“This is my friend Rufus, the one I was telling you about,” Midnight said, seeming thoroughly delighted, touching the shoulder of the boy with the half-shaved head. He smiled at her.
“Welcome, everyone,” Rufus said. “Get comfortable.”
Midnight walked over to the couch and reclined on it like an evil queen. She reached out a slippered foot to slide it up the tall girl’s knee and then pointed her toe toward the other. “This is Christobel and Zara. Zara and Christobel, meet Tana and Aidan.”
Aidan grinned at the girls but stayed near the door.
Winter went back outside to bring in the rest of their stuff. He dragged in Midnight’s garbage bag and dumped it on the floor heavily beside his and then set down their suitcase beside the bags.
“Thanks for putting us up,” Tana said warily.
“Is this house yours?” Aidan asked. Very deliberately, he walked to the stairs and sat down on them, clenching his hands into fists.
“It’s ours now,” said Christobel. “There’s plenty of abandoned places. You just pick one out and break in.”
“Bill Story lives next door,” said Zara, hunching forward. “He’s been streaming feeds since the city was quarantined.”
“I’ve always wanted to meet him,” Midnight said dreamily. “The intrepid reporter.”
Even Tana had heard of William T. Willingham, a comic book writer who’d been caught behind the gates, gave up fiction, picked a catchy name, and turned to documentary-style reporting about what was really happening inside the quarantine. His literary friends tried to get him out, but he gave the two markers they’d sent away—one right after the other—to people he said were more deserving and who had no chance otherwise of being released.
Cynics claimed he’d never been as famous as he was in Coldtown and was going to milk it for all it was worth. According to them, he was shopping an autobiography. Fans said he was the perfect example of how brave regular people could really be when life turned out differently than expected. Tana had seen footage of him once, a regular-looking guy in glasses.
I can never decide if I’m lucky or not to have seen this, he’d said.
Tana thought about the marker in her purse and couldn’t imagine giving up her only chance to get out—not for anything. She wondered how long Rufus and Christobel and Zara had been in Coldtown, breaking into houses, posting about their adventures, and not worrying about the future. She wondered if there was something about the city that made you want to stay, despite everything.
Of course, since most people were stuck here, it didn’t matter whether they wanted to stay or not.
She thought of Pauline, sleeping in her bunk at drama camp. Was she up yet? Eventually someone from back home would call her to tell her what happened. Or she’d go online and see pictures, read reports. Then she’d realize that Tana had called her after the massacre—called her and lied. For a moment, the weight of everything that had happened in the last day settled on Tana’s shoulders.
Winter crossed the room and sat down on the floor beside Midnight, resting his head on her knee. They looked like a matched set of elegant punk rock figurines.
“You’re both just like I thought you’d be,” said Rufus, eyeing them appreciatively. “Just like in your videos. You’re not scared at all, even in the middle of this place, are you?”
Midnight shook her head, posing deliberately. “I feel like after a long journey, we’ve finally come home.”
The others giggled, but Tana could tell they were impressed by her.
Christobel looked over at Tana and patted the seat beside her. “You look so tired. Come in, sit down. You’re safe here.”
Tana crossed the floor and perched on the end of the divan. It smelled like dust, and the smell was oddly comforting, reminding her of used bookstores, of browsing the racks and finding old mysteries with funny covers. She let out her breath in a rush and tipped her head back, looking up at the chandelier painted a messy red and black, the original brass showing through in patches. It hit her suddenly that they’d made it. They were inside Coldtown, they were still human, and they even had a place to sleep.
Zara got up from the couch. “You all must be starving. We don’t have much food, but let me bring out what we do have.”
“Grab some booze while you’re out there,” Rufus said.
“Grab it yourself,” she told him and stalked off. He laughed, calling something after her that Tana didn’t quite catch.
Tana smiled up at the chandelier, listening to them banter.