Another, quieter clang, alerts us all to the source of the sound—there’s someone inside one of the dumpsters at the end of the alley. Tarver tilts his head at Jubilee, who silently steps around behind it as he shifts his grip on his gun to free one hand. I glance over my shoulder, neck prickling, to see a figure a block away pause—turn—and start moving toward us. Swallowing the urge to call out alarm, I reach out to touch Sofia’s elbow so she’ll follow my line of sight. Flynn catches the movement, and after he casts a quick, fearful glance back at me, we all ease into the mouth of the alley, hoping that noise hasn’t drawn more attention. Tarver’s shield will protect him and Jubilee, and Sofia and I stay close to Flynn and his.
Tarver’s gripping the edge of the dumpster lid, Jubilee creeping closer so she can train her weapon on whoever’s inside as he gets ready to haul it open. Just as Tarver’s muscles start to tense, Sofia’s sharp whisper cuts through the tense silence.
“Wait!”
Jubilee’s gun twitches our direction, eyes scanning behind us even before she registers that Sofia’s speaking. We’re invisible in here, no other danger evident, and her gun twitches back. Her brow’s crowding in, and I can tell she’s about to signal Tarver to continue.
But Sofia doesn’t speak for no reason—that much about her is real, and no lie or misdirection can change it. “What is it?” I ask softly, forestalling Jubilee.
Sofia’s eyes flick from me to the dumpster. “The husks,” she breathes, voice barely audible. “They don’t hide. They’re on a mission—you said it yourself,” she adds, nodding at Jubilee. “They’re running a search pattern. Why would one corner itself in here?”
Tarver lets go of the edge of the dumpster, though he doesn’t lower his gun, eyes darting between me and Sofia.
But before anyone can respond, the dumpster lid flies open, knocking Tarver back and making a sound like thunder crashing up and down the alley. A figure tries to vault out of it, but he’s clearly too cramped, too panicked, for acrobatics. He stumbles forward against the far wall, tripping and then dropping to the streets. Before any of us can speak, he’s got his hands up, as though protecting his face from us.
“Please!” he gasps, voice ringing. “Don’t hurt me—please don’t hurt me.”
“Shhh!” Jubilee’s eyeing the mouth of the alleyway, her gun trained on this new arrival.
But he doesn’t respond to that warning, still babbling pleas. He’s in his fifties or sixties and out of shape, clad in the ruins of a suit. He’s filthy, the odor of garbage and fear ripening the air, but as his eyes flash, terrified, between the five of us, I can see it: his eyes are hazel. And though they’re dilated with fear, they’re not empty.
“You have to calm down!” Tarver’s voice is low and urgent, and though it cuts across the man’s babbling, it seems to have no effect.
An image of that husk in the next block turning our way flashes up in my memory, and I’m moving before I have time to think—dropping into a crouch, I reach out and press my hand against the guy’s mouth, forcing a moment of silence. He groans, eyes rolling from the two soldiers, to me, and back again.
Sofia’s moving to crouch beside me, and glances up to follow the man’s gaze. “Guys—” She lifts a hand, then turns it palm-down to gesture as she murmurs, “Lower the guns.”
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I whisper. “But you’ve got to be quiet. If I take my hand away, will you promise not to make noise?”
He nods, eyes rolling back toward me again.
I ease my hand away and the man gulps air.
“Who are you? What’re you doing here?” Sofia’s voice is soft, despite her line of questioning.
“We were—I’m Chuck. My wife and I were…There were evacuation sirens. They said this part of the city wasn’t safe, might collapse. We were…we were…” He trails off, staring wildly into the middle distance.
Sofia reaches out, her hand coming to rest gently on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Just take a deep breath.” The genetag tattoo she worked so hard to conceal is exposed now, and stands out stark against her inner arm as she gives the man’s shoulder a squeeze. My stomach clenches as I realize this probably isn’t the first time she’s talked someone through a violent trauma, growing up on Avon in the middle of a war.
He shivers. “She just stopped. Like something flipped a switch. Stopped, then turned around and started walking back that way.” He lifts his chin, pointing back in the direction of the Daedalus. “When I tried to stop her, to ask what she was doing, it was like she didn’t even know me—she looked at me and her eyes were…” He closes his own eyes, as though he might be able to shut out the memory of his wife’s empty gaze. “She grabbed me and started dragging me with her, but I pulled free and…”
“And hid here,” Sofia finishes for him. She glances at me, eyes meeting mine—and in that moment, I know exactly what she’s thinking. He’s not fit enough to keep up with us, and with everything hinging on our success, we can’t afford to slow down. But he could turn into one of those husks if he steps outside the protective field of my jury-rigged whisper shields, and if Lilac can’t sense us through our scrambling fields, she’ll certainly be able to access what he knows about us.
My eyes rake the alley, and Chuck himself, as I try to figure out how he’s managed to hold off the whisper’s influence for so long—then my eyes fall on the dumpster. Its thick metal walls might serve to protect him the way our electromagnetic devices do.
“You have to get back inside.” I’m reaching for the guy’s arm even as the others turn to look at me. “It’s the safest place to hide, we can give you supplies. You have to stay in there or you’ll end up like your wife.”
Chuck’s trying to shake my hand off, not understanding what I’m telling him in his relief at finding other survivors. I open my mouth to explain further, but before I can speak, movement beyond catches my eye.
There’s a hand coming over the edge of the wall in the shadows at the end of the alley. The fingertips grope, creeping along the cement until they find purchase in a crack; it’s not until they curl and tighten that I realize one of them is bent oddly, twisted, and not moving like the others. A head and shoulders appear, becoming a figure dragging itself over the edge of the wall.
I lurch to my feet, one hand reaching out instinctively to grab for Sofia and pull her with me as I stagger back. The others see it almost instantly—Flynn reaches for Chuck, Jubilee trains her gun on the figure creeping over the wall, Tarver spits a curse and swings his weapon over toward the mouth of the alley—and we break into a run.
I’m craning my neck back to watch as the figure slides over the edge of the wall and drops into a heap on the pavement. The figure in the shadows grows arms again, and legs, and I can see its profile, head turning toward us as we burst back out into the sunlight. I collide with someone just in front of me—the others have stopped. It’s all I can do not to shout at them, Run, run, for the love of…
And then I see why they’re not running.
The street outside the alley is filled with husks.
There are dozens upon dozens of them, ranging as far as I can see. Most of them would seem perfectly normal if not for the slack faces and the empty black holes where their eyes should be—but some of them have obvious injuries, like the one at the back of the alley with the broken finger. A girl, no older than eleven or twelve, stands only a few feet away, a shallow scrape across her arm standing crimson against her pale yellow sundress; a man some distance back, tall enough to see over the sea of faces, stares at us from only one black eye, the other crusted shut with blood from a head wound.