by Rory Power
She laughs, hitching and broken. “Blood’s already on my hands, isn’t it? They wanted to experiment with that fucking food and I wouldn’t let them, and they wanted to test all of you but I wouldn’t let them, and I paid for it. I paid; I made choices and I sent you to die.”
The food, I think. Is that why we tossed half of it out? “Wait,” I say, and there are so many more questions I have to ask, but I don’t have a chance before Welch’s feverish gaze swings to me.
“Hetty,” she says. “You can’t trust them. Okay? You have to remember that. The CDC, the Navy—”
“Hey,” I say, and it’s easy to pretend everything’s fine when you don’t know what’s wrong. “My dad’s Navy. There are good people there.” It doesn’t matter if I believe it. It doesn’t matter that Mr. Harker showed me what a good man can become, that I’ve seen what a father can do to his daughter. “They will help us. It’s not over.”
“Your dad?” She sighs. Pity, but more than anything, impatience. “Hetty, honey, your dad thinks you’re dead.”
“What?” She has to be lying. I push back a swell of nausea. She said not to trust the Navy, but it was her in the woods last night handing over Mona’s body. She’s the one we can’t trust. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s all of you,” Welch says. “Your families, your neighbors. You don’t understand. It’s been over for a long, long time.”
I don’t believe you, I repeat to myself, I don’t. It’s not working, though. Because it makes sense.
Oh God. Nobody worrying about us, nobody waiting. And we couldn’t talk to our parents anymore, and it was for security, but it wasn’t. It was just another lie, and we believed it.
“Hang on,” Julia says. “You have to explain.” But Welch is looking at Carson now, and her face has turned soft.
“Carson,” she says. A whisper, the wind slipping it into our ears, and she holds out her hand. “Come here a minute. I need your help.”
I grab for Carson’s sleeve, but she’s already moved, stepping carefully across the wet boards to take Welch’s hand. My stomach drops as Welch pulls a knife out from her jacket pocket, the blade fire-bright and thirsty.
Julia yells, but it’s too late. Welch has her grip tight around Carson’s wrist, and she leans in. “It’s okay, Carson,” she says. “I just want to end it my way. The only thing you have to do is slide it home.”
I look to Julia. She nods. I draw the pistol from my waistband and hold it by my side. We can’t lose Welch. She knows where they’ve taken Byatt, and if she goes, the answers go with her. And even with all the lies she’s told me, all the things I think she’s done, everyone knows the whole place will fall to pieces without her. We need her. I need her.
“You can help me,” Welch is saying. She presses the knife handle to Carson’s palm, the blade glinting like ice in the winter sun. “It’s easy. It’ll be so easy.”
“Don’t,” Julia says, her gun coming up in a blink. Aimed true at Carson, not even the smallest shake to it. Welch knew what she was doing when she asked Carson. Of all of us, she’s the easiest to maneuver, the one most likely to say yes. She might do this for Welch, and we can’t let her.
“You can do it,” Welch says, her smile growing. “You’re strong enough, Carson. I know you are.”
I can’t see Carson’s face, but with the way her shoulders straighten, I can tell. Nobody’s said that to her before. I lift my gun, level it at the base of Carson’s neck. I’m close enough that I won’t miss.
“Let her go,” Julia says to Welch, a quiver in her voice turning it to a plea. “Come back to the house with us. We can fix this.”
Carson is staring down at her hand, holding tight to the knife, and I can see her knuckles whiten.
“This is it.” Welch closes her eyes, presses her forehead against Carson’s. “You’re the only one who can help me.”
“Drop the knife, Carson,” I say. “I’ll shoot. You know I will. We need her at the house. We can’t hold it together ourselves.”
Nobody moves. Just the wind and the ocean spray, and above us the sun is starting to break through the clouds. I blink hard, refocus my aim.
“I’m sorry,” Carson says at last. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”
I let my gun drop, feel my breath rush out of me. A shaft of sunlight slips through to bounce off the water, and as Julia turns to shield her eyes, I watch it happen. Welch’s hands clasping tight around Carson’s, keeping the knife in her grip. Welch’s chin lifting, and a smile breaking as she looks up. The last flex of her arms as she pulls Carson in and buries the knife between her own ribs.
CHAPTER 18
She goes down slowly. To her knees first, and then she slumps forward onto the pier as Carson lets go and staggers away.
“I didn’t,” Carson is saying. “I swear I didn’t.”
Shock, numb in my nerves. The blood dark and sticking, seeping out to the edges of the pier. Soon it’ll blossom in the water. I can picture it spreading across the surface like oil, shiny and slick and red, red, red.
Julia steps around the box, canister still gleaming inside, and bends to press her fingers against Welch’s neck.
“Nothing,” she says.
She’s dead, and she’s taken her secrets with her. I can’t work out how to feel. Thankful that she can’t hurt me. Angry that I’ll never find out what she knew, that my chances of finding Byatt are slipping through my fingers. And under it all, under everything, so familiar it’s like breathing—guilt eating away at my heart.
I tuck my gun back into my waistband, bend over, and brace my hands on my knees. Welch had to be telling the truth about our families. There’s no reason for her to lie. And that means my mom is out there, and she isn’t counting the days until I come home.
“Do we tell the others?” I say. I sound hoarse, like I’ve been screaming for hours. “About our families?”
When I straighten up, Julia is shaking her head. “I’m not breaking that news,” she says. “I wish I didn’t know.”
Me too. But there’s no time for any more about it. The day’s passing, and we can’t be out here after dark, especially not without Welch.
I take a quick glance at her body. Her fingers haven’t turned black. Her and Headmistress, sick but not like us, and there’s my proof. “What do we do with her? Carry her back to the house?”
Julia looks past me, to the trees. Blood heavy on the air, a tang like copper in my mouth.
“No,” she says. “The body’ll slow us down. Attract attention we don’t want.”
There’s only one option. Carson is starting to cry, so I take her shoulders, urge her away. Julia and I will do this ourselves.
She takes the feet, and I take the arms. Welch’s body is still warm, limbs still loose, and when I move her hair off her face, I’m looking into her still-open eyes. I want to close them like I’ve seen people do in movies, but when I reach down, her lashes brush against my fingertips, stiff with cold, and I recoil. Mr. Harker felt like this. Soft, with no tension left in his body.
“Let’s do it quick,” Julia says. She’s crouched by Welch’s knees. “Grab her keys, and then we’ll just push her in.”
It’s nothing, I tell myself. It’s what has to be done.
The ring of keys is clipped to her belt, and my hands shake as I work it free. There, the key to the gate, long and iron. There, the key to the barn even though we never lock it. And there, at the end, a key to her old classroom. Still on the ring, like she was hoping for those days again.
Enough. I hook the keys to my own belt and then bend over again, rest my hands on either side of the bloody slice in Welch’s chest. “On three.”
The first push gets her right to the edge, and Julia sits back, clenches her fists. She’s working up to it, but I can’t take any time, I can’t wait because the more I wait, the louder
Carson’s crying gets, and it has to be now. I wedge my shoulder against Welch’s and shove against her hip. It’s slow and scraping, but finally, legs first, she tips off the pier.
A splash. Water clinging to my face, chill seeping into my skin. I wipe myself dry.
“Thanks,” Julia says quietly.
Welch floats. Hair drifting out, blood leaking.
I let myself feel it all—the hurting, and under it, a small part of me violent with satisfaction—and then I stand up and turn away. Sooner or later something will come from the woods to take the body. I’d rather not be watching when it does.
After that there’s just the question of the canister. We gather around it, face resolutely away from the water.
“What the hell is in this thing?” I ask.
“I don’t care about that,” Julia says. “I care about what we’re doing with it. And I vote we toss it. Don’t mention it to anybody. It’ll just make a mess. I mean, look what it did to Welch.”
Carson flinches. I expect her to crack, crumble, but she draws herself up, sets her shoulders. “It’s coming with us.”
I watch Julia’s face go slack with surprise. I’ve never seen them disagree before.
“Why would we do that?” Julia snaps. “Why would we take it back?”
“We’ll bring it to Headmistress.” Carson shrugs. “She’ll know what to do.”
“We know what to do,” Julia insists. I nod, but they’re hardly paying attention to me. “It’s meant to kill us. Why would we want that in our house?”
“We can always get rid of it later. Without Welch,” Carson says, “Headmistress is all we have left. I don’t see sense in hiding things from her.”
Julia reaches for Carson’s hand. “I know you’re shaken up, but—”
“And what if Welch was wrong, huh?” This is the loudest I’ve ever heard Carson. Her eyes are glassy, and her bottom lip is trembling, but she’s holding her ground. “What if it’s the cure? Headmistress will know.” She swipes a stray tear from her cheek. “I’m so tired, Julia. We keep so many secrets, and we make decisions we shouldn’t have to, and I can’t do that right now. I had the knife in my hands, okay? Not you. We’re giving it to Headmistress.”
Julia looks stricken. “Sorry,” she says roughly. “Of course. Yeah, we’ll take it back. Hetty, is that—”
“Whatever Carson wants,” I say. I’m tired, and if Carson starts crying again, I think I might too.
I look away, drift a little farther down the pier to give them a minute, but I still catch a glimpse of Carson slumped in Julia’s arms.
The box turns out to be too heavy for any of us to lift by ourselves, and nobody’s saying anything, but we’re all reluctant to take the canister out.
“We’ll take it,” Julia says to Carson. “You go on ahead.”
I crouch down, shut the box, and run my hand over its smooth surface. It’s cool to the touch, with tiny ridges I couldn’t see from farther away, and there’s a handle built into the side. Julia finds a matching one opposite. Together we lift it, Julia wincing as it knocks against her hip.
“When Headmistress asks,” she says as we start to walk, “Welch did it all herself. Carson was behind you.”
“Of course she was,” I answer.
My jeans are sticking, soaked through, and an ache is setting in behind my eye. The glare off the ocean’s making it work too hard. All I want is to be home again. Somewhere quiet, away from memories of Welch and Mr. Harker. Somewhere with Reese to tell me that everything will be okay.
We’re only just into the trees when I feel it, a thrum in the ground, distant movement in the branches. Julia speeds up and I keep pace. Try not to look back. But there’s a bend in the road, and I see it, over my shoulder. The shape of something giant and void-dark, prowling through the trees in the opposite direction. It’s a bear, drawn by the blood, by the lure of the body in the water.
I’m too worn out to feel afraid. Too tired to do anything but keep moving. Face front, Hetty. Think about something else. But all that comes is yesterday, the way Mr. Harker’s skin flaked away under my touch. And before that, Mona in a body bag. And before that, and before that, and before that.
The things I’ve done here, the bodies I’ve felt under my hands. They’re for nothing if I don’t find Byatt. Welch can’t give me any answers now, but I’ll find them anyway.
We leave the pier behind. Since the Tox, calluses have grown thick on my hands, and I’m grateful now as we keep on, Carson in front of us, the box getting heavier and heavier. I wish we’d stuck the canister in one of our bags and left the case on the dock.
“Nearly there,” Julia says as the road starts the last long curve before the house. I keep my eyes on the treetops, wait for the roof to poke through. “People will be in the hall,” she continues. “Carson should go in alone. Get Headmistress and bring her to the gate so we can figure out what to do.”
The food. I’ve been beating it back, but it’s no use, and I bite hard on my lip to keep tears from welling up. Please, let Byatt have been worth it. Please, let her life be worth all of ours. “Will it be that bad, do you think?”
“It certainly won’t be pretty.”
“Yeah,” I say, hope it sounds like I’m agreeing, and then I call out to Carson, try to ignore the churn in my gut.
She turns around, stumbling a little on a divot in the road. “What?”
“We’re gonna send you in first.”
“Just find Headmistress,” Julia says. “Bring her to meet us.”
“I—”
“You don’t have to explain,” I say gently. “You can just tell her we’re waiting. Doesn’t have to be more than that.”
She nods, turns back around, and we keep going, until the railing of the roof deck is visible through the trees. The sight of it releases a catch in my chest, and I exhale long and slow. The sooner we’re there, the sooner this box is out of my hands and I’m back to the danger I’m used to.
We round the last corner and start up the straightaway to the gate. Carson waves to the Gun Shift girls on the roof. I know what they must be feeling, the fear that must be rising as they count our number and count it again.
Things will change without Welch. The order we built for ourselves is already shaky. Without Welch at the center, there’s nothing binding it together.
We put the box down, and I unclip the ring of keys from my belt, sort the iron one out from the others. It’s cold against my fingers, sticking and pulling at my skin. I slot it home and twist, the metal ringing as the lock slides back.
Carson holds the gate open for us. Julia and I carry the box through, setting it down again on the other side. Julia groans as she stretches, the bruise from yesterday visible as her shirt rides up. I wince—it looks even worse than before—and I flex my numbing fingers before pulling the gate shut behind me.
“I just tell her to come out here, right?” Carson is picking nervously at a hangnail. I reach out, take a light hold of her wrist, fight back a flinch at the cold bite of her skin.
“Just tell her it’s important. And put on a good front, yeah? For the girls. Everything’s fine.” I say it as much for me as for her.
She nods, takes a deep breath. “Everything’s fine.”
“Give it five minutes, and everybody will know what happened,” Julia mutters as Carson heads off for the house.
“We can at least avoid a panic,” I say.
“For now.” Julia squints up at the girls on Gun Shift and steps in front of the box. “I’d say we’re due for one eventually.”
It’s only a minute or two of waiting, but it feels like longer, every gust of wind pulling a shiver from my body. At last the front doors bang open, and when I look up, it’s Headmistress barreling toward us.
Her hair’s coming out of the chignon she always wears, and
she’s as close to running as I’ve ever seen her. Tan slacks stained with dirt, like she’s been digging around in storage somewhere, and one side of her shirt almost untucked. Behind her, Carson is barely keeping up.
“What happened?” Headmistress says. “Where’s Ms. Welch?”
I cast a reassuring glance at Carson. “There was an incident at the pier.”
“An incident?” Headmistress looks from me to Julia. “Speak clearly.”
“They delivered something unexpected,” Julia says. “Welch didn’t take it very well.”
Carson cringes, and I can’t fight back the memory of a body still warm against my palms. But Headmistress doesn’t move a muscle.
“Are you telling me…,” she starts. But nothing more comes out.
“She killed herself,” I say, voice trembling. “She bled so much, so fast. We couldn’t do anything. We had to leave her behind.”
“Of course,” Headmistress says faintly. “Of course you did.” She sways a little and then rights herself, plants her feet firmly. “Thank you, girls, for telling me. Go on inside and get the food sorted out.”
“Actually,” Julia says, shrugging. And Headmistress looks at our empty hands, at the bags hanging loosely from our shoulders.
“Did you leave it with Welch?” she asks. “Go back out. There’s time before sundown.”
“No, we didn’t.” I clear my throat. I have to say this. It’s the only responsibility I can take. “They didn’t send any.”
Headmistress stares at me for a moment, her face electric with surprise. “What?”
Julia steps aside to show her the box. “All they sent was this. It’s what…upset Welch.”
Headmistress crosses to crouch in front of it. I can tell the second she recognizes the symbol painted on the lid. Her mouth drops, and a frown creases deeply at her brows.
We wait for her to open it, but she doesn’t, and Julia clears her throat. “She said it was designed to—”