Children of Ash (Meridian Six 2)

That’s when the shame hit me. I pulled my gaze from the image to look at her face. The sharp contrast between the clear, unblemished skin of the beauty on the banner versus the swollen and bruised face of the woman next to me was painful. I’d just told her that she was being used, as if it was something that might never have occurred to her. But now I understood that being used was all she’d ever known.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“You were right.” She didn’t look at me.

“I know. I’m still sorry.”

She tipped her chin. I wasn’t sure if she was accepting my apology or simply acknowledging that she’d heard me. Either way, I didn’t feel better.

“I have to kill him.” She said it simply, like stating a fact, such as “I need oxygen to live.”

“Why?”

She turned to look at me then. Her eyes shone like new nickels. “I was…shared with him.”

Suddenly I needed to kill him too.

“Let’s go.” I started to walk toward the building with its banner that displayed Six like some sort of blood trophy.

She grabbed my arm. “Wait. Don’t you have to help Tuck—”

I jerked my hand out of her grasp and stepped toward her, getting close enough to whisper. “We are all getting out of here. All of us. Got it?”

She looked taken aback, as if she hadn’t suspected I was capable of anger. I wished I could tell her exactly how I was feeling. About how the idea of her being passed around by the bloodsuckers made me want to burn the entire world down. About how I wanted to grab her and hold her until she believed that there were people in the world who didn’t see her as a thing to be used. About how I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t just a kid for her to patronize. But I also knew that she’d laugh and reject all of those thoughts. Instead, I’d have to show her what I meant. How I felt.

She watched me with an unreadable expression for a few tense moments. I braced myself for the arguments I knew she was formulating. But she surprised me.

“Suit yourself, but when the time comes, I get the kill on Dr. Death. Understand?”

I didn’t understand why she needed to be the one, but I didn’t argue. “Let’s go.”

Nineteen

Meridian Six

The good thing about having vampires as an enemy was that they loved tunnels. Whenever the Troika took over a new city or town, the first thing they always did was turn the Earth under that town into an underground maze—like a rabbit warren. In fact, the first time I met Dare and Icarus was in a set of tunnels under the Sisters of Blood convent. The abandoned tunnels had been used during the Blood Wars and after the vamps had taken over New York and turned it into their capital, Nachtstadt, to escape the Troika’s slaughter patrols.

The tunnels under the blood camps were still in use; they were clean and well lit. According to Matri, the vamps use them to transport laundry and food to the main building, where the top officers lived and worked. Special prisoners were given access since they provided the labor for those services. Prisoners who’d earned the honor wore special red uniforms. The vampire in charge of the uniforms was a female guard called Billy. I didn’t know her real name, nor did I care, but Matri told me the nickname referred to the female’s resemblance to

a goat. “She’s about as smart as one too,” Matri had added.

The thing I learned about vampires—especially those on power trips, and weren’t they all?—was that they always underestimated humans. If they’d respected us as foes or recognized that our desperation made us determined and resourceful, they would have assigned more guards. But as it happened, Billy was alone.

She rose from her chair—and rose and rose. Matri hadn’t mentioned that Billy was well over six feet tall. Her eyes were wide apart, almost on the sides of her face instead of anywhere near the center. Her pupils weren’t vertical like a goat’s but her irises were pure black and lacking all empathy.

The uniform vault was located inside a caged room. Through the door behind Billy, I could see rows of different-colored uniforms on racks that rose several feet in the air. The plain uniforms we’d brought with us on the train that day filled most of the room, but my eye was drawn to a single row of red uniforms on the top bar. It wouldn’t be easy to reach them, but first we had to get through Billy.

“You’re not allowed in here.” Her voice was scratchy and high, but paired with her imposing size the effect was unsettling. “Who sent you?”

Zed bowed his head and whispered, “Matri sent us.”

Billy frowned. “She has no authority here. Go.” She crossed her arms to punctuate the command.

“She said we were to report here to get uniforms.” He stepped forward to continue speaking, but his hands were behind his back and he waved his fingers to the right.

I glanced that direction. Strapped to the wall was a long pole with a hook on the end. I realized this must be the tool Billy used to reach the uniforms on the upper racks. The hook had a protrusion at the top. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut through flesh on its own, but with enough weight I might be able to break skin.

Billy came around to the front of the metal desk. “Leave or I will have you taken to the Komandant’s office.”