Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century 1)

“You can teach me later. Let’s go,” he ordered, and Briar wanted to laugh but she didn’t.

She liked the look of him, even frantic and controlling—even leading her like a child while she came all the way to her senses. Someone had given him nice clothes and maybe a bath. “You clean up nice,” she said.

He said, “I know. How you feeling? Are you all right?”

“I’ll survive,” she told him.

“Good. You’d better. You’re pretty much all I got, ain’t you?”

“Where are we?” she asked, since he seemed to have a better handle on the situation than she did. “Are we… under the station? Where did that bastard put me while I was out?”

“We’re under the station,” Zeke said. “You’re two levels down from the big room with all the lights on the ceiling. ”

“There’s another level underneath?”

“At least one, maybe more. This place is a maze, Momma. You wouldn’t believe it. ” He stopped her at the door and opened it fast, then looked left and right outside down the hall. He held out his hand and said, “Wait. Do you hear that?”

“What?” she asked. She came to his side and let him listen and squint while she checked the rifle. It was still loaded, and inside the satchel all her belongings seemed to be in place. “I don’t hear anything. ”

He listened longer and then said, “Maybe you’re right. I thought I heard something, but I’ve been wrong before. There’s a lift at the end of the hall, over there. You see it?”

She leaned her head around the door and said, “Yes. That’s it, right?”

“Right. We’re going to run for it. We’ve got to; otherwise Yaozu is going to catch us, and we don’t want that. ”

“We don’t?” Briar didn’t mean to make it sound like a question, but she was still pulling herself together, and for the moment, it was the easiest way to participate in the conversation. Besides, she was so happy to see him that all she wanted to do was touch him and talk to him.

Off in the distance, she heard gunfire. It was a large crack and loud, the sound of a rifle, not a revolver. More shots answered it, bullets from a smaller gun with a faster firing rate.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“Long story,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

He took her hand and pulled her into the hallway. “To the Smith Tower—the big one where they dock the dirigibles. ”

A memory flickered as her footsteps followed his in a furious patter. “But it’s not Tuesday yet, is it? It can’t be. We can’t get out that way—I don’t think it’s a good idea. We should head back down to the Vaults. ”

“But we can get out that way, at the tower,” he swore. “Jeremiah said there’s ships there. ”

She tore her arm away from his as they reached the lift. The iron grate covered the same lift as the one she’d taken from the top side; she pulled it over and pushed Zeke onto the platform. As she joined him and closed the gate, she said, “No. I’ve got to go see Lucy. I need to find out if she’s all right. And—”

More shots exploded, somewhere closer.

“And something bad is happening up there. ” She pulled the Spencer around and held it in position as the lift rose to the next level. “We should get off here. Let’s avoid as much of it as we can. ”

“It’s probably just rotters,” Zeke said, and tried to keep her on the lift as she stubbornly hauled the gate aside. “But we can’t leave yet. The princess might be up there!”

“Well, she isn’t. ”

Briar swung the Spencer around and pointed it at a smallish woman with skinny limbs and long gray hair that was braided into a rope. She looked native, though Briar couldn’t have guessed which tribe; and she was wearing a man’s blue suit with a tailored coat and pants that were too big for her.

The woman was holding her side. Blood squished out f

rom between her fingers.

“Miss Angeline!” Zeke ran to her.