I have one hour. The thought shot through my mind like a soldier’s bullet. I could feel the angry bite of winter against my skin and my nose stung in the cold. It was this weather that always seemed to linger in The Outside, making it even harder than it already was to survive.

I wasn’t meant to live. He saved me. I remember my cracked lips, parched throat and the claw of hunger that gripped my stomach. Dirt smeared my face and mud caked my hair. My vision was beginning to blur and I knew I wouldn’t last much longer, but that was when he appeared at the end of the alleyway I had chosen to die in. He was a radiant light in my world that had previously been so dark. Now I could see.

My lungs burned as I sprinted through the streets. I passed half-lit shops that looked like they could hardly stand, and groups of people huddled together and wrapped in blankets by the side of the dirt road. Skyscrapers towered above the normal buildings, security cameras on every side of them. The good thing? I’d already disabled all of them.

A thick belt was secured around my waist. It held most of the knives and bombs that I had, and in case anything happened to it, my two best knives were slipped into my black lace-up combat boots.

Locke had gotten me the knives for my fifteenth birthday. Pure gold matching daggers with razor sharp diamonds lining the edge of the blade. I know he couldn’t have afforded them, and I was never completely sure how he’d spotted them in the first place, but I assumed he must have stolen them. Locke had always been so much better than me at stealing. I was a fighter, not a thief.

Makeshift armor beneath my clothes covered my chest and stomach. I’d pulled on a loose gray shirt, and zipped a heavy winter coat over it. It probably slowed me down significantly, but I was as quick as I could be, and the building was only a few blocks from me. I’d never saved anyone before. I’d only killed.

My heart beat like a hummingbird trapped in a cage, threatening to burst out at any moment. How could I expect to save him?

I shook the idea of failure from my mind and kept running down the streets, turning every so often.

The nations thought they could keep us down. Oh, I wish they knew how very, very wrong they were. It had been so many years since they’d thrown us out into The Outside. Chosen not to feed us. Not to speak to us. Only to arrest us if we crossed over into their territory. Of course, Locke and I crossed the border. He would steal things and fight some of the soldiers around the border, but I did the bulk of the fighting.

I glanced up at the polluted, smoky gray sky as I slowed to a jog. I could already hear the chants of the crowd. The building was near. I skidded to a halt and wiped some of the dust off of my face with my long gray sleeve. Scanning the area and seeing no one, I brushed a few strands of mahogany hair from my eyes and sneaked behind a skyscraper.

That’s when the sound of slow, heavy footsteps hit my ears. I sucked in my breath and dropped to a crouch, waiting for the soldiers to turn the corner. Always going on with their stupid patrols. Shouldn’t they be watching the crowd? They must’ve been new. My hands flew to the knives on my belt, and as soon as I saw the first man step out from the other side of the skyscraper, I pounced.

Springing out of my crouch, I slammed into his chest with my shoulder, knocking him back and swinging my other hand towards him. The blade of my knife sunk into his chest, and by then the remaining two soldiers were on me. I let the body of the first soldier drop to the ground, and jumped out of the way as one threw a punch. As I saw the third soldier reach for his gun, I kicked the second and sliced open his neck, blood squirting onto my face.

The final soldier pointed his gun at me and I froze, knowing I was trapped. His ugly face smiled at me eerily. “You may have killed my fellow men, but now it’s time for me to kill you.” The soldier paused, the silver buttons on his uniform glittering in the faint sunlight. He lowered his gun only slightly and spit to the side before speaking again. “I’ll let you live, girl. If you tell me why you’re here.”

I shook my head and whispered, “Never.” Then I raised one of my blades and plunged it into my stomach. I crumpled to the ground, warm blood gurgling in my throat. The coppery taste made me gag, but my plan worked. The soldier backed away, the astonishment displayed clearly in his raised eyebrows and open mouth. He thought I was dead.

Thirty minutes.

That was the only thing I could think as soon as the man was gone. I hadn’t stabbed too deep, I realized. The armor was only slightly broken, though there was a lot of blood.

I pulled a roll bandages from the pocket of my coat, and wrapped it tightly around my wound, tearing the end with my teeth and tying it in a crude knot. Carefully, I stood up and stumbled around the building, opposite from the way I had come.

This time I had to shuffle instead of run. I clenched my jaw tightly to try to prevent the tiny gasps of pain from escaping from my lips.

It seemed like forever before I finally saw the building. Ledges were all around the it, and snarling gargoyle statues were perched upon them. I looked over it quickly. Four, five… six stories. Turning away, I braced myself for the pain and ran up to a balcony on the building next to me. Leaping up and barely grabbing the side, I stifled a scream. My vision was getting blurry from the fierce pain.

What am supposed to do, Locke? How do I save you?

I wasn’t sure what I’d do without him. We’d always been together. For the rebellion. For the fall of the nations. We were both abandoned orphans, left to die in the outside. But Locke fought it. I chose to give in, but he saved me. He was the peanut butter to my jelly, the salt to my pepper, the yin to my yang. Basically, we were inseparable.

I pulled myself up so that I was standing on the balcony, and quickly scurried up to the roof. My breathing was hard. I could only see a bit of Locke’s dark brown, almost black hair from the lower building I was on. It looked like there were about five soldiers and a leader there as well. Strange, most leaders wouldn’t be bothered by one kid. I mean, we did want to steal from them, throw them out of power, and thrust them into the cold, painful world we lived in. Honestly, we weren’t much better than them, but every true rebel believed in judgement.

Climbing onto another building, I clutched my side in pain. That’s when I heard the sound that sent a shiver down my spine and caused me to break into a cold sweat.

Locke screamed. He never screamed.

I could hear the sound of him being kicked and his weak cries.

Fearing for his life, I raced to the other side of the building I was on and threw myself off of it, catching onto one of the gargoyles on the building where he was. I huffed as I dragged myself onto the ledge.

Five minutes until the execution.

He was our leader and my best friend. It wouldn’t happen. I would never let it happen. I promised him we’d never be separated.

I carefully stood up on the ledge and creeped around the side, finding various ways to get higher and higher before I finally hit the roof.

The soldier’s backs were facing me. Their uniforms’ black fabric looked as evil as I assumed their faces did. I slowly crept up behind one of the soldiers, eyeing the leader warily as he paced in front of them. He glared at Locke and gave him another angry kick.

“You’re dead in two minutes, scum.” The leader growled.

I wasn’t quite sure which nation he lead, but he wore the long golden robes that every leader wore. Curling my fingers around the knives in my belt, I made a decision. I would kill two soldiers at once.

Swiftly, I pulled out the knives and stabbed them into the soldiers’ backs in turn, then dropped the men to the ground. The three other soldiers and the leader all spun to look at me. There was moment of silence before anyone moved. That silence gave me just enough time to spot the winged insignia on the leader’s uniform.

Of course.

He lead the first nation, Fin. Of course, I liked Fin better than the other three nations, but it looked like I was going to have to kill their leader. Oh well.

The soldier’s pulled out their guns and fired at me, and a sound louder than thunder to ripped through the streets.

I rolled out of the way, with only one bullet grazing my arm. Quickly, I stood back up and whirled around to knock a gun out of a soldier’s hand and push my knife through his chest. Pulling my knife out, I grab the gun and scream when a soldier hit me hard with the butt of his.

“November,” I hear Locke murmur as I fall to the ground. “Get out of here. You’re not safe.”

Ignoring him, I crawl away before either of the two soldiers left can shoot me. One of the soldier’s aims at me and I charge at the other, wrapping my arm around his throat and holding a knife to his neck.

The leader has come over now with a confused look on his face, armed with only a sword. They hadn’t planned for this. I guess they figured citizens of The Outside were too weak to fight or too stupid to climb a building.

“Hey, ya want your buddy over here to live?” I cut the soldier’s neck slightly, letting the blood run down to his uniform. “Drop the gun.”

The soldier studied me, unsure of what to do, and finally he dropped his gun. What a joke. I sliced through my hostage’s neck and grabbed the other, giving him a punch square in the face and breaking his nose. That’s not all I’m gonna break. I thought as I cut open his neck, leaving my knife in his blood.

Then I turned to face the leader, who seemed a bit more confident for a one on one fight like this. I pulled the daggers from my boots and a small smile crept onto my face.

“You’ll never beat the rebellion,” I laughed.

He didn’t say a word to me, just unsheathed his sword, and looked at me through the blond hair hanging over his eyes. The sword he carried seemed to be completely diamond with a golden hilt.

The leader ran at me, and I barely blocked his sword with both of my daggers. In fact, he almost knocked me over with his strength. I tried to stab him, but my blades were only met by his.

He swung his sword at me, and I caught it with my weapons, twisting it out of his hand and onto the roof. Before he could retrieve it, I hit him in the shoulder with my left dagger and when he fell to his knees, I pulled him to the edge of the roof and stabbed him in the chest with enough force so that he fell off.

Time’s up.

I grinned when I heard the sounds of the crowd’s confusion from the ground. Taking a deep breath, I jogged over to Locke and sat down on my knees in front of him.

“We did it, Locke,” I whispered, wiping a tear from his cheek and meeting his algae green eyes. He was breathing hard, and I was sure there was a lot of damage done, but it was nothing I couldn’t fix. I didn’t really do much of the bandaging and medicating and all that, but I did make bargains with people for that kind of stuff. I untied the dirty rag that the soldiers had decided to gag him with.

“November, never do that again,” he uttered.

“You don’t need to be worried about me, okay? I saved you, I’m okay. Just a few scratches and bruises,” I replied. Oh, yeah, and a stab wound.

I broke the handcuffs on his wrists and pulled him into a hug. “Good job,” his eyes smiled, though his lips did not. I guess he was proud that I was so much stronger than I was when he found me.

“This changes everything,” he said after awhile. “A leader is dead. Fin will be temporarily weakened, and this will give us the chance we’ve been looking for to bring Justice to this world. Vin, Kin and Hin will all fall as well. We will defeat the nations. Peace will return.”

My heart beat sped up as I felt the change for the first time and began to understand how important what I just did was to the rebels. That’s when I knew. There was no question about this war.
We had already won.