On the stage below, Catcher stands facing the tethered Mudo, staring at them. They don’t even notice his existence, don’t reach for him and it makes me feel cold. It looks so wrong to see him so close to them.
Elias shifts and comes to stand next to me. His hands are by his sides and I know that I’d just have to twitch my fingers to touch him, to feel his comfort.
“Why didn’t they tell us about the immunity?” I ask him weakly.
He sighs and raises a shoulder. “It’s rare, Gabry. Really rare. I guess they didn’t want people getting their hopes up, letting people turn just to see and causing the infection to rage again. Most people don’t know about it.”
What he says makes sense but I don’t care. I cross my arms over my chest, to avoid the temptation of touching him as much as to hold myself in. “How do you know it’s immunity? That he won’t turn in a few days? That it’s not just taking longer?” I hold my breath waiting for his answer, hoping that I’m wrong.
“Only the Immunes can do that,” he says, nodding toward Catcher. “I learned about it when I was in the Recruiters. Immunes are the only ones the Unconsecrated don’t sense.”
My stomach twinges at the word Unconsecrated. Thinking of my mother. Remembering that she’s gone. I shake the thought out of my head.
“It’s how I knew it about him,” Elias continues. “When the storm came in I thought you might not make it back. I went and brought Catcher here to the camp, figuring he’d need food and water while he waited …” He swallows, not wanting to finish the statement, and I look at him, examining his profile. A soft sheen of dark fuzz has begun to grow on his head and his skin is tan from so many days outside in the sun.
I have to ask him the question that’s been hammering in my mind. I take a deep breath, pushing my nails into the soft flesh of my arm to force the courage. “Would you have … I mean, if he’d turned, would you have done that to him? Made him into one of those?”
We’re both looking at the Souler Mudo, at their disfigured faces. The moans swirl around us like a breeze.
Elias scowls, his shoulders tense. “No,” he says simply. But I still don’t know if I can trust him.
“Why do you worship them?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath, blowing it out through pursed lips as he turns toward me. I notice again how his eyes are almost colorless, the sharpness of his cheekbones. “I don’t worship them,” he says.
I don’t understand. “But you’re a Souler,” I tell him, as if it’s obvious.
He studies my face and I want to look away from him but I force myself to keep his gaze. I squirm a little under his scrutiny. “I’m not a Souler, Gabry,” he says. “That’s what I was trying to tell you on the beach. I’m not one of them.”
My eyes widen and I shake my head, feeling as though he’s playing some sort of trick on me. “But you’re here with them. You were there the other night. You watched them sacrifice that boy. And you’re dressed like them and look like them.” I could keep going but he holds up a hand for me to stop and I fall into silence.
He presses his fingers to his forehead, pushing at the skin as if trying to gather the words he needs. I bristle, waiting to hear what he has to say.
“I told you I was looking for someone,” he says, and I nod. “It’s my sister. I’m looking for my sister.” He swallows. “I lost her.” I can hear the desperation in his voice and it makes me feel physically weak. I want to close my hand around his but a part of me is still suspicious of him.
“She was all I had left and I promised I’d take care of her and she’s gone. We’d been living in the Dark City but neither of us were citizens. I was only allowed in to trade and sometimes even then I could barely make the rents. I joined the Recruiters so that I’d get citizenship—so that I’d be allowed as a permanent resident of the Protected Zones and I could take her with me without having to pay anymore. But when I came home after serving she wasn’t there.” He pauses, wiping a hand over his face.
“I couldn’t find her anywhere and I thought maybe she’d been forced to leave. I had to find her.” His words come out in a rush, his voice cracked. “A single man can’t travel through the Protectorate. The roads are too dangerous, with Unconsecrated and bandits. Half the towns and cities won’t even let you in the gates if you’re alone.”
He leans toward me, speaking fast now, his breath weaving hot around us. “The Soulers are recognized by the Protectorate. They’re nomads—they can go anywhere and be granted access. Joining them was the only way for me to search for her.”
It’s so much to take in at once that I feel stunned, having to retrace everything we’ve ever said to each other. To rethink every thought about him in the softer light of this new information.
His eyes are so earnest, so full of pain, that I want to believe him. I can see in his gaze that he needs me to believe him. “But you were there when they let that boy die. How could you even watch that? How could you be a part of it? How can you stand to be around them?”
He opens his mouth and then shuts it again, pressing his lips together into a thin line. “They’re not monsters, Gabry. Everything in this world isn’t black-and-white. They have their reasons for what they do, for what they believe, the same way we do.” He shrugs. “My sister means everything to me. I’ll do anything it takes to find her.”
I shake my head, not wanting to hear more. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “I don’t know what to think.” My heart aches for him and his loss but I can’t reconcile it all in my head, can’t make sense of it.
I walk away from him, out of the shadow of the arch and down the bowl of the amphitheater toward Catcher. He still stands staring at the Mudo. I don’t get too close, a dread of their moans too deeply ingrained in me.
He turns to face me and I realize how terrifying it is, seeing him there so close to those monsters.
“I want to go back, Gabry,” he says. “I want it all to be normal again.”
Behind him the Mudo sense me, their arms reaching past Catcher for me. My breath catches as I try to swallow the unease. I close my eyes against them, against him. More than anything in the world I wish I could give this to him: normalcy. But too much has changed. Because of me we can’t go back.
“I can’t go back to Vista,” I tell him. “I’ve done something. I’m in trouble. And you can’t either. They know you were there that night. You’ll get sent away with the others.”
“I’m not leaving Cira,” he says. His voice thrums around me and then I feel his hands grabbing mine. I open my eyes. His face is so close that I can’t help but flash back to the night we first kissed. “And I’m not leaving you either,” he adds, his voice softer.
I exhale slowly, relief mixing with fear and guilt.“We’ll go get Cira and we’ll run away,” he says urgently. “The three of us, we’ll go somewhere to disappear.”
“They’ll follow you,” Elias says and I jerk my head around. He’s walking past us toward the back of the stage where bags are stacked in the corner. “If you take something or someone from the Recruiters they’ll do anything to get it back. And you,” he says, pointing at Catcher. “If they find out you’re immune they’ll never let you go. You’re too valuable to them.”
My mind races, trying to think up options, and then I almost jump when it comes to me. “My mother’s boat,” I say, the chance of joy beginning to tingle through me. “Elias took it. Do you still have it?” I ask him. When he nods I continue. “We could take her boat. We can try and find somewhere else. We haven’t heard reports of pirates in years. We could make it and the Recruiters couldn’t follow us.”
“But what about your mother?” Catcher asks. “Will she let you go?”
I glance away from him, bring my fingers to my mouth and bite at the nail on my thumb. I want to tell him that she’s already let me go but the words won’t come. “She’ll be okay,” I finally say.
Elias raises his eyebrows at me as if he expects me to say more but I don’t.
“Now we just have to figure out how to get Cira,” Catcher says.
Elias still looks at me, making me feel uncomfortable. “That’s the easy part,” he says.
Chapter 23
My hands shake as Elias and I pull the boat up the beach toward the lighthouse. We left Catcher back in the ruins—at dusk he’ll bring the Souler Mudo to the Barrier and push them over. They’ll spread through Vista, their moans signaling a breach—enough of a distraction that Elias and I will be able to break into the Council House and rescue Cira.
It’s just turning high tide but the beach is still clear. Elias sits in the shade of the lighthouse, watching to make sure no Mudo are washed ashore, and I head inside. I stand in the emptiness and quiet for a while, remembering the stories my mother used to tell me when I was growing up.
I can’t stop imagining her coming back here and wondering where I’ve gone. I think about leaving her a note so that she won’t worry but dismiss the thought—what if someone else found it? I climb the steps to her room, the book of Shakespeare’s sonnets still lying open on her bed. I flip through it before shoving it into a small pack along with an extra shirt and skirt. I dig around in the closet until I find some of Roger’s old clothes, which smell musty and feel well worn.
On my way out the door I grab another bag for Elias and toss in food and a few canteens. As I pack the boat with extra supplies Elias changes. He looks different now that he no longer wears the white tunic. He looks almost normal.
I realize that I’m staring at him and I go back to sifting sand through my fingers. He joins me and we sit side by side, waiting for the sun to sink into the water and for Vista to erupt with the breach. My heart thuds with anticipation as my mind races. I think of all the ways this can go wrong; it seems impossible that our plan will work.
But what other choice do we have? Except that there’s one variable that doesn’t make sense to me.
“Why are you still here?” I ask Elias, digging my toes into the cooler layers of sand.
Out of the corner of my eye I watch a muscle along his jaw twitch.
“I said I’d help and I am,” he says, not looking over at me. He pushes himself to his feet and walks closer to the water. The horizon is a mix of orange and red and purple. “Besides, the other Soulers are still in your quarantine. So long as they’re being held I’m not finding my sister.”
I look at his back, Roger’s old shirt a little big on Elias’s frame. “What’s her name?” I ask, wanting to understand him.
He’s quiet for a while and I stand, brushing the sand from my knees and walk toward him. There’s something that seems so strong, so safe and familiar except that I don’t know anything about him.
Together we stare at where the sun is about to collide with the earth. I hold my breath, whether waiting for him to answer me or for the fire to spread on the horizon, I don’t know.
“Annah,” he says softly. “Her name is Annah.” He looks at me and I look at him and I realize that I’m still holding my breath.
“What’s she like?” I ask him. His face twists just a little but he never stops looking at me.
“She’s strong,” he says. “Beautiful and sweet.” I see the memories swimming behind his eyes. It feels as though I’m intruding too far in his life and I’ve already turned away when he says, so softly, “She’s a lot like you.”
I stop. I look over my shoulder at him, wondering if I heard him right. Wishing that I could believe him.
“That’s not what I’m like at all,” I tell him, the words painful to admit. “I’d love more than anything to be strong. But I know I’m not. I’m weak and afraid and useless.” I swallow and he steps closer to me. I think about what Daniel looked like after I’d stabbed him. I think about the Souler woman who was killed at the gate to Vista. I think about Catcher the night he was infected.
I’m the cause of all of it. I’m the one who’s a monster. “Everything I do, I just mess things up.”
“You crossed the Barrier on your own to help Catcher,” he says, and I shake my head.
“I had to do that. The other ones who were caught that night were going to turn me in otherwise,” I say, needing him to stop believing that I’m something I’m not.
“You went back for him,” he says. “Why won’t you believe the best of yourself?”
“Because that’s not who I am,” I tell him adamantly. My heart trips for a moment as I wonder if I could ever believe him. If I could see myself through his eyes. If someone other than Catcher could make me feel worth something. But instead I shake my head.
“Then tell me who you are.” He eases closer. I can feel the edges of him in the space between us.
I can’t think with him so close. With his words encircling us, pulling us tighter together. I think about opening my mouth and pouring everything out—how scared I am, how terrifying it is to have lost my mother and wonder if she’s still okay. To have had everything in my life shift so fast that I still reel from it every morning and every night.
And how I’m worried that I’ll never really know who I am and what I want. That I’ll always be the girl messing everything up. The awkward one on the fringes wanting something more but too afraid to do anything about it.