by Anna Carey
Page 8
She pulled back her hood. Her short black hair was caked with dirt and her pale skin was sunburned, the ridge of her nose peeling in places.
I threw my arms around her, clinging tight as though she were the only thing keeping me from falling off the earth. I breathed in, not minding that we both smelled of sweat-soaked clothes.
Arden was here. Alive. With me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, pushing me off. “How did you get here?” Her face seized in anger and I remembered, suddenly, that she hated me.
I sat down on the floor of the room, stunned. “I escaped. You were right—I saw them, too. The girls? In that cement room?” Arden paced in front of the fire, her knife clutched in her hand. “I followed the sign that said eighty . . . ” I trailed off, realizing she must’ve done the same.
“Califia can’t be more than a week away, we’ll find the red bridge soon—”
Arden tapped the flat end of the knife against her leg as she paced. “You can’t stay with me. I can’t let you, I’m sorry but you’ll just have to—”
“No. ” I thought only of the giant rats that scurried over my legs at night, my poor attempt at hunting rabbits. “You can’t, Arden. You wouldn’t throw me out. ”
Arden dragged the knife along the brick fireplace and it made a scraping sound that stiffened my spine. “This is not a game, Eve. This is not some little vacation you’re taking from school. ” She pointed out the window. “There are men and dogs and all sorts of wild animals out there, and they all want to kill us. You’re not going to be able to keep up. I—I can’t risk it. We’d be better on our own. ”
I sat on my shaking hands, my palms digging into the moldy carpet, sobered by Arden’s cruelty. Even if I had found a second year in the jungle and her leg was broken in half I wouldn’t have left her there—I couldn’t have. It was a death sentence.
“I know it’s not a game. That’s why we should stick together. ” I needed Arden, but I couldn’t quite reason why she needed me. I searched my mind anyway, trying to appeal to that cold, Darwinian part of her. “I can help you. ”
Arden sank onto the old couch, its cushion broken in places by twisted, rusty springs. “And how is that?” She pulled a dead beetle from the tangled ends of her hair and flicked it into the fire. It let out a loud pop.
“I’m smart. I can help with maps and compasses. And it’ll help to have an extra person, to serve as lookout. ”
Arden let out all the air in her lungs. “There are no maps and compasses, Eve. And you’re book smart,” she corrected, holding up her finger. “That doesn’t mean anything here. Can you fish? Can you hunt? Would you kill someone if it was me against them?”
I swallowed hard, knowing the answer: no. Of course not. I’d never even killed a slug. I’d told Teacher about the girls who salted them just to watch them squirm. But I wanted to prove to Arden that every one of those years I’d spent in the library and she’d been playing horseshoes on the lawn had been worthwhile. “Headmistress gave me the Medal of Achievement. . . . ”
Arden threw her head back and laughed. “You are funny. But I’ve been fine on my own. You, however . . . ”
I looked down, seeing myself through her eyes. My School jumper had been torn by a tree branch. My palms were crusted with blood and my arms were bare even though it was a cold spring night. I felt weak—weaker than I’d ever been at School, with no food and no water and no sustenance to look forward to. My eyes filled with tears.
“You don’t understand—you have parents, somewhere to go. You don’t know what it’s like to be out here alone. ”
I put my face in my hands and cried. I didn’t want to rot, alone, in the woods. I didn’t want to starve or be captured by a man. I didn’t want to die.
It was a good minute before I noticed Arden had moved from her post on the couch and set another piece of rabbit’s meat on the fire. “You don’t have to be such a baby about it,” she said, passing me the stick. I devoured it, letting the juices drip down my hands and run over my chin, at once forgetting my manners.
“I can’t waste any more time. My parents might have heard by now that I left School . . . they might be searching for me,” Arden said when I was finally finished.
I felt the urge to roll my eyes, but stopped myself. Even now, lost in the wild, Arden was bragging about her parents. Soon she’d be telling me about the four-story house they’d lived in together, how she’d slept on a king-sized bed, even as a child. How hard it was for her to say good-bye to all of it, if only for a number of years. She missed the maids, the dinners served on china, the parents who took her to plays, letting her rest her chin on the balcony’s railing to get a better view of the stage.
“You can stay tonight. Then we’ll see,” Arden said. She tossed me a tattered gray blanket.
I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders as the fire dwindled down to a pile of smoldering ash. “Thank you. ”
“No problem. ” Arden turned over in her pile of quilts, which were arranged on the couch, circling her like a giant bird’s nest. “I found it on some skeleton a few miles back. ” She let out a low laugh.
I threw it off my shoulders and rested my back in the corner. I didn’t care if my teeth chattered from the cold, as they had every other night.
In the light of the crescent moon, I could see photos on the wall. A young family was posed in front of the house. They were smiling, their arms wrapped around one another, as unaware of their future as I was of my own.
Chapter Six
THE NEXT AFTERNOON I FOLLOWED ARDEN THROUGH A field of sunflowers, pushing the giant black-eyed monsters away from my face. We’d barely spoken, except to agree on a roast rabbit breakfast, and I took that as a good sign. I was half expecting to wake up with no food, no blankets, and no Arden. But she hadn’t left me, and I wondered if her silence meant we’d stick together. I hoped so, if only for my stomach’s sake.
We trekked down the grassy street of an abandoned neighborhood. The roofs of the houses were caved in and a few basketball hoops lined the trail, vines transforming them into lush, flowered topiaries. We passed the wreckage of old cars, their windshields shattered and their doors rusted shut. Two rotting coffins sat in an overgrown driveway: one for an adult, and one for a child.
In my mother’s last days, I played outside, alone. She’d locked me out of her bedroom, for fear I’d catch her sickness. I’d lay my doll on the stone ledge in our backyard and tend to her with potions of mashed-up leaves and mud. You’ll feel better soon, I’d told her, as I listened to my mother’s cries through the open window. The doctor is coming, I’d whispered. He’ll save you. He’s just so busy now.
“You’re morbid, aren’t you?” Arden said. She tugged on my arm. I had stopped by the wood boxes, my eyes fixed on the smaller one.
“Sorry. ” I kept on down the road, trying to shake my melancholy mood. I felt worse, lonelier somehow, knowing that Arden didn’t understand. I picked some wild-flowers, clinging to the colorful bouquet.
“I’ve decided we can travel to Califia together,” Arden said, kicking through the tall grass. “But after that you’re on your own. I’ll rest there, but then I have to keep moving, to find a way to reach my parents inside the City. ”