Requiem

The girl we rescued last night is awake and sitting near Raven, at a short distance from the fire, with a red blanket draped around her shoulders. She is even lovelier than I thought. Her eyes are vivid green, and her skin is luminous and soft-looking.

“Hi,” I say as I move between her and the fire. She gives me a shy smile but doesn’t speak, and I feel a rush of sympathy for her. I remember how terrified I was when I escaped into the Wilds and found myself among Raven and Tack and the others. I wonder where she has come from, and what terrible things she has seen.

At the edge of the fire, a dented pot is half-buried in the ash. Inside is a small bit of oatmeal-and-black-bean stew, left over from our di

As I’m finishing, Alex stomps his way out of the woods, carrying a plastic jug of water. I glance up instinctively to see whether he will acknowledge me, but as usual he keeps his eyes locked on air over my head.

He passes beyond me and stops by the new girl.

“Here,” he says. His voice is gentle, the voice of the old Alex, the Alex of my memories. “I brought you some water. Don’t worry. It’s clean.”

“Thanks, Alex,” she responds. The name sounds wrong in her mouth and makes me feel off-kilter, the way I used to feel as a kid at the Strawberry Festival at Eastern Prom, standing in the hall of fun-house mirrors: like everything has been distorted.

Tack, Pike, and some of the others come pushing out of the woods just after Alex, elbowing their way through the weave of branches. Julian is one of the last to emerge, and I stand up and find myself ru

“Whoa.” He laughs, stumbling backward a little and squeezing me, obviously surprised and pleased. I am never this affectionate with him during the day, in front of the others. “What was that for?”

“I missed you,” I say, feeling breathless for no reason. I put my forehead on his collarbone, place one hand on his chest. Its rhythm reassures me: He is real, and he is now.

“We did a full sweep,” Tack is saying. “Three-mile circumference. Everything looks good. The Scavengers must have gone in a different direction.”

Julian tenses. I turn around and face Tack.

“Scavengers?” I ask.

Tack shoots me a look and doesn’t answer. He has stopped in front of the new girl. Alex is still sitting beside her. Their arms are separated by only a few inches, and I start to fixate on the negative space between their shoulders and elbows, like one-half of an hourglass.

“You don’t remember what day they came?” he asks the girl, and I can tell he’s struggling not to seem impatient. On the surface, Tack is all bite—bite and rough edges, just like Raven. That’s why they go so well together.

The girl chews her lip. Alex reaches out and touches her hand, gentle and reassuring, and I am suddenly filled, head to toe, with the feeling that I am going to be sick.

“Go on, Coral,” he says. Coral. Of course she would be named Coral. Beautiful and delicate and special.

“I—I don’t remember.” Her voice is almost as low as a boy’s.

“Try,” Tack says. Raven shoots him a look. Her expression is clear. Don’t push it.

The girl draws the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders. She clears her throat. “They came a few days ago—three, four. I don’t know exactly. We found an old barn, totally intact. . . . We’d been crashing there. There was just a small group of us. There was David and Tigg and—and Nan.” Her voice breaks a bit, and she sucks in a breath. “And a few others—eight of us total. We’ve stuck together since I first came to the Wilds. My grandfather was a priest of one of the old religions.” She looks up at us defiantly, as though she is daring us to criticize her. “He refused to convert to the New Order and was killed.” She shrugs. “Ever since then, my family was tracked. And when my aunt turned out to be a sympathizer . . . well, we were blacklisted. Couldn’t get a job, couldn’t get paired to save our lives. There wasn’t a landlord in Boston who would rent to us—not that we had any money to pay.”

Bitterness has crept into her voice. I can tell that it is only the recent trauma that has made her seem fragile. Under normal circumstances, she is a leader—like Raven. Like Hana.

I feel another stab of jealousy, watching Alex watching her.

“The Scavengers,” Tack prompts her.

“Let it go, Tack,” Raven breaks in. “She’s not ready to talk about it.”

“No, no. I can. It’s just . . . I hardly remember . . .” Again she shakes her head, this time looking puzzled. “Nan had trouble with her joints. She didn’t like to be alone in the dark when she had to use the bathroom. She was worried she might fall.” She squeezes her knees closer to her chest. “We took turns walking with her. It was my turn that night. That’s the only reason I’m not . . . That’s the only reason . . .” She trails off.

“The others are dead, then?” Tack’s voice is hollow.

She nods. Dani mutters, “Shit,” and toes some dirt into the air, aiming at nothing.

“Burned,” the girl says. “While they were sleeping. We saw it happen. The Scavengers surrounded the place and just— phoomf. It went up like a match. Nan lost her head. Went hurtling straight back toward the barn. I went after her . . . after that, I don’t remember much. I thought she was on fire . . . and then I remember I woke up in a ditch, and it was raining . . . and then you found us. . . .”

“Shit, shit, shit.” Each time Dani says the word, she toes up another spray of dirt.

“You’re not helping,” Raven snaps.

Tack rubs his forehead and sighs. “They’ve cleared out of the area,” he says. “That’s a break for us. We’ll just have to hope we don’t cross paths.”

“How many were there?” Pike asks Coral. She shakes her head. “Five? Seven? A dozen? Come on. You have to give us something to—”

“I want to know why,” Alex interjects. Even though he speaks softly, everyone instantly gets quiet and listens. I used to love that about him: the way he can take command of a situation without raising his voice, the ease and confidence he has always radiated.

Now I am supposed to feel nothing, so I focus on the fact that Julian is behind me, only inches away; I focus on the fact that Alex’s and Coral’s knees are touching, and he doesn’t draw away or seem to mind at all.

“ Whythe attack? Why burn the barn down? It doesn’t make sense.” Alex shakes his head. “We all know the Scavengers are out to loot and rob, not ravage. This wasn’t theft—it was massacre.”

“The Scavengers are working with the DFA,” Julian says. He glosses fluidly over the words, although they must be difficult for him. The DFA was his father’s organization, his family’s lifework, and up until Julian and I were thrown together only a few short weeks ago, it was Julian’s lifework as well.

“Exactly.” Alex stands up. Even though he and Julian are once again speaking off each other, call-and-response, he refuses to look in our direction. He keeps his eyes on Raven and Tack. “It’s not about survival for them anymore, is it? It’s about payday. The stakes are higher and the goals are different.”

No one contradicts him. Everyone knows he is right. The Scavengers never cared about the cure. They came into the Wilds because they didn’t belong in—or were pushed out of—normal society. They came with no allegiance or affiliation, no sense of honor or ideals. And although they were always ruthless, their attacks used to serve a purpose—they pillaged and robbed, took supplies and weapons, and didn’t mind killing in the process.

But murder with no meaning and no gain . . .

That is very different. That is contract killing.

“They’re picking us off.” Raven speaks slowly, as though the idea is just occurring to her. She turns to Julian. “They’re going to hunt us down like—like animals. Is that it?”