The Dead-Tossed Waves (6 page)

“The Infected will be taken by the Militia beyond the Barrier. There is nothing we can do for them anymore. They will be given their eternal rest.”

A woman wails and tries to run through the crowd but people hold her back. I recognize her. She’s one of the infected boys’ mothers. Her screams become muffled as her neighbors pull her away. At least she has a chance to say good-bye, I think, wishing I hadn’t run from Catcher so fast. At least her son had time to remember what it is to be alive before he’s dead.

At least he won’t become Mudo.

I cross my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together. Everything feels cold. Even the heat of the sun burns like ice. I close my eyes, wondering why Cira didn’t run away with me. Wondering what punishment she will face that I may not.

The Chairman raises his hand to his face, wipes at his eyes and for a moment I feel relief—that he’ll show leniency, that maybe this decision was too hard on him and that he and the Council will be compassionate.

But then his voice hardens. “The others,” he says, waving at Cira and the rest in her cage. “They will be sent to the Recruiters to serve for two years, though they will not be allowed to claim the honors that come from such service. They will not be granted full citizenship, nor will they be allowed to enter any of the Protected Zones, including the Dark City. Not after their service, and not ever.”

T
he crowd explodes around me. But I’m speechless. I can only stand there in shock. My legs wobble, my muscles refusing to hold me, and I sag against an older lady. She wraps an arm under my elbow.

“You poor dear,” she says, clucking over me. “Are they friends of yours?”

I nod. Every city and town like ours that falls under the control of the Protectorate is required to provide a quota of goods and services, including young men and women to the Recruiters, the army of the Protectorate. In return we get protection, the benefits of a unified confederacy and the ability to trade goods with other members. We’ve never forced anyone to serve the Recruiters. We’ve never had to.

There have always been volunteers willing to risk their lives on the promised reward of guaranteed access to the Protected Zones and full citizenship to all who serve. While anyone with unique skills or enough goods to trade can pay the exorbitant
rents to live in the Dark City, only those who serve the Recruiters are guaranteed a place to live, and those who distinguish themselves in service don’t ever have to pay rents.

Except for the ones on the stage. Even after two years with the Recruiters they will not be allowed.

The punishment stuns me with its harshness. To be forced to serve, with no reward.

“Aren’t you a smart one not to get caught up in that mess,” the woman next to me says, patting me on the back.

But I
was
with them
, I want to tell her. I should be up there with my best friend. I shouldn’t be hiding. I shouldn’t have run away but I don’t know how to change it.

And even if I did, I can’t find the strength or the words to step forward and turn myself in. I hear the Chairman speaking more but I can’t make out what he’s saying. I just stand there staring at the cages. Staring at Cira. They seem just as shocked as I am and it makes me ill how the Chairman has meted out his punishment in public like some sort of sick spectacle. Though I shouldn’t be surprised, since the Protectorate has never really cared about our town; we’re too far away from the Dark City and became useless after the pirates took over the seas.

Around me people begin to flow out of the square and I catch snippets of their conversations.

“Could have killed us all …”

“Can’t believe the Council would do such a thing …”

“They brought it on themselves …”

“Those poor kids …”

I can’t move. I can’t bring myself to leave. So I just stand there, a rock in the middle of a river.

My best friend is being sent to the Recruiters. Everyone
there last night will be sent away, sent to the lines of the war to fight the Mudo, with no possibility to reap the traditional rewards of service.

Except me. And what scares me more than anything else is the thought that I won’t get away with it.

And then questions begin slipping into my head: Why didn’t the others tell on me? Why didn’t they tell the Council that I was also there?

What happens if they tell on me now?

I glance back at where the Council is huddled around the Chairman to the left of the platform, surrounded by the parents of the Infected and quarantined. Some are resigned and some angry, shouting and crying and pleading. But no one is there to speak for Cira. As an orphan, all she had was Catcher and now he’s gone.

I don’t want to face her but I know I have to. No one stops me as I shove my way to Cira’s cage. She doesn’t see me at first but Blane does and she pushes toward me, fury creasing her face.

“Feeling guilty?” she yells. She slams her hands against the bar. “Come to taunt us?” She leans forward.

I jerk my head around, looking to see if anyone else heard her, and she just laughs. My cheeks flame. I’m embarrassed at having been called out on my cowardice and ashamed that we’re on opposite sides of these bars. And then Cira steps forward, places her hand on Blane’s arm, and Blane moves away. Leaves us alone.

I’m surprised to see my friend with so much sway over this older girl.

“Cira, I’m sorry,” I murmur, because I don’t know what else to say.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You were smart to run. To get away.”

I shift, feeling only more uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to,” I tell her. “It was Catcher—he told me to go and I didn’t think.” I have to force my mouth to speak his name, my voice breaking at the sound of it.

Her fists clench around the bars. “Where is he?”

“I …” I shake my head, swallow. In my mind I see the bite on his shoulder, see the blood trailing down his arm. I thought Cira had seen it too. I thought she knew.

Her eyes bore into mine.

“I don’t know,” I finally say. I can’t bring myself to even form the words of the truth.

I watch as her face dims, as if the last lights of hope are blinking out. Already resignation has settled in deep lines around her mouth. “But I thought he went with you.”

I see my old friend in her eyes. I see the same hesitation that I feel—the vulnerability. But it’s the last tendrils of hope I hear that hurts the most. I don’t want to be the one to tell her about her brother, and yet I realize she deserves to know. I might have run from everything else but I can’t run from this.

“Catcher was …” I swallow. “He was bitten. I thought you saw.”

Her skin, already pale, becomes ghostly. As if she herself has Returned. She runs her tongue over her lips, wetting the cracks. “But he wasn’t there when they came and got us. You’re wrong, he must still be alive. He must be out there. Maybe he’s hurt. You’re wrong!” She raises her voice and the others in the cage step forward like a wall surrounding her.

I see the way they look at me. As if I’m the betrayer.

“I saw the bite marks,” I whisper.

“But maybe that’s not what it was,” she counters. “It could
have been a scratch. He can’t be infected. He can’t!” She notices that people are watching us now and she lowers her voice. “You have to find him. There’s something wrong. You have to go find him.”

I step away, shocked. “You want me to go back there?” I ask, my eyes wide.

She nods, her mouth a tight white line in her face.

The thought of returning to the Barrier, of climbing over it again, makes my heart seize with panic. “But I can’t,” I tell her. “Not after …” I let my voice trail off. “What could I even do for him if I found him?” I protest.

“You can make sure he’s okay,” Cira hisses. “You can be there with him and help him if he’s hurt. You can—”

I’m shaking my head, my hands trembling, and Blane steps forward and grabs my wrist through the bars, cutting Cira off.

“What?” Blane says. “You’re willing to climb the fence for a good time but not for a friend?” The others grumble assent behind her. “Useless,” she adds, throwing up a hand in my face, “we should’ve told them about you when we had the chance.” She pauses, raising one eyebrow as the corner of her mouth tilts up. “I guess we still could,” she adds.

I glance at Cira and see the hesitation on her face. As if she believes Blane. I start to feel sick. This can’t be my only option. I grab at her hands. “I can’t do it, Cira,” I whisper. “I can’t.” Even to my own ears the desperation in my voice is clear, pitched high and cracking.

I feel the crushing press of panic again and I don’t know what to do. I can barely breathe with it. Spots of color explode in front of my eyes.

Blane reaches through the bars and grabs my wrist again,
her nails digging into the tender white flesh as she pulls my grip from Cira. I focus on her, the edges of her hair blurring like a halo.

“You find her brother,” she says through her teeth. “You find Catcher or else you’re useless out there and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be in here with the rest of us.”

I think about them telling my mother I went beyond the Barrier. Telling the Chairman. For lying, for putting everyone around me at risk, my punishment would be worse than just being sent to the Recruiters for a couple of years.

My mother would know that I lied. She would never trust me again. I close my eyes, not wanting to imagine the repercussions and disappointments. I realize that I have no choice. I either go find Catcher or they’ll turn me in.

“I’ll go look for him,” I whisper, ashamed that it takes such a threat to get me to take action.

Cira’s shoulders relax a little and Blane drops my wrist. “You better find him,” she growls.

I wait for Cira to defend me. For her to smile, even if just a little. For it to be like before, even though I know it never can be again. But instead the others in the cage pull her away from me, coddle her as one of their own. Leaving me standing alone, outside. I glance over my shoulder at the other cage, at the condemned. Overnight everything’s changed. Twisted into complicated patterns that I can’t unravel.

I open my mouth to say more but Blane turns Cira away from me. I stand there staring for a moment, wishing things could be like they were before. But they aren’t and may never be. I shuffle down the platform, skirt the stragglers in the square and wander through the narrow streets until I reach the wide empty buffer zone between the town and the Barrier.

I stare at the wall, at the dark wood towering above the Militiamen, whose patrols have tripled. I think back to last night, how I promised myself to never tempt fate again, to stay safe within the confines of Vista. And yet here I am, trying to find a way outside once more. Only now it’s hopeless to think that I’ll be able to cross the Barrier with the Militia keeping out such a sharp eye. That I’ll even be able to find Catcher if I could.

He was with the others when I ran away, and his bite didn’t look severe enough to kill him so soon. There’s still a chance he’s alive and hasn’t changed. And if the Militia didn’t find him, it means he doesn’t want to be found. It means he left just like I did but he didn’t come back inside the Barrier. It means that something is wrong.

I press my fingers against my temples. It’s stupid of me to think about climbing the Barrier. The Chairman made it clear what the punishment will be. Plus, what would happen if Catcher has already turned? Then I’m as good as dead if I find him.

I close my eyes against the sun, trying to block out the sounds of the town around me. But in the darkness of my mind I can’t stop remembering last night. In my head everything happens slow and fast at once.

The Breaker, the panic, Catcher running, fighting her. Killing Mellie.

Seeing the Breaker’s speed—facing it—I understand how it is that our world has never recovered from the Return. How even when we beat the Mudo back, infection can spark and rage again. All the stories we were taught about cities being cleared of Mudo only to discover one trapped in a closet or dredged from the ocean or lake during a storm make sense now after seeing it happen last night.

A hand falls on my shoulder and I jump, a scream catching in my throat. I open my eyes to find one of the Militiamen standing in front of me. I recognize him from school—his name is Daniel and he’s older than I am. Most of his friends joined the Recruiters in the past few years but he was left behind because he was born with a crooked leg that causes him to walk with a long slow limp.

“Sorry, Gabrielle,” he says. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

I blink at him, surprised to hear him say my name, as we’ve rarely talked in the past. “No, I was … daydreaming. I should have been paying attention.”

He smiles, shy. “A runner came from the Protectorate in the Dark City today and he had supplies for your mother. I saw you standing here and thought maybe you’d want to take them to her rather than have her wait for them to get sorted with the rest.”

He holds out a small box, its lid already torn half open. He says nothing and to fill the silence I look through the assortment of gears and cogs, replacement and repair parts for the lighthouse. Daniel leans his head close to mine to see what’s inside and for a moment I think of Catcher, of the way he would lean in to me while we spoke.