Burn (The Pure Trilogy)

by Julianna Baggott

  “I’ll give you the vial and the formula and get you airborne again, but you have to take the bacterium with you. If you choose not to use it, there’s nothing I can do.” He looks at Pressia for a moment and then back to El Capitan and Bradwell. “But if you want what’s yours, you’ll have to take what’s mine.”

  Airborne again. This is what El Capitan really wants right now—to be up in the air.

  Pressia turns to Kelly. “If we agree to this, how soon can you get us out?”

  He pauses, taking in the volatility of the conversation and then says, “Well, as El Capitan has seen, the airship is nearly repaired. We’ll need another few days, and you’ll need to time the trip so that you’re landing during daylight.”

  He opens his satchel, reaches in, and pulls out a small metal case. He pops a small clasp and opens the lid. The box is velvet lined and molded to protect a flat square slide—two pieces of glass held together by a thin welded metal border. He holds the square up to the light, illuminating small red flecks. The bacterium.

  “So, are you going to take it with you in exchange for your vial and formula and an airship home?” Kelly says. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime—for all of us.”

  El Capitan reaches forward before he even realizes it.

  “Wait,” Pressia whispers, but he’s already holding it in his cupped palm.

  “The opportunity of a lifetime,” El Capitan says to Pressia.

  “For all of us,” Helmud says.

  LYDA

  SEVENTEEN

  We’re not taking a car,” Beckley says. “That drew more attention than it was worth. It’s after curfew now. It should be safer to just walk you there.”

  Beckley and another guard are on either side of Lyda and Partridge. They’re walking down the hall to the elevators.

  “How many have we lost?” Lyda asks.

  “In the last hour alone, seventeen,” Beckley says. “The good news is that some of the other attempts have not been successful.”

  “Can’t we put people on watch?” Partridge asks.

  They step into one of the elevators. The doors close, and there are Partridge and Lyda’s reflections in a gray blur. She doesn’t like how they both look pale, scared. Most of all, she’s stunned by how young they look. The idea of the war room made Partridge seem powerful; the reality was something else altogether. Now, he looks scrawny, and she’s gripping his hand—not romantically; she’s frightened. She doesn’t like that feeling. Not too long ago, she was out in the wilderness, a hunter. Has the Dome already made her weaker and more frightened? She lets go of him, crosses her arms as if she’s cold.

  “Who would we put on watch?” Beckley says, clearly frustrated. “Who’s stable? Who isn’t? It’s impossible to say.”

  They step out of the elevator and soon they’re out on the street again, which is empty except for guards posted every one hundred yards or so.

  “Martial law,” Beckley says. “For now.”

  “And you’re taking us to Lyda’s?”

  Beckley sighs. “Just for tonight. Then we’ll move you to another location. We have things to talk about.”

  “How are they doing it?” Lyda asks.

  “There are more guns out there than before,” Beckley says. “There are caches of arms in certain locations throughout the Dome, in case of an attack from the outside. Some of those have been raided.”

  Lyda thinks of Sedge. That was supposedly how he’d killed himself—a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But of course she knows that Partridge might be thinking of Sedge’s actual death—his head exploding as his mother bent to kiss him. She hasn’t been able to shake the stain of the image; she never will. Partridge told her on Christmas Eve how he felt in that moment—the burst of blood and how everything went silent, even the sound of his own screaming. He was furious and dazed.

  “Others are cutting their wrists in warm tubs and bleeding out,” Beckley says. “A few have managed to get to rooftops. Some of those we’ve been able to catch in time.”

  “And where are they now—those who were caught in time?” Lyda asks, even though she fears she knows the answer.

  “The rehabilitation center was already packed. It’s going to be overwhelmed soon if this keeps escalating,” Beckley says.

  “That place would only make you want to kill yourself more,” Lyda says. The blank walls, the fake sun, the little paper cups of water and the pills. “It’s awful. It’s a form of punishment.”

  They take one of the elevators reserved for the elite that move between levels within the Dome. Again, there’s their reflection. A grim couple. They look straight ahead. She thinks of some of the portrait pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Willux on the floor of the chamber in the war room—so often regally dressed, staring at the camera with forced smiles. And she feels a well of sadness thinking of all the other photos—a mother, her sons, a family that once was and now no longer is. They were all so painfully beautiful, so young—blowing out candles on birthday cakes, riding on a merry-go-round’s painted horses, waving from docks filled with fishing gear. It’s a life she and Partridge and her child won’t have—not here in the Dome and not on the outside.

  “Maybe this is just a first-round reaction,” Partridge says. “Hopefully, people will calm down. Maybe they just need time.”

  “I don’t know. Not only have we lost people, their family and friends are angry about the losses,” Beckley says. “And the suicides will add to their own underlying anger.”

  “But an angry rebellion wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Lyda says. “If they’re really processing what happened.”

  “The people of the Dome aren’t rebellious by nature. That’s how they got here, Partridge. You said it yourself,” Beckley says. “They’re sheep.”

  “What do they want?” Partridge asks.

  “They want to restore the status quo.”

  “They can only revolt against themselves,” Lyda says. “In here, suicide is the only socially acceptable form of anger, hatred, and despair.”

  Beckley says to Partridge, “You’ve got to shut it down.”

  “How?” Partridge says. “I told the truth. That has to stand.”

  “You have to give a little,” Beckley says.

  “I’m not going back on what I said.”

  Beckley pulls out his walkie-talkie and asks someone if the monorails have been cleared. The voice on the other end tells him that a few more trains have to get back to the station, but they’re close. “Keep them running,” Beckley says, “until we give the word.”

  They step out of the elevator and onto the platform of the monorail. Beckley tells the other guard to stay behind, making sure no stray passengers follow them.

  They walk through the echoing tunnel in silence. Overhead, in the distance, they hear the whine of sirens—one overlapping the next, needling the night air.

  PARTRIDGE

  TRAIN

  Beckley looks at the digital sign that tells which trains are arriving at the platform. “This next one isn’t ours; it’s an express. We’ll wait for the one after.”

  Partridge and Lyda follow Beckley toward the end of the platform that would put them on the first car.

  Lyda grabs hold of Partridge’s hand. They look ahead into the mouth of the tunnel. Partridge’s eyes search the darkness, as if some answer could be found there. The suicides feel unreal. It can’t be happening, and yet the guilt washes over him. It’s his fault. He’s to blame. He squeezes Lyda’s hand and she squeezes it back. At least he’s not alone.

  Just then, a man in a black jacket steps out toward the tracks. The jacket is unzipped, and an untucked white undershirt ruffles underneath.

  Beckley half turns and motions for Lyda and Partridge to stop, and they do.

  “The station’s closed; you’ll need to exit the platform and go on up,” Beckley says.

  The man looks at him blankly. “There’s no place to go,” he says.

  “Why are you down here?” Beckley says. “It’s
closed, sir.”

  “You know why I’m here.”

  Partridge lets go of Lyda’s hand, reaches forward and grabs Beckley’s arm. Is the man here to jump in front of a train? Beckley looks at Partridge as if asking if he wants to handle this himself. A leader takes control of a situation like this, Partridge thinks. Partridge gives Beckley a nod.

  Partridge steps toward the man but looks back at Lyda before saying anything. What should he say? She lifts one hand, almost like she’s giving him a blessing. “Yes, there’s been trouble, but it’s going to be okay. Things are going to work out,” Partridge says. “You need to give it time.”

  The man registers for the first time that this is Partridge Willux. His face contorts, as if he’s physically pained. “I got my time,” the man says. “Time the others didn’t!” He stares down at the single rail. “I knew it all along. I knew it, and I didn’t do anything about it.”

  “Partridge,” Lyda whispers. Is she warning him? Is she scared of the man? If Partridge gets too close, would the man try to take Partridge down with him?

  “You had to carry on. We all did,” Partridge says, approaching the man as Beckley and Lyda hold back. “We had to survive.”

  “My sister killed herself already,” the man says almost proudly. “She got the pills down before anyone could catch her.”

  “You have to be brave,” Partridge says, trying to be calm. “This won’t be easy, but you have to hang on.”

  Partridge hears the distant rushing of the monorail at his back. The man hears it too. His head jerks up and he looks into the tunnel then back at Partridge. “No. Brave is what I’m doing now. Brave is ending the lie,” he says, and an awful smile cracks at the edge of his mouth. “I’ve been a coward until now.”

  “Don’t say that. Look, we can get you help,” Partridge says, and he’s relieved to see the man take a step backward, just as the train is speeding their way.

  “Sure, help,” the man says, and then, without another word, he jumps forward into the path of the train, the black flap of his jacket curling like burnt paper.

  “No!” Partridge yells against the monorail’s rush, and the static of adrenaline in his ears, and the sickening thud of the train ending another man’s life.

  And then the bright train windows glide on, shiny and dark, the train dragging in the air.

  Partridge drops to his knees.

  The brakes screech, a delayed reaction; the train comes to a stop down in the tunnel.

  Lyda rushes to Partridge’s side. “You tried to save him. You really tried. You did all you could.” She grabs his arm then reaches around his neck, hugging him.

  Beckley is shouting into the walkie-talkie—monorail jumper, presumed dead.

  * * *

  It’s not real.

  Not the scream they hear overhead as they run through the side streets.

  Not the scuffle in the alley.

  Not the collective whine of ambulances.

  Not the next elevator they take inside of Lyda’s apartment building. Not the hallway with its red carpeting. Not the door to Lyda’s apartment. Not Beckley or this new guard who stands by the door.

  Not the sofa where Partridge sits or the glass-top table where Lyda picks up the orb.

  Not the orb itself.

  He told the truth. People are killing themselves. He couldn’t stop a man from throwing himself in front of a train. Partridge has seen too many people die—his brother, his mother. Their deaths flash in front of his eyes—bright with blood. And his father’s death—his fault; it wasn’t a death. It was murder. “Too many,” Partridge says. “There’ve been too many.”

  “Yes,” Lyda says, “too many.”

  Will he ever see Glassings? Partridge needs Glassings, not the other way around. He needs a plan. He needs someone to tell him what to do. Is Glassings just a stand-in for his own father? Is Partridge really just a lost kid, an orphan? Where is Glassings? Partridge can’t save him. He can’t save anyone. He says, “They need time to process what I said, right?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “They’re going to stop killing themselves. It was just a certain few who were already suffering…”

  “You’re not taking back what you said. You still did the right thing.” She smiles at him, but the smile seems fragile, as if it’s already tinged with doubt. She says, “The surprise, remember?”

  He barely remembers.

  She holds the orb and fiddles with the settings. He remembers the first time he saw it. Iralene held it like an apple—cupped palms. She wanted Partridge to be happy. That’s all.

  And then the room grows dark. The air is cloudy. Almost silken.

  But then he realizes that it’s not darkness and clouds and silk.

  It’s ash.

  The walls blacken. The sofa where he sits suddenly seems charred. The windows look as if they’ve been pounded by fists—dimpled and shattered but not broken.

  This is the world outside the Dome.

  There’s Freedle, flitting through the sooty air.

  Lyda curls on his lap. She wraps her arms around his neck and rests her head. He holds her close.

  She says, “Remember this?”

  “How did you make this? How—”

  “I had to have it back.”

  The room grows cold. It’s winter, after all. The wind kicks up the ash and dust, swirling it around them. And finally something feels real.

  PRESSIA

  TEETH AND HEARTBEATS

  It’s night. Pressia can’t sleep. The wild dogs are crying out so sharp and forlorn that Pressia pictures the tightening of their ribs with each howl. Are the dogs growing closer?

  It’s been two days since they made a deal with Kelly. Supposedly, the airship is ready, and they leave tomorrow. Kelly gave El Capitan the bacterium in a locked metal box. He will walk them out to the airship, which is already stocked with provisions. Like the wire that once kept the airship tethered inside of the brittle, crumbling Capitol Building, one of Kelly’s men will cut the primary vine and all the rest of the vines will go slack.

  They’re heading home soon.

  But what is home like now? Willux is dead and everything is different. Partridge is in charge of the Dome. He’s taken over. Was Partridge in a position to order his father’s death, to give some kind of final go-ahead? Or did Willux die in his sleep—a gentle death and one that Pressia can’t help but think he didn’t deserve?

  If Partridge really is in charge, will the boundaries between the two worlds—the boundaries of the Dome itself—be dismantled?

  They have to get back to save Wilda and the other children. Hopefully the Dome will now work with them. And Hastings is out there too, being taken care of by the survivors who live in Crazy John-Johns Amusement Park—that is, if he’s still alive. He lost a leg and a lot of blood in the process. They have to collect him and bring him with them.

  Since the meeting with Kelly, Pressia’s door is no longer locked. Maybe it’s to establish a sense of trust. And, too, where is there to go? Out into the howling night?

  A hall light glows under the crack in the door. Caretakers sometimes pass by—it dims then returns. The red alarm lights the wall. She stares at it as if it’s a distant star. The fire in the fireplace is out. There’s just ash, a heap of char, like home. The room is cold, but she cocoons in the covers to keep warm.

  Bradwell told her she was selfish, and after all they’ve been through, he wants revenge? She wonders how this change to his body—that massive heavy cloak of wings—has made him foreign to himself. She’s seen it happen before. The people who came to her grandfather to have their flesh mended—they’d already suffered some deformity, some fusing, and had adapted to it. But sometimes it was this second injury—a leg mangled in the Rubble Fields, a hand bitten by a Beast, or some other new deformity—that became too much to bear. It’s as if the soul can shift its image of the body once, even radically, but a second time? A third?

  Is Bradwell still the pers
on she was in love with? Maybe she wants to believe he’s changed because it’s easier than believing he’s still the same but simply can’t forgive her—or has fallen out of love with her. There’s a difference.

  She knows that he’d never go through any process—especially something created in partnership with the Dome—to remove his wings. It was crazy of her to even bring it up in the barn, but she’d meant what she said. He shouldn’t decide for other survivors.

  She turns to the wall and closes her eyes and tells herself to dream. Her dreams have been filled with shifting cinders, as if some part of her, deep down, is homesick.

  But in a few minutes, a distant alarm sounds—a rising whine. She rolls toward the door. Footsteps are running down the hall.

  Another alarm sounds. This one is closer—on the same floor.

  The dogs are no longer howling. What’s happened to the dogs?

  Pressia gets out of bed and dresses quickly.

  As she pulls on her boots, Fedelma opens the door. “Now!” she says. “There’s an attack. You have to leave now!”

  “Leave?”

  “All the way. To the airship.” She’s holding a small backpack.

  “But maybe we can stay and help.” Pressia rushes to the door.

  “They’ve gotten to the children. Three are missing. You can’t help us. You need to go.” Pressia sees a bright glint at her side—a knife in her other hand. Fedelma lifts it and gives her the handle. “Take it. The vine is marked—red. The one you need to cut.”

  “How will I see it?”

  “Someone has given the brothers a flashlight.”

  “El Capitan and Helmud?”

  “They’re waiting at the bottom of the stairwell.”

  “And Bradwell?”

  “He went on alone. It wasn’t wise, but there was no stopping him. We have our own troubles.”