The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [62]
He fights against them. Lashes out. He makes it around the edge of the cage a few times until he stumbles and the first Unconsecrated Souler falls on him. Her bite’s not deep and for a collective moment everyone stares at the man’s arm as he climbs to his feet and pushes away from her.
Like everyone else I hold my breath, waiting to see if he’s actually been bitten. A flash of hope spreads over the man’s face, searing through me as well. Then a tiny prick of red wells from his flesh and then another. The bite broke the skin. He throws his head back and wails as the Recruiters around the arena pound on the ground with their feet and clap their hands, drowning out the moans and the crying and even the sound of my own heartbeat.
I crawl to my feet and sprint down the hallway away from it all, their chants echoing as I careen around corners and slam into walls, trying to find my way out of the building. My vision is a blur but it doesn’t matter in the darkness. I trip along the uneven floor and right when the door to the outside looms into view I fall against it, flinging myself out into the frigid night.
The sharp frozen air slaps me, blasting through my clothes, and my teeth instantly begin chattering. What little light exists is magnified by all the snow and I notice that footprints mar the thin layer of white, scuffling between the main building and the cable-car platform.
I follow them, my mind reeling over what I just saw. They were killing people for sport. For fun. I’d known the Recruiters had become vicious following the Rebellion but I didn’t realize they were monsters. I didn’t realize men could be this ruthless.
I fall to my knees, my stomach cramping, the tiny bit of food I’d eaten earlier fighting its way up. I heave and I heave, the sound of the man’s terror screaming in my ears. The cheers of the Recruiters watching. The useless brutality of it all.
I wonder how much, if anything, Elias knows about this. If he knows what he’s gotten all of us into. I try to figure out a way he could be a Recruiter but not know what every other Recruiter seems to be aware of. I don’t want to believe he’d be okay with what they’re doing in that cage, that he wouldn’t try somehow to intervene.
The icy ground seeps through my pants and I use snow to wipe my mouth clean. I’m still reeling from everything I just saw and I don’t hear the footsteps behind me until someone’s fingers curl over my shoulder.
I scream, strike out with my arms, knuckles slamming into flesh. I push the body into a clump of snow-crusted bushes but he grabs me as he falls, pulling me on top of him, and it isn’t until I feel the heat that I realize it’s Catcher.
Words tumble from my mouth about the Recruiters and the cages and the Unconsecrated Soulers and the bodies, and Catcher holds me tight, whispering into my ears that I’m safe, that he has me, that I’m okay.
“You don’t understand,” I tell him, jumping to my feet. “The Recruiters are sacrificing people. They’re throwing them into cages with Unconsecrated. We can’t stay here. We’re not safe—we can’t be. We have to leave. We have to get Elias and my sister and find a way off this island.”
He just sits there in the snow staring at me, a red welt rising along his jaw where I struck him. I don’t know why he isn’t moving. Why he doesn’t understand the urgency. I spin away, so frustrated I can’t even look at him anymore.
I hear him stand slowly, feel the brush of his fingers against my arm. “We can’t, Annah,” he says.
I jerk from his touch. “You didn’t see it, Catcher. You didn’t see how much fun they were having—the sick pleasure they took in what they were doing. How bored they were that the poor guy wasn’t dying fast enough. They’re horrible human beings who don’t deserve to live.” I’m shaking uncontrollably from the memories and the frozen night air.
His grip on my arm is strong, his fingers biting into me. “We can’t go back because it’s too late,” he tells me. “There’s barely anything left in the City. Pockets of people fighting. But no place as safe as this.”
He looks almost like