Black City

My head swims all of a sudden, and I shut my eyes to stop the dizziness. An image of Ash’s face crosses my mind. He looked so betrayed. Please don’t let it be over between us.



The door opens, and Sebastian staggers in without waiting to be asked. His Tracker jacket is open, revealing a white vest underneath. I can smell the alcohol from here. He must’ve been out drinking with the rest of the Trackers after his successful hunt with the cadets.



He notices the suitcase. “Where are you going?”



“Away.”



“Don’t go. I love you. I want you,” he slurs.



“I think you should leave, Sebastian.”



He lurches toward me, and I manage to turn my cheek just before he kisses me.



“Get out!” I shove him away.



He pushes me, and I fall back against the bed. My suitcase topples off, spilling its contents over the carpet. Sebastian rolls on top of me, and for a flash, I think of Ash and how we’d been like this earlier this evening. Except this time I’m pinned down by my wrists. My heart jackhammers inside my chest. There’s no light in Sebastian’s eyes. All that’s there is darkness and hunger: the eyes of a predator. Sebastian shoves a cold hand up my top and cups my breast.



“No!” I scream.



He pushes his lips onto mine, forcing my mouth open with his tongue. He tastes of alcohol, fiery and bitter. I angrily bite his bottom lip, and he grunts, punching me hard in the face.



He flips me onto my belly, pushing my face into the pillow. I gasp for breath. My fingers find the jewelry box on my nightstand and I wildly strike out at Sebastian. Crack! The weight lifts off my back. I drop the box and the phial of Golden Haze rolls across the carpet. It smashes under my foot as I race out of the room. I don’t look back. I just run. Away from Sebastian, away from my old life, as fast as I can.



It’s started snowing, and the air is freezing cold, but I barely notice. I get half a mile down the road before I stop. I have no idea where I’m going, and I don’t have any money. Now where?



There’s only one person I know who can hide me.



34



NATALIE



BEETLE PUTS A BLANKET over my shoulders and hands me a cup of watery tea. I thank him, sipping it through my bruised lips. The flesh on his cheek where he was burned is still pink, and the skin is starting to look tight and shiny. He’s going to be scarred for sure. His stomach is bandaged, and he struggles to move, but otherwise he seems all right. Better than I expected.



His barge is packed with Humans for Unity members. I told Beetle and his aunt everything I knew about my mother’s plot to infect the Darklings with mutated Wrath, and within minutes, Roach was calling the other members.



Roach paces the length of the barge like a tiger in a cage, her long dreadlocks swaying behind her as she rants on the phone to her contact at Black City News.



“It was the government, I told you all along, man,” she says. “They’ve been killing those kids, putting poison in the Haze. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re getting proof. I’m not blowing hot air, Juno. This is the truth.”



I put the teacup down on the table. The motion makes me wince. Every part of my body aches where Sebastian attacked me. I sob, the memory of it bubbling up before I can stop it. Beetle hugs me gingerly.



A few weeks ago, I never thought that I’d hug a Humans for Unity member, let alone help them to bring my mother down and stop Rose’s Law. It’s a risk, but I’m tired of being afraid of my mother, of Purian Rose. They need to be stopped. My father understood that, and I know Polly feels that way too. I’ll find a way to protect her.



“Have you heard from Ash?” I ask Beetle.



“No, he’s not gotten in touch. I sent a few messages, but I guess he’s busy, with his Mom’s funeral and all. Maybe he’ll be at school tomorrow?” he suggests.



“Sure,” I say, unconvinced.



“He’ll come round soon enough. He’s crazy about you,” Beetle says.



I rub the bruises on my wrists where Sebastian pinned me down on the bed. How could I have ever loved him? He’s nothing like Ash, who is kind, loyal and generous. I shut my eyes and think about Ash’s lips as they kissed mine, the sensation of his fingers running over my skin, how it felt when we made love. It was the best moment of my life.



Beetle’s aunt hangs up the phone, a huge smile on her face. “They’ll run the story in the morning news if we can get them the evidence. The Sentry government isn’t going to know what hit them!”



A skinny, blond-haired man enters the room, his face flushed. He looks elated. Roach sent him to Mr. Tubs’s to get hold of some of the Golden Haze, since the phial I had broke when Sebastian attacked me. The only other phials of Golden Haze are in the laboratory back in the Sentry HQ, and there’s no way I’m going back there after what happened.



He takes off his rucksack and tips out the contents on the table. Over twenty phials of Haze roll out, along with a dozen digital disks, which I know are recordings of people who visited Mr. Tubs’s Haze den.



“I didn’t get a chance to see much of the CCTV footage, but this disk says it all.” He pops it into the disk player and turns on the TV.



The footage is a little grainy, but it clearly shows Kurt giving Mr. Tubs a case of the Golden Haze.



“We’ve caught those bastards red-handed,” the blond man says.



“Good work!” she says.



He grins. “I nearly didn’t get it. The Sentry guard’s crawling all over the city. They set Mr. Tubs’s shop on fire, no doubt to destroy the evidence. It’s just their bad luck I got there first.”



Roach grins. “Excellent, we’ll take this evidence to Juno. By this time tomorrow, the whole world’s going to know what the Sentry government’s been doing. We’re going to bring that wall down once and for all! Humans for Unity!”



Everyone cheers. Everyone apart from me.



35



ASH



DAD, SIGUR AND I STAND around the Sun Altar on top of an old church overlooking the Legion ghetto, watching the hazy sun rise over the city. In the distance, on the Sentry side of the wall, I can already hear the din of factories starting up, of laborers heading to work.



Dad’s face is tilted to the gray skies, his eyes shut in a quiet prayer. He looks both haunted and relieved, in hell and at peace. Everything I’m feeling. The cremation was quick; all that remains of Mom is dust and ash.



I look toward the Boundary Wall and hope Evangeline’s all right. I wish I’d handled things better with her. Where did she go? I doubt she’ll stay in Black City. Maybe she’ll go to one of the other Darkling ghettos out west?



The Legion guards are back on the wall, although they’re not at their usual posts. They’ve congregated around each other, talking animatedly. They’re still angry; there are talks of an uprising.



“What’s going to happen now?” I ask.



Sigur’s gold mask turns to me. “We will go public with this information. I hope it will be the ammunition we need to stop Rose’s Law from passing. There are Darkling sympathizers out there, and this might just be what we need to spur them into action.” He looks at the pale dawn sun. “I feel there is a change coming, Ash. This might’ve turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The Darklings will rise again.”



“What will happen to the Emissary when the truth gets out?” I ask.



“Purian Rose will have her punished,” Sigur says. “He will have no choice but to make an example of her in order to deflect attention away from himself. That is his way.”



“Won’t people work out that he was involved in the plot?” I say.



“They may have their suspicions, but they have no evidence. Not yet. I am determined to find it,” Sigur says.



“Why doesn’t the Emissary just tell the truth and say Rose put her up to it?” I say.



“Because she’ll want to protect her daughters,” Dad replies.



Panic suddenly surges in me. “But Natalie knows everything! What will happen to her if Rose finds out?”



“He’ll execute her,” Sigur says nonchalantly.



“What? Why didn’t you tell me she was in danger?” I turn to Dad. “I’ve got to go.”



He grabs my hand, holding me back, concern etched in his eyes.



“Dad, please. You know I have to protect her. You would’ve done the same thing for Mom.”



He releases my hand. “Be careful.”



I rush toward the boat that will take me back to the Boundary Wall, letting my heart guide me to the one thing it wants: Natalie.



36



NATALIE



BEETLE’S AUNT HAS GATHERED hundreds of Humans for Unity protesters in the town square. All I can see is an ocean of angry faces and countless placards being thrust into the air, with the slogans NO BOUNDARIES and ONE CITY UNITED written on them. Behind me, the school’s ancient clock tower chimes nine o’clock, letting us know it’s time to start class, but I’m in no hurry to get inside. To my left, the three crosses cast long shadows across the people in the town square, a stark reminder of Purian Rose’s power. But this doesn’t seem to be scaring anyone today. We’re just too mad.



Above us, dark gray clouds roll in, threatening rain at any minute.



Roach is on her megaphone, commanding everyone’s attention. All this is being filmed by Juno Jones and several other news crews who caught wind of the story. Even SBN news is here, watching with morbid curiosity. They’re not reporting anything. How can you spin a story when your beloved government has been caught red-handed killing children with infected Haze?



This morning, Humans for Unity hacked into the digital screens across the city and leaked the CCTV footage of Kurt giving Mr. Tubs the Golden Haze. It was followed by a report by Juno, who revealed the plot to infect the Darklings with Wrath and unleash them on the school, as confirmed by an “anonymous inside source”—better known as Natalie Buchanan to her friends.



Ten minutes after the broadcast, Purian Rose was on SBN news denying he had anything to do with it and firmly putting the blame on my mother, calling her “a dangerously unstable woman with her own political agenda.”



Shortly afterward, Kurt had “mysteriously disappeared,” and my mother and Polly had gone into hiding with Craven.



I bite my lip, suddenly panicked, frightened that I’ve done the wrong thing. What’s going to happen to Mother? To me and Polly? But it’s too late to go back now. Whatever happens, I’ll have to live with the consequences of it.



The Legion guards on the Boundary Wall are agitated. Occasionally they howl and beat their chests at the Sentry guardsman patrolling the damaged part of the wall. The tension makes the air thick like soup.



I wait on the school steps with Beetle and Day, handing out Humans for Unity flyers to the students. I idly scratch the wound on my leg, where the Darkling child bit me last night.



“I’m not sure I want to be an Emissary anymore. I don’t want to end up like your mother,” Day says to me as we pass a flyer to a boy walking into the school.



“You won’t. You’d never allow yourself to become Purian Rose’s puppet,” I reply. “This country needs people like you. It’s the only hope we have of things ever changing for the better.”



Day smiles at me.



“Say ‘No’ to Rose’s Law,” Beetle says through burned lips, thrusting a flyer at a girl. She takes it with interest. Every day he gets a little better. He should really be in bed, but he insisted on coming today to support his aunt.



Since the wall was blown up two days ago, I’ve noticed a shift in people’s mood. They’re more willing to listen now that they’ve seen the truth for themselves.



Gregory heads up the stairs, wearing his full Tracker uniform, including the sword, and glowers at us. “It’s illegal to hand out flyers on school property.”



I look daggers at him, disgusted at how he can show his face around me after he killed Ash’s mother. He yanks the flyers out of my hands and tosses them into the air before storming into the school. The flyers scatter to the ground in a rain of pink confetti. I bend over to pick them up, and that’s when I feel it. The soft, rhythmic beat of another heart beside mine.



Ash is standing at the bottom of the steps, watching me. His black hair stirs in the breeze, whipping across his beautiful face. He smiles. It’s such a small gesture, but it means so much. I’m forgiven. I fly down the stairs to meet him and almost fling my arms around his neck, when I remember the television cameras nearby. I can’t hold him, not here, not now, when the whole country is watching. It’s heartbreaking. We stand a respectful distance apart from each other, so we don’t raise suspicion.



His eyes widen with alarm when he sees my face: the swollen lips, the bruised cheeks, the purpled eyes.



“What happened?” he demands.



“Sebastian,” I say simply.



“He tried to rape her,” Beetle says as he meets us at the bottom of the steps, followed by Day.



“I’m going to kill him.” Ash’s whole body is shaking with rage.



“Natalie, go inside,” Day says suddenly.



“Why?” I ask. Then I see him.



Sebastian.



He climbs out of the black carriage that’s just rolled into the town square. Sebastian’s wearing his Tracker uniform, a gleaming sword strapped over his shoulder. There’s a black-and-blue bruise around his right eye where I smashed him with the jewelry box. He looks hungover and squints against the sunlight. Good. I hope he’s been puking his guts up all night. He barks some orders at the guards, then heads over to Beetle’s aunt, seizing the megaphone from her. Her freckled face turns deep red with anger.