The Reaping (14 page)

“What about it? You know that’s just lies and rumors the nomads told to make us afraid. We don’t need to be afraid.”

Faint rustling, and the dark shape of Red’s arm moves from where he’s lying and onto her arm. “The serum is real, Nellie girl. That’s why we were in the hospital. That’s where they test it.” His voice is getting creakier as he continues, and I fumble a bottle of water into his other hand. He stops to take a drink. Nell waits patiently for him. “They got it to work on you.”

“That’s impossible, Red, and you know it. They took such good care of me there.”

Red sighs. “What did you think when we were in the settlement?”

“What everyone thought. That the government was out to get us.”

“Did they ever prove you wrong?”

“Well, no, but—”

“And when did you start changing your mind?”

“In the hospital, after they took good care of me.”

“When
exactly
did you start changing your mind?”

There’s a pause, and the only sound is the creak and rattle of the truck as we rumble along. I wipe the sweat off my forehead.

“I . . . I’m not sure. I can’t remember my first week in the hospital very clearly. After I got off the truck—I remember there were so many nomads on it—they put me in a room and took so many tests and drew so much blood, but they said they just wanted to make sure I didn’t have diseases.”

I remember what Dr. Benedict told me about making sure I wasn’t going to make any of the other inmates at the labor camp sick. Of course I bought into it. They can be so convincing when they need to be.

“After that, they told me I had a blood disorder they were going to treat. They brought in machine after machine and ran test after test. After another week, they finally brought in a machine with my medicine. After the first dose, I felt so much better. I could see that they were helping me. I could see—” She stops speaking. Then I hear a quaver in her voice. “It’s not true, is it?”

“No, Nellie girl. It isn’t.” Red’s voice is so low and gravelly I can hardly understand the words.

Nell’s voice breaks on a sob. “I desperately wanted it to be true. I still feel like it should be. Whenever I think about the doctors or the government or the agents, I think how misunderstood they are. How we made villains out of all of them. But when I stop and try to reason through it, then all the pieces don’t fit into place.”

“You were given a dose every twenty-four hours,” Jack says. “So you might be confused for the next few hours. I’m not sure how long it takes to completely leave your system.”

Nell’s breath slows. “I’m sorry if I make this difficult for you.”

“Aw, Nell.” Red wraps his arms around her.

“You don’t have the strength for that kind of hug, Red,” Nell says, and I can hear the laughter underlining her words. Then anger blazes into its place. “I don’t want to know what they did to you. And the entire time I just sat back and thought they were helping. They
were
helping, weren’t they? Those doctors are such nice people.”

I pat Nell’s hand. The serum can’t wear off soon enough.

We exhausted our water supply hours ago, and with the heat, I’ve sweated out every drop of moisture. The next time the truck stops, Jack scurries toward the doors. I grab his arm and hiss.

“Don’t worry. I just want to see where we are. We can’t go much longer in this heat.”

But I do worry. What if those doors just happen to be opened when he’s trying to see? I can’t see him, but then his hand is pressed against my cheek. His skin is hot and dry. He should be sweating, but he hasn’t drunk enough for that. I nod against his palm.

“I’ll be fast.”

His silhouette cuts across the line of silver moonlight that creeps through the crack between the two doors. He presses his face against that crack.

“We’re in the city. Some of the buildings are lit up. We’re not at a fuel station. Maybe we’re nearing a security checkpoint.”

“Which means they’ll search the truck.”

I whip to Red’s direction.
What?

“They’ll search the truck to make sure what the drivers tell them is on the truck is actually on the truck. I saw it enough times at the Seattle supply drops.”

“Then we need to get off.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Red says as he stretches his legs toward me. He groans.

“Oh, Red, you can’t walk like that. Why aren’t we closer to a hospital? You said they’d give him better treatment, Jack.” Then Nell pauses, and I can tell she’s trying to fit the pieces back together again. “We’re not going to a hospital, are we?”

“No, Nell, we’re not.”

She sighs. “Then we have to move. Jack can help you; can’t you, Jack?”

Jack is at her side in a flash. “Yes, but we have to hurry and we have to be quiet.” Red groans as Jack helps him up. “Terra, you help Nell.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I think I can manage now.”

“Nell—” Jack says, but Nell stops him.

“Don’t you ‘Nell’ me. I’ll tell Terra if I need help. But Red’s worse off.”

Jack and I each slip one of Red’s arms over our shoulders and we crab-step down the aisle between boxes to the doors.

“There anyone behind the truck?” Red asks.

“Not that I could see.”

“For now, anyway.” Red coughs. “Listen, Jack. I’m going to do my best, but if I’m too slow—”

“You won’t be too slow.”

“If I’m too slow, you leave me, you hear? Leave me and get my Nell safe.”

I shift uncomfortably in the stuffy silence.

“It won’t come to that, Red.”

“Safe, you understand?”

Jack waits another long second before answering. “I promise, Red.”

“Now you quit talking that way, Red,” Nell says as she comes up behind us to stand by the door. “We’re all going together.”

“Love you, Nell. Always have, sweetheart.”

“And don’t you dare go saying good-bye to me, either. Don’t you dare.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jack peers through the crack again. “Still no one. Here’s what we’re going to do. I think we’ve made it through the perimeter fence, so we’re almost to the inhabited part of the city. I’ll open the door, we get off, and it looks like there’s an abandoned building just to the right. We make for that. We find a place to hide there, and then we think through the next step.”

I nod. One step at a time.

“Ready?” Jack says.

“Yes,” Red and Nell say together.

Jack unlatches the door and catches it before it swings open. He peers outside. “No one. I’ll jump down. Then we’ll get you off of here, Red.”

He jumps from the truck and then turns to Red. I help Red sit down, and Jack and I help him slip from the truck. I turn to help Nell when the truck rumbles to life.

“Hurry!” Jack hisses.

I lower Nell down and Jack grasps her hand. Nell’s feet have just touched asphalt when the truck lurches forward. I cling to the door and watch Jack slip away from me. He waves me to him.

“Jump, Terra!”

I grip the door with both hands and focus on the ground rolling out behind me. Jack takes a step forward. “Hurry!” He doesn’t care now about people hearing us.

The truck speeds past the buildings, and they’re all dark. The windows in some are shattered. It’s eerily quiet, like a ghost town. I thought Seattle was an anomaly—that a designated city would be bursting through the seams with people. But San Diego is just like Seattle. The outlying streets are vacant and looted, and the people must just be further in.

I close my eyes, imagining all the stupid things I’ve done over the past year, and leap from the truck. I hit the ground and roll. The asphalt rips the shoulder of my shirt open, dirt sticks to my sweaty arms, and gravel digs into my skin. I gasp as rocks bite through my shirt. I roll to the side of the road and somehow manage to come to a stop in a crouch, and I watch the truck continuing on its way, the doors swinging open.

I turn back and Jack is waving his arm for me. I stumble to my feet and run for the shadowy space along the sidewalk right next to the building. The night is silent, my feet slap along the pavement, and the sound echoes against the bricks and shards of glass. Surely someone will hear me.

Hot blood trickles down my arm, and I press my opposite hand to my shoulder. The wound throbs under the pressure, but I ignore it. I’m almost to Jack.

“Are you okay?”

I nod, and incline my head to my shoulder.

“Let me see.”

I move my hand, and it comes away wet. Jack leans closer.

“I think it’s just a really good scrape. Let’s get off the street and I’ll take a closer look.”

We each take one of Red’s arms and limp into the nearest doorway. Nell hobbles after us. How in the world are we ever going to get to the water like this? We’ll be lucky if we make it to the next building in one piece.

Jack pulls aside the rusted metal sheet that hangs askew from two of its hinges. We slip through the opening into the musty smell of the building. There are remnants of carpet that has been torn from the floor, and some of the walls have holes in them. The holes expose the bones of the building, and I can see pipes running through it. There’s a steady drip, drip, drip somewhere in the building.

Water
, I tell Jack.

He nods. “We can hope, anyway. Let’s get settled and then we’ll look.”

We sink to the floor, and I’m still panting. Red’s breaths are coming out in rasps.

He okay?

Jack nods. “I think so. He just tires easily, which is understandable with how he was treated. He should be fine, though.”

Nell crawls over next to Red and puts his head in her lap. “I love you, foolish man. Don’t ever talk like you did on that truck again, you hear me? We’re in this together.”

The moonlight filtering in through the windows illuminates Red’s smile. “I promise.” Then his eyes flutter closed and his breathing deepens.

“Let him rest for a while. We need to decide where we go next.”

Water first.
We won’t get far without it, and Jack and I have been depriving ourselves for too long now.

“Alright. I’ll go. You stay with them.”

Nell strokes Red’s hair. “Nonsense. You’ll both go.” Jack opens his mouth, but Nell holds up a hand. “There’s nothing either one of you would be able to do for us if you stayed. If you go together you’ll be safer and probably find water quicker. You know I’m right, so both of you just go.” She sighs and puts her hand to her forehead.

“Nell?”

She shakes her head. “I’m fine. I’m just starting to get a headache. Maybe it’s from the serum.”

“You remember our conversation?” Jack asks.

“Of course I remember.”

Red peeks out of one eye. “Now don’t get snippy, Nell.”

Nell sighs. “I’m sorry, Jack. I just feel like I’ve been hijacked for so many months. I get so angry every time I think about it. You two just go. We’ll be fine.”

I glance at Jack, and he shrugs his shoulders. We both stand and make our way across the room.

“We’ll be back in twenty minutes. Maybe sooner.”

“Go,” Nell says, shooing us away.

Chapter Eleven

The building moans as the breeze sweeps through the holes and windows. We pick our way through crumbling walls, patchy floors, and smashed furniture. We find a stairwell and climb up a flight. Still I hear the incessant drip, but I can’t place where it’s coming from.

Place gives me the creeps
, I write to Jack when he takes my hand halfway down another shadowy hallway.

“I know. And I can’t figure out where the water’s coming from.”

We turn a corner when my feet stop dead.
Hear that?

What?
Jack writes back, seeing the serious look on my face and knowing we need to be silent.

Whispers.
I could swear that’s what I heard. Yes, there’s the moaning of the decrepit building, the drip that’s just about to drive me insane, but something else that I heard for just a moment.

Sure?

I nod.

Careful.

We come up to another corner, but the room it leads to is so shrouded in darkness, I can’t make out any shapes. I’m just about to turn back when I hear the scuff of a foot on the floor, but I have no time to react before something hits me from behind and I stagger forward.

“Hey!” Jack shouts, and he’s on the ground.

I whirl around to see our attackers, and two hands shove me so hard I fall down next to Jack. I should be scared, but I’m not. If it were government agents, this wouldn’t be a shoving match. If it were dangerous nomads, I think this would be a little more cruel. I can’t place what in the world this is. Not until a light flares up and illuminates the faces of a man and a woman not much older than we are. The man has a dirty bandage wrapped haphazardly around his head, and the woman’s hands are balled into fists. Jack rubs the back of his head and sits up.