Abruptly, Raven stops speaking. She reaches down and readjusts Blue’s sleeping bag. The light from the fire is a low, red glow, and I can see that Blue is pale. Her forehead is beaded with sweat, and her breath comes slowly, raspingly. I am filled with a blind fury, undirected and overwhelming.
Raven isn’t finished with her story. “I didn’t even go home. I just took her and ran. I knew I couldn’t keep her in Yarmouth. You can’t keep secrets like that for long. It was hard enough to cover up the bruises. And I knew she must be illegal—some unmatched girl, some unmatched guy. A deliria baby. You know what they say. Deliria babies are contaminated. They grow up twisted, crippled, crazy. She would probably be taken and killed. She wouldn’t even be buried. They’d be worried about the spread of disease. She’d be burned, and packed up with the waste.” Raven takes another twig and throws it in the fire. It flares momentarily, a hot white tongue of flame. “I’d heard rumors about a portion in the fence that was unfortified. We used to tell stories about the Invalids coming in and out, feasting on people’s brains. Just the kind of shit you talk as a kid. I’m not sure whether I still believed it or not. But I took my chance on the fence. It took me forever to figure out a way over with Blue. In the end I had to use the blanket as a sling. And the rain was a good thing. The guards and the regulators were staying inside. I made it over without any trouble. I didn’t know where I was going or what I would do once I crossed. I didn’t say good-bye to either of my parents. I didn’t do anything but run.” She looks at me sideways. “But I guess that was enough. And I guess you know about that too.”
“Yeah,” I croak out. There’s a shredding pain in my throat. I could cry at any second. Instead, I dig my nails, as hard as I can, into my thighs, trying to break the skin beneath the fabric of my jeans.
Blue murmurs something indecipherable and tosses in her sleep. The rasping in her throat has gotten worse. Every breath brings a horrible grating noise, and the watery echoes of fluid. Raven bends forward and brushes the sweat-damp strands of hair from Blue’s forehead. “She’s burning up,” Raven says.
“I’ll get some water.” I’m desperate to do something, anything, to help.
“It won’t make any difference,” Raven says quietly.
But I need to move, so I go anyway. I pick my way through the frosty dark toward the stream, which is covered with a layer of thin ice, all webbed with fissures and cracks. The moon is high and full and reflects the silver surface and the dark flowing water underneath. I break through the ice with the bottom of a tin pail, gasping when the water flows over my fingers and into the bucket.
Raven and I don’t sleep that night. We take turns with a towel, icing Blue’s forehead, until her breathing slows and the rasping eases. Eventually she stops fidgeting and lies quiet and docile under our hands. We take turns with the towel until dawn breaks in the sky, a blush rose, liquid and pale, even though by that time, Blue has not taken a breath for hours.
now
Julian and I move through stifling darkness. We go slowly, painstakingly, even though both of us are desperate to run. But we can’t risk the noise or a flashlight. Even though we’re moving through what must be a vast network of tunnels, I feel just like a rat in a box. I’m not very steady on my feet. The darkness is full of whirling, swirling shapes, and I have to keep my left hand on the slick tunnel wall, which is coated with moisture and skittering insects.
And rats. Rats chittering from corners; rats scampering across the tracks, nails going tick, tick, tick against the stone.
I don’t know how long we walk. Impossible to tell, with no change in sound or texture, no way of knowing whether we are moving east or west or going around endlessly in circles. Sometimes we move alongside old railway tracks. These must have been the tunnels for the underground trains. Despite my exhaustion and nerves, I can’t help but feel amazed at the idea of all these twisting, labyrinthine spaces filled with barreling machines, and people thundering along freely in the dark.
Other times the tunnels are flowing with water—sometimes a bare trickle, sometimes a few feet of foul-smelling, litter-cluttered liquid, probably backed up from one of the sewer systems. That means we can’t be too far from a city.
I’m stumbling more and more. It has been days since I’ve eaten anything substantial, and my neck throbs painfully, where the Scavenger broke the skin with his knife. Increasingly, Julian has to reach out and steady me. Finally he keeps a hand on my back, piloting me forward. I’m grateful for the contact. It makes the agony of walking, and silence, and straining for the sound of Scavengers through the echoes and the drips, more bearable.
We go for hours without stopping. Eventually the darkness turns milky. Then I see a bit of light, a long silver stream filtering down from above. There are grates in the ceiling, five of them. Above us, for the first time in days, I see sky: a patchy nighttime sky of clouds and stars. Unconsciously, I cry out. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.