The Earth Dwellers

“An airlock,” Tristan says.

I nod. “They filter out the potentially harmful air before letting them through.” Makes sense. Seems they’ve got everything figured out to protect their citizens. And yet they refuse to leave the Tri-Tribes alone to live in peace, as harmless neighbors. Why?

It gets later and later as we wait. Or maybe earlier and earlier. Is it the end of the day or the begi

Another truck comes and the events from earlier repeat. Door opens, door closes, air is filtered out, other door opens, truck enters.

“What should I do?” I say when the sequence is finished.

“Abort mission,” Tristan says, half-gri

“Nice try. I’m thinking I just stroll up the next time a truck comes by, slip in behind it.”

“This isn’t the Sun Realm and these aren’t garbage trucks,” Tristan says, reminding me of the time when we used a similar tactic to infiltrate the Capitol. “They’d see you right away.”

“I don’t have many other options.”

“Just be one of them,” Tristan says. “Pretend you were on a mission, got hurt, disoriented, lost in the desert. Something like that.”

I stick my chin out. It’s not the worst plan ever. “That could work,” I say, “but it’d have to look real. I’d need to have injuries.”

“Are you giving me permission to hit you?” Tristan says, and it should be a joke, but he looks horrified.

“I think you’ll have to. I’d hit myself, but I’m not sure how effective it would be.” Are we really talking about hurting me like it’s some tactical problem we have to solve?

Tristan screws up his face.

“We don’t have a choice,” I insist.

“Not that,” he says. “There’s something else.”

Oh, crap, what? “Tell me,” I say.

“Everyone in the city has a microchip inside them, in their wrist.” I remember Tristan telling me about how he had to wear a metal armband when he visited the New City with his family.

“To track them,” I say. “But I thought they wore bracelets.”

Tristan shakes his head. “That was just for visitors. The residents get something more permanent.” Great, I think. Another chip. I’ve already got the one in the back of my neck—although it’s deactivated now—that my mother implanted to co

“So we have to make it look like someone cut it out,” I say.

“Exactly,” Tristan says, his lips curled in disgust.

“No biggie. Just make it quick.” I hand him the knife I borrowed from another dead Glassy.

He takes it and says, “Right arm. Turn it over. Close your eyes.”

“I can watch.”

He shrugs as if to say, “If you pass out, at least it’ll delay the mission.” Slowly, painfully slowly, he digs the tip of the knife into my skin, higher up on my forearm than I expected. At first it’s just a sharp prick, almost more like pressure, but as he digs deeper it becomes a searing pain that lances through my arm to my fingertips. Blood wells up and I grit my teeth, grab a jagged corner of the rock with my other hand, fight off the urge to flinch, to pull away, to hit him.

He twists the knife. “Arrr,” I growl, keeping my voice as low as possible, so it doesn’t rise above the boulder.

And then it’s over. He pulls the knife out and presses a corner of his shirt firmly on the wound, which is throbbing wildly. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry. I had to make it as ragged as possible so it would look real, as if someone like Skye cut it out.”

I almost laugh at that, despite the fire in my arm. “I think you’ll have to dig in one more time to make it look like Skye did it,” I say through my teeth.

“If you say so,” Tristan says, starting to pull the cloth away, raising the knife once more.

“No, no, no, no, I was kidding,” I say quickly.

“I know,” he says, slipping the blood-stained knife back in my belt. I don’t ask him to clean it; it’ll look more realistic with the blood on it, like I’d been fighting the natives before they took me down and cut my chip out.

Tristan tears off a piece of his shirt, exposing his abdomen. He wraps it tightly around my shredded arm, tying it rapidly and somewhat poorly, like how I might’ve done it myself if I was injured. His sharp mind is working double time, thinking of every detail to give me the best shot possible.

“Do you want me to hit you now or wait a few minutes?” he asks. The wry grin is back, and I know that joking is the only way he can cope with everything.

“I’ll barely feel it after the kni—”

His fist comes up so fast and unexpectedly that I don’t even have time to think about moving out of the way. The impact twists my head to the side and rocks me back. I slam to the ground, hitting my head on a small stone. My cheek and eye are stinging and throbbing and burning, and I can already feel the pressure of a goose egg rising on the crown of my head.

Tristan’s all over me, hugging me, spooning me, kissing the back of my neck. “Adele, I’m sorry. So sorry.”

I choke out a laugh, blinking the water out of my eyes. “Don’t be. I’m fine. Training with my dad there’s never been a question as to whether I can take a hit.”

We lay like that for a few minutes, my head swarming with so much fog it’s like I’m underwater. Tristan knows how to punch, that’s for sure, and he didn’t hold back. Again, I know he did it for me and that it probably killed him having to do it. This is the world we live in. Hurting those we love to help them. Hitting me to save my life. A backwards world.

Eventually, I stir, force Tristan off of me, my head spi

Tristan blinks, his jaw tightening. He manages to compose himself, forces a smile. “Like you just went toe to toe with a brick wall.”

“Good,” I say, grabbing a handful of dust and smearing it on my face, on my arms. Trying to look as weathered and beaten as possible.

In the distance, there’s a cough.

Leaning forward quickly, I give Tristan a kiss on the lips and say, “Showtime.”

I push to my feet and step out from the rock. Behind me, Tristan says, “Be careful,” but I don’t look back. Step by step, I stumble toward the black gates, doing my best to stay in character, which isn’t that difficult with my head still floating through the clouds.

The truck is getting closer, the beam of the headlights bouncing just beside me now. I look back, squinting, a hand cupped over my eyes as the glare locks onto me. I stagger…and I fall, first to my knees, and then right on my face. I don’t even bother to cushion my landing with my hands, which hurts like hell. But it had to look real—I pray it looked real.

Gravel scraping, tires skidding, voices shouting.

I let the world spin as my eyes flutter closed.

“Soldier! Soldier!” someone shouts. I don’t react.

Strong arms lift my arms, my feet, swing-carry me through the air. I play dead.

They lay me gently on something hard. I groan, just like I should.

“Go, go!” a husky voice says, and the truck roars to life, vibrating beneath me, sending jolts through my bones with every bounce over the rough terrain. Humming, humming: I know the New City gate is opening. Can this be happening? Can this be working?

The truck stops and the gate whirs and clicks and hums as it closes.

I’m in.

Chapter Seventeen

Siena

So easy. Almost too easy. The Glassies didn’t question it, didn’t stand ’round scratching their chins and saying, “I wonder if this is some sorta trick.” They just grabbed Adele and slung her into their fire chariot and took her inside. So easy.