“A key?” Alex squints, confused.
“For the lock.” I try to squeeze him but he steps away from me, shaking his head, his face suddenly stark white and terrified—and in that second I get it, we both do, and Alex opens his mouth but it seems to take forever, and at the exact moment I realize why I can suddenly see him so clearly, framed in light, frozen like a deer caught in the beams of a truck (the regulators are using floodlights tonight), a voice booms out through the night: “Freeze! Both of you! Hands on your head!” At the same time Alex’s voice finally reaches me, urgent—“Go, Lena, go!” He’s already backpedaling through the darkness, but it takes my feet longer to move and by the time I do, running blindly and without aim down the first street I see, the night has come alive with mobile shadows—grabbing at me, shouting, tearing at my hair—hundreds of them, it seems, pouring down the hill, materializing out of the ground, from trees, from air.
“Get her! Get her!”
My heart is bursting in my chest and I can’t breathe; I’ve never been so scared; I’ll die from fright. More and more shadows turn to people: all of them grabbing, screaming; holding glittering metal weapons, guns and clubs, cans of Mace. I duck and spin past rough hands, make a break for the hill that cuts over to Brandon Road, but it’s no use. A regulator grabs me roughly from behind. I barely shake off his grasp before I’m pinballing off someone wearing a guard’s uniform, feeling another pair of hands snatching at me. The fear is a shadow now, a blanket: smothering me, making it impossible to breathe.
A patrol car springs to life beside me, and the revolving lights illuminate everything starkly but only for a second, and the world around me pulses black, white, black, white, moving forward in bursts, in slow motion.
A face contorted into a terrible scream; a dog leaping from the left, teeth bared; someone shouting, “Take her down! Take her down!”
Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.
A high whistling sound, a scream; a club frozen momentarily in the air.
A club falling; a dog jumping, snarling; searing pain, straight through me, like heat.
Then blackness.
When I open my eyes the world seems to have broken apart into a thousand pieces. All I see are tiny shards of light, fuzzy and swirling like they’ve been shaken up by a kaleidoscope. I blink several times, and slowly the shards resolve and rearrange themselves into a bell-shaped light and a cream-colored ceiling, marred by a large water stain in the shape of an owl. My room. Home. I’m home.
For a second I feel relieved: My body is prickling, like I’ve been stuck with needles all over my skin, and all I want to do is lie back against the softness of my pillows and sink into the darkness and oblivion of sleep, wait for the sharp pain in my head to dissipate. Then I remember: the lock, the attack, the swarming shadows. And Alex.
I don’t know what happened to Alex.
I flail, trying to sit up, but agonizing pain shoots from my head down to my neck and forces me back against the pillows, gasping. I close my eyes and hear the door to my room scrape open: Voices swell suddenly from downstairs. My aunt is talking to someone in the kitchen, a man whose voice I don’t recognize. A regulator, probably.
Footsteps cross the room. I keep my eyes squeezed tight, pretending to sleep, as someone leans across me. I feel a warm breath tickle the side of my neck.
Then more footsteps coming up the stairs, and Jenny’s voice, a hiss, at the door: “What are you doing here? Aunt Carol told you to stay away. Now get downstairs before I tell.”
The weight eases off the bed, and light footsteps patter away, back into the hall. I crack my eyes open, the barest squint, just enough to make out Grace as she ducks around Jenny, who is standing in the doorway. She must have been checking on me. I squeeze my eyes shut again as Jenny takes several tentative steps toward the bed.
Then she pivots abruptly, as though she can’t leave the room fast enough. I hear her call out, “Still asleep!” The door scrapes closed again. But not before I hear, from the kitchen, very clearly: “Who was it? Who infected her?”
This time, I force myself to sit, despite the pain knifing through my head and neck and the terrible sensation of swinging that accompanies every movement I make. I try to stand but find my legs won’t hold me. Instead I sink to the ground and crawl over to the door. Even on my hands and knees the effort is exhausting, and I lie down on the ground, shaking, as the room continues to rock back and forth like some diabolical seesaw.
Fortunately, keeping my head to the ground makes it easier to hear downstairs, and I catch my aunt saying, “You must have at least seen him.” I’ve never heard her sound so hysterical.