The incoming storm erases the lingering daylight early, and wind smelling of fires and rot curls down the street, seeping through my clothes. Even though I try to make my way back to the Dark City as quickly as possible, I’m still stuck weaving through the Neverlands when night falls. Feet shuffle down an alley nearby and I shiver, rushing toward the nearest fire escape so I can climb up to the roof to escape the claustrophobia of crumbling walls.

It’s safer up high at night, less possibility of the wandering dead sneaking up on you in the darkness.

My sister is near, I think as I hurry toward the Palisades. Abigail’s here just across the river at the Sanctuary. I close my eyes and try to feel her. When we were kids I thought we had some sort of connection, a thread that tied one to the other. If she was sad I could sense it—any intense emotion would reverberate through me no matter where I was in the village.

It was like we shared everything: one heart, one soul, one breath. But standing here in the Neverlands I can’t feel her. There’s too much despair to pick out that of one girl.

I cross a rickety bridge and it bucks under my feet with the force of someone else’s weight. The ropes creak and protest as another person leans against them for support. I pull the knife from my pocket and pick up my pace, skirting an abandoned roof garden and scurrying over another bridge. This is not the place to run into a stranger—no good can possibly come of it.

But the steps keep following me, gaining ground in time with my heartbeats. Keeping my head ducked low, I round the corner of a storage shed and glance back over my shoulder. The person following me is tall and broad, loose clothes draped over his lanky frame and face wrapped in shadows. His hands tense by his sides.

I press my lips together and take a deep breath. To my left shouts ring out from a broken window, people yelling and screaming at each other, and I use the distraction to start running. In my mind I see a crude map of the Neverlands, the pattern of bridges connecting the buildings, the fire escapes leading down to the streets and the places that are too dangerous to venture into.

Just as I’m scampering across a wide low roof another form materializes out of the dark. “Hey, what’s the rush?” he asks, starting toward me with a leer on his face.

I feel so stupid for being here at night. For thinking I could be invisible. In the old days I was always safe enough in the Neverlands—it was the place for people like me: outcasts, smugglers, the desperate people who lived on the fringes of the Dark City.

Sure, I’d get propositioned, but my scars have always kept most people away. Things have been changing too fast and I’ve refused to notice that it’s become so dangerous here, even for me.