I am almost surprised when my fingers reach the lip of the opening in the top of the bell tower. I pause a moment, looking up at the bell that is now just above my head. Then I push and pull myself up over the lip and into the small space between the bell and the posts supporting the triangular roof above. I wrap one arm around a post. As I glance down, the ground begins to spin, and I find myself throwing up. Torres squawks, but I ignore him. At least I kept my mush down for a couple of hours this time.
When I’m finally able to breathe normally, I reach my free hand up inside the bell, and my fingers touch the soft fabric of a blanket. I grab on to it and pull down. The bundle falls suddenly, crashing to the floor of the tower underneath the bell. The rope comes untied, and the blanket opens up like a flower, spilling its contents.
A bottle of pills rolls toward the edge of the tower and I grab for it, stopping its momentum. I bring it up close to my face and study the scribbles on the side.
Papa taught me a few letters before he disappeared, but in the five years since then, I’ve never had a chance to practice reading. I can't make out what the bottle says, but I recognize the design. Pain pills. A whole bottle of them. I can scarcely wrap my mind around it. A slow smile spreads across my face.
I look down at the rest of the stash, now exposed inside the folds of the blanket. There are cans of food—applesauce, chili, and tuna fish. I wonder how long Torres has been gathering this stash, hiding it up here, only bringing a little bit into the shelter so as not to attract attention like he did yesterday. He wouldn’t have stood out so much if everyone else’s scavenge wasn't getting so pathetic. This kind of scavenge hasn’t been seen for many months, maybe not even for a year.
“Hurry it up.” Torres’s voice drifts to me from below. I glance down at him, this time prepared for the vertigo, and hang on tight to the post until the ground stops moving.
Torres is waving at me frantically. From this high, I can look out across the neighborhood. I turn to where he’s pointing, and I think I see a light approaching. My breath starts coming quicker, in more shallow gasps. As quickly as I dare, I gather up the rest of the loot and tie the rope back around the neck, then across my shoulder and waist so my hands are free.
When the stash feels secure, I carefully slide a foot over the edge and lower myself until I find a toehold. I begin going back down.
My fingers are cold after being exposed for this long, stiff and sluggish. Torres frequently hisses at me to hurry it up. His frantic tones make my insides clench. I don't look down at him, but his worry is infectious. I begin to move faster. I’m just over halfway there when my numb fingers slip. At the same time, my boot toe loses its hold, and I fall.
My heart jumps into my throat. The air rushes past my face, and I land hard on my back. The breath is knocked out of me. I stare up at the ashes in the sky, gasping for air that doesn’t come and fighting down panic.
Then Torres is looming over me. He pushes me aside and grabs the bag, wrestling it off me and frantically fumbling at the knot keeping it in place. He growls, yanking off his gloves, then finally gets the bag free.
I cough and suck in a breath at last. But there is someone else running from the shadows now. I see the glint of a knife edge. I turn my body just in time. The blade sinks into my side, rather than my chest. At first, there is no pain, then heat blossoms in my side, and I double over in agony.
“Let’s get out of here!” the second man says, and I recognize his voice from the PM before. He was the man threatening Torres in the restroom. Was it all an elaborate act? A hoax to get me to do their hard work for them?
Torres swings his stash up over his shoulder. He is grinning, the gaps in his teeth giving him an evil, lecherous look. “Thanks, Caelin. You’re a real sweetheart.” Then he’s running away with the other man, glancing furtively over his shoulder. He doesn’t even limp anymore.
I hear voices coming from another direction and glimpse the flame of a torch. If they find me here, they’ll take me for dead. Dead bodies make good scavenge. I've scavenged them myself for clothes and shoes. But some people will scavenge a person who’s sick or injured even if they're not completely gone yet. They'll finish the job.
I move, and agonizing pain shoots through my left arm. I can’t move it. My newly found breath comes shallow and fast. I must've gotten hurt more than I realized when I fell.
I can’t fight the pain enough to stand, so I drag myself toward the dead bushes at the base of the church. Behind me, there’s a shout. My adrenaline spikes. They’ve spotted me! I roll back, trying to get my knife from its sheath. My good hand is slick with blood.
There are three of them, running from a side street. The torch flame bobs with their movement. They’re shouting and pointing at me. Someone leaps down a fire escape nearby, and I think at first they have been calling a comrade to join them. But then this newcomer squares off in front of them, blocking their path. I glimpse a white shiny face like a smear in the night, and I think of the man I saw at the exit to Lincoln Shelter. It can’t be him, can it? Did he follow me?
The grunts and shouts of fighting combine with the clash of knives. It’s hard to make out their moves at this distance, and it seems as though a deeper darkness is hovering around the edges of my vision. They dropped their torch. It smolders on the ground.
I have to get away now, while they’re distracted. They've already spotted me, so it’s no use hiding.
I'm close enough to the church that I'm able to use it to push myself up from the ground. I can’t stop a scream from escaping as the movement sends pain shooting up my arm. My side throbs where Torres’s buddy stabbed it. I hope he didn't hit any major organs. It seems like a shallow cut, but it burns like fire. At least the blood is warm on my numb fingers.
I still have the gloves shoved into my belt. I pull one of them out with my good hand and press it against the cut, trying to staunch the flow of blood, remembering what Mardy did to tie off Torres’s leg. He didn't deserve her kindness.
Thinking of Mardy sends agony of a different kind shooting through me. I will come back. I can't disappear, like Papa did. I have to return to Mardy. The thought gives me enough determination to make it to my feet. I hiss through my teeth in quick pants to control the pain and stop the screams. When I think I've got a handle on it, I lurch into motion.
The others are still fighting as I stagger away from them, hoping that I will get lost in the darkness and they won’t follow. I don’t have the energy to double back or weave on a winding course to the shelter tonight.
Hoping that I'm not leaving a trail of blood, I stumble the same way Torres guided me here. I have a good head for directions, and I turn in all the right places. But it’s a long way back to Lincoln Shelter, and I'm not sure if I’ll last. All I do know is that I have to return to Mardy. I promised, and I will not break that promise.
CHAPTER 6
It seems to take ten times longer to get back to Lincoln Shelter. I know I made a few wrong turns on the way when I became a bit delirious and had to wake up and correct myself. There were times when I had to lean against the wall and rest until I caught my breath and could handle the pain again. When I saw other scavs in the distance, I hid from them in the shadows, hoping against hope that they would not see me.
Somewhere along the way, I lost my knife, or maybe I left it back at the church. I’m not sure. If a scav attacks me, I’ll be defenseless, but I can’t think about that. I concentrate on merely putting one foot in front of the other. It is all I can manage by the time I make it to the street going around Lincoln Shelter.
I feel a thrill of hope as I stagger out onto the broken pavement. I made it, except it’s nearly dawn. The sky is frighteningly light. There aren’t many scavs on the street now. Everyone has taken shelter from the coming radiation of AM.
As I round the curve of the street, I can see the door to Lincoln Shelter still open to the left of the stairs under the gray pillars. There’s a knot of people around it being pushed ou
t by the sentries. Fear jabs my middle, makes my head pound and my wounds ache. My left arm hangs uselessly, and my right is pressed hard into my side. The glove soaked through with blood long ago, and it drips down my leg. I stagger to the door.
Those who see me move back in shock, staring at me. But I can't spare a thought for their revulsion. I approach the sentry. He is pushing more people out. A woman falls, sobbing, to the dirt. I catch the door with my bloody hand, letting the glove drop to the ground.
The sentry sees me. His eyes go round.
“Please, let me in.” My voice cracks. It’s barely more than a whisper.
The sentry’s eyes travel from my face down to my feet. I seem to recall that his name is Rockwood, or Rockwell, or something. His lip curls up in a snarl. “Are you kidding? We don't let injured and sick people in here. Besides, you had your chance yesterday. You don’t get another. Radiate off.”
He slams the door in my face and I fall against it, leaving a streak of blood as my legs give out under me and I slide down to the ground.
“My sister is in there,” I whisper.
The people around me are crying and whimpering. But they are scavs. They are tough. They help each other up, some staggering off alone, others in small groups. They’ll find another place to take shelter from the sun this AM.
I can’t move. I shudder and whimper against the closed door. The sun is rising behind me. The ash cloud is thin enough to let rays of light through it, rays that will touch the ground and kill me.
I remember seeing a dead body once against the closed door of a shelter. That was in the days soon after Papa disappeared. It was hardly recognizable as a woman, the body was so burned and bloated. There were streaks of blood on the door where she must have clawed it, trying to get in.
I imagine myself like that. I’ll die here. The sun will scorch me because I don’t have the strength to find another shelter.
The crowd has not completely dispersed when I hear my name. I can’t even look up or acknowledge the sound. But then Mardy's face is before me. It’s streaked with tears, her eyes overflowing. Her expression is horrified as she looks down at me, taking in my bleeding side, my useless left arm.
“Caelin! Caelin! I didn't think you would come. I was looking for—” She shakes her head and throws an arm around my waist, hoisting me up. I groan as the pain overwhelms me.
“Come on,” she says between sobs. “We have to get to shelter! You’ve got to move. You've got to help me.”
I try to move my feet, obey her, but they feel like wooden blocks. The pain is so intense now, it seems to come from everywhere in my body. It’s too late to scream. Everything just hurts so much. I want to push Mardy away, to sink back into sleep. The sun is so bright as it reaches the horizon. It’s like needles, driving through my eyes into my brain. Can’t she understand that I just want to sit down and close my eyes? I just want to be quiet and still.
But Mardy won’t let me. She drags me forward onto the stairs.
“We have to find shelter,” Mardy repeats. Hasn’t she said this before? Maybe she’s saying it over and over.
There is a huge statue of a man looming over us back in the shade of the memorial. The statue is gray, like everything else topside. He seems to be staring down at me, as though accusing me of not doing enough, not being enough.
“The elevator. Where’s the elevator?” Mardy whimpers.
I want to tell her that Papa is in the elevator waiting for us, but I can't speak. Only a moan comes out.
“There. There's the buttons,” she says, dragging me forward again.
The movement sends new pain shooting through my body. She drags me to a wall with a sliding door. At last I’m allowed to rest as she lowers me down to a crumpled position on the floor. The light is getting brighter. I close my eyes against it. What is it about the light? Why do I fear it? I can't remember. I lay there and wait for Papa to come, to protect me from the light.
Mardy is banging on the door, trying to pry a crack in it with her fingers. I think I hear voices coming from inside, but I'm not sure. Hostile voices, angry voices. Mardy is sobbing, crying.
The room is spinning around me. I close my eyes tight, and let myself fall with it.
“CAELIN!” THERE ARE hands on me, probing my body, making the pain worse. “Caelin, don't do this to me. Don't leave me alone! Please!”
I'm a bundle of pain, hunched inside of myself, trying to hide from the sun.
Then I’m moving, being picked up. It hurts so much. I think I scream, but I don't know for sure.
“Papa?” I hear myself mumble.
“Hang in there, Caelin.” Mardy's voice comes to me as though from a great tunnel. I can barely make out the words. “You'll be safe soon.”
I feel as though I’m floating. I think I see Mardy's face in front of me. It’s full of tears, her skin red and puffy. She always looks so awful when she cries. Then her face morphs into Papa's. He hasn’t shaved in a while. His eyes are hollow, a haunted, tortured look smeared across his face like a scar. It’s just as though he never left, but his hair is darker. As I watch, his face takes on a more angular shape, the skin smearing into a lighter shade. I realize that it isn’t Papa after all, but the stranger I saw outside Lincoln Shelter last PM. But that can’t be. I lost him in the city streets. He couldn’t follow me.
Then the blistering light gives way to cool darkness. I hear snippets of conversation. I recognize Mardy's voice, but not the others.
“—think you’re doing, Jate?”
“She’s hurt. They need—”
“Hang in there, Caelin!”
“Where’s Gemma?”
“Lost a lot of blood—”
“What happened?”
“—stabbing. Broken—”
“Radiation poison—”
“—have to do a transfusion.”
“We don't have any scavenge to pay—”
“You won't need any.”
I’m lost in the words, floating away on an ocean of confusion and pain. I try to move, but I can’t. A woman hovers around me. She has dark skin and light hair, like the night and the moon. She’s rubbing something on my skin, and it hurts. I moan, and she says something comforting, but I can't make out the words. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton. I float away among clouds dotted with stars.
CHAPTER 7
I come awake slowly. I feel disoriented. Am I still cushioned by clouds? I don't want to open my eyes, and I lay there for several long moments, relishing in the feeling of softness around me. But eventually, I remember Mardy, and I force my eyes open.
I’m in a strange place. The walls are a dark brown with a zigzag pattern on them, not paint, not concrete. I lay in a bed, a real bed. The pillows feel soft and full behind my head. I'm covered by a dark gray blanket. It doesn’t even have holes, or stitch marks where it’s been patched. I haven’t been in a bed since I was a child. Our first shelter had beds. I remember Mama stroking my hair as I fell asleep at night, whispering that everything would be all right. But it wasn’t. She died a couple of weeks later, and we moved to a new shelter.
Being in a bed again, remembering that, makes my skin crawl. I start to move, get out of the bed, and pain shoots up my left arm. I bite off the cry because I realize there's someone else in the room. I hear them moving in the far corner behind me, though I can't turn my head to look.
Then I notice my hands resting on top of the blanket. The skin of my right hand looks white and thin. It’s so clean, I can even see my fingernails. My left arm is encased just past the elbow in something white and hard. The tips of the fingers poke out the end. My chest feels as though it’s wrapped in the same hard material, but when I pluck the blanket up weakly with my good hand to see, I can only make out a bandage beneath a thin dress that I’m wearing in place of my own clothes. I’m surprised that in spite of the thin material, I’m not cold.
When I move my good arm to push the blanket down further, it snags. There’s something in m
y arm, up near the elbow, attached to a long thin tube. The sight sends me into a panic. I reach over with my left arm to pull the thing out. The movement sends pain shooting down into my fingers, up into my elbow. I bite off a cry.
Suddenly, a woman is there, grabbing my arms. She moves my left arm away from the right, sending a new wave of pain washing over me.
“Now, none of that.” She’s strong, and I find that I can’t fight her. She has dark skin and white hair. I think I’ve seen her before, but I’m not sure. She looks old, older than Papa was when he disappeared. It surprises me. She must be from the Undercity. Scavs don't live that long. The thought brings me up short. Am I in the Undercity?
“Don't pull out your IV,” the woman snaps. She doesn't smile. “It's giving you medicine that will help you get better. You are one sick little chickadee, so Lord knows you need it. Don't make all my good work go to waste,now. It cost a pretty penny, too, and Lucio won't be too happy if you go and die on him after all.”
I want to ask who Lucio is, but I can't speak.
The woman fusses with the blankets around me again, straightening them. “I'm Gemma, by the way.”
“Doctor?” I manage to croak. Now I’m sure I’m in the Undercity. That’s the only place where doctors live.
“No!” She softens her harsh response with a cool hand smoothing back the hair on my forehead. It reminds me even more of my mother, but I’m too weak to jerk away. “Just call me Gemma. I’ll be looking after you. Now, besides the radiation sickness, you got yourself a knife wound that I sewed up, and a broken arm. I injected an accelerator to get it healed faster, but it’ll still be a couple of weeks before we can take that plasticast off. In the meantime, no pitching softballs or pulling out your IV. If you promise to behave, I'll go fetch some broth for you to drink. Promise?”
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