Arclight (4 page)

He’s a mess. His bumps and bruises have gained definition, changing the lines of his face and darkening his skin in places. He barely looks human.

“At least he’s not awake to feel it,” I say as I wash off his knuckles.

“Careful,” Tobin warns. “Only clean his skin, not the wounds. The sugar could give him an infection.”

“Don’t you tell her to be careful, Toby,” Anne-Marie snaps, but she listens well enough to skirt the split on Jove’s eyebrow. “You should thank her for stopping you.”

She takes a long swipe down Jove’s cheek, accidentally snagging one of the cuts. Tobin presses a clean bandage against it to stop the bleeding.

“You know you didn’t have to hit him, or you could have just hit him once, but you didn’t. If Marina hadn’t made you stop, you could have killed him.”

Apple juice sloshes out of the bottle as she shakes it at another bandage to clean off Jove’s cracked lips.

“He’s burning hot, Toby. Feel his face.” Anne-Marie grabs Tobin’s hand, not giving him a choice. “When he wakes up you’re going to apologize or . . . well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but you’re not going to like it!”

Her voice dies down to half-mumbled threats. If Jove weren’t already unconscious, she’d talk him into a coma.

Tobin and I ease away once most of Jove’s injuries are checked, leaving Anne-Marie to take care of him.

“We need a clock in here,” Tobin says.

Or windows. Or a radio. Anything to tell us how close it is to dawn, and what might be happening outside.

I check my personal alarm, hoping I can figure out a way to coax information from it, but the face is still flooded with blinking red light. It’s a shock to see the burn from where I’d hit the wall during the run. I hadn’t really registered the pain until now.

That claustrophobic feeling that had Anne-Marie so keyed up settles in. It really
is
a small room once it’s packed full, and yet I somehow end up picking a spot close to Tobin rather than one where I’m alone. He doesn’t flinch away from me like the others would.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Tobin’s voice is distant.

“What?”

“Why they’re afraid of you?” He nods to the room. Every once in a while, someone will glance my way, but they divert their attention as soon as they realize I can see them.

“They blame me,” I say.

He shakes his head. “It’s your ears.”

“My ears?” I grasp at them, confused. They feel normal.

“I don’t know what the stories are like where you came from, but here people who can hear the Fade and those who can see in the Dark are bad omens. They’re the ones we lost first. You know, before.”

“But I can’t see in the Dark anymore.”

“You can still hear,” he says. “You try to hide it, but I’ve seen you with your head cocked to the side, like you’re counting off a rhythm that doesn’t exist. Honoria tells us stories, and . . . never mind. It’s not a time for stories.”

“No. I want to know. Her stories are about people who could hear?”

“Some of them.” He nods again without looking at me. “They walked into the Dark on their own. They said they heard voices calling them out . . . people they knew. . . . The next time they were seen,
if
they were ever seen, they were Fade. It hasn’t happened in years, but Honoria’s brother was one of the last. They grabbed him on a forage run or something. He was just a kid.”

“But I don’t hear voices,” I argue. “I hear real sounds.”

“It still scares them. My dad trained himself to do the same thing, but he doesn’t tell people. You have to hide it better.”

I don’t mean to stare at Tobin, and really I’m not, but he’s been so many different people in such a short time. He’s gone from the boy slinking into rooms after everyone else was in place, to my protector, to the hurt son defending his father’s memory with feral determination, to . . . whatever he is now. His posture changes, followed by his expression, but not quickly enough to spare me the expectation there, as though I hold all his answers.

“How much longer do you think we have to wait?” I ask, because I can’t figure out how to ask him anything else. “Will they turn the alert back to normal so we know it’s over?”

“Maybe.” He scratches at the bloodstains on his fingers. The bandages he’d worn earlier are gone, lost either in the run or the fight, exposing purplish-black bruises on his knuckles. “Or maybe we died and nobody bothered to tell us.”

“That’s not funny,” I say.

“I didn’t mean it to be,” he says. “We have no idea what dead feels like. Maybe we’re there. Death would be simpler. No more mourning, no more waiting.”

“You don’t really think that, do you?”

“I guess not.” He shrugs. “If we were dead, someone would have let us out by now.”

“You think that’s how it works?” I ask. “Easy as opening the door?”

“That’s what Dad told me when my mom died.” Another shrug, like his brain’s linked the motion to ending a sentence.

“I don’t even know how my mom died . . . if she’s dead . . . nothing.”

We’ve become not friends, exactly, but tolerable allies through the bond of common loss and lack of options.

Tobin shifts again, fixating on Anne-Marie and Jove in the middle of the room.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” He slides to the floor, resting his hands on his knees.

“I know.” I slide down beside him, using the wall as an anchor for more than my posture.

“Do you ever wonder why Honoria and the others separate us like this?” he asks. “Why they stick us in a hole while they stand guard?”

“To protect us.” Obviously. The elders protect the young, like my parents did with me. I have to believe they drew off the Fade so I could reach the Light. They did
not
throw me away; I refuse to be an outcast to two worlds.

“They didn’t think it through,” Tobin says. “What happens if they fall?”

“The locks open at dawn and we do the best we can,” I say.

“But if the Fade take them, we’re next. They’re gone, the defenses are shot, the ammo’s spent, and we get twelve hours to tick off what’s left of our lives before they come back to kill us. We’re penned in.”

He stops, like he hadn’t realized he was speaking out loud.

“Sorry, I’ve been around Annie too long,” he says. “I’m starting to babble.”

Anne-Marie’s oblivious to our staring, still sitting crosslegged with her mouth going ninety miles a minute, and using her teeth to even her fingernails in the pauses between words. She takes a marker from her pocket and starts coloring them in.

“Almost makes things feel normal, doesn’t she?” Tobin asks.

Absurd and normal, a perfect description of Anne-Marie.

A group of toddlers has Dante subdued, while Silver tries to pull them off. She has one upside down by the leg, which the kid finds hilarious. A boy named Jerome, a mid-year according to his gold name tag and sleeve patch, stuffs another up under his arm while threatening similar treatment for the next one who doesn’t behave.

“I guess we could sic the babies on them, if it came to a fight,” I offer.

It’s weird to realize this is the first time I’ve laughed, but it’s true. There’s not a lot of call for humor when you’re sandwiched between the probable massacre of one people and the possible extermination of another.

“Outfit them with flashlights and we might have a shot,” Tobin says. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh, too, but it doesn’t last long.

A rolling tumbler and the click of a lock stops everyone short.

We all stand, braced for whatever waits on the other side of our door. Anne-Marie leans over Jove’s body; the upper-years form a defensive line to guard the babies. Tobin angles himself in front of me, one arm out to hold me back and away from the unknown.

The door opens slowly, allowing a foreign scent to flood the room with a metallic bite that brings cool, fresh air behind it.

“Cordite,” Tobin says. “From fresh rounds. Stay back, we don’t know—”

“It’s not the Fade,” I say, tapping my ear. The Fade don’t wear boots like the ones marching through the hall outside.

Our personal alarms switch from blinking red back to blue—not safe, but not danger, either—and Tobin drops his arm.

“Looks like you were right. We’re not dead after all,” Tobin says with a tired smile.

No one survives the Fade, but I’ve done it twice.

“G
ET
a head count,” Lt. Sykes orders one of the men who entered with him. He looks terrible, with his hair plastered to his face like sandy mud. “Make sure they’re all here.”

That’s not as easy as it sounds. Parents rush the room, searching for their children; children run to their parents. No one stays still long enough to be counted. Those like me and Tobin hang back; we don’t have anyone to check on.

Mr. Pace shuffles through, kicking spent shells down the ramp. His face is drawn. The butt end of his rifle hits the ground with a hollow thunk when he spots Jove, and his whole frame slumps.

“Do I want to know what happened?” Mr. Pace asks, looking straight at me.

He kneels beside Jove, presses a hand to his throat, then passes it over Jove’s mouth and nose to make sure he’s still breathing. He snaps his fingers, and a man and woman in rumpled fatigues come to carry Jove to the hospital.

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Anne-Marie says. “We tried to clean him up—Marina, Toby, and me.” She makes a circular motion with her finger in our general direction. “But we didn’t have enough water and the dispenser wouldn’t give us bandages.”

What’s left of Tobin’s shredded jacket litters the floor beyond the rust-colored spatter left behind when Jove’s taken up.

“Don’t be mad, please.” Anne-Marie goes quiet, which tells him more than if she’d kept yammering. “He and Toby . . . it was an accident.
Sort of
.”

Sure. Jove accidentally painted a bull’s-eye on his face.

Everyone still inside the bunker listens to hear if she’ll recount the whole story. No one has to tell me they’ll gladly let me take the blame if Anne-Marie turns on me.

“Tell me the truth, Annie.”

“He said something about Toby’s dad,” Anne-Marie says, gnawing on the fingernails she just fixed.

Tobin slips out from beside me, coming forward to answer for what he’s done, but doesn’t get the chance.

“Annie!”

Her mother runs toward her, with Trey right behind. She starts tugging at Anne-Marie’s uniform where it’s stained with Jove’s blood.

“Mom, stop it.” Anne-Marie swats at her hands.

Trey rescues her with a bear hug that has her off the ground and out of their mother’s reach.

“You look awful,” he says. “What’s all this blood?”

“It’s not mine.” Anne-Marie dissolves into tears, hugging him. “I thought I lost you.”

“Not a chance.”

Trey looks the perfect imitation of Mr. Pace, standing next to him with a rifle hung over his shoulder. The same posture and resolve in the set of his jaw; he’s even shaved his hair down the same way. A week ago, Trey was a kid like the rest of us; now he’s one of those determined to make sure we live long enough to call ourselves adults.

“You should have told me.” Anne-Marie punches him in the arm as she lets go of him.

“Are you okay?” her mother asks.

“Can we use the showers?” Anne-Marie asks in return.

“Honoria told us to switch over to our individual generators until noon, but the water should be warm in twenty minutes.”

“Then I’ll be fine in twenty minutes.”

The whole family heads off in a clump, while I’m left behind without anyone to take me home or worry if the blood on my face and hands is mine or not.

Halfway to the door, Anne-Marie shrieks “Mom!” as her mother resumes her attempt to strip her in public.

“Do you need any help?” Tobin asks Mr. Pace once they’re gone.

“I think you’ve done enough.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You never mean it, Tobin. But that doesn’t make the damage any less, and it doesn’t deal with what you refuse to.
Deal with it!
I’m tired of cleaning up what happens because you won’t.”

“Jove attacked her, and no one made a move to stop it, so I did.” Tobin meets our teacher’s accusation without flinching. This time he wins over the rage; his hands never quite make the transition into fists. He stomps up the ramp and out of sight.

“You, too,” Mr. Pace says to me. “Get out of here.” He twitches his head toward the exit.

“He wasn’t lying,” I say. “Jove snapped. He was about to choke me.”

Mr. Pace takes a quick look at my throat, drawing in a hiss when he touches the cord marks left from my inhaler. He inspects my arm where the burn’s spread from under my alarm band.

“Get yourself checked out before you turn in for the day.”

“It’s not bad,” I protest. “Doctor Wolff has his hands full without me taking up space.”

Mr. Pace straightens into his “lecture” posture. Then he sighs, and lets it go. He’s not in the mood for another argument, and he knows there’ll be one if he tries to force me into the hospital. I’d hate that place even if Jove wasn’t there to remind me of what happened last night.

“Go straight to your room, and
don’t
tell Honoria I did this.” He overrides the code on my wristband, unlocking it, before pulling a small tube out of one of the pockets on his vest and squeezing cold, blue gel onto my skin.

“It tingles.”

“Good. That means the burn didn’t damage your nerves.” He caps the tube and hands it to me. “Keep the alarm in reach, on the other wrist or in your pocket, but not over the burn. If it bleeds or goes numb, promise me you’ll get it looked at.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now get out of here. I don’t want to see you again until twenty-one hundred, got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

When we entered the bunker, all I wanted was a way out and fresh air. But now my leg’s heavy and uncoordinated; it drags with an ache I thought I’d healed past having to feel again. One side of me wants to run, the other can hardly walk.

By the time I’m back to the domicile halls, following the green line on the floor toward my room, I’m pulling myself along the rails. I pass people at intervals, but most pretend they can’t see me. They certainly don’t offer to help.