Page 42 of Rebel Rising: A Dystopian Romance

place of a knife," he replied as if that was an obvious trade to make. I'd rather a knife any day but I was glad he'd taken the flashlight in that moment.

Taylor took a step and another until the water lapped up over his ankles.

“The floor slopes away, I don't know how deep it will get," he said.

I glanced back the way we’d come. I didn't really fancy getting soaked.

“Maybe we should just go back-” Evan began but he cut off as screams came from the tunnel entrance behind us.

"Go," I urged decisively, running forwards into the water. I didn't want anything to do with whatever was happening out there and getting wet was preferable to getting shot any day.

The floor dropped away quickly and the water was up to my waist within moments. I shivered as it leached the warmth from my skin. We held our guns above our heads to keep them dry and Evan pointed the flashlight ahead to lead the way.

The tunnel turned to the right and kept dropping away. I regretted never having learnt to swim but it wasn't exactly an option in the city unless you lived a lot higher than I did.

It was freezing, my teeth were chattering and I couldn't feel my feet.

The screaming behind us stopped abruptly but that didn't fill me with much confidence as we pushed on. It just meant that whoever had just killed that guy was looking for a new victim.

The tunnel started to rise again and I released a breath of relief. We tried to get a balance between moving fast enough to put distance between ourselves and any pursuers and slowly enough not to make too much noise.

Finally, we stepped out of the water, dripping wet and freezing cold but the tunnel exit loomed bright ahead, making my eyes sting as we approached it. Evan clicked off his flashlight and we holstered our guns.

"Well, this is fun," I growled, trying to stop the shivering as it took root in my limbs.

Taylor emerged from the tunnel first and started down the next trench. He'd barely gone a couple of steps when an opposition fighter jumped over a low wall to his right, a gun levelled at his head.

“We're messengers!" I screamed in panic but she just scowled and flicked the safety catch off. Before I could do anything else, a knife flew past my ear and embedded itself in her chest. I couldn't quite believe what had happened. The gun fell from the woman's hand as blood flowed down her chest. Her mouth opened in a silent scream and she collapsed to the ground.

"Evan?" I spun round to look at him in shock.

“She was going to shoot him," Evan shrugged. He looked away from the woman as her lifeless eyes gazed up at the sky.

“You saved my life man. That's both of us now," Taylor said, looking stunned.

Evan shrugged again and moved on down the path. I holstered my pistol, which had made it into my hand somehow, and reached out to grasp Taylor's hand. I tried not to look at the woman’s corpse as we passed her but my heart was still thundering from the shock of what I’d just witnessed.

A rational voice in my head was telling me that it was either her or Taylor but a slightly louder voice was screaming at me that I’d just witnessed someone dying. Dying! She was dead.

Taylor pulled his hand from mine. My nails had gouged red, moon-shaped crescents into his skin, a few of which were starting to bleed. I opened my mouth to say sorry but Taylor held my gaze and I knew that he understood. He always understood.

I clenched my jaw and pushed the vision of the soldier out of my head. She would have killed him and I wouldn't waste any tears on her.

The trenches started to twist and turn, disorientating us.

“I'm not even sure which way is east anymore," I hissed as the minutes ticked by and we only seemed to be delving deeper into the labyrinth.

A guy dressed in the colours of the opposition came tearing down a narrow gap between a wall and a huge lump of twisted metal towards us and I shrieked in alarm. He glanced in our direction, realised we were only messengers, and kept running. A few moments later he was followed by three of our unit who didn't pause either but just ran by whooping and laughing. They were actually enjoying themselves.

One of them bumped into Evan as they passed and there was a tearing sound as his sleeve caught on the guy's knife.

"Sorry man!" the guy yelled over his shoulder as he chased his friends out of sight. Evan glanced at his tattered jacket and used his own knife to cut away the torn material. As he did I noticed a tattoo, a rose tangled in thorns, that spiralled around his wrist.

“What's your deal?" I asked him suspiciously. "That's a Dweller tattoo."

Evan gave me a look that said he didn't appreciate being called a Dweller but I didn’t give a shit.

“How come you're here?" I pushed on. "What did you do?"