“No,” she says. “I sent it home on autopilot. But its destination will be in the log, so really we do have to leave. I don’t know how long it will take for them to fix that bug and the tracking system to come back online. We might have only minutes.”
Enoch tenses at her repeated insistence, sensing an ambush. “But you knew where Naiya was. How?”
“I’ve been watching for you for days. She finally appeared on my map a little while ago, along with Phillip.”
Enoch nods slowly, pulling out the power pack. “Mine too, even though I still couldn’t see myself. That’s why I came back.”
“Well, I couldn’t see you either. But I did see them, so here I am.”
“But look, she isn’t there now. None of us are.”
“Right. Because I jammed the system. Keep up. Now let’s go.”
“Why? Why would you do that? How do I know you aren’t leading us right to your father?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I want to help you? I don’t like what happened to your father, and I don’t – don’t like – ” She pauses, for the first time seeming uncertain. I wonder distantly if I’ve ever heard her express emotion before.
“What?”
“My father’s experiments,” she says finally, beginning to rock back and forth ever so slightly. “They aren’t … right. And I’m tired of it, all of it. His sick ideals, the way he treats people. Don’t make me talk about it. Please. Don’t make me talk about it. We have to go.”
Enoch shakes his head, looking angry. “Fine. But if anything happens to her, I will kill you first, Tate Black.”
“Okay,” she says, seeming neither triumphant nor afraid, neutral once more. “I need to get her cleaned up, but I can’t do it properly until we get out of here. As soon as my father discovers I’m not at the hospital, which could already have happened, there will be an all-out search. Either way they’re going to come back here in force, because this is where those guards died.”
“Died?” Enoch repeats. It seems to be all he’s capable of.
“Died, yes. Two were already dead when I got here, electrocuted looked like. I’m not sure how that happened.” My heart stutters at this pronouncement, though I can’t quite figure out why. “I had to finish the third one off myself,” Tate adds.
“You … ” But this time Enoch simply gives up.
Tate gives him another fish-eyed stare. “I’m going to apply a field dressing now. Naiya, I promise not to hurt you, okay?” Here she looks at me for the first time, speaking more softly. I’m surprised to discover she possesses something resembling a bedside manner. It occurs to me to struggle, but I’m so weak it would accomplish very little. And why would I, anyway? She’s trying to help. Wait, no. Tate never helps. She –
She doesn’t help me –
She might –
My head rolls back, and though I don’t pass out, I can’t form any other thoughts.
Tate uncaps a needle with her teeth, fills it with a clear liquid from a small vial, and moves slowly toward my arm. When I don’t resist, she injects it into the meat near my bicep, as close to the shoulder as she can get without intersecting the torn flesh. I stifle a cry, tears sliding involuntarily down my face.
She places another cloth over the wound, moving Enoch’s hand back on top of it. I feel the shoulder go blessedly numb as she turns her attention to my waist, unzipping my jacket carefully and pulling my knife from my belt, using it to cut away my tee shirt. She sucks her teeth when she sees the wound, but says nothing. Instead she folds another cloth, soaking it in a liquid that stings when she presses it to my stomach. She then secures the mess with clean, white tape.
“Alright,” she says, looking at me again. Her face swims a little, her black eyes huge in the gloom. “I’m going to pull the bullet out now. I’m afraid to move you while it’s still in there. It shouldn’t hurt that much.”
“Okay,” I whisper, hoping I’m ready.
Instead I throw up again. I grimace when I notice Enoch is watching.
Hot.
“Done?” Tate asks, wiping my mouth. I turn my head away, already hating the thought of owing her my life. “Okay then. Hold her down.”
Enoch presses down on me once more, briefly catching my eye. I’m sorry, he mouths.
For what? I wonder idly. Leaving? Letting Tate do this to me? Both?
Tate drops something onto the ground, and I look around groggily, watching her set down a pair of small, bloody forceps. That was fast. She taps a white powder onto my shoulder from a small shaker bottle, then instructs Enoch to help me sit up. I pass out again, and when I come to, there is another bandage.
“Best I can do,” Tate says, sounding dissatisfied. I, however, feel a little better, though extremely dizzy. “You’re going to have to carry her.”
“Of course I’m going to carry her,” Enoch says, somewhat belligerently. I smile hazily to myself, a little punchy from the events of the past hour. Then I remember Tate’s words: This is where those guards died. Something about that seems very important, though I can’t think what.
“The guards,” I murmur drunkenly.
“Dead,” Tate says. “Just over there.”
I try to look, but can’t see.
“Don’t. Don’t look, Naiya.” This from Enoch.
“But how did they – ”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tate says brusquely. Indignantly, I wonder what’s given her the right to tell me what does and does not matter. I open my mouth, but am too exhausted to do more than exhale in irritation.
“Easy,” Enoch says, bending down and lifting me into his arms. He is strong, and bears my weight without trouble. “All right?”
I nod tiredly, ducking my head under his neck.
“Keep her shoulder above her heart,” Tate orders. “Let’s move quickly. Naiya, tell me if it starts to hurt.”
We walk for almost half an hour, my good side bumping repeatedly against Enoch’s chest, my bad arm cradled against me. My hip aches, but the local anesthetic in my shoulder is keeping the worst of the pain at bay. I doze, waking repeatedly at the sound of footsteps or rough breathing. Every noise suggests the Home Guard, but we are alone, deep into the center of the City, the only light a dim penetration from the few lamps of the level above, lighting still-in-use factories and slums. Every so often Tate checks her own power pack; top of the line Party technology, it is much more sophisticated than the ones we carry, crafted from expensive parts rather than cobbled-together scraps. But its pristine white screen is just as empty as ours, which is clutched tightly in Pip’s hand. Enoch, mistrustful of Tate, must have told him to keep an eye out.
“I don’t understand why we aren’t appearing,” Tate says eventually, breaking the silence.
“Well, neither do we,” Enoch says shortly. “Seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?”
“It is unquestionably too good to be true. I knocked out the system, but only for a little bit. There’s no way they haven’t got it back online by now. Even I’m not that good.” She says it with no trace of false modesty, states it as a simple fact. As though stunning accomplishment is just one more thing she has to live with.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Except for today, we haven’t shown up at all. No one’s been able to find us. Well, no one except – ” I jerk in his arms, shaking my head vigorously.
Don’t tell her about Achilles.
He seems to get it. “Except you, I mean. Well, and the guards.”
Tate gives us both a look, but keeps walking.
Enoch changes tacks. “What’s in it for you, Tate? If you want me to trust you, you have to tell me.”
“Everything for everyone,” she says. Startled, I look over at her. She is smiling mechanically, and I wonder if she’s trying to make a joke. If so, it is beyond her.
“And nothing for ourselves, is that it?” Enoch asks skeptically, reading my mind.
Is that why you reported me, Tate?
She
studies me for a moment, head cocked, eyes critical, as though I’ve asked the question out loud. We lock eyes for a long beat, her striding effortlessly over the dark ground, me jouncing in Enoch’s arms. Finally she turns away.
“No, listen. What I mean is, I really do think people should help each other. But not like this, not the way they do in the City. So I want out.”
I struggle to stay awake, fascinated against my will. Tate Black does not seem the type to run away. Both her parents are alive, her younger brother sweet and mostly healthy. She believes in the law and does well in school, is her father’s trusted aide at the hospital. Whatever problems she may have, discontent has never seemed like one of them.
“We can’t really afford extra travelers,” Enoch says then. “We can barely feed ourselves.”
“I won’t be a burden,” Tate assures him. “I can help.”
“So let’s say you help Naiya,” he says, struggling for calm. He must hate how much we need her nearly as much as I do. “Then what?”
“You’ll still be glad I’m with you. I know how to find secrets too.”
“Secrets,” Enoch repeats.
“Yeah. Isn’t that what you Collectors do?” she says quietly. “Collect?”
“What can you do?” Enoch asks, ignoring the barb.
“Well,” she says, reaching into her pack once more and withdrawing a very official-looking badge. “There’s this.”
“Is that – ?”
“My father’s pass, remember?”
“But how long will it be good?” Enoch demands. “Only until he discovers it’s missing. Pip, keep up.”
“Only until he admits it’s missing,” Tate insists. “He’ll cover for me, at first at least. I know he will, if only to save face. And he won’t find out it’s gone for a while; he never used this one. It was the spare in his car.”
“And once we’re done with our mission? Where will you go then?”
“You’ll take me with you. Obviously.”
“Is that obvious? You don’t even know where we’re going.”
“Well, you’re going somewhere. Your father’s dead.” Enoch flinches, and I feel his chest heave into my side. “You ran away from my father, from the Party. It doesn’t take a genius to know you must be planning to leave the City.”
Enoch is silent.
“So take me with you,” she insists.
I start to shake my head again, but Enoch gives me a quelling look. “It’s okay,” he whispers. Then, louder, “We need to stop. She can’t go on like this.”
Tate takes a last look at the glowing white screen, then gestures to an abandoned apartment building. “Agreed. We can stay here for the night. I’ll need your help with her before we go to sleep.”
Enoch nods, pushing into the revolving door with his back. It protests squeakily, turning slowly and then more quickly as Pip adds his weight to it. We stumble through and into the cobwebby darkness within. My center of gravity shifts as Enoch begins to lower me to the floor, but before I get there, the darkness is complete, and I am gone.
FIFTEEN
The dream fades for what seems like the hundredth time, and awareness creeps up on me slowly. I register the warm blanket over a hard floor, a dash of sunlight on my cheek, the low murmur of voices, and something else. With wonder, I realize I’m hearing birdsong. Lazily I shift around, feeling sharp twinges in my shoulder and abdomen.
Ouch.
Opening my eyes, I take in my surroundings. Around me rises the spacious, cubed vault of an old warehouse. Its high, wide windows are largely unbroken, though holes are sheared through the frosted panes here and there. They let in plenty of afternoon sunlight, and I can tell by its angle that we’re at the south end of the City, a towering wall cutting off the view a few hundred yards out.
“She’s awake!” Pip’s voice, accompanied by the patter of feet, grows louder as it nears me. “Hi, Naiya!”
I clear my throat, reaching out a hand. “Hey, buddy.”
“How do you feel?” he asks, throwing himself onto the concrete, knees impervious to the impact.
“Um. Pretty good,” I reply, sitting up and rubbing sleep from my eyes. I’m still tired, but no longer feel sick. I bend my neck first one way and then the next, working the stiffness from the top of my arms and spine. Pulling aside my shirt, I twist my head awkwardly to look at my shoulder, but see nothing but a shiny, new pink patch, already on its way to a scar. My abdomen looks a little worse, the thin line still a little swollen and red, but it is nevertheless an amazing improvement. “Really good, actually.”
“You look good too,” says Enoch. I look up at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to see what he means by this, but he seems the same as ever. He gives Pip, with whom he seems to have made amends, a friendly shove.
“How did we get here?” I ask. My last memory was of a dark old apartment building, not this well-lit, relatively clean old factory by the Southern Wall.
“We moved yesterday. Pip was … tired of the dark.”
I hear what he isn’t saying, that the little boy got his way once more. Hopefully as a result of extreme cuteness, not demonic behavior. Whatever happened, though, it doesn’t seem to be affecting their relationship now.
Adjusting my hands, I pull my legs into a crossed sitting position. My hair falls over my shoulder, lank and sour. I cringe momentarily at the thought of Enoch carrying me, smelling my foul clothes, watching me snore or drool, but can’t think of any way to come back from it.
“Is it safe here?” I ask instead.
“Safe as anywhere. We check the power pack a million times a day, but so far we haven’t shown up on it again. Haven’t seen any guards, either.”
“So can we go?”
“No, Tate says you have to stay here for at least another day.”
“Huh. Where is Tate?”
“Upstairs, sleeping.” He points his chin to a glassed-in loft room tucked under the ceiling. It obviously served as an office at one point, perhaps overlooking the merchandise that’s now piled against the wall. “She really worked some magic on you, didn’t she?”
This sours my mood immediately.
“Yeah, well. I guess so.”
“Oh, come on, Naiya.” Enoch is smiling as he takes a cross-legged seat on the floor a few feet away. He gives me a frank look, seeming both amused and somehow … lighter. “Where would you be without her medicines? They’re incredible.”
“Are you defending her?”
“From what?” Enoch still looks mildly entertained. “She hasn’t done anything.”
Well, this is quite the about-face.
“Not lately, she hasn’t.”
“You have to admit we’d be a lot worse off if she hadn’t found us.”
“For the time being, sure. But what about later? You know, when she turns us in and they start torturing us?”
Enoch stops smiling. “Quit it. You’re scaring Pip.”
I glance at Pip, who does indeed look disturbed. Shaking my head, I open my arms. “Sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he says, laying his head on my shoulder. “You’re probably just cranky because you haven’t eaten in three days.”
“I – what?”
“I said, you’re probably just – ”
“No. Three days? I’ve been out for three days?”
“Yep,” Enoch confirms, handing me another of the lackluster cereal bars, grin back in place. “It’s really helped with the rationing.”
“Shut up.”
I eat the bar in silence. Enoch hands me a piece of cheese and a wrinkled apple, and I make short work of them too. Eventually, sensing my disinterest in talking, he leads his brother away to spar in a far corner. Pip wields a neat little knife that I haven’t seen before, but I’m too sleepy and irritated to wonder about it.
Three days.
It explains the peculiarly endless-seeming nature of the dreams I’ve been having, each seeming to begin and end just the same way as the one befor
e it. The swirling ground, the world far below it, the faint shimmer of ghostly beings gliding through forest glades, just out of sight. I’ve been dreaming for days, then. Meanwhile Tate has been worming her way in.
I flex my shoulder once more, marveling anew at how much better it feels. The nauseating pain has faded to a persistent soreness, much more manageable. Even my thigh, which Pip’s kick would ordinarily have bruised for a month, feels fine. All thanks to her.
I brush my hands against the top of my bedroll nervously, feeling a vestige of tingling heat crackle up my fingers and across my wrists. Memories of the terrifying fight, the dizziness and pain, come flooding back. The bodies of the guards, which Tate didn’t want me to see, which she said weren’t important …
But they are important. At least to me.
I killed them.
I don’t know how I know, but I know. The thought fills me with horror and nausea, and I want to unburden myself by sharing it with Enoch. But who knows what he would think? Besides, he’d probably just end the conversation by reminding me how lucky I am to have Tate.
Sighing with frustration, I get to my feet, grabbing my knapsack and an old towel. I reach for my canteen, receiving a nasty shock from the metal. Shaking my hand mutely to relieve the sting, I head to a far corner of the warehouse, into the dubious privacy of the old stairwell that leads to Tate’s loft. “Don’t come over here,” I call over my shoulder. Then, stripping to my underwear, I use the water and towel to bathe myself as best I can. I use most of it on my hair, scrubbing vigorously in the hopes of getting at least some of the stench out. By the end, the towel is covered in blood and a muddy sort of dirt. Digging through my pack, I pull out a fresh shirt and pair of pants, and again curse the lack of fresh socks. Then I feel terrible, remembering that packing me a change of clothes was one of Papa’s last acts.
His death still feels like a joke. I think of all the things I’d never gotten around to asking him, like how he got luxuries like wood and mirrors for the training floor, or where he found a pair of real silver studs for my thirteenth birthday. I reach up and touch them now, remembering how much it had hurt for Amy to pierce my ears with hot needles, how proud I’d been to wear them to school the next day.
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