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"We're not going to hurt you," Ryder promises. "Blaise didn't mean it like that. Goddammit, Blaise, what the hell's wrong with you?"
"What the heck did I say?" Blaise growls then pauses. "Oh, shit. I didn't mean it like that."
Someone places their hands on my shoulders. Their fingers are stiff, so I'm guessing it's Blaise. I freeze, puzzled by his reaction. Why is he so afraid of me?
"Allura, I didn't mean it like that." Blaise sounds demanding, yet the anger in his tone doesn't match his words. "No one's going to pick you apart or make you do anything you don't want to. You're safe with us."
I bite down on my lip, unsure whether to believe him. I want to. God, do I want to.
"Please believe me." Desperation floods Blaise's voice. "I'd never hurt you or anyone else. I swear to God I wouldn't."
His words strike a nerve. I didn't think people could make promises like that. I don't know what to do with the discovery, whether I should believe him or not. But with how panicked he sounds, it feels like I should say something, because I don't want him to be scared, too.
I haven't openly spoken to anyone in a long time. There was a girl whose cell was near mine, and sometimes, when no one was listening, we'd talk. But she didn't understand a lot of words, so most of our conversations usually ended in confusion, and then one day she was gone.
Unsure what the right words are to say to Blaise, I lower my hands to my lap and nod.
"Give me my jacket," Blaise says.
"Why?" Ryder asks. "I can do it."
"Just give it to me," Blaise demands, his hands leaving my shoulders.
Moments later, the light dwindles to a dreary gray. Bit by bit, the surroundings take shape again. Blaise is now holding the jacket over my head and is sitting closer to me.
"You're going to be all right." Blaise looks me in the eye, seeming less afraid now. "We won't let anyone hurt you ever again."
While Ryder said something similar earlier, the scary, intense, passionate look in Blaise's expression makes me fully believe him. It makes me feel sorry for anyone who dares to try to do anything to me.
I nod, hoping that will get him to stop looking at me because his stare is almost as overwhelming as the sunlight.
A breath eases from his lips as he slumps back in the seat then says, "Reece, don't take the main road. I've heard wardens upped the detours over the last few weeks."
Curious, I lower my head to get a look at Reece. He's in the driver's seat with his hands on the wheel. I can't see his face, only his profile, his scruffy jawline, and his light brown hair. He looks about the same age as Blaise and Ryder.
I'm not very good at guessing ages, but not too long ago, I heard a visitor tell a warden that his twenty-first birthday was that day. His present was an hour with me. While I blocked out most of that visit, I still remember what he looked like. If I had to guess, Ryder, Blaise, and Reece are all around twenty or twenty-one.
"The back roads aren't any better," Reece says. "I've heard they put more security on those to stop anyone from smuggling a Forsaken or Nameless."
"What are we going to do if we run into one?" Blaise jerks his chin in my direction. "She doesn't have any papers, and if they see the number on her arm, they're going to know what she is."
My gaze lowers to my arm. Pale skin. Open wounds from where the lasers burned me and the cuffs rubbed at my flesh. Along my inner wrist is a four-digit number branded across my flesh. Five-two-eight-seven. My number. I remember when wardens put it there with hot metal that scalded. The pain was nearly unbearable, and I almost passed out, but I fought to stay conscious and not give them the satisfaction of seeing me in pain.
"I know that," Reece mutters, turning his head to look over his shoulder. "Maybe we could ..." His eyes widen when he notices me staring at him.
Panicking, I quickly divert my gaze to my hands.
"Should, what?" Ryder leans forward and rests his arms on his legs.
Reece sighs. "Hide her when we get close."
"Where would we hide ...?" Ryder trails off, shaking his head. "No way. We can't do that to her. Not after she just got out of the channels."
"I know it's not ideal, but it might be the only way." Reece grips the steering wheel, rotating back around in the seat. "It's either hide her or risk hitting a detour. And then we won't have time to hide her. In the condition she's in, they're automatically going to assume she's probably a Forsaken or Nameless. We'll never be able to convince them that she's not, especially without fake papers."
"We could always make a stop and clean her up," Ryder suggests, fiddling with a hole in the knee of his pants. "East City Post isn't too far from here."
"And what if the wrong person asks about her? You know not everyone at the posts can be trusted." Blaise cracks his knuckles. "And even if we did clean her up, they'll probably still ask for her papers. She's all skin and bones. We can't cover that up."
I'm struggling to keep up with everything they're saying. Forsaken and posts? Who are these guys? They're definitely not wardens or visitors. I wonder if they're human, but from what the wardens said, most humans have either been captured, like I was, or are in hiding because they're too weak to fight the wardens. Ryder, Blaise, and Reece don't seem weak, though, and they did get me out of the channels. But what else could they be?
I hardly remember anything about the outside world except for glimpses of trees and sunlight. Even in the forgotten memory, I was confused. All I've ever known is my cell, the wardens' orders, and visitors who came and pressed their hands against my chest. That's it. That's all I know about how the world works, but I always believed there was more than that. Maybe these guys can help me understand it better.
"These detours ..." My voice cracks. "There are wardens there?"
Ryder, Reece, and Blaise all look at me, which makes me recoil.
"She talks better than I expected." Ryder rotates in his seat to face me. "Sweetheart, how long were you underground?"
I shrug. "I can't remember. Sorry."
Ryder catches Blaise's gaze. They trade a look before Ryder looks back at me.
"Were you ...? Were you born in the cells?"
I press my quivering lips together and shrug again. "I'm not sure."
Ryder's puzzlement deepens. "How do you not know where you came from?"
"Sometimes, I think I wasn't born underground because I know what the sky and sun are supposed to look like. But the memories never feel real. And I don't really have any memories of a life outside of the underground. Well, except for one, but I couldn't see much, so I'm not positive I was even outside." By the time I'm done talking, my throat is exhausted, strained, my voice barely a whisper.
"How does she know all this?" Blaise leans forward to collect something from off the floor. "What memories are and what sunlight is?" He sits back up with a bottle of water in his hand. "Nameless usually don't know more than a handful of words, if any. And wardens hate when they talk, so they usually break the habit out of them."
"Maybe you should ask her that." Ryder steals the bottle of water from Blaise. "Don't talk around her. Don't treat her like they treated her, like she doesn't exist."
Blaise narrows his eyes at Ryder. "I'm not treating her like that."
"That's exactly what you're doing. You're being an asshole." Ryder's clipped tone shocks me. Up until now, he's been so composed. "If you have a question about what she's saying, ask her. And while we're at it, stop raising your voice. Every time you do it, she shakes." Ryder unscrews the cap off the bottle and hands it to me.
Blaise flicks a glance at me, his eyes blazing with something I don't fully comprehend. "I'm sorry ... I'm not trying to be an asshole."
"It's okay," I whisper, uncomfortable with the apology. I don't think anyone has ever apologized to me before. "I don't know how I know these things. I just know. The wardens knew I could talk, though. They even talked to me sometimes. Well, one of them did, the one that was yelling at us when you ran through the scanner."
"She's right." Ryder stares at me as if I'm a puzzle he's trying to figure out. "The warden talked to her when he took me in her cell."
"But not all the Nameless can talk," I whisper. "Most can't. I've only met one who could, but she wasn't down there for long, and she didn't talk very well."
Blaise assesses me more closely, seeming mystified. I try to ignore the attention, but his stare makes me uneasy. To distract myself, I put the open bottle to my lips and down a few gulps of water.
Blaise finally looks away from me and exchanges an indecipherable look with Ryder. I grow anxious by the silence and focus on how smooth the leather seats feel against my skin. It's been forever since I've felt anything other than the T-shirt on my back, the metal on my wrists and ankles, the floor, cold hands. It's almost surreal, like I'm dreaming and not really here. I want to test the theory, find out if I am awake, but I don't know how. Maybe I can peek out the window, see the outside and sunlight for myself. But I don't want to put my eyes through that pain again.
"What she's saying goes against everything we know about wardens," Blaise finally breaks the silence. "It doesn't make any sense. What if they're changing?"
"We have bigger problems to worry about right now," Reece says, the gears grinding as he shifts. "We're coming up near the crossway. If we don't do something with her quick, we might not get another chance."
"We could always explain what we want her to do," Ryder suggests. "She might understand."
Reece nods. "Go ahead. It's worth a shot."
