This Monstrous Thing(15)
“Damn.” She seized me by the collar and dragged me after her back down the alley. Just before the dead end, she turned, wrenched open a door to one of the decrepit stone houses, and plunged us both inside.
It wasn’t a house, I realized as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, but an abandoned shop with squatters and factory workers huddled together on the floor and against the walls. Glass display cases had been smashed out and small children slept inside them, curled around each other for warmth. A mist seemed to rise from the ground as everyone breathed, slow and steady in sleep. Somewhere amid the sleepers, I could hear clockwork ticking.
The girl was picking her way across the floor toward a small window that opened onto the opposite alley. I followed, trying not to step on too many people as I went. Someone moaned, and someone else swore at me, but I reached her side as she jimmied open the window and climbed out. She was half my size and fit easily, but it was tight for me. I had one leg through when behind me, the door flew open with a bang. “Wake up! Police!” a voice shouted from the doorway.
I crammed myself the rest of the way, in spite of the imprint the frame left in my side, and lurched onto the cobblestones. “Police,” I gasped as I steadied myself against the wall.
“We’re close,” she replied, and I followed her down the street at a run.
We weren’t as close as I hoped. She led me all the way out of Vieille Ville and back into the financial district, until we finally stopped at a bridge, the Pont du la Machine. A few rough-looking shipmen were there, smoking with their backs against the industrial torches, but none of them looked twice at us as the girl led me to the edge of the bridge. A stone stairway ran down to the riverbank trail people used in the summer, but the Rhone had flooded to its winter height and the path was submerged. The stairs dropped into the waves.
She stopped on the step above the waterline and turned back to me. “How well do you swim?” she called over the rushing water.
I laughed, partly from astonishment but mostly refusal. I’d throw myself at the police’s mercy before the Rhone’s. “Are you mad? There’s not a chance in bleeding hell I’m—”
“God’s wounds, only joking.” She smirked. I glowered. “Come on, follow me.”
She jumped nimbly from the steps onto a rim of chain that the winter boats used for mooring. It hung in drapes between fat iron pegs, with the lowest links just above the waterline so that it formed a slick track against the stone retaining wall. I followed her, less nimbly. My heavy work boots made me clumsy, and I had to force myself to keep my eyes on the back of her head and not look down at the rusted chain and the Rhone beneath. I could feel the spray on my face.
We followed the river until the chain began to go taut. I looked up from my feet just in time to see the girl hoist herself up over the edge and disappear from view. I followed, less gracefully. My limbs had gone shaky during our balancing act, and it took three tries before I managed to haul myself back onto solid ground. When I finally got sorted, I realized we were near the base of the foothills, surrounded by the bare vineyards that climbed up from the lakeshore. Behind us, I could see the city walls, Geneva’s slate rooftops peeking out above it. We were out.
The girl only gave me a moment to catch my breath before she started off again, down along a footpath cutting through the vineyard, and I followed, my feet sliding on the frozen mud.
There were no industrial torches outside the city, and the only light came from the moon and a smattering of starlight spread like salt across the sky. I looked out, down the hill and across the smooth top of the lake, then up to the pinpricks of firelight that dotted the hillside from cottage windows. I thought of Chateau de Sang, black windows somewhere against the black sky, and I stopped.
Oliver.
It was like waking from a dream. I had been so panicked about getting out of the city I hadn’t even thought about what I was leaving behind, and it all caught up with me as suddenly as if someone had grabbed me by the throat. “I can’t go with you,” I said, louder than I meant to.
The girl stopped too and turned. “What?”
“I can’t leave,” I repeated, but the words rang empty. This city had caged me for so long, and here I was on its edge, past the checkpoints and close to free, but I couldn’t leave Oliver alone. His death was my fault, and now his life was too.
The girl crossed her arms over her chest. “I haven’t got time for this. We need to go.”
“I can’t.”
“What does that mean, you can’t?”
“I just can’t!” I said again. “There’s someone who needs me here. So thank you for helping me get out but I can’t . . . I can’t go to Geisler.” I turned and started in the opposite direction, back into the foothills and toward Chateau de Sang, but her hand clamped down on my elbow and jerked me back around to face her. She was stronger than she looked.
“Where are you planning on going?” she demanded.
“I’ve got somewhere.”
“Well, you can’t go back to Geneva, not with the whole police force looking for you. Your only choice is to run, and I can help you. Geisler can help you.” I tried to pull my sleeve out of her grip, but she clung on tighter. “I’ll knock you over the head if I have to but I can’t go back to Ingolstadt without you.”
I yanked my arm free and took a few steps back. She looked too scrappy to throw a good punch, but I didn’t think that would stop her from trying. For a moment we glared at each other, the silence interrupted by the bare grapevines clattering against their trellises as the wind rocked them.