All The Lies We Told Ourselves

9 - Another World

Rue

*****

March 8th, Friday

We walked through the tunnels, almost blending into the darkness with our black clothes and all but one flashlight turned off. There were no other walkways in the tunnels, so they had built a grid one that essentially attached to the roof and ran over the traffic. It shook and clanked under our feet. There were ten of us and I wondered if it would collapse in front of a cargo truck passing by below us. It would not be a pretty sight.

"A2 to the west." I said, when we came across an intersecting road. Iris wrote it down on the map quietly, not bothering to look my way. That's how we had operated for the past week, since the fight in the abandoned building. No one had dared to mention the incident to Fern.

Not many roads had intersected with the one leading straight towards the capitol, which led us to believe that most of the traffic ran from checkpoint to checkpoint, not stopping or turning in between. A couple heavily armored cargo trucks passed by below us, the sound of their heavy wheels echoing off the walls. One of them slowed down and almost stopped. I grabbed the gun on my holster but it turned to the tunnel on the right and continued on its way.

In the quiet moments when the only sound in the tunnel was the continuous banging of our feet on the gridded platform, my mind wandered to places I didn't want it to go. I had tried to ignore the day before. How I had learned my father could never leave the capitol again, not unless for the rest of his life. How it was probably going to happen to my mother and siblings too, and to me.

Soon enough my thoughts were on the next day, how Celestine Delgado would prance her way to the storage building in her navy blue uniform, slightly different from everyone elses, and Freya would tell her, under fear of her husband's death, that the Red line had something to do with the insurgent groups. With Fern. I couldn't let her do it. I would go down there later, after we were done, and do something, anything to get her to stay quiet.

I heard steps quickening behind me as someone moved up the line to the front where I was.

"Hey." Amity said, walking behind me.

I had not known Amity for a long time. We had met for the first time five months ago when she started attending the meetings with our faction. She had been moved up when Fern had realized how good she is with all that technology stuff. Our faction had been more ambitious. More like Amity.

"Oh, hey. Whats up?"

"Nothing. Everything is just like, normal, and stuff."

It sounded so fabricated I chuckled out loud. I could almost imagine her stone cold poker face cracking a little, with something I couldn't recognise. Usually Amity would have some laconic thing to say, or nothing to say at all, just a nod or a shrug of the shoulders.

"So, is there a reason you're pretending to make small talk, or has Reids non-stop talking finally rubbed off on you? Because you know, I'm completely content just walking together in silence."

"No." She said, almost hurrying.

"No what?"

"I mean, I did have something to say." She sighed reluctantly, as if not wanting to talk about it. "Did he- well you know, did he say anything about that thing I gave him?"

My thoughts about everything had been messing up my mind and I didn't think before I spoke.

"Oh, the balm? Yes. He said it's been working wonders. Good for his, uh, what was it again?"

"The burn."

"Right, yes."

Amity was quiet for a moment.