Stung Read Online Free PDF Page B

them.
    Arrin yanks me in the opposite direction of the worm eaters. We run until she jolts to a dead stop, and I slam into her back. She groans and drops my hand, but our palms don’t come loose. I pull and our flesh peels apart.
    “Why were our hands—”
    “Shhh!” Arrin hisses, smacking me. “You are going to get me killed! Just shut up long enough to pay me back!”
    There is a wet thud by my feet. “I crashed into a wall and hit my head.” Arrin’s voice comes from below. “And the guy in the tunnel cut me. I’ve got to rest. Sit, if you want.”
    I don’t sit. Not when I know what coats the floor.
    “Here’s what you’re going to do, Fo,” Arrin says a few minutes later. “My nine-year-old brother was picked up yesterday morning. You’re going to create a distraction so I can get him out. After that, you’re on your own.”
    “Why was your brother picked up?” I ask.
    “He’s a Level Three,” says Arrin, as if it’s the most obvious reason in the world.
    “A Level Three what?”
    “Where are you from, Fo? How can you not know what a Level Three is?”
    “I’m from …” Fuzz fills my brain. I can see my house, see my brother, remember how my sister smells, remember my dadteaching me how to shoot and my mom cooking pancakes on Sunday morning. I can even remember how to make music with my fingers. But I can’t remember where I have been.
    “That was a rhetorical question, moron. I get it. You don’t remember. Help me up.” I pull Arrin to her feet. “Next rain gutter we see, we’re going topside.”

Chapter 6
    The late-afternoon sky burns my vision. I press my palms against my watering eyes and fill my lungs with clean, bright air.
    “The bad news is, we’re still about half a mile from the wall,” Arrin says, sliding the grate back over a rain gutter. “Good news is, I don’t think there’s a hive between us and there. All we’ll have to watch out for is patrolling militia and raiders. But raiders usually don’t come around the militia’s camp, and they never come out before sunset.”
    I pull my hands from my face and squint. We stand on the side of a deserted street surrounded by crumbling factories, abandoned cars, and broken traffic lights. Garbage and tumbleweeds blow down the street, the only noise in this arid world of silence.
    Arrin starts to run. I lope to her side and for the first time, truly see her.
    She is tiny, the top of her greasy head barely as high as my chin. One of her eyes is bruised and nearly swollen shut, and her lip is split. Greasy-looking grime covers every inch of her skin and darkens her pores into a constellation of black dots. Yet, beneath the dirt and filth, she is a child. She glares at me with cold blue eyes.
    “Why are you staring at me, Fo?”
    “How old are you?” I ask.
    She thrusts her square chin and pointy nose forward. “Thirteen.”
    “So am I,” I say. I can remember my birthday cake, remember the pink candles. Thirteen of them.
    Arrin raises one dark eyebrow and looks me up and down. “Liar. You’re an adult.”
    “No. I remember turning thirteen,” I say. My hand wanders up to my throat again, feeling my collarbone for a fine chain. But there is nothing hanging around my neck.
    Arrin shakes her head. “What you are is messed up in the head. You have hips. And
knockers
. And you look like an
adult
.” Arrin tilts her head to the side, her eyes suddenly alert. She grabs my arm and yanks me toward the nearest building. We dart through a missing door and Arrin dives into the shadows. I crouch beside her, perplexed.
    “
What’s wrong?
” I mouth.
    She points toward the doorway, and I peer around the splintered frame. Six men are marching down the street toward us, the bases of long black rifles cupped in their hands, the other ends resting on their shoulders. They wear crisp brown jacketsand crisp brown pants, and their hair is slightly long on top but short on the sides of their heads. Above their left ears, each one