Hunted (A Sinners Series Book 2) (16 page)

We rattle along in silence. The road becomes more even. No one speaks as we travel further into the Hole. I imagine no one knows what exactly to say. My body betrays me, and I don’t know how much longer I can continue to swallow down the bile that keeps coming up into my throat.

Our driver shifts into lower gears, and we rumble along, slow and steady. The metal piping continues to rattle, the tarp tangled around our bodies.

And then it begins—the sharp, whizzing sound of a bullet piercing metal as it zips over my shoulder. Then more. I count one, two, three holes before it registers in my brain.

“Get down!” Cole shouts as he yanks Zeus and me down with him. A look of horror and fatigue crosses Grace’s face as she too hits the floor.

Metallic zinging echoes over my head. Our vehicle stops. I struggle to gather my bearings, but the tailgate slams open and moist air rushes in. I’m relieved to breathe in even this air.

“Out!” Bruno shouts. At first I don’t hear him over the commotion outside. “Move!”

Cole moves first, ducking his head and jumping out the back. Zeus follows him, and I find myself pulling Grace behind me. I don’t even look at her, I just grab her wrist and yank. We both tumble out the back and land in a mix of dust and gravel. A small poof envelopes us. But that doesn’t give me comfort. From the chattering of guns, I know we’ve landed in the middle of a firefight. Cole grabs me around my waist, helping me back onto my feet.

“Now we run like hell!” Cole takes my arm and leads me.

I grab Grace at the same time and force her to follow me. Tracers light up the sky around me, illuminating the labyrinth of the Hole. Frameless windows stare back at me with black, abandoned faces. I’m afraid. More than I thought I would be. I see the silhouettes of figures on the rooftops amidst the battle, their heat signatures making them targets for any trained sniper. The whole convoy’s been broken up. Vehicles have stopped in the middle of the street, car doors open, abandoned. People are running everywhere, diving for cover. Screams and cries reverberate off the walls of the buildings. My heart rate is off the charts as adrenaline flows to every inch of my body, and I sprint after Cole.

He crosses to the side of the street. I stumble, fall onto my knees, and quickly get back up. But only after I spot a small, broken flag from one of the vehicles lying in the road. I grab it. The red and white are covered in dirt. It’s weird the things that strike you as important in the middle of a fight.

“Come on!” Grace shouts at me. She grabs my wrist, and we run together.

We’re hoofing it down an alley, weaving through broken glass and the remains of overturned and broken furniture. I hear a deluge of shooting behind us, some hammering automatic fire and some more carefully chosen.
Pock! Pock! Pock!

I imagine it hitting my heels. My breaths come fast. I let go of Grace and climb over a pile of old tires. My nose wrinkles when I smell the burned, charred rubber mixed with gun smoke. I struggle to hold it in, but the heavy air settles on me, and soon I’m heaving alongside a cracked, cement wall.

“Go! Go!” Cole yells to Grace and Bruno. He turns and grabs my elbow. “Lexi. We gotta go.” I wipe my face on my sleeve and run with him, dizzy and on borrowed time.

The maze feels never-ending. Pretty soon, the battle sounds muted, like they weren’t gunning for us. I can’t relax though. My shoulders tense up, and my jaws hurt from clenching. I finally catch up with Bruno, Grace, and Zeus. They’ve stopped in a row alongside a familiar-looking building while Bruno surveys the street in front of us. Grace bends over and places her hands on her knees, panting. Bruno checks her for injuries, and when he sees she’s okay, plants a kiss on her nose. I can see the love she holds for him mirrored in her eyes.

“Come on, you guys. We gotta keep moving,” Bruno says. We barely catch our breath before Bruno takes off again. His colossal figure runs across the street and around the corner. Cole and Zeus follow closely behind, and it’s my turn.

I buy myself some time, still suffering from the lack of water and oppressive humidity. I pat Grace’s shoulder and nod for her to go before me. I mentally prepare myself for the energy it will take to make this next run. I don’t have it. As I make an effort to move one foot in front of the other, it dawns on me.

Squinting in the dark, I lay eyes on it—rising from the ground, rusty old fence strewn into the street, the guard checkpoint half-manned.

My old building.

My eyes are drawn up the building, stopping only to focus on the windowless frame of my old quarters. “Quarters” sounds as if I had a say in the matter, like I wasn’t dragged from my home, branded, brought here, and kept under twenty-four hour surveillance.

It feels like it was forever ago that I lived there. Yet, here I am, back by my own choice, only three months after escaping. My hands clench, and my jaw tightens. I didn’t think it was possible for things to be even worse than they were when I was held captive here. But now, Sutton has been kidnapped, and the monitors have been slaughtered. Wilson is an animal, worse than any other Commander in history.

My body feels lead-heavy and weighted down. The only hope we had has just been completely destroyed. I rub my eyes. Crying won’t do me any good.

The black scarring of bombs and destruction left by bullets is evident, even at night. The courtyard outside the building no longer teems with Sinners bartering goods. Hairs prickle up on my arms. The guard checkpoint booth remains, but it’s empty. The barriers still form a narrow pathway for oncoming cars, and the spotlights mounted above the checkpoint have yet to be turned on.

My heart rate picks up as I dart across the street. No matter how hard I try to keep my mind in the present, the flood of memories from a few months ago comes rushing in. Alyssa was still alive. Keegan, who fought to free us, didn’t make it out alive. And Sutton. Oh God. Sutton. What will Wilson do to him? I shrug away fear and doubt. If we give up, or if we die … who will save Sutton?

I come to a barrier and grasp the side, using my legs to push me over. Glass crunches beneath my feet when I land on the other side. Strips of rubber, from what used to be tires, lie in the street. Out of habit, I look both ways, but there are no cars. It’s as if I’m looking down a black hole. I heft myself up over the next barrier and make for the darkness and safety of the buildings.

Once I get to the alleyway between my old building and the next, I’m enveloped by the shadows. The only things I hear are my steady breaths and the dull sound of clumping feet on cement. As I catch up to Grace, she stops dead in front of me. I almost trip before skidding to a halt, my hands grazing her taut back. She wavers just slightly forward on her toes. I place my hand on her shoulder, but she doesn’t even acknowledge me. I step around her. Her jaw drops open, and she stares straight ahead.

“Grace, what’s wron—”

She points in front of her.

I step back slightly, eyes wide with shock. The stench of stagnant blood, bodily waste, and decomposing bodies hits me like lightning. I bury my face in my elbow and try to block it. Without a doubt, it’s a smell I can never get accustomed to. The shrouded shantytown is three times larger than I remember. I used to be able to see where the huts stopped, but now it’s endless. Glancing to my left, I notice Cole taking it all in as well. His lips are slightly parted, and his eyes gleam with some unspeakable emotion. I swallow hard.

“What’s happened?” I ask Cole.

“We’ll find out,” he says in a low voice. His jaw twitches, and he doesn’t meet my eyes.

Torn fabric covers tin and crudely constructed huts that seem to run into one another. By the looks of it, they might even be holding each other up. An endless expanse of gray, tan, brown, and crimson cloaked with poverty greets us. The narrow pathways are covered in dirt and filled with glass, garbage, bodily fluids, and some with words of discouragement written in blood. Sinners walk around with visible injuries. Some have ragged clothing and some only wear underwear. Their hair’s greasy, and a thick layer of filth covers them. One looks toward me, her eyes empty and almost lifeless. She holds her arms against herself, scratching at already bloody sores. Blood slips down her arms like dark red streams of paint.

Oh my God,
my cell was a hotel compared to this
.
At least I was fed.
Guilt overtakes me. Even when I saw the center of the Hole before, it never seemed this expansive. There were never this many starving people wandering around aimlessly. My throat closes up as I struggle for words. I walk to Cole and reach for his arm. I cannot speak. Instead, I pray silently to wake up from this nightmare.

Dead bodies are piled on top of each other in a pit to the right of us. I watch as a man tosses the next body toward the pile. When the corpse lands, bones clank together, breaking and tearing through skin. The body’s nothing more than a skeleton. Most of the dead are all the same, severely malnourished and stiff, thrown away like garbage.

Life is precious, but in the Hole
…
it’s a curse
.

Two women stand together at the edge of the pit, their hands clasped together. They’re crying, and I want to cry for them. Cole shivers next to me, but I don’t think he’s cold. He remains silent, and even when I grab his hand, he doesn’t look at me.

Others moan, cry, and some scream, their cries piercing my ears, making me unsure of whether I want to drop to my knees or pick up a gun. My entire body heats with fury. Wilson just lit another flame under me. He must pay for this. One way or another, he’s going to pay.

“Take a deep breath, guys. Breathe through your mouth, and wipe the shock off your faces,” Bruno says from out of nowhere. “Remember, we need to blend.”

Like that’s possible. We’re probably the healthiest people in here.

We move deeper into the rows of shacks. Sinners lie on the floor, some asleep and some rocking back and forth with nothing but blank stares. It’s almost like they’re in a trance or something. Many have scars across their faces and on their arms; they look so diseased. We swat flies away from our faces as we continue to move slowly and deeper into the Hole.

“No please; it’s all I got,” a woman’s voice calls from over my shoulder. Cole and I turn around.

A man shoves a frail and sickly woman to the ground and kicks her in the stomach. The woman lets out a groan, and before she falls, the man grabs her bag then takes off running.

“Zeus, attack,” Cole says, his fists clenched at his sides.

Zeus charges, catching the man in seconds. As Zeus pounces on the thief’s back with his front legs, the man plummets to the ground, and Zeus ferociously rips apart his clothes.

“I’ll check on the lady,” I tell Cole.

Cole takes off running toward the man, and I sprint to the girl who’s curled up into a ball. Dropping to my knees, I place my hand on her back. She recoils from my touch.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you; I promise.”

She runs a thin hand through her matted black hair. She’s shaking. I can feel her ribs through the threadbare shirt she wears, and it reminds me of Alyssa. This woman’s older, I’m guessing in her thirties. The smell of stagnant urine lingers in the air. People in the shantytown have nowhere to cleanse themselves. And the living conditions are far worse now than they were when I lived in the Hole just a few months ago.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Uh-huh,” is all she manages to mutter back to me. I glance up, and Cole’s hovering over the man who just beat her.

“Zeus, that’s enough.”

Zeus makes this awful hacking sound as he spits out a chunk of the thief’s clothing. I can only imagine what that must’ve tasted like.

“What’s wrong with you?” Cole asks the thief in a stern tone. “Stealing from a helpless woman, and then you go and kick her? Really?”

“She’s already half-dead. And I’m starving, asshole.”

Cole punches him across the jaw, and the man’s head whips to the left. He recovers, eyeing Cole up and down, his pride surely bruised as much as his face will be. “Give it to me.”

“No,” the man says. He turns and spits blood on the ground.

“Zeus, get it,” Cole says.

Zeus sniffs the man and forces him onto his back. Then he bites down on his right wrist.

“Ahhhh!” The man screams, releasing the bag.

Cole yanks it away and signals to Zeus to release the hand.

“See? That wasn’t so hard now was it?” Cole asks.

“Wait a minute. Where have I seen you before?” The man looks Cole over once more. “Oh … I see now. A guard, of all people. You do know every single one of you sticks out like a sore thumb? Your stance, the way you hold your head high, like you’re all above us dirtbags down here. You’ve got more blood on your hands than any man in here. You self-righteous son of a bitch. But go, tell yourself you’re a better person now for saving that lady. You are just as bad as the Commander, if not worse.”

I can’t tell what bothers Cole more, the man’s words or the fact that he recognizes Cole. I catch his eye, then look over at Bruno. They both look from side to side, then all around the immediate area. Grace has tears in her eyes, and it hits me. Cole cannot risk anyone knowing he’s here.