Doctor Wane smiles. “Of course, dear. Of course.” She taps the little box on the wall outside the cell, and I hear the air vents overhead shut off. Silence, finally.
“I want food,” I say. “Before I leave. For Sketch.”
“You’re pushing it, Miss Woodson,” Doctor Wane says. Then she nods. “I’ll have some delivered. You see? I scratch your back, and now you will scratch mine. Tomorrow, you have a job to do. Do it well, and you’ll be given more than this.”
It is a small gift, the only thing I can offer Sketch. Doctor Wane leaves, and we are left alone. The second the door shuts I rush to Sketch’s side and turn her over. I gasp when I see her face.
Swollen features, eyes so hidden beneath bruises and fattened skin that I can hardly tell if she is awake or not. Her arms are nearly shredded, skin hanging off of them, revealing bits of muscle. She lies in her own blood.
“Sketch,” I gasp.
They have forced me into wearing the Regulator. Why would the Initiative still need to torture her, when they can control me?
I put my hands over her heart, touch her neck to feel for a pulse, but there isn’t one.
“Please don’t do this,” I whisper. “Not now. Don’t leave me. Come on, you’re fine. Not you, too.” I hold my fingers beneath her nose, see if she’s breathing, but there’s no air. I pound her chest with my fists, so hard it hurts me. “Come on!”
Seeing her like this . . .
I am not mad. I am not angry.
I am made of fire.
I hit her harder, a final punch to her chest. “You can’t just leave like this!”
She gasps. Her eyes widen as far as they can, and she sits up, flailing her arms in front of her.
“Thank God!” I scream, and I crush her to me, wrap her in my arms. “You were dead!”
“I was sleeping, you ChumHead,” Sketch says, but I can hear the tension in her voice. The fear of doubt.
“What happened to you?” I ask. “What did they do?”
I help her sit with her back up against the bars. I take her hands in mine and rub them, warming her as best I can.
“More Resistance questions,” she says. She leans close, her lips touching my ear. “They know about Orion. I couldn’t. I tried . . .”
I shake my head and whisper softly, “You didn’t tell them where the Resistance is, did you?”
“No,” she says. “No, I held on to that.”
And that’s when she sees that I look different now. My hair, short in front, buzzed away at the back. The black Regulator protruding from my skin.
“Damn,” Sketch breathes. “What . . . is that thing?”
“The Initiative’s backup plan,” I groan. “They have one connected to my sister. It hurts her when I don’t obey.”
She lets out a low whistle, then winces in pain. “Patients don’t have choices. Only dirty Leech chores. They got into your head. We’re pretty much the same now, Woodson.”
I don’t answer.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” Sketch says. “But next time . . . let me die. Let me go in my own way. It’s all I have left.”
“What is?” I ask. I move to her feet, try to rub heat back into them as well. They are as chilled as ice.
“The choice to die,” Sketch says. “I’m ready, Meadow. I’ve been ready for a long time.”
“But . . .” I swallow, hard, and that is when I realize it. “I wasn’t ready for you to go.”
She nods, then smiles, if only for a moment. “You’ve gone soft. It’s pathetic.” But then she grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. “I needed you, too, I guess.”
We fall asleep side by side, our heads leaning against each other.
And even though I feel impossibly alone, for the first time in my life, I think I have made a true friend.
CHAPTER 19
ZEPHYR
There’s no one to kill but Sparrow.
I writhe against my chains. I have to get to her. I have to spill blood.
“Stop,” she says. “Control yourself.”
She’s so close. I can almost reach out, almost touch her. I could slit her throat or crush her skull and feel her wet blood on my hands.
“Patient Zero, you can fight it,” I think I hear her say.
But the Murder Complex needs me. Wants me.
I have to kill.
“Control your breathing. Remember who you are.”
“Do . . . not . . . resist . . .” I hear myself say. I want to swallow the words, fight the system, but it calls on me, sings to me like a song.
“Remember who your enemies are. It’s not me, Patient Zero. It’s them,” Sparrow says. “Breathe with me. In, out. In, out. Do it.”
Somehow, I force myself to breathe.
I force my body to react to my commands, even thought the system begs me not to.
“In, out. Good,” Sparrow says. “Keep going. You are Zephyr James. You are a person, not a machine. Say it.”
“I’m . . . a person,” I gasp, and my head is pounding, and all I can think is, Kill, destroy, no escaping, no turning back.
“Say the rest,” Sparrow commands, and her voice sounds so much like Lark’s that it hurts.
“I am not a machine,” I growl.
I breathe deeply in, slowly out. I do it again, and again.
And then I realize that it’s quiet.
The system fades into the background. I keep breathing, keep doing what Sparrow says, as she guides me from darkness to light.
When it’s over, we stare at each other in silence.
A drop of blood slides from my nose, splashes onto my leg.
“You can’t keep this up much longer,” she tells me. “You’re exhausting your brain. It wasn’t meant to handle this amount of stress.”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” I whisper.
She smiles. It’s horrible, tugs at her scars in a way that makes me want to look away, but I don’t. “You can keep up this charade, searching for Lark, hoping she’ll surface,” Sparrow says. “But the longer you wait, the weaker you’ll become.”
“So what do you suggest we do?” I growl.
She opens and closes her mouth. She’s probably been looking for a way to kill Lark for as long as I, or anyone else, have.
But the answer comes to us, when Rhone and Dex sprint inside the tunnel.
“She’s . . . she’s coming,” Rhone gasps.
Dex leans over, tries to catch her breath.
“Who is?” I ask. Sparrow and I both lean forward against our chains. “Lark?”
“Is it her?” Sparrow asks. “Tell us!”
Rhone looks at me when he speaks. “The Leeches announced it all over the place, probably so Lark would see it. She’s coming outside, tomorrow.” He leans against the wall, takes another deep breath. His final words send a shock that rolls through me, inside and out.
“They’re setting Meadow free.”
CHAPTER 20
MEADOW
The Initiative releases me when the sun comes up.
With a fresh cut mark on my calf, I follow Doctor Wane through the outer halls of the building. She places her hand on my shoulder, weaving me through the halls as if I am her pet. The Regulator is as heavy as ever, sucking on my soul.
I’d cut my own head off if it meant getting rid of it. But there is Peri.
I have to stay alive, or they’ll kill her. The Commander said so himself.
I think of Peri, covered in blood, and another piece of me breaks away. A flicker of my mother’s insanity swims through me, emerges as a laugh that bubbles from my lips.
Doctor Wane looks sideways at me. “I see the truth,” she whispers. “I see your mother in you, Meadow. And I don’t mean the way you look on the outside.” She sighs. “It’s a pity, really.”
I don’t argue.
Because I am afraid she might be right.
We stop at the front entrance, where the walls are covered in old Pins.
It is a sign of so many
citizens’ deaths. The last time I saw this, I was breaking in to this very building, thinking I had a chance to destroy the Motherboard. It would make me shiver, if I had any feelings left inside. Guards line the walls of the room, weapons at the ready. Probably positioned here around the clock, in case of another Resistance attack.
It will not come.
It may not ever come again, not after our failed attempt.
Standing before the doors is the Commander.
His oily hair shines like the Pins, and I want to slit his throat. “Miss Woodson,” he says, when he sees me. “The finest Initiative soldier we have.”
“I’m not a part of your disgusting little fantasy,” I hiss.
“Oh, but you are.” He smiles and taps a silver bracelet on his wrist. One single button on that bracelet controls my little sister’s fate.
His barcode is bold on his pale skin. He wears the usual Initiative uniform, black and pressed clean. I see the patch on his lapel, the Initiative eye.
Doctor Wane pulls out a black device from her lab coat, presses a button, and waits. Seconds later, a black Orb floats into the room. It stops, hovers in front of me.
“This is a Cam,” she says. “It will be our eyes while you carry out your mission.”
It isn’t human. But I know the Cam is watching me. When I move, it moves.
The Commander nods in approval. “Go on, then. Your mother is waiting.”
“You’d better hope the Resistance doesn’t come while I’m gone,” I say. “I’m sure they’d love to slaughter you like the pigs you are.”
Before he can slap me, I turn on my heel, shoulder past the two guards, and march right out the front door.
Sunlight.
The second it hits my face, I feel a little more alive. It may not be real freedom, but it is a taste. I blink away the brightness, let the warmth settle on my skin.
I will go along with the Commander’s plan to find my mother. But I won’t try too hard. I will stall, take him in circles, waste as much time as I can. If I could get a message to the Resistance . . .
The Cam bobs along at my side.
No. The Initiative will see, whatever I do.
I hop the train as it comes past. There are three others, standing in the shade of the car. When they see the Regulator on my neck, and the Cam at my side, they recoil.
“You’re her,” a woman says.
“Who?” I ask.
She leans closer, peers at me. “The soldiers, they said you’d come today. Said if anyone touched you, they’d lose rations for a month . . . or worse.” She whistles and backs away. She is quiet as the train soars past the Reserve.
I see the marshlands fly by in muddled colors, flashes of white from the Wards’ tents. I imagine Zephyr is there now, safe and sound, but the image brings forth a hot surge of jealousy.
I gave myself up so he could get away and free my family. I wonder if he’s done it yet. I wonder if he has found them all, far away from here.
If only the world was nice enough for that to be true.
I wonder if I will ever see any of them again.
When I reach the edge of the city, I leap. I join the pressing crowd, a wave of people surging as one. The Cam soars into the sky, out of reach. But when I look up, it’s still following.
She won’t be out in the open, the Commander’s voice says in my head.
“You can’t just pop in when you feel like it,” I growl. “If you expect me to concentrate, and do this job right, get out of my head.”
The crowd moves me toward the Rations Hall. I long for the old days, working side by side with Orion. How different life would have been, if I hadn’t met Zephyr. If I’d gone on, working day in and out, not knowing that the entire time, she was on my team. Maybe she would have recruited me eventually. Maybe we would have had more time to plan and do things right from the start.
I duck right, head for the alley, stepping over a dead body.
I look behind the Dumpster. There is a sleeping person, but it isn’t my mother.
You’re wasting time. Do you think I’m a fool?
“Give me access to the Rations Hall,” I say.
I can almost hear him sigh.
Then the door across from me pops open, and I rush inside.
I check behind the crates, look inside the empty ones.
I see faces pressed up against the glass barrier. Wards and other citizens, starved and desperate. A fight breaks out, and Initiative guards end it with a bullet to a woman’s brain. Blood splatters against the glass, bright crimson.
There is nothing in this building, Miss Woodson. Move on.
“Get out of my head!” I growl.
I leave through the alleyway and cross the street, head for the beach. I press through hundreds, thousands of people. Everyone pushes and shoves. Someone knocks my Regulator, and pain radiates through my body like shards of ice.
I gasp. I feel like I can’t breathe, so I push harder, then almost tumble into the alley. I run, leap over another body that is missing an arm.
The second I hit the jungle floor I’m sprinting. My body takes over, needing to run, to move. And being lost in nature makes me feel, for a second, that I am just heading back home.
The houseboat will still be there.
Peri will be waiting on deck, her curls dancing in the wind.
Koi will be carving on a slab of wood, and my father will train me before the Dark Time comes.
I hear the roar of the ocean. I stop on the edge of the trees, see the waves crashing onshore. The ocean is angry today. The shipwrecked boats dip and dive, tossed about by the current.
I have a flash of a memory. Smoke trailing to the sky. The last bits of my houseboat, sinking beneath the waves.
Zephyr’s hand, touching my arm as I wake up. Me throwing his body to the sand, threatening to kill him if he comes near me again.
How badly I want his touch now. How badly I want his soft words, and his foolish belief that things will always be okay.
I sit down in the sand.
The Commander speaks to me, but I interrupt him. I have a small ounce of power, and I am going to use it.
“My mother won’t come to me here,” I say. “She’ll come to me in a place that matters.”
And that’s when I realize it. Our first home. The place we were last happy, a real family.
“I need paint,” I say. “Bring me paint, by the old apartment complex on Main.”
As you wish, the Commander says.
I have never heard so much darkness in a single man’s voice.
CHAPTER 21
ZEPHYR
I hate the Resistance Cave.
I stand at its entrance with Rhone, Dex, and Sparrow, preparing myself for the argument that I know is soon to come.
The Cave is shaped like a dome, an arching ceiling with water dripping down the concrete walls. It’s hidden under the Shallows, a patchwork of tunnels and concrete caverns that are perfect for hiding out.
“This isn’t going to work, Zero,” Rhone says beside me.
I swallow. “It has to work.”
We step into the Cave as a team.
Tunnels jut off into different areas, leading to places all over the Shallows. People are scattered about. Some of them sit by a crackling fire. Others practice fighting.
I see some new faces, some old.
The last time I was in the Resistance Cave, I was hoping for help that I knew Orion wouldn’t be happy to give.
The time before that, I was with Meadow.
Memories rush for me and grab ahold. Meadow teaching me how to fight, how to harness the power of my training from when I was only a child.
Talan is here, glowing with life, making jokes that make me laugh until I feel like I can’t breathe. Sketch paints our faces before we head into the Leech Headquarters to shut down the Motherboard. Kill the Protector, and end the system for good.
Three weeks ago, we were a family. An army.
Now, we’re broken,
scattered across the Shallows. Some of us are dead.
Some of us might as well be.
And some of us . . .
“Zero!” a voice shouts from across the Cave. I’d recognize it anywhere, because I’ve hated its owner since the very first time I saw her. Sparrow tenses beside me, though I don’t know why.
“Orion,” I say. The Resistance Leader, who once posed as a Leech Officer. She’s the reason we got into this whole mess in the first place.
I hate her.
I also need her.
She’s seated by the fire. Her bald head, covered in tattoos now, shines an eerie gray in the dim light. She waves us over.
Dex squeals and sprints past me to join the other Resistance kids as they chase a rat like it’s a toy.
“I’m telling you, Zero, this is a no-go,” Rhone warns.
“I’ve heard enough,” I say. “We’re out of options.”
We cross the Cave with Sparrow in tow, and I get ready to beg for the cause.
CHAPTER 22
MEADOW
I stand on the steps of my old apartment building, a can of bloodred paint at my feet. This is the last place where my family was happy together. This is the last place in the Shallows that might still hold a special place in my mother’s heart.
If I am right.
And I could be horribly wrong.
The windows of the building are boarded up. There are plenty of them that I can paint a message on, large enough for my mother to see.
I dip my fingers into the paint and lose myself to the motion.
I start on the far left windows, the first-floor ones that I can reach.
And I spell out the time, and I spell out her name, in large letters, one on each window. My heart cracks a little more with each letter, but finally, I step back and admire my work. The wet paint drips down the sides of the old brick, and the moonlight illuminates it. Like blood.
6 a.m.
For Peri.
If somewhere, deep down in my mother’s heart, she still feels for us, and somehow, a part of it still beats for her family, when she sees the message . . .
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