pandemonium 12 страница

The mud is in my throat. I can’t breathe.

“I don’t know what made me try to revive her. I think I must have gone a little crazy. I was working as a junior lifeguard that summer, so I’d been certified in CPR. I’d never had to do it, though. And she was so tiny—probably a week, maybe two weeks old. But it worked. I’ll never forget how I felt when she took a breath, and all that color came rushing into her skin. It was like the whole world had split open. And everything I’d felt was missing—all that feeling and color—all of it came to me with her first breath. I called her Blue so I would always remember that moment, and so I would never regret. ”

Abruptly, Raven stops speaking. She reaches down and readjusts Blue’s sleeping bag. The light from the fire is a low, red glow, and I can see that Blue is pale. Her forehead is beaded with sweat, and her breath comes slowly, raspingly. I am filled with a blind fury, undirected and overwhelming.

Raven isn’t finished with her story. “I didn’t even go home. I just took her and ran. I knew I couldn’t keep her in Yarmouth. You can’t keep secrets like that for long. It was hard enough to cover up the bruises. And I knew she must be illegal—some unmatched girl, some unmatched guy. A deliria baby. You know what they say. Deliria babies are contaminated. They grow up twisted, crippled, crazy. She would probably be taken and killed. She wouldn’t even be buried. They’d be worried about the spread of disease. She’d be burned, and packed up with the waste. ” Raven takes another twig and throws it in the fire. It flares momentarily, a hot white tongue of flame. “I’d heard rumors about a portion in the fence that was unfortified. We used to tell stories about the Invalids coming in and out, feasting on people’s brains. Just the kind of shit you talk as a kid. I’m not sure whether I still believed it or not. But I took my chance on the fence. It took me forever to figure out a way over with Blue. In the end I had to use the blanket as a sling. And the rain was a good thing. The guards and the regulators were staying inside. I made it over without any trouble. I didn’t know where I was going or what I would do once I crossed. I didn’t say good-bye to either of my parents. I didn’t do anything but run. ” She looks at me sideways. “But I guess that was enough. And I guess you know about that too. ”

“Yeah, ” I croak out. There’s a shredding pain in my throat. I could cry at any second. Instead, I dig my nails, as hard as I can, into my thighs, trying to break the skin beneath the fabric of my jeans.

Blue murmurs something indecipherable and tosses in her sleep. The rasping in her throat has gotten worse. Every breath brings a horrible grating noise, and the watery echoes of fluid. Raven bends forward and brushes the sweat-damp strands of hair from Blue’s forehead. “She’s burning up, ” Raven says.

“I’ll get some water. ” I’m desperate to do something, anything, to help.

“It won’t make any difference, ” Raven says quietly.

But I need to move, so I go anyway. I pick my way through the frosty dark toward the stream, which is covered with a layer of thin ice, all webbed with fissures and cracks. The moon is high and full and reflects the silver surface and the dark flowing water underneath. I break through the ice with the bottom of a tin pail, gasping when the water flows over my fingers and into the bucket.

Raven and I don’t sleep that night. We take turns with a towel, icing Blue’s forehead, until her breathing slows and the rasping eases. Eventually she stops fidgeting and lies quiet and docile under our hands. We take turns with the towel until dawn breaks in the sky, a blush rose, liquid and pale, even though by that time, Blue has not taken a breath for hours.

now

Julian and I move through stifling darkness. We go slowly, painstakingly, even though both of us are desperate to run. But we can’t risk the noise or a flashlight. Even though we’re moving through what must be a vast network of tunnels, I feel just like a rat in a box. I’m not very steady on my feet. The darkness is full of whirling, swirling shapes, and I have to keep my left hand on the slick tunnel wall, which is coated with moisture and skittering insects.

And rats. Rats chittering from corners; rats scampering across the tracks, nails going tick, tick, tick against the stone.

I don’t know how long we walk. Impossible to tell, with no change in sound or texture, no way of knowing whether we are moving east or west or going around endlessly in circles. Sometimes we move alongside old railway tracks. These must have been the tunnels for the underground trains. Despite my exhaustion and nerves, I can’t help but feel amazed at the idea of all these twisting, labyrinthine spaces filled with barreling machines, and people thundering along freely in the dark.

Other times the tunnels are flowing with water—sometimes a bare trickle, sometimes a few feet of foul-smelling, litter-cluttered liquid, probably backed up from one of the sewer systems. That means we can’t be too far from a city.

I’m stumbling more and more. It has been days since I’ve eaten anything substantial, and my neck throbs painfully, where the Scavenger broke the skin with his knife. Increasingly, Julian has to reach out and steady me. Finally he keeps a hand on my back, piloting me forward. I’m grateful for the contact. It makes the agony of walking, and silence, and straining for the sound of Scavengers through the echoes and the drips, more bearable.

We go for hours without stopping. Eventually the darkness turns milky. Then I see a bit of light, a long silver stream filtering down from above. There are grates in the ceiling, five of them. Above us, for the first time in days, I see sky: a patchy nighttime sky of clouds and stars. Unconsciously, I cry out. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“The grates, ” I say. “Can we—? ”

Julian moves ahead of me, and at last we risk the flashlight. He angles the beam upward, then shakes his head.

“Bolted tight from outside, ” he says. He strains onto his tiptoes and gives a little push. “No way to budge them. ”

Disappointment burns in the back of my throat. We’re so close to freedom. I can smell it—wind and space, and something else, too. Rain. It must have rained recently. The smell brings tears to my eyes. We’ve ended up on a raised platform. Below us, the tracks are pooled with water and a covering of leaves driven down from above. On our left is an alcove, half-excavated and filled with wooden crates; a flyer, remarkably well preserved, is posted on the wall. CAUTION, it reads. CONSTRUCTION ZONE. HARD HAT AREA.

I can’t stand up anymore. I break from Julian’s grasp, thudding heavily to my knees.

“Hey. ” He kneels next to me. “Are you okay? ”

“Tired, ” I gasp out. I curl up on the ground, resting my head on my arm. It’s getting harder to keep my eyes open. When I do, I see the stars above me blur into a single enormous point of light, and then fracture again.

“Go to sleep, ” Julian says. He sets my backpack down and sits next to me.

“What if the Scavengers come? ” I say.

“I’ll stay awake, ” Julian says. “I’ll listen for them. ” After a minute, he lies down on his back. There’s a wind sweeping down from the grates, and I shiver involuntarily.

“Are you cold? ” Julian asks.

“A little, ” I say. I can barely get the words out. My throat, too, is frozen.

There’s a pause. Then Julian rolls over onto his side and loops his arm around me, scooting forward so our bodies are pressed together, and I am cupped in the space around him. His heart beats through my back—a strange, stuttering rhythm.

“Aren’t you worried about the deliria? ” I ask him.

“Yes, ” he says shortly. “But I’m cold, too. ”

After a while his heartbeat becomes more regular, and mine slows to match his. The coldness melts out of me.

“Lena? ” Julian whispers. I’ve had my eyes closed. The moon is now directly above us, a high white beam.

“Yeah? ”

I can feel Julian’s heart speed up again. “Do you want to know how my brother died? ”

“Okay, ” I say, even though something in his tone of voice makes me afraid.

“My brother and my dad never really got along, ” Julian says. “My brother was stubborn. Headstrong. He had a bad temper, too. Everyone said he would be okay once he was cured. ” Julian pauses. “It just got worse and worse as he got older, though. My parents were talking about having his cure moved up. It looked bad, you know, for the DFA and all. He was wild, and he didn’t listen to my father, and I’m not even sure he believed in the cure. He was six years older than me. I was—I was scared for him. Do you know what I mean? ”

I can’t bring myself to speak, so I just nod. Memories are crowding me, surging from the dark places where I have walled them up: the constant, buzzing anxiety I felt as a child, watching my mom laughing, dancing, singing along to strange music that piped from our speakers, a joy threaded through with terror; fear for Hana; fear for Alex; fear for all of us.

“Seven years ago, we had another big rally in New York. That’s when the DFA was going national. It was the first rally I attended. I was eleven years old. My brother begged off. I don’t remember what excuse he gave. ”

Julian shifts. For a second his arms tighten around me, an involuntary gripping; then he relaxes again. Somehow I know he has never told this story before.

“It was a disaster. Halfway through the rally, protesters stormed city hall—that’s where we were—half of them masked. The fight turned violent, and the police came to break it up, and suddenly it was just a brawl. I hid behind the podium, like a little kid. Afterward, I was so ashamed.

“One of the protesters got too close to the stage; too close to my dad. He was screaming something—I couldn’t hear what. It was loud, and he was wearing a ski mask. The guard brought him down with a nightstick. Weirdly, I remember I could hear that; the crack of the wood against his knee, the thud as he collapsed. That’s when my dad saw it, must have seen it: the birthmark on the back of his left hand, shaped like a big half-moon. My brother’s birthmark. He jumped off the stage into the audience, tore off the mask, and … it was him. My brother was lying there, in agony, his knee shattered in a thousand places. But I’ll never forget the look he gave my father. Totally calm, and resigned, too, like … like he knew what was going to happen.

“We finally made it out—had a police escort all the way home. My brother was stretched out in the back of the van, moaning. I wanted to ask him whether he was okay, but I knew my dad would kill me. He drove the whole way home without saying a word, without taking his eyes off the road. I don’t know what my mom was feeling. Maybe not much. But I think she was worried. The Book of Shhh says that our obligations to our children are sacred, right? ‘And the good mother will finish discharging her duties in heaven…’” Julian quotes softly. “She wanted him to see a doctor, but my dad wouldn’t hear of it. My brother’s knee looked bad—swollen to the size of a basketball, practically. He was sweating like crazy, in so much pain. I wanted to help. I wanted to—” A tremor passes through Julian’s body. “When we got home, my dad threw my brother into the basement and locked it. He was going to leave him there for a day, in the dark. So my brother would learn his lesson. ”

I picture Thomas Fineman: the clean-pressed clothing and gold cuff links, which must give him such satisfaction; the polished watch and the neatly trimmed hair. Pure, clean, spotless, like a man who can always count on a good night’s sleep. I hate you, I think, for Julian’s sake. Julian has never gotten to know those words, to feel the relief in them.

“We could hear my brother crying through the door. We could hear him from the dining room when we ate dinner. My dad made us sit through a whole meal. I’ll never forgive him for that. ” The last part is spoken in a whisper. I find his hand and lace my fingers in his and squeeze. He gives me a small pulse back.

For a while we lie there in silence. Then, from above, there’s a soft rushing sound: then the sound separates, becomes thousands of raindrops hitting the pavement. Water drums down through the grates, pinging off the metal rails of the old tracks.

“And then the crying stopped, ” Julian says simply, and I think of that day in the Wilds with Raven, taking turns mopping Blue’s head while the sun broke in a wave over the trees, long after we had felt her grow cold under our hands.

Julian clears his throat. “They said afterward it was a freak accident; a blood clot from his injury that migrated into his brain. One-in-a-million chance. My dad couldn’t have known. But still, I—”

He breaks off. “After that, you know, I was always so careful. I would do everything right. I would be the perfect son, a model for the DFA. Even once I found out the cure would probably kill me. It was more than fear, ” Julian says, a sudden rush of words. “I thought if I followed the rules, things would turn out all right. That’s the thing about the cure, isn’t it? It isn’t just about deliria at all. It’s about order. A path for everyone. You just have to follow it and everything will be okay. That’s what the DFA is about. That’s what I believed in—what I’ve had to believe in. Because otherwise, it’s just … chaos. ”

“Do you miss him? ” I ask.

Julian doesn’t answer right away, and I know, somehow, that nobody has ever asked him this before. “I think so, ” he says finally, in a low voice. “I did for a long time. My mom—my mom told me it wouldn’t be so bad after the cure. I wouldn’t think about him that way anymore, she said. ”

“That’s even worse, ” I say quietly. “That’s when they’re really gone. ”

I count three long seconds of silence, and in each one of them, Julian’s heart drums against my back. I’m not cold anymore. If anything, I’m too hot. Our bodies are so close—skin sticking to skin, fingers entangled. His breath is on my neck.

“I don’t know what’s going on anymore, ” Julian whispers. “I don’t understand anything. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. ”

“You’re not supposed to know, ” I say, and it’s true: The tunnels may be long, and twisted, and dark; but you are supposed to go through them.

More silence. Finally Julian says, “I’m scared. ”

He barely whispers it; but I can feel his lips moving against my neck, as though the words are being spelled there.

“I know, ” I say. “Me too. ”

I can’t stay awake any longer. I’m carried back and forth through time and memory, between this rain and rains before it, as though climbing up and down a spiral staircase. Julian has his arm around me, and then Alex does; then Raven is holding my head in her lap, and then my mother is singing to me.

“I’m less scared with you, ” Julian says. Or maybe it is Alex who speaks, or maybe I’ve only dreamed the words. I open my mouth to respond but find I can’t speak. I’m drinking water, and then I’m floating, and then there is nothing but sleep, liquid and deep.

then

We bury Blue by the river. It takes us hours to break through the frozen ground and make a hole big enough to accommodate her. We have to remove her jacket before we bury her. We can’t afford to lose it. She feels so light as we lower her into the ground, just like a baby bird, hollow-boned and fragile.

At the last second, as we’re about to cover her with dirt, Raven pushes forward, suddenly hysterical. “She’ll be cold, ” she says. “She’ll freeze like that. ” Nobody wants to stop her. She strips off her sweater and slides into the makeshift grave, taking Blue in her arms and wrapping her in it. She’s crying. Most of us turn away, embarrassed. Only Lu steps forward.

“Blue will be okay, Raven, ” she says softly. “The snow will keep her warm. ”

Raven looks up, her face wild, tear-streaked. She scans our faces once as though struggling to remember who we are. Then she jerks, suddenly, to her feet, and climbs up out of the lip of the grave.

Bram steps forward and starts to shovel the dirt over Blue’s body again, but Raven stops him.

“Leave her, ” Raven says. Her voice is loud and unnaturally high-pitched. “Lu’s right. It’s going to snow any minute. ”

It does start to snow as we’re packing up camp. It continues to snow all day, as we make our way silently through the woods in a long, ragged line. The cold is a constant pain now, a fierce ache in my chest and fingers and toes, and the snow is mostly driving ice, and burns like hot ash. But I imagine that for Blue it falls more gently, and covers her like a blanket, where it will keep her safely until spring.

now

It’s still raining in the morning.

I sit up slowly. I have a wicked headache, and I’m dizzy. Julian is no longer next to me. The rain is pouring through the grates, long, twisting gray ribbons of it, and he is standing underneath them.

His back is turned to me, and he has stripped down to a pair of faded cotton shorts he must have found when we scavenged for clothing and supplies. My breath catches in my throat. I know I should look away, but I can’t. I’m transfixed by the sight of the rain coursing over his back—broad and muscled and strong, just like Alex’s was—the rolling landscapes of his arms and shoulders; his hair, now dark with water; the way he tips his head back and lets the rain run into his open mouth.

In the Wilds, I finally got used to seeing men naked or half-naked. I got used to the strangeness of their bodies, the bits of curling hair on their chests, and sometimes on their backs and shoulders, to the broad, flat panes of their stomachs and wings of their hipbones, arcing over the waistband of their pants. But this is different. There is a perfect stillness to him, and in the pallid gray light he seems to glow slightly, like a statue carved out of white rock.

He is beautiful.

He shakes his head a bit and water pinwheels from his hair, a glittering semicircle: Happy and unaware, he starts to hum quietly. All of a sudden I am horribly embarrassed: I’m trespassing on a private moment. I clear my throat loudly. He whips around. When he sees me awake, he jumps out of the stream of water and scoops his clothes up off the platform lip, covering himself with them.

“I didn’t know you were awake, ” he says, fighting to get his T-shirt on, even though he’s soaking wet. He accidentally gets his head caught in an armhole and has to try again. I would laugh if he didn’t look so desperate.

Now that he has cleaned away the blood, I can see his face clearly. His eyes are no longer swollen, but they are ringed with deep purple bruises. The cuts on his lip and forehead are scabbing over. That’s a good sign.

“I just woke up, ” I say as he finally gets his shirt on. “Did you sleep at all? ”

Now he’s wrestling with his jeans. His hair makes a pattern of water spots around the neck of his T-shirt.

“A little, ” he says guiltily. “I didn’t mean to. I must have dropped off around five. It was already getting light. ” His jeans are on. He hauls himself up onto the platform, surprisingly graceful. “Ready to move on? ”

“In a bit, ” I say. “I’d like—I’d like to get clean, like you did. Under the grates. ”

“Okay. ” Julian nods, but doesn’t move. I can feel myself blushing again. It has been a long time since I’ve felt this way, so open and exposed. I’m losing the thread of the new Lena, the hard one, the warrior made in the Wilds. I can’t seem to pull myself back into her body.

“I’ll need to get undressed, ” I blurt out, since Julian doesn’t seem to be taking the hint.

“Oh—oh, right, ” he stammers, backing away. “Of course. I’ll just—I’ll go scout ahead. ”

“I’ll be quick, ” I say. “We should get moving again. ”

I wait until Julian’s footsteps are a faint echo in the cavernous space before stepping out of my clothes. For a minute it’s possible to forget that the Scavengers are somewhere out there in the dark, looking for us. For a minute it’s possible to forget what I’ve done—what I’ve had to do—to escape, to forget the pattern of blood seeping across the storeroom floor, the Scavenger’s eyes, surprised, accusatory. I stand naked on the lip of the platform, reaching my arms up toward the sky, as ribbons of water continue twisting through the grates: liquid gray, as though the sky has begun to melt. The cold air raises goose bumps on my skin. I lower myself to a crouch and ease myself off the platform, splashing into the tracks, feeling the bite of metal and wood on my bare feet. I slosh my way over to the grates. Then I tip my head back so the rain hits me square in the face and courses down my hair, my back, my aching shoulders and chest.

I have never felt anything so amazing in my life. I want to cry out for joy, or sing. The water is icy cold, and smells fresh, as though it has carried some of the scents of its spiraling journey past stripped branches and tiny, new March buds.

When I’ve let the water drive over my face and pool in my eyes and mouth, I lean forward and feel it beat a rhythm on my back, like the drumming of a thousand tiny feet. I haven’t realized until right now how sore I am all over: Everything hurts. My legs and arms are covered with dark bruises.

I know I’m as clean as I’m going to get, but I can’t bring myself to move out of the stream of water, even though the cold makes me shiver. It’s a good cold, purifying.

Finally I wade back to the platform. It takes me two tries to heave myself up off the tracks—that’s how weak I am—and I’m dripping water everywhere, leaving a person-sized splatter pattern on the dark concrete. I wrap the long coil of my hair around one hand and squeeze, and even this brings me joy; the normalcy of the action, routine and familiar.

I step into the jeans I took from the Scavengers, rolling them once at the waist to keep them from falling off; even so, they hang loose from my hipbones.

Then: footsteps behind me. I whip around, covering my breasts with my arms.

Julian steps out of the shadows.

Keeping one arm wrapped around my chest, I grab for my shirt.

“Wait, ” he calls out, and something about the tone of his voice—a note of command, and also of urgency—stops me.

“Wait, ” he repeats, more softly.

We’re separated by twenty feet of space, but the way he’s looking at me makes me feel as though we’re chest to chest. I can feel his eyes on my skin like a prickling touch. I know I should put on my shirt, but I can’t move. I can hardly even breathe.

“I’ve never been able to look before, ” Julian says simply, and takes one more step toward me. The light falls differently across his face, and now I can see a softness in his eyes, a blur, and it makes the roaring heat in my body melt away into warmth, a steady, wonderful feeling. At the same time, a tiny voice in the back of my head pipes up: Danger, danger, danger. Beneath it, a fainter echo: Alex, Alex, Alex.

Alex used to look at me like that.

“Your waist is so small. ” That’s all Julian says: in a voice so quiet I barely hear him.

I force myself to turn away from him. My hands are shaking as I wrestle the sports bra, and then my shirt, over my head. When I turn around again, I feel afraid of him for some reason. He has come even closer. He smells like rain.

He saw me topless, exposed.

He looked at me like I was beautiful.

“Feeling better? ” he asks.

“Yeah, ” I say, dropping my eyes. I finger the cut along my neck carefully. It is about a half-inch long, and clotted with dried blood.

“Let me see. ” Julian reaches out and then hesitates, his fingers an inch from my face. I look up at him. He seems to be asking permission. I nod, and he slips his hand, gently, under my chin, tipping it up so he can look at my neck. “We should bandage it. ”

We. We are on the same side now. He is refusing to say anything more about the fact that I lied to him, and the fact that I’m uncured. I wonder how long it will last.

Julian moves over to the backpack. He rummages for the first-aid materials we stole, and returns to me with a large bandage, a bottle of peroxide, some antibacterial ointment, and several cotton puffs.

“I can do it, ” I say, but Julian shakes his head.

“Let me, ” he says. First he dips the cotton balls in the peroxide and dabs the cut carefully. It stings and I jerk back, yelping. He raises his eyebrows. “Come on, ” he says, hitching his mouth into a smile. “It doesn’t hurt that badly. ”

“It does, ” I insist.

“Yesterday you went head-to-head with two homicidal maniacs. Now you can’t take a little burn? ”

“That’s different, ” I say, glaring at him. I can tell he’s making fun of me, and I don’t like it. “That was a question of survival. ”

Julian raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. He blots my cut one more time with the cotton ball, and this time I grit my teeth and bear it. Then he squeezes a thin line of ointment onto the bandage and affixes it carefully to my neck. Alex fixed me once, just like this. It was on raid night, and we were hiding in a tiny tool shed, and a dog had just taken a chunk out of my leg. I haven’t thought about that night in a long time, and as Julian’s hands skate over my skin, I feel suddenly breathless.

I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other’s wounds; they repair the broken skin.

“There. As good as new. ” His eyes have taken on the gray of the sky above the grates. “You okay to move on? ”

I nod, even though I’m still weak, and pretty dizzy.

Julian reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. I wonder what he thinks when he touches me, whether he feels the electric pulse that runs through my body. He is unused to having contact with girls, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. He has crossed a boundary. I wonder what he’ll do when we finally get out of here. He’ll no doubt go back to his old life—to his father, to the DFA.

Maybe he’ll have me arrested.

I feel a surge of nausea and close my eyes, swaying a little on my feet.

“Are you sure you’re okay to move? ”

Julian’s voice is so gentle, it makes my chest break up into a thousand fluttering pieces. This was not part of the plan. This was not supposed to happen.

I think about what I told him last night: You’re not supposed to know. The hard, unbearable, beautiful truth.

“Julian”—I open my eyes, wishing my voice sounded less shaky—“we’re not the same. We’re on different sides. You know that, right? ”

His eyes get a little harder, more intense: even in the half-light, a blazing blue. But when he speaks, his voice is still soft and quiet. “I don’t know what side I’m on anymore, ” he says.

He takes another step toward me.

“Julian—” I can barely squeeze out his name.

That’s when we hear it: a muffled shout from one of the tunnels, the sound of drumming feet. Julian stiffens and in that second, when we look at each other, there’s no need to speak at all.

The Scavengers are here.

The terror is a sudden jolt. The voices are coming from one of the tunnels we came through last night. Julian scoops up the backpack, and I stuff my feet quickly into my sneakers, not even bothering with socks. I grab the knife from the ground; Julian reaches for my other hand and pulls me forward, past the wooden crates and to the far end of the platform. Even fifty feet away from the grates, it’s almost impossible to see. We are swallowed again in murk and darkness. It feels like stepping into a mouth, and I try to beat back the feeling of terror winging through me. I know I should be grateful for the darkness and all the chances to hide, but I can’t help thinking of what the darkness could be hiding: stealthy, silent steppers; bodies swinging from the pipes.

At the far end of the platform there’s a tunnel, so low Julian and I have to stoop to enter. After ten feet, we reach a narrow metal ladder, which takes us down into a broader tunnel, this one studded with old train tracks but free, thankfully, of running water. Every few feet Julian pauses, listening for the Scavengers.

Then we hear it, unmistakably, and closer now: a voice grunting, “This way. ” Those two words knock the breath out of me, exactly as if I’d been punched. It’s Albino. I mentally curse myself for putting the handgun in the backpack—stupid, stupid, and no way of getting it now, in the dark, while Julian and I are pushing forward. I squeeze the handle of the knife, taking some reassurance from the smooth grain of its wood, from its weight. But I’m still weak, dizzy, and hungry, too; I know I won’t do well in a fight. I say a silent prayer that we can lose them in the darkness.