Fallen

Chapter Nine

Every part of my body was frozen. But my nose was the most frozen. Unlike my gloved fingers and hat that covered my ears and head, my nose was left to the elements.

"I wouldn't have guessed you were from the most northern part of the Lake Region," Alec said beside me, "with the way you are acting, you could have been from the desert."

Wind tore at us and my entire body shivered despite the heavy jacket I wore. I wished I had grabbed the winter coat instead of the fall one.

"Well, we don't have to stand right here on the edge of the bay where the wind is blasting at us." We stood beside a wall of a building facing the bay.

A week ago, I had made the deal with Noah to spy on his father. Since then we made a breakthrough with the rebels on Staten Island. The Royal Guard protected York, but not the Outskirts. Only a few guards went out in the Outskirts. The past week we sent more guards out undercover to see if they could spot anything that could be helpful.

A few of the guards spotted a ferry that floated around the bay during the dawn and dusk hours. The ferry was monitored closely and its route was the same for four days. The ferry made five stops in old Brooklyn before traveling across the water to Staten Island. Whoever drove the ferry didn't travel near old Manhattan for fear of being spotted.

The ferry had to be the rebels taking people to and from the island. They were doing a good job of covering their track and remained unseen because the guards had not spotted them until the past week. But to their credit, the Royal Guards were not watching for a ferry before.

"Isn't it supposed to be here by now?" I asked Ben. My entire body shivered. The wind would only get worse once I stepped on the ferry. I just wanted to get to the island and somewhere warm.

"Why are you so impatient?" Ben asked in my ear through the earpiece. Him, Blair, and the rest of our crew was in the warm van a block away.

"Because I am small. I cannot contain body heat well."

And because it was almost dawn and last night was a cold one with autumn coming in full swing. It would be the first of many cold nights.

I loved winter. Occasionally we got snow up north in the Lake Region. In the past, our ancestors would have four month long winters with snow covering the ground the entire time. Now we were lucky to see snow once a year and the snow never stayed long. Though I loved winter, I hated the cold.

"There it is," Alec said beside me. The ferry came into view, a building had blocked our view from the direction the ferry came from.

The ferry had four levels and painted a dark blue that camouflaged well with the dark dawn morning water.

The easy part was traveling across the city to reach the dock, but getting on the ferry would be a different story. None of the Royal Guards tried to get on it. They only watched a few people get on and off the ferry. In hindsight, it would have been better to have someone test it out, but we didn't have time to do any tests. The treaty would be signed soon and we wanted to get to the bottom of why the rebels had separated into two groups and the rebels would be hostile toward the United Regions.

Alec and I looked the same now when we went to the warehouse. The clothes we wore were worn down. What was different now was Alec sported a short whiskered beard to blend in with the men in the Outskirts. The beard made him look unkempt. With the tired bags underneath my eyes, I looked haggard like the rest of the women in the Outskirts.

The ferry pulled up and two workers jumped out with ropes. Once they secured the ferry to the dock, the cargo door opened and smacked on the dock with a bang.