I take a shaky step. I’m heading north.

Then I’m heading south—right onto my ass.

I feel like I’m underwater. My hearing is gone, my sight is destroyed from the sudden burst of bright firelight that flared up and burned out almost instantly. I have no idea which way is up or down, left or right. I try to call out to Vin but I don’t know if I make any noise. Even if I do, he probably can’t hear me.

I rise up my knees in the water, taking deep breaths that fill my lungs with smoke and dust that I can’t see but I can definitely smell and taste. My hearing is coming back to me, but it’s nearly worthless. It’s a horrible ringing that I think is more painful than the boom from the blast was.

A hand brushes my arm. I’m shocked when my first reaction isn’t to lash out in defense, to break every finger attached to it, or to run in the other direction. Instead I latch onto it with mine, immediately feeling the familiar hard circle of Vin’s ring under my fingers.

“Are you okay?” I try to ask.

Whether he answers me or not, I don’t hear it. His hand takes hold of mine, lacing our fingers together. He pulls me up, then we’re running. We rush blindly through the tunnels, both of us tripping and stumbling over hidden obstacles or over our own feet. My balance feels off and when he falls to his knees, I know his is too. It’s disorienting not being able to see, but with our hearing messed up too it feels like we’re running in nothing. Like we’re nowhere when we could be anywhere.

I don’t know how long we run and I definitely don’t know where we are, but when a light suddenly appears ahead, I yank Vin to a stop.

“Who do you think it is?” I whisper.

It’s stupid and pointless, but I ask anyway.

The light is beginning to grow. It moves like firelight over the glistening, wet walls and part of me relaxes. It’s a torch, one being carried by someone pretty tall. Someone like Trent.

The outline of the person is beginning to take shape as they close in on us. They’re not just tall. The blackness of their shadow fills the tunnel behind them, making them look broad. Huge. Not like Trent at all.

More like Bryan.

Chapter Fourteen

The closer the torchlight comes, the more the tunnel fills with darkness. With shadow that’s building behind the figure. Then it’s not shadow. It’s form, full and large. Too big to be friendly. Pale skin. Bright eyes. A malicious smile.

I look anxiously at Vin, desperate to warn him but lost over how to do it. How do you tell someone who can’t hear you that the man cornering you both in a pre-dug grave is a killer? Worse yet—he’s a cannibal.

I squeeze his hand hard, pulling his eyes from Bryan and down to me. His brow is pinched in confusion so I hurry to clear up our situation for him. I flip his hand over and scribble franticly with my finger. He’s a smart guy. I’m hoping he can pick up what I’m saying.

Rebecca.

When I’m finished, I open my eyes emphatically and I write one more letter firmly across his dry palm.

X

He gets it. I can see it in the calm that comes over his face. The confusion clears and suddenly Vin is very, very sure of his world. He reaches slowly for my side. I want to ask what he’s doing but when his fingers close around my ASP, I know. I shake my head, wanting to tell him I need it to fight, but he already has the weapon and he’s pushing me behind him. I hate this and I want him to know it. I want to fight him on it, tell him I can help, but there’s no time.

Bryan lunges at Vin. He wastes no time trying to get his hands on the smaller man’s neck, but Vin is fast. Scary fast. I’ve never seen him fight before, there was never a reason, but seeing it now reminds me of something Nats said about him once. He’s always lived like this. The end of the world, living in the wild—that’s nothing new to Vin. He was an orphan on the streets when he was just a kid. He’s always known how to fight. To survive.

But if he was an orphan as a kid, how does he have his dad’s ring? His dad who was killed by Marlow for betraying him?

Bryan tosses aside the torch. The entire tunnel is instantly plunged into darkness and my heart leaps into my throat. I can hear my blood rushing in my ears and I wonder if that’s my hearing coming back or my body going insane with terror. I’m scared for Vin because he’s obviously Bryan’s first concern, but I’m scared for me too because once Vin is dead, so am I.

I pull my blade out of my boot as I lower myself into a crouch. I doubt Bryan can see any better than we can, not immediately after using the torch. There’s a very narrow window of opportunity here where he’s just as blind as we are and if we’re going to have any chance of surviving this, it has to happen when the playing field is nearly even.

I cautiously reach out with my free hand while keeping my knife steady in my right. I creep forward, feeling for legs. I’m hoping I’ll know Vin’s when I feel it—which means I’ll probably know it when I don’t feel it too. I need to find Bryan’s leg. I need to take him out.

Water splashes against my face. I’m wound so tight I nearly cry out, but then I hear a shout. It’s muffled and distant but it’s there, which means my hearing is coming back—just in time to hear Bryan’s teeth tear through my flesh.

I shake off the imagery steadily building against the blank canvas of my sight and I reach for the splash. I get hold of wet jeans just for a second before my left arm is kicked sharply. I eat the whimper of pain that shoots through my still healing arm, gagging on it as it lands bitter and salty in the back of my throat. Gritting my teeth, I reach out again and wrap my aching, angry fingers around ankle. It thrashes roughly to get rid of me, but I hang on. Quickly, I slide my hand up the leg to find the calf. It’s huge. It’s a hulking, rippling mass of muscle, and while Vin is an athletic guy, he’s not built this way. At least I definitely hope he’s not because if this is his leg, he’s going to be seriously pissed at me in a second.

I slash my knife across the back of the leg. Just at the back of the ankle.

Right across the tendon.

The man goes down immediately, his right leg made useless by my blade. I feel the spray of water as he hits it along with a loud cry of pain and surprise. It echoes through the tunnel and deep into my ears.

There’s a second spray, a second cry, a loud grunt, then a sharp crack. I know that last sound. That’s my ASP doing what it does best: laying the dead down.

There’s silence after that. I know I’m breathing harsh and rapid, but I can’t hear it. Or else it’s so loud and constant it’s a white noise and it’s all I hear. Either way, I’m waiting. I want him to speak, to tell me he’s alive. To reassure me I didn’t help kill the wrong man. That I’m not about to be next.

“Kitten.”

I leap for the sound. I stow my knife so I don’t slice him in my rush, but then I throw myself against him. His arms go around me and it’s the hug I wanted to give him when I first saw him back inside the Colony. It’s easier here in the dark with no one watching, no one wondering, no one assuming. When it’s just Vin and I, and we know what we are and what we aren’t. What we are right now is alive. Alive and very, very lucky.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice close to my ear.

I nod. “Yeah.”

“You’re shaking.”

He’s right—I’m trembling from head to toe and it’s not from the cold. It’s from reality. It comes from knowing Vin and I just killed again. We didn’t put a Risen down. We killed a person. Yeah, it was in self-defense, but you can tell yourself that all day long but in the end it is what it is: murder.

Vin insists I’ll get used to it. Ryan says I never will. Based on how I feel right now, I’m starting to side with Ryan.