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I’d never been one for playground games, except one. Somehow, I’d always been able to hide during games of Hide & Seek, and stay hidden until the teacher called an end to recess. It wasn’t that I was particularly small or agile. I just knew where people wouldn’t look, a judgment that made all the difference between winning and losing.
My rescuer seemed to know how to play the game, too, because we huddled in the narrow alleyway, sandwiched between a dumpster and the rough brick of the building. I would have climbed into the dumpster itself. She, however, shoved me into the space behind it, a tight fit that would have made me weep with terror if I were claustrophobic.
It didn’t smell particularly nice, but one of the things that’d always made me successful at hiding was not caring about things like that. Now there was nothing to do but wait and hope. I sucked in a deep, rancid breath, and slowly exhaled. The first key to hiding successfully was to not panic.
A glance at the girl by my side told me this wasn’t her first time, either. She was calm, her body still except for the steady, somewhat shallow breaths she took.
The silence was almost companionable, but when I opened my mouth to say something, she shook her head fiercely at me. All we had to see by was a sliver of streetlight filtered by the tall buildings flanking us on either side of the alleyway, blocked by the shadow of the dumpster. I thought she mouthed the words “not yet” at me before turning to stare straight ahead.
The door to the club crashed open and I jolted back against the building, scraping my back. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out in pain.
Almost robotic voices issued sharp orders. “Fan out. Search the alley.”
There wasn’t much to search, as far as I could tell. The passageway between the club and the building next to it was hardly large enough for the dumpster alone. A person would have to stand to the side to toss trash in it.
I hazarded a glance over the girl’s head at the guardsmen in the alley. Three shadows stretched against the building behind us. Our escape was past them, a narrow path from the dumpster to the street, blocked by Commonwealth cops. I wondered if they could hear the way my heart was beating against my chest, my breathing so shallow I thought I would pass out wedged between the cold hard metal and brick wall. The dumpster added slight cover, the way it slanted at the back our only possible saving grace.
The guardsmen turned and surveyed the area, beams of light drifting over us like spotlights. I screwed my eyes shut tight, not sure if that would help. Surely, they would see my glistening eyes if they angled their flashlights just right. If they bothered to shine them between the dumpster and the building.
“Anyone who came through here has to be on the street by now,” one of them remarked. “There’s no space here to hide.”
I held my breath and waited for a response from the others.
The pounding of something against the dumpster came so fast and hard, I jumped. Somehow, though, they didn’t hear the terrified sound that squeaked out from my mouth. A small, cold hand snaked up and clamped down over the lower half of my face. I stilled.
One of the guardsmen was kicking the dumpster repeatedly, his steel-toed boot making it bang and echo. He stopped and then flipped open the lid. It crashed against the building behind us, over our heads, but the additional shield it provided from their sight didn’t comfort me. He must have poked his gun in there to rummage around through the garbage, because I heard the crinkling and tearing of trash bags.
After what felt like an eternity, he huffed out a breath and said, “You’re probably right.” Disappointment tinged his voice. He must have wanted to find someone or something.
Another long moment passed and I opened my eyes. Three pairs of boots marched back through the door, into the club. I turned, but the girl next to me moved her hand from my mouth to wrap her fingers around my upper arm and squeeze. When I met her gaze in the dim slant of light that cut across our hiding place, I saw the fear and anger in her wide eyes.
We would wait, then, if she insisted. I relaxed my body back into position, which was getting harder to maintain by the moment. My knees were drawn up to my chin, my tailbone, shoulders, and head in contact with the brick building. Now that my breathing was normalizing, I felt cramps from head to toe. I wasn’t used to sitting in one place for such a long time.
Without a way to keep track of the time, I pressed my hand to my chest and counted my heartbeats. It helped me ignore the ache in my knees from keeping them bent for minutes on end. I wanted to slump forward, but the limited space made it impossible. Maybe I should have been grateful I could hide or that someone had been able to guide me out of the club at the worst possible moment, but it was impossible to feel even a sliver of appreciation when guardsmen were carrying out a raid in the building that kept me propped upright.
The silence stretched on so long and taut, that I thought I would snap. The one light that gave any illumination flickered and then shut off, and I jumped again.
“Shh, it’s okay.” The girl beside me finally spoke. “That means it’s after midnight. The lights always go off two hours after curfew.”
I tried to remember what time Anna and I had left her house for the club, how long we’d been there, the time that had passed between me crying in the bathroom and the raid. Was it possible that I’d lost four hours tonight? It seemed like both an eternity and a heartbeat at the same time.
“Raids usually happen between ten and twelve. It’s the prime time to catch curfew violators.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Somehow, I found my voice, though my words came out thin and breathy. “You’d think violators would find it easier to sneak around once it gets fully dark, without streetlights.”
I couldn’t see the smile that lifted the corners of her mouth, but I could hear it in her voice when she said, “Are you telling me you’re not afraid of what happens in the Commonwealth after dark?”
Oh. Right. “Stunners.” The drones that patrolled the city after midnight, their thermal-sensing and imaging equipment pinpointing humans with perfect precision.
If they caught you, there was no warning. Just a stun discharge that knocked you unconscious. The drones would then alert the guardsmen for pick-up, and whoever had overnight duty did exactly that—rounded up the unconscious bodies of curfew violators. Waking up in jail sounded less fun than being carted there in handcuffs. It was one of the nightmares I’d had about Anna for years.
“But I have to get home.” Tears added a squeak to my voice that I hated. It made me sound weak, petulant, spoiled.
The girl must have been looking at me. I could imagine the incredulity in her gaze. The disbelief she probably felt at being stuck with some whiny elite Loyalist.
“What’s your name?” she finally asked.
“Kira.” I almost said my full name, but held back before it could emerge. She didn’t need to know I was a Neville, especially since I still didn’t know who or what she was.
“It’s nice to meet you, Kira. I’m Vi and I’m guessing this is your first time being raided.”
An almost-hysterical chuckle welled up in my chest. “This is my first time at a club.”
I heard her exhale. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” It came out sounding more like a question than a statement.
“Goddamn.” She blew out another breath, this one louder than the first. “That explains why I’ve never seen you before. Why now? Why tonight, of all nights? Is this your last big act of rebellion before you get matched?”
“How did you...?” I blinked at her, even though all I saw was inky darkness.
“Trust me, I’ve been there, done that. Too many times, in fact. That’s how you become one of the Shamed, you know. Just one path to it, anyway.”
A foul word, one I’d never used before, rose to my lips and I swallowed it. My rescuer was definitely the one person I couldn’t tell the whole truth to—not my family name or my father’s position on the Governor’s Council or anything. If she knew who I was, she would leave me to my own devices and never look back.
And I didn’t stand a chance of making it home safely without her.
I swallowed and tried to quell the shudder that scythed through my entire body. The most enthralling girl I’d ever met was also my enemy. I wanted to know everything about her and nothing about her.
Fuck! as Anna would say when she thought she was in a difficult position.
“Hey, it’s okay. Despite what you’ve been told about the Shamed, you aren’t going to be infected with our ‘abhorrent disregard for the rules’. That’s what they say in those informational films they still show in the schools, right? I think they’re more popular at Commonwealth Prep which, hearing the way you talk, is probably where you go.”
Now that the threat seemed somehow less, I realized the girl—Vi—and I were pushed up against each other, pressed together at the arms, hips, legs... Her warmth quickened my heartbeat, but in a different way than the danger had. Maybe this was some kind of phenomenon that had to do with surviving it together. After all, everything about her was forbidden. Wrong.
Just like me.
I swallowed and tried to gather my thoughts. Despite every awful turn of events tonight, I didn’t want to go home yet. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to be left on my own to skulk through the streets, to figure out how to evade the Stunners.
Something about Vi made me feel safe, despite where and how we’d met. Despite her initial, correct impressions of me. Like nothing could touch me as long as I was with her. She’d also chosen to save me, rather than go it alone. No one had ever done that, picked me over someone or something else. She made me feel special.
I didn’t want to lose that feeling. Not yet. Having her at my side was the one good thing that’d come out of tonight, and I still didn’t know why.
I heard a long inhale and then she said, “Well, I guess I better make sure you get home safely, prep school girl.”