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“What was that about?” I’m struggling to keep my voice down. I can see Alex watching us. He looks amused. I wish I had something to throw at him.
I take Julian and swivel him around, so he blocks Alex from my view.
“What do you mean?” He shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t play dumb,” I say. “You shouldn’t have volunteered to scout. This isn’t a joke, Julian. We’re in the middle of a war.”
“I don’t think it’s a joke.” His calmness is infuriating. “I know better than anyone else what the other side is capable of, remember?”
I look away, biting my lip. He has a point. If anyone knows about the tactics of the zombies, it’s Julian Fineman.
“You still don’t know the Wilds,” I insist. “And Tack won’t protect you. If you get attacked—if anything happens, and it’s a question of you or the rest of us—he’ll leave you. He won’t endanger the group.”
“Lena.” Julian puts his hands on my shoulders and forces me to look at him. “Nothing’s going to happen, okay?”
“You don’t know that,” I say. I know I’m overreacting, but I can’t help it. For some reason, I feel like crying. I think of the quietness of Julian’s voice as he said I love you, the steadiness of his rib cage rising and falling against my back, as we sleep.
I love you, Julian.But the words don’t come.
“The others don’t trust me,” Julian says. I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. “Don’t try and deny it. You know it’s true.”
I don’t contradict him. “So what? You need to prove yourself?”
He sighs and rubs his eyes. “I chose to make my place here, Lena. I chose to make my place with you. Now I have to earn it. It’s not about proving myself. But like you said, there’s a war on. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead once. He still hesitates for just a fraction of a second before he kisses me, as though he has to shake out that old fear, the terror of touch and contamination. “Why are you so upset about this? Nothing will happen.”
I’m scared,I want to say. I have a bad feeling. I love you and don’t want you to get hurt.But again, it’s as though the words are trapped, buried under past fears and past lives, like fossils compressed under layers of dirt.
“We’ll be back in a few hours,” Julian says, and cups my chin briefly. “You’ll see.”
But they aren’t back by di
I volunteer to stay up and stand watch. I’m too anxious to sleep. Raven gives me an extra coat from our store of clothing. The nights are still edged with a hard chill.
A few hundred feet from the camp is a slight incline, and an old cement wall, still imprinted with ghostly loops of graffiti, that will shield me from the wind. I huddle up with my back against the stone, cupping the mug of hot water Raven boiled for me earlier to help warm my fingers. My gloves were lost, or stolen, somewhere between the New York homestead and here, and now I have to do without.
The moon rises and touches the camp—the slumbering forms, the domed tents and makeshift shelters—with a fine white sheen. In the distance, a water tower, still intact, hovers over the trees like a steel insect, perched on long, spindly legs. The sky is clear and cloudless, and thousands of stars float out of the darkness. An owl hoots, a hollow, mournful sound that echoes through the woods. From even this short distance, the camp looks peaceful, wrapped up in its white haze, surrounded by the splintered wrecks of old houses: roofs collapsed into the ground, a swing set, overturned, its plastic slide still protruding from the dirt.
After two hours, I’m yawning so much my jaw aches, and my whole body feels as though it has been filled with wet sand. I lean my head back against the wall, struggling to keep my eyes open. The stars above me blur together . . . they became one beam of light—sunshine—Hana is stepping out of the sunshine, leaves in her hair, saying, “Wasn’t it a fu
Snap.I jolt awake, heart throbbing in my throat, and quickly, as quietly as possible, move into a crouch. The air is still again, but I know I didn’t imagine or dream the sound: the sound of a twig snapping.
The sound of a footstep.
Let it be Julian,I think. Let it be Tack.
I scan the camp and see a shadow moving between the tents. I tense up and reach forward, ever so slowly, easing the rifle into my hands. My fingers are swollen with cold, and clumsy. The gun feels heavier than it did earlier.
The figure steps into a patch of moonlight, and I exhale. It’s just Coral. Her skin shines a vivid white in the moonlight, and she is wearing an oversized sweatshirt that I recognize as belonging to Alex. My stomach clenches. I bring the rifle up to my shoulder, swing the muzzle toward her, think: Bang.
I bring the gun down quickly, ashamed.
My former people were not totally wrong. Love is a kind of possession. It’s a poison. And if Alex no longer loves me, I can’t bear to think that he might love somebody else.
Coral disappears into the woods, probably to pee. My legs are cramping, so I straighten up. I’m too tired to stand guard any longer. I’ll go down and wake up Raven, who volunteered to replace me.
Snap.Another footstep, this one closer and on the east side of the camp. Coral went north. Instantly, I’m on alert again.
Then I see him: He inches slowly forward, gun raised, emerging from behind a thick copse of evergreens. I can tell right away he’s not a Scavenger. His posture is too perfect, his gun too pristine, his clothing well-fitted.
My heart stops. A regulator. Must be. And that means the Wilds really have been breached. Despite all the evidence, a part of me has been hoping it wasn’t true.
For a second everything gets silent, and then frighteningly loud, as the blood rushes to my head, pounding in my ears, and the night seems to light up with frightening hoots and screams, alien and wild, animals prowling the dark. My palms are sweating as I bring the gun once more to my shoulder. My throat is dry. I track the regulator as he moves closer to the camp. I put my finger on the trigger. Panic is building in my chest. I don’t know whether to shoot. I’ve never shot anything from this distance. I’ve never shot a person. I don’t even know that I could.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.I wish Tack were here.
Shit.
What would Raven do?
He reaches the edge of the camp. He lowers his gun, and I move my finger off the trigger. Maybe he’s just a scout. Maybe he’s supposed to report back. That will give us time to move, to clear out, to prepare. Maybe we’ll be okay.
Then Coral reemerges from the woods.
For a split second she stands there, frozen stiff and white as though framed in a photographer’s flash. For a split second, he doesn’t move either.
Then she gasps, and he swings his gun toward her, and without thinking or pla
Then everything is chaos.
The kick of the rifle knocks me backward, and I stumble, trying to keep my balance. A jagged tooth of rock bites sharply into my back, and pain shoots from my ribs to my shoulder. There are more gunshots—one, two—and then shouting. I sprint down toward the camp. In less than a minute, it has unfolded, opened, turned into a swarm of people and voices.