“Wow,” Emily whispers, touching a hand to my shoulder. Takeshi pauses, and it pulls my gaze. He looks at me like the next words are for my benefit alone.
“When he found her again, she was kneeling on the street, soaking wet and shivering. A soldier lifted one boy from her, and with her other arm, she held a toddler.”
“Hannah,” Emily murmurs. Tears sit in her eyes. “How did you do it?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “I only did what I had to. I couldn’t leave them.”
That night races back, and a shiver travels my body.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” says Takeshi. “Many people were left helpless. Some were even trampled in the chaos.” His lips quirk up. “Of course, when Solomon eventually learned your name, he wasn’t surprised. Turns out, Bakkers are good people.”
A trill sounds from inside his pocket, and he pulls out a rectangular device, which he holds to his mouth and ear.
We watch as his expression falls.
36
A sign on the door reads: Conference Room.
Takeshi sits at a long, oval table, staring at his intertwined fingers. Two soldiers sit at the other side of the table with sullen expressions.
“I’m sorry, sir,” one says, “but she was gone when we found her.”
Silence. Takeshi asks, “How?”
It’s the first he’s spoken since we sat down.
“She succumbed to her wounds,” one man says. “But it seems there was another incident that might have aggravated the situation.”
Takeshi sits up taller, a silent instruction for the man to continue.
“We found a gun nearby, close enough that it might have dropped out of her hands. And by the door there was a Watcher, shot in the back.”
“She killed him—”
“It appears so. We’ll know more once ballistics gets a chance to analyze the weapon. But from the look of it, she shot the man just before she died.”
“Why would she do that?” My voice comes out defensive. Meli would never kill out of revenge or spite. I can’t tell what these soldiers are driving at, but surely they know her better than I do. They have to know she would never kill without a reason.
“There’s no way to know with certainty,” says the other soldier, “but from our examination, we believe she took him down to prevent violence. The Watcher’s rifle had been activated by his thumbprint, and we could determine by the position of his fall that he was exiting the room.”
We fall quiet. Something happened between Meli and the Watcher, something that prompted her to kill him before he could leave.
“Do you know the Watcher’s name?” I ask.
One soldier nods. “Mullens. Another of their men identified him.”
“Mullens,” I repeat quietly, but I’ve never heard that name, even in passing. Just before we pushed through to the compound, hundreds of Watchers arrived. He could be anyone. I look at Takeshi, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t know him, but if Meli saw fit to kill him, I trust his intentions were dishonorable.” He looks to the soldiers. “Meli is a hero,” he says, standing, his chair shoving back. “See to it she receives a hero’s treatment. Contact me with any new information.”
“Yes, sir,” both men say, and with salutes, they exit the room.
Takeshi presses his palms to the table and sighs while I stand numb a step behind. Meli changed me, challenged me to be more. Now I’ll never get a chance to thank her. Never say goodbye.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur. How many more will die before the ripples of this war end?
“I’ll go see her family,” he says, the words aimless, spoken thoughts.
He turns to go, but stops before he passes me and sets a hand on my shoulder. His eyes close, and he shudders when he exhales. It makes me think of poison taking hold, seeping through to his bones. That’s what death does. In the days coming, it will be up to us to draw the sorrow away again, when he’s ready to leave it.
37
“I just want you to know you have someone,” Emily says, tucking her hair behind an ear. “It really is helpful to talk.”
We sit in a long, dim hall on a backless bench after seeing Takeshi off. The sun dropped away a couple hours ago, and the majority of the building’s occupants are sleeping. Nurses sit at stations, quietly chatting and rushing to rooms when small alarms sound at their desks.
I lean my back and head against the wall, allowing its coolness to seep into my skull. It reminds me of my unit, of long evenings staring into nothing, fighting tears in the hours I spent alone. My chest fills with a familiar ache, and I rub at it.
“From what Sam and some of the others have mentioned,” she continues quietly, keeping her voice near to us, “your experiences were significant. Exceptional, even. That can’t be easy.”
“All our experiences were significant,” I say. Memories claw at my mind, scraping their way to the surface after I’d forced them down, out of sight. Dead Outcasts huddled in the dark room where I hid with Drew. The crippled girl he saved, the one he carried until he collapsed…dying. Somewhere in the background of my thoughts, I can still hear the echo of the shots that killed my parents. They reverberate endlessly through my body, ricocheting off my bones every minute I live without them. My eyes close.
“Of course,” is her whispered reply. We sit in silence to the methodic clicks and hums of machines.
Eventually I say, “I need to find Ben.” And Norma. Worry shoots through me.
“I’ve already checked the database,” she says. “The next best thing would be to go room to room checking beds.” She raises her eyebrows, asking what I think.
“I’ll do anything,” I say, pulling away from the wall. “If you’re busy, I don’t mind searching alone.”
“There is one other possibility,” she says. “Some of the refugees arrived sick. It spread in the first days, so we moved them all to another building. He could be among them.”
I rise to my feet, too fast, looking down at her with anxious eyes. Alarm crosses Emily’s face.
“Please,” I say. “Will you take me?”
The walk is quiet and cold once we exit the large hospital building. A winding cement path lined in lights and orange and red flowers leads us to the door of the next facility. Chilly wind cuts through the air, and I pull my jacket tighter. I’m nervous. I don’t know what I’ll see here.
Warmth hits us the moment we enter, and instantly I’m thawing. Emily leads me to a door that requires a security badge. She waves to a man sitting behind a glass window across the hall, then hands me a medical mask from a box. Her badge allows us in.
Like all the other halls, this one is dim. A large, wall-sized window allows us a view into a room of sleeping babies. They lie on small beds in rows, and nurses move slow among them. Some of the beds are partitioned off, keeping them separate from the larger group.
Several feet down the hall, at the other end of the window, stands a woman with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She’s dressed in a hospital gown, with slippers covering her feet and a mask protecting her mouth. Hair in a thick, curly knot on her head and eyes drooping with exhaustion, she looks as though every night this side of the valley has been spent watching through the glass. I step toward her, and her glance meets mine.
She studies me as I walk the distance between us, a hard look, like she’s trying to place me. Then her eyes open just a bit more.
“I heard rumors that you died,” she whispers, her voice scratchy. “And the Watcher. I heard you were gunned down in the end.”
Pain shoots through my body, memories of the panic when Cash fell. I stop when three feet separate us.
“Have we met?” I ask. “I apologize. I have trouble placing people these days.”
Her head dips. “No, we’ve not met. But I was there the night you spoke in the cafeteria…after the fire.”
My blood heats, remembering the many that were killed that night. I still recall the despera
te cries of people that escaped the flames, leaving behind their loved ones. My eyes move to the sleeping babies, and I find comfort there.
“The way you cried,” the woman says quietly, shaking her head, “the way you defended the Watchers. I’ll never forget it. Everything changed after that.”
I’m not sure what to say in response, so I shift the focus, gesturing to the window. “Is your child in there?”
On my other side, Emily watches me. I feel her eyes studying my reactions. Always observing. The woman’s words still hang in the air, unaddressed.
She points to a bed holding a small girl…maybe two years old. “My daughter.” Little hands clutch a pink blanket against a soft, rosy cheek. She rests in a partitioned corner.
“She’s been burning with a fever since we arrived,” she continues.
I peek at Emily, and her expression is grave. So much sickness at once could mean a number of things. These people arrived weak. Exhausted. Exposed to the elements.
But one more possibility creeps into my thoughts, and my chest tightens.
It could be a final effort by the Council.
The woman coughs, and a twinge of fear cuts through me. The Southerners wouldn’t know to look out for such threats.
“I hope she recovers soon,” I say, taking in the mother’s mournful eyes. “She’s in good hands now.”
Emily guides me down the hallway, past a maze of windows all revealing sick children. Adults are kept on another wing. Some of the nurses have drawn their curtains, but most agree to open them long enough for me to scan the faces. I find him quickly. My palm touches the cool glass, and tears spring to my eyes.
“That’s him?” Emily asks, following my gaze. “The one you saved from the street?”
My arms ache to hold him. I try to remember the last time, but it was before the Compound. Before Cash was shot. He’s sleeping now, bundled in a gray blanket.
Gray like smog. Like dead Outcast lips. Color is a powerful reminder; painted memories seared behind my eyelids.
“He doesn’t look too bad,” Emily murmurs. I clear my lungs, exhaling the images.
“What are the symptoms?”
“High fevers. Respiratory distress in some. They’ve seen rashes and coughs.” She steps closer to the glass but turns her face to me. The look says she suspects I am withholding information, and she needs it.
“Our treatments aren’t working. Do you know anything that might help us?”
I don’t want to say things that are false. Even in dealing with the Council, I don’t want to assume blame. How can we move forward if we fear them at every turn?
“The assignment Takeshi mentioned,” I say. She turns her back to the glass, leaning into it, listening with crossed arms. “The Council was poisoning Watcher families. Spreading illness to punish deserters. We were sent to steal a cure, but in the end, it was a trap. Edan’s sister died.”
Her arms fall as she turns fast, peering out over the children. “Could they have done it again?” Her round eyes bore into me. Demanding. “Was there an opportunity?”
“It has to be considered,” I relent, and she runs to a nurse’s station, a string of instructions pouring from her masked lips.
“Tell them to check everyone immediately. Contact the team leads and call a meeting.”
We rush to exit. I try to catch one more glimpse of Ben before we’re out of range, but they’ve closed the curtain, alarmed by Emily’s sudden orders.
“I have to meet with the attending physicians,” she tells me. The cool night air raises bumps on my skin. “I’ve arranged a room for you. I’ll grab someone and have them take you.”
“It might not be the Council,” I say, trying to keep up. Pain throbs in my knee.
Emily yanks open a door to the main building. Warmth envelops us. “I know. But if there’s the smallest chance…”
Her words trail as she studies me, determining how much I believe in that chance. I could lie and say they were just weak. Susceptible to illness. Maybe my lie would be truth by the end. I think of Ben trapped behind that glass, and I desperately want this to pass.
“There’s a chance,” I say. “The Council shouldn’t be underestimated.”
38
By morning, they’ve moved another thirty refugees to the other building. Their symptoms varied from low fevers to high fevers and barking coughs, but no exceptions were made. And nothing is working.
I spend the morning searching for Aspen. When I find her, she’s sitting on a bench with a colorful blanket around her shoulders, her hair a bundle of fire on top of her head. Without a word, I settle on the bench to her right, and from the corner of my eye, see her head turn.
She sighs, and her temple lands soft on my shoulder. “You’re alive.”
“So are you,” I murmur. She’s no longer the sharp-tongued girl I met the second day, the one who stood over me with a scowl, appalled that I’d fallen asleep on the shower floor. My stomach clenches when I think of what she lived through with Jace; the wound still marks her neck. But she’s young, and I think this new life will help those memories fade.
“What do you think it is?” she asks, watching a man being helped to the quarantined building. He walks on his own two feet, but his back is hunched. He coughs into a mask, and the force nearly topples him. Two nurses hold his arms. Aspen clasps her hands tight in her lap. “My mom’s in there.”
I cover her hands with mine. “Did you notice anything on the last day?”
While she thinks, we watch a child being carried to the sick ward behind the man.
“I was in the cafeteria with the children, helping mom,” she says. “We thought the fight had reached us when we heard guns in the halls.”
“Guns?” I think of Meli. Could Aspen have heard that altercation?
“It was so loud. Half the kids were screaming.”
Ben was there. And Sam with his siblings. I wrestle back the mental images.
“How long did it go on? They didn’t come in the rooms?”
Aspen drops back against the bench. “It was weird,” she says. “They fired for only a minute, then left. We never saw them, but the smoke made us all cough. When we left, people were dead in the halls. But I don’t remember seeing blood.”
Warnings sound off in my head. Disappointment too, because I wanted to be done with them. I should have known the Council wouldn’t give up. Not until their goal is met: to bury us.
“Watcher guns don’t leave smoke,” I say, feeling hope shred to pieces, dying in the place I tried to keep it. My heart hurts.
“Do you mean they poisoned us?” Aspen’s skin pales. “Why aren’t we all sick?”
We stand. I have to tell them.
“Maybe it takes longer for some. Or maybe you’re stronger. Healthier.”
I turn a slow circle, determining where Emily will be this time of the morning. But then she appears from the large, glass doors of the main building, running. I call her name, and she searches a moment before finding me. I run to meet her.
“It’s the Council,” I say in a hurry. “It was them. I’m sure of it.”
She sets her hands on her hips, staring at the ground with pinched lips. “Tell me.”
I glance back at Aspen, who stands by the bench hugging herself. Still pale.
Meli must have known. She died trying to stop it from happening.
“The last day,” I say, and I go on relaying Aspen’s story. With each word that leaves my mouth, dread pools in my gut, a black pit that I know well. It will drain the life from me if I cannot hold on.
“There must be some kind of delayed response,” Emily says, running a hand over her mouth, scanning the lawn as if an answer will appear. Then she grabs my arm, tight enough to alarm me, to make me realize how badly I’m shaking.
Her voice is stern, confident. “They will not die on my watch. Do you hear me?”
Tears fill my eyes, making all the beautiful outside colors blend together. I blink them down my cheeks, coo
l streams when the breeze hits them. I need to see her conviction.
“There won’t be a cure,” I say, despising the weakness I hear in my own voice. But I have seen what they can do. I watched as the light faded in Edan’s eyes when he realized his sister would die, and it was his fault.
Emily squares her shoulders, spreads her arms as if accepting the challenge. Her eyes gleam determined when she says, “We’ll figure it out.”
I watch her leave, resuming her run toward the sick. She pulls a mask from her back pocket, securing it before entering. I stare a few seconds longer after she’s gone. Just now, when she did not bend to fear, I felt something new rattling inside me. If I move, distraction will make it fade. I focus in on the feeling until I can define it. When the answer comes, it shoots through me like a barreling missile, exploding in my heart.
We waited in agony for the South to save us. Now we are here. And they will defend us indefinitely. Because we are theirs and they are ours. It is more than belonging reshaping my cells.
It is home.
39
I make my way to Sam’s room and find him stretched on the floor, drawing on a white paper with short, thick sticks of color. He sees me enter but turns back to his work.
“What’s this?” I sit cross-legged on the floor beside him and run a hand over his hair once, confirming that he’s here and well. I need to find a way to contact Cash so he’ll know.
“They told me to draw things from my experiences,” Sam tells me. “Good things and bad things.” He lifts the paper, holding it out to show me. “What do you think?”
He’s drawn a man. The proportions are all wrong, with gangly arms and legs reaching farther than they should. But the face grabs me; sad eyes, with a line curved down for lips.
“Who is it?” I ask. Sam lowers the paper to the floor again, his shoulders drooping.
“My dad,” he says.
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