whites of his eyes visible above the shadowed planes of his cheeks.
“If we do?” I ask.
“If you get caught …” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “You can’t get caught. If they find