“There’s a gate in the path,” Elias says, pointing.
If possible my face burns even hotter. I feel stupid that my first thought jumped to Elias. I twist my fingers tighter in the straps of my pack and step toward the gate, hoping to hide my expression from everyone else. Why should I even feel guilty that Elias helped me stand up? Why should I think that Catcher would mind?
I clear my throat, pretending to examine the gate that spans the width of the path. An object gleams under the handle and I brush at it with my fingers. “I think there’s something here,” I say. The others have been passing around water and they pause as I squat to get a better look.
There’s a small bar attached to the fence and etched onto it are the letters IV. “I think it’s like the numbers my mother taught me when I was younger,” I say, glancing back at them. “It says IV, which means four.”
“Does the path keep going past it?” Cira asks.
I squint through the links into the distance. “Seems to.” I wrinkle my forehead, studying the letters. Something tugs at me, pulls at the edge of my mind. But trying to catch it is like trying to capture snow and I’m left with nothing solid.
“Our options are to go forward or turn back,” Catcher says. “So long as the path’s clear I say we take it.”
They walk through the gate and I’m left squatting on the ground, still trying to figure out what feels so familiar. If I came through the Forest with my mother I must have passed through this gate. I’m startled when Elias reaches down for me again and this time I ignore his hand and stand up on my own.
The contents of my pack shift a bit and I press my hands into the small of my back to ease the ache.
Elias tilts his head. “Everything okay?” he asks, and the expression on his face seems to show genuine concern.
I turn and follow the others down the path. “Fine,” I tell him as I keep walking away and he closes the gate behind us.
Our day is cut short when Cira can’t walk any more, her legs trembling and face pale with sweat. Catcher helps her to the ground and Elias lights a small fire and we spend the early dusk swatting at mosquitoes and saying little. None of us knows what to talk about.
It feels as if we’re strangers, too terrified to discuss our current situation yet also too scared to talk about anything else. Finally the moan of the Mudo and the buzz of the cicadas become too much for me to handle and my legs begin to tighten with the need to move. I’m not used to being constantly surrounded by people, my every gesture and sound and movement scrutinized.
“I’m going to walk a bit, see what’s ahead,” I tell them, and then I pull out my knife and start up the path before anyone responds. I’m not too far away when I hear a familiar footstep crunching through the dry grass and Catcher calls out my name. I stop and wait for him to catch up.
“It’s stupid for you to be walking alone, Gabry,” he says. My shoulders tense. I want to tell him that that was my point, that I want some time away from everyone to think. To figure out what’s going on. But I don’t say any of that because it’s been so long since we’ve talked, since I’ve been near him, and it feels good to have it be just the two of us in the dusk.
I reach out and take his fingers in mine. “How are you doing?” I ask him.
He looks at the ground, at our hands, at the fence—everywhere but into my eyes. He shrugs, a wash of emotions blurring over his face. “I don’t know,” he finally says.
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.”