Rebel (Legend, #4)(63)
June clears her throat uncomfortably at my words. Across from me, Daniel’s quiet. His face has turned pale, as if he’s remembering something from his past.
“It’s going to get worse down there,” June says after a while. I can’t tell if she’s siding with me or not. “People who have suffered for that long, who don’t have the ability to attack higher powers, turn on one another instead. They’ll destroy every shop and stall and home down there, and they’ll do it quickly. So if we’re going to get anyone out of the Undercity, we have to do it now. It’s about to become impassible.”
Daniel’s gaze goes from me back to the dark windows. When he finally speaks, his voice is pulled tight. “Fine. But you’re not going alone. I’m coming with you.”
“Same,” June says.
Even with this compromise, I can feel the chasm widening between us. No matter what Daniel says, he makes me feel small, like a little brother asking for permission to do anything and everything. I turn away, disgusted with myself, and start heading toward the elevators.
*
Even though it’s past midnight, the streets of the Undercity are fully lit tonight—with lights from the backup electric system; with handheld lamps, glowsticks, torches, and portable screens held up by protestors; and with floodlights set up along the streets’ barricades, monitored by police and soldiers alike.
Now I run through the streets with Daniel and June at my side. Shouts come at us in all directions. The streets, always narrow, are crammed full of people in every form of celebration and confusion. Some are uncertain, standing outside the front of their stalls or shops and wringing their hands, looking meekly at the police that rush by. Others hang out the open windows of the floors above, squinting at the buildings in disbelief at the lack of any augmented layering. Others take photos with old-school cameras, now that their systems are disabled.
Still others are furious, delighted to unleash their anger by attacking their neighbors with the kind of violence that’d normally get your Levels flattened. There are some taking advantage of the system’s disappearance to break into shops and stock up on all the things they’ve never been able to buy. We pass several young people who are simply wrecking the street for no reason, crushing scooters and boards and auto-buses and spraying them with buckets of paint. In the night, their figures cast long shadows against the wall.
“Things are deteriorating quickly,” June calls to us as we run. “Eden, we won’t have long before this situation makes it unreasonable for us to stay down here. Can we get to your friend before that?”
Pressa. Her name rings through me over and over. Her father’s apothecary is deep in the heart of the Undercity, right in the thick of everything. “We’ll reach her,” I call back as we hit an intersection and make a sharp turn. “We have to.”
A flipped auto-car in the street stops us dead in our tracks. People have already crowded around it so tightly that there’s no easy way around it. Nearby, flames burn gold against the night.
I spit out a curse. “We can’t get through,” I say.
Daniel looks overhead and nods for me to follow. “There’s a way,” he replies. He reaches the end of the street and then darts into a narrow alley between two blocks. His movements are steady and sure, like he’s been down these roads a dozen times before.
We hit a dead end stopped by a locked gate. But Daniel doesn’t stop moving. He kicks off against the wall and shimmies up to the second floor in a matter of seconds, then leaps off the ledge to climb onto the top of the gate. He drops out of sight. June runs up to the gate right as Daniel emerges from the other side of it, opening the gate from the inside.
“Hurry,” he gasps as he ushers us through. We dart down a private walkway before emerging back out into the streets.
Two blocks down, I see it. The apothecary.
There’s a mob of people that have surrounded the shop, and the front window is already smashed. Standing in the entrance is Pressa’s father, his frail body gamely pressed in the doorway as he pleads with the people to keep order. Beside him, Pressa and her father’s assistant, Marren, are shoving back anyone who gets too aggressive.
“Get away!” she shouts. “Get back in the street! You can’t come in here!”
There are others trying to help them, too. I recognize a few of the store’s frequent customers. Several of the larger men have formed a human barricade on one side of the shop, while two others are boarding up the broken window on the other side.
My heart lifts a little at the sight, even though the situation looks like it’s about to tip over into something dangerous.
“Pressa!” I shout at the top of my lungs as we approach. My hands wave high in the air.
Her head whips around in my direction, and her dark eyes search the crowd for me. They finally settle on where we are.
“Eden?” she says incredulously. Her entire demeanor brightens at the sight of me.
I don’t hesitate. I just start pushing through the crowd to reach where she’s standing with her dad. She grabs my arm in a viselike grip. Her eyes are wide and frantic.
“Everything’s falling apart,” she tells me in a rush. “People are trying to steal our medicine.”
Behind me, Daniel and June have pushed their way up to the top of the steps too. When one man trying to get into the shop suddenly shoves Pressa’s dad, June whips out an elbow so fast that she breaks the man’s nose before he can even react. He cries out in pain and shrinks back.