Renegade (19 page)

“First thing in the morning,” I replied, feeling the familiar tickle in my stomach.

“You won’t forget?” he teased. Then before I could reply he kissed me again, pressing me against the wall behind me. The concrete was cold against my skin, and I pressed harder into the warmth of his body.

I closed my eyes. Cold air rushed in between us and I opened them only to see we were in Mother’s parlor. Timothy stood in front, between two Guards. His eyes blackened and blood running from his broken nose.

Two bullets ripped into his chest, hitting both lungs. He collapsed to his knees as the Enforcer that shot him stepped back into the darkness. But just before she did, she looked up at me and I found myself staring into my own face.

I yank away and clap my hands over my mouth trying to shove my heart back where it belongs. It wasn’t real. I don’t know anyone named Timothy, and I didn’t kill him.

Gavin steps away, gasping. “I-I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

I back away and turn around, so he can’t see the tears trying to force their way to the surface. I swallow them and hug myself until I’m sure my chattering teeth won’t come back.

“Evie?” He places a hand on my shoulder.

I yank away and stride to the door. “The tie is unnecessary. You can leave it.”

He looks at me a moment, then finishes dressing.

Minutes later we’re cautiously pulling the door to the rest of the city open again.

The “memory” replays in my head, but I force it away. I can’t try to remember it now. I need to focus on not getting us killed.

The store with the window Gavin broke is blocked off and Guards linger around it. We stick to the shadows, but they don’t even glance in our direction. The crowd thickens the closer we get to the Square, but we’re able to move through the Bazaar and across the Square with minimal fuss since no one likes looking in the shadows and we aren’t running into Enforcers.

The only problem is Gavin is gawking again. I can’t blame him for gaping at the people spinning around wearing their colorful costumes. Mother wanted it to be like some huge party the Surface Dwellers had before the War. Mardi Gras, I think she called it. And it’s very pretty and colorful.

As we near the Tube station that will take us to Sector Three, I notice the crowd has thinned again. Everyone is at Festival. No one is using the trains and I thank whoever is looking out for me, because I don’t have to worry about tipping someone off when we step out of the shadows to cross to the Tube.

I sigh a breath of relief, then pause. I hear a hissing sound and the grinding of gears.

I look around, trying to figure out why I recognize the sound and why it makes my blood run cold. Suddenly my right shoulder is on fire. I slap a hand to it, feeling something wet, warm, and sticky. I glance over and see my hand covered in blood, and more is pouring over my fingers. When I pull my hand away, there’s a hole in my dress, right in the center of the bloodstain. A hole that can mean only one thing.

I’ve been shot.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

Due to her perfect genetics, Evelyn Winters has been chosen as my daughter. However, Evelyn is not just my daughter: She is everyone’s daughter. The Daughter of the People. She loves you as I do and you are to love her in return. Anything less will not be tolerated.

—
M
OTHER, FROM
E
VELYN’S DEBUT SPEECH

Screams fill the air as the turret claims victim after victim. I fall to the ground, pulling Gavin with me. His eyes are as round as saucers when he sees the blood soaking my dress.

He stands, trying to remove the backpack, but I yank him back down to the ground.

“Stay down,” I hiss. “Do you
want
the turret to see you?”

“See me?” he whispers back, but at least he’s lying on the ground. Then he blinks. “A
turret
hit you?”

“Yes. What do you think hit me?”

He lifts his eyes toward the ceiling before he closes them. “Well, what do we do? We can’t just lie on the ground until the Guards come.”

“No, we can’t. But they won’t come until the turret stops. Then they’ll collect the bodies and move on. So we’ll just have to move quickly when it stops.” I press a hand to the wound, wincing when the pressure brings tears to my eyes. That can’t be a good thing.

“How long will that be?” He’s staring at my blood-covered hand now and his voice wavers slightly. “You’ll bleed to death if we wait too long.”

“Stop it!” My voice is rougher than I intend from the effort it’s taking to stop my teeth from chattering. Being shot hurts a lot more than I thought it would. Like liquid fire covering my shoulder. “It’s just a small wound. Probably a through-and-through. It didn’t hit any major arteries or I’d be bleeding a lot more.” I glance around and notice the turret has claimed only four people. Three are moving around and moaning. One isn’t. Everyone else has disappeared. The turret pulls back into the ceiling with a hiss, its job done. “Move! Now! Get in the shadows.”

To his credit, Gavin bolts to the shadows without question. I follow closely at his heels. “We have to keep moving. The Guards will come with Enforcers soon,” I say, and push him in the direction of the Tube station, which is just a few meters away and completely empty. We’ll have to wait to use it until the Guards and Enforcers leave, but we should be safe. It’ll give me time to assess the wound and bandage it properly.

Unfortunately when I fell, I got all turned around and we ran to the wrong side of the terminal. In order to get to the train, we’ll have to cross back over to the other side.

I listen for a second and then, when I don’t hear anything, tug on Gavin’s arm and dash across the terminal. He follows without hesitation. But the turret must still be malfunctioning, because the minute it senses us, it drops from the ceiling again and starts shooting. We both drop to the ground immediately.

“What the hell is going on?” Gavin demands.

“I think it’s malfunctioning. That happens sometimes. That’s why there aren’t any in the Palace Wing except in that one alcove.”

“Malfunctioning? And you just accept it?”

“I don’t really have much of a choice,” I spit out. “What do you want me to do? Go up there and fix it? Do you have a wrench on you? Because I don’t.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he mumbles.

The turret disappears again and I make another try for the wall, but since we’re the only ones in the area, it drops down again and so do I, hitting my shoulder against the concrete. I cry out and Gavin reaches out for me.

“We’ll have to crawl to the other side,” I say, gasping for breath and trying to see past the stars swimming in front of my eyes.

He nods, but his eyes are on my shoulder. “Can you do that?”

“Of course. It’s nothing.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t say anything and slithers forward, pulling with his arms and pushing with his legs.

I have no idea if my arm can do anything other than lay there, but I refuse to be a hindrance to him. I will make it to the other side by myself.

My arm, though, has other plans and refuses to cooperate. The slap of footsteps echoing off the walls warns me the Guards are on their way and close. We have to hurry. Finally, with a glance at the turret, Gavin slides his arms around me, then quickly stands, pulling me with him. The turret drops again, but he’s dashing into the shadows next to the abandoned ticket booth before it can do more than hiss. With a quick glance into the booth, Gavin carries me into it and under the control desk.

It’s the perfect hiding place. The Enforcers and Guards won’t come in here because there are no bullet holes in the glass, therefore a waste of time to search for victims beyond a cursory look through the windows, and the attendants won’t return until the Guards give the all clear.

I probe the wound to see if there’s a bullet still lodged there, but it only makes me dizzy and nauseated.

Gavin pulls a first-aid kit from the bag, but I shake my head. “No,” I gasp out. “Get the one on the wall there. We don’t want to use our supplies unless we have no choice.” I whisper more from pain than necessity.

He nods, then quickly and quietly removes the one from the wall. He settles himself next to me and pulls things from it. “I-I’m not sure if I remember how to use that wand thing.”

“I’ll talk you through it, but first you need to check to see if the bullet is still there.”

He raises startled eyes to mine. “What?”

“Please. If it’s still there, we’ll need to remove it.” He swallows and he looks a little pale, even in the dark. “What’s the matter? Afraid of a little bullet? Does someone else have to clean up for you after you kill an animal?”

“That’s different,” he says, not looking at me.

“Not really,” I say with a shrug, and then hiss when the movement causes pain to scream through my shoulder.

Gavin’s eyes meet mine and there’s something undecipherable in them. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

My stomach twists. “Well, that’s too bad,” I say. “It’s going to hurt. There’s nothing either of us can do about it, so I need you to just do it.” He only sits there, watching me. Knowing what I have to do to convince him, I lift my hand to his cheek. “Please,” I say.

He sets his jaw, then presses me against the wall and uses the antiseptic wipes to clean his fingers. “I’ll apologize ahead of time.” Then his fingers are probing the wound and I grit my teeth to prevent myself from crying out.

My other hand claws at the concrete floor in an attempt to curb the dizziness from the black-and-red spots flashing in my eyes. Even my toes curl in my shoes. Anything to keep myself from making this harder on him than it is already. Several times, I have to fight the urge to beg him to stop. I asked him to do this. He needs to do it.

“Tell me about you,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Huh?”

“Please. I need to take my mind off this. Tell me about yourself.”

“Um, okay. Well, like I said, I’m the middle child, which sucks, let me tell you.”

“Sucks?” I ask.

Gavin lets out a strained chuckle. “I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“Well, you’re always getting blamed for everything. And you’re never old enough for some things, and old enough to know better for other things. It’s the paradox of all middle children.”

I wince and he starts talking really fast. He likes to play something called baseball. He also likes to surf, which apparently requires obscene amounts of time floating over the waves on wood. His father taught him to fish, and his grandfather taught him to hunt, but they both died when he was young. And he still misses them. He never met his grandmother; she died a few months after his mom was born.

His mother taught him to cook and he makes a “mean” steak. Whatever that means. He swears it’ll make even my vegetarian tongue tremble in delight.

He talks about how annoying his sister is now that she’s getting married, constantly vacillating between tears and screaming. And that his brother is a pain to take hunting, because he’s still really young—not even ten—and never shuts up, which is why he’d been hunting with the friend the turret killed. Because he’d wanted to have some peace and quiet and Con, the boy, was the quietest in their village.

We’re both quiet when we realize how close he could’ve been to losing his brother, instead of some boy he’d barely known.

He pushes me gently forward and probes the wound in the back, before letting me rest against the wall again. “There isn’t a bullet. Or any fragments. It went through, like you said.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Good. Then it just needs to be cleaned and bandaged. The wand won’t work. It’s too deep a wound.”

“Are you sure? We don’t want it to keep bleeding. Isn’t it better to at least try to close it and hope for the best?”

“No. Not unless we absolutely have to. Otherwise I’ll just end up tearing it and making things worse. The chemical hemostat will have to do.” I gesture to a small square silver package in the kit. “Just push a sponge into both sides of the wound. It’ll stop the flow of blood and prevent infection.”

Gavin tears open the package and carefully pushes a sponge into the wounds. Tears sting my eyes, and I can’t control the wobble when my head spins again.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Yes. The chemical burns. It’ll pass.” I lean against the back wall and pray for that to happen soon.

“Are you sure? You look like you’re going to faint.”

“Just clean the wound and bandage it. We need to be able to move quickly if we have to and I don’t want to be in the middle of you fixing me.” I know I’m not being very nice and I hate that, but apparently manners don’t come easily to me when my skin is melting off my shoulder.

He opens his mouth and I think he’s going to say something about my attitude, but then he closes his mouth and firms it into a straight line. He carefully cleans the wound and then covers it with a special bandage that won’t stick to the wound and wraps my entire shoulder in gauze.

So much for not sticking out, I think. Though I appreciate that I don’t have to explain how to clean and dress wounds. Must be his hunter training. I suppose accidents happen and he’d have to know the basics.

“There’s a pressure syringe in there and a purple vial. Just attach the vial to the syringe and press it against my skin.”

“What is it?” he asks, but does as I ask.

“It’s a mild pain reliever. Nothing that will impair me, don’t worry. It will be enough to take the edge off.” I hope.

Gavin injects me, then packs everything nicely back into the kit. “Thank you,” I say, realizing I haven’t said it yet. I’ve only bossed him around.

He smiles and, after a short hesitation, presses a gentle kiss to my lips. I hold my breath, panic pinching my throat closed. I mentally shake my head when he settles next to my left side. What’s wrong with me? I’m trying to help a Surface Dweller escape Mother. That’s worse than a kiss.