Catalyst (30 page)

“It’s the rats. You kept your food in there. It was bound to happen,” he reasons. I inwardly kicked myself for my stupidity, and agreed.

Until it happened again the next day. This time, it was Cy’s bag.

“But you didn’t have any food in your bag, and there’s no hole in it,” I notice. Cy and I share a glance of worry. I only have one watch left, which terrifies me.

Caliga and I talk when we can, but our discussions are always the same. Will Wilbert be in Chicago? How will we find him if he isn’t? We discuss Wingfield, and consider how we’ll get access to a holo so we can find out where it is. Micah tells us he knows it’s in Minwi, while Cela, Ryba, Tabitha, and James listen on, uninterested. Their destiny is far closer.

We reach the shores of Lake Michigan just before dawn, standing among the wild tangle of plants at the water’s edge. Stubborn, abandoned buildings still ring the shore, refusing to sink into the risen lake.

“You’re really going?” I ask Tabitha. Her fur has started to grown back, dark brown and bristly.

“Yes. We’re headed for Canada. You guys should come with us. There’s a good chance we’ll get refugee status there.”

I shake my head and she doesn’t try to convince me or the others. She envelops me in a quick, fuzzy embrace. We all take turns receiving squishy, damp hugs from the others. One by one, they do a triumphant dive into the murky lake water, kicking up splashes as they wave good-bye.

“Will they be okay?” Cy asks Tabitha, watching them disappear beneath the cloudy water. “I thought the lake water wasn’t safe to swim in.”

“They’ll get sick for sure, but the water quality will get better the farther north we go,” she reassures us.

Tennie sidles up to Tabitha and smiles sadly. “We should go.”

“Tennie! I though you were coming with us,” I say, disappointed. I’m already homesick for our group, even if we’ve only been traveling a few days.

“Nope. Tab and I are going north too.” He points to the water kids dunking each other in the gentle lake waves. “We’ll follow them by the water’s edge. I want to stay with them. Cela’s my sister, after all.” He gives me a wet hug. “Good-bye, Zel.”

Tabitha swings the group’s heavy satchel onto her well-muscled back, grabs Tennie’s hand, and leads him into the tangled, boggy foliage along the shore line. One last, large wave from a joyous kicking foot in the water, and the water kids are gone too.

Now it’s only Micah, Cy, Blink, Caliga, and me. Chicago crowds the horizon ahead of us, buildings resting on enormous pilings ever since the lake rose seventy years ago. At the water level, the under-city is built upon a maze of decrepit, rotting boardwalks. Buildings are shabbily crafted of wood or scavenged plasticleer building materials. Some old warehouses still survive, their upper levels now the only available real estate.

The water just below us reeks with sheets of cobalt algae. Only the toughest, angriest animals skulk along the boards. We avoid the feral cats with huge, pointed ears, and brown rats big enough to fight back, and they avoid us.

Thankfully, Caliga memorized the address of the safe house when we were in the Deadlands.

“Four B and twenty.” Cy reads the quadrant directions posted on the twenty-foot-wide pilings. “Four B and thirty.”

“We’re almost there,” Caliga says.

It’s been twelve days since I left Carus. We made it on time. I can’t believe it.

We stay far away from other inhabitants peeking out from the doors of the shanties, who display open sores on their faces and fingertips. We’ve heard rumors of these people. Those who have chosen to live off the grid, because they needed to escape the law, or whose neurodrug habits dissolved their veil of normalcy.

“Here it is,” Caliga says quietly. She points ahead to a structure of metal and concrete, with the lower floors flooded by lake sludge. The windows have long since been boarded up. It looks decrepit on the outside, but that could easily be a ruse. A makeshift front door cut into the wall is unlocked.

“That’s weird,” Micah says. He enters first, looking around and poking his head back out where we wait expectantly.

“It’s empty, but there’s an opening to the upper floors. Seems like the whole building is empty. Are you sure this is the right place, Cal?”

Caliga nods, but frowns. “Should we go in?”

“Why would it be wide open like this?” Cy wonders aloud.

I remember how intense the security was at Carus and Aureus, even Avida. It doesn’t feel right. I wish I could smell something other than the toxic algae and the rotting rats floating under the decaying boardwalk.

“Let me go in,” Micah volunteers. “Wait out here.” Micah steps inside, dodges the soft spots of rust where water’s weakened the metal floor. We keep the door cracked and I peer into the dim room, listening to the scuffle of rats. Micah looks around and heads for a crude ladder attached to the far wall and a window-sized opening in the ceiling.

He climbs it slowly and pops his head through the aperture.

“Seems empty—
oof—
”

Micah’s feet suddenly dangle, as if he’s been grabbed from above. His feet disappear into the opening. We hear a scuffle and a muffled yell.

“Oh my god!” Caliga nearly shrieks. “What do we do?”

“Micah!” I yell, running for the ladder.

“Zel, no!” Cy calls out, running after me, but I’m too fast to catch. I scramble up the ladder and find Micah lying on the floor, with Hex on top of him. He’s got one hand on Micah’s neck and four fists ready to turn him into a mashed potato version of himself.

“
Hex!
” I scream out in joy.

Hex turns his head. He’s got huge shadows under his eyes and he’s far leaner than when he’d left Carus. His clothes are dirty and he looks exhausted, but his eyes have got that crinkly look he gets when he’s about to break into a sunrise of a grin.

“Zel! Holy crap! Wait, are you with . . .”

“We’re with Micah,” Cy announces, his head sticking up through the opening. He looks at Micah, still being choked by Hex’s hand. “Geez, Hex. Good thing I didn’t come through here first.”

“Cyrad!”

“Let Micah go, he’s okay,” I say.

“How do you know?”

“He’s not shocking you, is he?”

Hex stands up from where he was sitting squarely on Micah’s stomach.

“Thanks,” Micah wheezes.

Hex points a single finger at him and yells, “Shut up.” He turns to me. “What the hell’s been going on?”

“It’s a long, long story.” I run straight to Hex and body-slam him with a hug. He squeezes me with all four arms so hard that my eyeballs bulge a little, but I don’t care. He smells like sweat and dirt and a faint tang of worry. “Where’s Ana and Vera?”

“Vera’s on the roof, ready to unleash her green hell on anyone I can’t handle,” he says, letting go to give Cy a power hug too.

“What about Ana?” Cy asks.

“She’s okay. She’s with Marka and Dyl.” His dark brown eyes light with excitement. “Guys. We’ve been waiting for you. We’ve got a new home. We’re going to be safe.”

“What? Where?” Cy and I yelp at the same time.

“Wingfield.”

The word hovers in the air, but I’m not overwhelmed with happiness like I should be. Wingfield is a bucket of questions and worries, and there haven’t been enough answers to appease me. When Élodie climbs through the opening, Hex’s eyes widen.

He sidles next to me. “Long story, huh, Zel?”

“You have no idea,” I say.

Right then, Vera swings through the sole window at the end of the room from a fire escape. She’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants, and her face and hands are covered in smeared makeup. In some spots, it’s rubbed away and her green skin peeks through.

“Zelia, my little
Quahog
sis!” she yells, before screaming, “Oh my god, Cy!” But Vera stops her headlong rush toward us when she sees Micah and Élodie. “What . . . what are they doing here?” she asks coldly.

I suck in a deep breath. “Oh boy. Where should I start?”

• • •

M
ICAH,
É
LODIE, AND
C
ALIGA STAY DOWNSTAIRS, EATING
a dinner of very stale, stolen Avida food. Upstairs, Cy and I catch up with Vera and Hex, explaining how we found each other and survived the craziness of Avida. They stare at us like we’re making all of it up.

“So Blink—that wench that attacked you in Aureus—is okay?”

“Uh . . . yeah.” I nod.

“You have got to be kidding me. And we can trust Micah? I mean, of all the people . . . if you and Cy trust him now, then I guess we will, but . . . man. Really?”

Cy and I exchange uneasy glances. “I
think
I trust him,” I say. I’m still reeling from the last-minute alliance-switch head-games he played on us.

Hex lowers his voice to a whisper. “He says he wants to make it up to Dyl and Ana. But how do you know he’s only here to stick with the winning team?”

“I don’t know if we’ll ever know, unless he turns on us.” It’s the truth, as far as I’m concerned.

“Well, that Élodie girl seems nice enough,” Vera comments. “Quiet, though.”

“It’s ’cause she’s Canadian,” Hex says, reaching for Vera’s uneaten homemade travel bar.

She slaps his hand. “Stop stealing my food! And being Canadian doesn’t make you quiet.”

“She doesn’t speak English, right?” he says, and Vera smacks his head this time. “Ow? What?”

“Canadians speak English! What is wrong with you?”

“Actually, French is her first language.” I smirk, waiting for their reaction. Hex immediately points all four index fingers at me and glares at Vera in his defense. I stifle my laughter as he and Vera escalate their fight over Hex’s horrible grade-school understanding of North American culture.

I interrupt their fight for more details on Wingfield. “What about Marka and Dyl? You met up with them?”

“We did,” Hex explains. “They arrived before us. We snuck through the border to the Dakotas. Didn’t realize it would be so lax there. Maybe because their population is so horrendously low that they want refugees. Anyway, we bribed a border patrol to get into Minwi in exchange for our char and the fake F-TIDs. We walked the rest of the way. When we got here, Marka and Dyl were already camped up on the roof.”

“Would you believe they flew here?” Vera rearranges her legs into a knot that makes me uncomfortable just to look at. “They went west and found a tiny black-market hoverpod company that drained the money from Marka’s fake F-TID account. Flew her and Dyl straight to Chicago to a landing strip with no immigration officials.”

“Are you kidding me?” I slap my hands onto my legs. “We took the most direct route and ended up getting in the most trouble!”

“You never seem to take the easy way out,” Hex comments, and nudges me with his elbow. I drape one of his arms around my shoulder and smile.

“So when Marka got here, it was empty. But she smelled something like lavender. It’s her favorite scent, did you know? Because I didn’t. I think it’s something from her childhood. Anyway, she found a hidden message just for her, tucked into the wall. The people who had a safe house here relocated to Wingfield. They gave Marka explicit instructions on how to get there through Minwi and which border patrol house would let her cross over, unasked. So after we arrived, they left because Ana was getting weak from all the traveling. And here we are, waiting for you slowpokes.”

Vera jabs Hex in the back with her big toe and I laugh. It’s so good to laugh again. I was afraid I’d never remember how.

Cy stands up. “Look. Let’s get some sleep. We need to start traveling in a few hours and I’m exhausted.” We all nod and spread out our clothes into makeshift beds. I peek downstairs, but Micah, Caliga, and Élodie are already asleep, far apart from one another. They’ve barred the door with huge pieces of building materials scavenged from outside.

Cy and I make a place for ourselves in the corner. Vera and Hex turn their backs to us, tangled in each other’s arms and whispering. I’d thank them for the privacy, but they’re too engrossed in each other anyway. The floor is hard as concrete, but Cy’s arm is my pillow, so I don’t complain.

I snuggle into his shoulder. “You haven’t used your other trait very much since we left.”

“I know.” There’s a long pause, and he says, “I’m sorry. If I knew how to use the touch aspect properly, I could have kept Julian from hurting you.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Will you try to practice more? I miss your voice in my head,” I whisper.

“I’ll try. I promise.” Cy concentrates, and recites the “Luna” poem to me in my head. When he’s done, I spread my hand over his chest.

“That poem isn’t right, you know.”

“Hmm?” he murmurs into my hair.

“I never left you. I’m not some untouchable, heavenly body.”

His fingers grasp my waist, pulling me on top of him. “I’ve always felt like you’re too far away.”

“Why? I’m right here. And when I wasn’t, when you were in Aureus, I was always yours.”

Cy closes his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel like I deserve anything.”

“Then I’ll keep convincing you that you’re wrong. I’m stubborn like that.”

“Your faults are the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says, guiding my lips to his. No matter how many times I kiss him, I marvel at how unreal it is. Each is our first kiss, and our last, and every one in between.

We don’t sleep much. We’re too busy missing each other.

CHAPTER 28