The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [50]
The metallic creaking noise grows louder, steady and rhythmic, and then a light struggles to life. I wince under the sudden glow, throwing up my hands to protect my eyes and stepping instinctively into the shadows. Tucked in an alcove just off to my left, a young Unconsecrated man reaches for me through the bars of a wheel. With each step he takes toward me, the wheel turns, keeping him in one place.
He’d walk forever toward me if he could but all it does is turn the wheel, which winds a crank that powers a small string of lights reaching along the hallway wall. It reflects off icicles dangling from the ceiling, making it feel like we’re caught in some sort of absurd ice castle.
“Just a wheel walker,” I murmur to my sister, slipping from her grip. The Protectorate used them to power lifts and lights. Instead of stocks or jails, they’d tie rule breakers to a chair in front of the wheels: temptation to keep the Unconsecrated walking. “They’re trapped—can’t hurt us.”
I shiver as his moans tremble around us. I can hear the sharp breaths of my sister behind me, the panic she’d felt at the Unconsecrated coming out with each puff of air.
A part of me wants to turn around and comfort her but I don’t. I’m not used to people getting through my barriers. Usually I just lash out, force them away. But I can’t do that with her. And I’m not ready to let her see my scars up close. To let her see the resentment I feel, which makes me even more petty and horrible.
Her shadow falls against the wall and I watch her raise a hand toward my back. Watch her fingers hover near my shoulder and then fall away.
“Annah?” My name’s a whisper. There’s no judgment or malice in her voice and it makes me feel even more selfish and cold.
I close my eyes. She used to be my other half but now she only makes me think of the worst parts of myself and I’m too wretchedly ashamed to face her. I left her alone in the Forest. I blamed her for being weak rather than blaming myself for being selfish—that’s what makes it even worse.
“Annah,” she says, her voice a little stronger. “It’s … it’s me.” She draws a breath. “It’s your sister.”
As if I wouldn’t know her.
“Please, Annah, please look at me.”
The Unconsecrated man moans and reaches, chains around his wrists rattling against the steel bars of the wheel he’s trapped inside. The lights connected to the turning gears hover and buzz, growing bright and dim and blazing back to life again as he lurches forward.
I wish he’d stop. I wish it would all stop. That the dead could just give up. Turn around and go back to their homes and leave us all alone. Then I could stay huddled here in the darkness and I’d never have to face my sister—would never have to see her expression when she sees my face.
I open my mouth to say her name but I freeze, suddenly unsure what to say. Gabry doesn’t feel right—she’s always been Abigail to me. “I don’t know what to call you,” I whisper awkwardly and I glance down at my hands, at the shadows they make, and heat crawls up my chest and along my throat.
“Call me your sister,” she says. And then I can hear the smile crossing her face, feel it brightening the hall behind me. “Your big sister.”
And I can’t help but laugh because it feels so like my hidden memories of her. I’d forgotten that as kids she’d lorded her superior age over me, even though it could only be counted in minutes.
She laughs too and I drop my chin to my chest, covering my face with my hands as my laughter turns to tears. All the guilt and shame and anger too much for me as my shoulders hitch with sobs.
She doesn’t hesitate but pulls me to her, taking my head and pushing it into her shoulder, her arms circling my back. I weave my arms around her and it’s like nothing’s changed.
We still fit