It’s dark as hell down here. There’s a substantial group of us traipsing through the tunnel, but when you take into account how many people lived in The Inferno, it becomes apparent that at least two-thirds of us died at the hands of the Furies.
I move past the survivors in silence, not wanting them to notice me. Past Eric and Will, Pace and baby Hal. What I have to do now needs to happen as invisibly as possible. I feel hungry; it’s a disturbing notion, and reminds me all too clearly of the monsters we fled.
I am looking for a man. A man who was once a child who ran from the city, seeking death and solitude but finding instead a life he would not turn out to be worthy of.
Four innocent people, I remind myself. Four people who trusted him, obeyed him, worked tirelessly for him. He was meant to protect them, not slaughter them. I wanted none of this – I wanted power for him. I wanted peace. But he let himself be twisted by the ugliest of things: greed. And so.
No pity dwells in my heart, no hesitation.
But as I creep through the tunnel I realize he is not here. And I realize, too, how much I wanted to be the one to kill him. Which frightens me more than anything.
The blood moon still shines, down through the night sky and the dusty earth, down through the rock and steel of this tunnel, right down into my dark heart.
*
When Luke joins me at the back of the group I take his unbroken hand and we walk through the tunnel with the rest of our kind, the uncured souls who now have nowhere to go except back underneath the city that would see us destroyed. We have no home, except these tunnels. The Underworld indeed.
But this is what happens when you try to break our spirits: you leave room for only the strongest and the most ruthless to survive. You create an army sad enough to mourn what it’s lost and furious enough to destroy those who steal from it. You create a real resistance.
There’s a lot of despair in this world, a lot of anger, a lot of sadness. Raven let those things burn her to a husk. But all the threads that keep us tied here to our bodies, to our souls and to this big empty, broken planet – they all start and end in the same place. With hope.
Here in the west they know a lot about hope. They know how to ration it. How to squeeze and wring it dry. They know when to let it go; they know when it ends.
But here’s a secret I know: it never ends. Not if you don’t let it.
I remove a vial from my pocket, one that is filled with a drug that could take away my sadness. But happiness like this wouldn’t feel as sweet without sadness. I have believed this always; I simply let grief confuse me. So I smash the vial under my foot and keep walking.
I’m coming for you, Shadow.
A sound whispers through the dark, and I falter. Turning to face the endless black hole behind me, I peer into it, skin prickling. I don’t know how I know, but I know. They got through the barricade. The Furies are in the tunnel with us.
“Run!” I scream.
And we run.