Chaos Read Online Free PDF Page B

similar grip. Then they shoved us toward the open gates. My elbows hit the sand as I fell, but all I felt was relief. They were herding us into the city, as we’d hoped.
    Ana didn’t appear to agree with my rosy assessment of our situation. Crawling forward on her hands and knees, she grumbled under her breath as we drew even with the city gates.
    “What is it?” I whispered as we inched toward a huge cart crammed with a few dozen cloaked women, all wearing completely defeated expressions. The Mazikin standing next to the vehicle were watching us, clearly expecting us to climb aboard.
    “The Mazikin guards have pronounced us edible,” she said quietly. “We’re being taken straight to the meat factory.”

FOUR
    “I THOUGHT THEY ATE goats!” My heart thrummed as I stared up at the waiting Mazikin. They were using canes tipped with metal hooks to poke at the whimpering women inside the cart. Their yellow-white fangs flashed as they snarled at their victims.
    “Either there weren’t enough or their tastes have expanded,” said Ana.
    We were only a few yards from the cart now, still on our hands and knees in the middle of a small square. Three crumbling roads led away from the city gates. A similar cart, this one holding several gray-faced men, was sitting on the other side of the square, near a road that ran right along the wall. In the distance, high smokestacks belched black plumes that curled in wisps as they hit the top of the dome. The faint clamor of industrial machinery reached my ears over the sounds of human suffering in the square. There was some type of factory up there, and my guess was that the men were the labor force.
    On Earth, the Mazikin had been most fond of the night, and now day was breaking. Here, all the Mazikin in the square were growling impatiently at their human charges and glancing over their shoulders as the sun, the only thing visible through the dome, peeked over the bricks of the wall behind us.
    I sucked in a breath of cool, moist air that left a sour taste on my tongue. The smell of this place was incredibly bad: rotten eggs, acrid smoke, and raw sewage. “Orders?” I asked, hoping Ana had a brilliant plan that did not involve becoming a nice flank steak.
    “We get in that cart,” she said, leaning close and speaking directly in my ear as we inched forward. “I think we’re going to have a chance to get away when the sun gets higher, but if we try it now, the entire city will know we’re here. They’re already on guard because of Raphael’s fireball-juggling act. Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”
    I tugged my hood low over my face as I reached the boots of the Mazikin waiting at the cart. Mazikin feet were broader than human feet, and their knees seemed to bend backward—much like a dog’s. Still, they alternated between standing on their hind legs and running around on all fours. They also had no trouble kicking—my captor’s boot made a firm connection with my ribs. “Up,” he snarled.
    I let out a pathetic whimper and obeyed, despite my desire to whip out one of my knives and get to work. Ana was right—this seemed like the quickest way to get deeper into the city. Closer to Malachi, wherever he was. As convenient as it would have been, I’d known he probably wasn’t hanging out right next to the exit to the city.
    The cart rattled as Ana and I climbed aboard. It was powered by a huge clunky exposed engine at the front with crazy coils of pipe and gauges sticking out at seemingly random places. It sputtered as the Mazikin driver twisted a key in the ignition, making the vehicle shudder and creak. The woman squatting next to me wrapped her skinny fingers over the metal edge of the cart, as did the woman on her other side. They bowed their heads, waiting. I bowed my head in imitation, then jerked it up when I felt a sharp jab in my shoulder.
    A Mazikin was standing right in front of me. “Hands out!” he barked, then repeated the command in a