The Dark and Hollow Places (7 page)

I frown. I’ve seen plenty of infected people—like the woman from last night. I know what it looks like and I know how it’s caused and there’s no way that’s what’s wrong with me. I haven’t been bitten; therefore, I can’t be infected. “Why would your blood have anything to do with it?”

He stares at me for a long time, his jaw clenching as if he’s frustrated at my lack of understanding. “Because
I’m
infected,” he finally says.

I nod slowly and cross my arms over my chest. “I know. I saw what happened on the bridge. But I’m fairly certain you can’t pass the infection until you’re dead, and as far as I can tell, that hasn’t happened to you yet.”

I realize suddenly how flippant I sound. While I’ve
known
he’s infected, I haven’t really thought about what that means to him. That he’s dying. The man standing in front of me, who looks strong and healthy and handsome, will be dead in a matter of days. I’m used to people becoming infected and dying and Returning—it happens all the time in the Neverlands and it’s contained pretty quickly. It’s something we’re used to seeing—something
I’m
used to seeing. Just not to people I know, since I make a point to know no one.

What a waste. And then a small voice whispers in my head that I’m trapped underground with an Infected. That this is serious—I don’t know exactly where I am, where he carried me when I blacked out. I don’t know where my knife is.
Catcher’s infected and I don’t really know how much time he has, which makes him dangerous, and once he dies he’ll come for me. Like with the woman last night, I might be the one to have to kill him. He could even turn Breaker if there aren’t other plague rats around that he can sense, and I’m not sure my little knife would be a match for that kind of speed and ferocity.

Anxiety begins to burn under my skin and I start feeling restless—my legs itching to run even though the rest of my body feels weak. “I’m not infected,” I assure him.

Something shifts in his eyes and he turns away but not before I see sadness flooding his face. “We can’t be sure yet. It could still be inside you,” he says.

I walk past him back to the fire and kneel next to my quilt and bag. I feel a little woozy and press my hand to the ground to steady myself. My fingers shake as I pretend to fold the quilt while I look for my knife.

I hear a clatter behind me and then metal sliding over concrete as Catcher drops my knife and kicks it over to me. I stare at it before glancing up at him.

“You’re not going to need it,” he says, still keeping his distance. “At least not against me. I’m not going to turn—I’m immune.”

I wrap my fingers around the handle, flicking my thumb over the blade. Fire shines along the metal without a trace of his blood. He cleaned it after I passed out. “You’re immune to being stabbed?” I ask.

A small smile flickers over his lips. It’s lopsided, one side of his mouth ticking higher than the other. It’s gone as fast as it came and it leaves me slightly off balance. He looked so different, so much younger and relaxed.

He looked almost normal.

“I’m immune to the infection,” he clarifies. “Or rather, the infection doesn’t kill me. I’ve been this way for months.” He spreads his hands out to either side as if to display how healthy he is.

I narrow my eyes at him. What he’s saying doesn’t make sense. “I’ve never heard about there being any immunity,” I tell him.

He shrugs. “It’s not that complicated—I got bitten late in the summer,” he says, almost nonchalantly. “It’s winter and I’m not dead yet. It never killed me. I’m infected but I’m immune, which means I’m basically like a living Mudo—you saw that yourself last night on the roof.”

His tone seems so casual, but there’s an undercurrent running beneath his words, an emotion I can’t pinpoint. It could be rage or desolation, but something tugs on each syllable, making his words heavy. He even holds his body rigid as he waits for my response.

It’s hard to believe that what he’s saying could be true, but at the same time he’s right: I saw him on the roof with the two Unconsecrated women. They didn’t seem to care about him at all and there are no visible bites on him from them.

I stare at my hand clutching the knife. Catcher might be immune—he could be telling the truth—but he’s still a stranger, and strangers are dangerous.

“Not many people use the word
Mudo
to describe them.” It marks him as an outsider the same way everyone knew Elias and I weren’t originally from the Dark City because we called them Unconsecrated instead of plague rats or one of the other terms.

“I’m from down the coast,” he says. “A place called Vista on the edge of the Forest.”

My skin breaks out in goose bumps at the mention of the
Forest. It makes me think of Elias and then of my sister, Abigail. She helped Catcher escape on the bridge. Which means he knows her. Slowly, I raise my head and meet his eyes, trying to figure out how to ask the right questions.

“I just …” He pauses and licks his lips as if he’s nervous. “I just need to know that you’re okay. You had my blood all over you and I don’t know …” He lets the words trail off. “I don’t know if I can pass the infection. If being immune means that the infection inside me is somehow different and I could still infect others. I’ve been careful not to find out.” He holds himself steady, trying not to show the uncertainty and fear that threads through his voice.

I can remember the taste in my mouth at the bottom of the stairs: metallic and earthy. I remember the feel of my blade over his arm, the slickness of his blood on my hands. I remember pressing those fingers to my lips to stop from heaving.

There’s no trace of blood on them now, and I realize he must have washed me after I passed out. A strange sensation sparks in my stomach at the thought of it, at his tenderness and consideration.

But then my mind clears. I was asleep and he had his hands on me. I rub my free hand up my arm, not sure what to think about this information.

“I’d know if I was infected,” I say firmly enough to convince both of us. Though there’s a tiny bit of dread in my mind now—worry that what he’s saying might be true and even now the infection is taking hold.

I’ve never really allowed myself to think about what it would feel like. I’ve imagined being dead, being one of the Unconsecrated. But I’ve always avoided thinking about the
time in between—the knowing part of it. I wonder what that must have been like for him: the feel of the dead teeth, the realization that everything was over.

Catcher’s still staring at me, almost as if he cares about me, which doesn’t make sense and makes me uncomfortable. He doesn’t know me and I don’t know him. I shouldn’t feel safe with him. I shouldn’t still be here. I should kick his knee out and run for the surface, but I don’t do any of these things because I still haven’t figured out who this guy is and how he knows both my sister and Elias.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, snapping the words.

Relief washes over his face and he turns away, trying to hide it. Trying not to show me how afraid he was. “Are you sure?” he asks, his voice weak.

I nod. “I hit my head when we fell. I’m dizzy and nauseated. But I’m not infected.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his fingers to them. I feel like I’m watching something I shouldn’t, seeing a part of him that’s too personal for a stranger like me.

I glance away and clear my throat, needing to break the silence and desperately wanting to figure out what’s going on. “Why were you on the roof last night?”

He raises his hand to his neck again and I almost scream at him to stop it, stop reminding me of Elias. I even take a deep breath, ready to say something when he runs his fingers over his head, through his hair.

“You looked like you needed help,” he says. I scowl. It’s another non-answer, and I’m starting to realize he’s good at those.

“How did you know who I was? Or do you make it a habit to rescue any damsel in distress when you come to a new city
and almost drown?” My words echo slightly, tracing up and over the soaring arches above us.

I want him to admit he knows my sister. That he sees past my scars to the similarities between us.

He walks over to the little fire, keeping distance between us when he sees me tense my hand around the knife. It’s clear I still don’t trust him.

He crouches and I watch him through the flames. “I saw you when I was running from the Recruiters and I followed you.”

Chills ease over my skin again and my breath comes a little shallow. I’m glad there’s a fire between us. “Why?”

He hesitates and I can tell he’s weighing what to say next and I wonder if it’s all going to be carefully crafted lies. “Because I promised Elias I’d find you,” he finally says.

This is all too strange and convoluted. It doesn’t make sense. “You mentioned Elias earlier.” I pause, hoping he’ll fill the silence.

When he doesn’t I press, “Where is he? How do you know him?” The words come so fast I trip over them, frustrated at not knowing what to ask. “I don’t understand. How did you even know it was me you were looking for?”

He stares at me then, his gaze even more intense than the flames. His eyes trace over my face, down my body. There’s something in his look I don’t understand, something painful and awkward. I see him follow the lines of my scars.

I’m used to it, so used to the gaping stares, that I don’t notice them sometimes. It’s just a part of my life. But this man, here in this moment, makes me remember every line on my body. Makes me feel every scar as if it’s a fresh wound, festering and raw.

I wanted him to recognize me because I look like my sister but I realize that’s not how he knew who I was. “Oh.” I mouth the word, unable to put sound behind it. I cross my arms. “The scars.” The walls I use to protect myself inside falter and I close my eyes and try to build them back up higher than before. But some of the pain and ugliness seep through.

Sometimes—rarely—I’m able to forget what I look like and it’s embarrassing to realize that this is how Elias would describe me. Of course it is—“Look for the angry girl with the scars down the left side of her body” is easier than “Look for the girl with the dirty-blond hair who never lifts her eyes from the ground.”

I rub my chin against my shoulder as if I could scratch the vulnerability from the moment. I then shift until the tip of my knife scrapes against the ground—a reminder to both of us that I still have a weapon. I still have some control.

Catcher looks like he wants to say something but he presses his lips together until they burn white. I clear the awkward silence between us by asking the obvious question. “So why’d my brother tell you to find me?”

He looks down at me. “I know he’s not your brother, Annah.”

I
jump to my feet and start walking toward the darkness swallowing the tunnel at the end of the subway platform. No one’s supposed to know Elias isn’t my brother. No one
could
know that unless they were from our village or one of us told them. And we vowed to never tell. It’s just easier to let people believe what they want and it makes his protection of me more secure.

I clear my throat but the words feel trapped. How does he know he’s not my brother? What has Elias told him about me? What else does he know? What was he doing with my sister? Where’s Elias and why hasn’t he come back? I feel like Catcher’s playing some sort of game with me and I have no idea what the rules are.

Frustration makes my shoulders tense and my head throb. I stop at the edge of the platform, staring out into the dark that eats the light from the fire behind me. It’s colder away from the flames, the last trace of warmth leaching quickly
from my clothes as the chill attacks my skin through seams and holes. I pull my coat tighter around me. It’s easier to talk when I don’t have to see Catcher’s face. When I don’t have to keep him from seeing the uncertainty in mine.

I don’t like others knowing my business, especially strangers—I like to be the one who controls what people get to know about me and when.

My stomach growls. “We should go,” I tell him. “Start figuring out a way to find my sister.” It’s well known the underground tunnels aren’t safe. When the Unconsecrated don’t sense a living human nearby they collapse, almost like an insect going dormant, waiting for food and the ability to infect. Everyone knows there are pockets of plague rats down here waiting for someone to stumble upon them.

For as long as I’ve lived in the City I’ve heard the rumors of tunnels so deep that the dead lie asleep, waiting for the barest scent of living flesh to wake them and cause a surge to the surface.

Every few years there’s a fresh outbreak in the Dark City, half the time rumored to have started in the Neverlands and the other half begun underground. I’m not one to test the theories. It might not be too safe up on the streets but at least there’s light and air—not walls curling around you like a coffin.

“These the same stairs we came down?” I ask, moving toward them. Catcher nods but doesn’t follow. I turn; he can only see my profile of clean smooth skin. I think about him on the bridge with Abigail—the way she saved his life.

“Do I look like her?” I ask, the words slipping out before I can stop them. My fingers clench around the ragged hem of my coat. I can’t resist knowing. “Like my sister,” I add, as if he didn’t understand.