Page 15 of Jump or Fall
Her cheeks heated, and she suppressed a faint smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “for the comment about being mutilated.”
“I get it.” He sighed. “You have a lot more to fear than I do. You don’t need to apologize to the guy getting you into trouble.”
They kept walking for what felt like an eternity, winding through identical tunnels. The pipes overhead were all the same and a few of the lights flickered erratically.
Gordon moved with quiet confidence, navigating each twist and turn as if he’d done it a hundred times before.
At one junction, a rat darted across their path and vanished into a crack in the wall, its claws scratching against the concrete. Mara tensed but said nothing. She made a mental note to watch where she stepped. If there were rats, then there were snakes.
They rounded another bend and came upon a small crew of maintenance workers, hunched around an open panel with headlamps ontheir foreheads. Mara instinctively pulled up her hood and kept her head down, but Gordon didn’t bother hiding.
“They won’t say anything,” he assured.
“How do you know?”
“They’re on our side. Plus, like I said, you’re more anonymous than you think.”
The workers ignored them completely, absorbed in their task.
Once they turned the corner, Mara asked, “How is it possible to roam so freely down here? Don’t the Silvers monitor it?”
“They assigned someone young—and he’s actually ours. The Silvers are too important to pay close attention to rat-infested tunnels.”
A faint splash echoed ahead, and Mara’s mind wandered. If she escaped, where would she go? Starting over wouldn’t be easy—even without a facial scar. She had no idea how far Naxos was or how to get there. From the city’s tallest buildings, it was possible to see the vast sea beyond the south wall and a road that disappeared into the forest in the north. Other city-states existed, but she knew nothing about them. Much less where they were.
Her legs were beginning to ache from the constant walking, and there still seemed to be no end in sight. She glanced sideways at him. “So… what do you do during the daylight hours?”
He raised a brow.
“We might as well talk about something.”
A faint grin cracked his stony façade. “Courier. Most of the deliveries are in Eight. For the ones that aren’t, I just keep my helmet on.”
“Do you have any family?”
He shook his head. “Not immediate, no. My dad decided trying to hijack a cargo ship was a great idea. He was given a stripe on the face and I never saw him again. My mom fell apart after and I haven’t seen her since I was fifteen.”
“How did you take care of yourself?”
“Theft, mostly. And learning how to take a punch.”
She wrinkled her nose, but it wasn’t judgment—just a quiet ache settling behind her ribs. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be that young and already forced to steal and fight to survive. At least she had been an adult when her world came crashing down.
“What about you?”
Mara shook her head. “Your empty search results weren’t Dawson having records destroyed. I was found as a baby in Division Four and grew up in a children’s home. No name, no birthdate. They named me after the nurse who found me and estimated I was two months old. Once I got older, they assumed I came from a Kaplan family since I have the eyes.”
The growing issue of abandoned children led to the city adopting “The Mandate”. It required all residents twelve and up to receive a contraceptive implant placed in the back of the arm. At twenty-two it could be removed. Some argued it should only be required for girls, but it was most effective in both sexes. If someone removed theirs without informing their partner, then at least the chances were still slim.
“Explains why you don't have a Kaplan name like Demirci or Balik,” he observed.
The Kaplans descended from an ancient Turkic group and made up a sizable minority in the city. Their bright golden or amber eyes, paired with skin tones ranging from light brown to deep umber, made them easy to recognize. The rare genetic mutation that gave their eyes that color, also made them appear to glow.
“How was it there?” he asked.
“Fine, I guess. I don’t really have anything to compare it to. They had enough connections to secure my apprenticeship at Hyperion, though.”
