We’re about halfway through when I briefly step away from Lucy to catch up with Hunter near the top of our pack. I give Mason a nod and he respectfully hangs back, chatting quietly with Lucy.
“Hey, kid.”
“Hey.” I glance back at Lucy—it’s almost a compulsion. If I let her out of my sight, she might vanish again and I’ll wake up in her room, grief-stricken and despondent. “Thank you.”
Hunter smirks. “For what?”
“You know for what. I don’t understand why you did it, but I owe you a debt so large, I can never hope to repay it.”
It’s like no time has passed when she slings her arm over my shoulder like she used to do before the war. “It’s simple. I did it because I love you. Because I agreed with you that it wasn’t fair for Lucy to get lumped in with those other fuckers. Because Mom lied to me and I don’t like being lied to. But most of all? I did it because if any of us deserve a shot at true happiness, it has always been you.”
Her words shake around inside my chest and rattle my lungs. When I study her face, as well as I can in the darkness, I see truth. “You deserve it too.”
“We’ll see about that, I guess,” she replies and pulls her arm back, but smiles. “Cute hickey, by the way.” Hunter calls over her shoulder, “Real classy with the hickeys, Piccolo.”
Finley wolf-whistles over the sound of everyone’s laughter, and I consider never leaving this tunnel and living with the grime and goo forever.
We do, eventually, see daylight on the other end of the tunnel. Hunter and I take point, with Lucy and Mason close behind us. Since the tunnel is abandoned and the entrance almost completely blocked off, we don’t run the risk of encountering soldiers or Lightbringers for a few blocks. Instead, after we crawl out of the nearly collapsed entrance, we rest and breathe in a lungful of precious oxygen.
“Man, I need like ten showers.” Mason sniffs himself and grimaces. “They’re gonna smell us coming from a mile away.”
“I almost feel bad for Theia. We’re like a stink bomb about to go off on her.” Finley yanks off an outer shirt and reveals a white tank top. “I got slime on that one.”
Cassie looks about ready to hyperventilate, and I remember keenly when Lucy undressed in Leader Thorne’s place and my soul left my body. I understand now how Mason saw Cassie’s crush, and I wonder how obvious my own crush was, and for how long.
“We’re not too far. Actually…” Lucy jogs ahead toward the nearest wide avenue, upon which a few cars zip up and down. More traffic than before the war, but not the kind this city used to see pre-Rift. Still, it’s something. Lucy points to an underground entrance boarded up with wood. “Here. If we can go through the subway, we can go straight to the mansion.”
“Why are we always going underground?” Mason complains, but he and Finley start using their brute strength to pull the wood off. Roxana and I join, and between the four of us, we manage to wrench the boards away and reveal a cement staircase with metal treads. “Man, it’s gonna smell so bad.”
Lucy shrugs. “It’s not that bad. They still use the Tube sometimes, but lots of entrances are closed. Always way morerats than you think. Like however many rats you’re imagining, triple it.”
“Great. Good thing that’s not how plagues start or anything,” Hunter mutters as we follow Lucy down the steps.
The station isn’t nearly as dilapidated as the tunnel, and it’s easy to find the defunct line and jump down onto the tracks, careful to avoid any live lines. We head due north, climbing back onto the platform periodically in case a train does come by, despite Lucy’s insistence most of them are dormant. In addition to being gunned down by a robot, flattened by a train is not a favored way to go.
About four stations in, we climb up onto the platform and walk the length of it. The tile floor makes our footsteps echo and that, coupled with Finley’s chatter, makes it hard to hear Delilah when she asks us to stop.
“Guys!” Finally, everyone halts and Delilah puts her hand to her ear. “Does anyone else have comms? I thought maybe I might pick up soldier movement, but I’m getting high-pitched feedback.”
My blood runs cold. Lucy knows it too and grips my wrist hard.
Mason steps toward Delilah. “Can I listen?”
She nods and hands him her earpiece, which even I can hear is giving off a shrill, high-pitched noise that is eerily familiar. Mason chucks the earpiece into the tracks and readies his rifle. “Lightbringer.”
Finley points around with her rifle at the low ceilings. “Where? In here? Aren’t they, like, mega fucking tall? How is one going to get in here?”
“Not Lightbringers.” Cassie points down the station platform, where the clang of metal against metal grows louder. “Flashmen.”
Down the stair entrances and out of both track tunnels, dozens of the tiny fighters approach with calculated, slow steps. Dozens upon dozens of glowing red eyes bear down at us. The intel on Flashmen was as sparse as Lightbringers—they protected state assets like banks, city halls, etc., until they proved to be highly dangerous and unpredictable. After a couple Upperclass deaths, Leader Piccolo’s father decommissioned them. But, predictably, did not have them destroyed.
Hunter swings her sniper rifle up into position and cocks it. “Well, time to get busy.”
Immediately she starts firing off as fast as she can, pinging the robots in their heads with her ridiculous accuracy. However, two of the ones she hit get right back up and continue to march in our direction. We take cover behind a broken elevator shaft as Hunter pivots out to shoot.
“The eyes,” I tell her as she aims down her scope. “The controlling mechanism is behind their eyes. You have to hit them in the eye. One should do it.”
“Oh sure, hit them in the eye, she says.” Hunter aims down again. This time, I peek out to watch as she hits one in the right eye and it goes down with sparks, seizes, but does not get up.
