Souls Below - Rebellion

Chapter Seven.

Once I was outside again—air damp with the distant scent of rust and water—did I let my shoulders sag. My reflection shimmered faintly in a puddle near the curb, fractured by a ripple as water dripped from a broken pipe overhead.

I wasn’t sure if I felt accomplished or just tired. Either way, I still had the walk home ahead of me, and no word from Krane. I paused, instinctively tilting my head back to look up, a habit I couldn’t shake and a jab Krane used whenever possible.

The ceiling of the city loomed overhead—massive metal panels lined with grime and dim lights that flickered like half-dead darklight. At this hour, you could almost pretend it was a sky.

I often wondered what would happen if we opened it. Let in the sky, the sun, the wind down here. Would it save us? Or tear this place apart—ripping the shadows off everything, revealing truths we weren’t ready to see?

A brush against my arm made me flinch, and I jerked sideways with a startled yelp, hands coming up instinctively, ready to swing. The laugh that followed was all too familiar, hitting me like static and easing a tension I didn't realise had been building.

"Daydreaming again, Amira?" I scowled at him.

"At least I have a brain to daydream with, Krane." I flipped him off for good measure. He gasped, clutching his chest in mock offense.

"Always so cruel. So feisty." His grin was effortless, bright even in the dark. He bumped his shoulder lightly against mine as he fell into step beside me, and despite myself, a smile crept in. My stomach flipped, the aching knot that curled whenever I thought about Krane, loosening just a little.

I’d missed him. I wouldn't say it though, never knowing if the feeling was mutual.

“I thought you'd still be fixing the cooling cores,” I commented. “Wagered at least another week.”

“Strem called it early. One of his contacts turned up at our temp quarters the night before. Next morning we were barely packed at the work site when the slugs showed up, locking the whole area under quarantine.” My stomach dropped, chest tightening. The Guard—Krane called them slugs—only quarantined when things were already falling apart.

“The sickness?” I asked. “In the Mech sector? Why haven't we heard anything aout it?” Krane shrugged, but his mouth was a tight line.

“We were there five days. Pumps are shot, failing. Worse than before. Some systems are so corroded it’s like we never even cleaned them.”

“And they still won’t approve replacements?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His jaw tightened, the muscle ticking. I recognized the look, Krane hated feeling powerless, and that made him reckless.

“Soooo... how close did you come to getting your ass beat this time?” I nudged him, teasing, trying to pull us out of the heaviness. He pushed too many buttons with the Guard to get out without bruises. The thought of him getting hurt by the guards made my stomach swirl.

His smirk returned. “Close enough to steal this.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a slim rectangle. My breath caught. A P.I.P.—Personal Identification Pass. The holographic strip shimmered in the dim light like a promise. I snatched it from his hand before he could change his mind.

“No way. You got one? How the hell—?”

"Guards were sloppy, as usual. Too focused on the quarantine. Left it on a desk like it was scrap." I turned the card over in my hand, fingers tracing the smooth surface and embossed symbols. Krane and I had spent months trying to find a way through the door inside the restricted zone beyond the old mag-line. The sealed doors wouldn’t budge without one of these.

“You wanna see if it works?” His voice dropped, that familiar glint of trouble in his eyes catching the fire of a hundred unsaid things. Excitement surged, chest lit with something sharp and reckless—but Jerard’s voice rose in my mind like a blade. 'No detours. No risks. Not now.'

“I can’t,” I murmured, heart sinking as I handed it back. “Promised Jerard. No adventures.” Krane raised an eyebrow.

“You? Following rules?” I made a face at him.

"He’s on edge. The whole city is." He flipped the card between his fingers, brows knitting as I continued. “While you were off vacationing—” he flipped me off. “—an Upper got spotted at the Trade market on ration day. One who wasn't exiled.” His grin vanished.

"They catch him?"

“Not yet. Guards doubled patrol. Anyone caught after curfew gets ID’d.” I met his eyes, letting the weight of my words settle. He didn’t say anything, but I watched as an emotion flickered through his eyes. Aside from Jerard, only Krane and his dad, Strem, knew I didn’t have a number.

“Why would an Upper willingly come here?” he muttered. “And stay?”

“Maybe he got bored of snooty town.” I quipped, too fast, trying to sound casual. Krane studied me.

"Uppers don’t get hunted like this unless they matter." The memory of that boy’s ice-blue eyes haunted me more than I wanted to admit. There was something in the way he’d looked at me. Like he knew something I didn’t. Krane waved a hand in front of my face.

“Hey—bubble brain. Come back to this shitty metal heap of a city.” I scowled at him, heat rising in my cheeks. "You think about up there too much." he added. I shoved my hands in my pockets.

"I just... wonder what we could do if we had access to it. The Upper City. Maybe we could fix things down here. Really fix them, not just patch them together with worn out scrap and old wiring."

He scoffed. “Nothing good comes from above, Mira. Down here, we take care of our own.”

“Yeah, but maybe... maybe—it’s different.” He nudged me again, gentler this time.

“Different doesn’t mean better." His grin returned. "Besides, Uppers don’t have jokes. You’d die of boredom with all that proper talk.”

I snorted. "Even their silence would be funnier than you." He swung at me playfully, and I darted out of reach, laughter bursting from my chest. We broke into a run down the cracked street, boots thudding on broken concrete, stale wind pulling at my hair, the air sharp with rot and memory, but for a heartbeat—I felt light. Free.

With Krane, everything felt easier. He was the only one who made this place feel less like a cage. Jerard was my shield. But Krane—he was my anchor. And even if I couldn’t remember the life I’d lost, I knew, in that strange place beneath the skin: we would have found each other anyway.

As long as I had him, I could face whatever came next.

When we reached my place, voices drifted out from inside—low, firm, unmistakable. One of them belonged to Krane’s Dad, that grunt-lined tone that always carried like gravel across steel. I turned to Krane, his jaw had gone tight, eyes fixed on the door like it was something he might punch his way through. Anger flared, then settled beneath his skin like hot coals.

I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but before I could speak, he grabbed my hand. No words. Just his fingers closing over mine, pulling me with him down the street. I didn’t protest.

We walked in silence, the city breathing its familiar rhythm around us—pipe hiss, vent groan, the soft hum of lights that never went dark. Krane led us toward the old warehouse near the edge of the Makers sector. It wasn’t much—just a forgotten rooftop above rusted storage bays—but it had become ours. A place to meet when the chaos of shifts kept us apart. A place to breathe.

I used to think he brought me here out of curiosity, trying to pry answers from the girl who didn’t belong. One night, I’d shown up late, dirty and scraped from ducking a patrol near the old pipeline routes, and he hadn’t asked why—I’d expected questions, a lecture even. Instead, after giving me the longest hug we'd had at that point, he’d just muttered something about how the guards being jumpier than usual, eyes scanning the streets behind me like he was cataloguing threats.

That’s when it hit me, how wrong I'd been. He wasn’t just curious. He’d been watching the whole time—tracking shifts, patrol patterns, anything that might give him warning. Not for his sake, he lived here, had no reasons to hide. It'd been for mine.

Somewhere along the line, we started caring for each other, and I’d stopped needing to lie to him, and told him the whole truth.

I blinked out of the memory, only then realizing our hands were still joined. His fingers were rough against mine, calloused from metal work and the sharp grind of living, but there was something steady in his grip—something that made my chest go tight. I glanced up.

Krane wasn’t looking at me, his gaze cast forward, unreadable, as he scanned the street ahead, his anger smoothed over by thought. The tension in his shoulders had eased, replaced with something quieter. Sadder, maybe.

I studied him in profile. His face had sharpened over the last year, jawline more defined, cheekbones cutting higher under sun-dulled skin. His hair, usually a mess of white waves, had been freshly trimmed. Aside from the few scars he already had on his cheek and eyebrow, a faint scar ran along his temple now—thin but fresh—and another, rawer one peeked just above the collar of his shirt at the base of his neck.

He hadn’t told me everything about the filtration site. I swallowed the urge to ask. Some things, he would tell me in his own time.

When we reached the warehouse, Krane didn’t let go. He tugged me toward the stairwell and up to the roof. The climb was second nature now, hands finding familiar holds, feet skipping rusted steps, metal groaning under foot, until clamouring onto the roof.

Up here, the city changed.

Gone were the cracked pavements, the patched roofs, the flickering lights clinging to broken brackets, the metal tangle we trudged through daily—the broken walls, mismatched doors. From this height, it was... something else. The chaos blurred into beauty, the lights below glimmered like bright embers caged in steel. The pulse of machinery beneath us echoed in slow, steady beats—thump-thump, thump-thump—like a heart buried deep, keeping the Lower City alive.

We sat at the edge, feet dangling into open air as the silence wrapped around us, but it wasn’t empty. It held weight. Memory. Familiarity.

His hand never left mine, Krane’s thumb brushed lightly across the back of it, back and forth—a simple, familiar gesture. He’d done it before, a million times, in passing, when I was tense or quiet or just off. But tonight, it felt different. Every stroke sent a ripple up my spine, heart racing.

I looked at him—not just looked, but saw. The way his jaw ticked when he thought too hard. The way he always kept one boot angled out like he was ready to move. The way his hand fit around mine like it had always meant to.

He was still Krane. Still the boy who knew every back alley shortcut, who could make me laugh even when everything hurt. The one who always came back, no matter how dangerous the job or how high the risk.

But something had shifted. Or maybe it had always been there, quietly waiting for me to notice. My heart thudded harder, chest feeling tight, not with fear, but with the impossible want to stay right here. To freeze this moment and hold it between us.

This was just Krane.

My best friend.

My anchor in this madness.

So why did I feel like I might float right off the rooftop the moment he let go?