Читать книгу Arclight - Josin L McQuein - Страница 9

I’ve lived a short life, most of which I can’t remember, and it doesn’t take long for the rest to flash through my mind while I wonder if it’s already over.

The wait reminds me of stories we’ve read in class. Our teachers claim things like art and literature are as important to survival as food and water, and they’ve preserved all they could of things written in the world before the Fade, including those of a place called Purgatory. There’s no sense of time, and no beginning or end, only the torment of an uncertain outcome over which you have no control. I didn’t believe it was real, but now I know we’re there.

I try counting off seconds in my head, but lose track around six thousand, at the point people thaw out enough to risk talking. Most everyone’s in motion; nerves make settling down impossible.

“We should just give her to them.”

Hearing Jove make the suggestion isn’t as surprising as having him wait nearly two hours to do it.

“Shh!” Anne-Marie, feeling guilty for choosing a seat with the crowd, no doubt. She shouldn’t. Safety in numbers is the first rule of self-defense. “You’re scaring the babies.”

Jove has the sense to look ashamed when he realizes that several pairs of very small ears are listening, but it only lasts until his attention strays back to me.

“We were doing fine until she got here.”

His argument’s always the same. It was my scent the Fade caught when I ran through the Dark, and it was me they followed through the Grey to the Arclight’s boundary, so the attacks are my fault. I can’t even say he’s wrong. There hadn’t been a Red-Wall for years before I came.

“Shove it, Jove,” Anne-Marie snaps. The last time he went off on this tangent, she dunked him in the ice bin from the Common Hall. Twice.

She reaches for a terrified bundle of curls and tears, and totes the girl to a quieter part of the room. A small troop of others follows her.

“Sorry,” she mouths when they pass me.

Anne-Marie busies herself with soothing the babies by having them sing lesson songs from class. Other, older voices drift in, thankful for the distraction, and soon the danger of the night is set to verses about numbers and silly sounds.

Tobin finds a seat under a table full of supply boxes. He draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face against them, rocking to the tempo of the children’s voices, while matching their cadence with a bump against the wall.

“Hey, Fade-bait.” Jove’s boot toes the side of my bad leg.

I tell myself I will not answer.

Anne-Marie’s voice notches louder, attempting to drown out Jove’s with the days of the week.

“If we toss you out a window, would the Fade really choke on your blood?”

I will not answer . . . I will not. . . .

“That’s what happens, right? You’re poison to them?”

I will not . . . I will not. . . .

He drops to his haunches directly in front of me. Have his eyes always been this cold? Was he a different person before I came?

“What’s the matter, freak?” he asks. “Forget how to talk?”

I cut my eyes sideways, not seeking permission so much as encouragement. Anne-Marie nods; I snatch Jove’s hand, and lick the back of his wrist.

“You’re still breathing, so I can’t be that toxic,” I say when he sputters backward, tripping over his own feet and landing hard.

A round of snickers runs through the room. Jove spits on his hand to wash it off, and climbs back to his feet.

“How’s it feel to know so many of us died because of you ?” He shoves my shoulders, knocking me back when I try to stand and face him. “You do know it’s your fault, right? If you’re Fade-proof, they died for nothing.”

No, they died for the hope that a human coming through the Dark alive meant . . . something. I just wish I knew what. Then they’d stop asking me.

Jove grabs my inhaler, using the cord to hoist me off the ground.

“Do they really eat the bodies they can’t use? Keep them as pets? What? What’d they do with your bunch?”

I’d bite him if I wasn’t sure he’d leave a sour taste in my mouth.

“Jove, let her go.” Anne-Marie’s on her feet now, too.

“Did you watch it happen?” Our faces are barely an inch apart. “Did you hear them scream? Did they beg for mercy?”

I pull back, but so does he, digging the cord into my skin.

He’s not worth it, I tell myself.

“Jove! Knock it off.”

“Shut up, Annie.” Every emotion from anguish to hate to terror shows on his face. But his eyes are pure misery, locked on mine, as though staring will somehow transfer his pain to me so he can be rid of it. “How many of those things out there used to be our people? You think William Bryce is out there? Or Elaine Crowder? Colonel Lutrell?”

Jove’s mouth just outran his brain.

He could have antagonized me all night, and no one but Anne-Marie would have said a word, but he should have left Tobin’s father out of it. Jove slams sideways, hit full force by someone a lot bigger.

“Get off me,” Jove yells. Tobin pins him to the floor, sitting on his legs. “I didn’t mean it. Get off!”

I assume the broken nose means his apology isn’t accepted.

One punch comes, then another, until they blur so fast the impact sounds like perverse applause. Jove gets out one good scream before his mouth floods with blood, sending flecks of crimson to pepper the front of Tobin’s face and clothes.

“Stop it!” Anne-Marie cries, but her feet are still stuck to the ground. Dante and Silver hurry the babies away from the fight.

This is something else the drills never prepared us for. We’ve never been locked in long enough for friends to become enemies.

“Toby, don’t!” Anne-Marie tries again, but he doesn’t hear her.

I don’t think Tobin even sees Jove anymore. He’s hitting his own agony, exorcising his own mourning.

He’s crying.

“Tobin, stop.”

I grab his arm on a backswing and go along for the ride when he pushes forward.

“Tobin!” I splay both of my hands on his shoulders as I duck my head into the space between his arms so we’re face-to-face. “He said he didn’t mean it,” I say, knowing Jove meant every hateful word. “Enough, he gets the point.”

Because of me, Jove lost his mother the same way Tobin lost his father, and he’s just as much an orphan. He doesn’t need a beating to understand that hurt.

So many here only have one parent; they’re not forgotten so much as never mentioned. Anne-Marie won’t discuss her father even when I ask. She says it’s not the sort of thing people talk about, but she can’t tell me why. If I had a family, I wouldn’t keep quiet about it.

Jove moans, unable to get away. Tobin’s still on his legs; I’m bent over his head, keeping myself in the line of fire.

“Get out of my way, Marina,” Tobin snarls, fist frozen at midswing.

“Look at him, Tobin. You’ll kill him. You cannot murder someone in the Safe Room, okay?”

It’s weird what arguments your brain comes up with at the worst possible moments.

“Move, or I’ll move you.” Tobin shifts his position for better leverage.

Desperation and lack of ideas make me stupid. I grab Tobin’s face with both hands, close my eyes, and kiss him on the mouth.

Anne-Marie says guys don’t think straight if you kiss them out of the blue; I guess she knows what she’s talking about. Tobin drops his fist. His body goes rigid; he even stops breathing. When I open my eyes, his are wide and bewildered.

That’s a good word for the whole room, because there’s nothing but silence until the babies start to sniffle and someone drags Jove out from under us.

In total, the kiss buys about ten seconds before Tobin snaps back to reality and pushes me away; we sit there for another five on our knees. He stands, wipes his mouth, and goes back to his corner without even glancing in Jove’s direction.

But he looks at me.

His eyes are clear and focused, without anger now, only loss and confusion. He collapses in on himself, so we’re back where we started. Me on my side, Tobin on his, both isolated in a crowd. This isn’t Purgatory. It’s Hell.