Read Online Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) by Frankie Rose - Free Book Online Page B

current tries to take me, too. I scramble up the embankment, my boots squelching, my legs numb and threatening to crumple. Once I’m safe, I collapse beside the brick aqueduct. It hurts far too much when I try and breathe. There’s a very real chance I have some broken ribs.
    Everything is freezing cold. I roll onto my back and concentrate on trying to breathe through the pain coursing through my body. Who knows, though? Maybe I’m not suffering that much pain at all, and if I hadn’t lived my whole life with a damned halo glued around my neck, I would be able to deal with this more efficiently. But I have had the halo, and I’m not dealing with the pain at all. My own muffled cries keep on surprising me with how weak they sound.
    I fall asleep for a while, and when I wake up the sun is starting to sink. My clothes have dried out at least, but I still feel like vomiting from the pain in my ribs. I get up stiffly and take in my surroundings for the first time. The fence is still there, of course, and it sweeps out to the left and the right for I don’t know how far. It’s eventually swallowed by trees, but I know that just because it’s hidden doesn’t mean it ends. The river now cuts through the fence via the aqueduct tunnel, and it’s the only way I can see myself getting through.
    The thought that Cai has probably stood here, calculating how to swim through this tunnel makes me dizzy. I don’t know if he ever tried it, but if he did then it will have been when the water was less insane. He might have even been able to wade through with his combat pants rolled up around his ankles, and the whole thing had been a pleasant experience. Right now the water is so high and charging so hard that there’s barely a gap at the top of the tunnel. White foam spews up when it hits the brickwork, causing spray to shoot three feet into the air.
    I back away from the water and lean against the fencing like I have another option and I’m just waiting for it to hit me. Nothing hits me. As soon as the sun goes down I’m going to be in trouble. I’m exhausted and I’m hurt, and if I don’t get this done now there’s no way I’m going to be strong enough in the morning when the cold, hard ground has leached away what little reserves I have left.
    A small voice inside my head suggests that maybe the water levels will have dropped by morning, but there’s no way of telling with how hard the rain fell earlier. It could be like this for days, and then I really would be screwed.   I feel half drunk when I stumble back down the embankment and dip my feet in the water.
    My body convulses when the biting, icy current skirls around my toes. Doesn’t bode well for how I’m going to react when I have to submerge my whole body in it. I do the only thing I can think of to get this over with quickly and plunge myself in. I immediately regret it. The water is so deep I can’t touch the bottom, but that doesn’t really matter, because it’s moving so fast I wouldn’t have been able stand even if I’d wanted to. In a split second I’m caught up and dragged under the water. When I come up, spluttering, it’s dark and I’ve been sucked into the tunnel. There are only a few inches at the top of the water where I can breathe, and I tip my head back and pull in a wheezing gasp. Before I can take a second something strikes me in my stomach, hard, and I go back under.
    The water is filthy and filled with debris, and silt pours up my nose. I thrust my hand out to try and stop myself or grab hold of something. My knuckles smash against the side of the tunnel and a spiralling pain shoots up my arm. It’s only when I breach the surface again and the sun is shining above me that the frigid fingers of fear loosen their grip around my heart. It’s still slamming in my chest, but at least I now know I’m not going to drown in the dark. If I die, it’ll be with sunlight on my back.
    On the other side of the tunnel the river spins in a dangerous