by Carrie Ryan
It’s a frigid day. The snowstorm hits in the late afternoon and makes it next to impossible to see across the river as gusts leave us almost blind and quaking with cold. My sister and I huddle against each other in a nook in the wall, pushing our hands under our clothes to try to keep our blood moving.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” I tell her for the hundredth time. “Catcher won’t come back for Elias. You have to tell Conall that. If both of us die, they’ll lose Catcher.”
My sister shakes her head, the Recruiter’s scarf wound tight around her neck and covering her hair. “I’m not leaving you.” It’s hard to hear her over the whipping wind.
“You can’t stay here,” I tell her. “Both of us can’t freeze to death.”
She sets her jaw. “I’d prefer to think that neither of us will freeze to death out here.” She raises one eyebrow. I know too well how stubborn the blood that runs through our veins is.
I grab her shoulders, the freezing air biting my unprotected fingertips. I propel her toward the platform. “There will be other Sweepers out here later—I met one last night. I’ll find them and I’ll be fine. I promise.”
She shakes her head, digging her feet in. “You won’t be fine,” she argues.
“You’re right, I won’t be fine. But I’ll survive. I know how to do that.”
She ducks under my arms, doubling back until she’s facing me. “I don’t want to lose you again,” she says, her voice cracking.
I pull her closer to me. Moans float through the air, more dead washing onto the frozen shore.
I take a deep breath. “Sometimes you have to leave. Sometimes that’s the smartest thing to do.” I press my bare fingers to her cheek and she returns the gesture.
“Maybe so,” she says. “But you’re still not convincing me to leave you alone in the middle of a snowstorm when Mudo are washing ashore around you.”
I glare at her. “You’re stubborn—anyone ever tell you that before?”
She smiles wide. “I take that as a compliment.”
We stand side by side, watching the darkness shroud the black slushy river, white pummeling everywhere. Unconsecrated struggle from the half-frozen water, their bodies tossing over ice that cuts dead skin. Where they’re not too deep I wade out and use the shovel, digging it into their necks, pushing down and grunting with the effort of slicing through skin and severing bone. The heads roll a little and it’s hard to avoid their eyes.
I wonder if I’m somehow giving them peace.
My sister stares down at one of the empty bodies. “What would you do if you knew you had only a few days left to live?” she says. Water laps around dead arms and legs, tempting the deep.
A gust of wind rips through my coat and I steel myself against it. I think about the woman on the roof asking the same question. How terrified I was that I’d die like her: alone, no one to mourn my absence. I think about how quickly that’s changed. “I’d find a way to survive,” I tell her, my teeth chattering.
She tilts her head. “And that’s all you want? To survive?”
I shrug, jumping up and down a bit to push the blood through my body. “Seems like a good idea right now,” I say, jerking my chin at our surroundings.
She’s silent, dancing from foot to foot to stay warm.
“What about you? What would you do?” I tuck my hands up in my sleeves.
Raising one eyebrow, she says, “Nope. I’m not telling you my dreams until you tell me yours.” She crooks a smile. “It’ll give you incentive to make sure we both survive this mess.”
I laugh and lean against her. “We’ll survive,” I tell her. “I promise you that.”
The storm intensifies, making it hard to stay standing and difficult to hear the moans of the Unconsecrated or see if any have washed ashore. My sister and I continue to huddle together in the nook of the wall, arms wrapped around each other as we try to stay out of the wind.
My breath comes out in pants, and each inhalation is like ice, its sharpness stinging my lungs. “We need to go back,” I shout at my sister. “They can’t keep us out here like this.”
She nods, her face buried in her thick coat. We struggle down the wall, letting the storm push us against it. I try to hold the shovel out in front of me in case any of the dead are still moving in this weather, but my muscles are so exhausted they shake, trying to wring out what little warmth they can. I’m barely able to keep myself upright. Everything’s just so cold. So cold and so hard.
Inside I feel empty. I can’t even remember the last time I ate. The last time I slept I cycled through nightmares, feeling my hair being torn from my body over and over again.
A figure stumbles toward me from the direction of the water and it takes me a moment to remember where I am. What I’m supposed to be doing. I swing. Sloppy and uneven, the motion throws me off balance. I take two steps. Three. Fall to one knee and use the shovel to pick myself back up again.
The body lurches, slow and jerky. I can just barely hear the moan. Out of the darkness hair whips through the night, tangled around a woman’s face so that it’s hard to see anything but her mouth.
She’s barely walking—barely moving—but still she almost grabs me. I kick her back, which makes my own footing unstable. I fall, the shovel skittering out of my grasp.
The Unconsecrated woman comes for me again, stuck in time so slow it’s like her body’s full of half-frozen water. I know I should be frantic—my mind tries to be—but my body won’t obey. My hands search the frozen shore, digging through snow to find the shovel, but soon I realize I can’t feel anything.
My sister staggers to my side, crossbow jolting as she tries to hold it steady with her shivering arms. The first bolt goes wide and the second only tears into the Unconsecrated woman’s shoulder. She lumbers toward me, intent.
My hands are nothing more than lumps. I have no way to defend myself. Except to run. The Unconsecrated woman swings at me, her body jerking at the movement, and I push myself away.
And then her head whips back, the left side of it crushed in on itself. My sister stands with my shovel in her hands, pulling it up for another swing.
It takes all my reserves of strength to get to my feet. I totter a moment, pressing my arm against the wall to steady myself. The world tilts and sways, sparks jumping through my vision as dark spots threaten to swallow me.
“You go!” I shout at her, pulling the weapon from her hands. She starts to shake her head but I shove her forward. “Get help!” I cry. She turns and struggles toward the platform, a black shape in the dark evening.
The Unconsecrated behind me moans and I remember that that sound is bad. Really bad. I shove away from it, stumbling down the beach. I lose my footing more than once. I forget where I’m going. Why.
Nothing seems like a better idea than simply lying down. Curling up. Riding out the storm wrapped around my poor frozen hands, which don’t even burn anymore.
Then I hear the moan and I remember again. Moan. Death. Bad. In front of me I see light. Fire. My sister. Good.
There’s something I should be holding on to. A promise I made. A feeling. But every time the thought enters my mind it’s gone before my frozen fingers can wrap around it.
The fire’s farther away than it looks. So so far. Too far. I don’t have the energy anymore.
Something tangles around me as I stumble against the snow. I fight but my arms are stuck and I can’t get them free. It looks like it could be rope but it doesn’t make sense that there would be rope just dangling here.
I scrunch up my face trying to figure it out but it’s too hard to think. I let my body weight fall against it and it holds me. That’s much better. My legs don’t hurt anymore. I can lie here tangled in the rope. Just for a moment until I can remember what I’m doing and have the energy to do it. Sleep will help. That’s all I need.
A noise keeps bothering me and when I look down I see that there’s a person huddled at my feet. Her shoulders shake and I think I should be doing som
ething. I should have a weapon. I think I remember that much.
I push at the body with my foot, not wanting it near me. It rolls and I’m confused because it’s me on the ground. But I’m not on the ground, I’m tangled in the ropes—and then I remember my sister.
A shock of fear jolts through me, focusing the moment. My sister. I fall to my knees and grab her coat. “Abigail!” I shout. Her eyelids flutter. I scream at her, my throat raw with the force of it, until she looks at me.
“Gabry,” she mumbles, and I shake her again.
I get right in her face when I yell, “Fight!”
“No.” She bats at me and I slap her. I don’t even feel it, my fingers are so numb. Her eyes open and she frowns.
“Go away.” She tries to pull out of my grasp but I tug at her until she’s standing.
Wind howls fierce, blustering over the river and coating everything white. I shove my sister up the ladder, forcefully wrapping her hands around the rope when she wants to give up.
We make it to the platform and it’s empty. Sleep—pure blissful warm sleep—calls to me and I want nothing more than to follow.
“Come on!” I heave her down the platform and across the island, our bodies stumbling into each other as the wind blows at our backs. No one tries to stop us—everything’s too howling wind and frozen ice.
Her feet drag and I shake my head to clear it. To focus. It’s freezing. It hurts.
In front of me’s a tall building and I aim for it. Just one more step, I scream at myself. I can take just one more.
She’s limp in my arms now and I’m shaking her to keep us both warm. Finally there’s a door. A familiar door and I sag against it, forcing it open. My sister tumbles inside to the darkness and I shut the door and then I slide to the ground.
It’s warmer here. No wind. At last, I’m allowed to sleep.
In my dream someone’s screaming. It’s terrifying and I try to run away but the echoes follow me. And then there’s warmth. Such wonderful delicious heat that pours through my entire body so bright it’s almost painful. I don’t open my eyes—I don’t need to. This is my dream, so I know who’s talking when they beg me to stay with them, when they tell me not to sleep. But why wouldn’t I sleep?
It’s safe here in the warmth and I was so cold before. I don’t want to be cold again.
Catcher’s lips press against my closed eyelids and along my ear and my jaw. He touches his forehead to mine and I don’t understand why he’s crying.
It’s my dream. He should be happy like I am. Happy and safe and warm.
Wake up, he begs me. Please wake up.
I startle awake and every inch of my body burns.
“It’s okay,” someone says, his voice reverberating through me, and I realize I’m tucked against a body. I can tell by the heat that it’s Catcher. We’re lying on something soft and it takes me a moment to recognize that we’re in my bed, in my room.
Catcher’s lips rest lightly against my forehead.
I’m about to ask him what’s going on. I’m about to pull away when I remember the shore and the snow with a terror so deep that I feel like I won’t ever be able to breathe again.
“Abigail!” I shout, remembering how blue her lips looked, how hard she was shaking.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs again. “She’s in her own bed recovering. She’s safe. You’re both safe now.”
I collapse, turning my head away from him. I try to remember exactly how I got here, but all I recall is the cold and the wind. “What happened?”
Catcher takes a deep shaking breath. “They held Elias in a room all day so he couldn’t get you off the shore. When they let him go he ran to find you but you weren’t there. He thought you were dead. He came running back here and found you both just inside the door downstairs.”
He opens his mouth to say more but then closes it as if he’s reconsidering. I feel his arms tighten around me. “All that matters is that you’re okay now,” he finally says, but I can’t truly believe him. I feel like I’ll never be warm again, my body shivering with the memories. “I talked to Ox,” he adds. “Nothing like that will ever happen again. Ever. Not if he wants my cooperation.”
I remember Ox’s face when he tossed me off the platform. When he let the Recruiter hit me. “He won’t care,” I say, sighing. “He’ll do what it takes to keep order.” Reluctantly, I pull away from Catcher. I test my fingers, opening and closing them, but the motion brings with it waves of pain. “We need to find a way out of here,” I tell him.
He stands and walks to the window. Outside it’s a brilliant blue day, so bright it almost hurts my eyes. He nods. “I know. I’ve been trying. I’ve been searching the tunnels and looking for places we can go that might be safe. There’s nothing. Not yet. I’m …” He traces something over the glass. “I’m sorry I’m the reason you’re here.”
I untangle myself from the bed, hissing as my swollen feet hit the floor. I walk over, leaving only a thin line of emptiness between us. “It’s not your fault.”
He shrugs. “I’m the Immune. You’re the bait.” There’s acid in his voice. I can hear how much he hates himself and it isn’t fair.
I press my hand to the back of his neck and he winces as if he’s not used to being touched. “Thank you for returning. I don’t know what would have happened.”
A muscle along his jaw twitches, contracting and relaxing as he grinds his teeth. “I was worried. I shouldn’t have left you like that.” He pauses before softly adding, “I’m sorry.”
My cheeks flush when I remember our confrontation. Me grabbing his hand and pushing it against my chest. Him shoving me away when I tried to kiss him. I move toward the bed and cross my arms, feeling the sting of vulnerability all over again.
But that doesn’t dissuade Catcher. He takes a step closer and then another. I press my lips together, trying not to hope that he might have changed his mind. That he might touch me.
“I was worried about you, after…,” he says. He stops just out of my reach. Keeping me out of his reach as well. “After the other day. After what I said and you said.” He glances away and then back to me.
He’d called me beautiful. “Do you take it back?” I ask, breathless.
My heart pounds a million times as I wait for him to answer.
“Never.” He licks his lips in a nervous gesture and I can’t help staring at them. Imagining the feel of them.
I think about what my sister asked me as we stood huddled together outside the wall. How I didn’t know how to answer her. “What would you do if you knew you had only a few days left to live?” I ask him.
He raises his hand to the back of his neck, a nervous laugh brushing over his lips. “You don’t have to worry about that, Annah,” he says. “I’m going to take care of you. And everyone else. You’re safe.”
I step forward and place my hand on his arm, feeling his muscle flex beneath my touch. I press against him, pushing his hand from his head, pulling it down to his side, threading my fingers through his. The movement places us even closer together. His chest barely touches mine. Now I can feel his breath on my skin. I can feel his heat wavering between us.
“What would you do?” I ask again, softly.
His eyes become serious and I can almost see the emotions roiling inside him. “I’ve already been there, remember?” He pulls at his shirt, loosening the buttons and sliding it over his shoulder. Pushing me away in the process so that cooler air drives between us. He takes my fingers and places them against the flesh of his arm, forcing me to feel the two half-moons of red scars.
Bite marks.
I know he’s trying to remind me—remind both of us—that he’s infected. That he doesn’t know if he can infect me. That he’d never take the risk.
“What did you do during those days?” I ask, wanting to understand him.
“I waited,” he says, his voice distant. His eyes flicker, a flash of something that disappears.
“Waited for what?”
&nb
sp; “To die.” That same flicker again. “Alone,” he adds in a whisper.
I open my mouth to ask for more but he cuts me off. “I’ve already had my days of waiting to die,” he says. “The question is, what would you do, Annah?”
The same question as last night, except now I actually have an answer. I’m tired of just surviving. I’m tired of waking up each day simply to make it to the next.
That isn’t enough anymore. It’s been what I’ve done for too long and when I look back on those strings of days they’re all empty. I want more. More than closing myself off, more than being afraid to let someone care about me and me about them.
I want Catcher.
And I’m tired of his fear that he could somehow infect me. So what? I’m already dying anyway—every day I live is closer to death. It’s like I told my sister before: what matters is what you do with the time you’re alive.
“I’d live,” I tell him. Then I step forward, slide my hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck and press my lips into his.
He’s so stunned that at first he doesn’t react and I take advantage of his hesitation, deepening the kiss. For a moment—one tiny space between heartbeats—he falls into me. He whimpers slightly, his head tilting to the side as he pushes hard against my mouth and fire engulfs me, races through my veins.
He tries to speak, his tongue forming words that I fight with my own. And then he lunges back, breaking us apart. I step forward, tugging his head to me, but he places his hands on my shoulders and pushes me away.
His eyes are wide, his lips parted and face flushed. He’s breathing fast and his hand shakes when he raises it to his neck. “God, Annah, what were you thinking?” With each word his voice hardens.
“I told you …” He paces in a tight circle. “God, Annah, I could infect you. I could have already infected you! I can’t believe you did that.”
He shakes his head, presses a fist to his chin and closes his eyes. Carefully, I shift closer to him, rest a hand on his forearm. “It’s okay,” I tell him softly.