A cloud shifted above him and something glinted against the dark soil. Cole reached down and grabbed the object, allowing the soft soil to sift through his fingers. When he grasped the round metal and rubbed the remaining traces of soil from it, he gasped. It was their great-grandfather’s medal for valor, the one Hamilton had inherited before Cole had been born. Cole had always coveted it; it was pretty much the only family heirloom they had, and as a kid he’d often snuck it out of the shoebox where Hamilton kept his treasures, and had fallen asleep clutching it, until Hamilton awoke and took it back. He couldn’t believe Hamilton had left it here for him now.
The tightness in his throat increased, and he blinked several times. His chest felt heavy. He so desperately wanted to come clean—to tell his family the truth—but he knew it wasn’t possible. Not yet. He couldn’t risk making them culpable. Cole took the medal and slipped it in his pocket, then pushed to his feet. He’d just started to make his way back down the hill toward the rusted chain-link fence surrounding the property when he heard a voice.
“Cole?” the voice called. “Cole, is that you?”
It was Brent. His best friend called his name repeatedly, beginning to jog toward Cole, who had frozen, his head down. Something in Cole wanted to own up to it, wanted to tell Brent everything. But then he remembered what could happen if too many people found out, and he snapped. Cole turned and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could, hoping his baggy sweatshirt and hat had prevented Brent from getting a good look at him.
He looked back only once as he ran, pushing through trees and winding through the darkest spaces between the rows of modest homes that decorated the Slants. When he looked back, Brent wasn’t there. Cole collapsed onto the floor of the shelter, breathing heavily. He willed himself not to cry. The feeling of invisibility—it had been almost enough to convince him that he was dead. Just a ghost, hovering on the periphery of the town. After so much isolation, the relief of someone seeing him—recognizing him, calling out to him—was enough to devastate him.
He was just beginning to pull himself together when he heard a knock on the door. Michelle hovered just outside, her brown curls glowing against the backlight.
“Can I come in?”
Cole nodded, motioning for her to sit next to him. He breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. He couldn’t lose control like this. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down, not even in front of Michelle.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was cautious. She lowered herself to the ground next to him, then placed a hand on his.
“Not really.”
“I know you went by the grave site.”
Cole’s head jerked up, and his face flushed.
“Don’t worry,” Michelle told him, squeezing his palm. “He doesn’t know it was you. He said … he said he got spooked. Saw something he wanted to see. He thought it was a ghost at first. But he convinced himself it was just some straggler. By the end of it, he didn’t know if he saw anybody at all. Why’d you go out there, Cole? You were taking a huge risk.”
“I know,” he said, his voice sharp. “Believe me. I know. I just … I had to see it. It was stupid,” he amended. “You’re right.”
“I just worry about you. You’ve stayed alive this long.…”
“I know.” He squeezed her hand. They sat side by side for a few minutes, neither of them saying anything. “How are they?” Cole finally asked, his voice tense.
“Your mom isn’t doing so well,” Michelle answered quietly. “She’s grieving.”
“Is she healthy?”
“She’s holding up,” Michelle said. “Losing you … it hasn’t been easy on her.”
“Hamilton?”
Michelle was quiet, picking at a small hole on the knee of her jeans. She didn’t look up.
“Michelle. What is it?”
“He’s having a hard time,” she said finally. “He’s taking care of your mom, going to work, but … he’s just not himself.”
Her words were heavy. Cole could tell there was something she wasn’t saying.
“What’s going on with him? It’s better I know,” he told her, his voice firm.
“There’s nothing you can do, Cole. He just misses you. He blames himself.”
“Why?” Cole felt light-headed, and his palms were sweating. He moved his hand from Michelle’s grasp and brought it to his forehead.
“He caused the unrest. He provoked the Imps, got everyone agitated. The riots were partly because of him. And now everything’s separate, which is maybe what he was going for in the first place, but you’re gone. He’s not dealing with it well. He feels like he killed you himself.”
“Jesus.” Cole didn’t know how to react, what to think. “Michelle, you have to tell him—”
“I’m not telling him anything,” she said firmly, crossing her arms. “The biggest hope you have for your family is to keep them out of it and keep yourself safe. That’s the only way things are going to work out. But you’re loved, Cole. You should have seen it today. I’ve never known someone so loved.” She met his eyes, and hers were shining. She bit her lip, moving away slightly. He knew what this was all costing her. Her feelings for him were written all over her face. It was killing her to see all of it, to protect him, to love him. Who wouldn’t he hurt in the course of all this? “Just stay out of it,” she said again. “Do what you’ve been doing.”
Cole nodded, resting his forehead on his knees. She was right. There were no alternatives.
“One more thing,” Michelle told him, her voice hesitant. She stood, moving toward the door. “I’ll say it quickly and then I’ll leave. But first, promise me you won’t do anything. You’ll stay right here.”
“Anything,” Cole said, his voice raw. “I promise.”
“Davis never got the note,” Michelle said. Her face looked ashen. “I didn’t get there in time.”
“She never got it,” he repeated, the question in his voice. But that meant—
“She thinks you’re dead, just like everyone else.”
Cole leapt to his feet. “No.”
“You promised.” Michelle’s big dark eyes were pleading. “Don’t do anything, Cole. Please stay here and keep yourself safe. Please. I’ll never forgive myself.”
He clenched his fists at his sides. “I’ll stay here,” he told her, looking her in the eye. She nodded once, and then she was out the door, shutting it gently behind her.
It was the first time Cole had ever lied to her.
If Davis thought he was dead, then there was no telling what she was feeling. He thought about Davis mourning him and he felt sick over the lie. And then he wondered if she would move on. He was suddenly seized with urgency—he had to get to her. He had to tell her the truth.
5
DAVIS
THREE MONTHS LATER
Davis dug her toes into the cold sand, stretching her calf muscles. Next to her, Mercer plopped down on his back, stretching prone across the shore in the blue predawn light. From this angle he looked like a blissed-out surfer. If it weren’t for his TOR-regulation shorts and a white T-shirt, they could’ve been a couple kids on the beach, just relaxing.
Ever since they’d initially discussed it in the medical facility, they’d captured moments here and there after dining hall cleanup and before lights out to sneak off to the beach to brainstorm details.
But today they sat quietly. She turned back to the water and sucked in a breath as the first rays of light peeked over the horizon, illuminating the seemingly endless expanse of water in front of them. The sky had transitioned from hazy blue to a startling orange in seconds. This was the perfect way to start the day—a glimmer of raw, unfiltered beauty to make the rest of the island seem a little friendlier. It never got old.
“It’s so beautiful,” she told him. “When I’m out here, I almost feel normal again.”
Watching the sun rise on the shore each morning had become her routine with Mercer, who was the closest thing she had to a friend at
TOR-N, other than another female patient, Seraphina, a woman in her midtwenties with whom Davis now shared a room. Seraphina had been sent to TOR-N by her own husband, and now occupied the bed that had been assigned to Margaret while she was still alive.
“There was never a ‘normal.’” His blond hair was thick and tousled, and it added to the scene: a general disposition of careless ease. “Unless you count a DirecTalk attached to your face as ‘normal.’”
“At least you could connect with people,” Davis said, frowning. “I haven’t talked to my family or friends in forever.”
“You’ll see them soon,” he said with a casual wave of his hand. He propped himself on his elbows and looked at her intensely. It was unnerving. She had to look away, into the horizon.
“How much longer do you think we’ll be here?” she asked. “How long until we can leave, like we talked about? I feel well enough to go home, but.…”
“But we’re still contagious.” Mercer’s jaw flexed.
“What if we’re always carriers?” Davis asked quietly. It was her greatest fear, but she’d never voiced it until now.
“Then we do it anyway. We escape, just like we talked about. We’re both stronger now.”
It was true. When she first got here, Davis could barely make the walk to the shore without coughing or having to stop. And she was so sad all the time. About her mother’s disappearance and the futility of ever finding her. About everyone she left back home. About Cole.…
“The doctors are better in Durham, anyway. I’ve told you this. It’s part of the research triangle: everything that comes out of there is ten years ahead of the rest of New Atlantic. Even if I’m still contagious, they’ll know what to do about it there.”
It sounded like faulty logic. It worried her.
“Why did you come here instead of getting treatment there?” she asked. It was something she’d been too afraid to ask before.
“Durham doesn’t allow Neithers,” Mercer said, his voice bitter. “It wasn’t an option for me. Once I was identified as a Neither, there was nothing my family could do. But if I manage to sneak back into the city—if their records show I’m here and not there—I might be able to find something that could help us. I have friends whose parents are world-famous scientists.” At this, he trailed off, reddening slightly. “If you come with me, that is.”
“I want to go,” she said. “If there’s a chance they can help us faster than we’re being helped here, then I’d come with you. But I need to know I’m not contagious first. I won’t leave here thinking I might infect someone else.”
“I don’t know if I can wait,” he told her, sitting up and resting his forearms on his knees. He gazed out at the water, his relaxed demeanor suddenly tense and his brow furrowed.
She paused, letting this sink in. She knew he badly wanted to go back, that he felt nothing could ever compare to his old life. In that way, he was at a disadvantage. She’d seen more and therefore had adjusted better. She knew being a Prior wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought. It would hit her hard if he went along without her—if he took away the one chance she had at fixing this mess. If they couldn’t find a cure here, at TOR-N, maybe Durham was their only hope.
“Would it be hard for you?” Davis asked, changing the subject. She knew it was touchy, but she and Mercer were always candid with one another. She liked that about their friendship: nothing was hidden. “Going back to Durham … but having things be different than they were before?”
“You mean having everyone know why I left. That I’m a Neither.”
“I didn’t know I was different until just a few months ago,” Davis told him. “I don’t know how I would have felt if I’d known most of my life.”
“I’m not so different,” Mercer pointed out. “I mean, neither are you.…”
“Ha-ha,” Davis said dryly. It was a bad pun he’d used every day for weeks.
“I’m just saying, the fact that you didn’t know means something. It means you’re way more Prior than Imp. You look nothing like an Imp. Plus, you’re stronger and more developed than Imps.”
“Gens,” she corrected.
“Same thing. Gens are different from us. They’re in a whole other class.”
Davis remained silent. She loved her rapport with Mercer; but she’d heard him go off on this tangent before. It seemed really important to him to separate himself from Gens. She got it. She really did. She might have felt that way once, too. But not since knowing Cole.
That, however, was impossible to explain. She still hadn’t told Mercer the details of what had led her to TOR-N.
Mercer’s digital, facility-issued alarm rang, interrupting her thoughts. “Off,” he ordered the metal dog tag hanging from his neck.
Davis pulled herself to her feet. “Time for my favorite part of the week,” she said, making a face. She had an appointment with Dr. Grady.
“If he does anything shady, you let me know. I’ll give him a real piece of my mind,” Mercer told her as he made an exaggerated show of flexing his arms.
Davis laughed, then abruptly stopped. It was still strange, whenever she caught herself able to laugh. It caused a tumult of other sensations—some joyous and some incredibly painful—that she couldn’t quite name.
As they walked back toward the treatment center, Davis looked reluctantly over her shoulder at the landscape that was disappearing behind her. The sun was high in the sky by now, and the foliage on the island was in full bloom. When she looked back like this, she could almost forget. It was when she looked forward—back to the path that led to the women’s compound—that her stomach dropped. The island’s natural landscape gave way to grim cement buildings, spare and dirtied from the dust that blew around the island. Worse, when she left the protective expanse of trees that separated the facility from the shore, her nose was accosted by a familiar, rank odor. It was the kind of smell that no disinfectant could conceal. It was the kind that sank into your hair, your skin, your nostrils—returning there from someone else’s hair, skin, nostrils, like the remnants of one human were desperate to find another human to cling to. Davis knew she’d never get used to it; she didn’t want to, because that would mean giving in.
“Your vitals are in a healthy range,” Dr. Grady told her a few moments later, as she sat shivering on his operating table. Only a thin piece of paper separated her body from the chrome surface, and the air-conditioning was on full blast—likely to ward off the smell of decay. “Certainly not optimal yet, but you’re getting there. A marked improvement from last month. Your natural antibodies are fighting the disease. I’d like to begin monitoring you weekly, with your consent.” He winked, then removed his vitals reader from his neck and turned toward her chart, making a few notes on his tablet.
Davis shuddered. He’d winked, she knew, because her consent didn’t matter. While she was at TOR-N, she was a ward of the state. Consent was a luxury she didn’t have, she thought, staring out the window of the examination room. A sealed vehicle marked with a black cross wheeled past, taking a right turn down the tree-lined path toward the sandy coast: another pile of dead bodies to be incinerated. She felt herself shudder at the sight of it. She always did.
“Any questions?” Dr. Grady asked, tapping his finger against the tablet keyboard. A wisp of his carefully groomed sandy brown hair dropped in front of his eyes, and he pushed it back with his left hand. It wasn’t the first time Davis had noted his barren ring finger. Dr. Grady was handsome … for an old guy. He was tall and in shape, with wavy, light brown hair. He had a few wrinkles in his forehead and near his eyes, but Davis was sure he’d been attractive back in the day, as weird as that was to think about. The only reason she did think about it was because it was so weird for someone like him to be drawn to a place like TOR-N. It was such a lonely, isolating life. Ferries only crossed to the mainland twice per day, and even then only to order supplies. Most staff lived on-site. The gray, ivy-covered forms of the research facilities and dormitories rose up from dark, om
inous forests around them, and the sick and dead were everywhere.
In short, it wasn’t exactly the kind of place where she wanted to spend her forties. If she made it that long.
“Not that I can think of,” Davis started. “Well…,” She paused, uncertain whether to mention the latest. She couldn’t tell if it was in her best interest or not to be getting better. “I can tell I’m building some of my muscle tone back,” she mentioned. “I’m just wondering how long until—” Dr. Grady held up one hand to silence her.
“Davis,” he said in a soft voice, placing one tanned hand on her arm. “We’ve talked about this. Be grateful for what you have. It’s unlikely you’ll ever be back in the shape you were.” He winked again. “But you’re still looking pretty good, in my book. We’re keeping a close eye on you.”
Davis’s heart sank. She moved away, gathering her tablet. “Unlike the others,” she mumbled. She’d seen so many people die by now that it was practically rote. In the three months she’d spent at TOR-N, she must have seen hundreds of bodies.
“Davis,” Dr. Grady said again, his eyes widening in concern. “Are you doing okay here at TOR-N? Are you thriving?” Before she could answer, he moved his hand to her cheek. “So beautiful,” he said, gazing at her. “Your eyes.…” His voice was tremulous.
“What?” Davis froze, reacting in confusion. Dr. Grady was bending closer. Did he see something in her eyes? Some awful symptom? She didn’t figure out what was really happening until it was too late. Dr. Grady brushed his lips against hers. Davis jerked back as if she’d been burned.
“What are you doing?” she gasped. “I have Narxis!”
“It’s okay,” he assured her, his voice throaty. “You’re no longer contagious. You haven’t been for weeks now.”
“What?”
At first she thought she’d misheard him, but when he went for it again, repeating himself, it was all she could do to contain her ecstasy. If she wasn’t contagious, maybe Mercer wasn’t contagious. If they weren’t contagious, they could leave.
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