The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [31]
And then he twists away from me, taking his heat and the glowing ember of the torch with him. The meager light glistens from rivulets of water wandering along the old tracks on the ground.
“You need to know that I’m broken,” he says.
It’s not at all what I’m expecting. I frown, showing him I don’t understand what he’s saying.
“I just …” He seems to struggle with the words. “I need you to know that I’ll help you find Gabry. I’ll make sure you’re both fine and safe but that’s all. After that I’m gone. I can’t …” He runs his hand through his hair, making it spike up like a halo. “I can’t be or do anything more.”
His pronouncement makes me feel cold and ugly. Unwanted. And this infuriates me because I promised myself that I’d never put myself in this position again—a place where I could hurt because of someone else’s decision.
Not after Elias joined the Recruiters and abandoned me.
I stare at him, to the point where he seems to become uncomfortable. I want to ask him why he thinks that would matter to me. I want to tell him that we’re all broken, that I’m broken. But instead I shrug like I don’t care and say, “Okay.”
I realize as the word falls from my lips that it’s a lie, which only fuels my irritation at both him and myself. I stomp past him, brushing his shoulder with mine as I take off down the tunnel. His steps echo behind me when he follows, the feeble light from the torch he carries just barely tempering the black emptiness in front of me.
I’ve always liked the darkness anyway.
The longer we’re underground, the more heightened my senses become. When we near an abandoned platform at a station the pressure of air whispering over my exposed face changes, lightens. In the depths of the tunnels the air is a searing cold, the forgotten warmth of fall leaching from the walls, heating everything just enough to keep water trickling around us, not yet frozen solid into ice.
Even so, I press as close to Catcher as I dare because of his radiating warmth and the meager glow from his torch. When the flame threatens to sputter out I rip lengths of material from my skirt—the extra layer of clothes a nice defense against the cold but not as important as light.
Sound down here is also tricky. Sometimes there’s a shuffle that could be feet sliding over old concrete and other times there’s the hurried chirping of animals that have made their home in the dark passages.
Every noise makes me jump, turn my head. My heart beats louder than any of it and I have to constantly tell myself that we’re okay. That we’ll be to the surface soon enough. That I’ve survived in this city alone for three years and I’ll make it through this as well.
But all that does is keep the panic from taking over completely—it still itches around the perimeter of my mind.
“Think this is far enough?” Catcher asks as the ceiling thrusts up, curving into the blackness of a gaping station.
I shake my head, my arms wrapped tight around my chest from the cold, my teeth chattering. I imagine the island above, the warren of twisty Neverlands streets crowded with buildings trailing toward the broad bare expanse of the Palisade wall. It doesn’t feel like we’ve walked far enough to have crossed fully underneath it.
“One more, I think. Just to be safe.”
Catcher nods and keeps pushing forward. Out of the corner of my eye I think I see something shifting deep on the platform, uncurling and stretching toward us. I tighten my grip on the machete. Running would only drain our strength—as long as we keep walking we can outpace the dangers down here.
We just have to keep going.
As we continue, the sound of dripping grows louder, more insistent, like a tripping heartbeat. Murky water starts to splash under our feet, cresting over our shoes and eventually up to our shins. Our steps become loud sloshing sounds that drown out everything else.
My skin tightens into goose bumps, the heavy weight of sodden pants dragging at my hips. On the surface thin slivers of ice fracture and disappear