Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) by Frankie Rose Page B

that skin yet; it just felt wrong when I thought about it. I flinch away like his touch burns me, wide eyed. This sobers him up, and he stops laughing.
    “You can’t have any idea what a halo truly is,” he says. “Or if you do, you should know…yours has well and truly slipped.”

FREETOWN

    I hear Freetown before I see it. A surging, pumping, throbbing sound punctuated by the call of individual voices. Some laugh, some shout, some cheer. Jada abandons us about fifteen minutes later. She freezes in the darkness, one paw lifted, ears still as she listens. Ryka, nothing more than a shadowy outline in front of me, his hair turned to silver by the stark moonlight, lets out a sharp, low whistle and hisses, “Go home, Jada.”
    She obeys and bolts, leaving the two of us to make our slow, stumbling progress towards the town. It’s not long before I start seeing the burning orange glow of fires, and red and green lights dancing up ahead. Ryka halts and rounds on me, quicker than I like.
    “The knife,” he says, holding out his hand.
    The lights up ahead are reflected in the deep pools of his dark eyes, making the colour hard and flat. He shoves Cai’s holostick towards me and I take it and slip it into my back pocket before he can snatch it back.   I don’t even get the chance to give him the knife; he steps forward until there can’t be any more than six inches between us, and he reaches down and draws it from my belt. It disappears back into the corresponding loop on his belt where it belongs.
    “You must really love that knife,” I say. There are at least eight weapons on his belt, so it’s odd that he got so bent out of shape for just one. It’s pretty, certainly, but it isn’t the most impressive piece of metalwork he’s wearing.
    Ryka pulls his lips into a tight line and his breath blows hot against my cheek. “I don’t love knives,” he says, his voice stiff. “A knife is a tool ― a utensil. It’s used for defending yourself when you have to. I love being alive .”
    My first thought is that he seems overly angry by my statement, but I don’t say anything. It won’t get me anywhere, and right now I have bigger things to worry about.
    Freetown.
    Ryka stares at me a moment more, way too close for comfort, and then steps back. “Come on. There might be some hot food left if we’re lucky.” He pushes forward and I follow a little slower than before. How am I going to be received here? I have no clue what these people will be like or what they know about the Sanctuary. If everyone here thinks like Ryka, I might not get the warmest of welcomes. And why would they welcome me? I’m an escaped member of a restrictive society, without any money or skill, other than in killing, of course, and let’s face it ― I have nothing to offer them. I’m a burden. A mouth to feed. I shuck off the creeping, uncomfortable sensation just in time for Ryka to breach the boundary of the tree line. And there it is.
    The river we’ve been following this whole time stands between us and the bright scar of a town nestled into the valley up ahead. Dark silhouettes make up the skyline, shifting with every gust of air that breathes out across the water. Tents. Thousands of them. Some are tiny and could barely fit two crouched people inside, others so big they look palatial. Even from here it’s obvious they have many rooms and sleeping quarters. In the dark, they’re all a muted brown shade, but I get the feeling that will be different in the daylight.
    This isn’t what I was expecting. When Ryka said Freetown was an actual town with twenty thousand people, I assumed there would be buildings. Solid structures. Street lights and actual streets to put them on. There are no streets here, though. Only muddied walkways that weave haphazardly through the seas of flapping material. Hundreds of night fires burn, some dangerously close to the fabric of tattered, worn tents. The ink-black shapes of people flicker and twist around