Chapter 27

He lunges, hands reaching for my throat. My fist connects with his face, making his eyes go white. Stumbling backward, he wipes his jaw with the back of his hand. His blood is a mix of icy blue and crimson. It quickly absorbs the dirt from my shoes, hardening on the grass as it does.

"Not healing so well after all?" He points to the wound on my stomach, where it's starting to bleed again. I curse under my breath, but he grins even wider. "You remember what I said the last time?"

No, and I even don't know you.

He folds his arms and smirks. It all makes sense now, though his stare and the familiar stare are part of a vague memory. Still, I know he's the one who caught me staring at Scipio as she slit the Proxy worker's throat and watched him squirm until he breathed his last.

"Doesn't matter anyway. We're here, and there's no going back now." The man's grin doesn't falter, so I land a kick to his jaw and a hard punch to his temple. That's enough to wipe that smile off his face.

My mouth is dry, and my throat hurts—blood spills from a gash where the Outsider managed to cut my side. Still, I press on ahead, moving slower than I would've liked.

Bending down, I press my fingers against the immune's neck, not daring to breathe until I feel the weak rhythm of her pulse. Since she's too heavy to drag, my best bet might be the dense undergrowth. I pull her there, adjusting the angle of her body until I'm sure it's impossible to tell if anything is hiding there. I leave her with one of my smaller knives, just in case.

Turning around, I focus on the next section's wall.

"Depot." The word leaves a sour taste on my tongue, and I stare at the inscription on one of the doors. Some part of me wishes that I saw the words wrongly, but there's no such luck. They're written in such big capital letters that it's impossible to pretend that it's anything else. Somehow, the Outsiders set up another camp here, and Proxy hasn't caught on yet.

The stench of rotting flesh hits hard. My eyes sting from the odor of death, but I press on until I stumble across more people trapped in cages. As soon as the real immunes see me, all color drains from their faces, and they grip the bars until their knuckles go white. Everyone goes quiet. I feel their gaze lingering on me as I walk past them. Some reach for me while others sink into the corner, shivering and rubbing their palms together for warmth.

The Outsiders emerge from the shadows, and I take cover behind a thicket. They recite numbers before stopping in front of one of the cages. After unlocking the door, they pull the captured girl outside. My breath catches in my throat as she kicks and thrashes. Her gaze is wild. Growling, she sinks her teeth into an Outsider's arm.

The bite marks are deep and raw, but the guard doesn't flinch. He sticks a syringe into the girl's neck, and she goes slack.

"Get over here." An immune calls me over to where he's being kept. He's hunched over, his back bent and twisted. The bars above him are dented from the weight of the cells stacked above him. The boy tries to crawl, but every movement makes him wince. Halfway through, his leg gives out, and he collapses in a heap. "Mind picking the lock?"

I want to tell him that I'd rather use my knife and that I can't pick locks. Instead, I bite my lip and take the metal wire from him. He scoffs at my weak attempt, so I give up in favor of a knife instead. Soon, he decides to fill the silence with small talk. "The Outsiders are keeping us here until Proxy finally decides to cut them the deal. I think we all know what they want by now."

"Is this place part of The Sanctuary too?" I ask.

"From what I heard, it was supposed to have an underground level of sorts, which is where we are now. Since the project was never finished, I guess the Outsiders have secretly taken it over."

"I think the only way out of here might be one of those portals. Just don't know where they are, and we'll probably never find the exact one that brought us here."

The boy shrugs, seeming strangely nonchalant about everything. A comfortable silence settles between us, but his eyes twinkle with mischief as he watches me through the bars. This lock is sturdy, and the knife barely makes a dent.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Want to see something cool?"

I'm about to ask him about it when he places a finger over his lips. His gaze wanders behind me. There's a rustling noise in the grass. Slowly, he relaxes and drags himself closer to me. "I can become anything and everything." He stares at me for a long while. I watch as his features start to shift. His gray eyes turn a deep mahogany color, his nose is pinched up, and his skin lightens by a shade. Slowly, his old features give way to another person. It's a mutation that I've never seen so far. He gestures to his new face. "This guy is one of the Outsiders around here. He seemed like a pretty important dude, but I haven't seen him for a few days now. Some crazy part of me wanted to become him and walk out of here like a boss."

I stifle a laugh. A goofy grin lights up his features and squeezes his eyes into crescents. Then, his smile drops, and he gestures for me to leave. "Go hide. They're coming."

His face quickly morphs back to what it was. By the time the Outsiders appear, I've already slipped into the vegetation. They march up to the boy's cell, moving him onto the back of a truck and driving off into the distance.

I can't get far. My side is starting to act up, the aching sensation spreading through my body. Tree barks scratch against my skin, and thorns dig into my exposed ankles. I don't heal as fast as I used to. Each step becomes more sluggish until I stop to rest. Still, I'm on high alert for any movements.

My hair is soaked in a cold sweat, and my vision blurs a little. Ahead, there are more cages. Some immunes lean against the side of their enclosures, sobbing into their hands. The rest are kicking the heavy locks just as a guard emerges out of nowhere. The sour-faced man has a scar beneath each eye, and I'm starting to think that the Outsiders cut themselves as part of some initiation ritual. I shudder at the thought as his features further contort into a scowl. He stares at the massive tablet in his hand. Another Outsider appears next to him, and his scruffy beard makes it hard to read his lips. Slowly, I inch forward until I can make out their words.

The bearded man speaks up first. "Are there enough yet?"

Sourface furrows his brows, nose crinkling as he studies the screen. "Most are too far north. It'll take a while for them to get here."

I curse under my breath. Crawling back to safety, I stare at the group and work through my jumbled thoughts. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I take note of the other guards' positions and memorize them.

Even as evening falls, the singing cicadas are hardly enough to mask my movements. Well, it's better than nothing. Serial numbers are pasted behind the cages, but they're nothing like the ones we have. Row after row of cells, I stare at the faces inside. "Who's there?" A guard asks. He stares at the forest, sweeping his weapon as he scrutinizes the area. I don't move a muscle. My breaths are short and shallow.

"Code black. I repeat, code black." He radios over his transmitter. More guys jog up to him while the rest fan out over the area. The minute they step out on the grass, I know I don't stand a chance.

Sticking to the taller patches of plants, I slowly retreat to the safety of the unforgiving night. While a few guards are heading this way, I rest high up in the branches of a tree and hope that my foot doesn't slip. I balance against one of the thicker branches and wait. A few of his men pass by beneath me, and I'm praying they don't look up.

They do. Tranquilizer darts bounce off the bark, but I've already leaped to the next tree, almost losing grip. I keep going while the darts continue firing. "That's far enough. Get moving," Sourface shouts. I'm ready to jump when a sharp prick knocks the air from my lungs.

A strange numbness swims in my veins, spreading through my muscles as the injector pumps a liquid into me. I rip it out and hurl it into the bushes. Voices float around everywhere, but they seem like a faraway melody. Straining to keep my eyes open, I watch Sourface's mouth movements. "We'll get them later. The next shipment is coming." Shipment. I think that's what he said. A breathy noise escapes my throat as the last guard leaves.

The world fades a little, but I fight it. This stuff will catch up to me eventually. Shaking my head, I slowly climb down. Everything spins as I land on the ground. Even the pain in my arms and legs is fading into a dull ache. I'm down on all fours again, making my way through the grass. Then, I hear someone tapping the soil next to me, and Krystal's face comes into focus.

Trapped inside a cage, she lifts her handcuffed hands and gestures to the lock. "It's almost open. Just try one more time, Aria. My hands are killing me." She hands me the metal pin, but I don't bother with it. Instead, I kick it hard until the mechanism pops loose and the door springs open.

"Jax's locked up here too." She huffs while dragging me along. My legs are burning as they try to keep up.

When Krystal lets me go, I struggle to stay on my feet. There's no one here, only a beeping device. A bright light flickers on her wrist, and she curses. "A tracking chip?"

Sourface emerges from the forest. "There you are."

Just before he fires the tranquilizer gun, his knees buckle, and he collapses in the dirt. Blood drips from the back of his head where a rock has done its damage. Jax drops the brute weapon and signals for us to follow him. Everything is numb to me now, and it's dead silent. Still, my legs are alive. I run until my lungs burn and the air claws at my throat.

We're almost there. The section wall is still open. "There's a trap," Jax says. I look down to see fine electric wirings blocking the path to freedom.

"We have to jump over them. It's our only choice," I rasp. We push ourselves harder and launch forward. I land on the soft grass beyond the reaches of the depot. Electricity briefly stings my feet, and I quickly crawl away. Jax helps me up.

"Don't let this go to waste," Krystal says as tears slip from her pleading eyes. Turning back, she throws herself at the oncoming Outsiders. The wall is closing now, catching the hem of her shirt. She screams.

Then, silence takes over.

While the other Outsiders arrive as backup, Jax and I move wordlessly through the trees, stumbling over the rocks and logs until we can't go on anymore. I fall onto the grass in a sweaty heap.

The stars are out today. Though they share their lights with the rest of the creatures in the forest, all I want to do is curl up in a corner and never wake up again. With my gaze focused on the artificial sky of this underworld, I wonder how luck could be so cruel to some and so beautiful to others at the same time.

Jax is passed out next to me. His face is flushed, and he breathes heavily through parted lips. The waxing moonlight cascades down his face and disappears into his soaked suit, revealing the lesion across his stomach. I adjust his position and shift his legs from mine.

Gently, I roll up Jax's shirt to expose the wound. The skin is cracked and swollen, and a foul smell wafts from the injury. My hand hovers over the area, feeling every last bit of healing power trickle into my fingertips until there's a tingling sensation. Biting my lip, I lower my hand onto his injury and wince at the power leaving my body. My hands tremble, and a tart bitterness takes over my tastebuds. His body soon repairs itself from the inside out. I watch as the skin weaves together again, but there's still a small patch where my healing wouldn't take hold.

A metallic smell overwhelms my senses, followed by a rushing warmth trickling down my nose. I wipe it away with my sleeve, but I don't stop until a scorching sensation surges through my body. My lungs scream for air, and every breath grows short and shallow. As the last of Jax's wounds finally close, my hands move to his forehead to bring his fever down.

There's a slight glow beneath my hands, one that I've never seen or experienced before. The world around me tips and sways until I fall into the soft grass. Curling my fingers into fists, I wait for the familiar rush in my veins and the spark in my nerves. But there's nothing.

For now, I won't be able to use my healing mutation until I've healed up enough. Jax stirs and brushes his thumb across my lips as he mutters his thanks. "I'll keep watch for tonight."

"We can't lie out in the open like this."

He points to the fences surrounding the depot. "Those are electrified, so it's better than nothing." His eyes take on a yellow glow, and a sudden heaviness settles over my body, my heartbeat slowing to a drawn-out rhythm. Still, my mind protests against the stupor. "What are you doing?" I croak.

"You need rest, Aria. We'll think of a plan tomorrow."