She smiles and touches the charm. “It’s pretty,” she says. “Just like you.”
By the time I force myself to leave I am almost certainly late for work. I paddle fast to the shore, and the entire time, I feel Peri’s gray eyes watching me go.
Bodies still lie crumpled in the streets. Some show evidence of a struggle, some simply lie on the concrete, apparently asleep. Seagulls swoop down, picking at the carnage. The corpses have been picked at by citizens, too, and some of them are naked, clothing stolen.
Orion is standing outside the Rations Hall when I get there, gun in hand. “One minute more and you’d have been late, Blondie!” she calls to me as I shove my way across the street. “Better be on your game today!”
“I am always on my game,” I say, and shove past her to scan my Catalogue Number. Today she has me scan my Orb as well, so they can track my work hours and Creds.
“After you.” Orion waves me in with her gun, the barrel staring me right in the face, but I am not afraid. I shuffle inside.
She catches me by the arm. “Interesting cut,” she says, looking at Koi’s gift to me. By now the nanites have caused it to scab over. “What’s the story?”
I pull my arm away and press it to my side. “It’s none of your business.”
She grunts and lets it slide.
The day goes by quickly. I’m growing accustomed to working with the Rations bags, as if I’ve done it my entire life. I get trouble from a woman who manages to claw me, until the Initiative soldiers hold a gun to her head and force her to return her rations. I take them back because if I do not, it will be my life instead of hers.
Later, it gets worse.
A man with a gun comes in. When he lifts it and fires at the glass barrier, I already know it won’t work. The Initiative is on him at once.
He is shot not once, not twice, but three times.
A waste of three bullets, a waste of one life.
I focus on my work.
That is, until the Wards file in.
I look up and see their faces. Filthy. Sunken cheeks.
The line moves forward enough for the Initiative officers to close the doors behind the first group. The sunlight disappears. I look up.
There, standing at the back of the line, is the boy.
Zephyr.
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CHAPTER 20
ZEPHYR
Stars, it was her.
Her, the moonlit girl, who saved me.
“I don’t even know if it was really her, Zephyr,” Talan says. We’re standing in line for rations. It’s nearly 100 degrees already, and it isn’t even noon yet.
“Silver-blonde hair, down to her waist?” I say, pointing at Talan’s hips. “Gray eyes?”
“Well, yeah,” she says, “But how am I supposed to believe some girl you’ve seen in your dreams is even real? Lots of girls have hair like that. It’s from living under the sun, not haunting people’s dreams. You sure you’re feeling all right?
“I’m as healthy as a Leech, Talan. Promise.”
The line moves forward, slowly. My stomach feels all soupy and mixed up inside. Before the doctor signed me out of the hospital, he pumped me with some sort of blue liquid that he said was chock-full of nutrients. “She’s real,” I say to Talan. “And if you say she saved me, then maybe there’s a chance she’s been dreaming of me, too.”
Talan laughs under her breath, and winks at a boy with black hair as he passes by. “Life isn’t a fairy tale.”
“Well, it should be,” I say.
She snorts. “Maybe you can draw a picture of her and start asking people if they’ve seen her. There’s plenty of crazy people in the Shallows. Someone’s bound to have an answer.”
“You’re kind of a ChumHead, you know that?”
As we get closer to the front of the line, we hear shouts coming from inside the Rations Hall. A man’s voice, claiming he’s not getting his day’s worth. There are three shots, and everyone goes silent for a second. I know without having to see it that the man’s a goner.
The line moves quicker now. Talan is being scrappy as always, trying to barter for a pair of boots she wants from the girl in front of us. When we finally enter the Hall, the Leech guarding the doors locks them behind us. It’s stupid, really. No one’s going to try and push his way in when a Leech has a rifle pointed in his face.
“Another day in paradise,” I say. I expect Talan to laugh. She usually thinks I’m pretty funny, but today she gasps.
“What? What is it?”
“Oh, stars,” she says.
“See? I told you that word would catch on!”
Her fingernails dig into my arm, and she points across the room. “Just shut up and look.”
My breath sort of stops, right there in my lungs.
Standing behind the glass, staring down at the blood soaked floor with anger warping her face, is the person I swear I’ve waited my entire life to see.
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CHAPTER 21
MEADOW
I try to hide behind my hair, but the Rations Hall is warmer today, and Orion makes me pull it back, out of my face.
“Sanitation rules, Blondie,” she snorts. “Besides, it looks good on you.”
I keep my chin down, only looking up when I slide the next person their rations, but I’m slow.
“I feel sick!” I call to Orion.
“No one’s felt sick in years, liar,” she yells back. “That’s a good one!” She laughs.
The boy is only five people away now. He looks better, his skin back to a color of the living. His arm has been patched up.
I am relieved. I am terrified. I am not sure what I am feeling.
“You’re distracted,” Orion says. “Pick up the pace before I shoot you in the foot.”
I try to focus on my work, but he’s getting closer. What would Koi say? What would my father say if he knew I was messing up?
Focus.
That girl is standing in line next to him, the one who watched him like he belonged to her. She has curves, and stands tall. I am strong and thin and small. I look down at my toes.“I said hello,” someone says, and when I look up, it is the girl. She is watching me. “Are you deaf or something?”
“Scan your number,” I say to her. The girl rolls her eyes, scans her number, and I check the screen.
Talan Banner. Ward. Seventeen. Ration Allowance: Level 1.
The Wards get a small bundle of dried meat, and a loaf of bread that barely fits in the palm of my hand—it is full of nutrients, I’m sure.
I slide her rations through the slot but she doesn’t take them. “Don’t even think about trying to take him from me, Skinny,” she says. “Trust me, you’re not his type.” Then the bundle is ripped from my hands and she winks, blows me a kiss, and moves away.
I laugh, because I do not really know what else to do. All I can do is stare back at him like I am a statue, and force myself to breathe in and out.
Zephyr.
“Hello,” Zephyr says. His voice is not too deep. I both love and hate the way his voice sounds, all at once. “I wanted to thank you for saving me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Scan your number.”
He presses his forehead against the scanner, watching me the whole time. His eyes are the purest green.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” he says.
“I’m not afraid.” Why won’t he stop talking? I glance at Orion—she’s talking with a guard, ordering him to handle a group of Wards who have started up a fistfight in the back of the line.
“You saved my life. I want to know why, and I want to thank you, in some way.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” I say, keeping
my eyes down. “It isn’t smart to be seen speaking to me. Trust me.”
“I already do. I’d be dead if you hadn’t helped me.”
I try to pretend I don’t hear him. I try to pretend this isn’t happening. I cannot see this boy. I can’t look into his eyes, or think I owe him anything else, or have him think he owes me.
I gather his rations and place them in a bundle. My hands are shaking. I drop the bread on the floor, careless. “I’m sorry, Zephyr,” I hear myself say.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Blondie!” Orion yells. She waves a finger, signaling for me to pick up the pace. I scoop up the bread and stuff it into his rations bag. “Meadow! The day’s not getting any longer!”
When I slide the rations to Zephyr, his fingers graze mine.
I start to pull away, but not before he squeezes my hand, just once. “Meadow, huh?” he whispers. “Well, at least I know your name.”
The image of his face, with his oddly imperfect smile, and his emerald eyes, haunts me the rest of the day.
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CHAPTER 21
ZEPHYR
Meadow.
I should’ve known she’d have a sweet name like that.
It’s got nothing to do with how she acts. Shallows-sour, like she’s pissed off at life. She’s kind of a ChumHead.
“She’ll come around,” Talan says to me. She is gnawing on her rations like a wild dog. “I gave her good reason to want you.”
“What are you talking about? What did you say to her?”
Talan shrugs, and kicks an old can across the street. It disappears in an instant, caught up in the current of shuffling feet. “I made her think you weren’t free. Every girl wants what she can’t have.” She pats me on the cheek, a little too hard, and slips into the crowd, off to do what Talan does when I’m not around.
I should be looking for work today, or making sure the littlest Wards are safe back in the Reserve. But instead, I spend the rest of the day in the alleyway behind the Rations Hall, sitting with my back against an overflowing dumpster, thinking of what I’ll say to Meadow when she comes out.
Hi, I’m the loser who tried to kill himself.
Excuse me, miss. Have we met before?
Nothing is right. The look on her face when she saw me, like she was furious, keeps coming back to me. She saved me. She gave her own blood, risked her own safety to stand up to a Leech doctor for me. A Ward. Why?
I look up at the sky between the buildings on either side of me. It’s even hotter than normal, and even though I’m in the shade, I’m still drenched in sweat. The train rattles by, whistle blaring, and I imagine citizens diving out of the way. It must be nearly four o’clock. I have hours to wait.
Finally a Leech soldier comes out the back door of the Rations Hall, rifle slung over his shoulder. Three others follow. “Rations ran out early today, sir,” one of them says into his cupped hand. Most Leech soldiers have mics imbedded in their palms, and radio chips in their right ears. The soldiers laugh and walk past the alley.
I stand up and try to smooth out my shirt. The Leech Doctor gave me a new one, something that doesn’t happen often, if ever, and a shower, too, and for the first time in my life, I might actually look presentable. Sweat drips into my eyes.
Skitz. Maybe half-presentable, then.
The door of the Rations Hall swings open, and the woman with the shaved head comes out. She eyes me for a second. “You’d be smart not to cause trouble with that one, boy,” she says, shaking her head. When I say nothing back, she shoulders past me, muttering, “Suit yourself,” under her breath, and disappears.
My heart starts acting all wrong in my chest. I feel like I’m gearing up for a fight, like adrenaline is pulsing through my veins.
The door swings open, and Meadow steps out, silver hair hanging just to her hips. Stars, she’s perfect.
I swallow my nerves, step forward, and as she turns to shut the door behind her, reach out and place my hand on her shoulder.
“Hey,” I start to say. It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made, because before I realize what’s happening, the world’s upside down, and I’m lying on my back, staring up at the sky without a bubble of air left in my lungs.
I should be mad. I should be angry and embarrassed.
Instead, all I can think is I might love this girl.
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CHAPTER 23
MEADOW
Zephyr is just lying there, staring up at me with a goofy smile on his face.
I must have given him a concussion.
“You shouldn’t have snuck up on me like that,” I say, even though I don’t know if he can hear me. I pace back and forth, not sure if I should help him, or keep going on my way like my father and Koi would want.
Zephyr groans, and for a second I am worried he might be seriously hurt. But then I hear the strangest sound in the world.
He starts laughing.
I lean back against the wall and cross my arms.
I’ll let him ask his questions. He must want to know who I am, and why I would offer any piece of myself to him.
After a while, he stops laughing, and pulls himself to his feet. He is taller than I thought he would be. Taller, maybe, than my father. Lean muscles ripple down his arms. “What do you want?” I ask him.
“I told you before,” Zephyr says, holding his palms out. His hands are much larger than mine. Stronger, I bet, too. “I wanted to thank you for saving me.”
“Okay,” I say, shaking my head. I push off from the wall and start walking. “We’re even now. Don’t follow me.”
“Meadow. Wait.”
He does not yell it. He just says it, soft. I sigh, and turn back around. “Just give me five minutes,” Zephyr says.
No one has ever looked at me this way before, like I am something worth seeing.
“I promise I’m not boring,” Zephyr says. He reaches up to scratch his chin, and I can see the pale patch on his arm where his jagged cuts used to be, where he almost took out his Pin. Essential. Ward. What does it mean?
Five minutes. Five minutes is nothing. We can give each other the answers we need, and I can move on. Koi will never even know the difference.
“Five minutes,” I say, “and after that, you never bother me again. Understood?”
“I’ll try my hardest.” Zephyr nods. His hair is as dark as chocolate. I want to run my fingers through it. I want to get away from him.
I do not know what I want.
“Five minutes,” he says. “Come with me.”
He does not wait for a reply. He walks past me and into the crowded streets of the Shallows.
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CHAPTER 24
ZEPHYR
When I look back, I think she’s given me the slip, disappeared without a good bye. But then I see a flash of silver, and I know she’s still there.
The Leeches have plenty of buildings scattered across the Shallows. Plenty of buildings and plenty of cameras, giant watching eyes, to make sure the citizens don’t step out of line.
There’s one place that has the most eyes of all. The Cortez Pier, where I used to live with my parents. The citizens in this neighborhood worship the Leeches like they’re gods come to earth. Even though the place is completely twisted, it’s where I want to go now, for some reason.
I stop by the tracks and wait. Meadow is beside me, holding a dagger in her palm, the blade shining under the hot sun.
“It isn’t dark yet,” I say. “Do you really need that?”
She twirls it once, spins it over the back of her han
d, and catches it in her palm. I guess the dark look in her eyes is answer enough.
I don’t know how we make it onto the train. People are eager to get as far away from the Shallows as they can. But how far can we really go? The Perimeter is a giant coiled snake, squeezing tighter and tighter as our numbers grow.
I climb on first, shoving a man out of the way to make space for Meadow. When I reach down to help her up, she doesn’t take my hand.
“After you,” I say, laughing. She doesn’t even smile. She’s like Talan, but worse. The train accelerates, growling loudly beneath us.
“Where are we going?” Meadow finally asks. The wind blows her hair away from her face, and I get a good look at her eyes. Gray and angry. Curious.
“It’s a surprise,” I say. I watch as her dagger dances across the backs of her hands again. I wonder what else she can do.
We roar past the Reserve. I wonder if Talan is back yet. I silently thank her for whatever she said to Meadow. “That’s home,” I say, pointing at the blur of green and brown. “Well, as close as a Ward can get to one.”
She watches in silence as a flock of white birds rises from the swampy Reserve.
“What do you think?” I nudge her gently, and her body goes rigid.
“I think soon, there won’t be anywhere that anyone can call home,” she says.
Her arms and legs are littered with scars of different shapes and sizes, like shells. I wonder how many times she’s almost been killed. I wonder if she’d kill me if she knew what I’ve done.
Probably.
“Your body,” I say. “Your body is . . . ”
“None of your business.”
Skitz, she’s beautiful. Terrifying.
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