Meridian (23 page)

“G
INA
,
listen to me,” I say cautiously. My hands are up, noncombative. “I know you’re confused, but you don’t want to hurt anybody.”

Flee
. Cherish cries.
Run
.

My legs tingle as I stand, nearly giving in to her commands, but I make myself walk closer. If I can reach the real Gina, maybe she’ll fight for herself before she’s consumed completely.

“I know you can hear me. Fight
them
.”

“Marina?”

Tobin steps forward; I wave him off.

“Get help,” I tell him. “If she snaps, she could end up feral, like Dante.”

If she was looking anywhere else, I’d say open the door and let her run, but she can see Rue. She’ll run straight at him or straight at me.

“Gina, we’ll help you. Back up and sit at the table.”

Her chest rumbles with an all too familiar growl.

“Okay, no talking . . .”

Crap. Now what?

Flee,
Cherish says.

She’d be on top of us in two steps.

“What’s wrong?” Michael’s stopped grilling Trey for information. The remainder of the Ice Cube’s children have joined him, closing ranks to protect one of their own.

“Don’t touch her,” I warn Javier when he tries to coax Gina back among them. “She’s turning.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rami says. I hear him approach from the adults’ table. Hopefully, our people are with him. “We would have noticed. She’s been with us for days.”

“Has she been distant?” I ask him. “Talking to herself, wandering around like she’s stepped outside reality?”

“It’s called shock.”

“It’s called
inclusion
,” I snap. “You
did
notice. You ignored it.”

Like we did with Dante, until it was too late.

Our alliance ends before it has a chance to gel. The Arclight’s people form a line on one side and the Ice Cube’s on the other. Gina and I are stranded in between. At least Rue’s still with me.

“How can you be sure?” Rami asks.

“She can’t,” Honoria answers for me, as though she’s afraid I’m going to cite Rue as my source. I’m not that stupid.

“Her eyes are turning gold,” I say. “Listen to her. She’s growling.” Every person from the Ice Cube—except Rami—backs up a step.

Rami doesn’t know what to do. He’s probably known Gina since she was born. Sentiment can be as lethal as a bullet.

“When you found her, was she wounded?” Honoria asks.

She turns her head, gauging how far she is from the weapons we surrendered. All of them are out of reach except the rifle Rami never put down and the silver pistol she refused to give up.

“She came in on her own, but the only blood on her was from someone else.”

“Didn’t you screen the survivors? Check for branching? Anything?”

“I know a human when I see one,” he says. “Gina! Get over here where you belong.”

But she
doesn’t
belong there anymore.

Cherish shows me the grid of blue lines growing inside Gina, strongest at her pulse points. If I could see her back, I know there’d be a Death Tree in full bloom.

“Gina!”

“You’ve got to get her isolated,” Honoria says. “We can give her a shot to beat this, but—”

“Beat it?”

Rami pulls up short. He looks from Honoria to Trey to me. Back to Trey. Back to me.

“What did you do?” he asks.

“We have a serum,” Honoria says. “It’s not perfect, but we’ve tested it, and—”

Gina shrieks, high-pitched and horrible; her expression turns hateful. She launches into the air as nanites flood her skin, appearing and receding like kinetic bruises.

“Rue, don’t!” I shout out loud because it’s not going to matter if the others hear me or not. He’s let go.

Gina’s becoming a Fade, but Rue was born one, and he’s a lot better at using Fade abilities to his advantage.

By all appearances, she hits a pane of glass and crashes back with the wind knocked out of her, but once he’s got her on the ground, Rue’s focus splits. He can’t restrain her and keep up his camouflage at the same time. One has to go—and there’s no way he’ll give her another shot at me.

“Oh, this is so not good,” Tobin says.

Rue’s camouflage blinks like a faulty connection in a wire, revealing his presence to the rest of the room. He’s sitting on Gina’s legs, pinning her hands down by the wrists, over her sleeves and through his robe, so she can’t scratch him, but his presence triggers the wild-Fade’s self-defense mechanism. The same black protrusions that came out of Silver shoot through her skin and clothes to ward him off, knocking her unconscious. He lets go before they can touch him.

“She needs to be contained,” Honoria tries, but it’s futile. You can’t just pretend there’s not a Fade in the room.

I understand now why “getting stunned” is called that. A pulse goes off through the room, with Rue and Gina at its center point. It passes through everything—concentric rings of electric current that freeze everyone where they stand. The air’s buzzing with it, creating confusion in those who aren’t prepared for what they see. All they can do is gape and scream.

“I’m sorry,” Rue says nervously. “I cannot aid her.”

Repentant. Apologetic. I cannot change the outcome. I desire to change the outcome.

He tries to convey how sick he feels, but even if I pass his anguish along word for word, they’ll only see a monster hovering over someone they love.

“We can deal with this, but you have to act,” Honoria says, trying to keep Rami’s attention on her. “The nanites are going to replicate double time to deal with the damage to her body.”

Below the surface of Gina’s skin, thick glowing lines of nanites wind through her veins, flowing into her tissues.

“Gina?” Rami calls. I think he knows she can’t answer.

I pull out of Tobin’s grasp despite his tightening grip, and reach for Rue, to draw him to his feet.

Run,
I tell him.

I’m sorry. Attempting aid won’t be successful.

Get yourself out of—

“Get away from that thing!”

Rami swings his rifle up, locking tight against his shoulder. People are always trying to shoot me.

“He’s not dangerous,” I say.

“You brought that thing?” Rami asks. His hands are sweating so much, that they slip on the rifle. “You knew it was here?”

“Calm down.” Mr. Pace’s voice is softer, less threatening and more rational.

“He won’t hurt you,” I say. “He was protecting me from Gina, that’s all.”

“Get away from it.” The rifle shakes in Rami’s hands.

“No.”

Rue, get out of here. Disappear and run.

You run; I run.

I can’t leave.

“I will not abandon mine,” Rue says out loud.

His marks are in motion. Responding to his agitation and temper, the nanites tighten across his skin and clothes. There’s definitely no way to miss the change in his face, where the lines become finer and sharper. The silver bands in his iris widen out, a signal to beware.

“What was that you said about branching, lady?” Rami asks.

Cherish chants
guard
and
protect
, calling out to her hive mates, but they’re too far away. She and I stand in their place. Together, we are unmovable.

A rock unmoved by water.

Rue’s arm closes around me.

Honoria’s hand goes to her back, and for once I’m glad she’s got that stupid pistol on her.

“Do something,” Anne-Marie calls out to Mr. Pace.

Rami’s focus snaps to where she’s standing with her brother.

“There are an awful lot of blue eyes in this room,” he says, staring at Trey before turning back to me and Rue. “Nothing much on its own, but I’ve never seen anything like you, girl. Nothing but what crawls out of a Killer’s skin when it’s dead. I’ve never seen anything like him.”

He fires.

I actually see the shot emerge from the flash off the end of the rifle. Nanites explode from Rue’s skin at the same time to create a veil around us both.

He pushes me down until my knees and hands hit the tile below us. The bullet strikes the veil and deflects, but the resonance of impact shimmies across the weave, passing along thin wires that disappear into—
my
skin?

“Not possible,” I say, staring at my hands. They’re covered in whirling Fade-marks, connected to the veil. Where Rue’s hands are wrapped over mine, the lines mingle into braided cords, stronger than one created by a single Fade.

I lay my hand against the veil on the inside and feel it pulse with the heartbeat Rue’s played for me a dozen times or more. On the other side, Tobin lays his hand palm-to-palm against mine.

“Marina?” He’s looking at my face.

Are there marks on my face, too? Can he see the ones on my hands?

My
Fade
hands.

I was human two days ago.

Cherish is singing. A wordless song of unbound joy and relief fills my head, drowning out screams of horror as Rami fires another shot. The impact resonates along the veil, but Cherish is still singing. She has what she wants.

Rami’s at a loss. The third shot has no more impact than the first two. Col. Lutrell pounces on his hesitation.

One quick strike to his side, and Rami crumples enough that Col. Lutrell can get his hands on the rifle at the stock and barrel. They grapple for it, but the colonel has better leverage, and gloves that protect his hands from the heat off the barrel. He wrenches the rifle from Rami’s hands, sending the smaller man sprawling.

He also loses his shades.

Honoria stands over Rami, her arm outstretched with the pistol in her hand, pointed at his head. I still hate that thing, but I’m starting to appreciate its advantage.

“We are
not
your enemy,” she says. The creases in her face are shallower than they used to be; her complexion’s brighter. That can’t be right, a person can’t age backward . . . but she is. “So long as everyone keeps their heads, we will remain
not
your enemy.”

Rue takes that as his cue to stand. The veil shrinks in. My stomach sinks when half the nanites slide into my hands, and I can’t help but hide them behind my back.

Cherish will
not
win. I will
not
wither inside my own body. I search for Tobin’s hand and hang on tight.

My choice,
I tell her stubbornly.

All she does is remind me that I haven’t stepped away from Rue. I made that choice, too.

Rami, still on the floor, doesn’t blink.

He and Honoria are mirror opposites, matter and antimatter on the verge of detonation.

“We’re going to do what we can to contain that child,” she says. “And you are going to stop pointing weapons at the people trying to help you. Understood?”

Rami stands, pushing up from the ground with his palms, staring at Col. Lutrell’s face. He was wary of blue eyes; silver are worse.

“I suggest you say something,” Honoria says.

Honoria gets her answer, but it’s not what she’s hoping for. Rami pulls his lip in under his teeth to create a long, variable toned whistle. His people spring into action, and we’re not ready for it.

The Arclight concentrates on defense, making sure nothing can break through, but these people expect a breach. They’re prepared to face a swarm. They don’t hold their ground; they attack.

Groups of them encircle each of us, pushing, pulling, shoving, keeping us stumbling as they jostle us. The complete randomness of the assault works in their favor. It’s not a fight in the traditional sense, but we’re losing.

“Stop!” Anne-Marie cries somewhere to the left.

“Annie!” Her father and brother call out.

“Tobin!”

“Marina!”

“Trey!”

“Dad!”

They separate us, nudging us in different directions. I try to grab for Tobin or Rue as they’re taken away, but I can’t get my arms up. If we were outside, Rue could return to the ground, but in here, they’d trample him.

The only one not participating is Rami. He crosses the room and covers Gina with his coat, so he can carry her out. I barely get a glimpse before a jab in my side sends me spinning.

Trey’s still with me, not close enough to touch, but we’re being herded the same way. He tries to get his arms around one of his captors, for leverage or a shield, but another hits him in the face, knocking him backward and most likely unconscious.

Anne-Marie disappears from view, dropping to the floor; I follow suit, thinking I can crawl out between their legs, or topple someone, but I only fall halfway before I’m caught and propped back up.

My head’s pounding, the room spinning from the constant motion. Everything I see flickers with spots of light and dark. It all ends with a sharp crack against the side of my head.

This time when I fall, no one stops me.

I
dream of the desert. Or maybe I’m dead, and heaven is sitting on the sand under a night sky. The stars swirl and fall to the ground as pieces of silver I can pick up in my hands. They’re so bright, I know that they’ll protect me from the monsters, but there are no monsters here. The desert’s safe. The desert’s secret. It’s protected by stars and sun and moon.

It burns.

Heat comes first, and then the light as I open my eyes. My whole body aches with the dull throb of an old wound brought to life.

This feels familiar. Hospital lights glare like this. Maybe we’ve made it home.

“Doctor Wolff?” I call.

Out of habit, I reach for my long-gone inhaler to quell the rhythmic ache inside my skull. It’s beating harder than my heart.

“Doctor Wolff?”

But no. The beating pain is shaking things loose, including my last moments before I was in the desert. Now, I’m slumped against the wall, with a crick in my shoulder, not lying in a bed. There’s no IV stand or pinging machines, and the pounding isn’t my pulse. It’s broadcast through the air and floor. Here, wherever here is, the light’s solid, hard and unyielding. It crushes me into the wall and grinds the air from my lungs.

Cherish?
I try, but every thump and vibration destabilizes her.

The room’s a near perfect rectangle with built-in shelves and stacked chairs. One wall’s nothing but windows. Beyond it, smoke from the Dark still hangs thick and black over most of the sky, but it’s definitely daylight.

I must have been out for hours.

Sunlight filters through every pane; they’ve done something to the glass to amplify it. Bits of highly shined metal have been fixed to every wall, reflecting everything back to the middle. Speaker boxes near the door keep the low-level hum going to make any possible communication between Fade and hive difficult. It’s a low-tech White Room.

A whimper comes from the far side of the room. Someone hiccoughing after a crying jag.

“Anne-Marie?”

“Marina? I thought you weren’t ever going to wake up!”

“You okay?” Trey’s sitting with his sister.

“Yeah. You?”

“Peachy.”

Anne-Marie moves closer, on her hands and knees, but doesn’t get to the center of the wall before something stalls her progress. She tugs on a chain that’s cuffed to her arm before shoving Trey in my direction with an order to “go hug her.”

When I try to move, I find a metal cuff encircling my own wrist and burning like a lit torch; it’s attached to a line bolted through the glass of the window wall. It’s not long enough to really go anywhere, but I can inch closer to Trey. He seems to be the best off of the three of us. His lead’s in the middle, so he can go from side to side.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“Upstairs guest room, courtesy of Rami’s bunch,” Trey says. “They think putting us in here until sunset will tell them if we’re dangerous or not.”

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Other rooms, I guess. This one only held three.”

“How long—”

A triangular shadow appears on the floor, enticing as the hallucination of water in the desert heat. It grows long across the room as someone opens the door. Cooler air breezes through, and the vague shape of a person forms.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Michael.”

He steps forward, and the jittering thump from the speakers cuts off. In my head, Cherish slumps, as exhausted and dizzy from it as I was from being prodded by the people who knocked me out and locked me up.

“Tell me it’s true,” he says.

“You have to let us out of here,” I say instead.

“I just need to know if what the woman said is true,” Michael says.

“You mean Honoria?” Trey asks.

This could be bad. Honoria and truth aren’t categories given to much overlap. Who knows what she’s told Rami’s people since they split us up.

“Were you really a Killer?” Michael asks me.

“Marina’s never hurt anyone,” Anne-Marie answers.

“Is she lying about the cure? If that woman gives Gina the medicine, will she be like you and the other one?”

“You mean Rue?”

Cherish flies into a panic, firing questions at me, but I have my own. Did Honoria tell them Rue was a transitioning Fade? Did she dose him to demonstrate the serum? Does Michael know anything at all?

“Rami doesn’t trust her, but that other thing doesn’t look much like a Killer anymore. It doesn’t act like one, either. Something happened to it. If it was really a cure, then tell me. Rami will let that woman fix Gina.”

“Yes, I was born a Fade,” I tell him, standing up to move closer. “Yes, Honoria used that serum to make me human, but—Ahh!”

I pull too far, and a sharp pain cuts through my wrist.

“Sorry,” Michael says. “I didn’t think the sunburns would come so fast.”

When I first opened my eyes and looked at my hands, all I could see was the stark white of reflected light. I dismissed the sting as an effect of the handcuff. I can’t believe I missed the glowing pink and red splotches.

“You didn’t put that girl in a room like this, did you?” Trey asks.

“It’s the only safe place.”

“She’s too far into the change. If you’ve exposed her to extreme light and heat, the nanites will die. They’ll poison her.”

“The woman said you use light as a deterrent in your hospital.”

“In a controlled environment! With a doctor and medication!” I pull forward, but the handcuff won’t let me get closer. Michael still steps back. “You know what sunlight does to a Fade—you’re killing her!”

“Gina can last until sundown. Then she’ll be cured and your friends will be released.”

“Friends?” Anne-Marie asks.

“Michael, where’s Rue?”

I got sunburns; Rue will get worse. The veil won’t hold. His nanites will die in the light. If he loses enough, he’ll die, too.

“I’m sorry,” Michael says, backing toward the door, nervously. “Rami will keep his promise—I swear. It’s only a few hours.”

“Rue won’t last hours!”

He’s gone. The shade from the door disappears, resealing our cell into an endless cubicle of light. He was in such a hurry to get out of here, he didn’t even turn the speakers back on.

“Michael, get back here! Michael!”

The cuff’s cut into my wrist. I can feel the blood as it slides. It drips on the floor, but knowing it’s red is small comfort.

“Hey!” Anne-Marie shouts. “Do I need to have Trey smack you, or will you snap out of this on your own? You’re shredding your hand.”

“I don’t care.”

I truly don’t, not when Cherish is screaming for Rue so loud, she’s making my throat hurt. Snatches of her time in the White Room spill across the barrier between us. I can smell the charred skin and singed hair; the unmistakable odor of Fade-rot stuffs itself into my windpipe with every breath. If Rue’s in a room like this, he’s burning. And if Tobin’s in the same room, that means he’s locked in and chained beside a Fade who won’t be in his right mind.

A Fade who already can’t stand him.

I brace my feet against the glass and pull with everything I’ve got, but it’s useless. Rue’s going to die down the hall and a locked door away from me.

“We don’t even know if one day’s enough to kill him. Toby said the archives on you ran for almost a week before they took you out of the cage.”

“That was because of the serum.”

I switch tactics, slamming my feet against the window glass to kick it out, but it’s too thick, or whatever they’ve treated it with makes it unbreakable.

“Hurting yourself isn’t going to make things any better.”

Escape. Flee. Find.
Cherish says, showing me Rue’s face.

She’s settled under my skin, like insulation. Another layer of consciousness that wasn’t there before.

I’m trying!

Attempt without success is unacceptable.

I’m open to suggestions.

Seek them beyond us.

She expands, spreading her plea for help beyond the barriers of my mind. Cool water drifts into the room, ankle deep, and only experienced by me. There’s a stone in the middle, forcing the water to flow around it.

“What is it?”

Anne-Marie and Trey and I are as close as we can get in the middle of the room. They’re watching me as I listen to things they can’t hear.

“It’s my dad.”

Remove the obstacle
, he says, and my bloodied hand begins to heal. I wipe the blood away on the side of my pants to be sure, and I witness the last of the cuts knitting shut.

“Whoa,” Trey says.

“Good start. Now what?” Anne-Marie asks as though this is completely normal.

Remove the obstacle,
my father repeats.

I’ve seen born-Fade change shape. Maybe he wants me to try that. I stare at my hand, willing it to shrink.

“Is something supposed to be happening?” Anne-Marie asks.

“It’s not working,” I say, shaking my arm.

Your focus is misguided
.

The cuff won’t go over my hand.

“I can’t remove it,” I add out loud.

The water goes around what it can’t move,
Cherish chimes in.
It doesn’t fight what it can’t best.

I stare at my hand again, watching the nanites form lines at the cuff to cover my sunburnt skin. I cup my other hand over them to shade them from the light.

Stop fighting,
Cherish says.
Don’t pull back. Release. Don’t shrink. Expand. Don’t doubt. Trust. Trust me. Trust yourself.

Remove the obstacle.
My father says one last time. He calls my name—all of it, from the joyous wind that marks me as an adventurous soul, to the rebellious crash of waves against rock, for the times we’ve disagreed. And he calls me Cherish—Beloved, Adored, Embraced . . .
Missed
.

He calls me Marina.

I’m
the obstacle.
I’m
what’s standing in the way.

I stop reining Cherish in, and let go. And it’s not the unconditional surrender I feared. I’m still me.

We are Marina,
Cherish amends.
We are Cherish. We are free.

Nanites flood the cuff, picking at the locking mechanism and hinge; it falls to pieces—useless.

“You have got to show me how you did that,” Trey says as I rub my wrist and head for the door.

“Maybe later,” I say, laying my hand against the door to let the nanites—
my nanites
—deal with that lock, too. Having them run off the ends of my fingers doesn’t feel like anything at all. It’s a nerve pulse I wouldn’t even notice if I wasn’t looking for it.

“Marina! Let us out!” Anne-Marie tries to whisper and shout at the same time.

“Not yet.”

The lock clicks. I nudge the door open, slowly with my foot. Michael’s still here, across the hall, jiggling doorknobs to make sure they’re secure. Thankfully, he’s got his back to me.

A pair of women who had been in the lunchroom walk down the hall with Col. Lutrell between them. Neither of them glances at my door, but Col. Lutrell does. He locks eyes with me. A momentary startle gives way to a pointed look at a door down the hall before one of the women notices.

“Your kid’ll be fine come sunset,” she says.

They march out of sight, leaving Michael by himself.

“Tobin and Rue are two rooms down on the other side,” I say as I ease the door shut. “Michael’s alone out there.”

Anyone who would enter a locked cell without permission or backup has no business being left on watch, but inexperience and carelessness works for me.

I knock lightly on the door, then harder when there’s no response.

“You don’t really think he’ll—” Trey says, but then the knob turns. “Oh. I guess he will.”

Michael’s head pokes through, looking in cautiously.

“Hello?”

He’s not worried yet. Trey and Anne-Marie are still tethered. He can see them, and so he assumes all is well, but when he tries to shut the door, I pull back and hold it open.

“What—”

He comes farther into the room to see what’s in the way. His eyes are wide open when I swing the door and smash him in the face with it so that he stumbles back, holding his nose.

I set my feet and curl my right hand into a fist, in an imitation of Tobin’s fighting posture. When I throw my weight into the punch, Cherish throws hers, too.

Michael goes down, stunned enough that all he can do is roll side to side on the floor. I snag the keys out of his hand and toss them to Trey so he can release himself and Anne-Marie.

“I don’t like being locked up,” I tell Michael, and kick him in the side.

“Me, either,” says Anne-Marie. She gives him one to match.

We shut the door behind us, and run.