The Moon Dwellers (9 page)

He gi
ve
s
me a wry grin.

I gi
ve him my hand.

Big mistake.

He grabs my hand and pulls
hard, throwing off my center of gravity and
forc
ing me over
the top of him.
Although I’ve
been trained to maintain a firm grip on my sword at all times, even to the detrim
ent of the rest of my body, it’s
difficult to do in real life
when every instinct is telling you to release your sword and use your hand to break your fall.

I practically thro
w my sword acr
oss the room.
By the time I stop my fall and start
moving
to recover my sword,
Roc’s quickness gives
hi
m the advantage.
He already has
his own sword in one hand, and mine in the other.

“A little cheap, bu
t a victory nonetheless,” I say
.

“My first one, sir,” Roc says
, laughing.

I hate losing, but I laugh, too.
Roc knows I hate it when he calls
me
sir
in private.
It’
s
his
way of getting even with me
for my unwillingness to talk about my feelings.

“Thanks, Roc,” I say
, fee
ling more love for him than I’ve
felt for anyo
ne in a long time.
Without him
I’m not
sure where I would be.
A wreck for sure.
Well, at least mo
re of a wreck than I already am
.

For no reason at all, a
n image flashes
through
my mind: the black-haired girl sitting on the
stone bench; her sad, green eyes; the eternal gulf between us bridged when our eyes me
e
t.
Then her fists are out to fight the ogre.

That’s when I pass
out.

Chapter
Three

Adele

A
riot breaks out as I make my way back to my cell.
That’s the way things work in the Pen.
You’re
minding y
our own business and then you’
re in the middle of a brawl.
Like the one I am
in now.

A fist the
size of a miner’s hammer bashes
the side of
my skull
, forcing my eyes shut and sending stars dancing across my field of vision
.
When my sight returns, I see
what
hit me.
Wielded by a tattooed m
ountain, the clenched fingers a
re like a wrecking ball, colliding with anything and everything in th
eir destructive path.
And I am
in the way.

I
can fight the guy, but
he isn’t even fighting me.
He’
s just fighting in general,
swinging at anything that moves
.

Each time I try
to push through the
human net
surrou
nding us, clawlike hands force
me
back into the center.
Ducking under another arc
of human flesh and bone, I fire
back, aiming my own punch at his ribs.
When I connect, tendrils of pain rip through my hand and
explode
up my
forearm.
For a moment I think
I
’ve
punc
hed the stone wall by mistake.
The
steroidal teenage
mountain lo
oms
over me, finally focusing his violence on a single target
: me.
I am
in way over my head.

His fist i
s the siz
e of a basketball as it cuts
toward
my
face.
There’s no time to move.
I close my eyes.

I hear a groan before I’m
knocked to the floor
by a big body, but my
head doesn’t hurt.
When I open
my eyes I
am
surprised to see darkne
ss on top of me.
And then I’m
pulle
d to my feet by Cole, who charges
through the impenetrable human blockade, tossing surprised bodies to either side as
he pulls me to safety
.

We race down a hall and pass
by guards who a
re striding in the other direction, their eyes sparkl
ing with excitement
, their knuckle
s white and gripping clubs and T
asers
.
They like when there are riots.
It means they ge
t to satisfy their lust for blood.

We turn
a corner a
nd nearly ru
n i
nto Tawni, wh
o i
s
gallop
ing
toward
us.
Her eyes start on me, but then flick to Cole and widen
.
“Are you okay?”
she says
, lifting a hand to his face.

I follow
her gaze to Cole’s eye, which
is already swollen.
I realize that the reason my head i
sn’t hurting
i
s because Cole’s
i
s
.
He took the hi
t for me, and took it well.
I’ve
been protecting
myself for so long that it feels
weird to have someone else do something for me.

“I’m fine,” Cole says
, pulling Tawni’s hand away from his face.

“Thanks, but—” I start to say.

“No problem.”

“I wasn’t finished.
Thanks, but I could have handled him on my own.
I know h
ow to look after myself.”
I’m being a brat, but I ca
n’t seem to stop myself.

Cole
half-grins,
half-grimaces.
“Sure,” he says
.

“No, really, I
was fine,” I say
.
“I know how to fight.”

“If you say so,” Cole replies
.
“It just looked like that dude was gonna make mincemeat out of your face, but next time I guess I won’t bother…”

I take a deep breath, try
to stop being the cold,
isolated person
I’ve
become.
“Sorry…I mean…
t
hanks.
Yes, thank you—that’s what I meant to say.”

“No problem,” Cole repeats
.
“Now we
better get into our cells before that riot spills out this way.”

I know he is right because I can
hear the roar of chaos grow
ing louder.
I do
n’t
know what else to say, so I leave
them
and
head back to my lonely cell.

* * *

T
he sunlight retreats
along the
white
windowsil
l.
With each minute that passes, the shadows lengthen, until the light gi
ve
s
way to a troubled darkness, gray
and soggy.
The dark clouds challenge
the
omniscient sun,
and the clouds prevail
, like a black-armored army descending upon a shining and pure city of light.
Skeins of rain
beat upon the panes of gla
ss.
Moisture splutters
under
the base of the barely open
ed
window
, leaving the painted sill slick
and wet
.
A few drops gather and push
forward
to the edge, slipping off and onto the plush brown carpet.

If only.

I
wish
that
’s
what I am seeing.
Only I’ve
never seen sunlight.
Or sunshine, or sunbeams, or even a ray of
sun.
Those are just words in books—not real.
No
r have
I
seen rain—or c
louds
,
for that matter.
Like sunlight, tho
se a
re things of
myth and legend.
As told by my grandmother
, who was told
by her mother
—a story passed down for generations
.
Not even my father has
seen the sun.
Or my father’s father.
Or my father’s father’s father.
You get the picture.

The image in my mind i
s from a story
my grandmother once told me before putting me
to bed
, when I was really little, before she died at the ripe old age of fifty
.
She told me lots of stories about how things were before Year Zero
, dozens of generations earlier
.
She made a point of telling me that things weren’t better
then
, just different.
I don
’t believe her.
The sparkle in her eyes, the wistful way the words rolled
from
her tongue, the hidden grin behind her straight-lined lips: each of her subtle features gave away her lie.

My grandmother wasn’t a natural liar.
She only lied to protect me.
That
much I kno
w.
If she conveyed
her true feelings about how much better things were
before
, she clearly believed it would endanger m
e
in some way.
Like maybe I would grow so depressed I wouldn’t eat or sleep or go to school.
Or I might talk boldly to my friends about what she had told me, making myself appear treasonous, which would surely put a government target on my back.
Whatever her reasons for lying to me—or if not lyi
ng, holding something back—I kno
w they were pure.

But no, I’m not
seeing rain, or clouds, or much of anything.
Just the inside of my pitiful
gray
ce
ll inside the Pen.
The walls a
re made of stone.
And the ceiling.
And the floors.
Even the bed.
Shocking, I know.
It seems that everything in my world i
s made of stone.

I’ve
heard stories abou
t how the Sun Realm has
buildings m
ade of wood, a substance that co
me
s
from the trunks of trees.
I’ve
only seen pictures of trees.
Old p
ictures saved from up above.
Or pictures my grandmother drew for me
based on what her mother
told her
.
They have
all kinds of pl
ants up there, or so people say.
It is almost like they a
re living aboveground, with a synthetic sun, fak
e rain, artificial stars that co
me o
ut at night.
Why they are
so privileged, I may never know.

Privileged like Tristan.
And his father.

It isn’t the first time I’ve had
a crush on a boy.
From Year Eight to Year Ten I
liked this guy,
Torrin.
Funny his name starts with a T, too, and sounds a bit like Tristan.
I’m no
t the type of girl to run around in a tight, low-cut tunic, batting my eyes and
winking and carrying on—there a
re plenty of other girls to do that—so instead I tried to just be at the same places as him.
You know, take the same classes, join the same after-school work crews, that sort of thing.
But either he never noticed me
, or he was just as shy as I am
.
In any case, I never said one word to him.