"I couldn't confirm it, but I have few doubts.""No! It can’t be. Lillith would know if he'd been taken!""Has she... Dreamed or whatever it is she does since you've been here?"I sank down onto the step beside him. "No." Which meant it had been what? Close to three weeks without checking? How could we have gone so long without doing something to look for him?"So there's a chance it's him," Aaron prodded.I nodded, feeling like someone had reached in and yanked my heart from my chest. "Why do you think it’s him?""One of the things he had on him when he was caught was a silver locket with a picture of twin girls inside. I was told they were about thirteen years old, with white hair and purple eyes."I wiped a stray tear from my cheek. "That's the last picture we had taken of us before..." Before I'd hacked my hair to my shoulders and did my best to forget who I was and what I could do. "The locket was Lills. She gave it to him fo

"I wonder who will cover drills for Stan.""No idea," I said, leaning my head against the rock wall. We'd been told to wait in our rooms until called for our briefing. We'd been waiting two hours. "Me neither. I wonder where Dave and Lills are."I shrugged and he went quiet."I wonder why Aaron -""Would you quit wondering for two minutes?""Geeze, snap my head off why don't you.""Sorry.""I'm sick of waiting too you know.""I know.""And getting crabby at me isn't going to speed things up.""I know," I said again, eyeing our blue curtain.He sighed. "She won't let you leave without saying goodbye. What? You think I don't know you well enough to know what's bothering you?"I gave him a side eye. "Aren’t you full of suprises."He grinned at me as he rocked his chair back, balancing it on two legs. "I know you better than you think.""Yeah?" I said, his smile relieving some of my anxiety. "Like what?""Like you miss your gun."I rol

Mike strode over to Stan and Ronnie. He was the tallest of us, a sandy haired string bean of rope like muscles dressed in dark green trousers and a checkered shirt. He beckoned us over. "You two ready to go?""Yep," Burney said, his face smeared by a giant grin. I nodded, unable to match even half his enthusiasm. We were leaving and Lillith hadn't come. She'd told Burney last night that she probably wouldn't, but somewhere in me I'd held to the hope that she would. Probably wasn't a no. Burney put his hand on my shoulder, as if reading my thoughts. "Time to cover up," Stan said, handing Burney a strip of cloth and a clean pillow case.He took it, shooting me an apologetic look before stepping behind me. "Ready?"I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, searching one last time for Lillith's face before landing on Aaron's. His blue eyes met mine, piercing me, holding me steady as Burney lowered the red blindfold and knotted it, blanketing my world i

My consciousness skirted around the edges of my sleep fogged brain. I didn't want to wake up yet. Opening my eyes and dealing with reality meant thinking about Lillith, left behind with Aaron and Dave. It meant worrying over how easy it was to get a hotel room and how many rooms were taken. And it meant thinking about Nick, and how we were going to rescue him. I snuggled closer the warmth next me, letting Burneys regular breaths lull me back into my false sense of safety. It would all be okay. It had to be okay. Didn't it? Glass shattered and a woman screamed. Burney and I were on our feet in an instant. "Ronnie?"My friend nodded."Where's Mike?""Not here," he said, glancing at the couch. Something thumped into our shared wall, knocking the faded picture of a sunset off its nail. It shattered on the carpet."Where are the guns?""With Stan.""Then let's go," I said, sprinting for the door."Fayle!""What?" "Catch," he said, throwing me a

I would've smiled if fear hadn't gripped my heart, threatening to still the pounding thuds hammering in my ears. Henchmen was the Scorcher's name for the law enforcers that patrolled the perimeter of the walled Cities. Each town had their own legion and the scorchers hated them all, almost as much as the henchmen hated them.The Henchmen ran by their own code and rarely had a problem eliminating the Scorchers that crossed their path. To City dwellers, Scorchers were vermin that had barely a thread of sanity between them and the only reason they weren't lumped into the same category as the shades and taken was because they were technically on our side. Up until now I'd always been on the other side of the wall, turning a blind eye to the atrocities that passed between them. This time however, I was on the receiving end. Ronnie slowed the car and pulled over, the blue and white lights signalling from behind. The driver got out and walked over, stopping outside Mike's window