Kai pulls us back into the shelter of the rocks, the current holding us there again. He’s breathing hard.
You have to cross the rest of the way before he comes back. Go!
“We can do this, Shay,” Kai says. “We’re close, so close. All we have to do is get across this little stretch of water fast and get up the bank before he comes back.”
Shay?
I don’t answer either of them. I can’t think and breathe and move at the same time.
“Ready?” Kai says.
I nod.
“Hold on to me.”
He turns, and I put my hands around his shoulders so I’m holding myself against his back now; he pushes off with his feet, hard, against the rocks. We swirl into the current and I fight to not panic, to not scream and make things worse than they are.
Not that they can get much worse. The roar of the falls is loud in the night: they’re so close. The River Lyon wants us for dinner.
Kai struggles to pull us across the water to the shore before the falls, and I have no physical strength left, no way to help, but—
I close my eyes and reach—pour waves of energy into Kai. All that I can.
We jerk in the water; I open my eyes. Kai is holding on to a tree branch, pulling us out of the water and onto the riverbank, inch by inch.
We lie there, gasping. I’m unable to move at all, half in and half out of the water.
Get down!
A beam of light sweeps over the river, closer and closer to us. Does it shine on our legs in the water?
If it does, the soldier doesn’t see. The light carries on, past where we lie.
With Callie urging me on and Kai’s help, we somehow manage to pull ourselves to our knees. We scrabble up the riverbank and far enough away that the soldier’s flashlight won’t find us when he returns.
We’re soaking wet, covered in mud, cut from the rocks, scratched from thorns on the bank. Frozen, shaking, and exhausted.
But we made it: we’re out of the quarantine zone.
CHAPTER 6
CALLIE
I FIND THEM AN EMPTY HOUSE. It isn’t hard; I’d have thought since we’re not in the quarantine zone anymore, since people won’t be dead or sick, that they’d all be at home and tucked up in bed. Not so. It looks like they’ve run. A whole village near the river is a ghost town.
Kai breaks a back window and climbs in, then opens the door for Shay. The hot water had been turned off, so they have to switch it on and wait for baths, then scavenge clothes.
Kai is recovering quickly, but Shay is limp and shaking; she can hardly move. She’s not talking to Kai or to me.
Kai holds her, helps her eat a few bites of canned fruit and cookies raided from the kitchen, but she holds up a hand and wants no more.
“What happened?” he asks her. “You disappeared under the water for so long. I was sure…” And he can’t finish his sentence. He’s shaking now too.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “The current held me down, until I found a way around it.”
He wraps himself around her, and I don’t wait for Shay to tell me to go, to leave them alone.
I go.
CHAPTER 7
SHAY
THE SUN FEELS GOOD ON MY SKIN. It’s cold, but I’m warm from my legs going around and around on the pedals. I can’t believe how fast I recovered from the river crossing: a good sleep and eating everything we could find, and I was fine. But I know how close I was to dying, and not just from drowning. If I’d given Kai any more of my energy, there would have been nothing left to keep my heart beating.
Yet somehow nearly dying makes the sun and the bike ride even better.
Kai bikes alongside me. He glances over and grins. “It’s good to see you smile.”
“It’s crazy, but I feel like I’m on vacation. I’ve always wanted to take the bike route up to Inverness. Mum wasn’t into biking and wouldn’t let me go on my own.” My smile falls away.
He reaches a hand across, lightly touches my arm. “Well, we’re here, now; might as well make the most of it. Callie, is there anything to worry us up ahead?”
Callie disappears.
“She’s much happier when you ask her to do stuff than when I do.”
“I keep thinking there’ll be roadblocks, or army.”
“Me too. Though this area is free of the epidemic, and we’re miles and miles from the quarantine zone now.” We’ve gone over sixty miles from the zone, past Loch Rannoch and on into the Cairngorms National Park, from Dalwhinnie to Aviemore, and every little place on the bike route along the way. And there’s been no army and no roadblocks. The odd person we’ve seen hasn’t seemed to be worried that we were there, at least not beyond the weird looks they’d give to anyone they didn’t recognize. It all feels so normal.
Callie is back. No army, no roadblocks. A village a few miles ahead with shops and pubs and stuff.
My stomach is growling. “Maybe we could get something to eat? Something hot. What do you think—good idea, bad idea?”
“Hmmm. Well, no one seems to care when we pass by, so why would they if we stop for a while?” Kai says. “Let’s do it!”
When we reach the village, we find a small pub with a bike rack outside. We go in and sit by an open fireplace.
I pull out the next phone to check in with Iona, and log on to JIT. There’s a new post: Traveling in Scotland and need a quiet place near the sea? Try Elgin. I recommend Café Marbles. Ask waiter Lochy for recommendations.
So Iona’s friend works at a café in Elgin, near the sea that we need to cross. He must know the way.
I delete her post and add one of my own: Iona is Awesome.
I turn the phone off. We’ll find a place to dump it later. I try not to think about where we have to go and why, and pretend: we’re on vacation, aren’t we? We didn’t escape the quarantine zone and break into a house, half dead. We didn’t steal clothes and food and bicycles, and set out for Inverness a day later on an impossible mission. Instead, we planned this ages ago and got everything together carefully. We even researched places to eat along the way, and thought we’d try this one today.
We order. Kai holds my hand, and it feels like we’re any boy and girl on a date, and all the things that have happened lately fade away.
Sleepy and warm, I close my eyes, lean on his shoulder, and he slips an arm around me. Without even meaning to, my mind drifts; it reaches.
It’s so hard not to reach to Kai inside. He never said anything about what happened on the river, when I gave him my strength: maybe he didn’t know? Maybe he also doesn’t know how close I came to going too far, to giving him all I had.
Anyway, that was an emergency: he doesn’t want me to touch his mind, he’s made that plain enough. But it’s like the one place I most want to go is off-limits.
I send myself out, around us, instead—to the trees in the yard, the insects, the birds. A robin is hopping along the window ledge, looking in, and I watch from his eyes—see Kai and me sitting warm inside from his perspective. The robin abruptly turns the other way—ah, a car is coming. A police car.
I stir, open my own eyes. “Don’t turn around, but a police car has just pulled in outside the window,” I whisper.
“Probably a coincidence,” Kai says.
The waitress brings our lunch. “Here you go. Enjoy!”
Callie? What’s the policeman doing?
Chatting to someone across the road. He looks relaxed.
I start to relax a little and dig into my pie and fries: my first hot food in how long? And it’s good.
He’s crossing the road again; I think he’s coming to the pub now.
He walks through the door, and I can see him for myself. He looks around, says hello to a man sitting at the bar. He talks to the waitress, then sits at a table on the other side of the fireplace.
I glance at Kai and he nods, ever so slightly. He gives me a reassuring look—one that says it’s all right.
He’s just here for lunch, Call
ie says. Policemen have to eat too. They need energy to chase all the criminals.
Like us.
The waitress brings him a sandwich. She’s walking back across the pub when the old guy at the bar says, “It’s time for the news: put it on. There’s meant to be a press conference today.”
She hits a switch on the bottom of an ancient screen that is hung over the bar.
“Just in. The quarantined areas are increasing in Scotland and northern England. This from our reporter at the quarantine zone perimeter.”
A reporter in a biohazard suit looks at the camera and describes the new boundaries. A map goes up, and the waitress gasps: “That is so close to us.”
It switches back to the studio. “Now to Norway. A ship with over a hundred refugees from Scotland has evaded the coast guard and containment cordons, adding to the numbers that have already landed. Coastal quarantine camps are being stretched to the limit.” Her eyes focus away from the camera a moment.
“We’ll return to that report soon; the prime minister’s press conference in London is about to begin.”
The prime minister’s face fills the screen. She’s smiling, like she always does, but doesn’t look like she’s slept much lately.
She starts reading from a prepared statement about the challenges facing us all, about how they’re doing all they can to find a cure for this terrible disease. Then she looks directly at the camera.
“Stay calm, stay where you are. The best thing we can do to stop the spread of this epidemic is for people to avoid travel.”
The waitress looks over at us. “Where did you two come from today?”
Everyone in the pub is looking at us now.
“Not far. We’ve biked up from Aviemore,” Kai says, which is true, but it wasn’t our starting point.
Everyone visibly relaxes. There is no quarantine anywhere near there. I find Kai’s hand under the table and give it a squeeze.
“Heading back there, are you?” the policeman asks.
“Yes, sir,” Kai says.
He’s looking at me, the policeman. I half smile, try to look ordinary, not to look scared.
“Are you from around here?” he asks. “You look familiar.”
“Me? No, Aviemore,” I lie. “London originally.”
He nods and goes back to his lunch.
I want to get out of here. I look at Kai, move my eyes toward the door. He gives a slight shake of his head. Would it look odd if we bolted?
I try to finish my pie, but it’s like dust now.
The policeman’s phone rings. He picks up the half of his sandwich he hasn’t eaten yet, waves at the waitress, and heads for the door.
I breathe easier again. The news is still on and has moved to local stuff now. I stop paying attention until a new report makes me take notice with a rush of fear.
“The hunt continues for a Perthshire girl wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting death of seventeen-year-old Duncan MacFaddon in Killin last week.”
My ears hear the words, and my eyes are drawn to the TV screen. It’s me. A school photo, one I hated from last year, is plastered across the screen. I sit forward so my hair falls over my face and glance around us. The waitress is wiping a table; the old guy is taking a swig of beer. Neither is looking at the TV.
The waitress turns back to the bar just as my face disappears from the screen. She goes behind the bar and into the kitchen.
Kai is standing, putting money on our table. My hand in his is clammy as we walk to the door.
We step outside.
“Move normally,” Kai hisses, pulling back on my hand when my feet want to run.
We walk across the front of the pub. The police car is still there; the policeman has his phone in his hand and is tapping at the screen. We start to walk around him toward our bikes.
“Wait!” a voice calls out, and I jump. Kai turns; it’s the waitress. “You forgot your change,” she says.
“Keep it,” Kai says—smiles and waves.
The policeman is putting his phone in his pocket. His face has changed; it is cold, serious. Eyes intent on me. He steps forward.
“Shay McAllister?”
CHAPTER 8
CALLIE
THEY RUN: KAI AND SHAY, full tilt back to the path in the woods they’d biked up earlier. The policeman is on a radio now, even as he runs after them, panting. He’s had too many pub lunches, though; they’ll get away. They are pulling away a little already, off the bike path now and dodging between trees. Shay glances back and then—
Crack.
She’s run into the low branch of a tree. She crumples, slowly, to the ground.
In the time it takes her to fall, Kai has almost left her behind, but then he realizes she isn’t following. He turns back—just as the policeman reaches Shay.
Run, Kai! But he can’t hear me and rushes to her.
“Shay? Shay?” Her face is white, and blood trickles down her forehead. She doesn’t answer.
“What did you do to her?” Kai demands, with rage in his words.
“Nothing—she ran into an overhanging branch. Don’t try to move her. And you’re under arrest, and so is she. Give me a sec.” He’s calling an ambulance, and for backup, breathing heavily all the while.
Run, Kai, before it’s too late!
But Kai just holds Shay’s hand.
CHAPTER 9
SHAY
I’M DRIFTING. I can hear voices that fade in and out, like someone is turning the volume up and down. Someone holds up my eyelids, one after the other, and there is a bright light shining at my eyes that I can feel more than see. Then my body is moving, even though it’s not me doing it. There are hands; my head is strapped to something. I’m lifted up.
Kai is angry about something. I try to focus on what he is saying: he wants to come with me? But then his words fade away.
Later I hear voices again. Someone calls my name, and my eyes flutter open. I’m in a bed with high metal sides. A room with light walls. There’s a woman in front of me wearing a white jacket. Am I in the hospital? I try to move, to raise my head, but there is pain like a drum beating inside my skull.
“Stay still, Shay. You’ve had quite a knock to your head—best not to move around too much. I just need to ask you a few questions.”
I can’t think of any I want to answer just now.
“What day of the week is it today?”
I’m confused; why are they asking me that? “What?”
“What year is it?”
I close my eyes, pretend to lose consciousness again, and soon the voices go away.
My head throbs with pain, but it’s still nothing like as bad as when I was ill.
I can get through this. Can I fix myself like I did after I was shot in the ear? I let my mind drift, and try to reach, inside, but it hurts too much. I can’t do it. I’m tired; I need to sleep.
When I wake up again and risk peeking under my eyelashes, it must be night: the place is relatively quiet, the lights dimmed. I’m alone.
Through the window in the door, someone stands in an alert kind of way. Am I under guard?
Where’s Kai? I need to get out of here and find him.
But the pain still beats a drum inside my head. My thoughts are heavy, confused; I can’t do anything when I’m like this.
When I healed myself before, I just kind of reached and did it instinctively, but now the feeling for what to do is gone. How do I fix what is wrong when I can’t focus?
I have to try.
My pain ebbs and flows with each heartbeat, with the surge of my blood. Eyes closed, I reach for that, inside.
My heart contracts, pushes blood through my body. Red blood cells travel to every tissue, swapping oxygen for carbon dioxide in a merry, chaotic dance that is as it should be.
Focus in: where is the pain? There are white blood cells too, and sticky platelets, called to heal the wound on my forehead. But the bruising and swelling behind the injury is the cause of the confusion
and pain that intensifies with every heartbeat.
Look closer: every constituent of my body is made up of molecules, then atoms; particles within atoms. Particles dance and spin, all in their own perfect trajectories. I’m lost from my purpose, and spinning with them…for how long, I don’t know. There is something else, some other flickering weirdness I can almost sense, and I want to go deeper and deeper…
But then I remember: waves. It was waves of heat inside me by the loch that warmed me; waves of healing for my ear; waves of energy I gave to Kai.
Waves I can shape and send to heal the injury on my forehead.
They hurry along the healing process, yes, but also channel the swelling away, soothe the inflammation, reduce the pressure I feel with each heartbeat.
It works: the headache eases.
I open my eyes, caught in wonder. I did that? Used the smallest particles inside me as healing waves? It’s like how light can be waves but can also act as particles: this is the reverse—particles inside me acting as waves. Now, there’s a use for quantum physics that my physics teacher would never have dreamed up.
Is that how the other freaky things I can do work too?
But there’s no time for this now; I’ve got to get out of here.
Through the window in my door, the guard still stands in the hall. He’s facing the other way.
There’s a blanket over me, and I stir a little, afraid of the worst. Yep, great: I’m in a hospital gown, and there is no sign of my clothes.
Is Callie here? Callie? Callie? I cast out with my mind, but there is no answer, and no sense of her being nearby. She must have stayed with Kai.
I’ve gotten so used to her being able to check our surroundings that I almost forgot that I can do it myself. Eyes closed, I reach: not inside this time, but out, and all around.
There are people asleep in other hospital rooms around me, and the guard outside my door. A nurse at a nurses’ station down the hall. A phone rings; she answers it.
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