Page 252 of Entangled

We enter the city through an encroaching wave of trees at a very particular point that Dom checks fastidiously. As we enter into the streets, an awful, slithering feeling of danger writhes under my skin. Our footsteps are too loud on the pavement, every whispered brush seeming to echo and bounce off the cavernous buildings. Debris fills the streets, and I try not to look too closely at the flutters of cloth and the discolored white sticks that lie in awkward heaps.

We shouldn’t be here.

The forest is my new home. Cities are graveyards, and the evidence of the killing blows are everywhere. In the dismembered buildings. In the shrapnel gouges through the asphalt. In the blackened stains that cloud the alleys. Between machines and marauders, cities haven’t been safe for years, if they ever were.

As we walk, however, I start to appreciate the slow press of nature. Grass and flowers spurt from cracks in the pavement, almost carpeting some spaces. Lichen claws along walls. After five years, the forest is swallowing the city whole.

We pick our way carefully, our weapons drawn and our partners close. Heather is sharp-eyed and serious as she watches our surroundings—a battle queen taking in the field and watching my back.

As her partner, I also need to watch hers.

We follow Dom and Beau, pausing when they indicate to pause, continuing when they move, and I watch Heather’s blind spots. Dom moves confidently, and I watch him curiously out of the corner of my eye, wondering how he seems to know every turn. It takes me about ten minutes to spot the red swords spray painted on the buildings in subtle locations—by a low drainpipe, on a car, on the frame of a window. Each sword points us forward.

I slow down to look at a large pinned-up piece of paper on the wall of a building that looks newer than the rest.

THE SINNERS OFFER SANCTUARY

TO THOSE IN NEED

FOOD, SHELTER, AND SAFETY AVAILABLE

GO TO THE HOSPITAL ON THE SOUTH SIDE

OF THE CITY FOR YOUR NEW HOME

There’s an abrupt, loud clatter to my right, and I shove Heather into an alley, swinging around to lift my gun toward the sound as my blood roars in my ears.

Only to see a large rat leap off a car and skitter away down the street.

My hand trembles on the gun as I lower it and switch the safety back on. I don’t even remember turning it off. I turn awkwardly.

“Sorry, that was...”

Foolish? Embarrassing? Over-dramatic? I squirm, noticing that Dom and the others have paused to wait for us.

“Exactly what you should do,” Heather finishes for me. She clasps my upper arm and squeezes it, her eyes soft. “Come on. Keep moving.”

Heather pushes off the wall and leads us back out of the alley, nodding to Dom. My heart races with adrenaline as we keep moving. I didn’t run. I protected her—from a rat that she didn’t need protecting from. It’s an insignificant thing, but I did it. I can do this.

Why is it so much more terrifying looking out for others than it is just looking out for yourself?

It takes nearly an hour to reach the meet location, only to find the pharmacy we’re meant to wait in is hollowed out. The front windows are shattered, and glass litters the ground like sharp, glinting judgment. Empty shelves lie where they were overturned and packages lie in discarded heaps.

I wonder, absently, if Akira will come through this city—or if she has already. We didn’t see any sign of her along the route, but there are others she could have taken. I would not have wanted to go through this city by myself.

Dom grimaces at seeing the location, looking around the exposed streets.

Lucky ducks into a larger building behind us and whistles a moment later. We filter in behind him. It’s large, with its darkened windows still intact, and the dust-laden office furniture gives us plenty of things to hide behind while still having a view of the pharmacy and surrounding streets—a much more advantageous spot to wait.

I sit with my back to a desk and pull out my water for a quick sip and swallow hard when Heather comes to sit beside me. She takes a swig from her own water bottle and rests her arms on her bent knees, seeming lost to miasmic thoughts.

“Heather, are you okay?” I ask her in an undertone.

She squeezes a hand over her eyes. “What the fuck are we doing here, Eden?”

I assume that’s rhetorical, so I stay silent and wait for her to get out whatever she needs to say. Toward the back of the room, Jasper settles in, watching us with serious, thoughtful eyes.

Heather shakes her head.

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