Burn (The Pure Trilogy)

by Julianna Baggott

  “Goddamn it, Pressia!” Bradwell says. “Wilda and the other children are dead!”

  The air seems to snap all around her. She blinks and it feels like an electrical pulse in her head.

  Bradwell whispers, “Wilda’s dead.”

  “You don’t know that,” Pressia says, but her voice is small. She looks at El Capitan. “Cap, tell him.”

  El Capitan looks at the ground, and she knows he thinks they’re dead too.

  She stands up and grabs El Capitan, gripping his coatsleeves. “How long have you… How long have you kept it from me? Cap, tell me. How long?”

  “I never thought the chances were very good,” he says. “But when there were only more and more dead—”

  “Shut up,” she says quietly.

  “Pressia,” El Capitan says, “we should hear Bradwell out. He’s—”

  “Shut up,” Helmud tells him.

  Wilda and the children can’t be dead. They’re lost—that’s all. Pressia starts to cry and walks away from them toward an overturned market stall. Wilda is a survivor, like Pressia. If she’s dead, then some part of Pressia will die with her. “No,” she says, turning back toward the group. “You don’t know that they’re dead. You can’t give up on people.”

  Bradwell shakes his head.

  “Let’s just keep moving,” she says.

  And they do, but soon enough there are only more dead to tend to. Bradwell, El Capitan, and Hastings haul a dead Groupie—two broad men—out of the rubble. They’re engrossed in the effort—even Helmud.

  Pressia knows the only way she can truly help her people is to get the vial and the formula into the Dome. She takes one last look—El Capitan with Helmud clinging to his neck, the sooty shine of Bradwell’s wings, and Hastings hefting the bulk of the Groupie’s weight—and turns down an alley and starts walking quickly. She won’t run. It’s too much like running away. She turns down one street and then another.

  The voices of men and women calling for children ring through the streets, overlapping. And children too. Lost children. Their calls not matching. The voices seem to only have grown louder, more insistent. Wilda, Wilda, Wilda! She can’t open her mouth and call her name. She’ll break down. Instead, the girl’s name rings in her head.

  She sees a boy about twelve years old or so. It’s hard to say. Survivors are often stunted. He’s walking quickly too, though one of his legs seems fused to a knot, as if his knee joint is part metal and it has rusted up on him, locked shut. One side of his face looks freshly scalded. He doesn’t look up. When he passes, she says, “Excuse me. Can you do me a favor?”

  “World doesn’t work on favors,” he says. “What you got?”

  She has precious things—the vial, the formula—but they’d mean nothing to him. She reaches into her pocket, rummages. She pulls out a tin of meat. “I need a messenger.”

  He eyes the tin hungrily. “What’s the message? Who’s it for?”

  PARTRIDGE

  PILL

  Partridge storms down the hall of his apartment building, shot through with adrenaline. He’d like to punch Foresteed the same way he laid into Arvin Weed, but that wouldn’t do much good. He has to be rational with Foresteed—steady, steely, calm.

  And who the hell is Arvin Weed anyway? Weed helped make the assassination possible, and yet he’s still carrying out the dead man’s wishes? But then Partridge thinks of his time in his father’s secret chamber: Is he just carrying out his dead father’s wishes too?

  Beckley jogs to keep up with him. They aren’t speaking. Partridge shouts down the hall to the guard at his door. “Foresteed here?”

  “Not yet,” the guard says as he fumbles to open the door for him.

  Partridge and Beckley walk into the living room, where a doctor is giving a nurse instructions.

  “Is Glassings here?” Partridge asks.

  “Hello, Partridge,” the doctor says.

  “Where is he?” Partridge says, blowing by them and walking down the hall to the bedrooms.

  He hears Beckley ordering the doctor to stay put.

  Partridge isn’t sure why, but he expects Glassings to have been put up in Partridge’s own bed. Then he hears a ragged cough coming from his father’s old bedroom, the door to which he’s kept closed since he arrived here after his father’s death.

  He walks up to the door, puts his hand on the knob, but he doesn’t turn it. He’s frozen there, worrying for a moment if his father’s on the other side. His father still seems so alive it wouldn’t surprise Partridge to find him sitting in bed, pillows plumped behind his back, reading reports.

  “Stop it,” Partridge says aloud. “He’s dead. He’s dead already.”

  He turns the knob and opens the door. The room is lit by a single bedside-table lamp. Glassings jerks as if he’s expecting strangers, torture. Partridge says, “It’s just me.”

  Glassings’ face is battered, his arms blackened with bruises. Both legs have now been set with casts, propped up on pillows to keep them elevated above his heart. The room smells of ointments and alcohol swabs. His breaths are shallow and sharp. He tilts his head so he can see through the puffed slits of his eyelids.

  Partridge walks over to the bed and sits on the edge. It’s bizarre to see Glassings’ broken and battered body in his father’s bed, his head on his father’s pillows. “You’re going to stay with me here until you’re completely recovered.”

  Glassings opens his lips and whispers, “I won’t recover.”

  “Of course you will.” But Glassings doesn’t just look beaten. He looks small and sick. Partridge is worried now that Glassings is right.

  “We weren’t secret,” Glassings says. “He knew who we were all along.”

  “My father knew about Cygnus? About you?”

  Glassings shakes his head. He coughs again, wincing with the pain in his ribs.

  “Take it easy,” Partridge says. “We can talk later. You have to get feeling better.”

  “No,” Glassings says, his face stricken with pain. “Now. You have to know this now.” His voice is hoarse, nearly gone.

  “Okay,” Partridge says. “Who knew?”

  Glassings draws in a wheezy breath. “Foresteed.”

  “Foresteed knew about Cygnus?”

  “He let us work. He protected us without us knowing it.”

  Partridge thinks of that pill in his pocket just before he killed his father, remembers touching it with the tips of his fingers. “The pill.”

  “We thought we stole it.”

  “But it was easier to steal than you thought,” Partridge says, “because Foresteed wanted you to steal it, wanted you to get it to me. He wanted me to kill my father.” Partridge gets up and looks at his father’s bedroom. He feels breathless and sick. “Foresteed wanted me to kill my father. He wanted my father to die, and I did it for him.” He hears Beckley’s voice in the living room and then Foresteed’s voice too. He’s here for their meeting. A streak of heat burns across Partridge’s chest. “He had a shot at being put in charge. And then, at the last minute, my father switched the power to me.”

  “He wants to take you out too,” Glassings says, reaching and grabbing Partridge’s arm, gripping it tightly for a moment before his hand sags.

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me himself. He didn’t think I’d make it out alive. He thinks,” Glassings says, trying to steady his breath, “you’ll be easier to take down than your father.”

  Glassings is right. Willux was a powerhouse, insulated on all sides. Partridge feels completely vulnerable. He clenches his fists and then rubs his temples. God. What the hell is he going to do?

  “I failed you,” Glassings says.

  “No, you didn’t.” Glassings has been a father figure for Partridge for a long time. He remembers him in a bow tie, a chaperone at the dance, and when they met under the stage in the academy’s auditorium. Partridge never had the father he wanted. “What would you do if you were me?” Partridge says. “Tell me.�
�

  Glassings shakes his head. “My advice isn’t any good.”

  “Just tell me something—anything.”

  “Don’t let him know you know. Take him down when he least expects it. Play dumb.”

  Partridge nods. “Considering the grades I got in World History, that shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Glassings tries to smile, but his face is too constricted by swelling.

  “Get some rest.” Partridge walks to the door.

  “You can do this,” Glassings says.

  Partridge leans his forehead against the edge of the open door for a second, trying to calm his nerves. He hears Foresteed’s booming laugh. Did the doctor say something funny? Is Foresteed laughing at his own joke? Glassings believes in Partridge. He has to remember this, hold on to it. He doesn’t have much else.

  Partridge is about to walk out the door, but first he has a question. “The pill—it was designed to be time released, the poison untraceable,” Partridge says. “Someone stole it for you?”

  “Yes,” Glassings says. “Someone on our side.”

  “Who?”

  “Arvin Weed.”

  “No, you’re wrong.”

  Glassings closes his eyes and shakes his head.

  Was Weed helping because he’s really on the side of Cygnus or was he a mole for Foresteed? After all, someone had to have been feeding Foresteed information, and how convenient that Weed was the one to steal the pill for them. In either case, Partridge punched Weed in the face. He remembers his stupid smirk before Partridge stormed off. Was Weed leading Partridge to Glassings—to save him?—while trying to give the impression of remaining loyal to Foresteed? “Weed?” Partridge says. “Are you sure?”

  “Weed,” Glassings says.

  PRESSIA

  MIGRATORY BIRDS

  The smoke has thinned, but the air is, as always, sooty. Pressia hears a sharp zing and a pop near her boots—Special Forces? Sniper rifles?

  She runs and crouches behind an oil drum.

  A groan echoes down a nearby alleyway.

  She moves to the far side of the oil drum, sees a figure limping along the alley, dragging a hand along the stone wall. It lets out another groan. She presses her back to the oil drum, aware that an oil drum is how all this started. She saw a stranger being attacked by a Groupie and distracted them by throwing her clog at an oil drum. That stranger ended up being Partridge, her half brother, which wasn’t a coincidence. They were being set up, herded toward each other, used. She can’t regret that meeting—even after all they’ve been through, even after the losses. It all feels inevitable, looking back.

  As the figure comes closer to the end of the darkened alley, it pauses—afraid of the light? It moves like a wretch—an uneven gait caused by carrying some foreign weight lodged in the body, which is sometimes another body. Is it a survivor?

  She looks behind her, searching the rubble around a fallen building for signs of Special Forces, who must have shot at her.

  Maybe the sniper has heard the groans and now lies in wait for the Groupie or Beast to emerge. Which will attack her—the figure in the alley or Special Forces, hidden somewhere out there? A little of both?

  Whatever is in the alley lifts its head as if catching her scent. It jerks toward her and leans forward into the light. She hides again behind the oil drum, wishing she had her knife.

  Then she hears a strange noise—chirrups, sad and mournful. She looks again carefully, and the figure has walked into the light—fully. It’s not a Beast or a Groupie or a survivor at all.

  It’s a soldier, but not a Pure—no. It’s small and, yes, young, reminding her of her conversation with the man who said these soldiers were like the little brothers of the others who’d come before. He isn’t sleek or agile. His musculature has been pumped up, but the muscles are bulky and hardened—almost calcified—making him stiff, and the strangest part is that the soldier has burns on his face. She remembers that once, not long ago, she saw a snowman in the city—it was warped and covered in the detritus of the street. It looked like a wretch. This is a Special Forces soldier, but he’s also a wretch. How is it possible? And moreover, why would they make a soldier who wasn’t Pure? Why make a soldier burdened by the deformities of the enemy?

  He makes noises that are soft and almost sweet. He lifts his hands in the air, and she’s expecting to see his metallic guns, the ones fused into his arms.

  But now she sees that one of his arms is a bloody stump. The other has been gutted, and the gun is gone. Has someone stripped him of his guns while he was still alive?

  He chirps at her. “Help me. Help me.”

  He reaches out, his arm barely there, and staggers toward her. She grips her backpack, guarding it above all else.

  But just before he falls, a shot is fired by someone unseen. It strikes him squarely in the chest, and he falls hard to the ground, inches from her.

  He lies there, blood pooling from his body, mixing with the dark rain puddles. His body twitches twice.

  She moves closer to him while still under cover. She looks into his eyes. She wants to give him peace. “It won’t hurt for long.” He reaches, one last great effort, and grips the meat of her upper arm—pinching her skin.

  He makes the strange chirping noise a few more times, and then his hold loosens. His hand falls. He’s dead.

  She knows that most likely survivors stripped his weapons and that somehow he got free of them and ran off, but they’ve hunted him down and have just shot him, probably with his own rifle. They’ll approach as soon as they’re sure he’s dead.

  And so she sprints to the alley to a jagged pile of bricks and hides again.

  Sure enough, within moments, survivors are picking over him—they take some knifelike weapons lodged in the boots, something razor sharp from his shoulders. They work quickly and quietly. They’re experts at this now.

  She rubs the sore spot where he pinched her arm, finds a small rip in her jacket and a bit of blood.

  She looks up again. The survivors are gone, leaving the body behind.

  Pressia can’t help but look at what’s left. The body is slumped to its side. She can see the boy’s face scarred by burns, an upper arm that’s lightly furred as if he were part Beast, and the hump on his shoulder isn’t a hump at all. It was some kind of animal that existed beneath the skin. Why beneath the skin?

  This isn’t a Pure. This is a wretch. But not like any wretch she’s ever known. He’s been enhanced, and yet it’s as if, with the enhancements, he was also bred to be a wretch. Why would anyone do this? Why? Pressia remembers the awful creatures in Ireland—the fog’s heartbeat, the night baring teeth, the idea of that stitched-up skin, the blind roving eyes. How many like this one are already dead? How many are still out there?

  She gets up and runs. The rain starts pounding. She hunches her shoulders, pumps her arms and legs, and pounds against the ground. Her breath burns her lungs.

  She’s trying to find the shortest route to the Dome. Soon she recognizes the streets around her, this air, this smell.

  These are the streets that she ran as a little girl, and finally she finds herself standing in front of the blasted husk of what was once a barbershop. Her grandfather told her about migratory birds. They know home. They always come back to it. Here she is.

  Home.

  LYDA

  NURSERY

  There aren’t many uses for matches in the Dome. Fires, large and small, are frowned upon. Lyda remembers many conversations between her mother and her mother’s friends on the subject. They missed having pumpkin-scented candles in the fall. “How else will we know it’s autumn?” her mother said once. And the men missed their grills. Fireworks on the Fourth of July were replaced by an electric light show.

  But Lyda wants matches. So she tells one of the guards that she wants to make a special dinner for Partridge. “I want to do it with candles and everything—to make it romantic! Can you get me candles and matches? And keep it a secret. I want to surprise hi
m.”

  The guard gives them to her, secretly, bundled in brown wrapping paper.

  She winks at him.

  She doesn’t care about the candles. She hides the matches in a pocket, takes them into the bathroom. She also brings a metal bowl and one of the books Chandry brought her, How to Decorate the Perfect Nursery. The nursery already has a crib and mattress, a rocking chair, a changing table, and a small chest of drawers, but she’s supposed to be picking out her color schemes, her motif—starfish, elephants, balloons? The book is supposed to help.

  She shuts the door.

  The soot here in the simulated world isn’t real. Lyda can’t feel it. She needs to feel it.

  She closes the toilet lid, stands on it, disengages the smoke detector—just a little knot of wires—and turns on the fan. She sits on the tiled floor, starts ripping out the book’s pages. She pulls the matches from her pocket and burns the pages, one after the other, in the bowl.

  The flames remind her of the mothers. They often cooked over open flames. They gathered around fire pits and talked in small groups, their children fused to their hips and shoulders, heads bobbing.

  Her own mother? She imagines her face—stern, shut off. Her mother loved her—she’s sure of it. But it was a locked-up love, a buried-down love, a love to be ashamed of because…because that kind of love makes you vulnerable? Makes you weak? Why hasn’t her mother come to visit? Is she too ashamed of her daughter now?

  Lyda misses the mothers and their fierce love.

  She misses the cold, the wind, the fire.

  She touches some of the ash, rubs it together until her fingertips are smudged black.

  She knows what she misses most of all. Her spear—the weight of it in her hand as she ran through the woods.

  She wants a spear.

  It’s impossible. Where would she find something that she could make into a spear? Not here. She’d need a stick, long and straight.