I struggled. I tried to bite the hand covering my mouth. I kicked at the ground, dragging my heels. The overseers were too far away to hear me, but I screamed anyway. The muffled sound was lost as I was pulled into a cave.
“Shhhh,” a voice said. A male. He eased his grip over my mouth. My fight weakened as he pulled me deeper into the cave. It smelled damp, the air murky and festering with fungus and moss, life that fed off gloom.
Another male, younger, emerged from the darkness. A fire burned in the centre. I stared at it, mesmerized. Mae had told me about fire. The idea of it had filled me with fear. She’d told me it could be started by lightning and how entire forests had burned down. But this fire crackled and flickered, warming the walls of the cave. A grey mist, like heavy steam from boiling water, rose up from it.
“Don’t scream,” the male said and took his hand off my mouth. I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to: my throat was dry with fear.
The younger one squatted and rested his elbows on his knees. He poked at the burning sticks with another, longer stick. The end was blackened and sharp. He kept stealing sidelong glances at me, an anxious furrow in his brow.
“Who are you?” I whispered. The male passed me my canteen and held it in front of my lips. With a wary glance at them, I grabbed it and took a sip. Smoke had started to fill the cave. It burned my eyes. I looked up, realizing for the first time how enormous the room was. Tunnels led off in different directions.
“I don’t think you’re in a position to ask questions, do you?” He peered down at me. The firelight flickered off the hollows and peaks on his face, his skin dark as aged resin. Shaggy dark hair hung limp and matted on his head, like an overgrown plant. A beard trailed to his chest.
I licked my lips, wishing for more water but afraid to ask. The knives in their belts glinted in the dim light. As discreetly as possible, I felt for mine and then spotted it lying on the ground beside the younger one.
“What’s your name?”
“Kaia.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You left the City? When?”
I hesitated, unsure if he could be trusted. He hadn’t asked me to follow him, he’d captured me. I wasn’t a guest, I was a prisoner. “This morning. Before sunrise.”
“Alone?” The younger one asked. His skin was sun-baked too, and he had a beard, but it was trimmed and not so wild looking.
I nodded. It wasn’t a lie. I had left alone, and I grit my teeth against mentioning the overseers I’d seen in the valley. What if the Prims were hostile? I might need the overseers. A forced return to the City might be the lesser of two evils.
“Why?” The older one’s eyes dug into me.
It was too much to explain. Words failed me. I stared at him, despondent. “I can’t live there anymore.”
He grunted and reached for my hand. I tried to jerk it away, but he held it tightly. His fingers were calloused like Sy’s, and filthy. Rubbing a finger over my pulse point, he clucked at me. “They’re tracking you.”
I shook my head. “It’s broken. No one knows I left.” Except Sy, another secret I wouldn’t divulge.
The younger one leaned in. “I’ve never seen one,” he muttered and rubbed his thumb over my pulse point. “So, this controls them?” he asked his friend.
“No!” I snatched my hand back, indignant. “It records energy production.” The two of them exchanged glances of disbelief.
“Can you make it do something?”
I lifted my finger, expecting a hologram to appear, but nothing happened. Lowering it, I tried again and stared at the cave wall. My whole life, a hologram had appeared with a flick of my finger, connecting me with the rest of the City and displaying my memories. But now, that was gone too. “See,” I said shakily, “it’s not working.” I caught the skeptical look that passed between them. “It’s true,” I said, fearful that they wouldn’t believe me. “It’s how I escaped.”
Neither of them said anything, but a look passed between them, like I wasn’t to be believed. The younger one bent closer, inspecting my knee. “What happened?”
“I fell,” I answered. Dirt covered my knee and was embedded in the trail of congealed blood that ran down my leg. The cut had started to bleed again.
The older one made a noise in his throat. “It’ll get infected.”
They looked at each other again and frowned. “We should get her to camp. Make her comfortable.”
Confused by the ominous tone of the older one’s voice, I watched as they dipped long sticks into the fire. The flames shot out at the cave walls. I ducked, cowering away. The younger one kicked dirt onto the fire in the centre until it died. He picked up my knife and slid it into a sash at his waist. He saw me watching. “Just keeping it safe for you,” he said.
The older one surveyed me with a smirk and held out his hand to pull me up. “I’m Akrum. This is Gideon,” he pointed to the younger one who held his fire stick higher so the firelight flickered across his eyes. They were kind and curious and for a moment, I forgot to be scared. “You’ve made Gideon’s day. He’s always wanted to meet a refugee fresh from the City.”
So that was what I was, a refugee?
Gideon’s shoulders filled the narrow tunnel and when he moved, I could see the power of his body, well-muscled limbs used to the harsh conditions of life on the Mountain, so different from the lithe, slim figures of Citizens. With no protection on the Mountain, Akrum and Gideon’s skin looked as weather-beaten as the valley. Mae had told me that the solar panels on the dome filtered out the harmful spectrum of sunlight and made natural pigment unnecessary. After years of living in the City, every Citizen had a version of the same silvery, pale skin. I looked weak and vulnerable compared to both of them. “It’s a long walk through the cave tunnels, but still a shortcut. Are you coming with us?”
It was an invitation, not a threat. I hesitated. Their appearance and roughness was intimidating, and Akrum put me on edge; his gaze was harsh. But if they were going to hurt me, wouldn’t they have done it already? Gideon waited impatiently at the forking tunnels and held out a torch to his friend. What choice did I have? Go back to the Mountain, lost and wounded, and wander? Or let the overseers capture me? If I wanted to find Raina, following these Prims was my best chance. With a brusque nod, I ignored his hand, got to my feet and limped after them.
The tunnel narrowed and we had to stoop until it opened up again into another large chamber and then we took a different path that twisted and turned. I reached out a tentative hand. The stone was cool and rough. A knot of fear tightened in my belly. I was following these people deeper into the cave. What if they weren’t Prims, but some other group?
They both stopped suddenly and looked up. A hole opened at the top of the cave and I could see daylight. Akrum held his torch up high, whistling like a bird. Seconds later, a rope ladder was dropped down. It swung in front of us. Gideon began to climb, the ladder swinging side to side as he made his way up. “Your turn,” Akrum said. He held both torches and his face glowed orange, a lopsided smile showed yellowing, decayed teeth.
I stared at the ladder, gripped both sides of the rope and tested the bottom rung with my foot. With a deep breath, I took a step up, the narrow rope pressing into the sole of my sandals. The ladder swung for a sickening moment until Akrum grabbed it, securing it below me. I moved up, hand over hand. I looked down once and my stomach lurched at how far I’d climbed.
The smell of fresh air replaced the dank, still air of the cave. I put one arm on the ledge and hauled my body up, rolling out of the way and scrambling to my feet. At least thirty Prims stared at me. They stood in a semi-circle and began to hiss. It was a horrible sound, filling my ears as they advanced. I shrank back searching for Gideon.
“Stop!” he said barging in front of me. “She’s not going to hurt us!”
The hissing died out, but the hostile looks didn’t. “How do you know?” a female said.
Akrum leaped over the edge, his agility surprising for someone of his age.
“Did you remove it?” The female’s voice was sharp with suspicion. Two braids of red hair, as thick as hemp ropes, hung on either side of her face.
Remove what? I wondered.
“Show them,” he commanded me and gave my finger a pointed look. When I raised it, they all leaned away from me. I didn’t know what they thought would appear, knives that would fly through the air at them? A flock of birds to carry them away? But there was an audible sigh of relief when nothing happened. “The thing in her finger is broken.”
The female, a few years older than me, ran her eyes up and down me, staring hard at my face. “She could be lying.”
I looked to Akrum, but he said nothing in my defence. “I’m not lying,” I whispered.
“That’s what you’d say if you were,” she sneered. “Was she armed?”
“She had a knife,” Akrum said. “Gideon took it.” A low murmur ran through them.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, my voice shaking. Was one of them Raina? I looked at the crowd, searching each face for one that looked like the female in Mae’s memory.
“Why are you here then?” A large male, maybe the tallest human I’d ever seen, piped up. His deep voice silenced all the other questions.
“I can’t live there anymore.” My voice cracked, more from exhaustion than emotion.
Gideon stared at the others angrily. “Look at her, would you? She’s no threat to us. Anyway, she’s got a wound on her knee.”
His words seemed to calm their fears. The female with braids gave a disgruntled sigh and muttered something to the big male. One by one, they turned and left the clearing, walking single file down a forest path. “I’ll tell the Chief,” Gideon said to Akrum. Before he left, he gave me a long look. I met his gaze and then turned away, unsettled.
“Why do they hate me?” I asked.
“They’re afraid. We haven’t had a refugee in a long time,” Akrum said.
“There’ve been others?” My breath quickened at the thought of Raina. Had she made it?
“A few, over the years.”
“A few?” I repeated, turning to him in surprise.
He nodded and drew his eyebrows together in a frown as he looked at my knee. “I never told the other refugees what would come, when we found them.” He sighed. “But, I’m old now,” he grimaced. “And wiser.” He drew me closer and lowered his voice. “You’re going to die on this Mountain, Kaia.”
I stared at him.
“Death is coming for you. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”