The Belly of the Beast

Ch. 50, Trust

I recoiled. He's in shock, or pain.. Even as I tried to breathe, the anger rose. Denying what happened was an insult to the memory of the people of Level N.

"Their death was some sort of accident," he said, voice low and swift. "They must have been infected, and so they gathered them here."

"Then why make the flyers? Why lure them here?"

He flinched like he'd been hit. Then he shook his head, staring away from me down the dark hallways, voice distance. "There is an explanation to all this. I have to get back to the Top, tell them the bodies are still here." Dagger suddenly stood, lunging away from me, and running down the corridor.

"Dag! Stop!" He kept running. Well shit. After a moment's hesitation, I pulled the doors shut behind me, sealing the tomb and leaving the dead to whatever peace remained. Then I took off after him.

His legs were longer than mine, and he had a head start, but I knew where he was going. And he couldn't get through the concealed door without me. I ran through silent corridors, the noise of my footfalls too loud, the motion lights from his flight carving a path through the darkness. Finally I stood, chest heaving, watching him in front of the sealed fountain door. My chest tightened. His fingers were bloody from trying to rip the door open.

He spun when my footsteps approached. "Open the door, Z."

"No."

He stared at me, his eyes crazed. I took an involuntary step back before I steeled myself for what was coming next. I'd seen this before, in a patient's father, when I'd told him his daughter was gone.

"Open the door." His voice was low, dangerous.

"Or what?"

His eyes flashed, and he leapt out of the fountain, striding over to me, until he towered over me. His chest rose and fell.
"Or I'll kill you."

He delivered the words with a hatred I understood. My stomach twisted, not in fear, but in pity. He'd finally discovered the truth of the Beast. The Top didn't care about those below. Our bodies filled the Chute just as easily as their trash. He was angry, yes, but it wasn't because of me. I undid my middle finger, and offered it to him on an open palm.

"Do what you have to. This is the Letter Trials. We couldn't stay partners forever."

He stared at me, breathing hard, until he looked away, his shoulders hunching, and his hand coming up to his eyes. Then he sagged to the ground, cradling his head in his hands.

"I can't believe the Top would choose this. Why?"

I lowered myself beside him, and this time he didn't pull away when I threaded my fingers through his. "You know, if you look at human history," I said, "we've been doing stuff like this to each other for centuries."

Dagger flinched at my words. Smooth, Z. I tried to back track, to imagine, from the coldest, most cynical view, why someone would do this. A doctor examining a patient they didn't know, removing emotion for the reasoning behind. I made myself think of the people in the room not as people, but as machines, as pieces on a chessboard, where every move could mean the survival or extinction of the human species.

Finally, I spoke: "It's one thing talking about different levels, and another thing seeing it." I paused, wondering why this truth pushed to the surface now, and why, even after what we'd just seen, it was hard to admit. "Growing up, I always talked with Xyla about seeing the other levels and winning a new life. But until I actually stepped into the other level, part of me didn't believe it was real." I swallowed, staring out at the dark, abandoned bazaar. "And even if I did, I didn't think the people on the other levels would be... like me? A part of me thought they were somehow less human... or maybe that I was less human than them." I paused, and then softly, "Maybe that's how the people on the Top think."

Dagger didn't respond, but neither did he pull his hand away from mine.

I leaned back against the wall, and sighed, exhausted in a way I hadn't been since the days of unending patients stretched out of my clinic, all whom I could do nothing to help. Like even after all my efforts, even after pouring all my pain and grief and hope into solving the riddle, it didn't matter. They were still dead, and I was left only with an aching emptiness in my chest.

"I'm guessing the order came from the Top," I finally said, "as a way to reduce population. They weren't thinking of them as people. Just numbers."

A bit of the old Dagger snapped back into place when he glared at me. "That doesn't make it right."

"It doesn't. It's also probably not right to throw a bunch of convicts into a trial and make them fight to the death, but— " I waved a hand through the air, " — here we are."

I felt his eyes on me, and when I turned to meet them, his face was closer to mine than it had ever been.

"Probably?" he said, voice half-disbelieving, half-mocking. "Probably not right?"

I gave a single dry laugh. "Well, I still haven't decided about Skull. "

He gave me a small, half smile. Sitting so close to him, his hand in mine, it was the first time I realized, beyond the cold veneer he constructed, and the disciplined strength, Dagger was young. Maybe as young as I was. It made me realize how little I knew about him. So on impulse, I asked, "Dagger, how old are you?"

He paused. "Seventeen, but almost eighteen." Younger than I would have guessed. Then, with another half-smile, he said. "You?"

"Sixteen. Almost seventeen." I had no idea exactly how old I was, but that was Yana's best guess. And I didn't want Dagger to think me too young.

Dagger suddenly pulled his hand from mine, and opened his other palm. I'd almost forgotten he had my knife. Angry red prints lined his plan where the knife had been clenched tight, but at least it hadn't cut them. There were a few cuts on his fingertips I would need to clean at some point. But not right now. Right now all I wanted to do was sit here and close my eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean what I said."

"I know." I plucked the knife out of his hand, feeling the brush of his hand all the way to my toes, before reattaching it. "To be fair, I did kill you first."

He sighed, and then his shoulder pressed against my own as he settled back beside me. "So partner, we still good?"

I closed my eyes, feeling as hollow as the stairway behind us. The Beast had swallowed me whole, yet here I was, shoulder to shoulder with a man I'd killed, revived, kissed, befriended, and now, strangest of all, trusted.

"Yah, Dag. We're good."