Kole slings two backpacks over his shoulders and begins moving supplies upstairs with the others.
‘What did he want?’ I ask cautiously.
‘Aw, nothing, he just asked me to show you to your room,’ she says brightly, but she won’t make eye contact with me. I nod cautiously, but instead of leading me towards the hall with everyone else, she turns to the right, taking the smaller door that no one else has touched.
She pushes it open to reveal a tiny room with one small window in the corner, letting in dappled light through the branches of a tree outside. It’s completely bare, with a concrete floor and the same grey walls as the kitchen.
Understanding hits me like a punch in the teeth.
‘Ah,’ I say under my breath. They don’t trust me enough to let me sleep in the same room as everyone else. It’s both sensible and ridiculous, because if I really wanted to kill them, it wouldn’t take much to climb a single flight of stairs to where they all sleep.
‘I know it doesn’t look like much, but we’ll get in blankets and things and it’ll look great. I’m so jealous; it’s impossible to sleep when everyone around you is snoring.’ Lacey laughs, but she’s talking too fast and there’s a slight note of panic in her voice. But I don’t care that they’re segregating me.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say without looking at Lacey, ‘I’ve been quarantined my whole life.’
Lacey mumbles something quickly about helping Kole move the supplies before disappearing out the door, desperate to get away.
I close my eyes, just for a second, and breathe. I can almost feel the Dorms surrounding me again, hear the clatter of girls all around me, the floor moving underneath me as they clomp around, rushing to get down before the Officers have to enforce the curfew.
I shiver, leaning my back against the cold concrete wall. I need to pull myself together. I don’t trust anyone here, and they’re making it perfectly clear that they don’t trust me either, so I need to make a plan. I slide down the wall, running my hands over my face as I try to decide what to do.
First off, I need to get information from them. I can’t leave without getting some answers. And once I have them, I need to find a way to survive outside on my own. If I depend on these people for food and shelter, they own me. Oasis taught me that much.
I drag in a steadying breath, feeling a little more sane now that I have a plan.
Get answers, find a way to survive and get away from this place.
It’s that simple, and that complicated.
13
Within minutes of getting into the house we’re called back into the kitchen, and I push myself up off the ground to follow the others. There’s a table pushed up against the far wall, but everyone sits down on the floor without a word. Walter and Mark are sitting towards the opposite end of the room, their backs to the table as they talk to a pretty, dark-skinned girl and Lacey, who hasn’t said a word to me since she showed me my room.
My eyes are on Lacey as I sit down, just as everyone goes quiet. I look up, startled by the abrupt silence, and see Kole standing on the table, a smile across his face.
My eyes widen at the sight of him. He trusts that table a lot more than I do.
‘Okay, so the last group won’t be here until tomorrow, but for tonight we’ve made it this far in one piece. I want you to all count that as a victory. You did well.’ He keeps smiling, and I keep watching the wood beneath his feet. ‘Now, I’m sure you’re all hungry, so let’s eat!’ He claps his hands together, grinning down at everyone, and they all whoop in response.
He jumps down from the table like a cat, not making a sound as he lands, and a few people who hung back in the kitchen start bringing in food. The food isn’t anything special, but there is a sense of celebration in the air, and I wonder at how he can do that. He turned the night on its head, and the frowns and creases between eyebrows that everyone was wearing earlier disappear, replaced with smiles and laughter as the room grows steadily louder.
‘How are you feeling?’ His voice comes from behind me, and I jump. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I turn to face him. In the short time since I saw him last he’s changed into a T-shirt, this time too loose, and a pair of worn out jeans, and he’s crouched beside me, his arms hung across his knees. ‘I’m feeling fine,’ I say.
‘Exhausted?’ he asks, running his hand through his hair. He seems nervous.
‘No,’ I say, sitting back a little so I can get a better look at him. There’s a thick band of leather around his left wrist, and several thinner ones on his right.
‘Get something to eat,’ he urges, looking around the room. ‘There’s going to be a lot of work to do tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ I blink at him for a second. ‘Are you okay? You seem tired.’
He looks taken aback, as if no one has ever asked him that before.
‘I’m … fine. I just haven’t been sleeping very well.’ He looks surprised at himself for answering honestly.
‘It must be hard,’ I say to him, ‘being the leader. Do you mind it?’
He cocks his head to one side and looks at me for a long moment. ‘It doesn’t matter what I want,’ he says quietly. ‘What matters is the group.’ Another long look that I can’t look away from. ‘Thank you, though,’ he says stiltedly. ‘For asking.’
Neither of us moves for a long moment, but then Lacey calls me from her spot in the corner.
‘I’m gonna go see what she wants.’
‘Of course.’
‘Okay.’
I start walking over to Lacey, and when I look back, he’s gone.
I end up sitting silently throughout the entire meal, my back to the wall as I watch Lacey, Mark, Walter and Clarke chatting together. The dynamic is strange, as if Lacey has been adopted into their little family but Clarke hasn’t. They have no lack of warmth towards her, but there is a boundary between her and the others that isn’t there with the boys and Lacey.
I wonder who is responsible for that.
I eat slowly, considering my options. I don’t know if I should approach Kole tonight or wait until tomorrow. I don’t know if I have the energy for an interrogation tonight, but I’m worried I won’t get the chance to talk to him if I wait.
‘This tastes like roadkill.’ Clarke pokes at a piece of meat that’s floating in her soup. From what I can tell, the food is just meat, some kind of pale vegetable and a lot of water.
I look down at my own tin can, watching it curiously. It doesn’t taste that bad to me.
‘It’s rabbit,’ Lacey says.
‘Kole told me it was deer,’ Mark says slowly, looking into his can with wide eyes.
‘He told me it was chicken.’ Walter winks, and when Clarke punches him in the arm he just laughs. ‘What did he tell you it was?’ he asks, nodding towards me, a slow grin spreading across his face.
I sit up a little straighter from where I was slouched against the wall.
‘He didn’t say anything to me.’
‘She’s a bright one,’ Clarke murmurs, raising her eyebrows at me. I stare at her, feeling myself bristling. She holds my stare without flinching, cocking her head to the side in a challenge.
‘Give her a break, Clarke, she’s new,’ Mark says under his breath, as if I won’t hear.
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Clarke says sarcastically, rolling her eyes as she stands up. ‘I’m finished.’ She picks up her can and walks away without looking back.
Lacey and the boys both stand up and move to go after her.
‘You coming?’ Walter asks me, pausing at the door.
‘I’ll be there in a minute.’
‘Okay.’ He shrugs, and then he’s gone.
I keep my place against the wall as I watch everyone slowly file out, until I’m the last one in the room. I stand up, my already empty tin gripped in my hand, and I start walking towards the kitchen, hoping Kole is still there, when I hear raised voices in the other room.
‘… can’t keep doing this!’ a man’s voice says.
I stop, leaning my back against the wall by the door so they won’t realise I’m listening.
‘They’ve spent the last week in the woods, I needed to do something before they lost hope.’ That voice is definitely Kole.
‘And you thought the best idea would be to use up supplies that we don’t have to spare?’
‘We have food, Don.’
‘How much?’ the man demands gruffly. ‘It’s January, Kole. There’s nothing growing, it’s not exactly easy trying to hunt out there, and anything we do find is so skinny it’s barely worth the bullets it takes to kill it.’
‘We’ll get by. We always get by.’ Kole sounds like an elastic band pulled too tight.
‘We’re barely surviving the winter, Kole. If you don’t change something, we’re not going to survive another.’
I hear loud footsteps stomping away and a door slamming, and then silence.
I wait five seconds, then I step out into plain view. Kole jerks around to face me, his expression only shocked for the tiniest second, before he masks it with a stiff calm.
‘Quincy,’ he says slowly. ‘You should be in bed.’
‘Lacey said you had answers for me,’ I say, setting my tin down against the wall. I’m as exhausted as he is, and I want to get this over with so I can go to bed.
He closes his eyes, inhales slowly and runs his hands over his face.
‘I really can’t take this tonight.’
‘I want answers,’ I say, and I have to stop myself from raising my voice.
‘Can’t we do this tomorrow?’
‘No.’ I fold my arms in front of my chest.
He runs his hand through his hair, breathing out. He looks at me, looks at the door behind him, back to me, his eyes narrowing as he considers his options.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘How did you get out here? Are there more of you? How long have you been out here? How are there Officers outside the Wall? Why isn’t everyone dead?’ Every time I try to pause so he can answer, another question pops into my head, just as urgent as the last one.
He laughs a slow, dead laugh.
‘That’s a lot of questions,’ he says, tapping his knuckles against the lopsided table.
‘Nothing out here makes any sense. Of course I have a lot of questions,’ I snap.
‘I’m not answering them all tonight. But I’ll tell you this much: there are more of us, the Officers are outside of the Wall because Oasis sends them here, and I don’t know why we’re not all dead. We probably should be.’
‘You didn’t answer—’
‘Stop,’ he says, standing up. He towers over me as his lips compress into a hard line, his dark eyes sharper than they were before. ‘No more. Not tonight.’
I go to say something, then close my mouth tight. There’s no point.
‘Get some sleep, Quincy. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
And he must trust me more than the others, because he turns his back to me and then he walks out the door without another word.
14
I wake up, and for a moment I’m so disoriented I can’t process what’s going on around me. Everything is blurry, and I’m so cold, my bones stiff from the icy temperature. I try to inhale, but all that enters my lungs is water, and that’s when it clicks.
I’m underwater.
I can see the surface, the sun glistening above, the blur of trees leaning across the bank, and my arms and legs thrash, trying to push me up, but my body is a dead weight and I start sinking faster.
I try to hold my breath, but my body keeps inhaling, pulling more and more river water into my lungs as my body spasms.
And that’s when I see her. She’s under the water with me, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it, a cold smile stuck on her small face. Bea floats above me, and her skin is icy blue, her white lips curled upwards beneath empty eye-sockets.
My legs pump faster, my heart crawling into my mouth as I try to push away from her, but the faster I move away, the faster she comes towards me, pale fingers stretched out in front of her. I try to move my lips, form an apology, a scream, anything, but I can’t move.
I am frozen in time, horror searing through me as my body shuts down.
My muscles have stopped working entirely, just as her small hand grips my arm, sending knives of ice through my bloodstream. My heart stops as the black holes where her eyes should be suck me in, dragging me deeper.
15
I am screaming.
It’s the first thing that I realise, before I realise where I am, before I realise that the sound of thunder above me is people moving upstairs, before I realise I’ve thrown myself across the room so hard my head has cracked against the wall. I slide down the wall, pushing myself into the corner as I swallow another scream. I’m shaking so violently that it’s making the panic well up inside me even faster, and I stuff my hands between my knees to stop them from trembling, so I don’t have to watch myself fall apart.
The door flies open, slamming against the wall as someone storms in, but I don’t pick my head up from my knees as I pull farther into the corner.
‘What the hell—?!’
‘Get out!’ I shout, and my voice is making strange choking sounds and I need them out out out.
‘What happened?’ the voice asks, gentler now, and I recognise it as Kole’s.
I jump from my spot on the floor, dragging my arm across my eyes and stepping up to him, toe to toe, as adrenaline finally kicks in, making me feel braver than I actually am.
‘I said, get out,’ I growl, and the unsteadiness in my voice isn’t fear or anger, but something deadly caught between the two. He looks slightly taken aback, then his eyes narrow as he studies my face, trying to read something that’s not there. ‘Now,’ I snarl.
He holds up his hands in surrender, taking a step back without taking his eyes off me. I watch him walk through the door backwards and pull it closed behind him. Then I am on the floor again, and I am coming undone, the hinges of my joints pulling apart as I tremble into a mess on the floor, just clothes and tears and this unstoppable shaking.
What is happening to me?
The voices outside my room are incessant.
‘She’s lost it,’ someone says.
‘We can’t afford to house mental patients, Kole.’
‘She’s a danger to us all.’
‘She’s obviously insane.’
‘I thought someone was being murdered.’
‘I thought we were being attacked again.’
‘We can’t keep her here any longer.’
It goes on and on until I feel like I actually am losing my mind, and to make it worse, I don’t hear anyone arguing with them. I want out of here, but I need more time. If they kick me out, I won’t survive to the end of the week.
Suddenly I’m struck by the insanity of it all. That we are here, far from Oasis, far from any kind of normalcy, and they are demanding answers but refusing to ask questions to my face. It feels like Oasis rules still apply here, but the lines are less distinctly drawn. They wear no Officer uniforms, but they act like they should have authority over me.
I drag open the door separating my room from the kitchen, and a dozen shocked faces turn in my direction.
‘What?’ I ask, and my voice comes out strong, but on the inside I feel like I’m unravelling. ‘If you have something to say, tell me.’
No one says a word, but several eyes meet across the table.
I try to rein in my anger, to push it down like I always do, but before I can stop myself, I snap, ‘If you want answers, this is the only way you’re going to get them.’
Clarke shoulders her way to the front of the crowd.
‘We don’t know you,’ she says, as if that needs to be said. ‘We don’t know who you are or why you’re here. We don’t trust people like you.’
‘People like what?’ I snap, but she doesn’t back down.
She s
teps around the table until she’s face-to-face with me. ‘People like you. People from the Inside. How do we know you’re not one of them?’
‘I nearly died out there!’ I yell. ‘Why would I put myself through that?’
‘We don’t know you,’ Clarke hisses again, as if that’s an argument, as if that’s reason enough for anything.
‘Clarke, calm down,’ Kole says, stepping forward, and we both look towards him. ‘Quincy, we need to know we can trust you.’
‘You need to know that you can trust me? What about me? I don’t know anything about you people. Are you Pure? Are you Dormant? Are you Infected?’
Kole’s eyes widen, as if that’s a new idea. He seems to think about his answer carefully.
‘Infection status isn’t a consideration out here,’ he says slowly, making pointed eye contact, as if he’s trying to pass on some deeper message.
Whatever it is, I’m not receiving it, because all that comes out of my mouth is a choked, ‘What?’
‘There isn’t any proof that the gene even can be activated, so we choose not to terrorise ourselves with the idea of it.’
‘The idea of it?’ I splutter. ‘The Virus almost wiped out the entire population. How can you just ignore it?’
‘Have you ever seen an outbreak, Quincy? When you were inside Oasis, did you see anything at all that suggested that the X gene could activate the Virus?’
‘But the scientists—’
‘Anything that wasn’t fed to you by Oasis?’ he interrupts, and my mouth snaps shut. This is too much. That Oasis was killing off people from outside the Wall I could imagine, but this? The amount of fear, of work that surrounds keeping the X gene from activating …
‘There’s no point,’ he says. ‘We’ve all been over this a million times. Even if we did know for sure, there’s nothing we could do to stop it if it did activate. We have to keep living, Quincy.’
His words punch holes in my chest, resonating with that voice in my head, always pushing me forward. We have to keep living. That, at least, I can understand.
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