by Marie Lu
John sighs. Footsteps echo above me, and I know he must’ve crossed the room to hug her. “Eden will be okay. Maybe this virus is less dangerous and he’ll recover on his own.” There’s a pause. “I’m going to see what we have for soup.” I hear him leave the bedroom.
I’m sure John hated working at the steam plant, but at least he got to leave the house and take his mind off things for a while. Now he’s trapped here, with no way to help Eden. It must be killing him. I clench the loose dirt under me and make as tight a fist as I can.
If only the hospital had cures.
Moments later I see Mom walk across the room and sit at the edge of Eden’s bed. Her hands are all bandaged up again. She murmurs something comforting to him and leans over to brush his hair from his face. I close my eyes. In my mind I conjure up a memory of her face, soft and beautiful and concerned, her eyes bright blue and her mouth rosy and smiling. My mother used to tuck me in, smoothing down my blankets and whispering a promise of good dreams. I wonder what she’s whispering to Eden now.
Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with missing her. I want to rush out from under here and knock on our door.
I push my fists harder into the dirt. No. The risk is too great. I’ll find a way to save you, Eden. I promise. I curse myself for risking so much money in a Skiz bet instead of finding a more reliable way to get cash.
I pull out the sea daisies that I had tucked into my shirt’s sleeve. Some of the blossoms are crumpled now, but I prop them up as carefully as I can and gently pat down dirt around them. Mom will probably never see them here. But I know they’re here. The flowers are proof to myself that I’m still alive. Still watching over them.
Something red in the dirt beside the daisies catches my eye. I frown, then brush aside more of the dirt to get a better look. There’s a symbol here, something inscribed underneath all the dirt and pebbles.
It’s a number, just like Tess and I had seen by the bank of the lake, except this time it says: 2544
I used to hide down here sometimes when I was younger, back when my brothers and I would play hide-and-seek. But I don’t remember seeing this before. I lean down and put my ear against the ground.
At first there’s nothing. Then I hear a faint sound, a whoosh—then a hissing and gurgling. Like some sort of liquid, or steam. There’s probably a whole system of pipes down there, something that leads all the way out to the lake. Maybe all around the sector. I brush aside more dirt, but no other symbols or words appear. The number looks faded with age, the paint chipped away in little flakes.
I stay there for a while, quietly studying it. I glance one last time through the vent at the bedroom, then make my way out from under the porch, into the shadows, and away into the city.
I WAKE UP AT DAWN. THE LIGHT MAKES ME SQUINT (where is it coming from—behind me?), and for an instant I’m disoriented, unsure of why I’m sleeping in an abandoned building facing the ocean with sea daisies growing at my feet. A sharp pain in my stomach forces a gasp out of me. I’ve been stabbed, I realize in a panic. And then I remember the Skiz fight and the knife and the boy who saved me.
Tess hurries over when she sees me stir. “How are you feeling?”
She still looks wary of me. “Sore,” I mutter. I don’t want her to think that she wrapped my wound badly, so I add, “Much better than yesterday, though.”
It takes me a minute to realize that the boy who had saved me is sitting in the corner of the room, dangling his legs over the balcony and looking out toward the water. I have to hide my embarrassment. On a normal day, with no knife wound, I never would’ve let a detail like that go unnoticed. He went somewhere last night. When I was slipping in and out of sleep, I’d made a mental note of the direction he took (south, toward Union Station).
“I hope you don’t mind waiting a few hours before eating,” he says to me. He’s wearing his old newsboy cap, but I can see a few strands of white-blond hair beneath it. “We lost the Skiz bet, so there’s no money left for food right now.”
He blames me for his loss. I just nod. I recall the sound of Day’s crackly voice from the speakers and compare it quietly to this boy’s. He looks at me for a while without smiling, as if he knows what I’m doing, then returns to his vigil. No, I can’t be sure the voice belongs to him. Thousands of people in Lake could match that voice.
I realize that the mouthpiece in my cheek is still turned off. Thomas must be furious with me. “Tess,” I say. “I’m going to head down to the water. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“You sure you can make it by yourself?” she asks.
“I’ll be fine.” I smile. “If you see me floating unconscious out to sea, though—by all means, come and get me.”
The steps of this building definitely used to be part of a stairwell, but now they sit open to the outside. I get to my feet and limp down the stairs one at a time, careful not to slip off the side and plummet down to the water. Whatever Tess did last night seems to be working. Although my side still burns, the pain is a little duller and I can walk with less effort than yesterday. I make it down to the bottom of the building faster than I thought I would. Tess reminds me of Metias, of how he’d nursed me back to health on the day of his induction.
But I can’t handle memories of Metias right now. I clear my throat and concentrate on making my way to the water’s edge.
The rising eastern sun is now high enough to bathe the entire lake in a shade of murky gold, and I can see the tiny strip of land that separates the lake from the Pacific Ocean. I head all the way down to the floor of the building that sits right at the water’s surface. Every wall on this floor is collapsed, so I can walk straight out to the building’s edge and ease my legs into the water. When I look into the depths, I can see that this old library continues for many floors. (Perhaps fifteen stories tall, judging from how the buildings on the shore sit and how the land slopes from the shoreline. Approximately six stories should be underwater.)
Tess and the boy sit at the top of the building, several stories above me, safely out of hearing range. I look back at the horizon, click my tongue, and turn on my microphone.
Static buzzes from my earpiece. A second later, I hear a familiar voice. “Ms. Iparis?” Thomas says. “Is that you?”
“I’m here,” I murmur. “I’m well.”
“I’d like to know what you’ve been up to, Ms. Iparis. I’ve been trying to contact you for the past twenty-four hours. I was ready to send some soldiers to collect you—and you and I both know how happy Commander Jameson would be about that.”
“I’m well,” I say again. My hand digs into my pocket and pulls out Day’s pendant. “Got a minor injury in a Skiz fight. Nothing serious.”
I hear a sigh from the other end. “Well, you’re not going to go that long again with your mike off, you hear me?” he says.
“Fine.”
“Did you find anything yet?”
I glance up to where the boy is swinging his legs. “Not sure. A boy and girl helped me get out of the Skiz chaos. The girl bandaged up my wound. I’m staying with them temporarily until I can walk better.”
“Walk better?” Thomas’s voice rises. “What kind of minor injury is this?”
“Just a knife wound. No big deal.” Thomas makes a choking sound, but I ignore it and keep going. “Anyway, that’s not the point. The boy made a fancy little dust bomb to get us out of the Skiz mob. He has some skills. I don’t know who he is, but I’ll get more information.”
“Think he’s Day?” Thomas asks. “Day doesn’t seem like the kind of boy who goes around saving people.”
Most of Day’s past crimes involve saving people. All except Metias. I take a deep breath. “No. I don’t think so.” I lower my voice until it’s barely a whisper. Best not to throw wild guesses at Thomas right now, lest he decide to jump the gun and send troops after me. Commander Jameson will boot me right off her patrol if we do something expensive like that, with nothing to show for it. Besides. These two got me out of serious trouble. “B
ut they might know something about Day.”
Thomas is silent for a moment. I hear some commotion in the background, some static, and then his faint voice along with Commander Jameson’s. He must be telling her about my injury, asking her if it’s safe to keep me out here alone. I give an annoyed sigh. As if I’ve never been wounded before. After a few minutes, he comes back on again. “Well, be careful.” Thomas pauses for a moment. “Commander Jameson says to keep you on your mission if your injury isn’t bothering you too much. She’s preoccupied with the patrol right now. But I’m warning you. If your mike goes dark again for more than a few hours, I’m going to send soldiers after you—whether or not it blows your cover. Understand?”
I fight to contain my irritation. Commander Jameson doesn’t believe I can accomplish anything on this mission—her lack of interest is imprinted in every word of Thomas’s response. As for Thomas . . . he rarely sounds so firm with me. I can only imagine how stressed-out he must’ve been over the last few hours. “Yes, sir,” I say. When Thomas doesn’t respond, I look up toward the boy again. I remind myself to watch him more closely when I get upstairs and not let this injury distract me.
I stuff the pendant back into my pocket and rise.
I observe my rescuer all day as I follow him around the Alta sector of Los Angeles. I take note of everything, no matter how small the detail.
He favors his left leg, for instance. The limp is so slight that I can’t tell when he’s walking beside Tess and me. I see it when he sits down or gets up—the slightest hesitation when he bends his knee. It’s either a serious injury that never quite healed, or a minor but recent one. A bad fall, maybe.
That’s not his only injury. Now and then he winces when he moves his arm. After he does this a couple times, I realize that he must have some sort of wound on his upper arm that stretches painfully whenever he reaches too far up or down.
His face is perfectly symmetrical, a mix of Anglo and Asian, beautiful behind the dirt and smudges. His right eye is slightly paler than his left. At first I think it might be a trick of the light, but I notice it again when we pass by a bakery and admire the loaves of bread. I wonder how it happened or whether it’s something he was born with.
I notice other things too: how familiar he is with streets far from the Lake sector, as if he could walk them blindfolded; how nimble his fingers are when they smooth down the wrinkles at his shirt’s waist; how he looks at buildings as if memorizing them. Tess never refers to him by name. Just like how they call me “Girl,” they use nothing to identify who he is. When I grow tired and light-headed from walking, he stops all of us and finds water for me while I rest. He can sense my exhaustion without my uttering a word.
Afternoon approaches. We escape the worst of the sun by hanging out near the market vendors in the poorest part of Lake. Tess squints at the stands from under our awning. We’re a good fifty feet away from them. She’s nearsighted, but somehow she’s able to pick out the differences between the fruit vendors and the vegetable vendors, the faces of the various merchants, who has money and who doesn’t. I know this because I can see the subtle movements in her face, her satisfaction at making something out or her frustration at not being able to.
“How do you do that?” I ask her.
Tess glances at me—her eyes refocus. “Hmm? Do what?”
“You’re nearsighted. How can you see so much of what’s around you?”
Tess seems surprised for a moment, then impressed. Beside her, I notice the boy glance at me. “I can tell subtle differences between colors, even though they may look a little blurry,” Tess replies. “I can see silver Notes peeking out of that man’s purse, for example.” She flicks her eyes toward one of the customers at a vendor.
I nod at her. “Very clever of you.”
Tess blushes and glances down at her shoes. For a moment she looks so sweet that I can’t help but laugh. Instantly I feel guilty. How can I laugh so soon after my brother’s death? These two have a strange way of making me lose my composure.
“You’re a perceptive one, Girl,” the boy says quietly. His eyes are locked on mine. “I can see why you’ve survived on the streets.”
I just shrug. “It’s the only way to survive, isn’t it?”
The boy shifts his eyes away. I release a breath. I realize that I’d been holding it in while his eyes kept me frozen in place. “Maybe you should be the one to help us steal some food, not me,” he continues. “Vendors always trust a girl more, especially one like you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You get right to the point.”
I can’t help smiling. “As do you.” As we settle down to watch the stands, I make some notes to myself. I can afford to linger with these two for one more night, until I heal enough to return to tracking down information about Day. Who knows—maybe they’ll even give me a clue.
When evening finally comes and the sun’s heat begins to fade, we make our way back to the water’s edge and search for a place to camp. All around us I see candlelight flickering to life from window to glassless window, and here and there the locals light small fires along the edges of alleys. New shifts of street police begin making their rounds. Five nights out in the field now. I still can’t get used to the crumbling walls, the lines of worn clothing hanging from balconies, the clusters of young beggars hoping for a bite to eat from passersby . . . but at the very least, my disdain has faded. I think back with some shame on the night of Metias’s funeral, when I’d left a giant steak untouched on my plate, without a second thought.Tess walks ahead of us, completely unperturbed by her surroundings, her stride cheerful and carefree. I can hear her humming some faint tune.
“Elector’s Waltz,” I murmur, recognizing the song.
The boy glances at me from where he’s walking by my side. He grins. “Sounds like you’re a fan of Lincoln, yeah?”
I can’t tell him that I own copies of all of Lincoln’s songs as well as some signed memorabilia, that I’ve seen her perform political anthems live at a city banquet or that she once wrote a song honoring each of the Republic’s warfront generals. Instead, I smile. “Yeah, guess so.”
He returns my smile. His teeth are beautiful, the loveliest I’ve seen so far on these streets. “Tess loves music,” he replies. “She always drags me past the bars around here and makes us wait nearby while she listens to whatever anthems they’re playing inside. I don’t know. Must be a girl thing.”
Half an hour later, the boy starts to notice my fatigue again. He calls Tess back and guides us over to one of the alleys, where a series of large metal trash bins sit wedged between two walls. He pushes one of them forward to give us some room. Then he crouches down behind it, motions for Tess and me to sit down, and begins unbuttoning his vest.
I blush scarlet and thank every god in the world for the darkness surrounding us. “I’m not cold and I’m not bleeding,” I say to him. “Keep your clothes on.”
The boy looks at me. I would’ve expected his bright eyes to look dimmer in the night, but instead they seem to reflect the light coming from the windows above us. He’s amused. “Who said anything about you, sweetheart?” He takes off his vest, folds it neatly, and places it on the ground next to one of the trash bin’s wheels. Tess sits down and unceremoniously rests her head on it, as if it’s an old habit.
I clear my throat. “Of course,” I mutter. I ignore the boy’s low laugh.
Tess stays up and talks with us, but soon her eyelids grow heavy, and she falls asleep with her head on the boy’s vest. The boy and I lapse into silence. I let my eyes linger on Tess.
“She seems very fragile,” I whisper.
“Yeah . . . but she’s tougher than she looks.”
I glance up at him. “You’re lucky to have her with you.” My eyes go to his leg. He sees my gesture and quickly adjusts his posture. “She must’ve come in handy when she fixed up your leg.”
He realizes that I’ve noticed his limp. “Nah. I got this a long time ago.” He
hesitates, then decides against saying anything more about it. “How’s your wound healing, by the way?”
I wave him off. “No big deal.” But I grit my teeth even as I say it. Walking around all day hasn’t helped things, and the pain is returning like wildfire.
The boy sees the strain on my face. “We should change those bandages.” He gets up and, without disturbing Tess, deftly pulls a roll of white wraps from her pocket. “I’m not as good as she is,” he whispers. “But I’d rather not wake her.”
He sits beside me and loosens the bottom two buttons of my shirt, then pushes it up until he exposes my bandaged waist. His skin brushes against mine. I try to keep my focus on his hands. He reaches behind one of his boots and pulls out what looks like a compact kitchen knife (patternless silver handle, worn edge—he’s used it plenty of times before, and to saw through things much tougher than cloth). One of his hands rests against my stomach. Even though his fingers are callused from years on the streets, they’re so careful and gentle that I feel heat rising on my cheeks.
“Hold still,” he mutters. Then he places the knife flat between my skin and the bandages and rips the cloth. I wince. He lifts the bandage away from my wound.
Tiny trickles of blood still seep from where Kaede’s knife stabbed me, but thankfully, there are no signs of infection. Tess knows her stuff. The boy pulls the rest of the old bandages away from my waist, tosses them aside, and starts wrapping the new bandages around me. “We’ll stay here until late morning,” he says as he works. “We shouldn’t have traveled so much today—but y’know, putting some distance between you and the Skiz folks wasn’t such a bad idea.”
Now I can’t help looking at his face. This is a boy who must’ve barely passed his Trial. But that doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t act like a desperate street kid. He has so many more sides to him that I wonder if he has always lived in these poor sectors. He glances at me now, notices me studying him, and pauses for a second. Some secret emotion darts across his eyes. A beautiful mystery. He must have similar questions about me, how I’m able to pick out so many details of his life. Perhaps he’s even wondering what I’ll figure out about him next. He’s so close to my face now that I can feel his breath against my cheek. I swallow. He draws a little nearer.
