by Lydia Kang
I sit in the driver’s seat, resting my head on the steering wheel.
We’ll never make it.
• • •
I DRIVE ANOTHER FEW HOURS BUT STOP frequently to check on Caliga, who sleeps most of the time and barely moves. When I move her limp arm to feel her pulse, I notice how fairy-like her hands are. The nails are symmetrical ovals on slender fingers. She has the hands of an innocent girl. I wonder if hands can lie.
I must be getting lonely and desperate, because I start talking to her and asking ridiculous questions. Things like, “Tell me what Cy used to eat for breakfast,” or “Did you kiss both of Wilbert’s heads, or just the one with lips?” She never answers me.
As we approach the outskirts of Dubuque, Cy’s voice is louder than ever, and the quality has changed. It has clarity now, as if freed from the confines of a thick blanket. When the edge of the agriplane comes into view where the scythe-like skyscrapers of Dubuque appear, I start to hear the poem in its entirety. He’s close, so close. I know it.
The agriplane ends abruptly and I’m blinded with sunlight that hasn’t warmed my skin in months, ever since Marka made the agriplane off-limits. I imagine how Vera might feel right now, yearning for light like water or food. What I wouldn’t do to have her right here, calling me that stupid Quahog nickname again.
We pass domed metallic apartment complexes and pointed office buildings that resemble daggers. The city is denser now, and it’s hard to avoid the mag lanes. I drive in the shadows and the back alleyways, but even so, it’s nerve-wracking trying to avoid pedestrians and follow Cy’s voice.
Finally, I round a bend behind some huge warehouses in the rougher, southern section of the city. Cy’s voice is bell-clear, as if he were standing right next to me. As I pull up close to a pile of discarded building material, his voice hesitates. A few beats later, it resumes to finish the poem.
After a thoughtless twist, you return.
Keep your tides surging with their cold embrace
And I will rise to meet them
Drowning in our histories to come.
I turn off the char, listening to the engine tick and clank as it settles down. As soon as I shut the door, Cy’s words stop again. I carefully pick my way around the small heaps of trash, heading closer to the largest pile. It’s an A-frame shanty constructed of flat corrugated metal.
For a second, I feel his hand curl around my neck, sliding around my shoulder. It’s comforting, yet unchaste—and I inhale so sharply that the noise I make echoes down the alleyway. His words stop yet again, but the hand stays where it is.
“Cy,” I whisper.
A flap of plastic sheeting blocks the entrance to the shanty and it flutters in the scant breeze. And then I catch a scent of smoldering smokiness, like a warm autumn day succumbing to frost. A scent I’ve only dreamed of lately, because it disappeared from Cy’s pillow months ago.
He’s here. I can’t believe he’s so close.
In my arms, I think. He’ll be in my arms in two seconds.
I push back the plastic, trying to see into the gloom within.
Someone lies on the roughly swept ground. I see the curve of the spine, the dark, shaggy hair. Filthy clothes hanging from a thin frame. But I know that skin. It glows almost preternaturally within the dark of the shelter—unmarred, if not for the smudges of mud.
My heart beats so hard, it bumps uncomfortably against my chest, making me dizzy. I take a tentative step closer, and my foot crackles on a plastic wrapper.
Cy stirs, his head twisting around to find the source of the noise. I’m shocked to see a short, patchy beard obscuring his jawline. His eyes squint in the scant light inside his shelter. He blinks painfully.
“Cy?” I whisper, sinking to my knees. “It’s me.”
As he twists to face me fully, something beyond him moves. Under the protection of his arms, a dark bundle sits up, and a pair of beautiful black eyes open to meet mine.
I’ve finally found Cy.
And he’s not alone.
CHAPTER 7
THE DARK-EYED BUNDLE MURMURS SLEEPILY, HER TONE light and delicate. “Qui est là?”
“C’est une amie,” Cy murmurs back.
Cy is speaking French. To a girl he just had his arms around. I’d thought of a million things to say to Cy when I saw him again. Now I’m speechless.
Silence fills the little junk-shanty as I stand up, unsure of what to do. My buoyed heart just careened into the center of the earth, and I don’t know how to retrieve it. Cy gets up shakily, his shoulders thinner, his cheekbones carved out with frightening severity. Dirt-caked pants hang on his narrow hips. He steps forward and reaches his hand out to touch my cheek, but hesitates.
“This might be the best hallucination I’ve ever had,” he murmurs.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. A sob escapes from me, shaking my whole body. In seconds, he has his arms around me, and I’m dissolving in his embrace. The scent of him is like mud and seawater and dying trees, but behind the dirty exhaustion, it’s Cy.
He burrows his face into the crook of my neck. He’s crying too, and we’re both shaking and freaking out and I start kissing his cheeks—stubbly and rough with sharp angles that weren’t there before. I find his eyelids and kiss them too. He’s real. This is real.
He finally plucks my hands off him and holds my wrists, before releasing me. The action is gentle, but I recognize the movement. He’s pushing me away and my eyes smart at the gesture.
“I can’t believe it. You found me,” he says softly.
I rub away my tears. “Your voice. I followed your voice. We could all hear it. How did it happen? And your touch—like Ana’s. How? And who . . . who . . .” My words trip over themselves to get out.
“Is Ana okay?” he interrupts. “Is she safe?”
“Yes, she’s okay. I think she’s okay. She’s with Hex and Vera, and we’re going to try to meet up soon in . . . oh my god. How did you get here? How—”
“I’ll tell you everything. But first, do you have anything to eat? Any water? We’re starving to death.” At the word we he steps farther away. The girl on the floor of the shanty sits up on her knees, swaying unsteadily.
Blink. The girl who could see in the dark. Micah, his sadistic colors on full display, had ordered her to attack us after I found Dyl in Aureus. Blink hit my leg so hard that I still have a lumpy scar. She’s tiny, with dusted umber skin, a heart-shaped face, and full lips. Her cheekbones are sunken and match Cy’s. She stares right back at me, as if she doesn’t quite believe I’m here.
“You remember Élodie,” he says awkwardly.
“Élodie,” I murmur, parroting him.
“Yes, that’s her name.” He turns to Blink and smiles. “Everyone called her Blink because of how she reacts to the light.”
I nod, but I can’t get over how Cy pronounces her name. It’s musical, sweet, lovely. Zelia, in comparison, is all angles. It buzzes, an irritant of a name. I try to sense what he’s feeling, scenting around him. There’s a peacefulness I’m picking up. But I sense an unmistakable scent of something tarry, black and sticky. What is that?
“I am pleased to meet you again,” she says, her English heavily accented. “I am sorry for—I did not want. C’était un cauchemar . . . trés difficile pour moi.” When she looks up, she squints painfully at the light behind me. Her pupils are enormous. Big and wide and black within dark irises that might swallow a person whole. She fumbles for her pocket and digs out a pair of oversized wraparound sunglasses, putting them on with a relieved sigh.
“Water?” Cy asks again. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows dryly.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I run back to the char to dig up some food and water containers. I don’t know how I manage, because I’m so distracted. I’ve imagined a million versions of how I’d be reunited with Cy. This was never one of
them.
When I hand the biscuits and water to Cy and Blink, they cram the food into their mouths, chugging water so fast that they cough and sputter. Soon after, they take turns groaning in pain as their empty stomachs react to the shock of real food.
Before long, I hear how they made it here. Walking on foot since the attack two weeks ago. Stealing food and water when they could. Hiding in abandoned houses and fighting off the malformed opossums, rats, and raccoons every night.
“We would have gone straight to Carus, but Élodie was convinced we’d put you in danger, so we came to the border instead.”
“I followed your voice here,” I say, wishing Blink weren’t so near. I’m sure I’m blushing. “I didn’t know you knew that poem ‘Luna.’”
“If anyone could recognize it, it’d be you,” he says quietly. He seems shy about the subject, so I take the opportunity to urge him to eat and drink some more. I realize why he feels so far away, even though he’s right here, in touchable distance. His voice has stopped reciting the poem to me. I miss it.
I miss him, and he’s right here.
“I didn’t know anyone could have more than one trait,” I say. “How could that be?”
“I don’t know. Ana doesn’t seem to have my trait.”
I remember Ana’s cut hand when she squeezed the glass sea urchin. “Wait. Maybe she does.” I tell them about the accident, and Cy rubs his arms with a shiver. A waft of garbage-scented wind flows by, rank and overwhelming, when I need to concentrate. I pinch my nose, irritated by the intrusion.
“Could there be others like us? Have you noticed anything in Vera, or Hex?” he asks.
“No.” An opossum slinks by the other end of the alley, its hindquarters raw and oozing from an infection. Ugh, it’s putrid. I pinch my nose again.
“Why do you keep doing that?” He taps his nose.
“Too many smells. So distracting.”
“Holy hell.” Cy leans forward, his eyes roving over me like I’m a new lab specimen. “How long has this been going on?”
“Ever since I took Marka’s pills last year. My dad said that some medications can have lingering side effects, so . . . I thought it would go away, but it’s gotten worse.”
“Zel. Marka’s pills only have a twenty-four-hour half-life. I helped her make them. Tested them too.”
“Wait. You think I have Marka’s trait? For real?” I whisper. I can’t hide the goofy grin expanding my cheeks, and Blink stares at me like I’m crazy. Why didn’t I realize the obvious? “God, I wish I could tell her! She needs to teach me everything!” I’m giddy with excitement.
“Wait, whoa. But why? Why would some of us have more than one trait? Ones that didn’t show up until we were nearly adults?”
“I don’t know,” I gasp. Blink can barely hide the disgust on her face. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s not a good thing, Zel,” Cy says.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s complicated.” He waves away the topic, and anger simmers inside me. Cy never blew off the importance of our traits. I don’t understand his dismissiveness. I steel myself to challenge him again, when he asks, “Where’s Ana? How is Marka?”
My face must look awful, because worry suffuses his face. “What happened, Zel?”
“You don’t know? About Senator Milford?”
“Marka’s uncle? What happened?”
I tell him everything. About how he died, and how it must have been my DNA that did it. About how the police raided Carus and drove us to flee in different directions.
“Do you think someone in Aureus could have leaked the elixir I gave to SunAj?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. SunAj had very specific plans to adapt that elixir.”
“Very few people had access to it,” Blink adds. “He didn’t know how best to distribute it, even on the black market.”
“But how could it have gotten to the senator?” I want so much to believe I might not be responsible for his death.
Voices sound close by and we all jerk to attention, cowering in the shadows.
“Come on,” I whisper. “I have a char down the alley.” I suddenly remember Caliga. “We have to go, quickly.” I extend my hand to Cy, when Blink instinctively reaches for him at the same time, slipping her hand into his. Blink sees me staring, mouth idiotically open with surprise at their clasped hands, and she withdraws it with a jerk.
What the hell.
I spin around, smacking the plastic sheeting out of the way, and walk quickly back to the camouflaged char. I wipe my smarting eyes, and turn to see Cy and Blink emerging unsteadily from their shelter. There are a few seconds before they catch up. I’ve got to calm down.
Be reasonable, Zelia. They’re hungry and they’ve been on the run. At least Cy had a friend in Aureus. She’s probably like a sister to him.
I nod to myself. That’s what I’ll believe, for now. As soon as they get to the char, I hold my hand up.
“Wait here.”
“Why?” Cy asks.
“Caliga’s in there.”
“You mean she made it to Carus after all?” He and Blink exchange glances. I feel stupid and left out and twelve years old, wondering what thoughts they’re sharing without me.
“Yes, but she’s sick. Cy, I need your help.” I open the back door and lean over Caliga’s sleepy body, when Cy yells out.
“Don’t!” When he sees me unaffected by being so close, his eyes widen. “How can you bear to be close to her?”
I chuckle at his words. I’m surprised how well I’ve been bearing it, after all. “We made a vaccine to her trait when she showed up in Carus.”
“You made it?”
“Dyl did, actually, with Caliga’s help.”
“Dyl did? Wow.”
“I know,” I say, my pride swelling. “But it didn’t work on her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” I haven’t had more time to think about why. Caliga was adamant that it should have worked fine on her. It doesn’t make sense, and I’ve no answer as to why. I go back to examining Caliga. Her flush is gone and she’s breathing more regularly. I replace her empty antibiotic pouch with a new one and feel her cheek. She’s not feverish anymore. I add nutrient powder to another dermal pouch full of sterile water and attach that to the other side of her belly. After a quick change of her dressing, I step back.
“How did you learn to do all that?” Cy asks. Something passes over his face that resembles what I’ve been feeling. We’ve both been left behind in each other’s life, and not by choice.
“I . . . had to do something when you were gone.” I sigh. I can’t explain a year’s worth of my life in a sentence.
“Where are we?” Caliga mumbles, blinking slowly.
“We’re in Dubuque,” I say. “I found someone you know.”
Caliga props herself up on one elbow and peers around me. As soon as she sees Blink and Cy, her hands frantically claw at my arms.
“Where is he? Wilbert? Wilbert!” Her mouth is so dry, she almost chokes on the words.
“Wilbert’s not here,” Cy says quietly.
Caliga’s face is drained of color, and she had precious little to begin with. I’ve seen her nearly permanent bitch face, and this new, hungry expression tears right through me. It’s devastation and anguish all at once. I should know it well enough; I owned it when Cy volunteered his life for mine and Dyl’s.
“He didn’t make it out, Caliga. They took him.”
Caliga lies back down and is mute for a long time. I think she’s fallen asleep, when I see tears tracking down her temples into her white hair. “Where were you?” she finally says in a raspy whisper. She still won’t open her eyes. “I waited for days.”
“We came out on the other side of the lake, but there was a hoverpod searching the area for su
rvivors. We had to run,” Cy explains. His shoulders droop and he wears his exhaustion like a hundred-pound cloak.
“Cy, we should get going,” I say.
“Where do we go?” Blink asks. Her accent is lilting and gorgeous.
“Caliga needs more antibiotics. We’re trying to meet up with Marka and everybody in Chicago.”
“Ilmo’s not such a tough border to cross, last I heard. When are you meeting them?”
The last forty-eight hours have been an adrenaline blur and I’ve hardly slept. I think carefully. “Ten days.”
“They will not let us in,” Blink comments. I have to concentrate extra hard to understand her accented words. “None of us have working F-TIDs anymore.”
“They might,” Cy tells her. “Lots of States have an opt-out clause. They don’t require an F-TID, but you’re monitored and treated like a convict. Hard labor, crappy benefits, crappy pay, stuff like that.”
“Then let’s go. Caliga can’t walk, so we’ll have to drive as close as possible to the entrance registration areas.”
Everyone nods, and Cy and Blink stand back so I can help Caliga get into the front passenger seat. With Cy and Blink crammed into the left corner of the backseat, they’re just beyond the three-foot mark of Caliga’s effect. Since I can’t sit with him, I pile the biscuits and bottles of water on Cy’s lap until he’s blanketed in sustenance.
“Keep eating and drinking. You need your strength.”
Cy smiles gratefully and hands Blink a bottle. As soon as I start the char, I glance at the rearview mirror. Blink leans her head against Cy’s shoulder, her ebony hair clotted with braids full of twigs and leaf fragments. Cy’s eyes are on me.
Part of me overflows with frightening happiness. I’ve found a puzzle piece that’s been missing for too long. But as hard as I try to cram it into place, it somehow doesn’t fit the same way anymore.
Caliga moans, and I take a minute to lean over and adjust her sagging bandage. As I tighten one of the bindings, her face is grim. For a moment, I wonder. She can make everyone else feel numbness, but does it affect her own body?