“If you want to see your girl, look up,” Nafari urged, barely panting. I couldn’t answer; I was so out of breath. I just shook my head, which he couldn’t see. I couldn’t look at her now. Whatever this was, this risk, this action, was keeping her under my thoughts. It was making it easier to smile, easier to laugh. I wasn’t ready to give up on that. So I had to keep moving. She would slow me down.
By the time we reached the next gate, the streetlights were flickering on and off. Noise was building. Voices, wails, broken glass.
Halfway to the last gate, the lights went out permanently.
People streamed past us. Angry people carrying boards and shards of glass. A woman pushed past me to get through the last gate and slashed my arm with a broken bottle. I put my hand to my bicep, glanced down at my blood-covered fingers, and stopped.
I lost Nafari in the crowd.
I knew where he was going, so I kept on towards the gate, the swarm of people thickening around me. The angry shouting was a mix of oppression and freedom forcing its way out the end of a bottle, squeezing and then bursting.
A shot fired.
Emergency lights flooded the Outer Ring with amber light.
I thought, This is where it stops. Fear would stop them. But people followed the shot, poured over the soldiers holding the guns until suddenly they were the ones putting their arms up in surrender. I watched one soldier, still holding on, blinking desperately, moving his gun frantically back and forth as he was forced against the wall. A woman stepped towards him, her palm up.
“Put your gun down. We don’t want to hurt you,” she shouted.
I started running towards her. I don’t know why. Before I had even taken two steps towards them, there was a crack and she crumpled. The people surged towards the soldier, and he was swallowed by tearing arms and grieving screams.
My heart knocked on my chest wall, reminding me I had to find Nafari. My eyes scanned the area near the gate. There he was, pulling his pack from his back. He plunged his arm into the bag and a shot rang out. His arm jerked and fell limply to his side. I could do nothing, only twenty meters from him, but about a hundred people deep in the crowd. Doggedly, Nafari gripped the explosive with his other hand.
I searched for the gunman and found him, hiding behind a brown, velour lounge that had been dragged into someone’s front yard. I swam through the crowd to get to him as he lined my friend up in his sights.
This bomb was about to go off. I could see it in Nafari’s steely eyes. I could get to the gunman and stop him from firing at Nafari or I could try and clear the area of innocent civilians.
We hadn’t expected this. This amount of people, this response.
I screamed, “Clear the gates! They’re going to blow up the gates!” Over and over, as loud as I could.
People started to move away from the great iron gates. They pulsed and surged backwards, spilling over furniture and soldiers. The smells of sweat and copper-tasting blood filled the air, mixed with a waft of smoky, fragrant spices I’d never smelled before. The gunman aiming at Nafari was lost in the sea of people.
The crowd pushed me back until I was pressed against the front wall of a house.
My eyes picked out the tip of a gun still aimed in Nafari’s direction. It shot again, hitting him in the leg. My heart dove into my feet. I couldn’t stop this. I was going to watch him die.
“Nafari!” I screamed as I pushed against the crowd and tried to get to him.
His eyes found me. He put his hand up, stop, and yelled, “Call me Naf!” Then he grinned and turned away. He pushed the button twice for instant detonation, and the air around him flashed white.
ROSA
From my blind position, breathing my own fear-scented breath, I guessed we had driven for about thirty minutes. I couldn’t hear anything over Denis’ loud, thumping music. The only thing I could tell was that the journey had been mostly in a straight line until this sudden jerk to the left. Now we were still. The engine running, the music decreasing in volume.
The guard yanked the bag off my head so violently that my neck did that painful snap you felt when you turned too suddenly. Pain coursed through me like a hot rod was shooting up my spine and poking my brain.
“Ow!” I shrieked, rolling my neck from side to side to ease the lava-like pain. The guard sniggered. The Superiors truly chose their soldiers well. Most of them seemed to truly enjoy inflicting pain. I rubbed the back of my head gingerly.
“Rosa, are you all… ahem… Kinesh, that was unnecessary.” Denis covered his concern for me poorly, and I shot him a warning glare.
I blinked my eyes and tried to adjust to the streaming, harsh light pouring over the black sedan. It was sleeting, the light picking up every drop of rain clashing with every snowflake as it rolled over the black metal of the car. I gazed up at the long, metal poles holding up the lights and followed them around a semi-circle of high fencing back to where we were parked. Automatic gates swished closed behind us, pulling lumps of mud with them. I inhaled the rich, mushroomy scent and let my brain fool itself that we were somewhere else for a moment. But then I had to open my eyes. Illusions were smashed to splinters as I stared in front at the muddy path, pockmarked with pools of freezing water leading to a glass door splattered with rain and dirt.
Denis pulled up the handbrake. “Time to get out.”
The holding cells reminded me of the underground facility in the most vivid, lacerating way. From where I stood, gripping the car door like an anchor, all you could see were two windows and a door punched into the side of a slick, green hill. The difference being we were not surrounded by towering forests and birds didn’t circle above. I couldn’t hear the rustle of creatures scratching their claws through the undergrowth.
Squeezing the car door harder, I cocked my head to the side, my body rigid with cold and reluctance. I was inside one of Addy’s babushka dolls. A prison within a prison within a prison. No escape.
Kinesh pried my fingers from the door and slammed it. I startled at the noise and blew air out my pursed lips trying to calm myself.
“Kinesh, you can stay with the car,” Denis ordered, squinting through the frozen rain.
You didn’t have to tell him twice. He was in and starting the engine before I could blink.
Denis beckoned with one arm. I shivered. My clothes ballooned around my skinny legs, and I instantly regretted my choice of outfit for dinner: A formal dress so long and a little too big that it dragged across the floor. Although a smile did tease my lips as I remembered Grant’s horrified expression when he watched me tugging the sleeves up and his aggravation when they kept falling down to reveal my bra strap and bony shoulder. Denis watched me curiously as I hiked my dress up, tucked it into my underwear, and walked towards him, allowing myself to be cradled in the bow of his arm. He’s not going to leave you here, I told myself in short, puffy breaths.
Muddy water had soaked into my dress and frozen my ankles. I shuddered. Denis pushed a code into the door handle and it opened. Fingers of warm air and light reached out and grasped us, pulling us inside. The shiny white tiles were mussed by my dragging, dirty dress.
“These are the holding cells. Follow me,” Denis announced grandly, as if he was giving me a tour of a palace ballroom and not a clinical, bleach-scented room used to process criminals, people like me.
The small receiving room was lined with red-cushioned chairs. A small cubicle sat in the corner with a window perforated with small holes like gunshots. Denis went to the window and spoke through the holes.