I go back into the warehouse. Raven is sitting at the folding table, packing food into cloth bundles. We will strap them to our packs, and hang them from tree branches when we camp at night, so the animals won’t get at them.
At least, that is what she will do.
“Hey.” She smiles at me, over-friendly, as she has been all evening. “Did you get enough to eat?”
I nod. “More than I’ve had in a while,” I say, and she winces slightly. It’s a dig, but I can’t help it. I lean up against the table, where small, sharp knives have been laid out to dry on a kitchen towel.
Raven draws one knee to her chest. “Listen, Lena. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier. I thought it would be—well, I just thought it would be better this way.”
“It was a purer test, too,” I say, and Raven looks up quickly. I lean forward, place my palm over the handle of a knife, feel its contours pressing into my flesh.
Raven sighs, and looks away again. “I know you must hate us right now,” she starts to say, but I cut her off.
“I don’t hate you.” I straighten up again, bringing the knife with me, slipping it into my back pocket.
“Really?” For a moment Raven looks much younger than her age.
“Really,” I say, and she smiles at me—small, tight, relieved. It’s an honest smile. I add, “But I don’t want to be like you either.”
Her smile falters. As I’m standing there, looking at her, it occurs to me that this may be the last time I ever see her. A sharp pain runs through me, a blade in the center of my chest. I am not sure that I ever loved Raven, but she gave birth to me here, in the Wilds. She has been a mother and a sister, both. She is yet another person I will have to bury.
“Someday you’ll understand,” she says, and I know that she really believes it. She is staring at me wide-eyed, willing me to understand: that people should be sacrificed to causes, that beauty can be built on the backs of the dead.
But it isn’t her fault. Not really. Raven has lost deeply, again and again, and she, too, has buried herself. There are pieces of her scattered all over. Her heart is nestled next to a small set of bones buried beside a frozen river, which will emerge with the spring thaw, a skeleton ship rising out of the water.
“I hope not,” I say, as gently as I can, and that is how I say good-bye to her.
I tuck the knife into my backpack, feeling to make sure I still have the small bundle of ID cards I stole from the Scavengers. They will come in handy. I take a wind breaker from next to one of the cots, and, from a small nylon backpack, already packed up for tomorrow, I steal granola bars and a half-dozen bottles of water. My backpack is heavy, even after I’ve removed The Book of Shhh—I won’t need that anymore, not ever—but I don’t dare take out any supplies. If I do manage to spring Julian, we will need to run fast and far, and I have no idea how long it will be before we stumble on a homestead.
I move quietly back through the warehouse, toward the side door that opens onto the parking lot and the outhouse. I pass only one person—a tall, lanky guy with fire-red hair who looks me over once and then lets his gaze slide off me. That is one skill I learned in Portland that I have never forgotten: how to shrink into myself, and turn invisible. I scoot quickly past the room in which most of the resisters, including Tack, are lounging around the radio, laughing and talking. Someone is smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Someone is shuffling a deck of cards. I see the back of Tack’s head and think a good-bye in his direction.
Then I’m once again slipping out into the night, and I am free.
New York is still casting its halo glow into the sky south of us—probably a good hour from curfew, and blackout for most of the city. Only the very richest people, the government officials and scientists and people like Thomas Fineman, have unlimited access to light.
I start jogging in the general direction of the highway, pausing every so often to listen for the sound of trucks. Mostly there is silence, punctuated by hooting owls and small animals scurrying in the darkness. Traffic is sporadic. It is no doubt a road used almost exclusively for supply trucks.
But all of a sudden it is there, a long, thick river of concrete, lit silver by the rising moon. I turn south and slow to a walk, my breath steaming in front of me. The air is fresh, thin, and cold, slicing my lungs every time I take a breath. But it’s a good feeling.