The Ward (13 page)

Someone’s following?
The thought makes me stop short. Staggers my step.

Another pair of boots staggers after me, too.

I whip around, squatted low to the walkway. Instinctively, my hand goes to my ankle where I’ve stashed my small blade. From this vantage point I can’t see much through the stalls, but I’m not dumb.

Kent, maybe?
My blood runs just a little bit quicker, hotter, than before.

It wouldn’t be the chief. . . . He’s long gone, I’m sure. Anxious to leave the Ward quick as possible.

I don’t know who’s back there, so I slide beneath a few stalls to throw whoever it is off track. The sooner I make it to the Tank, the better. Once I’m inside, whoever is following me will have a hard time keeping up.

I break into an easy jog, feeling the beats tremble up the boardwalk and into my knees. They’re so heavy, they’re the partygoer’s audio bass version of a breadcrumb trail. But it’s not even necessary.

Just follow the Patrol hornets.

It’s still early, but those guys go where the crowds will go. And just like at the races, the Bouncers aren’t just here to act as musclemen. These guys don’t check IDs, neither.

They’re checking blood.

“Ro!” I call out when I’m close enough, slowing as I near. I push through a few guys my age, all wearing patchy, pleather pants and sleeveless tees, with dog collars around their necks. It’s like the uniform for badassery around here.

One of them curses at me, but then he sees who I am and shuts his mouth. Even the tough guys step aside when the dragsters come through.

The biggest of the big Bouncers turns my way, arms folded over his chest, looking rough.

“Glad to see you’re in the land of the living,” Ro comments through blackened teeth. Even under the weak solar lamplights, his jacket reflects a bright and shiny neon yellow, so everyone can see he’s a Bouncer. He blathers on for a bit about how the Derbies were sure I’d kicked it, sure I’d finally bit the dust.

I zone out, scan the crowd, first to see if Kent is around. Then I find myself looking for the one person I’m always looking for. Hoping he’s here. Without the girlfriend, of course. She’s a wet blanket if ever there was one.

“It wasn’t that bad.” I brush him off. “You’ve been listening to too much Derby gossip.” Just as I’m about to stick out my arm so Ro can see the date of my last test, I see a young girl wandering round the outside of the entrance to the Tank.

“Who’s that?” I ask, but Ro just shrugs, says he’s never seen her. She looks familiar, but under the damned lights it’s so buzzy and dim, I can’t tell.

“Be right back.” I wave Ro away, and he calls after me. He could tackle and Taser me for being in the yellow zone. Only those confirmed with zero, or undetectable, viral levels can hang here. But the girl. I know her.

She’s in the yellow zone too, about to get tested.

Waif of a build, skin too sallow. Blond, near-white hair.

Aven . . . ?

My heart lurches in my chest, pushes itself against my very rib cage.
She’s supposed to be in bed
. My instincts revved, I have to protect her, I have to get to her. I have to bring her home. . . . She’s sick.

That can’t be Aven, though. It’s just not possible
.

I don’t care. My muscles are kicked into gear—I dodge the Bouncers already positioned, a wall in front of me. Good thing big guys don’t look down much.

“Aven!” I holler, still not entirely sure of myself. There’s no way she could’ve left the ’Racks.

I’ve got to be wrong.

The girl turns around to face me. She’s still sticking out her arm from the test, as a Bouncer pulls away the needle.

“Stop!” I call, sprinting up, ready to yank her away.

“Renny!” The girl smiles.

The Bouncer drops her hand, focuses his attention on the scanner.

It’s her . . . but it’s not her. This girl is shining, wearing a grin brighter than an electric moon. Not to mention, she’s upright. On her own. Wobbly on her feet, yes. And her skin still has that algae-green tinge to it that makes her look not quite right. But she’s
here
.

All my tongue can do is loll around in my mouth, sluggish and thick—I’ve got no words.

I watch her get her X—the Bouncer takes her arm and turns over the scanner. He waits for it to get white-hot, then down it goes. Aven bites her lip and I see her eyes are watering, but she doesn’t cry out. Not even a peep. I don’t know what to be confused about first when nothing makes sense.

Somewhere in the tunnels of my brain I hear the Bouncer declaring that she’s “good to go” and she should “have fun,” but no, that can’t be. My sister is sick, deadly and irreversibly sick, because there’s a tumor
—a giant, bracking lump of a tumor—
lodged against her skull, so really,
what the hell kind of alien is this new girl, anyway?

Aven snaps me out of my stupor with a hug. Her mittens find their way underneath the tight corkscrews of my hair to the back of my neck. There they rest, warming me up as I hold her tight.

We’re still in the yellow zone, my VEL unconfirmed, so when I feel a hand on my shoulder I’m just thankful that I’ve got enough pull here that they haven’t Tasered me already.

“What are you doi—” is all I can manage. I show Ro the latest X on my arm, never—not even once—taking my eyes off Aven.

“I’m better, Ren.” She says this like she had the flu, not a death sentence.

“How did you even get here?”

Before she answers, my mind wheels back to the walk over. “It was you. . . . You were following me?”

She nods fiercely, like she’s gotten away with stealing cookies from one of the toughest Mad Ave vendors.

I take her wrist, a thing so thin my fingers wrap around with room to spare. “We need to get you home.”

She pulls away, twisting herself from my grip. I wasn’t holding hard, but I don’t know if I’m more shocked by the fact that she
could
do it, or the fact that she
did
.

We don’t disagree. Ever.

“But my VEL? I’m not contagious,” she whines, like that explains everything. “I can be here, I’m allowed. He said so.” She points to the Bouncer, whose hawk eyes watch us, suspicion creeping in.

“Aven,” I whisper through gritted teeth. Looping an arm through hers, I lead her out of the yellow zone. “I don’t care what that test says. You. Are. Sick.”

“Blood doesn’t lie.” Her hazel eyes are steely, her expression harder than I’ve ever seen it. “And I feel fine.”

And I’m about to say something I’ve only heard adults say. “This isn’t a discussion. We’re leaving. Now.”

Yeah . . . that tasted as bad in my mouth as it sounded. I think I even pointed at the ground when I said “now.”

Aven unloops our arms without saying a word. She walks back into the yellow zone, sticks out her arm for one of the Bouncers again.

I run up to her, grabbing her by the shawl. The last thing I want to do is make a scene here of all places, but I can’t let her stay.

She spins around, twisting herself away. “No, Ren. I won’t go back!” Her eyes look wild. But then she stands still, only her white-blond hair moving with the wind. “I feel all right. The scanner thingy says I’m good to go. Please, Ren. I’ve never had a night like this.”

Everything about her changes right then. She wilts, no anger left in her.

“Look at it.” She pulls her hair to the side, revealing the spot where the tumor should be.

But it’s not there. Not much of it, anyway. I bring one finger to her hairline behind her ear and feel around. One small lump, no larger than the size of a coin, peeks out, barely noticeable.

How is it possible . . . ?

Tumors don’t just spontaneously shrink.

I rub my forehead, confusion settling in my brain, boulder heavy. My fingers peel something crinkly off the skin near my temple. I realize I’m rubbing at the gash where the brick hit. The scab . . . it’s already flaking off.

“You see?” she whispers.

“Aven . . .” I want to stop her, explain what’s going on.

But I don’t know.

The last few hours rewind through my head: I met with the chief. There was the raid. Aven’s fever. I told her about the fresh.

I let her drink from the canteen.

We both drank from the canteen.

It’s not possible
. But I didn’t think she could be here, and here she is. And I didn’t think that her tumor was gone, and it is.

Mostly . . .

“I want to live before I die,” she continues. Her eyes find mine, serious. “One night of fun, Ren. That’s all I need. The tumor’s not gone. I know it. But if it comes back, I’ll want to make it. I’ll want to hold on.”

She’ll want to hold on
. The words pierce my other thoughts. Put the questions on pause. Whatever’s made her better, I don’t want to think about it too hard. You don’t question miracles.

I can’t say no to her; we don’t have forever. We only have now.

Reluctant, I nod. Arm in arm we walk into the warehouse.

The elevator arrives. It takes us down, well below water level—we drop so far our ears crackle.

Aven tugs at her lobes. “Weird!” She giggles.

I want to laugh with her, but the whole ride, I’m in a daze. Too confused, too frantic to even think.
Breathe
, I remind myself, and together we feel the bass beats rising up through the soles of our feet. The elevator walls vibrate in time with the
ding-ding-ding
-ing from floor to floor. Aven smiles at me and clasps my hand in her mittened ones, rocking on her heels.

Should I not have agreed? She looks so . . . happy.

I push aside the gnawing fear that comes along with anything good—that it will leave just as quickly.
She’s here now. That’s what matters
, I tell myself, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to freeze-frame this moment.

Aven and me, walking into our first party together. Ever.

Like we really do have our whole lives ahead of us.

13

10:00 P.M., SATURDAY

T
he doors open.

We’re in a fish tank. And that makes us the fish.

The Tank didn’t get its name from nowhere—it’s a basement, gutted and fitted anew with floor-to-ceiling concave sheets of glass. One of the few lucky buildings in the Ward to be restructured after the Wash Out. Never completed, though. Upstate pulled the plug on any rebuilding ’cause of the Appeal, and we got left with half-finished buildings, like this one.

Installed with some mighty fancy technology, but no faucets in the bathrooms.

Aven and I both look around, though she’s the one with wonder on her face. “This place is incredible!” she yells, spinning in a circle to get the full 360. “I can’t believe you get to come here every month. I think this is heaven.”

The mucky water’s been set aglow with underwater lighting, and Aven is plastering her face to the glass to get a better look.

It strikes me as funny that for us in the Ward, heaven is down, not up.

“Can you believe I’ve never seen it from Before?” she asks.

I don’t answer, and my appreciation for the view right this moment is minimal. It just conjures up less than glamorous memories from last night. Reminds me how, for the first time, I’ve come to the Tank as a loser.

I turn to face Aven again, and catch sight of her running off, skipping from glass panel to glass panel.

“Wait up!” I call through the music, but she never stops for longer than a few seconds. Not even the whirlwind of colored lights overhead has time to catch her. I run after, zigzagging myself through a dozen dancing bodies, until finally, she’s winded.

Her breath leaves a circle of fog on the glass in front of her face. She looks at me, all seriousness. “How come . . .” I see her asking, but her voice trails off and I can’t hear any more.

I move us a few feet to the left, under one of the antinoise beams—they cancel out the music using opposite sound waves, or some other science voodoo of the sort. It’s quiet under here, but I can still feel the heavy, electronic beats ’cause they make my nose hairs buzz.

“How come you never told me how wonderful this place is?” Aven asks again, looking around our invisible bubble like it’s magic.

I’m quiet. Outside this window, we watch the sad remains of a parked truck as it does nothing but rust. “I didn’t want to make you feel bad,” I say at last. “That’s all. Didn’t want to make you wish for things that couldn’t be.”

Aven sighs. “All I had was my imagination. Hours to do nothing but wonder when it was finally going to be over.”

At that I flinch, though she’s not saying it to be mean.

“It would have been nice to have something like this to think about.”

The realization stings—I’d never thought of it that way. All these years, I could have been treating her more like a sister, telling her things. I’m about to say that I’m sorry, but she tugs at my hand, and I know she knows.

“Some friends are here,” I say, thinking how now is as good a time as any to catch her up to speed on the last three years. I glance around the club, landing on every near-reddish head of hair I see. None of them are him, though. “You want to take a loop together?”

“Lead the way. But first . . .” Aven riffles around for something in her shawl, opening a small pocket in one of the corners. “You need makeup.”

I really don’t know this girl. Is
this
what she’s been thinking about all these years stuck in bed?

Parties and makeup?

“Where did you get that?” I examine the stick of kohl eyeliner like it’s a black bullet gone astray that could hit my face at any moment.

“One of my scavenges. Been saving it since Nale’s. Can I . . . ?” she asks, leaning in with the weapon of cosmetic destruction.

“Noo way.” I shield myself with my hands. “That’s all you.”

Aven leans her head on my shoulder and gives me her best puppy eyes.

That’s all it takes: just one tear-jerking iota of unhappiness on her face—even the fake kind—and I’m a goner. I lean my back against the cool glass and close my eyes. “Fine. But please don’t make me look like one of those girls on Broad Walk.”