Wilder Girls

by Rory Power

  Mr. Harker’s eyes close. Everything goes limp. I let the heart fall from my shaking hands and bend to one side to throw up.

  When I’m finished I sit back, spit slick down my chin. I wait for the guilt, wait for the gnawing in my stomach. After all, I know that feeling. Since Boat Shift, since Byatt, I’m starting to think I’m built for it.

  But Mr. Harker is dead, and I’m not, and the guilt doesn’t come. I did what I had to. I kept us alive.

  I get to my feet, my legs unsteady, hands numb as I find my knife and slip it back into my belt loop. We made it. If this was the worst the wildwood could throw at us, it might be okay in the end.

  When I turn, Reese is there, her right shoulder hanging at an angle that makes me dizzy. “You okay?” I say. “We should fix that.”

  She’s looking past me to the wreck of her father. “You killed him,” she says. Her eyes hollowed out, her face drawn and pale. “You really did.”

  She’s in shock. That’s all. She’ll come back, realize there was no other way. “I had to save us,” I say as gently as I can. “I’m sorry, but—”

  “He’s dead.” Voice flat, everything that’s her stripped out of it.

  “It was us or him.” She doesn’t answer, so I step in close, push her braid off her injured shoulder. It doesn’t look all the way dislocated, but when she tries to move it out from under my hand, the color drains from her face and she gasps. “We should take a look at this, yeah?” I say softly.

  “I’m fine,” she says, even as she sags against me, and I watch her close her eyes, feel her shaking. “I had him back,” she whispers. “I thought he was gone, and then I had him back.”

  “It wasn’t him.”

  “He knew me.” She opens her eyes, and when they meet mine the accusation in them is clear and sharp. “You took him away.”

  “He was going to kill us,” I say, frustration building. I had to save us. Why doesn’t that matter to her?

  “Better me than him,” she flings back at me. “Better us than my father.”

  I don’t know this version of her. Even at her angriest, Reese is always contained, always whole. But this girl, this Reese in front of me, is in pieces. Edges torn, heart scattered.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say. “I was supposed to let you die? I was supposed to sacrifice myself? Reese, that wasn’t even your dad anymore.”

  She pushes me away, injured arm hanging uselessly by her side. “No. It was him. He was here.”

  “He wasn’t.” And my patience is gone, bled out of me. “Look, you don’t get to put this shit on me just because you’re angry at yourself.”

  “For what?” A stillness, suddenly, about her, and I know she’s waiting for me to make a mistake, to say the wrong thing. Well, fine. Have it.

  “Angry at yourself for helping me kill him.” She looks stricken, but I don’t stop. “I’m not the only one who held that knife.”

  Nothing, for a moment, and then she smiles and says, “Fuck you, Hetty.”

  My mouth drops open. She’s hurt me before, but until right now, she’s never seemed like she wanted to.

  “If this is what I get for saving your life,” I say, “I should’ve let him take you.”

  She laughs, a horrible flatness to it, and I wait for her to stop. But she doesn’t. She bends over, braces her silver hand on her knee, and the sound keeps coming, ripping out of her like Mr. Harker’s heart from his chest.

  “Reese,” I say, because I need this to stop before it turns to something worse, but before I can say anything else, a noise rumbles through us. The growl of a motor coming nearer, and fast. We both startle, Reese’s laughter cutting off. It must be whoever Welch was supposed to meet.

  I make for the back door and peer outside. There’s a boat drifting in at the dock, motor idling, and in it the ballooning shape of a person, proportions strange and obscured by a hazmat suit. Like the doctors who came that first week of the Tox, who took our temperatures and took our blood and disappeared into their helicopters and never came back.

  “Shit,” I say, hurrying back to Reese. I grab the shotgun, tuck it under my arm. “We have to get out of here.”

  Through the gap in the wall I can see a billow of plastic as the person in the hazmat suit climbs out of the boat. If we don’t move now, they’ll see us, and they’ll know we’ve broken the quarantine. And everything will fall apart.

  Reese shakes her head, stumbles away from me. “No,” she says. Stubborn like always—at least that part of her is together. “I’m not leaving him.”

  “Someone’s coming,” I say, and she’s being so unreasonable, and I’m talking too loud but I can’t help it. “We have to go.”

  “I can’t.” She’s looking at her father, laid out on the ground, his chest open, heart still oozing next to him. Black teeth gleaming darkly in the red light. “He’s all I have. I can’t just—”

  I snap. Lock my arm around her waist and drag her away, back toward the door. At first she fights, scratches at my hand with her scaled fingers, and it hurts, but we have to go. Doesn’t she understand? We have to leave.

  We stumble past the birch tree, past Byatt’s initials carved there, and at last she finds her feet, and we’re running—out of the house, into the woods. Through the pines growing tight and narrow, pushing farther and farther into the green. I can hear something behind us, but I can’t look, can’t do anything but keep on, the shotgun jabbing me in the ribs as we stumble forward. Crashing through the brush, loud and leaving a trail. Branches catch on my hair and pull at my clothes, and we’ll look like a mess when we get home, but we’ll get there. We will.

  Eventually, we hit the road, the broad stretch of it a familiar relief. It’s still dark, and we’re far enough from the house that nobody can see, so I stop, and turn to scan the woods behind us. No waxy gleam of the hazmat suit. No sound but us.

  “I think we’re okay,” I say. Reese doesn’t answer. When I look down she’s dropped to her knees, clutching her injured shoulder and biting so hard on her lip I’m surprised it hasn’t split. “I thought you said you were fine.”

  “I am,” she grits out. Her breath coming slow and labored, her face paper white in the moonlight.

  I don’t try to help her. The sting of her words is still fresh, and I got her out of that house, after all. That’s enough for now. “Get up. We have to make it back over the fence.”

  We can’t go through the gate, so we’re heading for the north edge of the island, where the fence ends in great brick columns at the lip of the cliff. We’ll have to scramble up them and over the fence, back onto school grounds.

  I know where we are now, and Reese is in no shape to be leading anybody anywhere, so I shoulder the shotgun, bend down, and pull her to standing. I’d carry her, but even if I could, I don’t think she’d let me.

  “Come on,” I say. She’s heavy against me as we stagger down the road.

  There’s light snatching at the sky by the time we hit the fence. I can’t bring myself to look up at the roof deck. If somebody’s on Gun Shift, let them shoot us now and get it over with. But nobody does, and we follow the tree line where it presses up against the fence, branches yearning and straining through the iron bars, follow it to the edge of the island.

  Sea spray whipping at my skin. Pines pressing close on one side, the fence on the other, and out ahead the earth falls away. Just the cliff, granite worn by the wind, and a twenty-foot drop to the water below. I glance up at the house. Every window dark, no lantern on the roof deck. Nobody’s up looking for us. And nobody out on the horizon, either—the ocean empty and endless, waves breaking in ranks.

  The fence ends right at the lip of the cliff, forming a T with a thick brick column so big, so close to the edge, that there’s no way around it. Not for us, not for the animals. But there are scratches and teeth broken off in the mortar.
It’s not like they haven’t tried to get through.

  Slowly, I drag Reese over and prop her up against the brick column. She’s pale, her eyes glazed and staring.

  “Hey,” I say, shaking her lightly. I smooth my hand along her cheek, her skin too cold, too pale. Shock, maybe. I remember the sound her shoulder made, the way she screamed. She needs more help than we can afford to get her. “Come back,” I try. “Reese, it’s me.”

  She blinks, slow like it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done. “I’m so tired,” she croaks.

  “I know. One last push, okay?”

  Here, the iron bars and the brick hit at a right angle, and there are enough breaks worn into the brick that we should be able to find a few footholds to boost us up and over. I help Reese stand and turn her around.

  “See?” I say, pointing to one spot on the column, about knee-high, where some animal’s torn a chunk out. “Climb up. I’ll spot you.”

  Her right arm limp by her side, useless and wrong, but Reese is stronger than anybody I’ve ever met. And even after everything, she braces her injured shoulder against the fence, wedges her foot into the crack in the brick, and levers herself up with a muffled scream. Her scaled left hand scraping the mortar loose, and I watch with a strange sort of pride swelling in my chest as she pulls her body over the fence.

  She’s left scoring in the brick, and that makes it easier for me to follow her. Soon I’m jumping down from the top of the column and landing with a groan on the battered lawn. School-side, this time. We’re home.

  Reese staggers to her feet with a whimper. Even the glow of her hair seems dimmed, like the whole of her is draining away.

  “You go upstairs,” I whisper. “I’ll put the gun back in the barn and meet you there.”

  She nods, and I think she’s about to say something—an apology, maybe, for what she said at her house—but then she’s turning around and drawing up her hood, the shape of her disappearing into the dawn.

  * * *

  —

  It was so easy sneaking to the barn that I kept looking behind me, waiting for Welch to step out of the shadows and press her pistol to my forehead, yet nobody came. But if that was easy, this, Reese—this is the hard part.

  She’s in our room when I get back, sitting on my bunk, clutching her injured shoulder, and for a second I just watch her, watch the play of light on her skin. It was her life that fell apart out there, not mine. I have to be the one to put us back together.

  “Hey,” I say. “You okay?”

  She chuckles, shakes her head. “Okay?”

  “Sorry. Stupid question.” At least she’s talking to me. I come farther into the room, shut the door behind me. “Let me do something for your shoulder.”

  She doesn’t answer, so I step around her and reach for my pillow. It still has a pillowcase even though most of the others got stitched into makeshift blankets. I peel the pillowcase off and start ripping down the side seam.

  “I don’t think it’s popped all the way out,” I say, but that’s not why she’s angry, and we both know it. “I’ll make a sling, and you can just rest it for a bit.”

  I help Reese cradle her right arm against her chest and loop the pillowcase around. I bend over her to make a knot in the sling, and freeze when I feel her let out a shaky breath, her forehead leaning against my chest.

  “What the hell happened to him?” she whispers.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “He was out there a long time.” And, I want to say, he’s not like us. The Tox swallowed him whole the way I’ve never seen it touch a Raxter girl.

  I take one more moment, brush my thumb against the nape of her neck, and then I drop onto the bed next to her. “Maybe we can get you a real bandage tomorrow. Or some painkillers.”

  She doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure she’s breathing. I can’t let her disappear into herself. I can’t let the Tox win.

  I reach out, rest my hand on her knee, and squeeze. Just to reassure her, just to remind her I’m with her. But she flinches away from me.

  “Reese?”

  “Don’t,” she says, and I jerk back as she lurches to her feet, scrubs at her face with her silver hand. “Don’t do that.”

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked.”

  “I mean all of it,” she says, and when she turns to look at me, it’s like I can see it, the mask of calm she’s wearing and the anguish underneath. “You have to stop, Hetty.”

  “Okay,” I say, holding up my hands. We just need to calm down, and we will figure out a way to fix this. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” Reese snaps. “It’s not fucking okay.” She sounds so resigned, so close to giving up, and I feel a bright flare of panic, because I can’t lose her too. “I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work after what you did.”

  And no, I can’t lose her, but there are only so many ways I can explain this. Only so many times I can justify keeping us alive before I lose my grip.

  “There was no other solution,” I say. I’m struggling to keep steady, my fists clenched so hard I can feel my fingernails biting deep. “It was him or us, and I made the only decision I could.”

  “So, what,” she says, acid dripping from her voice, “I don’t get to be mad that my father is dead? That the Tox ripped him apart so badly you had to put him down?”

  I shoot to my feet, and I don’t know what it is—anger or pure desperation—that has me so wound up I’m shaking. “No, actually,” I say, “you don’t get to be mad that I saved your life.”

  Reese narrows her eyes. I brace myself for whatever’s coming next. I’ve never met anyone who likes fighting the way she does, never met anyone so good at it. But the silence beats on. At last she lets out a long, slow breath, tension draining from her shoulders.

  “Do you think I want this?” she says. She sounds hoarse, and I can barely pick out one word from the next, every ounce of exhaustion crashing down on both of us at once. “We don’t get to choose what hurts us.”

  My heartbeat thundering in my ears, the slow coil of dread tightening in my chest. Please, please don’t be doing what I think you are.

  “Reese,” I start, but she shakes her head.

  “I understand what you did. I think you did the right thing. And I’m still angry about it.” She shrugs her good shoulder. “What else is there to say?”

  For a moment I’m back there in the dark, my life in my hands. There was no other way. It was kill or be killed. And it feels like tearing my own heart out of my chest the way I did Mr. Harker’s, but I say, “Nothing, I guess.”

  She nods. My stomach clenches as I see a tear wind down her cheek before she swipes it away. “Right. That’s what I mean.”

  The past few days I’ve seen her break open. Watching her now, I can see her closing back up. There the familiar remove, there the way she never quite looked me in the eye. All of it put back together as she says, “You can have the room. I’ll bunk in one of the empty dorms.”

  She’s waiting for me to argue. And if she were Byatt, I’d know what to say. I’d know the gap in her armor. But Reese doesn’t have one.

  “Okay.” I’m proud when my voice doesn’t break. But I can’t let her go without making sure she understands. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You have to know that.”

  Her hair the only light, features strange and unknowable like the day I first met her. She’s gone. She’s here but she’s gone.

  “Yeah, I know.” And the door shuts behind her as she walks out.

  BYATT

  CHAPTER 15

  They open the curtains and they wheel him in

  Gurney across from me both of us strapped in tight and I know who it is I do it’s just I’m not here anymore

  A fog in my head I’m awash I’m at sea and I can’t feel anything except when they stick me and bleed me

&
nbsp; Teddy that’s who I forgot

  * * *

  —

  No boys allowed I told him I kissed him I did I did I ruined him and I wasn’t even trying to

  When will you learn my mother says to me

  She is by the window again she is watching me and she is wearing scrubs just like the doctors do as she winks in and out

  There are more important things than what you want she says

  * * *

  —

  How are you feeling

  Me and Hetty on the roof she’s got a bandage covering her eye and we’re pretending like she doesn’t and I say how are you feeling and she says

  Doesn’t hurt so much

  And I’m glad and then she looks over at me and it’s taking a little to get used to her new face but she’s used to it so I have to be too and she says

  You seem all right Byatt

  All right like not just all right but something more except I don’t know what so I just shrug and

  I guess

  That’s what I say

  * * *

  —

  Light my eyes tearing up they always do they’re too sensitive I could never get my pupils dilated when I went to the eye doctor and somebody bending down over me blinking and sharpen and

  Paretta

  Shake my head try to get away but she says something I can’t understand and then

  Test they’re doing a test

  My arm is moving

  Try to put it back come back I didn’t but no good a hole a tube and bright yellow hands pushing

  Open my mouth to scream and scream but nothing comes out just a whisper of air and what is that in my IV it’s clear it’s coming down it’s going in

  I can’t stop it

  * * *

  —

  Pull tighten stretch and Teddy where is Teddy there is something in me cool and sweet

  He is not here