Legend (15 page)

Read Legend Online

Authors: Marie Lu

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Dystopian, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Love & Romance, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Social Issues, #Death & Dying, #Dating & Sex, #Science Fiction

BOOK: Legend
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He pulls away first. We stare at each other in bewildered silence, like neither of us can quite grasp what just happened.
Then he regains his composure, and as I struggle to regain mine, he leans back against the wall beside me and sighs. “Sorry,” he murmurs. He gives me a look laced with mischief. “I couldn’t help it. But at least now it’s over with.”
I stare at him awhile longer, still unable to speak. My mind screams at me to collect my thoughts. The boy returns my look. Then he smiles, as if he knows what sort of effect he has, and turns away. I begin breathing again.
That’s when I see a gesture which jolts my mind completely back into place: before he lies down to sleep, he grabs at something around his neck. It’s such an unconscious movement that I doubt he even realizes he did it. I stare at his neck but see nothing hanging around it. He had grabbed at the ghost of a necklace, the ghost of some trinket or thread.
And that’s when I remember, with a nauseating feeling, the pendant in my pocket. Day’s pendant.
WHEN THE GIRL HAS FINALLY FALLEN ASLEEP, I LEAVE her with Tess and head off to visit my family again. The cooler air clears my head. Once I’m a fair distance from the alley, I take a deep breath and quicken my pace.
I shouldn’t have done it,
I tell myself.
I shouldn’t have kissed her.
I especially shouldn’t be glad that I did it. But I am. I can still feel her lips against mine, the smooth, soft skin of her face and arms, the slight trembling of her hands. I’ve kissed plenty of beautiful girls before, but not like this one. I’d wanted more. I can’t believe I managed to pull away.
So much for warning myself against falling for people on the streets.
Now I force myself to concentrate on meeting up with John. I try to ignore the strange
X
on my family’s door and make my way directly to the floorboards lining the side of the porch. Candles flicker by the shuttered bedroom window. My mother must be up late watching Eden. I crouch in the darkness for a while, look over my shoulder at the empty streets, then push aside the board and fall to my knees.
Something stirs in the shadows across the street. I pause for a second and squint into the night. Nothing. When I don’t see anything else, I lower my head and crawl under the porch.
John’s warming some sort of soup in the kitchen. I utter a trio of low whistles that sounds like a cricket; it takes a few tries before John hears it and turns around. Then I leave the porch and head around to the house’s back door, where I meet my brother in the darkness.
“I’ve got sixteen hundred Notes,” I whisper. I show him the pouch. “Almost enough for cures. How’s Eden?”
John shakes his head. The anxiety on his face unnerves me, because I always expect him to be the strongest of us. “Not good,” he says. “He’s lost more weight. But he’s still alert, and he recognizes us. I think he has a few more weeks.”
I nod quietly. I don’t want to think about the possibility of losing Eden. “I promise I’ll have the money soon. All I need is one more lucky break, and I’ll be there, and we’ll have it for him.”
“You’re being careful, right?” he asks. In the dark, we can pass for twins. Same hair, same eyes. Same expression. “I don’t want you putting yourself in unnecessary danger. If there’s any way for me to help you, I’ll do it. Maybe I can sneak out with you sometimes and—”
I scowl. “Don’t be stupid. If the soldiers catch you, you’ll all die. You know that.” John’s frustrated expression makes me feel guilty for dismissing his help so quickly. “I’m faster this way. Seriously. Better that only one of us is out there hunting for the money. You won’t do Mom any good if you’re dead.”
John nods, although I can tell he wants to say more. I avoid it by turning away. “I’ve got to go,” I say. “I’ll see you soon.”
DAY MUST HAVE THOUGHT I’D FALLEN ASLEEP. BUT I SEE
him get up and leave in the middle of the night, so I follow him. He breaks into a quarantine zone, enters a house marked with a three-lined
X
,
and reappears several minutes later.
It’s all I need to know.
I climb to the roof of a nearby building. Once there, I crouch in the shadows of a chimney and turn my mike on. I’m so angry with myself that I can’t stop my voice from shaking. I’d let myself get carried away with the last person I ever wanted to like. That I ever wanted to ache for.
Maybe Day didn’t kill Metias,
I tell myself.
Maybe it was someone else.
God—am I making
excuses
to protect this boy now?
I’ve acted like an idiot in front of Metias’s murderer. Have the streets of Lake turned me into some simpleminded girl? Have I just shamed the memory of my brother?
“Thomas,” I whisper, “I found him.”
A full minute of static passes before I hear Thomas answer me. When he does, he sounds oddly detached. “Can you repeat that, Ms. Iparis?”
My temper rises. “I said I found him. Day. He just visited a house in one of Lake’s quarantine zones, a house with a three-lined
X
on its door. Corner of Figueroa and Watson.”
“Are you sure?” Thomas sounds more alert now. “You’re
absolutely
sure.”
I take the pendant out of my pocket. “Yes. No doubt about it.”
Some commotion on the other side. His voice grows excited. “Corner of Figueroa and Watson. That’s the special plague case we’re meant to investigate tomorrow morning. You’re sure it’s Day?” he asks again.
“Yes.”
“Medic trucks will be at the house tomorrow. We’re to take the inhabitants to the Central Hospital.”
“Then send for extra troops. I want backup when Day shows up to protect his family.” I remember the way Day had crawled under the floorboards. “He’ll have no time to get them out, so he’ll probably hide them somewhere in the house. We should take them to Batalla Hall’s hospital wing. No one’s to be hurt. I want them there for questioning.”
Thomas seems taken aback by my tone. “You’ll have your troops,” he manages to say. “And I hope to hell you’re right.”
The feel of Day’s lips, our heated kiss, and his hands running across my skin—it should all mean nothing to me now. Worse than nothing. “I am right.”
I return to the alley before Day can find me missing.
DURING THE FEW HOURS OF SLEEP I MANAGE TO GET before dawn, I dream of home.
At least, it seems like the home I remember. John sits with our mother at one end of the dining table, reading to her from a book of old Republic tales. Mom nods encouragingly to him when he gets through an entire page without flipping words or letters around. I smile at them from where I stand by the door. John is the strongest of us, but he has a patient, gentle streak that I didn’t inherit. A trait from our father. Eden is doodling something on paper at the other end of the table. Eden always seems to be drawing in my dreams. He never looks up, but I can tell he’s listening to John’s story as well, laughing at the appropriate places.
Then I realize that the Girl is standing next to me. I hold her hand. She gives me a smile, one that fills the room with light, and I smile back.
“I’d like you to meet my mother,” I say to her.
She shakes her head. When I look back to the dining table, John and Mom are still there, but Eden’s gone.
The Girl’s smile fades. She looks at me with tragic eyes. “Eden is dead,” she says.
A distant siren shakes me out of my sleep.
I lie quietly for a while, eyes open, trying to catch my breath. My dream is still seared into my mind. I focus on the sound of the siren to distract myself. Then I realize I’m not hearing the normal wail of a police siren. Nor is it an ambulance’s siren. This is a siren from a military medic truck, the ones used for transporting injured soldiers to the hospital. It’s louder and higher-pitched than the others because military trucks get first priority.
Except we have no injured soldiers coming back to Los Angeles. They get treated at the warfront’s border. The other thing these trucks are used for around here is to transport special plague cases to the labs, due to their better emergency equipment.
Even Tess recognizes the sound. “Where are they going?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I murmur back. I sit up and look around. The Girl looks like she’s been awake for a while already. She sits several feet away with her back against the wall, her eyes pointed out toward the street, her face grave with concentration. She seems tense.
“Morning,” I say to her. My eyes dart to her lips. Did I really kiss her last night?
She doesn’t look at me. Her expression doesn’t change. “Your family had their door marked, didn’t they?”
Tess looks at her in surprise. I stare at the Girl in silence, not sure how to respond. It’s the first time anyone other than Tess has brought up my family to me.
“You followed me last night.” I tell myself that I should be angry—but I don’t feel anything except confusion. She must have followed me out of curiosity. I’m amazed—shocked, really—at how silently she can travel.
But something seems different about the Girl this morning. Last night she was as into me as I was into her—but today she’s distant, withdrawn. Have I done something to piss her off? The Girl looks directly at me. “Is that what you’re saving up all that money for? A plague cure?”
She’s testing me, but I don’t know why. “Yes,” I say. “Why do you care?”
“You’re too late,” she says. “Because today the plague patrol is coming for your family. They’re taking them away.”
I DON’T HAVE TO SAY MUCH MORE TO CONVINCE DAY TO
move. And the medic truck sirens, almost certainly headed for Figueroa and Watson, have come by just as Thomas promised they would.
“What do you mean?” Day says. The shock hasn’t even hit him yet. “What do you mean, they’re coming for my family? How do you know this?”
“Don’t question it. You don’t have time for that.” I hesitate. Day’s eyes look so terrified—so vulnerable—that suddenly it takes all my strength to lie to him. I try to draw on the anger I felt last night. “I did see you visit your family’s quarantine zone last night, and I overheard some guards talking about today’s sweep. They mentioned the house with the three-lined
X.
Hurry. I’m trying to help you—and I’m telling you that you have to go to them right
now.
”
I’ve taken advantage of Day’s greatest weakness. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t stop to question what I say, doesn’t even wonder why I didn’t tell him right away. Instead he leaps to his feet, pinpoints the direction that the sirens are coming from, and darts out of the alley. I feel a surprising pang of guilt. He trusts me—truly, stupidly, wholeheartedly trusts me. In fact, I don’t know if anyone has ever taken my word so readily before. Maybe not even Metias.
Tess watches him go with a look of increasing fright. “Come on, let’s follow him!” Tess exclaims. She jumps to her feet and takes my hands. “He might need our help.”
“No,” I snap. “You wait here. I’ll follow him. Keep low and stay quiet—someone will come back for you.”
I don’t bother to wait for Tess’s reply before I take off down the street. When I look over my shoulder, I see Tess standing in the alley with her wide eyes locked on my vanishing figure. I turn back around. Best to keep her out of this.
If we arrest Day today, what will happen to her?
I click my tongue and turn on my mike.
Static blares for a second in my tiny earpiece. Then I hear Thomas’s voice. “Talk to me,” he says. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“Day’s heading toward Figueroa and Watson right now. I’m on his tail.”
Thomas sucks in his breath. “Right. We’ve already deployed. See you in a few.”
“Wait for my word—no one’s to be harmed—” I start to say, but the static cuts off.
I sprint down the street, my wound throbbing in protest. Day couldn’t have gone far—he has less than a half-minute lead on me. I point myself in the direction that I remember Day going the previous night, south toward Union Station.
Sure enough, before long I see glimpses of Day’s old cap peeking out far ahead of me in the crowd.
All my anger and fear and anxiety now zero in on the back of his head. I have to force myself to keep enough distance between us so that he doesn’t know I’m following him. A part of me recalls the way he saved me from the Skiz fight, that he had helped me heal this burning wound in my side, that his hands had been so gentle. I want to scream at him. I want to hate him for confusing me so much. Stupid boy! It’s a wonder you’ve evaded the government for so long—but you can’t hide now, not when your own family or friends are at risk.
I have no sympathy for a criminal,
I remind myself harshly.
Just a score to settle.
USUALLY I’M GRATEFUL FOR THE CROWDS ON THE streets of Lake. They’re easy to slip in and out of, throwing off those who might be on your trail or hoping to pick a fight. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve used the busy streets to my advantage. But today they only slow me down. Even with a shortcut along the lakeside, I’m running just barely in front of the sirens and won’t have a chance to widen the gap before I reach my family’s house.
I won’t have time to get them out. But I have to try. I have to reach them before the soldiers do.
Occasionally I pause to make sure the trucks are still going in the direction I think they are. Sure enough, they continue on a path straight for our neighborhood. I run faster. I don’t even stop when I accidentally collide with an old man. He stumbles and falls against the pavement. “Sorry!” I shout. I can hear him yelling at me, but I don’t dare waste time looking back.
I’m sweating by the time I near our house, still quiet and taped off as part of the quarantine. I sneak through the back alleys until I’m standing by our crumbling backyard fence. Then I ease my way through a crack in the fence, push aside the loose board, and crawl underneath the porch. The sea daisies that I laid under the vents are still there, untouched, but they’ve already withered and died. Through the floor’s gaps, I see my mother sitting at Eden’s bedside. John is rinsing a washcloth in a nearby basin. My eyes dart to Eden. He looks worse now—as if all the color has been stripped from his skin. His breath is shallow and raspy, so loud that I can hear it from down here.

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