Beyond City Limits (Under Revisions)

Chapter 25: EASTSIDE

"Oh Great City," I look left then right before siting back on my knees. My brain freezes, and I can hear my heartbeat in my chest. The door was unlocked. I glance back at Rayn's door swinging on its hinges. How long has the door been unlocked? I creep back to a standing position, still staring with my mouth agape.

Does anyone know the door is open? My gaze sweeps the hallway, but there is no one. Before I can think, my feet start moving. The doors lining the hallway zip past me. They fly quicker and quicker until I'm at the entrance. My adrenaline spreads throughout my body, sending electricity from my center to my fingertips. I shove through the double doors. My vision is blinded by the natural light, but my feet don't stop moving until my eyes adjust and a brick chest appears.

Colby's stands paralyzed with a roll in one hand. He tilts his head down at me with a question pulling his eyebrows, "You know if you leave, the Swordfish will find you."

I stand straight, looking at Colby like I didn't just sprint fifty feet. "The door was open." My words wheeze through my lips, "I can come and go as I please."

Colby shrugs and crosses his arms, "When Kendrick told Rayn to leave the door open, I had agreed, but if you are going to endanger yourself, I can't stand aside."

"Kendrick told Rayn—?"

"You're not a prisoner, Cassie." Colby holds out the roll. "We are trying to help you."

I lift my nose at the roll. "And yet I'm not allowed to leave the Capitol."

"Today is an exception..." He wiggles the roll in my face. "...if you're interested."

***

Colby leads me to the other side of the courtyard to a brick wall standing twenty feet high and touching two buildings. The wall reminds of the Middlecity wall circling the Innercity. I never thought about the wall much before the Test. It was like a friend's embrace, reassuring me of its protection and my status. Now my eyes trace the dark brick, looking for a crack, wanting to dig my fingernails in the cement and scrape through it.

"Please let me go, just this once," Cole's small voice whimpers. "I promise I will listen to everything you say, please, please, please."

I whirl around and see Kendrick, Rayn, and a young man I saw at the trial with Cole trailing behind them. Other than Cole, everyone is wearing oversized book sacks. The zipper on the sacks are swallowed by its bulging contents. When they reach us, Colby runs up the young man and pats him on the back with a wide smile. The young man has Colby's honey eyes and broad shoulders. But his jaw is dark with stubble, and he holds himself straighter, his head a foot above everyone else's. They could be twins, but the young man looks at Colby like a little puppy instead of a person. Colby's brother throws Colby an extra sack he is holding.

"Not this time, Cole—" Kendrick starts.

"But why not? It's just a supply run—"

"I said no." Kendrick glares down at him, shutting up any arguments Cole was going to make.

Cole drags his feet behind him as he stalks off with a pout on his lip. His sulking, retreating form is so normal to the tantrums I have seen many times from whining children in the streets of the Innercity that it makes me almost forget where I am. How can something so normal exist here?

"Don't worry about him." Kendrick appears next to me and motions to Cole. "He likes the attention."

I step away from him and cross my arms, tilting my head at the wall. "I guess you're the reason I'm here?"

"I can't take all the credit." Kendrick says as he tightens the strap on his thigh, the one securing a curved blade.

"Am I sitting on another one of your practices or something? Do you want me to cheer you guys on as you wrestle each other to the ground?"