Shymers (32 page)

We stop to look in every cove along the path and taking a break every so often to fill ourselves with water. Kendall is careful to keep Kiki on the other side of him, away from the ledge.

I try not to look down to where we would most likely fall to our deaths were we to take a wrong step. Although I had so often played in the creeks, they were never very deep and it was unnecessary to know how to swim. If I were to fall now, I would sink like a rock to the bottom and drown, unless I broke my head open against the rocks on the way down.

“Why aren’t there any soldiers monitoring these cliffs?” I ask.

“Because it’s too hot for them,” Zeke groans. “No one could survive more than a few hours in this direct exposure. We have to turn around.”

“He’s right,” Kendall agrees, stopping short. He wipes the beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and turns to face me. “There isn’t any sign of them down here. We really need to get out of this sun.”

“Just a little farther,” Arlandria pleads. “They could be hiding in any one of these caverns.”

While I’m glad she said exactly what I am thinking, deep down I know Kendall is right. Our chances of finding Harrison and Tayrn here are pretty low. Still, I can’t give up. Harrison wouldn’t ever give up on me.

“Please, just a little farther,” I beg my brother.

He points at Kiki. “She needs to get out of the direct sun, Olive. You know it isn’t safe. It’s not safe for any of us to be out here like this.”

Arlandria’s shoulders fall in disappointment, as do my own.

* * *

Back in the safety of the forest, we all sit together and rest under the shade. My eyelids are heavy with exhaustion. I lean against a tree and shut my eyes when I hear Kiki’s small voice ask, “What dat?”

My eyes snap open to find Kiki’s little finger pointing to a spot ahead. All I can see is grass. She has been walking on her own for the most part as it was too hot for her to be carried. Her little face is bright red, and her hair is kinked into frizzy curls around her head. The poor thing looks exhausted. Maybe she is hallucinating from the exposure to the heat.

“There’s something in the grass,” Kendall agrees.

I grip his arm excitedly. “What is it?”

The events of the next few seconds pass by in a haze. A warm buzz zaps my hand where it touches Kendall’s arm. His eyes flash wide in surprise and he bolts to his feet, moving away from me. In my excitement, I forgot all about his no-touching rule. Did I just hurt him somehow?

“What…?” I begin to ask.

Kendall turns away from me, wiping his eyes with his hand. “I think it’s a sandal,” he mutters in a strained voice.

My stomach drops. What just happened? Why is he crying?

Kendall strides forward and then bends down to lift something off the ground. When he holds the sandal out, all at once I recognize it.

“That’s Bree’s!” I yell out. Forgetting about the strange thing that just happened between us, I rush to him and grab the sandal to examine it. I know it belongs to my friend—there is even a string still tied around the strap to hold it together.

Bree is in the Free Lands! But didn’t her parents take her away? Did she find Harrison and Tayrn, or is she all alone? I clutch the shoe to my chest and smile. Somehow, she made it. There is hope at least one of my friends is still alive and free.

Near our feet is a large, deep hole somewhat concealed by the tall grasses. Bree must be down there. In this moment, the hope of finding my friend is greater than my fear of small spaces. I push the grass aside and prepare to climb in.

“Olive, what are yo
u
doin
g
?” Kendall asks with a hard tone. “We don’t know what’s down there!”

I smile up at him. “Hopefully, my friends.”

With my feet dangling down inside the hole, I let go of the earth around me. For a moment, I’m falling. It feels as if the earth is swallowing me whole as I close my eyes and hold my arms tight to my sides. Then the tunnel shifts and my back skims against it a couple of times until I’m sliding instead of falling. Slowly, the tunnel levels off and I slither to a stop. I am unable to see what else may lie ahead in the darkness. My airway clenches tight, but I push through my fear and begin crawling deeper into the dark.

“Bree!” I call out. “It’s Olive!” A faint noise comes from up ahead…maybe dripping water. “Can you hear me?”

The tunnel darkens with every moment that passes. A new noise comes to me from the distance, quiet and muffled. When I reach out for the ground ahead, my arm and knee are met with air. I have taken another movement forward before I can register what this means, and my whole body is thrust downward.

I yell out in surprise. Cool air whooshes against my face as I continue to drop. My body pings off a stone wall twice before I eventually hit the ground—hard. I yell out in pain when the air is ripped from my already bruised chest. If my ribs weren’t broken before, they certainly feel like they are now.

“Olive!” Kendall’s voice calls out. “Are you okay?” He sounds so distant and removed, like he’s miles away. Just how far did I fall?

Shutting my eyes and sucking in the damp air, I try to yell a warning for my brother through clenched teeth. “Be careful!” But the words come out as more of a whisper than anything.

Kendall yells out in surprise above me. I roll to the side just in time for him to fall to the ground nearby with the same hard impact. He moans.

When my eyes flicker open, I stop short.

“Why didn’t you—” Kendall grumbles, but stops when he discovers what I’m seeing.

A distance light unveils a cave below that opens up even farther into a giant pit, carved from stone and dirt. Hundreds of people move around in the space, carrying on in a buzz of conversations and activities. A smell mixes with the dankness of the cave—the smell of something wonderful an
d
deliciou
s
. Hundreds of round lights are strung from poles over the people’s heads. It looks like the pictures of festivals we had seen in Harrison’s book.

“There are so many people,” I whisper to Kendall, my eyes still fixed on the activity below. “What is this place? What do you think they’re doing down here?”

“The
y
liv
e
down here, Olive. We’ve found the underground city.”

22 – How Do I Know Society Didn’t Send You?

Staring down on the cavern a bit longer, I realize my brother is right. There are paths in the dirt and little vendor stands set up everywhere. Although we are too far away to see what is being sold or traded at each of these stands, the people seem to be bargaining with each other for something.

Beyond the little underground market lies a wall of abundant cavern holes, also carved from the gray stone. Their openings are so dark that my eyes nearly miss them. Young children sit at the edges of the holes, their legs hanging down. Some of them appear to be yelling out, either to each other or people down below. A group of little boys throw a ball around in the dirt nearby. They laugh and carry on like it’s the best day of their lives.

“They’re happy,” I say to Kendall in awe. “Society must not know they’re here.”

Kendall shakes his head. “They don’t. This city is one of the secrets our mother has been fighting so hard to keep.”

I gasp. The woman I once called my mother has officially become a total stranger to me. She was living this other life I knew nothing about and didn’t share any of it with me. The vast mixture of feelings swirling through me makes my stomach uneasy. While I am happy these people have been able to live down here in peace, away from Society and all the labels and prejudices they have made, I am upset with my mother for not bringing us down here to live. Maybe I would have had the chance to have more than one friend growing up. Maybe we could have even lived happily, without fear of being discovered.

Then it hits me. Maybe we don’t have to run any more. Maybe we don’t have to risk our lives to make it beyond the Free Lands. Maybe we could all be happy in this city for the remainder of our lives—however long that may be.

Kendall swings his head back in the direction of our fall. “We need to get out of here before someone sees us.”

Panic seizes me. “What? No! We can’t leave. We can bring the others down here. It could be a safe place to leave Kiki while we fight with the Rebels.”

My brother shakes his head. “We can’
t
sta
y
, Olive. These people live down here for good reason. They want to live in peace, and they don’t take too kindly to strangers.”

“But that was my friend’s sandal. Sh
e
ha
s
to be down here. We can’t just leave her!”

“We can’t just leave Kiki and the others up there, exposed, while we look for your friend. The Free Lands are crawling with soldiers, Olive. We have to try to climb this wall so we can get back to them.”

I glance at the gathering of people below. “If our parents knew about this place, why didn’t they just bring us here to live? Why did they make me hide in the forest and leave you all alone in Society?”

Kendall sighs and presses his eyes closed for a moment. “Once people come down here, they can’t return to Society or the Free Lands. They forbid anyone to leave, unless they’re hunting. The chance that someone else would follow them back to their city and ruin everything they’ve accomplished is too great. Our mother met with Rebels on a daily basis. She couldn’t do that with the rules of this city.”

“Then why didn’t she just send me here to live without her? I grew up alone, Kendall. I ha
d
on
e
friend, but she had to leave when her father was taken away. At least the short time while I was in Society I actually made some new friends. It was better than being alone in the forest when our parents left me.” My eyes well up with tears of anger and pain. “Maybe they shouldn’t have been so selfish. They had two children to raise, but instead they chose to be part of something dangerous.”

Kendall’s eyebrows draw together. “So you’re saying you would rather have lived down here and let Society continue treating Shymers the way they do? You would rather turn a blind eye to what the government is doing to all those children you met in the orphanage?”

Everything becomes a big blur with the tears filling my eyes. M
y
lif
e
feels like it has become a big blur—nothing from what I knew as a little girl is real to me now. Nothing is as it seems. “Of course not. I just want a chance to b
e
happ
y
.”

Kendall smiles. He is so attractive with his bright blue eyes and smooth, tanned face that I wonder how we can truly have the same set of parents. “That’s exactly what our mother wants, Olive. She wants everyone to quit living in fear of Society. She wants people to be happy, no matter how long they have to live. She wants you to be free to do what you want. Living down here in ignorance wouldn’t accomplish that. All these people are doing is hiding, just like you and our parents were doing in the forest.”

Again, he’s right. As inviting as this city looks from high above, it’s no different than living in the Free Lands. If I were to stay, my mother—the mother I once knew anyway—would see it as an act of cowardice.

I gingerly wipe away my tears with the back of my hand, knowing too much movement will cause more pain. Looking up at the hole from which we fell, I frown. “I don’t think I can climb back up.”

Kendall also looks to the wall. “It won’t be hard. There are lots of places to get your footing. It’s that first drop—”

“It’s not the actual climb I’m worried about,” I cut in, although the thought of hiking back through the dark tunnel makes my stomach roll. “I think I may have really hurt myself this time.”

Kendall spins around to face me. “Is it your ribs again?”

I nod. “I hit the rock when I fell.”

Kendall surveys the wide ledge underneath our feet and runs a hand through his hair. “Then we’ll have to find another way out. We have to get out of here before we’re discovered.”

I grit my teeth as the pain flares up. “You said some of the people leave here to hunt, right? Maybe there are more openings that aren’t as steep. You should go back to Kiki and the others to make sure they’re okay and then find me another way out.”

He frowns. “And leave you down here alone until then?”

“I’m not alone,” I say, gesturing to the people below with my finger. “You forget about the whole party going on in here.”

Kendall’s face darkens. “Just because they’re not part of Society doesn’t make them friendly. Like I told you, these people don’t want to be bothered. They’re afraid of outsiders. There are too many dangers involved if they were to be discovered.”

“What kind of dangers? Why was our mother helping to keep them hidden?”

“Someday, Olive, I hope to explain everything to you. But not until I know we’re safe.”

I bring a hand up to my chest with the fresh surge of pain passing through it. “Well I can’t climb, and you can’t leave Kiki out there in the sun. Where does that leave us, Kendall?”