Читать книгу Arclight - Josin L McQuein - Страница 10

It’s too hot in here, too close.

Anne-Marie sits with Jove’s unconscious body, trying to clean him off as best she can with her bare hands and shirttail. I unbutton my jacket and bunch it up under his head to help him breathe while she strokes his hand.

“Someone’s going to have to set his nose,” she says. “I don’t know how.”

“Doctor Wolff will fix it,” I answer. Besides the nose, Jove’s lost a couple of teeth. The rest of his face is swollen; he winces when I touch his side.

“But what if they lose Doctor Wolff?”

“They won’t.”

“I think I should get help,” she says. “Don’t you think I should get help? Someone needs to know what happened—or is happening—or could happen. I don’t think Toby meant it. Oh . . . how did this happen?”

She ends up gasping. Anne-Marie always seems to forget that she needs air.

“And how do you plan on getting out of here? The door’s locked.”

It’s the wrong question to ask.

She starts in on the horror of being locked in a small space—which she never thought was small until now—straying from one extreme to the other until she comes to the conclusion that we’re all going to run out of oxygen and collapse.

She’s abandoned her gloves, and the only two of her fingernails that managed to survive the run brush over Jove’s swollen eyes. She pats his hair down over his forehead, but all that does is leave it tacky against the drying blood.

“I should have made him stop,” she says. “Jove’s really not this bad . . . at least he didn’t used to be, but he lost his dad three years ago, and now his mom . . . I didn’t know he’d gotten so—I’m sorry.”

“It’s the Fade’s fault, not yours,” I say quietly, but her attention’s still on Jove.

“He’s bleeding on the floor.”

Untold years have left the cement surface cracked, and each spidered line acts as a thin channel for Jove’s blood to travel. Anne-Marie shakes her shoe to clear what’s pooled by her toe.

“I never thought he’d do something like this—Toby, I mean. He only ever hits walls, and I thought he’d stop that when the last one wrecked his knuckles.” She worries the edge of her sleeve with her teeth, leaving it with tiny holes along the cuff. “I should have stepped between them, not you. But I—”

“Anne-Marie, stop!” I cup my hand over her mouth. “Help me get Jove’s jacket off. He’s too big for me to maneuver on my own.”

Keeping her busy is the only way to stop her from talking, or at least change the subject.

“Are you sure?” she asks nervously. “We could make him worse. Marina, I don’t want to kill anybody. Please don’t make me.” Her hands are ice-cold and sweating over mine, trying to keep me from working his buttons.

“I want to make sure the blood’s only coming from his face. Otherwise, we need to stop it.”

“Yeah . . . okay. That makes sense.” Anne-Marie bites her cheeks to cut off whatever automatic protest she wants to make. I’d laugh at the effect if we were anywhere else.

“I can do this,” she chants as we roll Jove to one side and free his arm from his jacket. “I can— I can— I can’t— I can’t do this.”

Anne-Marie rocks back on her heels as soon as we lay him back down. It’s not fair that Jove caused the problem, Tobin did the damage, and we’re the ones with blood on our hands.

“Is he all right?” she asks, chewing on her sleeve again.

“We got lucky. Jove doesn’t know how to do laundry.”

It’s a black shirt day, but Jove’s wearing his khaki one. If he was hurt, the whole thing would be caked as red as his face. How can a person bleed so much from just his face?

“We should keep him still until Doctor Wolff can take him in the morning.”

Anne-Marie nods, shrugging her jacket off to drape over Jove’s body.

“We need to wash him off, and he needs water. See how much the dispenser will let you have.”

Anne-Marie hugs her arms around herself, grumbling about the lack of plumbing as she picks her way over to a tall black box in the corner. She holds her bracelet out to the sensor on the front, prompting a single canister to roll into her hand. No matter how many times she shakes her bracelet, that’s all the box gives her, and kicking it doesn’t change its mind.

Our bunkers aren’t meant to be lived in. They were storerooms initially, then converted to short-term shelters when the need arose. They’re nothing but a dash-away hole where we can hide until the Fade retreat into the Dark at dawn.

Cinder block and steel dampen our scents and voices, but if pipes ran through here, or power lines, the Fade could follow the sound of flowing water and humming cables. We have to make do with a night’s rations and a twelve-hour generator.

“It’s all I could get.” Anne-Marie returns with the one slim can of water, huffing from her assault on the dispenser. “Maybe we can use the babies’ bracelets for more.”

“Did you ask it for bandages?” I ask.

“I want a shower,” she sniffles. “And my own room. And my mom. And I really, really, really want Jove to not have so much gunk on his face I can’t see his skin. I can’t believe my stupid brother hasn’t even offered to help! I’m telling Mom exactly what he—” Her voice hitches as she scans the room. “Marina, have you seen Trey?”

“Maybe he fell behind and had to go in with the adults. Did you see him in the hall?”

“I don’t know,” she cries, searching for anyone the right shape or size to be Trey.

“He doubled back.”

I peer up at Tobin, smoothing away the white hair that falls in my eyes when I turn my head. I’m not sure if I should be angry with him for what he’s put us through or grateful for his help during the run.

“I saw him as we were coming in. Trey turned around as soon as you were inside, Annie.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Anne-Marie’s voice barely makes it out of her throat.

The only reason Trey would have gone back is to help on the line. That means he’s out there—with them. Anne-Marie heaves on the floor, but there’s nothing in her stomach to come up.

“Drink this,” Tobin says. “The adrenaline’s wiped out your blood sugar.”

He holds out two bottles of pale amber liquid, but she refuses them. She sets her jaw and glares like she wants to replay the fight with him in Jove’s place and her in Tobin’s.

“It’s apple juice,” he says, showing off three more in his other hand. “It’ll dry sticky, but you can wash your hands and face with it. The acid should help loosen the blood. Save the water for if Jove wakes up.”

“You’d better not be lying about this, Tobin Lutrell.” Anne-Marie snatches one of the bottles out of his hand.

“It’s just juice, Annie. I gave half of it to the ankle-biters.”

In their corner, the youngest children sit in a circle slurping drinks and wiping their noses with their sleeves. Somehow, in the last ten minutes, Dante’s been elected jungle gym and a couple try to climb on his back, bottles and all.

“Where’d you get it?” I ask. Glass bottles are used for the younger kids because they’re easy to sanitize and the tops screw on and off without needing a can opener, but they’re stored in the kitchen coolers, not down here.

“This place has a lot of secrets, you just have to know where to look.” Tobin sets the last bottles on the floor, taking a seat on Jove’s other side. “It’s the same kind of dispenser they use for snack time in the lower-year classes. Juice is provided in bulk, in response to whatever number of students the teacher puts in, but water’s rationed to one bottle per person. They switch out the machines for maintenance, but always overlook the juice bottles and cookies.”

He pulls off his jacket, biting a hole in it so he can rip the material. Within minutes, he’s got a pile of long khaki strips.

“Bandages,” he says. “You okay, Annie?”

“No. And I do not want to talk to you right now.” After downing the first bottle in one long gulp, she takes a handful of strips, pours some juice on one, and starts cleaning the dried blood away from Jove’s mouth.

He’s a mess. His bumps and bruises have gained definition, changing the lines of his face and darkening his skin in places. He barely looks human.

“At least he’s not awake to feel it,” I say as I wash off his knuckles.

“Careful,” Tobin warns. “Only clean his skin, not the wounds. The sugar could give him an infection.”

“Don’t you tell her to be careful, Toby,” Anne-Marie snaps, but she listens well enough to skirt the split on Jove’s eyebrow. “You should thank her for stopping you.”

She takes a long swipe down Jove’s cheek, accidentally snagging one of the cuts. Tobin presses a clean bandage against it to stop the bleeding.

“You know you didn’t have to hit him, or you could have just hit him once, but you didn’t. If Marina hadn’t made you stop, you could have killed him.”

Apple juice sloshes out of the bottle as she shakes it at another bandage to clean off Jove’s cracked lips.

“He’s burning hot, Toby. Feel his face.” Anne-Marie grabs Tobin’s hand, not giving him a choice. “When he wakes up you’re going to apologize or . . . well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but you’re not going to like it!”

Her voice dies down to half-mumbled threats. If Jove weren’t already unconscious, she’d talk him into a coma.

Tobin and I ease away once most of Jove’s injuries are checked, leaving Anne-Marie to take care of him.

“We need a clock in here,” Tobin says.

Or windows. Or a radio. Anything to tell us how close it is to dawn, and what might be happening outside.

I check my personal alarm, hoping I can figure out a way to coax information from it, but the face is still flooded with blinking red light. It’s a shock to see the burn from where I’d hit the wall during the run. I hadn’t really registered the pain until now.

That claustrophobic feeling that had Anne-Marie so keyed up settles in. It really is a small room once it’s packed full, and yet I somehow end up picking a spot close to Tobin rather than one where I’m alone. He doesn’t flinch away from me like the others would.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Tobin’s voice is distant.

“What?”

“Why they’re afraid of you?” He nods to the room. Every once in a while, someone will glance my way, but they divert their attention as soon as they realize I can see them.

“They blame me,” I say.

He shakes his head. “It’s your ears.”

“My ears?” I grasp at them, confused. They feel normal.

“I don’t know what the stories are like where you came from, but here people who can hear the Fade and those who can see in the dark are bad omens. They’re the ones we lost first. You know, before.”

“But I can’t see in the Dark anymore.”

“You can still hear,” he says. “You try to hide it, but I’ve seen you with your head cocked to the side, like you’re counting off a rhythm that doesn’t exist. Honoria tells us stories, and . . . never mind. It’s not a time for stories.”

“No. I want to know. Her stories are about people who could hear?”

“Some of them.” He nods again without looking at me. “They walked into the Dark on their own. They said they heard voices calling them out . . . people they knew. . . . The next time they were seen, if they were ever seen, they were Fade. It hasn’t happened in years, but Honoria’s brother was one of the last. They grabbed him on a forage run or something. He was just a kid.”

“But I don’t hear voices,” I argue. “I hear real sounds.”

“It still scares them. My dad trained himself to do the same thing, but he doesn’t tell people. You have to hide it better.”

I don’t mean to stare at Tobin, and really I’m not, but he’s been so many different people in such a short time. He’s gone from the boy slinking into rooms after everyone else was in place, to my protector, to the hurt son defending his father’s memory with feral determination, to . . . whatever he is now. His posture changes, followed by his expression, but not quickly enough to spare me the expectation there, as though I hold all his answers.

“How much longer do you think we have to wait?” I ask, because I can’t figure out how to ask him anything else. “Will they turn the alert back to normal so we know it’s over?”

“Maybe.” He scratches at the bloodstains on his fingers. The bandages he’d worn earlier are gone, lost either in the run or the fight, exposing purplish-black bruises on his knuckles. “Or maybe we died and nobody bothered to tell us.”

“That’s not funny,” I say.

“I didn’t mean it to be,” he says. “We have no idea what dead feels like. Maybe we’re there. Death would be simpler. No more mourning, no more waiting.”

“You don’t really think that, do you?”

“I guess not.” He shrugs. “If we were dead, someone would have let us out by now.”

“You think that’s how it works?” I ask. “Easy as opening the door?”

“That’s what Dad told me when my mom died.” Another shrug, like his brain’s linked the motion to ending a sentence.

“I don’t even know how my mom died . . . if she’s dead . . . nothing.”

We’ve become not friends, exactly, but tolerable allies through the bond of common loss and lack of options.

Tobin shifts again, fixating on Anne-Marie and Jove in the middle of the room.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” He slides to the floor, resting his hands on his knees.

“I know.” I slide down beside him, using the wall as an anchor for more than my posture.

“Do you ever wonder why Honoria and the others separate us like this?” he asks. “Why they stick us in a hole while they stand guard?”

“To protect us.” Obviously. The elders protect the young, like my parents did with me. I have to believe they drew off the Fade so I could reach the light. They did not throw me away; I refuse to be an outcast to two worlds.

“They didn’t think it through,” Tobin says. “What happens if they fall?”

“The locks open at dawn and we do the best we can,” I say.

“But if the Fade take them, we’re next. They’re gone, the defenses are shot, the ammo’s spent, and we get twelve hours to tick off what’s left of our lives before they come back to kill us. We’re penned in.”

He stops, like he hadn’t realized he was speaking out loud.

“Sorry, I’ve been around Annie too long,” he says. “I’m starting to babble.”

Anne-Marie’s oblivious to our staring, still sitting cross-legged with her mouth going ninety miles a minute, and using her teeth to even her fingernails in the pauses between words. She takes a marker from her pocket and starts coloring them in.

“Almost makes things feel normal, doesn’t she?” Tobin asks.

Absurd and normal, a perfect description of Anne-Marie.

A group of toddlers has Dante subdued, while Silver tries to pull them off. She has one upside down by the leg, which the kid finds hilarious. A boy named Jerome, a mid-year according to his gold name tag and sleeve patch, stuffs another up under his arm while threatening similar treatment for the next one who doesn’t behave.

“I guess we could sic the babies on them, if it came to a fight,” I offer.

It’s weird to realize this is the first time I’ve laughed, but it’s true. There’s not a lot of call for humor when you’re sandwiched between the probable massacre of one people and the possible extermination of another.

“Outfit them with flashlights and we might have a shot,” Tobin says. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh, too, but it doesn’t last long.

A rolling tumbler and the click of a lock stops everyone short.

We all stand, braced for whatever waits on the other side of our door. Anne-Marie leans over Jove’s body; the upper-years form a defensive line to guard the babies. Tobin angles himself in front of me, one arm out to hold me back and away from the unknown.

The door opens slowly, allowing a foreign scent to flood the room with a metallic bite that brings cool, fresh air behind it.

“Cordite,” Tobin says. “From fresh rounds. Stay back, we don’t know—”

“It’s not the Fade,” I say, tapping my ear. The Fade don’t wear boots like the ones marching through the hall outside.

Our personal alarms switch from blinking red back to blue—not safe, but not danger, either—and Tobin drops his arm.

“Looks like you were right. We’re not dead after all,” Tobin says with a tired smile.

No one survives the Fade, but I’ve done it twice.