“The grates,” I say. “Can we—?”
Julian moves ahead of me, and at last we risk the flashlight. He angles the beam upward, then shakes his head.
“Bolted tight from outside,” he says. He strains onto his tiptoes and gives a little push. “No way to budge them.”
Disappointment burns in the back of my throat. We’re so close to freedom. I can smell it—wind and space, and something else, too. Rain. It must have rained recently. The smell brings tears to my eyes. We’ve ended up on a raised platform. Below us, the tracks are pooled with water and a covering of leaves driven down from above. On our left is an alcove, half-excavated and filled with wooden crates; a flyer, remarkably well preserved, is posted on the wall. CAUTION, it reads. CONSTRUCTION ZONE. HARD HAT AREA.
I can’t stand up anymore. I break from Julian’s grasp, thudding heavily to my knees.
“Hey.” He kneels next to me. “Are you okay?”
“Tired,” I gasp out. I curl up on the ground, resting my head on my arm. It’s getting harder to keep my eyes open. When I do, I see the stars above me blur into a single enormous point of light, and then fracture again.
“Go to sleep,” Julian says. He sets my backpack down and sits next to me.
“What if the Scavengers come?” I say.
“I’ll stay awake,” Julian says. “I’ll listen for them.” After a minute, he lies down on his back. There’s a wind sweeping down from the grates, and I shiver involuntarily.
“Are you cold?” Julian asks.
“A little,” I say. I can barely get the words out. My throat, too, is frozen.
There’s a pause. Then Julian rolls over onto his side and loops his arm around me, scooting forward so our bodies are pressed together, and I am cupped in the space around him. His heart beats through my back—a strange, stuttering rhythm.
“Aren’t you worried about the deliria?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says shortly. “But I’m cold, too.”
After a while his heartbeat becomes more regular, and mine slows to match his. The coldness melts out of me.
“Lena?” Julian whispers. I’ve had my eyes closed. The moon is now directly above us, a high white beam.
“Yeah?”
I can feel Julian’s heart speed up again. “Do you want to know how my brother died?”
“Okay,” I say, even though something in his tone of voice makes me afraid.
“My brother and my dad never really got along,” Julian says. “My brother was stubborn. Headstrong. He had a bad temper, too. Everyone said he would be okay once he was cured.” Julian pauses. “It just got worse and worse as he got older, though. My parents were talking about having his cure moved up. It looked bad, you know, for the DFA and all. He was wild, and he didn’t listen to my father, and I’m not even sure he believed in the cure. He was six years older than me. I was—I was scared for him. Do you know what I mean?”
I can’t bring myself to speak, so I just nod. Memories are crowding me, surging from the dark places where I have walled them up: the constant, buzzing anxiety I felt as a child, watching my mom laughing, dancing, singing along to strange music that piped from our speakers, a joy threaded through with terror; fear for Hana; fear for Alex; fear for all of us.
“Seven years ago, we had another big rally in New York. That’s when the DFA was going national. It was the first rally I attended. I was eleven years old. My brother begged off. I don’t remember what excuse he gave.”
Julian shifts. For a second his arms tighten around me, an involuntary gripping; then he relaxes again. Somehow I know he has never told this story before.
“It was a disaster. Halfway through the rally, protesters stormed city hall—that’s where we were—half of them masked. The fight turned violent, and the police came to break it up, and suddenly it was just a brawl. I hid behind the podium, like a little kid. Afterward, I was so ashamed.