Burn (The Pure Trilogy)

by Julianna Baggott

  “You can’t land,” Bradwell says, “not down there with all the Dusts, so they’re coming up to meet us!”

  He’s right. Hastings and Fandra are climbing to them.

  “Do they want to airlift everyone out?” El Capitan shouts.

  “Too many of them now!” Bradwell shouts.

  Through the ash and dust, El Capitan sees darting bodies running through the amusement park. Bradwell’s right. There are more survivors than when they were last here. Fignan has extended his legs and is trying to gather data. He states an approximate count—seventy-two—male-to-female ratio, approximate ages.

  “Not now, Fignan!” El Capitan says.

  “Not now!” Helmud shouts.

  It means more people have risked their lives to get away from the city—a bad sign. Something’s happened to the city. What now? El Capitan thinks. What now? He feels sick, a familiar wrenching dread in his chest.

  “We need Hastings!” El Capitan shouts.

  “Why are they attacking?” Pressia says. “The music was a deterrent. Where’s the music?”

  “Can’t hear it over the engine,” El Capitan says. The music kept the Dusts at bay. It was only the stupid plinking notes of an amusement park theme song. Dinky dinks and diddly dinks… But the survivors used it as a deterrent, broadcasting it on old speakers before opening fire. The Dusts had come to fear it.

  “We can’t hear the music,” Bradwell says. “We’re locked up in here.”

  El Capitan touches a button and the seal of a small side window breaks and the window lowers a few inches. He hears movement, probably Pressia and Bradwell rushing toward the open window.

  At first there’s only the rush of air. But then they hear a scream. Then another. “There’s no music,” she says.

  “Without the music…” El Capitan shouts, and then he whispers what they all know: “They’ll die.”

  He passes over Crazy John-Johns, this time so low he can see the twisted, melted faces of the horses on the merry-go-round. And now he can make out some Dusts ramming their heavy bodies into the chain link, pounding amid the beebee gunfire, small dirt clods spraying from their chests and shoulders. A dozen of them lean into the fence, which bows under their weight.

  Then the fence gives, popping up from its posts and folding over on itself. The Dusts crawl over it into the park itself.

  The survivors start screaming and pouring from one side of the park to the other.

  “Goddamn it!” El Capitan says.

  “God!” Helmud shouts.

  He hears Pressia shouting, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Bradwell bolts in through the cockpit doorway. “They’re in,” he says.

  “I know,” El Capitan says.

  “God!” Helmud says.

  “We’ve got to get in close to the roller coaster,” Bradwell says. “And we need a way to pull Hastings in.”

  “And Fandra,” El Capitan says.

  Pressia walks into the cockpit too. “She won’t come with us. She won’t leave the others. I know her. She’s climbing up for a reason, but it’s not to run away.”

  Bradwell is looking out the windshield. “You better hurry.”

  “I’m going to get in as close as I can,” El Capitan says.

  “Close,” Helmud says.

  El Capitan lets more air into the buckies. The airship lists momentarily to one side—Pressia and Bradwell stagger and then hold on to the walls. The wind is strong, coming in from the west. He banks into it. “If I lower the landing prongs, he can grab hold.”

  Hastings has reached the top of the roller coaster; Fandra is beside him. They’re both holding tight. The ashen wind roils around them.

  “In this wind,” El Capitan mutters, “it’s just going to be harder to get in tight.”

  “You can do it, Cap,” Bradwell says.

  “I crashed it last time. I crashed!” Jesus! He crashed. They could have died. He remembers the ground running close below them. He braced for the landing, and things went black.

  “Bradwell’s right,” Pressia says. “You can. We know it.”

  “We know it,” Helmud says.

  El Capitan tightens his grip on the wheel and leans forward. He circles again. The Dusts are roaming the park. A few are hunched over a body—a survivor? Another Dust? They’re feasting.

  Up ahead, Hastings and Fandra are waiting at the top of the roller coaster, their clothes rippling.

  And then they wobble. They look at one another and then below.

  “What’s wrong?” Pressia says.

  “The Dusts,” Bradwell says.

  El Capitan sees that they’ve gathered at the base of the roller coaster. They’re bashing it with their shoulders.

  “We can’t leave Fandra,” Pressia says. “We can’t abandon them.”

  “What other options do we have?” El Capitan says.

  “It’s too terrible to imagine how they’ll all die. Too terrible.” Pressia’s eyes well up, and she covers her face with her one hand and tucks the doll head under her chin. El Capitan wants to comfort her, but he can’t; even if he could take his hands off the controls, he wouldn’t touch her in front of Bradwell.

  But just as the horror of it all starts to wash over El Capitan—these Dusts devouring survivors in the bombed-out amusement park—a few tinny notes fill the air. Fignan. He’s playing back a recording that he must have captured the last time they were here.

  They all turn and look at Fignan, who detects the sudden attention and quiets down.

  “Fignan!” Pressia cries. “You’ve got it!”

  Fignan flashes his row of lights proudly.

  “And he can blast it louder too,” El Capitan says to Bradwell. “Can’t he?”

  “Blast it,” Helmud says.

  “Yes,” Bradwell says, “but—”

  “We’ll have to hand him over,” Pressia says.

  “Wait,” Bradwell says. “There has to be another way.”

  “But Fignan can save them!” Pressia says. “Who knows what happened to their system.”

  “But we can’t hand him over,” Bradwell says. “He’s got important information. He’s one of a kind.”

  “We have to. They’re going to die. They need him.”

  And then Fignan’s lights pulse and again the little tune rises up from him—light and soft and quick.

  “Get to the door in the cabin,” El Capitan says. “Be ready to pull Hastings in and lower Fignan down. I’ll find a way to hold this thing steady.”

  “Keep playing, Fignan,” Pressia says, picking him up and carrying him out of the cockpit. “As loud as you can.”

  “Careful with him,” Bradwell says, following her out. Fignan has become his loyal companion, an old friend.

  Fignan gets louder and louder until the notes are shrill and piercing, even over the growling engines. El Capitan releases the four long legs that steady the ship on the ground. Hastings is still coded for strength, agility, speed. Hopefully he’s strong enough—after his loss of blood, his loss of a limb—to grab hold. The landing legs buzz loudly and then lock into place.

  El Capitan feels a gust of wind whipping in through the cabin. Pressia and Bradwell have gotten the cabin door open. El Capitan allows the buckies to take on more air. The airship lilts and sways and glides toward Hastings, who’s locked his legs—one real, one prosthetic—on the final rung of the roller coaster, now swaying from the frantic Dusts beating it below. El Capitan won’t be able to see if he slows the airship enough for Hastings to grab hold. It will happen under the hull.

  In his final glimpse of them, Fandra is looking at the Dusts below, and Hastings stretches out both arms, reaching up.

  PARTRIDGE

  COAL

  Arvin Weed is leading Partridge and Beckley through a wing of the medical center. Arvin is explaining that Mrs. Hollenback is sharing a room that should only be a single. “Nothing we could do at the time. Of course, the other two patients have been temporarily moved—to give you p
rivacy. It’s been a mad house,” Weed tells him. “At one point, we had beds lining the halls.”

  This makes Partridge’s chest tighten. He’d like to have his dead father keep shouldering the blame, but how long can he keep that up? Rationalizing—that’s what Weed called it, and he was right.

  There are only a few medical personnel, talking over a stack of charts. All of the doors they pass by are shut. He feels guilty for thinking that Foresteed was exaggerating the epidemic of suicides. Maybe Partridge just wanted a reason not to believe it and accept the guilt.

  “Does Mrs. Hollenback know I’m coming?” Partridge asks.

  “I asked to have her prepped for the visit. I asked a lot of the people on staff if she’s ready for this,” Arvin says. “They thought it might actually be really good for her. She loved you like her own, you know.”

  Partridge knows that she accepted him into her home and was kind about it, but he’d always felt like a burden on some level. “She was good to me,” he says.

  Now they walk up to Mrs. Hollenback’s door. Her name is on her chart, sitting in a holder attached to the wall: HOLLENBACK, HELENIA. FEMALE. AGE 35.

  Only thirty-five? She’d always seemed old.

  Weed hovers a few feet from the door. It’s strange to Partridge suddenly how grown-up Arvin is—a doctor, a scientist, a genius. Weed hates him and has for a while—that’s what Partridge figured out from their heated conversation. Still, he can’t help but be impressed by Weed; he seems like an adult already and Partridge feels like he’s only faking.

  “Your parents must be proud of you,” Partridge says, maybe stalling—he’s scared of the condition he might find Mrs. Hollenback in. “How are they?” Partridge might not be sure exactly where Arvin stands, but his parents were both on his mother’s list—the Cygnus, the good guys.

  “They caught colds, actually.”

  “Colds? Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Nothing serious,” Arvin says, and then he claps Partridge on the shoulder. “Good luck in there.”

  “I’ll stand guard,” Beckley says.

  Partridge nods, takes a breath, and knocks.

  “You’ll have to just open the door,” Weed says. “Her voice isn’t strong enough to tell you to come in. I’ll be down at the nurse’s station.”

  “Wait,” Partridge says. “Are you going to tell me how she tried to do it?”

  Weed shakes his head. “She’ll tell you if she wants to.”

  Partridge puts his hand on the knob, turns it slowly, and walks into the room. It’s clean and white, brightly lit. He walks past two empty beds. The beds of the patients taken away for Partridge’s visit are fitted with straps loosely dangling by the bed rails, which chills him.

  He hears Mrs. Hollenback’s voice, a hoarse whisper. “Is it you?”

  He walks to the curtain pulled around her bed, reaches up—and thinks of his own mother, the hazy memory of the small room where he and Pressia found her again, the glass-covered capsule, her serene face, her eyes opening… He pulls back the curtain and says, “Yes. It’s me.”

  She’s thin and pale. Her eyes are hollowed. She wears a hospital gown that’s too big for her and gapes around her neck so much that she holds it down with one hand, as if pledging allegiance. But the most disturbing part of her appearance is her mouth. It’s blackened—her lips look ashen, and when she smiles, even her teeth are dark as if she’s chewed a piece of coal, like her mouth is a dark pit.

  She reaches out her hand.

  Partridge walks quickly to her and takes it in his. Her hand feels bony and cold, like a child’s hand in winter.

  She says, “Oh, Partridge.” Her voice is raw.

  He’s not sure if it’s said in tenderness or if it’s edged with scolding. She’s been a kind of mother to him. Over the last few years, she was the one who set his presents out under the Christmas tree, who gave him a warm bed and fed him from their Sunday food rations. Julby and Jarv treated him like an older brother. “How are you doing?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” she says. “I’m alive, right?” Her face tightens into a painful smile. “When you get better, we’ll have dinner together. Your family and me and Iralene,” he says, wanting to do anything to make things right. “I owe you so many dinners!”

  She shakes her head. “Oh, Partridge.”

  “You’re like family to me,” he says.

  She turns her head to the pillow. “What do we know about family here?” she whispers.

  “You taught me about family,” he says. “And Jarv is home, right? Don’t you want to go home to Julby and Jarv?”

  “Jarv.” She clenches her fist on the hospital gown, twisting it tightly, and closes her eyes. “Don’t you know why he’s not right? Don’t you know?”

  “No,” Partridge says softly.

  “He comes from me,” she says, opening her eyes and turning back to him. “I’m sick inside. Diseased. If you cut me open, Partridge, there would be nothing but rot. Do you understand? I’ve been dying ever since I got into the Dome. Rotting from within.”

  “That’s not true. You’re such a good mother and teacher. Everyone loves you.”

  She shakes her head. “They don’t know me.”

  “I know you,” Partridge says. “I know you, and I love you.”

  “Do you know what I did to get in this hospital bed?”

  He’s not sure he wants to know. “It’s personal. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “I took all the pills. The ones for Jarv, the ones for my headaches, the ones for Ilvander’s back, even the ones to calm Julby when she gets into one of her fits. I took them all. I wanted to die. I needed to die. But they didn’t let me. They pumped my stomach and gave me charcoal tablets and tried to cleanse me. There is no way to cleanse me—not really. Not ever.”

  “Mrs. Hollenback,” Partridge says. “Don’t…”

  She reaches up and grips his shirtsleeve. “You spoke the truth,” she says. “It woke me up.”

  He doesn’t want to start crying, but he can feel his chest tightening with guilt. “I didn’t mean what I said. Not the way you heard it. I didn’t mean it, Mrs. Hollenback. If I’d known anyone would do this, I wouldn’t have—”

  “Do you know who I left to die out there beyond the Dome? My father was friends with someone who had spots reserved for himself, his wife, his two daughters. One of his daughters was a revolutionary, though. She told him she refused to go. I overheard my father and her father talking. He said, ‘If it goes bad suddenly, we’ll take one of your girls with us. She’ll take my daughter’s place. I wish I could offer more.’ I had two sisters. Which one would my parents choose? I had an advantage. I was the only one who knew we were competing. I didn’t want to let on that I knew, and so instead, Ilvander, who already had a spot, made a plan with me. I told my parents I was pregnant. I knew that this would never be exposed as a ploy to be chosen. There was so much shame in it, and yet I also knew that my parents would choose to send me if I was pregnant, a child inside of me. And then things happened more quickly than anyone thought they would. I was taken in. My sisters weren’t. They stayed behind with my parents and likely died. You said it—we are all complicit. I’m a murderer too, Partridge, like your father. I let them die. I should have died with them.”

  The story stuns Partridge. He’s only able to mutter, “Don’t say that. Suicide is never the answer.”

  “This wasn’t suicide. It was a death that I was owed a long time ago.”

  He’s panicking. How can he make this right? “My wedding is something to look forward to. I want you to be there—your whole family—in the front row.”

  “You spoke the truth.”

  “What if I was lying?”

  “You weren’t.”

  “What if I told you…” And for a few seconds, he stops breathing. Can he tell her the truth? Can he accept some of her guilt to spare her? “I’m a murderer too.”

  “You were too young. You didn’t unde
rstand what was happening—not like we did. No.”

  “You don’t understand,” he says. “I killed him. I’m a murderer.”

  Mrs. Hollenback searches his face. “You killed him?” she says, but he’s sure she knows who he’s talking about.

  “I had to stop my father.” Now that he’s said these words aloud, he wants to tell her everything. “I had no choice. He was planning to—”

  With one hand, she presses her fingers to his mouth and with the other brings her fingertips to her own blackened lips. Her eyes quiver with tears. She shakes her head and then lets her hands fall to her bed. She stares up at the ceiling.

  “Forgive us,” she whispers. “Forgive us all.”

  PRESSIA

  FRESH SMOKE

  Pressia is leaning out of the airship. She’s going to lower Fignan to Hastings, who will then give him to Fandra. Then they’ll have to drag Hastings up into the airship. The wind whips Pressia’s hair into her mouth, across her cheeks, stinging her eyes. She holds Fignan tightly and leans deeper toward Hastings, trusting Bradwell’s grip on her waist, familiar and yet foreign. His wings are rustling, buffeted by the gusts.

  “It’s okay,” Bradwell reassures her. “I’ve got you. I do.”

  Fignan is blaring out the Crazy John-Johns theme park music so loud it’s already caused a few Dusts to start to retreat. But still, some Dusts are slamming at the foundation of the ruined roller coaster. Hastings has his arms held high, and Fandra crouches beside him, flinching each time the Dusts thump the base.

  “Slower! Tell him to go slower!” Pressia yells into the wind at Bradwell. It feels good to scream at him after their argument and all the distance between them.

  “He’s doing what he can!” Bradwell says at her back. She knows his face so well—the long scars, his eyebrows, his lashes—that she can imagine the face he’s making right now, grimacing to hold on to her, furrowing his brow with effort. She’s so close she can see the wrinkles on Hastings’ knuckles, the fine sand blowing against his cheek, the shine of the guns on his arms.