The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [125]
He deserves it, of that I’m sure. But as I run I think about the sound of Catcher’s blade slicing through Conall’s spine.
It was murder. A brutality that still weakens me. Because where do I go when I cross that line? I’m not ready to make such a decision, and so instead I keep careening into the darkness, since as long as I’m moving I’m still safe.
Or at least, that’s the illusion I promise myself.
Eventually, the feel of the air in the tunnel shifts and I notice a glow around the bend ahead that looks almost like daylight. My heart pounds faster. A point of desperate hope spreads through me—it could be a way out.
And then reality crashes down, pulling me to a standstill. If there’s an opening, it will be filled with Unconsecrated. There could be a swarm of them just ahead. Moans already fill the tunnel, making it impossible to figure out whether they’re in front of me or behind.
I hold the machete in one hand and the lantern in the other as I scurry forward, ready for anything. After a dozen more steps the ceiling arches away from me, soaring up in a graceful curve over my head, and the walls swing wide, revealing a short looping platform dusted with snow.
It’s like walking into someplace sacred, the way the ice crystals shimmer in the air. Recessed in the ceiling, windows with intricate patterns gaze down on me, most of them blocked by thick leaden grids but a few still full of colored glass. There’s a hallowed stillness to the station, to the joining and breaking of vaulted domes that collect the sound of my pursuers and dissipate them into a meaningless chorus.
To run feels profane but I have no choice. I press my back against the inner curved wall and shuffle my way along it, my gaze sliding over the brown and green tiles interlocked along the arches and then fixing on the windows above.
Already I see them straining. See the cracks. Who knows how many hands pound against them? Ahead of me another tunnel looms, a black abyss ready to swallow me, but before I step into it Ox calls my name.
It’s not that he’s there that surprises me. What surprises me is that he’s alone, one hand pressed to the edge of the platform and the other to his chest. He just stands there as if he’s sure that I won’t run.
Or that even if I do, he’ll catch me.
“Go away!” I scream as I keep walking backward from him. Drifts of snow shimmer in piles around the platform and along the tracks, fallen through the broken windows above.
Blood pounds through my body, keeping me warm—but my ears still burn with cold, my throat raw and sore.
“I can’t,” he says, hand clutching his chest. Every breath comes out as a cloud, blurring his features. “I promised the men I’d keep them alive and I need you to do it.”
I’m shaking my head. “Even if you dragged me back I wouldn’t let you have Catcher,” I spit at him.
“That’s not the way it works,” he says. “He’s proven enough times he’ll do what we ask to keep you alive. How do you think we knew which one of you to threaten when we needed to remind him to keep working for us?”
“What?” I stumble over a rotted chunk of wood and pause, ready to run or fight—whichever will keep me alive longer.
He rubs his hand over his bald head, wicking away glistening sweat. “Throwing you over the wall. The cage. Not that I approve of the way Conall handled himself, but it worked. Before we knew about you we thought your sister would be more useful for controlling him.” He shrugs. “I was wrong. Once you were in the picture we had to figure out which sister he cared about more. Turns out it’s you.”
I think of all they put me through—the torture and agony of it! “You’re worse than the Unconsecrated,” I hiss. “You’re a monster.”
“It worked,” he says evenly. “I told you when we met that I’d do anything for my men. You should have believed me.”
“You’re crazy and stupid.” I wave my machete in the air, dismissing him. “You’re the one who said there was nowhere else to go! You’re the one convinced we’re all that’s left.”
He shakes his head, sliding his hand from the edge of the