Chapter 11 Zion
ZION
“Shall we go?” Rowan scratched his dimpled chin. “It’s not far from here.”
Kali’s eyebrows pinched. “Go where?”
The throng thinned behind her as people scattered into the five exits, delving deeper into the catacombs.
How they continuously chose to stay in the city and not flee was beyond me.
Especially when Ilasall dictated the structure of your days, controlled your food intake, and prohibited any proclivities not in accordance with their standards.
Dull.
Too dull.
Life in any one of the three cities was too subdued for my tastes.
“I have a surprise for you.” I tugged a strand of Kali’s silky hair, coaxing her to follow Rowan weaving through the crowd toward the furthermost tunnel.
“Another one?” Her frown deepened. “Please tell me it’s not someone we know.”
“It’s not,” I told her as we twisted to avoid a collision with a couple. The man boasting a pale-blue button-up shirt gaped at me, his partner forgotten.
Yes, this one was aware of my reputation. And how I chose to relax whenever Ilasall stretched my nerves to their splitting point.
Kali hissed, “You swear it’s not a person?”
Her and the need for promises. Although they usually meant nothing to me, I’d vowed to myself not to break any given to her. At any cost whatsoever. She deserved so much more, but if a promise was what she wished for, a promise it would be.
Just of a different kind.
“Trust me, you will like it,” I said, using my flashlight to keep Rowan in sight as he turned a corner.
The tunnel narrowed, the walls closing in, squeezing us to form a line. Darkness swirled along the edges of the path known only by our red-cheeked guide.
Kali slowed. “Zion.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not moving from this spot until you swear to me—”
“I swear it, as I swear that I’ll hear you call out my name more than once tonight.”
Seeking to convince myself she was still here, I caught her waist. Her blurry shape swaying before me had failed to serve as sufficient proof of her existence.
But the chill seeping from the supple leather of her jacket and into my pores steadied my pulse.
She was here, with me.
I could feel it.
Her body heat, the sweet perfume wafting off her hair, the tickle of her strands on my nose, the whisper-quiet curses that followed—
“I can’t move like this, Zion,” she groused, and I tightened my hold. Her sigh caressed my eardrums. “I don’t know why I deal with you.”
The passage widened, the limestone floor sickly damp, and I moved to her side. “Because I’m perfection.” I tapped her nose. “Like you.”
She rubbed the spot, much to my delight. “Perfection, my ass.”
“That too.” Taking her wrist, I slapped her palm on my backside, adding a wiggle to my gait. “Here. Feel it for yourself.”
Her snort reverberated in the tunnel.
Pulling on the collar of his shirt, Rowan scowled at us over his shoulder. Dampness ruled this deep underneath the city, so mighty, it glued your clothes to you.
“We’re almost there.” He gestured toward another left turn, unmarked. Unless you had memorized the underground labyrinth, it could easily claim you as its next victim. Another skeleton to add to its collection.
We neared a bolted door at the end, the metal matte under my flashlight’s strokes. Rust crawled over the surface, mottling it in specks of brown and orange, and a tangy and musky odor whirled up my nostrils.
As Rowan yanked the bolt, it screeched, but in the end, the iron rod retracted. Shrieking hinges accompanied him easing the door open, revealing a residential building’s basement. Dimness doused the emptiness inside, harboring the spider web clinging to the doorpost’s corner.
Kali shuddered at the sight of it.
I gestured for her to walk in front of me. “It’s just a spider.”
“Maybe if it had two legs, it would be different.” She bent low to pass the doorway. “But it has eight. Eight. Nobody needs that many feet. It’s disturbing.”
Together with Rowan, we pushed the door closed.
“Thanks,” he grunted. We climbed a concrete stairway rising to another metal door, this one untarnished, and Rowan added, “This building is ten-stories high. Climb straight to the top, and don’t linger on any floor, no matter what you hear.
I can’t vouch for the residents here, but if it helps, you can be sure they’re all black-banded.
” He whipped the door open without a hitch, the hinges well-oiled.
Yellow light scorched my retinas. Fluorescent lamps illuminated the first floor and the three rotten wooden doors protecting the inhabitants.
“I’ll stand guard here,” Rowan said. “We don’t want strangers accidentally wandering into the basement and finding the catacombs. In the worst-case scenario, we would herd them back, but who knows what they could sniff out.”
I kept my voice low so as not to attract unnecessary attention. “We won’t take too long.”
“If you don’t return in half an hour, I’ll come to check on you.”
I dipped my chin in acknowledgment, and he closed the door, sealing Kali and I in an unfamiliar dwelling infested with residents with questionable intentions.
Slinking up the staircase, we left a trail of identical landings: three mismatched doors, three dirtier-than-tires welcome mats, and two round and loudly buzzing lamps that flickered if you looked at them. The combination warped your vision, creating an illusion of a never-ending climb to nowhere.
Yet the sunken-in-the-middle stairs ended, and I quickly scanned the space behind us. Finding it vacant, I pushed a brown door open and ushered Kali onto the building’s roof.
“What—” Her mouth dropped open.
Quietly shutting the exit point closed, I came to a stand beside her. “Do you like it?”
Her black leather jacket flapped in the spring wind, failing to ward off the chill slithering underneath our clothes. “It’s been… I don’t know how many years since I saw Ilasall like this.”
An ocean of gray rectangles spread as far as you could see, all the way to the fifty-foot-high wall encircling the city. The electrical wiring on top drowned in the night’s gloom, but the sudden drop in temperature hadn’t diminished its power.
Kali’s throat bobbed. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”
“It was the best I could do,” I explained, bringing us to the roof’s edge, but not close enough for any patrols roaming the streets to notice us.
“You once said that when you and Alora were children, you found your way to the top of Ilasall’s wall and loved the view of the forests surrounding the city.
I can’t give you the same”—I rubbed the back of my neck—“but I thought you might like this.”
For a full minute, she gazed at the systematically built city, blocks upon blocks of similar structures, streets crossing streets.
The array of working streetlamps accentuated the lack of life—the curfew had driven everyone inside.
The little mice the city dwellers were, they had to hurry to their lairs or fall into the snares soldiers had laid out.
Ilasall’s tactics were obvious: entrap the sheep, and they’d meekly bleat at most, but wouldn’t seek an escape.
“I… I have no words.” Enveloping my waist, her hips flush with mine, she nuzzled her nose against mine. “Thank you.”
“One day, I’ll make Ilasall fall on its knees for you, I promise you that.” I brushed my lips along the plumpness of hers.
I could drown in how she softened.
Months ago, we’d started off by making deals, but somewhere along the way, I’d ceased so much as considering them. Now, I simply wanted her to have anything she yearned for.
Nipping on her bottom lip, I drew it into my mouth, swallowing her whimper and tangling her tongue with mine, sucking on the tip and—
Thud.
The door handle rebounded off the concrete wall as Rowan burst in.
Kali leaped away, instantly taking a defensive position beside me. Adrenaline writhed inside me, waking up from its slumber, as I shuffled to cover her with my body.
With only one exit point, we were effectively trapped.
“They—” He panted, arm extended to prevent the door from bashing his face in. “They’re here.”
My heart stopped, the lack of beats promising doom, while Kali cursed, her focus set on the rectangle of dim light spilling from the entrance, her brain coming to the same realization as mine: we had nowhere to go.
He glanced behind him, at the stairway descending into the depths of the residential building. “They found u—”
Right as my fists curled, a blade flashed in the yellow streak of light spilling from the roof’s entrance. The red spurting from Rowan’s throat pierced me like a shower of spears. I didn’t know the man, but knowing he’d guarded us had earned him respect in my eyes. And losing those I respected…
It fueled the muscles in my fingers to clench to the point of numbness.
Gurgles seized his speech as he clutched his wound. Scarlet streamed through his fingers, draining him of life and crawling inside me, coaxing my heart to restart, until he slumped on the ground, his hands twitching one last time.
Unlike Kali’s.
She adjusted her stance, her chest ballooning as she filled her lungs to the brim and then pushed it all out, slowly, deliberately, precisely how Gedeon had taught her mere months ago and me when we were teenagers.
Without casting us a look, the soldier emerging in the doorway kicked Rowan’s side. The corpse jerked, causing Kali to hiss, and he shouted into the stairway, “Clear.” Stepping over the body, he gave us a once-over. “At last, we meet. My boss has told me much about you.”
Five more soldiers, all clad in uniforms matching ours, slithered out of the roof’s entrance. Their black plastic helmets blended with the night as they spread out.
Ripping my knife out of its sheath and maneuvering to cover Kali’s front turned out to be useless.
Ilasall’s military had surrounded us, each of them adorned with dark masks.
The plastic obscured their features from chin to forehead, the hard shell interrupted by a strip of mesh where their eyes had to be.
For now.