Bo's eyes fluttered shut as she held her breath and hoped against all hope that the patrol wouldn't walk down the road toward the alley.
"Even if there was someone over there, they're gone now," someone said. "We're not supposed to chase anyone down. Just make sure they don't try to leave."
"But what if it was the ones we're supposed to be watching?" the original voice asked. "Shouldn't we follow them, or something?"
"That's not our job," the reply came. "If something happens around the perimeter, and we were wandering through the city trailing someone, we'll be on a one-way-ticket to the cremation office."
"But, with the lieutenant out searching for the Forlorn leader, we should be more-"
"We're not stopping. Get back on your hopper. We need to continue the circuit and make sure it's secure."
A moment passed in silence, but then the hoppers roared into life. With them, Bo let out a deep breath, sagging in relief. It was barely a few seconds later when the sounds of the engines faded into the distance, and Khan crept toward the entrance of the alley. He poked his head out, and then beckoned for Helga and Bo to follow him with the hoppers.
"Close call," he said, taking his hopper and throwing a leg over the seat.
"We're not getting out of the city in the normal ways," Helga said.
"Got an airship?" Bo asked. "We could get to Adam in no time flat if we had one."
"Ha! You think we're made of money?" Khan asked. "Also, notice that there's not a lot of places to hide an unregistered airship in a city."
Bo rolled her eyes. "Well, how are we getting out of here?"
"Could just go back to camp and wait a little bit until they get restless and bored," Khan said. "They're more likely to make mistakes when they've been guarding for a while."
"No. I'm not going to sit around while Adam is out there."
"Well, I don't see how we can get out without being shot or blown up," Khan said.
Helga cut in. "The Lost City."
Khan and Bo turned to look at her.
"What's The Lost City?" Bo asked, while Khan said at the same time, "You really want to go there?"
"I definitely don't want to go there, but it's the only way out of the city that Clayton and his men won't know about."
"Okay, but let's take a moment to explain to the new girl what The Lost City is," Bo said.
"A smuggling ring that runs an underground pub," Khan replied. "They have tunnels that go under almost the entirety of the city that they use to deliver goods to those that the militia has blacklisted. It's a black market, and a place where the rebels gather."
"Then why does Helga not want to go there?"
Khan glanced at Helga, as if looking for her approval. She looked at the horizon, her hand hovering over the key to her hopper. "It's run by a man I once thought I could love. But instead, I tied my horse to the same old love that had hurt me before, and ended up costing this man the girl he really loved."
"I'm sorry," Bo said, but by then Helga had cranked on her hopper and kicked up the stand.
"Let's go," Helga yelled, pulling down her goggles and waving an arm for the others to follow her.
They rode back into the city, heading for the crush of bodies still in the streets and markets. Before they got to the center of the crowd, Helga pulled over to a place where people parked their hoppers. They locked their vehicles up, and then Helga led the way on foot into the crowd.
It was startlingly easy to get lost within the crowd. Anyone who might have been following them would find it impossible with this many people. Helga used this to her advantage as she ducked into a recessed doorway in a shadowy alley. Khan followed her, and Bo came in last.
Immediately, her nose was hit by the smell of spices and moving air coming from fans that struggled to keep the underground room cool. A set of wooden steps descended below the street level to the basement room which was as long and wide as the entire block of buildings above it. Colors swathed every inch, be it from the people or the decorations. Silks and velvets draped over the walls in crimson red and flame orange. Women and men dressed in saffron yellow and sky blue gambled or struck deals. Someone was playing music, and the whole place shook with noise. It was lucky that the crowd outside was so large to be able to mask the noise and smell of this underground place. It truly was a city lost within itself.
Helga walked down into the press of people, nodding to people she knew as she walked by them. They all looked surprised to see Helga and Khan, though no one even spared a glance at Bo. Helga walked straight to the back of the room, where a thin man with blonde hair and a pair of glasses perched on his nose was talking with a group of rough looking men.
"Mi," Helga said, apparently not caring that she was interrupting.
The blonde man looked up, but if he was surprised by her presence it didn't show. He merely waved his hand at the group of men, who then dispersed into other corners of the room.
"What are you doing here, Helga?"
"I need to use Tunnel G."
"You know I only let you in here if it's on official Forlorn business."
Helga sighed. "It is. Adam is in trouble and we're being held captive in the city by Clayton so that we can't reach him."
Mi ran a hand through his hair, thinking it over. His gaze fell on Bo, and he nodded in her direction. "New recruit?"
"Someone from Adam's past."
Bo stepped forward. "I don't know what your story with Helga is, but I need to get out of this city. Adam may be in danger, and I can't let anything happen to him."
Mi twisted his lips. "You knew Adam from before?"
Bo nodded her head, not sure if she should be admitting this but wanting so desperately to be free of this city.
"Then you must be Bo."
Bo's eyes grew wide, as did Khan's and Helga's. "You know me?" she asked.
Mi nodded. "Adam talked about you."
"Then you know why I must find him."
Mi nodded. "I'll let you use the tunnels, and you can even borrow three of the hoppers. But make sure that you don't damage them."
"Thank you," Khan said.
"Don't thank me, thank her," Mi said, nodding to Bo. "I wouldn't have let you through if she hadn't been with you."
"Guess we'll have to find out the story one day, so we can all see why Mi thinks you're so great he'd break his own rules," Helga said, and for the first time Bo saw actual anger hidden behind Helga's eyes as she looked at her.
But by that time, Mi was walking them to a wooden door. He opened the door, and instead of spices, it now smelled like damp. He walked down a long wooden staircase that seemed to keep going down and down. Lights set into the rock wall to one side of the stairs only lit up the steps. Beyond was just pitched black. Bo had no idea what they were walking into.
When they finally reached the bottom, Mi walked into the darkness. A moment later, lights buzzed into life a few feet above their heads. They were long strip lights, set in intervals down each of a bout ten massive tunnels. Signs and labels marked each tunnel, with arrows pointing out routes down tunnels that branched off in the main tunnels. Mi walked to where hoppers were lined against the wall, and pulled out a set of keys. He unlocked the hoppers from their chains, and offered each of them a key for their hopper.
"Return these as soon as you return to the city," he said. "They're expensive."
He didn't stay to say goodbye, or watch them leave. Instead, he turned to head back up the stairs. But Bo ran after him, grabbing his wrist and stopping him.
"Thank you. I'll let Adam know what you've done for us," she said.
Mi nodded, his glance skimming over Helga and Khan behind Bo. "There are some things I think are worth fighting for. Your mission is one of them."
Bo released his arm, and he nodded to her before climbing the stairs back to the basement room above.
When they turned the hoppers on, the echoes were deafening. They blocked their ears with earplugs they found in special compartments on the hoppers, and then turned the hoppers toward the tunnel that led to Tunnel G. Khan plugged in the coordinates of their destination into the navigation device on his hopper, and they were finally ready to go.
There was no need for goggles and bandanna in this underground place, so Bo could feel the cool air brush her hair as they sped through the tunnels. It reminded her of the damp air at Adam's house, back when she'd been held there as captive. She still had dreams about that cool air and the green grass. They were things she would probably never see again. But she wouldn't let Adam become one of those things, too.
It took them almost an hour to reach the end of the tunnel. It opened up about two miles away from the city, in the middle of the dust fields. Bo glanced back over her shoulder at the city walls, but they were too far away to see if the militia had noted them escaping. It didn't matter. They were far enough away now that even if the militia gave chase, they wouldn't be able to catch them.
Bo turned back to face the front. She was finally on her way to Adam. Just a little more time, and finally her dreams would become true. She gunned the gas, speeding out ahead of Helga and Khan, her eyes fixated on the horizon.
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A/N: Thanks so much for your patience, guys! I was experiencing glitches over the weekend that prevented me from posting new chapters, but the lovely Wattpad Ambassadors worked with me to find a way around the glitch. So we're updated now! Happy reading!