Page 17 of Fifth
“Sound carries differently near a void.” He pointed with his chin toward a dark band of ground. “The earth is thinner. There is weight below.”
“Below.” Her voice stayed even. “Like a hole.”
“Like a pit.”
Overhead, asudden mechanical whir cut through the silence. Drones descended, their lenses gleaming with cruel interest as they hovered above the fragile stretch of ground. Hannah’s stomach clenched. Their presence was proof enough. There would be no way around this. The slavers wanted them here, balanced on the edge of death, and the machines wouldn’t leave until blood or triumph had been delivered.
Her mouth went dry. The guard’s voice crawled from memory:You will face the pit. One dies, one lives.She had pressed her nails into her palms until crescent moons rose to hide her fear, remembering the guard’s mocking tone as he described the pit. Those shallow crescents had once been like armor, but in this moment they seemed like nothing more than fragile lies, powerless against the truth of what lay ahead.
“Can we go around it?”
“We tried that. The preserve folds back on itself when the crowd is bored.” He spared the drones a swift glance. “They are bored.”
“So we go through.” The words left her before she could stop them. Her body recoiled. “Locus. If we go through, one of us dies.”
He straightened, gaze shifting toward the foliage that hid the sky. When he looked back, decision already lived in his eyes. “There is a way to take a place that kills and make it carry you. You do not fight the design. You use it.”
Her voice broke stormier than she intended. “How many pits have you climbed out of?”
“Enough.”He stepped forward, testing the treacherous surface. The ground sagged beneath his weight, groaning as though the earth itself resented their presence.
Hannah’s pulse spiked. Sweat slid cold down her spine while heat crowded her chest. Her knees threatened to fold, but pride locked them straight. The urge to grab his arm, to cling like a child, clawed at her, and she crushed it down, forcing herself to stand steady. She hated the fear, hated that he could likely hear it in the drag of her breath, but she couldn’t stop staring at him, willing him to be enough for both ofthem.
“Wait.” Her voice cracked, visceral with the fear she had tried to bury. Her nails bit into his skin as if clinging were the only thing keeping her from unraveling. “I can’t do this,” she gasped, shame burning as the words tumbled out. For a heartbeat she wanted to curl into him and vanish, to stop pretending at strength. The admission left her shaking, exposed in a way the slavers had never managed.
“Trust me.” Quiet, certain, not a request.
He set his weight fully on the thin band of soil. It dipped, then held. In that breath of space, he moved—pivoting, seizing her waist, setting his body between her and the pit borders. The world dropped.
Hannah’s stomach ripped loose. Air tore past her ears. She shouted. The ground vanished, the sky tilted, and only his arms crushing her made sense. They didn’t fall clean. They slammed against a wall of teeth. Stone grated. Metal tore skin. Pain lit her shoulder as jagged edges caught. Locus twisted, taking the bite across his back, and the force of his turn slung them sideways.
He caught a ledge with onehand.
The pull on her body was violent enough to spark stars. Her shoulder socket stabbed. Her lungs locked. She clung with legs cinched at his waist, arms knotted around his neck, because the pit’s wall was slick and studded with death.
“Breathe,” he ordered near her ear. The command struck the part of her brain that still obeyed. She dragged in air. The stench was rank and metallic, old blood mixing with new. She gagged, swallowed hard, pressed her face into his neck to steal cleanerheat.
He held them with one arm. His body was a column trembling with exertion, not weakness. He wedged his toes into a seam, muscles bunching and releasing in brutal rhythm as he made the pit wall bear theirload.
She forced her eyes down and regretted it. The base was a grinder of spikes and bone. Ribbons of cloth—yellow, blue, stained brown—snagged on the metal. She swallowed again, nearly losing the water he had givenher.
“Do not look.”
“Too late.” Her voice shook once. She steadied it with hate. “Someone designed this.”
“Affirmative.” His grip deepened. “I will make the designer’s trap carry us out.”
“Tell me how.” Her voice wavered, anxious for any structure to cling to, something that could handle her panic. Rules meant order, and order meant survival. If he gave her steps, she could force her body toobey.
“You already are doing what you should. You are wrapped around me.”
Heat flooded her face. She panted against his throat, breasts crushed to his chest, thighs tight at his hips. Sweat slicked his skin beneath her palms. She clung harder, hating that some traitor inside her thrilled at the way his breath broke when shedid.
“What next?”
“I will move in increments. Iwill not reach with the arm that holds you until my legs are pinned. When I tell you, shift right, then left. Follow exactly.”
“I don’t know if I can coordinate.”
