The Ward (7 page)

This was a subway—
one of those underground trains people used to get around on. The Blues taught me about subways early on, during my scout training.

The tunnels continue a ways in the distance, lines of rusted track laid out for miles. If I strain my ears, I can hear droplets of water sounding off, rhythmic, like a busted faucet in the underground. Seeing as I’m fifteen stories underwater, there’s probably a leak
somewhere
—I don’t want to get my hopes up.

Still, I glance around, listen for a direction. Though I don’t expect to find anything, at least this way I’ll have something to tell Officer Cory. The building is, after all, in Quad Nine. He never specified
where
in the quadrant I needed to look.

This flashlight is so genius right now
.

I flip it on and head right. Random pools of water—brack or rain, I don’t know—gather under the tracks. The beam turns them bright and I follow the
drip-drip-drip
-ing way back into the dark.

Every few steps I slow. Stop. Listen—to the droplets and their echo.

I continue walking, then I pause.
Wait
.

They’re doing more than that. . . . I hear something at the tail end—a final sound, like water trickling into a full-up bucket. The sound of water as it falls into even more water. For a moment my heart does a jig.
It could be . . .
I think, almost allowing myself to hope.

I inhale, and I let the steady rhythm of its falling lead the way. Like it’s calling to me, speaking.

5

2:00 A.M., SATURDAY

I
keep on moving—the sound is so loud, it must be next to me—but the farther I walk, the farther away it gets.
Where’d it go?
I backtrack until I can hear it again, but there’s nothing in front, and nothing behind.

Next to me, maybe?

I press my ears to the tunnel walls. Sure enough, I find it: the spot where the sound is loudest. But what am I supposed to do, walk through walls? I shine the beam along the grime-covered tunnel looking for a crack, a crevice . . . anything.

Then I see it: a hole. Made from a different material than the tunnel walls.

The hole is, of course, filled in with bricks.

Ugh
. I’m really starting to hate bricks—first the knock on the head, now this. I steady my foot and aim to kick the things, when I realize one crucial difference. This time there is no mortar.

These bricks were meant to be removed.

And who better to remove them than me? I get down on all fours and start hammering away at them with my flashlight. After each swing, it shakes on and off like a strobe light. The flashing makes me dizzy, so when I give the final blow that ends its life as a flashlight and turns it into an official hammer, I’m almost happy. Darkness coats the tunnel again.

I pull all my air tight between my lungs—hadn’t realized what a comfort the light was. . . .

You won’t get lost. . . .

There’s left, there’s right, and there’s up.

The segments loosen, and since I don’t want to have to crawl into a pile of bricks, I try to push them to either side of the hole using the flashlight turned hammer. When I’ve removed enough of the bricks that I can crawl through the opening, I take my coat off to get rid of some of my bulk.

My kneecaps crush into the gravel and whatever else is sharp and pointy underneath me. I slide forward, inch by inch. Without the light, I have no sense of how large the interior is. I whistle. The sound doesn’t carry far—it’s cramped in here. There’s a dripping, and it’s coming from a few different sources along the ceiling, but I can’t see where. I keep on inching, continuing the crawl. My palms pick up pebbles as I slide along.

An ache in my wrists tells me the ground slopes. I put my left hand down, then my right, then left. . . .

A slippery wet against my fingertips. My wrists, all the way to my elbows, sink down, and then—

It’s too late.
More water
. Hot water, and a little bit slimy, too—I’m in it headfirst, flailing around, splashing and kicking and trying to right myself. Out of habit I choke out the stuff, expecting sour, dank, brackish bitterness.

Only I find none.

This water, it’s
sweet
.

I get my head back to where the air is—tonight’s theme—still choking from the surprise of it all. It’s hot, and it’s sweet, with no trace of the saline that’s made the local reservoirs undrinkable. I bob around for a few moments, allowing myself to luxuriate. This is about as close as I’ve gotten to a bubble bath in years. Who cares that it’s made of ancient subway mud?

As I dog-paddle to get a sense of the space, I can tell it’s small. Not much wider than seven feet across. I can tell, because though the tunnel is mostly dark, a tiny orb of light is glowing neon just a few feet below the surface—my flashlight. It’s shining like new, clinging to a ledge.
Great
. Now
it works
—I reach for it, and then realize: It’s glowing. Not just glowing . . .

Neon purple
. The thing is glowing neon purple.

I don’t believe it.

I dive down, thanking the subway gods for the warmth of the water. I don’t think I could’ve taken any more cold. Keeping my eyes open till I have the light in my hand, I find myself wincing out of habit, expecting salt water to burn my eyes. But no, nothing.

Soon as I have the flashlight back in my hand, the fact of what I have, literally, fallen into hits me. A hot spring would have been bizarre enough, though there is a fault line around these parts, somewhere. But that’s not all:
freshwater
.

I never really believed I’d find it. Hoped, sure. In a probably-not-gonna-happen sort of way. Do I even remember the procedure for what to do after finding it?

Wait . . .
Yes, I do. My flashlight . . . I’d totally forgotten—that’s where the test tube is stored.

And I used the thing as a hammer.
Brack—how could you have forgotten?

Hey, head trauma?
I remind myself. If ever I deserved a little slack, it would be now.

I unscrew the back of the light. . . . A cork falls out, followed by teensy glass pieces. Wonderful.

To the canteen, then.

Removing the cap, I dunk the bottle into the spring. Once it’s filled to the brim, I almost can’t help myself . . . I have to taste it. I shouldn’t. Who knows what’s in the stuff? But I’ve already swallowed gulpfuls, thanks to falling in. If I’m going to get sick, the damage has already been done.

I bring the canteen to my lips. Pull it away before it touches. Then, I drink.

The fresh tastes so much better—cleaner, purer—than the rainwater from the dinky drainage systems everyone in the Ward has.

One gulp follows another. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I chug until my stomach feels jiggly as a water balloon, and when I’m done, I refill the canteen for Boss.

A slight nausea sets in and I want nothing more than firm ground beneath me, so I swim around the edge of the spring. Digging my fingers into the slippery, spongelike surface around the pool’s edge, I steady myself and with one push, pull myself from the pool.

Still heady with the taste of the spring water on my tongue, I begin the awkward, plodding wriggle back through the crawl space into the tunnel. Exhaustion has begun to settle in—thank goodness for these walls, they keep me balanced, but I have to remember to lift my feet or I’ll trip on the rails.

And then a tingling sensation starts behind my eyeballs.

Not uncomfortable. At first. The tingle soon becomes a prickle, which in turn becomes a burn. My eyes water. Salt tears coat my cheeks, the cuts—all of which have started to sting. But it’s worse than that. Across my entire face, the scrapes and the fresh cuts also begin to burn.

Like a bonfire, the fire grows and it grows, and soon enough the fire starts to itch, and hell, do I want to scratch. I don’t know what’s going on. My lips, my forehead . . . if I had nails I’d be raking them over my skin right now.

I’m about to rub at my cheeks, but then my hands, my arms, every microscopic cell in my body also feels like they’ve been doused in gasoline, then lit on fire. I think I hear myself calling out to the stairwell, but I know I’m alone.
Lit on fire
.

And here I am. Fifteen stories underwater, but with no way to quit the burn.

6

2:20 A.M., SATURDAY

I
’m calling into the stairwell, or I’m hearing a noise from the stairwell. I don’t even know . . . the scratching . . .
I’m doused
. I’m hallucinating, I must be hallucinating. None of it was real—the hot spring, the freshwater. That’s the only thing that makes sense. . . .

If none of it makes sense.

But in the stairwell, a noise.
Am I making it up?

I speak out, voice hoarse and quaking, just in case. “Hello?”

The word comes out too weak for even me to hear. Again, “Hello?” I yell, louder this time. I’m draining my energy, shrieking like this, but I don’t care about that either. If someone is there, I want them to hear me loud and clear. I open my eyes, but everything’s blurry through the tears.

Boots
—Thunk, thunk
.
Thunk, thunk
. Two at a time, then silence. A scraping, the squeak of palms gripping a wooden banister.

It’s gotta be Terrence. Benny would’ve told him where my Rimbo crashed, and Ter’s got that Omni now.

The thunking noise closes in. “Stay right there, Ren. I’m coming for you.”

That voice—I know that voice. It’s not Terrence’s.

Please don’t let it be him . . . please don’t let it be him
, I whisper to myself.
Derek can’t see me like this
.

But here he comes, finally in my line of sight, his coppery head of hair bright and glinting, even in the dark of the stairwell. Or maybe it’s not that it’s so bright. Maybe it’s just that I’d know him even if I were blind, which isn’t too far from the truth right now. I can barely open my eyes—the feverish feeling is gone, but not the itch.

“Derek,” I mumble. My bookie. The only guy who makes me forget my words with no more than a look.

He hurtles down the stairs, trousers slick, white collared shirt soaked and hugging his skin. He must have swum from the mobile to get into the building.

The thought makes me warm.

Then he leans over me, lacing his fingers behind my back and knees. That’s when I get really hot. I’m about to resist—I can still walk, I have legs after all—but he lifts me up so easily, as though I weigh no more than a small bird. And I may be small, but I’m not light.

“How on earth did you get all the way down here?” he asks, almost to himself, voice muffled.

When I start to answer, he tells me, “
Shh
. . . it’s okay. Save your energy.”

His breath on my face—it burns my cheeks, already scalding. I’m closer to his skin than I’ve ever been, millimeters between us. I could press my nose to his tattoo. A small, graying circle symbol just under his earlobe that I’ve always known was there, but I’ve never been close enough to get a look at. I could touch my lips to it if I wanted, nip at it the way the orphanage cat used to give Aven and me love bites.

I must be delirious.

I see all his tiny, almost invisible freckles, too. Dozens that I never knew he had, dotting his cheeks and nose and jaw. I want to say something—I have freckles too—but, like always, my thoughts are mealy mush when I’m around him.

Avoiding his eyes is the only way I can keep my head straight with him near. I turn my gaze to anything else, though there’s not much to look at. Some lovely banisters to my right. And left. Stairs, too. Those will do. Just not his eyes.

For some inexplicable reason, much as I don’t want to, I lean into him. My body sinks against his arms and chest.
Okay
, I tell myself.
It’s okay—you’re tired. You’ve had a rough day. This is your survival at stake, right?

Immediately my cheeks feel better against the wet of his shirt. The itch fades.

He carries me the whole way to the top, his breathing barely labored.
Boy’s in shape
. When we come to the windowsill that I came in through, I push away from him, signaling to him to put me down.

I’m not going back in the water. . . . Already too wet. Cold.
No
.

Derek takes some more coats from the closet and drapes them over the windowsill. I don’t know what he’s doing—I watch him straddle the sill, sitting on the coats. My heart’s beating like it does before the races, but for an entirely different reason. I’m still wrapped up in his arms.

Then an orange Omni’s headlights break through the darkness under the water, setting the channel aglow. If I weren’t feeling like absolute crap, I might find it sort of pretty.

Terrence steers closer to the window, and Derek swings one leg into the moonroof, steadying the mobile. He does it just like he’s mounting a horse, like they do in the pictures I’ve seen during my history classes back in the orphanage. He sets me atop the roof, careful, straddling himself behind me. My spine curves into his abdomen.

I may feel terrible, but I’m not too far gone to take a mental note of his nice, strong muscu
—Stop, Ren
.

This attraction I have is from afar. He can’t know I’m into him, he’s my bookie. Our relationship is strictly business. He gives me my winnings from the races, we make small talk, and I go. I know he cares about me; he’s always warning me of the “dangers of racing,” something I’m sure he doesn’t do with the other racers. And I know it’s not ’cause I’m “just a girl”—I’m always winning.

But there’s caring and there’s
caring
.

My energy seems to be returning now that Derek’s obscenely hot
—ahem . . . warm
,
as in temperature
—body presses up behind me. I begin to lower myself into the Omni, but Derek’s hands cup under my armpits, dangerously close to other places, and he helps me down. Normally I’d be chafing at this sort of thing. I’m a girl who can handle her own, but right now I’m content to play the damsel. And to be honest, I’m not entirely playing. I might even blush, and I wouldn’t be playing at that either.