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THE SILENCE IN THE gloomy alcove felt oppressive after Aubrey finished her story. After squeezing through the break in the basement wall, they’d run for what seemed like forever. Not much of a safe house, as it turned out.
Her counterpart eyed her in silence, elbows on knees as she sat cross-legged on the rough concrete. Between them was a blackened hole in the floor, once the site of a cooking pit, although neither of them possessed the means of starting a fire. Our clothes would dry faster, but whatever. No need to advertise where we’re hiding.
“Well, that explains a lot,” Nameless said at last, eyeing Aubrey with a different expression.
Is that a glimmer of compassion I see? Or are you just tired? Aubrey was surprised at how cynical she was becoming. You’re not exactly a ray of sunshine, even if you did save my life.
“They sent me to watch for you.” There may have been a brief trace of empathy in Nameless’ eyes, but it was quickly replaced by her no-nonsense abrasiveness. “They said Thomas and Sarah would brief you.”
She paused as Aubrey grimaced at the mention of her deceased friends. “I was on my way from the Mission when I found you. Good thing, too, because like I said, it’s been compromised. We’ve got to stay clear for the time being.”
Aubrey stood, pacing around the confined space. “You mean, I can’t get this thing taken out of me yet?”
She looked down at her torso with revulsion. Where did they even put it? Next to my heart, beside my left kidney?
“No, you can’t. Not yet, at least. I’m not qualified for cutting.” Her companion’s voice was scornful. She gave Aubrey a humorless half-smile. “But it beats being caught by . . . what did you call them? The Soul-less?”
Aubrey stopped pacing and swung around to glare at her. She heard Sarah’s voice in her mind, like a distant echo. As far as I’m concerned, they’re soul-less. After a long moment, she relaxed and gave a nervous little laugh.
“Well, actually, I’ve been thinking of you as the Nameless.” She felt sheepish at how juvenile and petty it sounded, once she’d said it out loud.
The girl’s hard expression dissolved into a wide grin, and she threw her head back with a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “Nameless? Well, we can’t have that, can we? I’m Jane.”
Aubrey stared at her, waiting in vain for her to add anything more. “That’s it? Just . . . Jane? You don’t have a last name?”
Jane’s smile vanished, and she slowly shook her head. “Nope, just Jane. Plain Jane. I don’t want to know your last name, either. To me, you’re Aubrey, the naïve little country girl, and that’s all that needs to be said. The less either of us knows about the other, the better. You can’t reveal what you don’t know.”
Her voice trailed off in an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty. There could be only one reason for her concern.
“And your friend Sarah didn’t kill . . .” Jane paused, staring at Aubrey with reluctance, as if she wasn’t eager to bring up the deaths of her friends again. “She didn’t kill the thing you call the Soul-less. It killed her. But it was aiming for you.”
The finger she pointed in Aubrey’s direction felt like an accusation. The tiny room, cramped as it was, seemed to grow smaller, as if the walls were closing in.
“What do you mean, it was aiming for me?” Aubrey managed to ask, her mouth suddenly dry. Her voice sounded small and frightened. Well, of course it does! That’s how I feel!
Jane shrugged, but continued. “The explosion was meant to take all of you out. Sarah, Thomas, you . . . everyone. It’s basically a suicide play. It’s what Trackers do when they’ve run out of options. If they can’t rip you apart personally to get your Implant, they blow themselves up and hope to take you with them.”
Aubrey shuddered as she remembered what the Soul-less had done—in a matter of seconds—to poor Thomas. What it would have done to her, if Sarah hadn’t jumped on it with the cleaver.
Did Sarah know it would commit suicide to get at me? I’ll bet she did. She sacrificed herself so I could escape.
Jane stood, folding her still-damp jacket over her arm. “C’mon, we’ve rested long enough. Bring your coat. We can’t leave anything behind. Trackers don’t give up. Ever. They know you’ve made it into the City, and they’ll keep coming after you until the job’s done.”
Until the job’s done. Aubrey shivered as she pulled her coat down from the duct it was drying on. She copied Jane’s over-the-arm gesture when she felt how damp it still was. Oh well, as long as we’re in these tunnels, at least the rain can’t get us.
She almost laughed out loud at the thought. What are you worrying about, Aubs? Rain is the least of your concerns.
Jane left the alcove, her long strides carrying her back into the tunnel. She faced in a new direction, looking deeper into the maze beyond.
Aubrey moved to join her, her curiosity about their destination overcoming her resentment toward her abrasive companion.
The tunnel was lit at sporadic intervals, the grudging illumination revealing twin metal rails, thick with the rust of neglect, running as far as the eye could see in either direction.
“Where are we going now? Am I allowed to at least know that much?” Aubrey didn’t mean to sound so petulant, but she was getting tired of playing nice.
“Amos,” Jane muttered, as if she was speaking only to herself. She squinted in the murky twilight of the tunnel, picking her way over the broken chunks of concrete littering their path.
“We’ve got to find Amos.”