The Iron Legends: Winter's Passage\Summer's Crossing\Iron's Prophecy (28 page)

“What the hell is this?” Rat
said, holding up the book. Having been caught red-handed, he quickly
switched to the offensive. “Books? Why are you collecting garbage like that?
As if you even know how to read.” He snorted and tossed the book to the
floor. “Do you know what the vamps would do, if they found out? Does Lucas
know about your little trash collection?”

“That’s none of your business,”
I snapped, stepping farther into the room. “This is my room, and I’ll keep
what I want. Now get lost, before I tell Lucas to throw you out on your
skinny white ass.”

Rat snickered. He hadn’t been
with the group long, a few months at most. He claimed he’d come from another
sector and that his old gang had kicked him out, but he’d never said why. I
suspected it was because he was a lying, thieving bastard. Lucas wouldn’t
even have considered letting him stay if we hadn’t lost two members the
previous winter. Patrick and Geoffrey, two Unregistered brothers who were
daring to the point of stupidity, who bragged the vampires would never catch
them. They were too quick, they claimed. They knew all the best escape
tunnels. And then one night they went out looking for food as usual…and
never came back.

Kicking the book aside, Rat took
a threatening step forward and straightened so that he loomed over me. “You
got a big mouth, Allie,” he snarled, his breath hot and foul. “Better watch
out. Lucas can’t be around to protect you all the time. Think about that.”
He leaned in, crowding me. “Now get out of my face, before I bitch slap you
across the room. I’d hate for you to start crying in front of your
boyfriend.”

He tried pushing me back. I
dodged, stepped close and slammed my fist into his nose as hard as I
could.

Rat shrieked, staggering
backward, hands flying to his face. Stick yelped from behind me. Blinking
through tears, Rat screamed a curse and swung at my head, clumsy and
awkward. I ducked and shoved him into the wall, hearing the thump of his
head against the plaster.

“Get out of my room,” I growled
as Rat slid down the wall, dazed. Stick had fled to a corner and was hiding
behind the table. “Get out and stay out, Rat. If I see you in here again, I
swear you’ll be eating through a straw the rest of your life.”

Rat pushed himself upright,
leaving a smear of red on the plaster. Wiping his nose, he spat a curse at
me and stumbled out, kicking over a chair as he left. I slammed and locked
the door behind him.

“Bastard. Thieving, lying
bastard. Ow.” I looked down at my fist and frowned. My knuckle had been cut
on Rat’s tooth and was starting to well with blood. “Ew. Oh, great, I hope I
don’t catch something nasty.”

“He’s going to be mad,” Stick
said, venturing out from behind the table, pale and frightened. I
snorted.

“So what? Let him try something.
I’ll break his nose the other way.” Grabbing a rag from the shelf, I pressed
it to my knuckle. “I’m tired of listening to his crap, thinking he can do
anything he wants just because he’s bigger. He’s had it coming for a
while.”

“He might take it out on
me,
” Stick
said, and I bristled at the accusing tone, as if I should know better. As if
I didn’t think of how it might affect him.

“So kick him in the shin and
tell him to back off,” I said, tossing the rag on the shelf and carefully
picking up the abused book. Its cover had been ripped off, and the front
page was torn, but it seemed otherwise intact. “Rat picks on you ’cause you
take it. If you fight back, he’ll leave you alone.”

Stick didn’t say anything,
lapsing into sullen silence, and I bit down my irritation. He wouldn’t fight
back. He would do what he always did—run to me and expect me to help him. I
sighed and knelt beside a plastic box by the back wall. Normally, it was
hidden by an old sheet, but Rat had ripped that off and tossed it in the
corner, probably looking for food or other things to steal. Sliding back the
top, I studied the contents.

It was half full of books, some
like the paperback I held in my hand, some larger, with sturdier covers.
Some were moldy, some half charred. I knew them all, front to back, cover to
cover. This was my most prized, most secret, possession. If the vamps knew I
had a stash like this, they’d shoot us all and raze this place to the
ground. But to me, the risk was worth it. The vamps had outlawed books in
the Fringe and had systematically gutted every school and library building
once they’d taken over, and I knew why. Because within the pages of every
book, there was information of another world—a world before this one, where
humans didn’t live in fear of vampires and walls and monsters in the night.
A world where we were free.

Carefully, I replaced the small
paperback, and my gaze shifted to another well-worn book, its colors faded,
a mold stain starting to eat one corner. It was larger than the others, a
children’s picture book, with brightly colored animals dancing across the
front. I ran my fingers over the cover and sighed.

Mom.

Stick had ventured close again,
peering over my shoulder at the tote. “Did Rat take anything?” he asked
softly.

“No,” I muttered, shutting the
lid, hiding my treasures from view. “But you might want to check your room,
as well. And return anything you borrowed recently, just in
case.”

“I haven’t borrowed anything for
months,” Stick said, sounding frightened and defensive at the thought, and I
bit down a sharp reply. Not long ago, before Rat came to the group, I would
often find Stick in his room, huddled against the wall with one of my books,
completely absorbed in the story. I’d taught him to read myself; long,
painstaking hours of us sitting on my mattress, going over words and letters
and sounds. It had taken a while for Stick to learn, but once he did, it
became his favorite way to escape, to forget everything right outside his
door.

Then Patrick had told him what
vampires did to Fringers who could read books, and now he wouldn’t touch
them. All that work, all that time, all for nothing. It pissed me off that
Stick was too scared of the vamps to learn anything new. I’d offered to
teach Lucas, but he was flat-out not interested, and I wasn’t going to
bother with Rat.

Stupid me, thinking I could pass on
anything useful to this bunch.

But there was more to my anger
than Stick’s fear or Lucas’s ignorance. I wanted them to learn, to better
themselves, because that was just one more thing the vampires had taken from
us. They taught their pets and thralls to read, but the rest of the
population they wanted to keep blind, stupid and in the dark. They wanted us
to be mindless, passive animals. If enough people knew what life was
like…before…how long would it be until they rose up against the bloodsuckers
and took everything back?

It was a dream I didn’t voice to
anyone, not even myself. I couldn’t force people to want to learn. But that
didn’t stop me from trying.

Stick backed up as I stood,
tossing the sheet over the box again. “You think he found the other spot?”
he asked tentatively. “Maybe you should check that one, too.”

I gave him a resigned look. “Are
you hungry? Is that what you’re saying?”

Stick shrugged, looking hopeful.
“Aren’t you?”

I rolled my eyes and walked to
the mattress in the corner, dropping to my knees again. Pushing the mattress
up revealed the loose boards underneath, and I pried them free, peering into
the dark hole.

“Damn,” I muttered, feeling
around the tiny space. Not much left—a stale lump of bread, two peanuts and
one potato that was beginning to sprout eyes. This was what Rat had probably
been looking for: my private cache. We all had them somewhere, hidden away
from the rest of the world. Unregistereds didn’t steal from each other; at
least, we weren’t supposed to. That was the unspoken rule. But, at our
hearts, we were all thieves, and starvation drove people to do desperate
things. I hadn’t survived this long by being naive. The only one who knew
about this hole was Stick, and I trusted him. He wouldn’t risk everything he
had by stealing from me.

I gazed over the pathetic items
and sighed. “Not good,” I muttered, shaking my head. “And they’re really
cracking down out there, lately. No one is trading ration tickets anymore,
for anything.”

My stomach felt hollow, nothing
new to me, as I replaced the floorboards and split the bread with Stick. I
was almost always hungry in some form or another, but this had progressed to
the serious stage. I hadn’t eaten anything since last night. My scavenging
that morning hadn’t gone well. After several hours of searching my normal
stakeouts, all I had to show for it was a cut palm and an empty stomach.
Raiding old Thompson’s rat traps hadn’t worked; the rats were either getting
smarter or he was finally making a dent in the rodent population. I’d scaled
the fire escape to widow Tanner’s rooftop garden, carefully easing under the
razor-wire fence only to find the shrewd old woman had done her harvest
early, leaving nothing but empty boxes of dirt behind. I’d searched the
back-alley Dumpsters behind Hurley’s trading shop;
sometimes,
though
rarely, there would be a loaf of bread so moldy not even a rat would touch
it, or a sack of soybeans that had gone bad, or a rancid potato. I wasn’t
picky; my stomach had been trained to keep down most anything, no matter how
disgusting. Bugs, rats, maggoty bread, I didn’t care as long as it faintly
resembled food. I could eat what most people couldn’t stomach, but today, it
seemed Lady Luck hated me worse than usual.

And continuing to hunt after the
execution was impossible. The pet’s continued presence in the Fringe made
people nervous. I didn’t want to risk thievery with so many of the pet’s
guards wandering about. Besides, stealing food so soon after three people
had been hanged for it was just asking for trouble.

Scavenging in familiar territory
was getting me nowhere. I’d used up all resources here, and the Registereds
were getting wise to my methods. Even if I crossed into other sectors, most
of the Fringe had been picked clean long, long ago. In a city full of
scavengers and opportunists, there just wasn’t anything left. If we wanted
to eat, I was going to have to venture farther.

I was going to have to leave the
city.

Glancing at the pale sky through
the plastic-covered window, I grimaced. The morning was already gone. With
afternoon fading rapidly, I’d have only a few hours to hunt for food once I
was outside the Wall. If I didn’t make it back before sundown, other things
would start hunting. Once the light dropped from the sky, it was
their
time.
The Masters. The vampires.

I still have time,
I thought, mentally calculating the hours in my
head.
It’s a fairly clear day; I can slip under
the Wall, search the ruins and be back before the sun goes down.

“Where are you going?” Stick
asked as I opened the door and strode back down the hall, keeping a wary eye
out for Rat. “Allie? Wait, where are you going? Take me with you. I can
help.”

“No, Stick.” I turned on him and
shook my head. “I’m not hitting the regular spots this time. There are too
many guards, and the pet is still out there making everyone twitchy.” I
sighed and shielded my eyes from the sun, gazing over the empty lot. “I’m
going to have to try the ruins.”

He squeaked. “You’re leaving the
city?”

“I’ll be back before sundown.
Don’t worry.”

“If they catch you…”

“They won’t.” I leaned back and
smirked at him. “When have they ever caught me? They don’t even know those
tunnels exist.”

“You sound like Patrick and
Geoffrey.”

I blinked, stung. “That’s a bit
harsh, don’t you think?” He shrugged, and I crossed my arms. “If that’s how
you feel, maybe I won’t bother sharing anything I bring back. Maybe you
should hunt for your own food for a change.”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, giving
me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Allie. I just worry about you, that’s all. I
get scared that you’ll leave me here, alone. Promise you’ll come
back?”

“You know I will.”

“Okay, then.” He backed away
into the hall, the shadows closing over his face. “Good luck.”

Maybe it was just me, but his
tone almost implied that he was hoping I’d run into trouble. That I would
see how dangerous it really was out there, and that he’d been right all
along. But that was silly, I told myself, sprinting across the empty lot,
back toward the fence and the city streets. Stick needed me; I was his only
friend. He wasn’t so vindictive that he’d wish me harm just because he was
pissed about Marc and Gracie.

Right?

I pushed the thought from my
mind as I squeezed through the chain-link fence and slipped into the quiet
city. I could worry about Stick some other time; my priority was finding
food to keep us both alive.

The sun teetered directly above
the skeletal buildings, bathing the streets in light.
Just hang up there a little longer,
I thought, glancing at the sky.
Stay put, for a few more hours at least. Actually, feel free
to stop moving, if you want.

Vindictively, it seemed to drop
a little lower in the sky, taunting me as it slid behind a cloud. The
shadows lengthened like grasping fingers, sliding over the ground. I
shivered and hurried into the streets.