The Dead-Tossed Waves (29 page)

It’s not the answer I’m expecting. I want him to confide in me; I want to feel as close to him now as I did the moment we kissed. I know that everything else has changed since then but he’s alive, he’s survived being bitten. His immunity shouldn’t change anything between us and yet somehow I feel it has. I wish I could find some way to make him talk to me but instead I just hold his hand tighter.

“Did you tell Cira about everything?” I ask him. “The immunity?”

He nods. “I’m not sure she really understands it. But she was so happy she cried.” He smiles a little at this and I’m
reminded how much I love to see him smile. How much we used to tease each other. I try to smile back but it’s strained and feels wrong. He stares at our hands, at the way our fingers are interlaced. “I’m not sure I really understand it either,” he says softly.

“What’s it like?” I ask him, hoping to understand what he’s feeling.

He breathes deep against me, his chest almost brushing my arm. “Physically, it’s like …” He pauses. “It’s like fire. It’s like being in a room with no windows and no door and the heat just builds and builds and builds until you can’t breathe.”

“Does it hurt?”

He’s silent. And then he says, “I think the worst part is not understanding. Not knowing if I’ll suddenly turn. What would happen if I died …” He trails off and the silence stretches between us again.

I’m afraid of breaking the quiet but I have to know. “It’ll be okay, won’t it?” I ask, tilting my head up to his, trying to recapture that closeness we had before it all changed. That hope and future. He pulls his fingers from mine and starts to walk down the path. The evening air pools around me where his body had been and I feel desperate and alone.

I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong and I chase after him but the path is too narrow for us to walk side by side. He crushes through the tall grass, his hands swiping out in front of him.

“Catcher, wait!” I call.

He stops in front of me and I see his shoulders rising and falling rapidly as if he’s trying to catch his breath. He doesn’t turn around and I go and place my hands on his back, tracing his spine. “Don’t do that, Gabrielle,” he says, glancing over his
shoulder for just a moment, his eyes bright, before he turns and stomps on.

“Don’t do what?” I ask him, not understanding what he’s talking about.

He turns abruptly and my hands press against his chest. He grabs my wrists and holds them away from his body. “Don’t remind me of how everything’s different. Of us.”

My eyes go wide, my jaw dropping, but I don’t know what to say. He’s so severe and angry and I have no idea what’s going on.

He shakes me slightly. He opens his mouth but it’s as though he can’t find the words. And then before I know it he lowers his head to mine but stops just as his lips are hovering over my own. His skin is almost painfully hot, the heat scorching up my arms.

I have a hard time catching my breath. I ache to twitch my head forward, to press my mouth over his. I lean forward just barely and he backs away, keeping the distance between us.

“I want this—you—so badly,” he says, his teeth clenched. “I want to forget everything. To just pretend that nothing’s changed and you can be mine and I can dream about us together one day.”

His fingers are tight around my wrists, squeezing me. My chest feels bound as all the air is pushed from my body. He’s saying all the words I’ve always wanted to hear from him—that we could be together—but somehow it’s all wrong now and the pain of it is almost physical.

“I
can
be yours,” I tell him. “I
am
yours.”

His grip on me tightens and he closes his eyes, his breath shuddering as he brushes his mouth across my cheek and then along my jaw and across my forehead. His heat marks me and I’m shaking because I want so much more of him.

I try to reach for him, to pull him closer but he pushes me away. He stands there staring at me, both of us gulping air. A line of sweat weaves down my back. I wait for him to say something—anything to explain what’s going on. But he’s totally silent.

“Catcher,” I say, moving closer. My voice is a whisper, a plea, a question. He just holds up a hand to keep me away. And then he turns back and runs down the path to the others. I don’t even bother to chase him. I’m too stunned to even move. I can only bend over at the waist and grasp my knees with my hands, trying to breathe. Trying to figure out what just happened and what I’ve done wrong.

I feel bruised and sore and dazed. The Mudo are still moaning, only now it’s impossible to see them clearly in the darkness. It sounds as if they’re all around me, as if I’m trapped by them. I hear snaps and rustles from the Forest, each sound scraping across my nerves.

I start down the path to the safety of the others and by the time I make it back I’m almost sprinting, positive that the fences have been breached, that the Mudo are chasing me. I burst into the small clearing where Elias and Cira sit next to a fire. He jumps to his feet, catching me in his arms.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. He looks past me up the path, reaching for his knife.

My words are choked with panic. “Mudo,” I gasp. “The moans …”

Elias pushes me behind him and takes a few steps down the path. Cira reaches for me.

“Did they breach?” Elias asks. He looks ready to fight.

“I—I don’t know,” I stammer. “They seemed so close. Like they were right there on the path.”

He waits a while longer, the moans wafting over and
around us. Finally my heartbeat calms, my mind clears. No bodies stumble into our little band of light.

“I think I just let it get to me,” I finally say, embarrassed at having panicked. “It was just dark and …”

Cira holds my hand in hers. “It’s okay,” she says softly. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

I turn to her, not realizing until now how much I needed to hear that. She pulls me into a hug and I want to sag against her but I’m careful, knowing that she’s still weak from dehydration and blood loss. I should be the one holding her, not the other way around. But right now I just need someone to reassure me.

“Where’s Catcher?” I ask her, wondering if I’ve driven him away completely.

She studies my face. Did Catcher tell her about me? Did he tell her about our almost-kiss? About him running away when I tried to press against him? Does
she
understand at all what’s going on with him?

“He said he wanted to retrace our steps, make sure no one followed us into the Forest,” she says, yawning.

I narrow my eyes and glance at Elias, who shrugs. I didn’t even think about that possibility—the chance that the Militia or Recruiters might be after us. It seems like it would be such a stupid risk—one that none of us is worth. I lie down beside Cira, wondering with each twig cracking if it’s the Mudo coming after us or if it’s some other threat we don’t know about yet.

“They’ve followed us,” Catcher says abruptly the next morning. We’ve been passing what little food we have around and trying to ignore the shuffling of the Mudo along the fence on
either side of us. I stop mid-bite at Catcher’s words and wait for his eyes to flicker toward me, to see something that shows me how he feels about what happened between us last night. But he’s been avoiding my gaze ever since he got back.

“What?” I ask. Cira and Elias echo the same question.

“I cut through the Forest last night—these paths curve a lot,” Catcher says. Cira stiffens as her brother talks about roaming through the Forest with the Mudo but she doesn’t say anything. “I made it almost all the way back to the river and to Vista.” He glances at Elias and then down at the strap of the canteen that he twists in his fingers. “They’re making the Soulers extend the fences on the path to the bridge over the waterfall so that they can follow us without risking running through the Forest.”

Elias blanches and then clenches his hands into fists, the muscles tight along his jaw.

“What are you talking about, Catcher?” Cira asks, and I nod my head, still not understanding what’s going on.

“I don’t know who it is—whether it’s the Militia or the Recruiters or both. But they’re preparing to enter the Forest. To come after us on the path.”

Suddenly everything I’d eaten that morning feels sour in my stomach.

“Why would they come after us?” Cira asks. “They can’t care about me that much. I know I was supposed to join the Recruiters but why would they risk it?”

I push myself to my feet and take a few steps away from them. In my mind I see Daniel. I see the stain of red on his shirt. I see the way he looked at me. They’re after me, not Cira. They’re not going to let me get away with what I did. It’s all catching up to me except this time I’ve put my friends in danger too.

The realization dazes me and I start chewing on my thumbnail, turning everything over in my head. Everyone else talking falls to a buzz that fades into the background with the moans. “I’ll turn myself in.” I don’t even realize that I’ve spoken, don’t even remember forming the thought.

Catcher and Elias and Cira stare up at me, all of them surprised. “It’s me they’re after. For what I did to Daniel. I’ll go back down the path. You keep going. You’ll be safe.” I say the words in a monotone but it feels good to own up to what I’ve done. As if retribution for my running away that night at the amusement park has finally come full circle.

“I don’t understand. What does Daniel have to do with this?” Cira asks, her eyebrows drawn tight.

I turn to her but I can’t make myself say it. Catcher reaches out and takes her hand, shaking his head as if telling her not to ask. She presses her lips tight.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Catcher says.

“No,” I tell him. My heart is light, fluttery, like a hummingbird beating in my throat. “I killed him. I have to own up to it.”

C
ira gasps, raising a hand to her mouth. Her eyes are wide and I look away from her.

“I’ve made up my mind,” I tell them. And I have. I’m terrified but this feels right.

Elias stares down the path, tapping his fingers against his hip. “Did you see them? See the Soulers?” he asks. His forehead is furrowed, as if he’s lost in thought.

Catcher nods.

“Who else was there? Were there Recruiters?”

I look back and forth between the two, trying to understand what point Elias is trying to make.

Catcher nods again. “Yeah, I think they were the ones shouting to the Soulers how to put the fences up.”

Elias presses his lips together and then runs a hand over his head, rubbing the hair growing in. “It doesn’t make sense,” he tells Catcher. “The Recruiters wouldn’t care about Daniel. Wouldn’t get involved in what they thought was Vista’s business to handle.” He laces his hands together and pulls on
the back of his neck, his shoulders tensing. “And you’re sure you saw the Recruiters involved?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Catcher says, but his voice is hesitant. “I can go back and check, though. Tonight.”

Cira grabs his hand. “It’s too dangerous,” she murmurs to him.

“Gabry can’t go back there,” he says to her under his breath. “They’ll kill her.”

Hearing it put so starkly hits me like the crush of a wave. “Why else would they be after us?” I ask them. My voice barely carries any volume.

“Did anyone see you?” Elias asks Catcher, cutting into our conversation. “When you took the Mudo to the town did anyone see you with them?”

Catcher’s eyes open wide. “I …” He hesitates, thinking. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He looks up at the sky as if trying to relive that stretch of time. Everything around us seems to go quiet, the birds ceasing their morning chirps, even the moans receding just a little, as if all the Mudo waver at once. And then Catcher’s face goes pale and he drops his gaze back down to face us.

“There was someone,” he says. “When I got over the Barrier. I didn’t think about it because they ran when they saw the Mudo.”

“But you think they saw you with the Mudo?” Elias asks.

Catcher nods slowly. Cira and I stare at each other, both of us clearly lost about what’s going on.

Elias presses two fingers against the space between his closed eyes. “They’re not after Gabry,” he says. “They’re after Catcher. If they saw him with the Mudo they’ve figured out he’s immune.”