I wonder if this is what death is like— this aching, lost, dizzy feeling. I shift my hand and frown as my fingertips run over a rough, pebbled surface. Death shouldn’t have feeling. Death shouldn’t have pain. Slowly, I open my eyes, expecting to see a hospital ceiling, or whatever sky the afterlife has, but instead I stare at a gray sky, bordered by buildings.

Wincing, I prop myself on an elbow and try to make sense of the situation. My world spins viciously and I touch a hand to the back of my head, feeling a lump there. Not good.

But still, as my mind flashes back to the squealing of the tires and my body hitting the pavement, I realize that a battered head should be the least of my problems. I should be dead. Rain coats the surfaces around me as I force myself to my feet. My heart hammers in my chest as I stumble out of the alleyway, pulling my hood over my head.

At first I can do little but stare, as a city emerges around my vision. Ramshackle buildings, made from wood, stone, and any material the occupants could find. Cobblestone streets, now slick with rain. Towering above it all, a clock tower glows from the gloom at the top of a hill.

It takes me several seconds to get my feet moving again, because I can’t comprehend what’s going on. Am I dead? Hallucinating?

But the cool of the rain on my warm skin and the pounding of my heart beg to differ. If this is a hallucination, it is a very realistic one.

No one approaches as I continue down the street. I see only one or two people, always in the process of ducking into shops or houses.

The calm makes me nervous, though only a night ago I was being beaten to a pulp in a ring by a girl ten pounds heavier than me, and more importantly, lying to my brother. I shake my head to divest myself of the thought and keep walking, my feet slapping on the wet cobblestone.

With no other plan, I make my way towards the clock tower. I keep prodding my own arm in an effort to wake myself, because this can’t be reality. This old city looming in my vision can’t be the truth, and I want to wake up. I want to know if my sacrifice was worthwhile, or if I’m even alive to see its effect at all.

Around another corner. I run my fingers along the building walls, trailing them behind me. As I walk, the surrounding area becomes poorer. The buildings are closer together, unkempt, and falling apart. More people are outside, perhaps because they have nowhere else to go. Hungry eyes stare from alleyways, and my mind jolts back to the weeks and months Oliver and I went hungry— to the weakness and apathy that wrapped around us daily.

I force myself to keep walking. The tower looms ahead, even larger than it looked from several blocks away. I round another corner and an auburn head of hair, dark with rain, catches my eye.

“Oliver?” His head snaps towards me, and without hesitation, he throws himself at me.

“Kess!” My brother smells like safety and warmth, his embrace swallowing me up, but I frown. Oliver shouldn’t be here. If he is here, that means I am not dead. And if I am not dead, then why are we here at all?

Oliver pulls away, frowning as he scans our surroundings. “Do you know where we are?” he asks. I shake my head.

“No idea.” I scowl, my eyes on his shoes as I try to form a question. “What’s the last thing you remember?” He leans against the wall, crossing his arms and watching the sky. The rain has lessened slightly, but I don’t bother pulling my hood off. Oliver is already soaked, and he doesn’t seem to mind it.

“I jumped in front of a car to save that kid, but you shoved me out of the way,” he says. His brows knit together, his mouth opening and closing for a second before he speaks again. “The car, it—” He presses his mouth into a thin line, fighting with words again. “You didn’t make it,” he says, his voice breaking. His scowl grows deeper. “But here you are, completely whole. How does that work?” I shake my head again. Whatever the case, Oliver is alive, and that is all that matters to me.

We wander into the street, unsure of our path. We say little, because we are both lost trying to process the new world that we are in.

“It’s weird that no one’s out here,” Oliver says. His eyes scan the empty storefronts and houses, looking for signs of life. His eyes are bright with new discovery— like he’s just opened a textbook to study for the first time. My brother is strange like that. While the quiet is fascinating to him, it only unnerves me. I haven’t spent years in a ring only to have no intuition, and something feels off about this.

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“I think we should get off the streets,” I say, my voice quiet, but humming with energy. A twitch of movement catches my attention, but when I turn towards it there is nothing. More to be nervous about. Oliver watches the same spot, and the curiosity is gone from his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe you’re right.”

We turn another corner, our footsteps quickening into a jog. More movement from the corner of my eye. Already my muscles are singing, thrilling to the challenge of a fight. I make a beeline for the clock tower, because I’m not sure where else to go. Maybe the height will give us a safe haven to figure out our next move.

We are a block away. Oliver’s breathing is labored next to me, his body unused to so much activity all at once, but I could run for miles this way.

“Down here,” I tell him, cutting into an alleyway. Then my footsteps slow to a crawl. I hear a chorus of clicks behind me, and my feet come to a complete stop. Standing in shadows is a squad of young men and women, all dressed in dark clothing, their hands equipped with crossbows. Behind me, I hear Oliver yelp.

I scramble for my brother’s arm, my heart thudding in my ears. I feel my pulse in the lump on my head, and stare down the barrel of the crossbow to meet the eyes of a tall, dark-haired boy, his eyes a striking light green in the rain. His face is lightly tanned, and his mouth is set in a neutral position as he casually points a crossbow at my head.

“Check them for weapons,” he says. I try desperately not to flinch or hit anyone as hands assault my body and find nothing. Now isn’t the time for action. If I act now, Oliver is dead.

“What do you want?” I ask the young man. My voice is low and stronger than I expected it to be, although the panic of the last few minutes is beginning to set in. The man raises an eyebrow at me, and I realize that he is likely only a few years older than us.

“What we’re doing is none of your business, and you are not supposed to be here,” he says calmly. An older woman, her hair dark, short, and mussed by the rain, snorts, her eyes cold.

“Don’t coddle them, Rowan. We have to kill them. If they’re with the Errant, they’ve already seen too much.” The man— Rowan —regards us with a mixture of what looks like boredom and curiosity on his face. A scowl crosses mine, and I stare as I watch what looks like the corner of his mouth twitch, but it disappears so quickly that I must have imagined it.

“They hardly look like a threat,” he says. Heat rushes into my face, and I open my mouth to smart back until Oliver kicks me. I bite down on the inside of my cheek, and settle for glaring at Rowan instead. “Tie them up. We’ll take them to Arlette,” he says.

My heartbeat is in my throat now, threatening to overtake me and spring into action. If we let these people take us, we are at their mercy, and I can’t risk that. Not with Oliver’s life at stake. My mind spins as I watch the dark-haired woman unravel crude rope ties from her belt. There is always a way out. Always.

My grip is tight and sweaty around Oliver’s arm. He shakes under my grip, and I realize that this is the first physical confrontation Oliver has ever been in. Adrenaline courses through my body, and I know that if I’m going to act, now is the time. Already in my mind I can see us dropping to the ground, the arrows firing over our heads, the reload time too fast for our quick steps. But just as I am about to make this my reality, an explosion rocks the building next to us, a wave of white-hot heat searing through the alleyway.

My head spins, and my ears ring so loudly that I lose my sense of space. The only thing I am still aware of is Oliver’s wrist in my grip, and the realization that we have to leave. Screams erupt from the alleyway, and arrows whiz past my body, but they are not directed towards us. People stream into the alleyway, their clothing uniformed and clean, driving Rowan and his squad back.

It is chaos all around. Smoke cloys the air, and bodies jostle us constantly. Through the smoke, a sparkle catches my eye— a locket dangling from each soldier’s neck. For a moment all I can do is stare, because it is the same locket that swings around my own neck— my mother’s locket. Then an elbow clips me in the face and I try to drag Oliver through the alley to freedom as I lose my sight of the lockets. The blow knocks me back only briefly, but it is enough. I lose my grip on Oliver’s hand, and with a flash of blue light, the attack is over.

For several seconds, all I can do is stand there, staring at the space where my brother— my brother and twenty other people— were standing. My mind spins, and I can’t comprehend how any of this can be happening. From behind me, the sounds of Rowan’s squad recollecting themselves reach my ears. The crossbows are already trained on me, though halfheartedly. I ignore them, touching my sleeve to my cheek, where one of the gashes from the ring has opened again.

It can’t end here. Years of protecting Oliver, only for it to come to this— his disappearance in a world that should not exist, with people that I know nothing about. My legs take a few tentative steps forward of their own accord, though I’m not sure where they plan to go. Who would I chase, with every last person of the raiding party gone into thin air?

Painful pressure on the back of my head. An arrow, no doubt. I stop moving, my arm dropping from my face. Rowan materializes in front of me again, his steps gliding over the damp cobblestone. His face is bruised, but his crossbow is steady in his hands.

“Come with us,” he says. His voice becomes more dangerous, the softer it gets. Seconds of silence pass. Someone pokes me with the edge of the arrow on my bruised skull, and I wince.

This time, with all bows trained on me, flight is death. And death means I will never find Oliver.

No, for now I have to cooperate. For now I have to stay alive, no matter the price.

It isn’t something I am unfamiliar with.

I follow Rowan and his squad through the streets and underground, the whisper of the rain disappearing with the ghost of my brother.