The Moon Dwellers (38 page)

“Of course,” I say
, not sure at all.

It feels good knowing where my father is, even though
getting him
out will
be the equivalent of a suicide mission.
Between knowing about my dad
and having Elsey around, I feel like I am
at least half a person aga
in, a significant improvement on
the empty shell I had become.
But
there is
still a huge part of me miss
ing, because I haven’t saved my dad yet and don’t even know where my mom is.
I wonder where she is, what condition she’
s in.
Despi
te my assurances to Elsey, I know there is a good chance she’s dead.
I try
not to think about it.

Chatting with
Elsey mak
e
s
the d
ay go by so much faster.
She i
s like our little motivator, constantly saying positive things in her very p
roper-sounding way.
Once she i
s
done grilling me about what I’
ve
been doing
while we were apart, she focuses
on Tawni and Cole, asking them ev
en more questions.
They tiptoe
around
some of the serious things we’
v
e already discussed, and focus
on telling funny stories from their childhoods.

All in all
,
it isn’t a bad day, and before I know it, we a
re stopping again for the evening.
We have
n’t e
aten since the morning, so we are all famished.
We devour
our canned food again, exc
ept this time I actually enjoy
it.
I don’t think
it’
s the taste of
the food
,
though;
I think
it’
s
just that
being free of t
he Pen and back with my sister
mak
e
s the bland food taste good—it’
s the taste of freedom
,
I guess.

When we finish
eating,
Cole brings
up the topic we’
ve
all been ignoring.
“How the hell are we going to
get out of these caves?” he says
.

“Are we lost?” I say
, making a bad joke.

Tawni laughs anyway—snorts actually, as she i
s ta
king a sip of water when I speak.
That ge
t
s
us all laughing, with Elsey’s infectious giggle keeping it going for a lon
g time.
Even Mr. Serious joins
in, smirking at first, then chuckling, and finally f
ull out laughing.
We all need
it.

“If we just keep going, we’ll come out some
where eventually, right?” I say
.

“How much do you know about the
Lonely Caverns
?” Cole asks
.

“Not much.
They connect three or four subchapters, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” Cole says
.
“
For each grouping of subchapters there is a cavern that acts as a hub to connect them all.
The
Lonely
C
averns are the hub for subchapters fourteen to seventeen.
They’re used by miners to
travel from mine to mine.
The miners
stick to the main tunnels, which we left almost immediately.
According to the maps I’ve seen, the caverns are a hundred square miles.”

Tawni adds
, “And we’ve made so many turns that we don’t have the firs
t clue as to which direction we’
re headed.
We may have been traveling in circles all day, or we may have cut a path straight across—impossible
to say for sure.”

“Best guess?” I ask
.

Cole says
, “I think we’re going to end up somewhere in subchapter sixteen.
We headed straight east when we first entered, and I’m pretty damn sure we haven’t cut back across any of the main tunnels, so that means we’re still headed east, unless we got completely turned around and are now headed south and west again, back the way we came.
We should know soon enough, because we’d end up rejoining the main tunnel.”

“Okay,” I say
.
“So we just keep walking?”

Cole shrugs
.
“No other choice.”

Chapter Fourteen

Tristan

T
hese days not many people believe in God anymor
e.
I’m not sure I do sometimes.
Those above are enjoying themselves too much to st
op to think about whether they’
re blessed.
And those below are too jaded.
My mom did
,
though.
She believed
with all her heart that there i
s a greater
power out there, one that cares about us, watches
over us.
She said bad things still
have to happen, because they help
us learn and g
row, but that in the end we’
ll
be saved.

I could us
e a little saving
.

I wa
ke up with a nasty bump on my head.
I don’t even re
member getting hit.
It throbs
like hell.

I try
to sit up,
but it i
s difficult with my arms and legs tied.

It i
s dark.
Not like a cloudy night with the moon and stars blocked; dark like the sun, moon, and stars don’t exist
, which they don’t in our world
.
Plus there a
re no overhead cavern lights, no streetl
ights, no houselights.
I work out that we’
re in a cave pretty quickly.

It all co
me
s
flashing back.
The girl—no,
Adele
—running, being chased by my father’s demons.
My intervention.
Rivet’s gleaming eyes.
Our salvation by the same men who surely now
ho
ld us captive.

You’ll make a pretty prize for the star dwellers indeed.

From the man’s words, it doesn’t sound like they are star dwellers, unless he i
s talking about
them in the third person.
I do
n’t think so.

A light flashes
in the dark.
It mov
es
closer.

The man ho
ld
s
the torch
in front of my face.
It burns my eyes while they try
to adjust.
I shut th
em tight, and then slowly open
them, squinting for at least a minute
.
The whole time the man waits
patiently for me to get them open.

When
I do, I gasp
.
I know he is the man who spoke to me earlier
, the one who killed Rivet’s men
.
He i
sn’t wearin
g his hat this time, and I can see his face, which is what mak
e
s me gasp.
Half his face is
swollen red and bubbling with blisters.
Whether a lifelong disease or
a fresh scar, I do no
t know.

“My face got damn near blown off by
the heavy artillery,” he growls
.
“Pretty sight
,
ain’t it?”

“What do you want?” I ask
.

“From you?” he says
.
“Nothin’.
All you gotta do is come with us.
I hope I’m not makin’ it sound like you’ve got a choice.
’
Cuz ya don’t.
Yer comin’.
As sure as the sun ain’t shinin’, yer comin’.”

“Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter.
Just a guy.
A guy fed up with bein’
crapped
on by yer kind.
For once the damn star dwellers got the right idear.
Fight back.”

“But they’re killing your own people.”

“Eh.
So they’ve got
their
target a bit mixed up.
But it’s workin’, ain’t it?
We’re goin’ to join
’
em, and others will
,
too.
So the plan worked, eh?”

My head is spinnin
g,
half because of what this guy i
s saying to me, and half because of the blow I took to the head, probably from the butt of this guy’s gun.
“Look, man, I’m not the one you want.
I’m not like them.
I hate my father.
I’ve left the Sun Realm and I’m not going back.
Just let me go and I’ll stay out of the whole thing.
Please.
”
I feel like I am
begging, my voice higher
pitched than usual, all toughness stripped from it, leaving
just
a child’s voice.

“Okay,” the man says
.

“Really?”

“Nah, just messing with you.
Ha ha ha!”
The guy’s lau
gh i
s as rough as the stones around us.
“Yer my prize, kid.
We can use ya.
Yer one hell of a bargainin’ chip.”

He leaves the torch nearby and moves
off into the darkness.
Using my elbows as levers, and by twisting and balancing on one shoulder, I manage to get myself
into a seated position so I can
take in my surro
undings—or at least what I can
see of them.

Roc i
s sleeping nearby, his forehead marked
by a puffy, red welt.
They have
n’t bothered to give us blankets or pillows or anything, so m
y body i
s sore and cold from lying on the hard cavern floor all night.

There a
re several o
ther men sleeping nearby.
I am sure there a
re more, at least a dozen, but the li
ght from the torch only extends in a small sphere.
I assume we a
re somewhere in the
Lonely Caverns
, most likely n
ot very far in, as the men wo
n’t have wanted to carry our limp bodies for very long.

I have
no
idea how long we’
ve been out, but I hope it wa
sn’t long, for with ea
ch passing minute Adele is
traveling further and further away from me.

How twisted are the hands of fate?
Pretty twisted
,
I’d say.
Mangled and knobby; old and decrepit.
Every time you’re granted a stroke of good fortune, it’s offset by a calamity.
Like Adele escaping from prison right when the star dwellers attacked.
Sometimes the good luck is even caused by something bad.
Like when Adele’s path crossed ours at that exact fateful moment.
Had Rivet not been chasing her, perhaps she would have arrived later, and I wouldn’t have seen her.
We might
’
ve
mi
ssed each other by taking different routes, like two
companies of miners
passing in the night
, unknown to each other
.

My father doesn’t believe in fate.
He says we make our own fate.
So far, he’s been right about that.
I sort of believed him until now.
But after eve
rything that has happened, I know there a
re other for
ces at play.
Forces that want
Adel
e and
me
together, and that will
keep g
iving us chances at it.
I hope that force has
n’t given up yet.