Meridian (15 page)

“M
ARINA?
”
Trey asks. “Am I hallucinating or is he actually
walking
?”

“I’m trying not to think about it,” I say, like it’s not a shock to see Rue keeping a steady pace beside my door. I wouldn’t exactly call it walking, though. He looks like he’s sliding along the nanite trails on the ground.

Dog’s doing the same on the other side. I assume the other three are behind us, though the truck’s now traveling much faster than it had when we were crossing the Grey.

“This is unreal,” Trey says.

“Unfortunately not.” Honoria doesn’t find the situation as fascinating as I do.

Obsidian walls reach above our head on either side, where the Fade have pulled themselves safely away from the truck’s lights, but the walls aren’t static. Lines flow from top to bottom in their unending cycle to ensure that none stay in the light long enough to be damaged. Others are chaotic, spreading out to fill any gaps they encounter, so the whole thing writhes and pulses like a beating heart. Some of the Fade stand on our side of the barrier, watching us pass, but my parents aren’t among them.

I close my eyes, straining for the familiar markers that represent my mother and sister, but all I get is the image of a rock in water.

Home,
Cherish says wistfully. It tugs, along with the desire to reach out for the voices I know are waiting just behind the nanite veil. The veil’s so close in places, I could open a window and skim it with my fingers. But if I do, the Dark might hang on and never let me go. Or worse, I think, I might grab the first hand that reaches for me and hold on tight, just to hear my sister laugh again.

I want that connection, but it terrifies me. I don’t want to end up Cherish’s prisoner in this body. They’ll all speak to
her
and listen to
her
and maybe even love
her
, but I’ll be lost and alone.

Cherish claims that things aren’t complicated in the Dark, but she’s wrong. Nothing’s simple here, at all.

“Is this the right way?” Honoria says.

“Like they pulled the route straight off a map.”

They did, just not one made of paper. They’ve used their bank of common knowledge, re-creating the route from those who traveled this road in the days before. Those bright yellow lines I’d glimpsed beneath the constant roll of Fade are clean now. They mark our path, stretching out for miles.

“We’ll be there in a matter of hours,” the colonel says.

“That long?”

“I don’t want to push the engine until I have to.”

Behind us, the corridor collapses, falling in on itself and making retreat impossible. Honoria stays rigid in her seat, eyes fixed on the back of Mr. Pace’s head, refusing to watch the Dark pass by.

The road’s smoother now that we’re past the ragged bumps in the Grey. There are no gashes in this stretch, like elsewhere in the Dark. Without the jars and jolts, and the sound of air against the sides, the wheels against the road become hypnotic. Trey’s head drops to his chest with the crash that comes after an adrenaline rush. Everything falls into a rhythm I can’t help but set my breathing to. More than once I feel myself nodding off.

Sleep comes as bursts of light and dark. I blink awake, then drift again. There are violent collisions of fire, and sparks where the flares touch the shadows. I stand in the midst of it all, on a line between creation and devastation, sure that I’ll be seen if I move.

A million fingers pull and pinch, testing my endurance, but I persevere. The lights fall back until all I can see is a darkness so deep, it makes me wonder if I’ve gone blind. The darkness rises up, drawing together into the monstrous form of a great beast whose skin is nothing but agitated grains of black.

The beast growls, but I stand still.

It roars, nearly blasting me off my feet with the force, but I don’t fall. The hands and fingers that prodded me before, now keep me upright, pushing against my back so I can’t sag.

The beast rears up, towering tall on its hind legs before slamming down as a wave. I hold my breath as I reach out for something to hang on to beneath the deluge, and I’m surprised to feel another hand in mine. It’s bone white, with wisps of smoke churning under the skin, and as my eyes travel up its arm to its face, I realize I’m staring at myself.

Cherish
.

The dark water begins to spin, whirling with a maelstrom’s fury until I’m certain we’ll be washed away, but Cherish is beside me. Hand in hand, together we do not drown.

The storm ceases and the dark mass shrinks, condensing to no taller than me or myself. It grows arms and legs and forms a face, with a mouth and eyes that stare, but it’s not human. Its hair is spikes, like the ones that grew from Silver’s skin; more erupt from its hands and feet.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“What do you want?” adds Cherish; the first time I’ve heard her speak out loud.

The creature steps forward, extending a clawed hand. I look to Cherish, but her face is Fade-blank, and with her outside my head, I can’t hear her speak to me. The creature takes my hand.

My fingers freeze inside its claw, a sensation that travels up my arm and across my shoulder. My spine’s speared by an icicle. The cold branches out along my nerves; once I’m frozen through and through, it turns to pain. Blinding and so cold, it burns.

Beside me, Cherish freezes, too. Frost grows on our hands where they’re joined, and she screams, but there’s no sound. The cold rips her marks from her, one microscopic cell at a time.

Our feet are stuck fast, tied to the earth. They become chains, so heavy I can’t move, and when I open my own mouth to call for help, a flood of black sand washes down my throat.

I stare into the creature’s eyes. Deep within the recess there’s movement. A face begins to form there, morphing through features: Dante and Silver, then Tobin and Anne-Marie. Rue. My mother. Blanca. Every face is placidly blank.

But in their eyes there are screams.

I’m being pulled apart, drawn into the creature to be absorbed as the wild-Fade have taken so many others.

I scream once more, and then I’m gone.

I jerk awake, throat shredded from echoing Cherish’s shriek. Trey’s making the same sound, in nearly the same pitch, right beside me. The sensation of breaking apart and being devoured stops.

We’re still in the truck’s backseat, only now we’re standing still. Honoria’s shaking Trey so hard that I can feel it. My left hand’s got a white-knuckled grip on the door handle, prepared to bail out and run, while my right’s clenched inside Trey’s, lying on the seat between us. My glove’s come untucked from my jacket sleeve, leaving a gap where I can see my skin. For a moment I think I see lines swirl on my wrist, but it’s only in my head. I snap myself with Tobin’s rubber band to make sure I’m awake.

Trey looks blank. Eyes wide and unfocused, so the icy color is even starker. His chest heaves, like he has to remind himself to breathe in after each exhale. My breathing matches his; my pulse and the pounding in my head mirror the thump of the vein in his neck.

And Cherish is still screaming.

“What happened?” Honoria demands. She’s yet to let go of Trey’s arm, but she’s stopped shaking him.

Neither of us answer. My mind’s fried. I can’t remember how to put words in order.

“You were both asleep,” she prompts. “Then you started screaming.”

“Both?” I test the word twice in my head.

“At the same time,” Col. Lutrell says.

He and Mr. Pace are watching us, the question on their faces identical to the one Honoria asked.

“One of you say something.” The concern in Honoria’s voice surprises me.

“Sludge monster ripping you apart one atom at a time?” Trey asks, voice too light for what he’s saying.

“While devouring everyone and everything,” I add.

Everything
is the important part. The wild hive won’t stop until the entire world’s been consumed and brought into their strict order.

“I thought it was a nightmare.”

“It was,” Trey says.

He opens his fingers, slowly, releasing my hand and then lays his head against the back of his seat, closing his eyes to force his breathing into a regular pattern. The jumping pulse in his neck calms. If he were his sister, we’d still be covering our ears to block the hysterics.

Cherish is close enough. I can still feel her shaking, though my hands are steady. That heartbeat sound that Rue uses so often is racing.

“You both saw the same thing?” Mr. Pace asks.

“I think so. Marina wasn’t there where I could see her or anything, but that was definitely more than a dream.”

“It was
them
,” I say. “The wild-Fade are searching for us.”

Taunting for sport is more like it, but the others don’t need to hear that.

“How’s that possible?” Mr. Pace is unnerved. He thought he was enough to keep his son safe, but now he must be wishing he left Trey behind with Tobin and Anne-Marie. “Trey’s communicated with them, but they shouldn’t even know you.”

“I don’t know.”

It’s a lie, and I know now why Rue’s willing to help us cut through the Dark. Part of it’s his love for Cherish, but only part.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The wild-Fade don’t just want the Arclight or humans; they want it all.

Rue’s people were hit first and lost many voices to the darkness. A lament hangs heavy among the trees, mourning them, but still the wild ones press forward, chipping their way deeper, coming closer to the Arclight and the Fade settlement inside the Dark.

The entire world will succumb; there won’t be any hope left.

They have to have a weakness.
That’s
what I focus on. Cherish’s hive—
my hive
—broke free of them before; she should be able to find out how.

We can stop this.

The others startle when the door shakes from outside. Honoria’s hand goes straight for her gun.

“It’s only Rue,” I say quickly, grateful he’s shown enough restraint not to rip the door off its frame, though that’s likely plan B.

Rue, stop! I’m okay. Cherish is fine.

The door has malfunctioned.

He shakes it again.

I unlock the door, and it flies open.

Rue leans in from the step rail, his concern spoken only to me.

Injured?
He reaches out.

Words only,
I warn, pulling my hand away.
No nanites. You’ll set off every human in this truck, and I don’t want to get shot again.

Honoria still has her hand on the gun’s grip. Mr. Pace’s rifle is back in his lap.

Assessing,
Rue says.
Concerned. Worried.

He replays the frantic heartbeat.

“Mine screamed,” he says.

“It was a nightmare. I fell asleep—well, we did.” I point to Trey.

It’s easier if I just show him, so I send him the memory of the beast.

Your sight was untrue.
He chases images of the beast devouring Blanca and my mother with a burst of flowers and pine.

Their voices remain,
he says.

Thank you.

I’d feel better if there was a way for him to check on Tobin and Anne-Marie, too, but I’ll take what I can get.

I
wasn’t going to read the book. I threw it on the table in my apartment and tried to forget it, but I kept finding excuses to walk through the room, and it kept being in plain sight.

The front pocket’s jammed full of paper and cards, a ribbon with a faded
#1
on it. There are two pictures. The first, a photo of a boy in a blue cap, smiling with a metal bat to his shoulder. On the back:
Schuyler Whit
and the stamped image of a stitched ball. The other picture’s black-and-white medical film. It says
Whit
-
Sykes, Week 20, girl,
with scratched-through names like Amelia and Josephine below it. That’s it.

I skim the parts about Honoria coming to the Arclight, searching for references to “the colonel” and marking them with stuff from the pocket so I can read them all at once. I thought I’d be excited to find out more of Dad’s past, but all I feel is nervous. It’s a relief when someone knocks.

“Annie?”

She blows past me into the apartment.

“Want to come in?” I ask the empty doorway.

By the time I turn around, she’s down the hall, with my linen closet open, throwing towels onto the floor.

“Annie!”

“Where is it?” she demands. “Where’s the handle?”

I catch the next stack of towels before she can send them flying, and she turns on me, trying to push me away from the closet.

“Where is it, Toby?” She’s practically screaming. “I saw you open it from here.”

She’s been crying again.

I let go of the towels, so they fall into the pile with the rest. Annie turns for another bunch.

“Stop it!” I grab those, too.

She glares and kicks me.

“I don’t want to stop!” she screeches. “I want the door open.” She’s too upset; she must have started this fit somewhere else.

“You don’t have to tear the place apart,” I tell her. “The switch plate’s not even covered.”

I flatten her hand against it, so the door panel slides into its pocket.

“Where’s the light?” she asks, not giving me time to find out why a full-tilt claustrophobic is so desperate to find the entrance to the tunnel she refused to enter when we were carrying Rueful.

“There isn’t one,” I say.

“No lights?”

Finally, she pauses.

“I’ll tell you where the flashlight is, if—”

“Kitchen cabinet, behind the cleaning solution.” Annie ducks under my arm, and she’s gone again, banging around under the sink. I limp into the room after her.

“It’s not there,” I say.

“Fine. I’ll take the one in your bedroom.”

“Annie—”

“I know this place as well as my own, Tobin. You don’t have any secrets.”

“Aside from the passage in my closet, you mean?”

She makes a face and then heads for the bathroom, likely to look for the emergency beacon in the cabinet.

I block her halfway across the living room.

“Question one: Where’s your brain gone? Question two: Why are you acting like I won’t help you with . . . whatever this is?”

“I need to get outside without being seen and without tripping any alarms,” she says.

I knew she’d snap someday. As soon as it hit her that the Arclight is nothing but a cage on a bigger scale, her panic reflex must have kicked in.

Annie glances at the linen closet; I know what she’s thinking. She’s faster on open ground, but maybe not in here.

“It’s an emergency exit to the Common Hall and the hospital,” I tell her. “You can’t get outside from here.” Even the Well’s enclosed.

“You sneak out of here all the time. That’s the only door without a censor on it.”

“No, it’s not.”

Annie handles the tunnel system better than I expect. She won’t set foot downstairs, but she makes it from my apartment to the Common Hall, and then from the Common Hall to the shed.

“This is how you and Marina sneaked the Fade in?” she asks, breathing through her nose; she held her breath as much as she could while we were underground. “And where Rue hid everyone the night we took down the Arc?”

“There are passages crisscrossing all over. More than half are sealed; I doubt Dad’s shown them all to me.”

“How do we get past the lights?” she asks.

“You want to keep going?”

I thought she’d breathe open air for a while, and relax, knowing she can get out anytime she feels closed in, but she’s moving away from the buildings, toward the boundary line and the Grey.

“Annie, wait!”

“I’m going crazy thinking of Trey out there. I have to go.”

Crap. This isn’t claustrophobia. I pull her back by the arm.

“You don’t know what’s out there,” I say.

“Yes, I do—my brother, and
his eyes turned blue
. They had him, Toby, and he didn’t know it. The bad ones could still have him, and he may not know it. I saw what they did to Silver and Dante. I saw . . . I saw . . . I won’t let that happen to Trey. I won’t.”

“What about your mom?” I ask.

“I left a note.”

Annie takes a long look at the boundary, as though she’s psyching herself up for a running start and a jump across. Even if I drag her back inside, she knows how to get around security now, and I can’t change that without having someone lock the tunnels.

I’m an idiot.

We go out at almost exactly the same point Marina did. It’s scary easy. As soon as the patrols start to switch out, we make a run between the fires. No wonder Honoria thinks we’re always on the verge of a crisis.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Annie says. “I could have made it on my own.”

“I know.”

But after seeing Dante and Silver, and hearing Dad talk about the people who survived the first days, no one should cross the Grey alone. If worse comes to worse, she might need someone to burn her like Dad did for Sykes when he couldn’t reach his wound, or Marina did for—

Marina burned me like Dad burned Sykes.

Am I like them now? Will I be stumbling over explanations to my son in a century or trying to make him understand why I don’t age?

“What’s wrong?” Annie asks.

“I don’t like it out here,” I say instead of the truth.

How long will someone like me or her live? Or Marina?

Am I even human?

I don’t understand any of this. I need my dad.

“Watch for shimmers,” I tell Annie. “Nanobot and the others acted like they could hear something when we crossed before.”

A stick breaks several yards off, and we both snap toward the sound.

“Something like that?” she asks, bringing up her flashlight.

There’s nothing there, but another stick breaks. Leaves and dirt disperse as something walks through them. I raise my infrared and catch the outline of a leg.

“Should we be running?” Annie asks.

“Great idea—outrun a Fade at night.”

A shimmer-line appears as it comes closer. It’s tall and thin, with the outline of a hooded cowl; it’s wearing a robe to protect itself from the Arc.

“Toby, behind you.”

I turn around to find another shimmer approaching. The Fade raises its hand, but only to move the hood enough so that I can see her face.

“Whisper?” I ask.

“You know her?”

I nod.

“It’s okay,” I say. “She’s one of the guards who patrols the Grey.”

I turn back to the other Fade, much less nervous with Whisper’s silent approval of his presence, but it’s not Dog. He’s the wrong size and shape.

The second Fade reaches for his hood and pushes it back.

“Hello, Schuyler.”