Yet another building creaked on their left, so William led them right as it fell.

  They reached a dead end, a wooden fence at least eight feet tall; it was aflame like everything else in the damn district. William’s shoulders slumped. “Shit.”

  A tight grip clamped on William’s left arm before Max dragged him through a dark cloud. They were back in the tunnels, blind and with William trusting his friend’s lead.

  The other side of the cloud showed them another path, albeit one with flaming beams in their way. Despite the heat, his inability to breathe, and the chance of a mountain of fire collapsing on them from any of the towering infernos on either side, William would take this over the tunnels any day. Limited visibility always won out over no visibility.

  As they drew closer, what William had initially taken to be a hunk of wood turned out to be the charred remains of a person. The whites of their teeth revealed them as human. Hopefully, it had been a diseased.

  Max stopped first and William caught up to him. Another burning dead end. The pop, crackle, and roar of fire around them, Max didn’t try to speak. He didn’t need to. They were screwed.

  This time William took the initiative, kicking the wall as hard as he could. The flaming fence panel toppled, opening a way through.

  Several more twists and turns, William tripped as he made it into tailoring, stumbling several paces before he fell to his knees. Max joined him a second later. There were no diseased nearby. Although they were far from safe. If the monsters heard or saw someone to infect, their caution would undoubtedly abandon them.

  The moisture leeched from his body, William gulped, but it did nothing to sate his thirst. “Are you okay?”

  Before Max replied, a shrill scream cut through the air. But not the scream of a diseased … the scream of a child.

  After he’d pulled his shirt away from his mouth, Max said, “Was that a diseased?”

  As much as William wanted to lie, to pretend they hadn’t just heard a cry for help, he couldn’t. The child screamed again, and this time he saw her. “Look.”

  Max looked where William guided him. “Shit.”

  The girl was trapped on what looked like the roof of a factory at the edge of the district, surrounded by flames. William shook his head. “And she nearly made it.”

  “She still could.”

  They’d left plenty of people behind already, what made this girl so different? “What do you mean?”

  Max’s turn to point. “The building next to the one she’s trapped on looks relatively stable.”

  “By relatively stable, you mean only about sixty percent on fire rather than ninety?”

  “That’s forty percent we’ve got to work with. If we can get up next to her, we can persuade her to jump across.”

  “Are you insane?” As William said it, the girl screamed for her mum, her voice tearing with her grief, fear, and no doubt pain as she got slowly roasted.

  When Max didn’t reply, William shook his head. “I’ve got to get to Matilda in the arena. We need to rescue Artan. We’ve left people before; why should this girl be any different?”

  “Were the others you left about to burn to death, or did they still have a chance of surviving?”

  If he’d had an argument, he would have given it. For the first time, he made eye contact with the girl. Wild and wide, her pure terror stood out on her soot-stained face.

  Max said, “She can’t be any older than nine or ten, and one thing we know for sure is if we don’t help, she’ll burn.”

  “Damn it.” William stumbled back towards woodwork. “Come on.”

  The building beside the warehouse had rungs much like the steps to get to the roof of the gym. It was such a simple addition that William imagined most of the wooden structures in Edin had them. It gave them easy access for maintenance.

  On the roof of the building, the entire structure swaying as if it could collapse beneath them, they managed to get to within about six feet of the girl as the flames began closing in around her. William pulled his mask down so she could hear them. “You have to jump.”

  The gap between the buildings stretched two feet at the most, but even though the girl stepped forward, she halted before she reached it.

  “Come on,” Max yelled. “You have to jump now.”

  The girl’s blonde hair had the same soot stains as her face. Her mouth hung open. William locked eyes with her. “Jump! Now!”

  “She’s not going to do it,” Max said.

  The flames were closing in. “Jump, you idiot,” William said. “You’ll die if you don’t.” Where he’d had the girl’s attention, he lost it in that moment. The same glaze he’d seen in Hugh, she’d stopped listening.

  While still fixed on him, the girl remained perfectly still as the flames blocked off her exit. She then vanished behind the shimmering orange wall.

  The heat forced both William and Max back, but they both stayed on the roof as if the girl might somehow burst through.

  William said, “There must be a way to help—”

  The scream of a child burning to death cut through his words.

  At least a minute of wailing and crying, screaming and shouting, the girl finally fell silent.

  The building William and Max stood on swayed. As much as William wanted to mark the girl’s passing, they had to get the hell out of there.

  Max backed off the roof first, descending the ladder they’d climbed up. The woodwork district roared and spat like a giant beast.

  His eyes streaming, William took extra care to find his footing before he followed, the toe of his boot missing several times before he caught a wooden rung. A short climb and he reached the reassuring stability of solid ground, taking off after Max and leaving woodwork for a second time.

  Chapter 55

  It had taken them several hours to get from woodwork to the edge of tailoring. The death of the girl had kept them silent for at least an hour of their journey before William finally talked to Max about the apprenticeship trials, giving him a full account of what had happened. While they spoke, they remained on high alert for any sign of the gangs. The onset of night made the task increasingly difficult.

  Now, as they stood with the main road between them and the arena, the bright moon highlighting the heads of the shambling masses, Max shook his head. “It’s too dark to cross; we need to wait until morning.”

  Near ready to drop, his eyes burning, his muscles aching, and the scream from the girl in woodwork still echoing through his skull, William said, “Maybe you’ve got a point, and were we all together right now, I’d agree with you.”

  “But?”

  “That road’s thirty feet wide at the most.”

  “It’s not the width of the road you should be worried about, it’s the scores of diseased on it.”

  “But surely the dark will hinder them too? They didn’t find us as easily in the tunnels.”

  Although Max opened his mouth to no doubt deliver an argument, William cut him off. “I need to see them, Max.”

  “You need to see her!”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Everything if it means you’re going to take stupid risks.”

  A cock of his head to one side, William raised an eyebrow at his friend. “It’s a little too late to be talking about that now, wouldn’t you say? We’ve come back into the city after all. Besides, Olga will be glad to see you. And what good will waiting here do when I’ll spend the entire night awake and worrying about whether they’ve made it back or not?”

  “You’re not thinking straight, William. Matilda’s a big girl; she can wait for you until the morning.”

  “But I can’t wait for her. Besides, you don’t need to make the decisions for me here. It’s not like my actions can cause you any harm.”

  “No, but you need my help. Without it, you’re not getting across. I don’t think you’re making a reasonable judgement. As a friend, I’m trying to intervene.”

  “And I appreciate you being candid with me.”

  Before the conversation could go any further, William moved to the edge of the roof in two steps and jumped off, his arrival amongst the diseased met with their usual hellish wails.

  Max called after him, “You should have at least let me go across and check they were there first.”

  It seemed so obvious now. Obvious, but a little too late for William to do anything about it. At other times, he might have drawn his sword, but if he stopped to fight, he’d die. He shoulder-barged the first diseased, the creature’s arms windmilling as it fell backwards and hit the ground.

  No more than a third of the way across and he already had a pack behind him, but those ahead hadn’t yet wised up to his presence. Shoving, kicking, and running with all he had, he weaved through the busy main road with only the moonlight to guide him.

  His attention on the gates to the arena, William put everything he had into his pumping legs.

  The slam of William’s boot against the arena’s large locked gates went off like a thunderclap, the diseased responding with their own explosion of sound. As he pulled himself up to the hole at the top of the arena’s gate, he searched for Olga and Matilda. He shouldn’t have paused.

  Several pairs of hands wrapped around his legs and tugged hard. His head cracked against the gate on his way out into the street. His back slammed against the hard stone ground. The small amount of light from the moon vanished as the diseased piled in.

  Chapter 56

  The foetid stench of the diseased caught in William’s throat. Closing his eyes, he waited for the searing burn of teeth to sink into his flesh. But it never came.

  When William opened his eyes, he found Max standing over him. “Get up now!”

  William stood on shaky legs and leaped at the small opening for a second time. The blood from Max battling the things to keep them at bay sprayed his back and turned the gates slick. His feet were slipping, and his arms were on fire from having to support his weight.

  “Hurry up, William!”

  William’s feet slipped again before he finally found purchase then pushed and dived through the hole. What sounded like an army of diseased slammed against the locked gates as he hit the mattress, gasping to fill his tight and still smoke-irritated lungs.

  But before he could recover, Max appeared above him. As William rolled aside, his friend landed on the mattress.

  The arena floor was nowhere near as soft, but it would do. William let his body fall limp and continued to look up into the dark sky. A second or two passed before his view of the stars got blocked by Matilda’s smiling face.

  Chapter 57

  Although Max threw several harsh glares William’s way, he saved the lecture. They both knew William’s mistake; there seemed little point in dwelling on it. After all, they’d made it across the road and they were both still alive—just.

  They now stood at a table in the middle of the arena. It had a handwritten note on it. Written all in capitals, the words were only just visible in the moonlight. “So we’ve finally got to one hundred. It might have been an arbitrary target, but aren’t most goals? The important thing is we’re going through with our plan to leave. We hope one hundred will be enough to fight our way somewhere safe. Maybe even close the main gates so we can try to take Edin back. I hope you found Max. We’ve left enough water for the five of you, and some bread too.” As he read the last bit, Matilda passed him and Max both the water and bread mentioned in the letter.

  William took a bite of the loaf and sip of water before continuing. “William, Matilda, Olga, and …” After a pause to clear his throat, William managed, “Hugh, we wish you all the best. And welcome, Max. Give those bastard politicians everything they deserve. The world will be a better place without them. Good luck and much love. Samson.”

  Matilda held up a small bag and a flask. “They left us one flask and we found this bag for the bread. I thought we could use it to take Hugh’s rations to Artan?”

  She didn’t need to ask William, but Max nodded, speaking with his mouth full. “Of course.”

  “What were the tunnels like?” Olga said.

  Max shook his head as he chugged down his bread. “Labyrinthine, pitch black, and filled with diseased.” A smile utterly devoid of mirth, he raised his eyebrows. “They were positively delightful.”

  “Although, it was a toss-up over which was worse, the tunnels or the fact we surfaced in woodwork,” William said.

  The clap of Matilda’s hand slapped across her mouth. “My god. What was it like in there?”

  William replied quickly, sharing a look with Max. “Hot.” Even as he said it, the memory of the girl’s screams rang through his skull. From the wince on Max’s face, he undoubtedly had a similar experience.

  “Can I see what’s going on with the political district?” Max said.

  Matilda had clearly been waiting for him to say that, responding on the heels of his question. “Are you sure? You don’t want to wait until morning?”

  “Best to see what we’re dealing with now, eh?”

  William remained at the table to take another sip of water before jogging to catch up with the others.

  Before William reached them, Max had peered over the edge of the arena. “My god, what have they done to those people?”

  “They used them to bait the diseased so they could trap them between the two walls,” Matilda said.

  “They used kids?”

  When William reached the top, he flinched. His memory had somehow muted the reality. About two hundred diseased between the two walls, and the ones who’d been turned while having a noose tied around their neck still hung at regular intervals. They continued to tug at the ropes as if they could get them off. The only way free of them would be decapitation.

  “Maybe I’m off here,” Max said, “but I feel like the politicians have planted their flag. They’re now the enemy, right? You say the prisoners are still in their cells?”

  “That’s what we believe,” Matilda said.

  “So they’re safe whatever happens to the district?”

  “That’s what we believe.”

  While scratching his face, Max’s eyes narrowed as he studied what lay below them. “I suppose the best time to go in there is now, while it’s dark and hopefully most of them are sleeping.”

  Matilda practically bounced on the spot. “Are you sure you want to go now?”

  “It’ll make it harder for the people in the political district, and that’s what we want, right? To cause panic and chaos between them so we can get Artan and the other prisoners out.”

  “I worry about what state Artan’s in. I’d like to get down there and be the one to let him out of his cell if that’s possible; I think I should be the first person he sees.”

  William moved close to Matilda and held her hand.

  Max nodded. “We’ll make sure that happens.”

  Olga had watched quietly until that moment, hooking a thumb in the direction of the opposite side of the arena. “I’ll go and get the rope ladder. It has to be the best way in.”

  As the short girl walked off, the butterflies in William’s stomach became frenzied. They’d had a difficult path through the city, but something about their next step felt like it would be the hardest yet.

  Chapter 58

  William stood with Olga on his left and Matilda on his right. All three of them watched Max descend the rope ladder down the side of the arena’s stone wall and over the first fence into the trench of diseased.

  “It doesn’t matter how many times I watch him walk among them,” William said when Max reached the ground and moved like a ghost through the foetid mob, “it still puts me on edge. We know those he’s encountered so far don’t want to bite him, but how do we know they’re all like that?” What would Hugh think? Had they ignored the scientific method and jumped to a conclusion about Max’s invulnerability too soon? Although, they hardly had the time to test him against every diseased they encountered.

  Olga kept her focus on Max. “Well, we won’t know until it happens, so I guess there’s no point in worrying about it.”

  Most of the hung and still-writhing bodies thrown over the wooden fence were no more than a foot or two from the ground. A couple of the children were slightly higher. Max approached a woman whose shirt had been torn from her. The moonlight revealed the bite marks on her exposed chest. He cut her down.

  The rope the woman had been hung from was now a perfect height for Max, who reached up, grabbed the frayed end of it, and used it to pull himself over the first wall.

  After Max had vanished over the fence into the political district, Matilda exhaled hard. “I suppose all we can do now is hope he’ll be okay.”

  Although their elevated position afforded them a decent view of the political district, the darkness made it hard to track Max’s path. William hadn’t seen him since he’d vanished over the wall, and the others hadn’t said anything either. “I hope he doesn’t have too much trouble finding the wall’s mechanism.”

  Olga blinked against the darkness, her gaze locked on the mob trapped between the two walls. “And hopefully he’ll open the right wall. He might end up having to guess if it’s not that clearly labelled. If he lets in the chaos from the rest of Edin, it will flood the political district with diseased.”

  As if he’d heard them, a loud clacking noise rang out. It took a few seconds of watching the gates to see he’d got the correct one, a crack opening down the centre of the wall closest to the political district. It slowly widened. By the time it had opened to just a few feet, most of the diseased had already charged into the district beyond.

  The silhouette of Max appeared through the gap, spun around several times, and then vanished back into the political district.

 

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