The Pledge

“There’s not. I’m just a simple vendor girl. And I’m late for work.” I turned on my heel, my head throbbing as I left him standing there on the sidewalk. I rounded the corner at the alley, wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible, and when I reached the back entrance and stepped into the familiar kitchen, I immediately felt the tension in my muscles seeping out in a rush.

I hadn’t realized that I’d been so stiff in his presence, practically stonelike.

Or that I’d been holding my breath almost the entire time.

The sirens that shattered the still of the night felt like they were coming from inside my darkened bedroom. I sat upright in my bed, my body jolted from sleep far ahead of my brain. Beside me, I felt Angelina’s body start, and then her fingers were digging into my side, clinging to me.

I blinked, trying to clear my thoughts, to make sense of what was happening as the sirens continued to blare from the streets outside.

An attack, I was slow to realize. The city was under attack. These were not the sirens of a drill.

My bedroom door crashed open, battering the wall behind it. I jumped again.

My father marched across the room in two long strides, handing me my boots and a jacket. My mother was already scooping Angelina off the bed and stuffing her into her own coat.

There was no time to be sleepy or sluggish. I shrugged into the sleeves of my jacket.

“Take your sister down into the mine shafts.” My father’s voice was brisk, no-nonsense.

My mother handed my sister over to me, and I took her, my feet trembling as I stepped into my unlaced boots.

“What about you? You’re not coming with us?”

My father dropped to his knees and tied my laces, while my mother petted Angelina’s hair. She kissed us both, tears in her eyes.

“No, we’ll stay here, in case the troops come. If your mother and I are here, maybe they’ll believe that it’s just the two of us, that we live alone.” He stood as he finished, meeting my worried expression. “Then maybe they won’t come looking for you and your sister.”

His words didn’t make sense to me, but none of this did. Why would the troops be interested in us at all, with or without our parents? Why would they bother searching for two girls, children who’d escaped into the night?

I shook my head, wanting to protest, to tell him that I wouldn’t go without them, but couldn’t find my voice.

“Go, Charlaina. Now.” He pushed me toward the door. “We don’t have time to argue.”

I dug in my heels, but he was stronger than me and pushed harder than I could. Angelina clung to me, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck, Muffin dangling from her white-knuckled fist. Her eyes were wide and terror-filled.

I relented as the sirens outside assailed my ears; I had to get Angelina to safety.

“We’ll come for you when it’s safe.” My father’s voice softened when he realized that I was moving, finally, toward the door.

Behind me, I heard my mother’s sobs.

When I hit the streets, I drifted into a sea of hundreds—maybe thousands—of others who were also evacuating their homes. I was pushed and shoved from every direction, and I could feel panic coming off the crowd.

The siren’s blast was earsplitting out here in the open—the loudspeakers were set up every hundred feet or so, and i Bght m">.

It didn’t matter, though; the sirens were enough to keep me moving.

There were designated bomb shelters throughout the city, in churches, schools, and even abandoned passageways beneath the streets. That was where most of the people were headed. That was where families had arranged to meet in the event that the battles came close to home.

Yet Angelina and I wouldn’t go to the shelters like the others, because our father feared that the shelters were too exposed. He worried that there was nothing secret about those hiding places. Safe from attack maybe, but not from the troops that could march into the city from the east, or from rebel forces fighting to overthrow Queen Sabara. And sometimes men—at least those in the midst of war—were to be feared more than any weapons. Men could be brutal, ruthless, deadly.

We were to hide someplace else. In the mine shafts just outside the city.

My boots pounded heavily against the ground as I shoved my way through the crowds, gripping Angelina as I leaned forward, battering body against body at times. The farther we moved away from the city’s core, the thinner the masses grew, until it was just the two of us, and the occasional straggler, who remained in the night.

I knew we were close. I could see the walls that encircled the city—walls that had been constructed to keep us safe, to keep our enemies at bay, yet now contained us and trapped us inside. They were the only thing separating us from the mine shafts beyond.

I watched as others climbed those walls, others who probably had mind-sets similar to my father’s.

We reached the perimeter, where the tall concrete barricade stood between us and our destination, and I untangled Angelina from my arms, forcing her to stand on her own two feet. “You have to go first,” I insisted.

She stiffened, but did as I told her. I lifted her up the wall as high as I could and then I shoved with all my strength. I didn’t have time to feel guilty as I listened to her land on the other side of the wall.

I scrambled up after her, using my boots to dig into the cement as I strained to pull myself up. When I was almost to the top, my foot slipped and the right side of my face slammed into the punishing concrete. The taste of fresh blood filled my mouth, and my eyes burned with unshed tears. I was sure I’d just shattered my cheekbone. But I refused to fall back to the ground behind me, and I clung to the wall, pulling until my arms burned. Finally I hooked one of my legs over the top and dragged myself the rest of the way up.