For once, Oren was the one keeping me grounded.
The man was watching me, waiting for my response. I nodded, and he breathed out in a rush, as if he’d been holding his breath. He straightened and started backing up, putting some distance between him and the hidden doorway.
“Okay, Vee. Make it count this time. Just don’t break my nose again.”
The blonde girl laughed and flexed her hand—which I noticed, suddenly, was wrapped up in strips of tape. “I’ll do my best.” She followed him, stretching and flexing her fingers.
“Confidence-inspiring,” he muttered and then closed his mouth, dropping his shoulders.
Without further warning, Olivia bounced up onto the balls of her feet, leaned back, and then threw her whole shoulder forward into a punch that knocked the man flat before he could utter another word.
I lurched back into Oren, who cursed, staggering as well. But we were in a corner formed by the wall and the old walker leg, and the blonde girl was between us and escape. My mind just quit, going absolutely blank. There’d been too much running, too much thinking—now it was like it had just given up.
The blonde girl advanced on us, shaking out her fist, wrinkling her nose. “Guess it’s better to be me than him, but goddamn, that hurts.” She must have seen my face. The chagrined, amused smile vanished, her brows drawing inward, lips pursing in concern. “Oh, hell, Wesley didn’t tell you guys anything, did he?”
It didn’t look like she was about to turn her fists on us. I tried to speak, but my dry throat made the words come out in a croak. “Not so much.”
Olivia sighed, rolling her eyes. The expression seemed bizarrely out of place on her angelic features, like it had been painted on a doll’s face. “Of course he’d leave it all on me. Asshole.” She ran her hand through her hair, setting the curls to disarray.
“Well, for starters, I’m Olivia. And you two just fought your way free from one of the Eagles’ deployment officers.” She inclined her head toward the prone form of the man she’d called Wesley. “When they find him, he’ll wake up and tell them all about it. But you’ll be long gone.”
I stared at her. She’d hit him hard enough to knock him out—and all for show?
Olivia winked. “Welcome to the resistance.”
The door in the wall led to a walkway that was half tunnel, half disused alley. At times I could see narrow snatches of the rainbow sky overhead, between the tall buildings on either side. Others, we had to stoop to fit through ventilation chambers and crawl spaces. We went up ladders and down staircases, and on one occasion climbed down a crumbling brick wall, using spots where the mortar had fallen away as handholds.
It seemed that earlier in the city’s history these were occupied buildings. But the other buildings had been built right on top of the old, half-crushing some, leaving others empty and abandoned, forming a strange undercity.
Cities under cities under cities—I thought of the people above, of Trina and Brandon and their children. They had no idea what existed beneath their feet.
It was like being in the tunnels under my home city again. Basil would have loved this. For the first time since the little girl had turned into a shadow, I felt as though I was able to take a deep breath. Sometimes it seemed as though the world was made of walls—I just hoped I’d come out on the right side of this one.
Olivia gestured for quiet the first few times I started to ask questions, glancing at the walls of the alley, the open air, the vents in the corridors. I could only assume we were passing between and below and above houses, or even government buildings. Eventually, however, we emerged into a broader corridor. We passed people occasionally now, and they’d nod at Olivia, eye Oren and I curiously. When one of them used the same name as Wesley had used, Vee, I asked about it. This time she didn’t shush me.
“Most of us don’t go by our real names. I guess it started as a way to stay anonymous, back when everyone was living double lives in the city. But now even most lifers, like me, have other names.”
“Lifers?”
“People who live entirely inside the walls. People Prometheus would have locked up, if he could find them.”
Oren made a small sound in his throat. When I looked at him, his face was stony, unreadable. But I could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he was ill at ease. One of us claustrophobic, the other afraid of the sky—there was no place where both of us could be.
“Will that man—Wesley—will he be okay?” The last I’d seen him, he wasn’t moving, lying in a heap on the ground.
“Oh, don’t worry about him. If prisoners disappeared on his watch all the time, they’d suspect him of being one of us right away. Make it look like he simply got overwhelmed, and knocked about in the process, and it’s much harder to point fingers at him.”
“Earlier, he was working with the Eagles—he sent someone away, just a kid.”
Olivia nodded. “He told us. Don’t worry, he wasn’t a Renewable. They get half a dozen reports like that a month. A neighbor misinterprets something, or just plain doesn’t like someone, or something turns up missing, and bam. Renewable sightings everywhere.”
“What’s going to happen to him? The kid they took?”
“They’ll run some tests on him and find out he’s not a Renewable, and he’ll be free in a day or two.”
“And what if he had been a Renewable?”
Olivia didn’t speak, but I saw the answer in the way her face tightened and smile vanished.
“Why go to all this trouble for us?” Oren didn’t bother to hide the suspicion in his voice.
“No offense,” Olivia replied. “But we don’t give a damn about you. It’s her we want. You just happened to get here with her.”
My chest tightened again. So much for being able to breathe here. I’d been here only a few hours, and already people wanted to use me. At least Olivia was being up front about it.
“Why me?” I sounded as suspicious as Oren.
“We’re not—we’re not sure.” Her voice was slightly troubled. “If nothing else, though, we could always use another Renewable.”
Oren glanced at me, blue eyes piercing. Though he didn’t speak, I knew what had prompted the look. These people thought I was a Renewable. I shook my head a fraction.
Let’s keep it quiet for now.
Wait until they told us what they wanted from me—and what would happen to me if I couldn’t help them.
I should change the subject, ask something else, but curiosity got the better of me. “How did you know what I was?”
“Wesley,” Olivia replied. “He’s Sighted. Most Renewables are, but he’s sharper than anyone. Usually his position within the Eagles makes him perfect for spotting new Renewables when they come through CeePo, but you just happened to catch him on his day off.”
It was strange that I hadn’t been able to tell Wesley was a Renewable until he’d opened the door with magic. Even then, the feel of magic nearby was faint, easy to miss. In the Iron Wood, everyone was surrounded by a warm, golden light when I used my second sight. But then, everyone there was a Renewable. There was no need to learn to hide it. Here, being a Renewable was grounds for being locked up.
Olivia turned and caught me staring hard at her, trying to see if she carried any telltale sparkles of hidden magic. She laughed. “You can stop squinting like that, I’m no Renewable.”
“Why do Renewables have to go through Central Processing?”
“Well, everyone does. But Renewables especially. Most people still hate them, so even if someone tries to hide, they’re usually ratted out by their neighbors.”