The alarm finally stopped after blaring for a full two minutes.
A crowd was gathered in the middle of the courtyard around the steel doors through which Harlow was startled to realize she'd arrived just yesterday.
Yesterday? she thought. Was that really just yesterday?
Someone tapped her on the elbow; dhe looked over to see Clint by her side.
"How goes it?" Clint asked.
"Fine," she replied, even though nothing could've been further from the truth.
She pointed toward the doors of the Lyft. "Why is everyone freaking out? Isn't this how you all got here?"
Clint shrugged. "I don't know—guess it's always been real regular-like. One a year, every year, same month, same day. Maybe whoever runs this place, realized you were a mistake, and sent someone to replace you." He giggled as he elbowed Harlow in the ribs, a high-pitched snicker that inexplicably made Harlow like him more.
Harlow shot her little friend a fake glare. "You're annoying. Seriously."
"Yeah, but we're buddies, now, right?" Clint fully laughed this time, a squeaky sort of snort.
"Looks like you're not giving me much choice on that one." But truth was, she needed a friend, and Clint would do just fine.
The kid folded his arms, looking very satisfied.
"Glad that's settled. Everyone needs a buddy in this place."
Harlow grabbed Clint by the collar, joking around.
"Okay, buddy, then call me by my name. Harlow. Or I'll throw you down the hole after the lyft leaves." That triggered a thought in his head as he released Clint.
"Wait a minute, have you guys ever—"
"Tried it," Clint interrupted before Harlow could finish.
"Tried what?"
"Going down in the Lyft after it makes a delivery," Clint answered.
"It won't do it. Won't go down until it's completely empty."
Harlow remembered Raiden telling her that very thing.
"I already knew that, but what about—"
"Tried it."
Harlow had to suppress a groan—this was getting irritating.
"Man you're hard to talk to. Tried what?"
"Going through the hole after the Lyft goes down. Can't. Doors will open, but there's just emptiness, blackness, nothing. No ropes, nada. Can't do it."
How could that be possible?
"Did you—"
"Tried it."
Harlow did groan this time. "Okay, what?"
"We threw some things into the hole. Never heard them land. It goes on for a long time."
Harlow paused before she replied, not wanting to be cut off again.
"What are you, a mind reader or something?" She threw as much sarcasm as sbe could into the comment.
"Just brilliant, that's all." Clint winked.
"Clint, never wink at me again." Harlow said it with a smile.
Clint was a little annoying, but there was something about him that made things seem less terrible.
Harlow took a deep breath and looked back toward the crowd around the hole.
"So, how long until the delivery gets here?"
"Usually takes about half an hour after the alarm."
Harlow thought for a second. There had to be something they hadn't tried.
"You're sure about the hole? Have you ever …" She paused, waiting for the interruption, but none came.
"Have you ever tried making a rope?"
"Yeah, they did. With the ivy. Longest one they could possibly make. Let's just say that little experiment didn't go so well."
"What do you mean?" What now? Harlow thought.
"I wasn't here, but I heard the guy who volunteered to do it had only gone down about ten feet when something swooshed through the air and cut him clean in half."
"What?" Harlow laughed. "I don't believe that for a second."
"Oh, yeah, smart guy? I've seen the guys grave. Cut in half like a knife through butter. They have him buried at the graveyard."
Harlow waited for Clint to laugh or smile, thinking it had to be a joke—who ever heard of someone being cut in half? But it never came.
"You're serious?"
Clint just stared back at her.
"I don't lie, Harlow. Come on, let's go over and see who's coming up. I can't believe you only have to be the Newbie for one day."
As they walked over, Harlow asked the one question she hadn't posed yet.
"How do you know it's not just supplies or whatever?"
"The alarm doesn't go off when that happens," Clint answered, simply.
"The supplies come up at the same time every week. Hey, look." Clint stopped and pointed to someone in the crowd. It was Pru, staring dead at them.
"Fuck it," Clint said. "She does not like you, man."
"Yeah," Harlow muttered. "Figured that out already, and don'tcall me man. I am a woman." But the the feeling with Pru was mutual.
Clint nudged Harlow with his elbow and they resumed their walk to the edge of the crowd, then waited in silence; any questions Harlow had were forgotten. She'd lost the urge to talk after seeing Pru.
Clint apparently hadn't.
"Why don't you go ask her what her problem is?" he asked, trying to sound tough.
Harlow wanted to think she was brave enough, but that currently sounded like the worst idea in history.
"Well, for one, zhe has a lot more allies than I do. Not a good person to pick a fight with."
"Yeah, but you're smarter. And I bet you're quicker. You could take her and all her giging gaggle of girls that follow her around like lost puppies."
One of the girls standing in front of them looked back over her shoulder, annoyance crossing her face.
Must be a friend of Pru's, Harlow thought.
"Would you shut it?" she hissed at Clint.
A door closed behind them; Harlow turned to see Raiden and Wren heading over from the Homestead.
They both looked exhausted.
Seeing them brought Brent back to her mind—along with the horrific image of him writhing in bed.
"Clint, you gotta tell me what this whole Transforming business is. What have they been doing in there with that poor Brent guy?"
Clint shrugged. "Don't know the details. The Zombic do bad things to you, make your whole body go through something awful. When it's over, you're … different."
Harlow sensed a chance to finally have a solid answer.
"Different? What do you mean? And what does it have to do with the Zombic? Is that what Pru meant by 'being bitten'?"
"Shh." Clint held a finger to his mouth.
Harlow almost screamed in frustration, but she kept quiet. She resolved to make Clint tell her later, whether he wanted to or not.
Raiden and Wren had reached the crowd and pushed themselves to the front, standing right over the doors that led to the Lyft.
Everyone quieted, and for the first time, Harlow noted the grinds and rattles of the rising lyft, reminding her of her own nightmarish trip the day before.
Sadness washed over her, almost as if she were reliving those few terrible minutes of awakening in darkness to the memory loss. She felt sorry for whoever this new person was, going through the same things.
A muffled boom announced that the bizarre elevator had arrived.
Harlow watched in anticipation as Raiden and Wren took positions on opposite sides of the doors—a crack split the metal square right down the middle. Simple hook-handles were attached on both sides, and together they yanked them apart. With a metallic scrape the doors were opened, and a puff of dust from the surrounding stone rose into the air.
Complete silence settled over the Survivalist. As Wren leaned over to get a better look into the Lyft, the faint bleating of a goat in the distance echoed across the courtyard. Harlow leaned forward as far as she possibly could, hoping to get a glance at the newcomer.
With a sudden jerk, Wren pushed herself back into an upright position, her face scrunched up in confusion.
"Holy …," she breathed, looking around at nothing in particular.
By this time, Raiden had gotten a good look as well, with a similar reaction.
"No way," he murmured, almost in a trance.
A chorus of questions filled the air as everyone began pushing forward to get a look into the small opening.
What do they see down there? Harlow wondered. What do they see!
She felt a sliver of muted fear, similar to what she'd experienced that morning when she stepped toward the window to see the Seether.
"Hold on!" Wren yelled, silencing everyone. "Just hold on!"
"Well, what's wrong?" someone yelled back.
Raiden stood up. "Two new people in two days," he said, almost in a whisper. "Now this. Two years, nothing different, now this." Then, for some reason, he looked straight at Harlow. "What's goin' on here, Harlow?"
Harlow stared back, confused, her face turning bright red, her gut clenching.
"How am I supposed to know?"
"Why don't you just tell us what the fuck is down there, Raiden?" Pru called out. There were more murmurs and another surge forward.
"Shut up!" Wren yelled.
Raiden looked down in the Lyft one more time, then faced the crowd, gravely.
"It's another Fae." he said.
Everyone started talking at once; Harlow only caught pieces here and there.
"A Fae? Who was the other one"
"Is it a girl?"
"What's she look like?"
"How old is she?"
Harlow was drowning in a sea of confusion.
A Faerie?
She hadn't even thought about why the Dome only had supernaturals, or how she even knew that, sensed what they were as she stood near them, looked at them, smelt their scent.
Hadn't even had the chance to notice, really. Who is the other faerie Raiden has mentioned? she wondered. "And what am I?
Why—
Wren shushed them again. "That's no half of it," dhe said, then pointed down into the Lyft.
"I think she's dead."
A couple of people grabbed some ropes made from ivy vines and lowered Raiden and Wren into the Lyft so they could retrieve the faeries body. Worry washed over Harlow as she watched Taiden dissapear inside.
Why was she so worried about Raiden?
A mood of reserved shock had come over most of the survivalist, who were milling about with solemn faces, kicking loose rocks and not saying much at all. No one dared admit they couldn't wait to see the fae, but Harlow assumed they were all just as curious as she was.
Pru was one of the people holding on to the ropes, ready to hoist the fae, Raide , and Wren out of the Lyft.
Harlow watched her closely. Her eyes were laced with something dark—almost a sick fascination. A gleam that made Harlow suddenly more scared of her than she'd been minutes earlier, especially the fact that Raiden's life was I. her hands as she held his rope.
From deep in the shaft came Wren's voice shouting that they were ready, and Pru and a couple of others started pulling up on the rope.
A few grunts later and a girl's lifeless body was dragged out, across the edge of the door and onto one of the stone blocks making up the ground of the Dome.
Everyone immediately ran forward, forming a packed crowd around her, a palpable excitement hovering in the air.
But Harlow stayed back.
The eerie silence gave her the creeps, as if they'd just opened up a recently laid tomb.
Despite her own curiosity, Harlow didn't bother trying to force her way through to get a look— the bodies were too tightly squeezed together. But she had caught a glimpse of her before being blocked off.
She was thin, but not too small. Maybe five and a half feet tall, from what he could tell. She looked like she could be fifteen or sixteen years old, and her hair was tar black. But the thing that had really stood out to her was her skin: pale, white as pearls.
Raiden and Wren scrambled out of theyfg after her, then forced their way through to the girl's lifeless body, the crowd re-forming behind to cut them off from Harlow's view. Only a few seconds later, the group parted again, and Raiden was pointing straight at Harlow.
"Harlow, get over here," he said, not bothering to be polite about it.
Harlow's heart jumped into her throat; her hands started to sweat.
What did they want her for?
Things just kept getting worse and worse. She forced herself to walk forward, trying to seem innocent without acting like someone who was guilty who was trying to act innocent.
Oh, calm it, she told herself. You haven't done anything wrong . But she had a strange feeling that maybe she had without realizing it.
The people lining the path to Raiden and the girl glared at her as she walked past, as if he were responsible for the entire mess of the Maze and the Dome and the Seethers.
Harlow refused to make eye contact with any of them, afraid of looking guilty.
She approached Raiden and Wren, who both knelt beside the girl. Harlow, not wanting to meet their stares, concentrated on the girl; despite her paleness, she was really pretty. More than pretty.
Beautiful. Silky hair, flawless skin, perfect lips, long legs. Won't be that way for long , she thought with a queasy twist in her stomach. She'll start rotting soon. She was surprised at having such a morbid thought.
"You know this girl, shank?" Raiden asked, sounding ticked off.
Harlow was shocked by the question. "Know her? Of course I don't know her. I don't know anyone. Except for you guys."
"That's not …," Raiden began, then stopped with a frustrated sigh. "I meant does she look familiar at all? Any kind of feelin' you've seen her before?"
"No. Nothing." Harlow shifted, looked down at her feet, then back at the girl.
Raiden's forehead creased. "You're sure?" He looked like he didn't believe a word Harlow said, seemed almost angry.
What could you possibly think I have anything to do with this? Harlow asked.
He met Raidens glare, "Because ypu and her are the only fae folk that have ever been sent here." he answered surprisingly Harlow. She is Fae.
"Fuck it," Raiden muttered, looking back down at the girl. "Can't be a coincidence. Two days, two
Fae, one alive, one dead."
Then Raiden's words started to make sense and panic flared in Harlow.
"You don't think I …" she couldn't even finish the sentence.
"Hush" Wren said. "We're not sayin' you bloody killed the girl."
Harlow's mind was spinning. She was sure she'd never seen her before—but then the slightest hint of doubt crept into her mind.
"I swear she doesn't look familiar at all," she said anyway. She'd had enough accusations.
"Are you—"
Before Raiden could finish, the girl shot up into a sitting position. As she sucked in a huge breath, her eyes snapped open and she blinked, looking around at the crowd surrounding her.
Wren cried out and fell backward. Raiden gasped and jumped up, stumbling away from her.
Harlow didn't move, her gaze locked on the girl, frozen in fear.
Burning blue eyes darted back and forth as she took deep breaths. Her pink lips trembled as she mumbled something over and over, indecipherable. Then she spoke one sentence—her voice hollow and haunted, but clear.
"Everything is going to change."
Harlow stared in wonder as her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell back to the ground. Her right fist shot into the air as she landed, staying rigid after she grew still, pointing toward the sky. Clutched in her hand was a wadded piece of paper.
Harlow tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry.
Raiden ran forward and pulled her fingers apart, grabbing the paper. With shaking hands he unfolded it, then dropped to his knees, spreading out the note on the ground. Harlow moved up behind him to get a look.
Scrawled across the paper in thick black letters were six words:
Their the last ones, game over. .