Free World After by Susan Ee Page A

darkness.
    Someone is calling out for her mother. The voice is strong and determined.
    It must be a fever dream because no one would be that stupid in a place full of human gangs. But the footsteps in the building stairwells quiet. The human rats whisper, sure that the girl who calls out for her mom must have her gang nearby. What else would make a girl that bold?
    The hellions stop their slithering too. They’re not smart enough to figure out much, otherwise they would have gotten to him ages ago by coordinating a real attack rather than just diving at random opportunities. They’re confused. Attack or run?
    He tries to pull himself away from the exposed road, but black spots bloom across his vision and he fades out again.
    Someone flips him over. Pain screams and claws into his back.
    A small hand slaps him.
    He opens his eyes for a moment.
    Against the glow of the sky, dark hair flutters in the breeze. Intense eyes fringed with long lashes. Lips so red the girl must have been biting them.
    It takes him a moment to realize she’s the Daughter of Man who risked herself to help him. She’s asking him something. Her voice is insistent but melodic. It’s a good sound to die to.
    He fades in and out as she moves him. He keeps expecting her to cut him up or for the hellions to leap on her. Instead, she bandages him and lifts him into a wheelchair that’s too small.
    When the girl grunts and overacts to indicate that he must be heavy—probably to show how strong she is—he can’t help but be amused, even through the haze of pain. She’s a terrible actress. Daughters of Men are notoriously dense and heavy compared to angels, and there’s something deliriously funny about her pretending.
    Maybe his Watchers married their wives because they found them entertaining. Not much of a reason to be condemned to the Pit but it’s the first one he’s thought of.
    Shoes slap on the sidewalk as human rats run toward Raffe. Emboldened by the rats, the hellions slither toward him too.
    He tries to warn the girl.
    But there’s no need. She’s already running into the shadows, pushing him as fast as she can go. If she can stay ahead of them long enough, the hellions will get distracted by the juicy human rats.
    His last thought before he blacks out is that his Watchers would have liked this girl.

T HE SHADOWS through the windows are long by the time I jerk awake. I’m still shaking from Raffe’s experience. I didn’t just know what he was thinking; I actually felt what he felt, thought what he thought.
    Was the sword really that close to Raffe? Maybe only in extremely intense times. The whole experience was bizarrely freaky at every level.
    I run my trembling hand over the warm blade, telling my body that it’s okay.
    I’m starting to put some pieces together. Some of Raffe’s actions make more sense now.
    He couldn’t jump in to help me during my public fights at the last Resistance camp without rumors spreading about us. The hellions always tracked him down eventually, and it was probably a combination of luck, tracking, and listening to human gossip. A story about a fight like that would definitely be talked about. He bet against me to announce to everyone that we weren’t friends, that he didn’t care what happened to me.
    And he hunted down the low demons in the forest even after they ran because they seemed like they came from hell, didn’t they? If any of them lived to tell about how he’d come to therescue of a Daughter of Man, it’d just be a matter of time before they got to me.
    But did he have to go as far as telling me he didn’t even like me after our kiss? That was totally unnecessary, in my opinion.
    The kiss.
    Like a germinating seed, I have the growing impulse to ask the sword about it.
    It’s silly and embarrassing and maybe even shallow after what I just saw Raffe go through. But because of what I just saw, I want to see him in a different kind of moment. One where he’s cocky and in control. One