The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [9]
It’s clear he’s trying to tell me that hanging around the group of Recruiters any longer will be inviting trouble. With a nod I turn back to the crowd, allowing myself to fade into forgotten people whose shoulders slump and gazes dull as I try to figure out what to do now. How to find my sister, if that really was her.
I was so close to leaving. So close to saying good-bye to all the pain and misery this place has caused me. A tension pulls along my neck as I realize everything’s changed again. I can’t go—not yet. Not when my other half might be here.
There’s no point in searching for my old village in the Forest if my sister’s here on the island.
Letting my hair fall back in my face, I thread through the crowd as it thins, people wandering different directions. Most of them will stay in the Neverlands, the broad swath of crumbling neighborhoods that comprise the north end of the island.
I make my way south toward the Palisades—the thick layer of walls and defenses that separates the Neverlands from the Dark City. It used to be that the Dark City was the safest place to live other than the Sanctuary, where the Protectorate was housed before the Rebellion. But now the City’s just as barren and worn down as the rest of the island. Without the Protectorate there’s no authority to control the Recruiters, to manage the formerly vast array of patrols that secured the Dark City’s borders and kept the streets clear of infection. Now there’s no check on the Recruiter power.
Those with connections fled in the wake of the Rebellion. Others seeped into the sprawling underground network of black markets in the Neverlands. The rest of us remained out of some sort of desperate hope that maybe one day things would right themselves and we could go back to living life the way it was before.
But of course we’re only deluding ourselves by staying. Between the Unconsecrated and what’s left of the Recruiters, the City’s not safe anymore. And there are only two options for a girl with no connections like me: Figure out how to take care of yourself, or find someone in the black markets to take care of you.
I’ve never liked the kind of protection they’ve offered, so I’ve spent the last three years completely on my own.
As I walk toward the Palisades, clouds gather over the mainland, wind rushing along the river and twining through the narrow alleys, whistling against windows busted out so long ago that weeds spill over the ledges and trail down broken facades.
In my mind I keep replaying the moment on the bridge when I noticed my sister; I keep picturing her face. Her expressions and the way she carried herself. But the farther I move from the river and the bridge, the more I begin to doubt what I saw.
I left my sister alone in the Forest, and I’ve spent the last decade of my life alternating between assuming that she got lost like Elias and me and died or that she somehow made it back to the village and has lived there safely ever since. Either way, I can’t imagine how she could have ended up here on the island.
Could the girl just be someone who looks like me? Who merely has hair like mine? It’s not like it’s rare to have blond hair. It’s not like I have any extraordinary features that make me stand out in a crowd. Other than my scars, of course.
Laughter trails down the alley behind me, snapping me from my thoughts. I cross my arms over my chest and pull my coat tight, hunching my shoulders. It’s colder here in the shadows, the pinch of winter settling between the cracks.
Someone calls out and I walk faster, staring at my feet and trying to train my senses behind me. Just as I reach the corner there are more shouts and the sound of feet running.
I spin back into a broken doorway and fumble for the knife in my pocket. There’s a group of three men down the road circling a bone-thin girl who barely looks old enough to be a teenager and a tall lanky boy who doesn’t seem much