Catalyst (29 page)

Cy’s hand slips into mind and stiffens. I can’t believe Micah. And even if he’s telling the truth, which I think he is—the scent around him is something like a spring wind, without that spoiled-fruit scent I know to be lying—I can’t handle what he’s saying.

“Enough. We’ve got to go,” Cy says, his face an abstraction of pain. Our bracelets are hurting us too much now.

“The bracelets should stop receiving the signals from Avida when you’re far enough away. It won’t hurt forever,” Renata says.

Cela and one of her companions, the teen boy with white skin and light brown hair, emerge from the water. She waves her thin arm at us. “Zelia, this is James. The others are way ahead.”

“So it’s working? The skin samples?” I ask.

“It’s not perfect. But you’ll survive.”

Huh. I’m not convinced by her confidence.

“Sounds good enough to me,” Caliga says quietly. She’s stooping by the water’s edge, and glances at me with more energy than I’ve seen since she extinguished the life from Sean.

Cy hands out little capsules of niacin, and I dry-swallow the pill.

“When will this pill start to work?” Caliga asks as she starts peeling off her clothes. She seems eager to get out of her soiled and torn dress. I’m wondering the same thing when a warm flush flares over my face and neck. Perspiration dampens my forehead as I swipe my face.

“It’s a rapid-acting formula and . . . it looks like it’s working,” Cy says, watching me.

My face and chest are on fire. I feel so hot, like I’ve been dropped into an oven and left there to roast.

“Your face is red,” Micah observes, when I realize his face has gone beet red too.

Cela starts wetting the opalescent flakes of skin and I peel off my clothes in the cool, damp air. I’m too anxious to be self-conscious; and anyway, everyone else is nearly naked too. Micah retrieves a jiggling piece of skin and lays it on my cheek. It feels gummy and clammy, and it tingles in a pleasant, unexpected way. I put more everywhere I can reach, and Caliga lays some on my back.

Caliga reaches her hand up and grasps my hand. Her scarred lids make her eyes big and wide. “When we go in the water . . . don’t let go of me. Okay?” she whispers.

After a few minutes, we’re nearly done. The gel-like slabs of skin make us all look like we’ve bathed in gelatin goo.

My new pocket watches and belongings are safely encased in waterproof bags that Micah had brought. Cela ties weighted belts to our waists, so we can easily sink to access the underwater passageways. Seems like a sure-fire way to ensure we drown, but okay. Before we head into the water, Renata wades in to give James and Cela a hug. She whispers something into their ears, and they both blink rapidly and nod, hugging extra hard.

I let go of Caliga for just a second to say good-bye.

“Thank you, Renata.”

She gathers me into a warm, fierce hug. “I’m proud of you, Zelia. I think your mother would be proud of you too.”

“If I ever meet her,” I say, laughing a little. Renata pulls away and puts her hands on my shoulders. “I meant Marka. I look forward to meeting her someday.”

“Me too.” And that’s when I know—this will not be the last time I’ll see Renata again, or Bianca, or Xiulan. I’m not really escaping. I’m fighting for them too; I just can’t do it from inside Avida. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you and the children safe. Not just prisoners, but really safe.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Renata whispers. “Now go.”

Cela and James beckon us into the water.

“It’s an hour’s trip. There’s two small pockets of air we’ll rest in, but that’s it.”

I scoop up Caliga’s hand and we inch into the shallow cave water. Goose bumps erupt all over me and my scalp prickles. My face and body pulsate with pain where water touches the wounds from Sean’s beating. It’s so frigid that I gulp air in surprise. Nervousness fills my chest like a hard knot. I breathe harder, but the knot only tightens.

We all submerge, letting the cold water swallow the tops of our heads. We paddle toward Cela and James, who wait patiently for us. Caliga’s hand still tugs and clutches mine. After a few more kicks, I’m dying for air. But before I can surface for a gasp, something yanks at my ankle. Caliga is yanked too. We peer down through the water to see James with his hands around my ankle and Caliga’s, and he’s pulling us down with such strength that we can’t resurface.

I don’t know how to tell him I can’t breathe, that the skin patches aren’t working. The knot in my chest that was once anxiety is now savagely tight, telling me I’m running out of oxygen. My wrist screams in pain from the bracelet. Caliga thrashes next to me, clinging desperately to my hand.

Suddenly, the tugging on my ankle goes slack. Through the water, I see Caliga, blurry. Unmoving. James continues to pull us down to a dark, black hole near the bottom of the water.

Caliga’s already passed out. I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable.

The pressure is intolerable. Inside my chest, the hunger for air is a living, dark thing. It claws without mercy, seeking air and failing. The water squeezes my eardrums and my body feels compressed, like a flower crushed beneath a shoe.

Just relax.
Cy’s voice enters my head.
Stop struggling. You’ll be okay.

My eyes open, expecting to see only darkness, but flashes of phosphorescent blue curl in waves around my body. Something solid and soft brushes my face and I capture it. It’s Caliga’s hand. She pulls me to her, eyes wide and alive, while electric blue and purple colors flash behind her in the undulating waves.

Her startled eyes say what I cannot.

We are still alive.

Caliga and I kick back to James to let him know we’re okay. He lets go and waves us forward, urging us to swim on our own. There is a current in here and it gently urges us forward.

Without his two dead weights, James swims around us easily, like the water creature that he is. Caliga and I push and pull at the water with our hands, kicking ungracefully. We go several minutes before we both stop, fatigued and more air-hungry. The skin patches can only do so much to deliver oxygen.

So we continue this way, swimming in the underground passageway in short bursts, resting while James hauls us forward slowly. My fatigue grows to the point where I can’t swim anymore and the cold of the water numbs my brain.

Finally, a dim light appears ahead and above us. James unhooks our weighted belts, and we surface like corks, gasping air as if we’ve just been born. We’re in a tiny cavern, lit only by the water’s surface bioluminescence, but the glow is weaker here. Cela is resting at the edge of the pool, along with Cy and Micah, who are panting hard too. Cy is utterly exhausted, resting his head on his hand.

“Oh . . . my . . . god,” I say between forceful gasps.

“Save your energy. The next one is longer,” Cela warns. “And we need to hurry. That pill you took is increasing the circulation to your skin, but it’s also cooling you down too fast. You’re not insulated like we are. You’ll have serious hypothermia if we don’t hustle.”

Cy and I only get a chance to touch hands before we put our weight belts on again and dive. The next stretch nearly kills us land people. The passageway takes a deep turn into the earth, and we go lower and lower. The bioluminescence incrementally disappears, and the claustrophobia of the dark and constricted tunnel nearly gives me a panic attack.

When we rest inside another tiny grotto with a ceiling covered in monstrous stalactites, Cela grins at us. Though we’re exhausted and bone tired, James manages a matching smirk.

“What’s so funny?” Micah asks.

Cela’s eyes are wide. “Don’t you feel it?”

My mind is a blank, but Cela enlightens us by raising her braceleted wrist and jiggling it.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore!” I exclaim.

“We are too far from Avida for them to affect us anymore,” she says. “Far enough away that they didn’t go off. So long as we stay away from the boundaries of Inky, they won’t explode.”

“But how will we get them off? Won’t they explode if we forcibly remove them?”

Cela and James look at each other. No one has an answer for that.

We prepare ourselves for the last swim of the journey. Hopefully it’s just another half hour of swimming, but the current has gotten stronger, which means we’ll be able to cover more distance with less effort. As we swim, the cold seeps into our bones, turning our legs and arms into cement limbs. After what feels like forever, we see a light in the distance and all start kicking and swimming, despite the need for oxygen that threatens to make our skulls explode.

The water churns around us, full of bubbles, grit, and tasting of dirt. My vision is obscured and I’m disoriented. Something pulls at my waist—James—and my weight belt is released. I let my buoyancy do its job, and warm air breaks over my face.

The light is blinding. I bob in the frothing water, rubbing the water out of my eyes. We’re in a glade, with skeletal pine trees and blighted maples that surround the wreckage of houses nearby. Something taps me on my shoulder, and I turn to see Cy, Micah, Cela, James, and Caliga all bobbing along next to me.

“You did it!” Tennie yells from across the expanse of the stream. His hair is still spiky damp and Élodie sits next to him, sodden and shivering. Ryba is still in the water, but she’s in an animated discussion with Tabitha, who’s peeling off her used skin and chucking the bits of goo in the water.

I exhale everything—my fear, my air-hunger, the despair that hung on me, heavier than the weighted belt now residing in the subterranean river. My icy hand is caught by Cy, who smiles triumphantly. It’s the most beautiful thing on earth. He lets go as Caliga bobs into my arms. Hot tears of relief start pouring down my face as she clings to me, weeping.

We are free.

CHAPTER 27

“I
AM SO WRUNG OUT!”
T
ENNIE COMPLAINS.

It’s the middle of the night. Chicago’s upper city looms on the horizon in the north, miles away and aglow with lights. We’ve been traveling for two days. Well, nights really, since we can only travel in the dark, when Élodie leads us quietly. Tennie’s been giving the kids who need hydrating a thorough drenching every half hour, but it’s exhausting him.

“Just a little while longer, Ten,” Cela coaxes. “C’mon. I’m getting crispy again. You don’t want a potato chip for a sister. Let’s go.”

Tennie sighs. We’re hidden behind a decrepit house in Ilmo, a few miles away from the border of Inky and Ilmo, which sports a ten-story, net-like plasma fence. Luckily, Chicago is due north if we follow the border. Otherwise, without a holo, we’d be lost. Cela, James, and Ryba surround Tennie. He concentrates hard, wrinkling his nose, and mist envelops them in a pale fog. Soon they’re all covered in a sheen of water and the water kids exhale with relief, buffing the water deeper into their skin.

Cela and Tennie chat as we resume our hike to Chicago. They talk every chance they can. They must have used those last few days in Avida to work through a lot of crap. It makes me miss Dyl and the others that much more, watching them.

“A few more hours,” I tell Cy. “Right on time. I wonder if they’ll all be waiting there.”

He holds my hand firmly in his. Since we left Avida behind, he barely lets go of me. Élodie leaves us alone, becoming more silent and withdrawn the closer we get to Chicago. Cy has tried to comfort her, assuming she’s stressed out about finding the safe house in Chicago. During the daytime when we sleep, tucked into hidden places on the edge of towns, I find her awake. Staring out in the darkness, seeing what I can’t.

I trip on a twisted root and almost drop my bag of belongings. Micah leans over to grab it.

“I can carry it, if you’re tired,” he offers.

“No thanks. I’m okay,” I say, clutching it to my chest.

Did you lose any more since yesterday?
Cy asks in my head. I shake mine back, and hug the parcel closer to my chest.

I’ve grown more paranoid since we left Avida. The first night after our escape, I told everyone about the pocket watches, and how Endall is out there somewhere—my genetic brother, maybe with my longevity trait too. The next morning, I awoke to find one of my watches gone. I had carefully wrapped each one and put them in different places. One in Cy’s bag, one worn around my neck while I sleep (it’s still crazy jerky and weird, but oxygen deprivation is not a good alternative), and one in my bag. Cy calmed me down when he pointed out a tear in the bottom of my bag.