Authors: Abigail Collins
Chapter thirty-three
We barely make it past the front door before the first shots are fired. They sound off in the distance, crackling like lightning, and I turn several times to look for their source. There are buildings all around us, but from the outside they look deserted; towards the edge of town I can just barely make out a thin layer of white rising up from behind a row of houses, and I know that this must be the wall that separates Division 4 from the rest of the world. It stretches on infinitely, until I can’t see more than a trace of it over a few rooftops, and the patch of fence nearest to us is rattling with gunfire.
Flynn tries to pass her gun to Dori, but he refuses to take it. I think that with Division 6 so close, he trusts himself even less not to use it against us.
A pack containing all of my spare clothes and Fray’s teddy bear is slung across my shoulders, and Dori’s holster and gun are at my hip. My hand gravitates towards the weapon, but I stop myself before I can touch it. I’ve promised myself that I will only shoot out of self-defense, and that I won’t take any lives with my gun if it can be avoided.
“There’s a building a few blocks away that contains an underground exit underneath the wall,” Flynn says, making her way slowly down the street and speaking as softly as she can over the gunfire. “It is protected by a code known only to those of us who have proven our loyalty to the humans; I doubt anyone in Division 4 even knows of its existence. And Dorian, I am afraid I can’t entrust you with the code. You must understand why.”
Dori nods, but his body is tense. Flynn is leading is, and I am walking beside Dori behind her. I wonder if Holden’s death was a test of his loyalty, but I don’t think that it’s fair if it was. Dori had no control over his own body; none of what happened back then was his fault.
Sometimes I see a flicker of humanity behind his eyes, and it makes my heart ache. I know that he must be fighting with everything he has to keep his human side in control, but he’s just as aware as we all are of what he really is. He can never go back to the life he had – none of us can.
We are almost halfway to our destination when the gates shudder open, sending a metallic screeching noise over our heads. Flynn beckons Dori and I to join her behind a low building that looks more like a cottage than a house; we duck down and peer out from around the corner just as the first scream tears through the air.
I watch silently as a hoard of humans, each bearing their own sets of weaponry and makeshift armor, pile out of Rin’s building and line up at the entrance to the wall as the soldiers of Division 6 pour through. The first human to be killed is a woman; she’s young – probably only a year or two older than I am – and when she runs to the front of the line with her gun in her hand she is shot in the forehead before she can even raise her weapon. The scream comes from another young woman a few pace behind her, and it is so piteous and desperate that I put my hands over my ears in an attempt to block it out.
What happens next can only be described as carnage.
A few of the humans get lucky and manage to shoot their Digit enemies in the right place to kill or at least disable them, but I can tell just from watching that these people have not been trained to fight in a war. They barely even know how to
hold
their guns, let alone shoot them, and yet they charge into battle like they’ve been waiting their entire lives to die in vain.
Blood spatters all over the ground and the walls of the nearest buildings – the Digits aim for the humans’ heads and hearts, and they rarely miss. Within the ranks, I notice several people I knew at the compound in Division 6, but now their bodies are healed and their eyes are cold; they don’t even hesitate a moment before pulling the trigger. These are the same people I ate meals with, went through my horrible training regime alongside, bonded with to keep myself sane when I had no one else.
But what strikes me the hardest is the little girl I first saw on the train ride to camp; she had looked so small and fragile then, and she reminded me so much of Fray that it hurt. And now I watch her slide between the other Digits to the front of the line and shoot an old man right between the eyes without so much as even flinching.
I think of Fray doing the same thing, slaughtering an entire Division without any remorse, and I realize something. Flynn grabs my arm and tries to pull me away, but I hold my ground and watch as dozens of human beings are torn to pieces and trampled over a war that means nothing. Suddenly, I understand something that churns my stomach so badly I lean over and heave on the cement, gasping for breath.
It occurs to me that Rin never intended to win this war. She wasn’t healing these people so that they could be her soldiers – if she had been, she would have made them into Digits like Division 6 did, or at least taught them how to fight well enough to stand a chance. No, she
knew
they were all going to die, and she let Division 6 through the gates anyway. She
wanted
them to be slaughtered.
Dori was right – Rin really
does
want to eliminate the human race. As far as she knows, I’m locked away safely inside of the only building Division 6 can’t touch, and she can use me to create a new race that will replace all of the human experiments she’s losing. It doesn’t matter to her whether her entire Division is destroyed, as long as her goal is achieved in the end.
And it will be if I don’t get out of here before she realizes I’m missing.
I pull my eyes away from the battle, but I still can’t block out the screams and the gunshots. I remember the same sounds the night my mother died, and again when I was forced to watch simulations of my little brother being murdered; but, somehow, this moment feels worse than any of those. I don’t know if it’s the number of people who are dying, or the
reason
for their deaths, but I know that I’ll never be able to shake the feeling I have right now, and I almost wish that I could just shut my feelings down like the Digits can.
“Eve, come on. We have to
hurry
.”
Dori’s voice pulls me back to reality, and I remember in an instant the exact reason why I
don’t
want to become a Digit.
I shake my head to clear my thoughts and turn my entire body away from the carnage. Flynn begins walking away without a word, and Dori motions silently for me to follow her. I notice that Dori’s footsteps are hesitant, like he’s fighting against a magnet that’s trying to pull him backwards, and I realize that Division 6 must have found out that he’s here.
We make our way along the sides of the buildings, crouching low to keep out of sight, but there’s no one outside to see us anyway. I’m guessing that most of the Digits and all of the humans of this Division are by the gates fighting, but there should at least be a few guards stationed along the fence. I feel uneasy thinking about what that might mean.
I clutch the strap of my backpack tightly in one hand and keep the other over my gun. My heart is racing like my body knows something that my brain hasn’t quite processed yet, and my hands begin to sweat so badly I have to wipe them off on my pants as I walk.
Flynn is walking so fast that I have to quicken my own pace to keep up with her, but I notice after a couple of minutes that Dori is trailing behind us.
“Flynn?” I ask as quietly as I can, just in case one of the buildings we pass happens to not be as vacant as it seems. “Can we slow down for a little bit? I don’t feel so well.”
Part of me is telling the truth – I really
don’t
feel very good, with my stomach emptied on the ground and my ears throbbing with the echoes of people dying – but the other part of me wants to make sure Dori is okay. I know he’s not feeling the same things I am about the war raging around us, but he’s got his own battle going on inside of his body. I don’t even know how he’s managed to keep control for as long as he has.
I slow my pace until I’m walking next to him. He doesn’t look at me, his eyes focused forward, but his hands are balled tightly into fists at his sides.
“Dori, are you alright?” I ask, and I watch him shake his head stiffly. “They’re trying to control you, aren’t they?”
He doesn’t say anything, but we both already know the answer. Flynn looks back at us, her expression grim, and I know she must be thinking the same thing I am – that Dori could change at any moment; that without warning, my friend could turn and kill me, and I wouldn’t even try to stop him. My hand hovers over the gun he gave me, but I can’t bring myself to touch it. I couldn’t shoot him, even if he turned back into the monster that killed Holden.
We’re in the middle of a war – most of which is
my
fault – and I’m still the same coward I was the day my mother died. I should be fighting to protect the people I care about, but instead I am running away. At least when my mother went into hiding, she did it for my sake. Who am I doing this for?
I am selfish; I know that much. I’m running away because I’m afraid of change – afraid of looking back and seeing what this world has really become. I’m afraid that admitting that Dori has changed means admitting that everyone has – everyone but
me
– and that thought terrifies me.
“Can you fight them?” I ask him, trying not to notice how mechanical his movements have become. “Just until we get out of here. Then you’ll be too far away for them to do anything to you, right?”
“I don’t know. I…” He grits his teeth and shakes his head quickly. “I can feel that they’re… They know I’m here. I don’t know if they’re close enough to…”
The sporadic, punctuated way he’s speaking tells me very clearly that he
does
know; he knows that they’re near enough to him to take over his body. Judging from his movements, they’re trying to already. I just have to hope he can fight them off long enough for us to reach the exit.
Flynn points out a building within eyesight and tells us that it’s the place my mother used to escape Division 4 when she was here. A bubble of excitement swells in my chest. I can’t believe that after everything I’ve been through recently, I am this close to finally being free. I have no doubt that there will still be obstacles for me to get through once I’m outside, but none of them could possibly be as difficult as what I’ve already endured. For the first time in weeks – perhaps even
months
, I don’t know – I feel hopeful.
Dori looks tired, like it’s taking everything he has to keep moving, and I put my hand on his arm to steady him. He shoots me an odd look – like a mixture of confusion and sadness – and slowly unclenches his hands. He tries to smile at me, but it’s so strained it looks more like a grimace. He’s behaving in almost the same way he was when he first came to visit me after he became a Digit; at that time, I had thought he was pretending to suffering just to hurt me, but now I’m not so sure anymore.
I hold on to Dori’s arm while we walk, and after a few minutes we catch up to Flynn. She looks as apprehensive as I feel, but she’s trying hard not to show it. We’re so close – too close – to not be optimistic about this. Even Dori, who looks like he’s just run the entire length of the Division with weights strapped to his shoulders, manages a smile that looks genuine.
And then we finally reach the building, and two things happen at once: the door opens for us, and Dori collapses outside of it.
Chapter thirty-four
“You didn’t honestly expect that I’d just
let
you leave, did you?”