The Sylph

chapter THREE

Mary

In a desperate rush, I claw my way through the pipes on hands and knees with dirty sewer water streaming down my red hair. I make sure to hold my breath. The smell permeating the sulfurous air is almost unbearable, but I'm nearly out of the most cramped spaces. I'll soon come into a cavern of sorts carved into the side of the mountain—a large and long hallway where a rush of sewer water runs through a canal on its way to the ocean. There in the cavern, the smell shouldn't be nearly as putrid.

"Mary!" Someone up ahead whispers harshly.

I pull myself through the cramped pipes and topple out into the clearing, nearly losing my balance to a plummet into the canal. I straighten my posture and fix the black glasses on my nose. If I hadn't been in such a hurry this morning, I might have been able to put on those contacts my mother is so adamant that I wear, but this will have to suffice. It isn't practical, but neither is crawling through the pipes underground in the first place.

"I'm here," I whisper to the semi-darkness, keeping a careful eye out for the two men I'm supposed to meet.

"Took you long enough," a boy says, no older than eighteen—though I'm not exactly sure of his actual age.

"Hi, Eli," I say through a long exhale. "Yeah, sorry about that. I got caught up . . . my mom—"

"The head of security—yes, yes. We all know." The boy steps into the pale lighting, his bone-thin frame coming into view. It always shocks me to see him so skinny—though not frail. He's quite strong on the contrary—just indecently skinny with very sharp features, including the lightest of blue eyes I've ever seen. "You needed to escape, huh?"

"Yeah," I say quickly, then look at Eli's friend hiding idly within the shadows. I throw a smile in his direction. "But I'm here now. And I require swift introductions!"

"So eager," says the boy from where he's leaning against the concrete wall. "And I thought you'd be a bit more . . . ya know . . . mellow."

"Mellow?" I echo, slightly put off by his choice of words. "Why?"

"He means no offense." Eli pulls his friend away from the wall so I can get a better look at him. He's short, and handsome, with white-blonde hair and bright eyes and considerably stockier than his companion, though he's also leaning on the skinnier side. But who isn't these days?

"I'm Christi," the blond says, crossing his arms. "And you are?"

"Mary, though everyone just knows me as Marybeth."

"I already told you this, dude," Eli grumbles, cuffing his companion across the shoulder. "We're not here to make friends. I need that—"

"Map?" I say, holding out my hand. In it, I grip a rolled up parchment of frail paper. I can only guess what it holds inside, but know it to be too important for my eyes to see. Eli reaches for the map, but I pull away in a rush. "Uh! Careful—it's fragile."

"Believe me, I know," Eli mutters, taking the map from her hands. "These the blueprints?"

I scrunch up my nose. "Well, I—"

"Let's go, Eli," Christi says, loudly this. "We can't linger here any longer. Runners don't get the luxury, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know." Eli shoves his friend away and looks at me once more. "These are them, right?"

I nod without hesitation. "Yes."

He cracks a sideways grin. "Since I know you personally, it'll be weird for me to say this, but Gav says I have to, so . . . the Supervisor is grateful for your contribution to the Mallium."