I wake up to motion and noise. Julian is gone.
The sun is high, the sky cloudless, and the day still. I kick off the blankets and sit up, blinking hard. My mouth tastes like dust.
Raven is kneeling nearby, feeding twigs, one at a time, to one of the campfires. She glances up at me. “Welcome to the land of the living. Sleep well?”
“What time is it?” I ask.
“After noon.” She straightens up. “We’re about to head down to the river.”
“I’ll come with you.” Water: That’s what I need. I need to wash and drink. My whole body feels like it’s coated in grime.
“Come on, then,” she says.
Pippa is sitting at the edge of her camp, talking with an unfamiliar woman.
“From the resistance,” Raven explains when she sees me looking, and my heart does a funny stutter in my chest. My mother is with the resistance. It’s possible the stranger knows her. “She’s a week late. She was coming from New Haven with supplies but got waylaid by patrols.”
I swallow. I’m afraid to ask the stranger for news. I’m terrified I’ll once again be disappointed.
“Do you think Pippa’s going to leave Waterbury?” I ask.
Raven shrugs. “We’ll see.”
“Where will we go?” I ask her.
She shoots me a small smile, reaches out and touches my elbow. “Hey. Don’t worry so much, okay? That’s my job.”
I feel a rush of affection for her. Things between us have not been the same since I found out that she and Tack used me—and Julian—for the movement. But I would be lost without her. We all would be.
Tack, Hunter, Bram, and Julian are standing together, holding makeshift buckets and containers of various sizes. They have obviously been waiting for Raven. I don’t know where Coral and Alex are. I don’t see Lu, either.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Hunter says. He has obviously slept well. He looks a hundred times better than he did yesterday, and he isn’t coughing anymore.
“Let’s get this party started,” Raven says.
We leave the relative safety of Pippa’s camp and push into the jostle of people, through the maze of patched-together shelters and makeshift tents. I try not to breathe too deeply. It stinks of unwashed bodies and—even worse—of bathroom smells. The air is thick with flies and gnats. I can’t wait to wade into the water, to wash away the smells and the dirt. In the distance, I can just make out the dark thread of the river, winding along the south side of the camp. Not too much farther now.
The press of tents and shelters eventually peters out. Ribbons of old pavement, now cracked and fragmented, crisscross the landscape. Vast squares of concrete mark the foundation of old houses.
As we approach the river, we see a crowd has gathered along its banks. People are shouting, pushing and shoving their way to the water.
“Now what’s the problem?” Tack mutters.
Julian hitches the buckets higher on his shoulder and frowns, although he stays silent.
“There’s no problem,” Raven says. “Everyone’s just excited about a shower.” But her voice is strained.
We force our way into the thick tangle of bodies. The smell is overwhelming. I gag, but there’s no space to move, no way to bring a hand over my mouth. Not for the first time, I’m grateful to be only five foot two; at least it allows me to squeeze through the smallest openings between people, and I fight my way to the front of the crowd first, breaking out onto the steep, stony banks of the river, while the mass of people continues to swell behind me, fighting toward the river.
Something is wrong. The water is extremely low—no more than a trickle, a foot or so wide and hardly that deep, and churned mostly to mud. As the river winds back toward the city, it is filled with a moving jigsaw puzzle of people, swelling into the riverbank, desperate to fill their containers. From a distance, they look like insects.
“What the hell?” Raven finally pushes her way onto the bank and stands next to me, stunned.
“The water’s running out,” I say. Facing this sluggish stream of mud, I begin to panic. Suddenly I am thirstier than I have ever been in my life.
“Impossible,” Raven says. “Pippa said the river was flowing fine just yesterday.”
“Better take what we can,” Tack says. He, Hunter, and Bram have finally fought their way through the crowd. Julian follows a moment afterward. His face is red with sweat. His hair is plastered to his forehead. For a moment, my heart aches for him. I should never have asked him to join me here; I should never have asked him to cross.