Ashes of Twilight (11 page)

Pace keeps a tight hold on my hand. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not as fast as him, or because he’s afraid I will leave him to the filchers while I slip into the tunnels. Either way, we pound through the awakening streets, Pace’s speed and grip on my hand adding wings to my feet.

We round a corner. Dash into an alleyway. Cut back in a narrow gap between two buildings. Duck beneath a cart that stands tipped against a wall. My heart pounds in my chest and my ears ring with the rushing of blood through my veins. My lungs scream in agony. Pace holds my hand against his chest as he peers out of our hiding place. His grip is so tight that my fingers feel numb.

“It’s just a matter of time before the alarms go off.” His words are soft, yet steady. I can barely breathe from our wild run. His lungs are clearer than mine and much stronger from living above. “Are we close to one of your escape hatches?”

I start to protest—how does he know about escape hatches?—and then I realize he’d seen me use one. I need to catch my breath, to get my bearings. I have no idea where we are.

Pace looks at me, his blue eyes steady on mine. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”

I shake my head. Now is not the time for blame or apology. We need to get below. Without him I have no way of proving the truth of Alex’s death. My breathing evens out so I can speak. “Where are we?”

“We’re close to Park Front. On the same street I saw you on yesterday. Further up.”

Park Front. Close to where the royals live. Pace led us in the complete opposite direction of where we needed to go. There are no escape hatches in Park Front, nor in the trade section to where I followed Lucy the day before. My mind races as I try to decide our best route to below. We can’t go down in the lift as the bluecoats will be watching it. And I seriously doubt the filchers will let the threat of the tunnels keep them from following us if we use one of the escape hatches. Before I can form the next thought the alarm goes off, scaring me so much that I jump with the suddenness of its scream.

“Which way?” His words are lost in the screeching noise that is amplified a thousand times over with its reverberation off the dome.

I point because I know Pace cannot hear my words. “We’ve got to get close to the coal lift. That’s where most of the escape hatches are.” It’s on the opposite side of the dome. We’ve got a long way to go. The odds of us making it are close to impossible. Pace still has hold of my hand. For some strange reason, it reassures me, as if together we can make it. We have to make it; our very lives depend upon it.

Pace looks right and left, and then leads me out from our hiding place. He flattens against the wall when we come to the end of the gap and cautiously looks around. The alarm is still shrieking its call. Some will remain in their homes to wait to hear news of why the alarm is on. Those who are already out for the morning will go to the fountain where Alex died to hear the news. The streets will be mostly empty, until we get to scarab town. We will be easy targets if we are seen.

“Let’s go,” he says and we dash across the alley. We continue on, sneaking from corner to corner, place to place, Pace leading, and holding on to my hand until I feel like I’m an extension of his arm. My pulse falls into the same pattern as his, thumping slowly as he checks the next steps in our escape, then pounding as we expose ourselves to view with our mad dashes to the next hiding place. I stop thinking about the fear and the end result if we are captured. Instead I concentrate on being invisible, on willing the tradesmen, whose shops and storefronts we use as shelter, not to see us.

I am now in more familiar territory. I recognize the place where I last saw Lucy. So much has happened since then that it is hard for me to believe that it was just one morning since I followed her. Two since Alex died. Where was I three days ago? It’s hard to even conceive of what was once my normal routine.

Pace stops and flattens against a wall beside a display of crockery. He inclines his head across the way and I see Lucy staring at us from a window in the building she went into the previous day. She motions for us to come. Pace looks at me questioningly and I nod my agreement. I have no reason not to trust Lucy.

With a quick look each way to make sure we’re unseen, we dash across the street. Lucy opens the door and we run inside. She quickly shuts it, locks it, and checks the street. The alarms stop as Lucy leads us to the back of the building where Pace finally releases his hold on my hand. I get a vague impression as we walk through of a long counter and piles of neatly folded laundry. Baskets are stacked against the wall and thick bags with names on them hang on hooks above.

I want nothing more than to collapse into a heap on the floor. I want the past two days to go away as if they’ve never happened. I want to go back to being a little girl and sit on my grandfather’s lap and watch the kittens chase one another around the steps to our home. I look at Pace. He throws the hood back from his face and I see that he’s damp with sweat and realize that I am too. He runs his hands through his hair and the dark ends stand straight up with moisture. He looks around the room. We’re in a kitchen, nicer than anything I’ve ever seen, with a large stove and a series of cupboards and a sink. There’s even an icebox. The door and window face the alley. Lucy quickly pulls the curtains closed on both of them.

Pace takes a deep breath and looks at me. I see the worry on his face and know without him saying a word that, like me, he also wants the past two days to go away. But they can’t, and they won’t. He gives me a slight smile, and then he nods and turns to Lucy. “I know what the flyers say,” he says. “And I want you to know that I didn’t do it.”

If only it were that simple.

9

“You shouldn’t risk
your life for us,” I say to Lucy. “If they find out you’ve helped us…” My voice trails off at the prospect of what punishment awaits us now.

“Does this have anything to do with Alex?”

Before I can answer her the young man I saw her with the morning before comes into the kitchen from upstairs. “No one is following,” he says.

“This is David,” Lucy says simply. There is no need to say more. It is evident that they are in love. David takes Lucy’s hand in his with the same look of devotion that I once envied on Alex’s face. The difference is Lucy returns it. The glance between them holds the same intensity of Peggy and Adam’s, and now I understand the kiss I saw between them the day before.

I know now that I never saw Lucy look at Alex the way she now looks at David. After my experience with James I can maybe understand what drove her to put Alex aside. Wishing things had turned out differently for him will not change what happened. It only makes me realize how fragile we really are.

“I am only helping you because of Lucy,” David says. He stares intently at Pace and his desire to keep Lucy safe is apparent. “But I will turn you in if it means our lives.”

“I know.” Pace goes to the door and cautiously peers through the side of the drapes. “We should go before they get too close.” I join Pace close by the door, ready to go if he says to run and praying with all my might that he won’t.

“Wait.” Lucy grabs my hand and takes it in hers. “I never wanted Alex to die.”

I look into her dark eyes, past the fading glimmer of her shine, and see the sorrow she carries. Will it be there forever or will it eventually fade? Is it sorrow for Alex, or sorrow for the mistakes she made? It’s not for me to judge her. “I know.”

The smile she gives me is tearful and grateful. If not for David she would be as alone as I am. At least I have my grandfather, but that relationship could be tenuous after I take Pace below. If we make it below. At least here, Lucy will be safe, as long as no one knows she helped us.

“Are they after you because of what Alex did?” Lucy asks Pace.

Pace looks at me for a long moment, his eyes full of questions that I have no answers to. I don’t know him, not really, and he doesn’t know me, yet for some reason he trusts me with his life. Circumstance has thrown us together and I have to believe it’s because of what Alex said. Because of what he saw.

“Yes,” Pace says, “and they killed my friend, Tom, because of it. That’s the murder they’ve accused me of. If I had not followed Wren yesterday morning I would be dead too,” he continues.

He drops the drape and turns from the door. Should we stay? Should we go? Do we have time for this? If I’m going to be taken, if I’m going to die at the hands of the filchers, then I want to know why. So I ask. “Why?”

“Because of what we saw.” Pace shakes his head and shuts his eyes. Is that all he has to say? A long moment passes. A long moment where he swallows and gathers himself for the words he finally says. “The outside didn’t burn your friend. They did.”

My stomach revolts, acid burns its way up my throat and I swallow it back. I refuse to believe him. It cannot be. Could it? “What do you mean ‘they burned him’?”

He clenches his hands into fists so tight that the smooth skin on the back of them turns ghastly white. Pace looks down at his fists and relaxes them. He stretches his fingers out and then back in. “He found a way out and they brought him back in.” His voice trembles. “And then they turned the flamethrower on him.” His voice drops to a whisper. “He screamed ‘The sky is blue’ over and over again until all he could do was scream in pain.”

They burned him alive? On purpose?
I can’t take it anymore. My stomach wins the battle and I run to the sink. It’s hard to believe there is anything inside me to come up, but it does with a vengeance. Behind me I hear Lucy’s cries. A hand touches my back and someone hands me a cloth. It’s Pace. I wipe my mouth and feel my face burn with embarrassment when I finally raise my head.

“I did the same,” he says quietly. Does he think it will make me feel better? My throat is raw. All I can do is nod in agreement. Behind Pace, Lucy weeps while David consoles her.

“Tom and I were there. They’re afraid that we would tell someone so they killed him. They planned to kill both of us, but I was late, because of you. Tom must have realized what they were going to do because he fought them. I came in and he told me to run so I did. I left him there to die.” He squeezes his eyes shut once more and when he finally opens them they are wet with unshed tears. “They framed me for his murder. They think you must know something, either from your friend or from me, which is why they want you too.”

I listen to his words but for some reason they won’t sink in. My mind races as something else, something important, pounds its way through my mind.

“Alex got out.”

“Yes.” Pace agrees with me, but doesn’t share my sudden excitement.

“Where? How?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it must be close to where you were.”

“It doesn’t matter. You could never get there. It’s too closely guarded. They will kill you.”

A shout interrupts us. David leaps to his feet and runs to the front of the house. Pace follows him. Lucy takes my hand as I follow as well.

“Tell his parents he made it out.” Her eyes are moist with the tears she’s shed. Tears of regret or sadness, I cannot say. “That he knew the way.”

“Will that change anything?”

“Not for Alex.” She looks at me with hope and smiles tremulously. “But maybe for them.”

“I will.” I squeeze her hand.
If we make it …
I don’t say the rest to her.

“They’re searching the houses now.” Pace returns. “Someone must have seen us come this way.”

“Can we go out the back?” I ask.

“No, they’ll be watching the alleys,” David says. “This way.” David leads us to a door beneath the staircase. When he opens it all I see is a closet, but he slides a trunk aside and there is a hatch, much like the ones we use to hide our access tunnels from the above-world. “This leads to the sewers,” he explains. “Lucy said you have tunnels that connect.”

“We do.” I give Lucy a quick hug. “Thank you.”

“Tell my parents I’m fine,” she says. “And happy with David,” she adds.

I nod and give her a slight smile as I drop into the darkness. I feel the walls around me, nothing more than a narrow chute of hard-packed dirt. I brace myself to land with bent knees and pray that I will find solid ground beneath me instead of the runoff from the royals’ sewer. Gratefully, I land on packed earth. I look up at the square of dim light some ten feet above me and see Pace’s face is full of fear as he looks down at me.

“Come on,” I whisper loudly.

He disappears, and then nothing more than a heartbeat passes before I see his feet dangling above.

“Just let go.”

He does and falls straight down with his arms stretched above his head as if he might change his mind and grab on to something. There’s nothing there, nothing but a free fall through darkness. David closed the hatch as soon as Pace let go and the sound of the trunk moving back into place fills the darkness. I move to give Pace room to land and he does, heavily, at my feet before he scrambles up and stands beside me.

“Ow!” I hear the clang and look up. Pipes are directly overhead and Pace has hit his head on them.

“Shhh.” I step away from Pace to give my eyes a moment to adjust to the complete darkness that engulfs us. I hear the skittering of rats and the trickle of water. The smell is horrendous so I pull my kerchief up over my mouth and nose. It’s not much help but it’s better than breathing the straight fumes. I must get my bearings if I’m to get us to safety. I also feel the need to move, just in case they find our escape route. I see pipes overhead, nothing more than lines that crisscross above like spiderwebs. We’re in another access tunnel, much like the one I came up through.

“Wren?” Pace’s voice is tight and his breathing quick and shallow. He can’t see me in the utter blackness that surrounds us. All I can see is contrast, darker where the walls are and lighter where it’s open. It doesn’t take me long to see that we’re going to have to crawl to get out. The place where we landed shouldn’t be here. How many people have used it in the past to escape just as we have? Is David a part of something like our seekers or has this been here longer than he’s been alive? The closely packed dirt is like a lot of our older tunnels. Why is it here?