moment, I popped the cork and let one drop fall on the tip of my finger, before rubbing it into my gums and under my tongue.
I leaned against the wall, waiting for the elixir to work itself through my system. When I came out of the bedroom, the pain had faded to a dull headache, and I was almost myself again.
There was just enough gas in the stove to heat up a few cans of soup and have a hot meal with the last of our bread, then we hit the road again. None of us were satisfied with the meager lunch, so I kept an eye out for game while we hiked through the woods.
Somehow I’d managed to keep my bow when we escaped the citadel, but didn’t have any arrows for it. Jazmine and Camina split the sword-like metal legs of the mechanical spiders. They’d wrapped scraps of fabric around the ends to make rough handles. And the rebels had rifles and pistols, but firing them out in the open would alert predators to our location.
We fell into a rhythm, and for a few hours I concentrated only on trying to move through the overgrown landscape without stepping on any dry twigs. We passed craggy trees with bark like stone, covered in patches of bright green moss, and occasionally an abandoned house or car, half buried between the trees. The ash muted our movements, but in the desolate wilderness, every sound seemed like it carried.
I froze when Frank held up his hand for us to stop, his gun poised. I raised my bow quickly; I’d whittled a few rough arrows over lunch but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t fly straight. Dark smoke drifted between the trees, revealing a ring of blackened soil. That fire was hot. Someone had been here, and recently.
We crept into the campsite, but besides the still-warm coals, there was nothing but a torn open backpack and some pieces of fabric.
“Over here,” Beatrice said stiffly. She was looking down at what looked like the carcass of some animal. Then I saw the shreds of clothing, and realized it was human.
“Damn,” Camina said, kicking at the scraps of a bloody boot.
“Slawpaw, probably,” Frank said, pointing at the large claw marks torn out of a tree nearby. “Must have been hungry. This guy’s been picked clean.”
My stomach went queasy, and I turned away. But it was foolish to linger in the open. We moved silently, more on edge than before. If a slagpaw attacked us now, we wouldn’t have been able to put up much of a fight. Jazmine and Camina had the most training, and maybe with a few drops of elixir we’d stand a chance. In the arena, Jessica and I had barely managed to kill one of them, and we were both pretty hyped up already.
“If we see one in the wild,” Trevor said quietly, leaning in close, “you run. I’ve seen men unload whole clips of bullets into them and they just shrug it off. What happened with me in the arena, it was a fluke. Even if they all used to be humans, they aren’t anymore. Hesitate, and they will kill you.”
I kept my eyes on the woods, my pulse beating with every flicker of movement as ash fell into my peripheral vision. I jumped each time a branch snapped behind me. With my eyes fixed on our surroundings, I didn’t even see abandoned city looming above us until we were at the edge of the trees.
I’d never seen it this close. Climbing towers of steel and concrete, impossibly high, their broken, jagged tops disappearing into the swirling gray ashfall. Unlike the citadel of lights, these buildings were dark, nearly black against the lighter sky. The wide street leading into the ruins was cracked, with dry grass and weeds poking up through the cracks, and rusted cars and vehicles strewn around haphazardly. I shuddered as we passed a truck on its side, with a skeletal hand reaching out for help.
Rusted signs, covered with graffiti, watched us sneak closer into the city with our weapons raised. Our footsteps echoed off the flat surfaces, announcing our arrival.
The dark windows were mostly shattered on the ground level, but shards of glass caught our distorted reflections. Trees pushed up through the concrete, lifting cars into the air, and long hanging vines choked the traffic lights and telephone poles.
Directly in front of us, a gaping sinkhole tore up the street, exposing broken pipes and some kind