Everland (12 page)

My heart skips several beats. An uneasy feeling creeps up my spine, settling over my limbs.

“How will you convince them to come with us? Why would they risk their lives for me? For Joanna?” I ask, watching the boys cheer as Jack kicks Scout’s legs from beneath him, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“They won’t do it for you or Joanna. But they’ll do it for her.” He turns and nods toward Bella. A group of kids tag behind her, hanging on to her every word as she waves her hands in the air with excitement. When she reaches the lift, she blows a kiss to the boys before hoisting the platform to the highest opening along the wall.

“Until you came along, she was all they had as far as a sister. If they know you hold the key to her survival, they’ll do just about anything,” Pete says.

I don’t know what to say. My heart shreds, a tiny fiber for each Lost Boy, for Bella, and for Pete. Worry lines crease his forehead, making him appear much older than he really is.

“I should go talk to Blade about preparing our weapons. Why don’t you go introduce yourself to Doc? You’ll find him in the apothecary building.” Pete points to a brick structure. Burgundy curtains hang in the windowless frame.

“You’re not coming with me?” I ask.

Pete shakes his head. “Let’s just say Doc and I are not the greatest of friends. He stays out of my business and I stay out of his. It’s probably best if you introduce yourself on your own. I’ll come find you later.”

“I think I’ll look in on Bella first, if you don’t mind,” I say, glancing up at the ballet of shadows in the cave opening.

“Suit yourself.” Pete shrugs. “If you’re hungry, stop by the kitchen. And if you get tired, you and Mikey can use my sleeping quarters. Mine is to the right of Bella’s.”

“Thank you,” I say, not feeling tired, but definitely feeling hungry.

He offers a quick nod and shoves his hands into his pockets before joining a group of boys pouring what looks like beer from an amber bottle into tin cans and clinking them with one another.

I turn toward the sleeping quarters and climb onto the lift. Gripping the rope, I raise the platform to Bella’s cave. As I reach Bella’s room, quiet sobs rebound through the entrance. I secure the rope on a hook and peer around the cave wall, careful not to be seen. Other than the little bit of light sputtering from a single candle, the room is relatively dark.

Bella wipes the cascade of tears from her face as she stares at her boots. She slips her thin arms from the straps of her metal wings and leans them against a wall. Finally, she takes a breath and pulls the leather boots off her feet. With each tug, a whimper escapes through her gritted teeth. Every slight movement appears to cause her excruciating pain until her foot is free.

Dark red stains blot the toes of her thick socks. She rolls them to her ankles and removes them from her feet with extra care. Her toes are bloody and blistered. The nails on her feet are broken and black. She dips her feet into a clay pot filled with a murky brown liquid. Her face crinkles into a painful wince before her expression relaxes into one of relief. She lies back on a ragged pillow, pulls a tattered blanket over herself, and with her feet still in the pot, she sighs.

My body aches as I suck in a breath. I didn’t realize how bad it was until now.

“Bella? Can I come in?” I ask.

She bolts upright, her feet tipping the pot and flooding the bottom of her bedroll with muddy water. She rips her slingshot from her belt and aims at me quicker than I can blink. It takes her only a second to recognize me and she lowers her weapon. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I came to check on you,” I say. My eyes flash to the ulcers on her tiny toes. “I had no idea.”

Bella sets her slingshot on a ledge and thrusts the frayed quilt over her feet. “Why would you? It’s not your business anyway,” she says, lying back down with her back to me.

“But …”

“Just go away.” Her words tumble out, quiet but razor-sharp.

Shrinking back, I’m unsure how to respond to her hostility. “I only wanted to help,” I say, surprised by the sound of hurt in my own voice.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Bella snaps as she sits up. Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Why did you come here, anyway? Are you trying to hook up with Pete? Because if you are, you might as well give up. He doesn’t have time for a girl like you.”

Shaking my head, I hold up my palms and step back. “That’s not it at all. I’m here because you invited me. You said you’d help get Joanna back.”

“I didn’t invite you; Pete did,” Bella says haughtily. Then she turns her back to me, extinguishes the candle, and wraps the quilt around her. A small toe peeks from beneath the blanket and lies in the pool of water at the end of her bed.

I should be offended, but I recognize the ferocity the war has instilled in all of us.

Below, in the city center, the boys roar as another competitor steps up, challenging Jack. Scout holds a kerchief to a cut above his brow. I wonder if any of them knows how much Bella is really suffering. Beyond the crowd of children, a window in the brick apothecary building is lit by a single lantern on its sill.

I lower the lift to the dirt floor and sneak past the crowd of Lost Boys. I climb the wobbly wooden steps up to the apothecary, knock, and open the door.

The pungent smell of alcohol stings my nose. Textbooks lie strewn across the wood floor and fill numerous bookshelves in the room. A half-dozen cots align on one side of the room and they, too, are covered with books. A lopsided desk made from scrap lumber sits in one corner. Threadbare burgundy Victorian curtains droop from a rusted copper pipe crudely made into a curtain rod.

On the far side of the room, crickets sing from two tanks placed near gas lanterns. Dozens of different lizards bask on sticks in the lamps’ heat. Other containers line the shelves filled with insects, rodents, and more reptiles.

I step into the space and glance at the open pages of the manuals. They are filled with diagrams, charts, and terms I do not understand. Notes scrawl along the margins of the pages in nearly illegible handwriting. A doctor’s script, I realize. A thick textbook titled
The Anatomy of Infectious Diseases
lies on one cot, along with other medical journals, their pages open to information regarding the Horologia virus.

From the back of the building, someone clears his throat. I look up to find a broad-shouldered, blond teenage boy staring at me with eyes as blue as sapphires. At first, an expression of shock crosses his face, but he shakes it off, replacing it with an uneasy smile.

“Um, well, this is quite unexpected,” he says, tugging on his waistcoat and brushing his fingers through his thick hair. “I haven’t had a lady visitor in my office for quite some time. Can I help you … um, miss?” he asks.

“I’m looking for Doc,” I say, fiddling with the bottom button on my jacket.

He squints. “May I ask who might be looking for him?”

“I’m Gwen. Gwen Darling.”

He approaches me and holds a hand out. “Well, if you’re looking for Doc, you’ve found him,” the boy says with a giant grin.

D
oc watches me as I avert my gaze to a nearby textbook, picking it up and pretending to thumb through it. I have never considered myself shy, but for the second time in less than a day, my cheeks flush under a boy’s stare.

“Pardon me,” Doc says, moving books off a chair. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen a girl, I have forgotten my manners. Please, have a seat. How can I be of assistance to you today?”

“Thank you,” I say as the rusted metal folding chair gives an audible squeak when I sit. “Actually, I came to introduce myself and …”

Doc sweeps his arm across the seat of another chair, sending books tumbling to the floor like dominoes. He pulls the chair up so close to mine that when he sits our knees almost touch. Leaning forward, elbows propped on his long legs, he watches me with an intense gaze.

Nervous, I shift in my seat and glance at the front door, wondering if I should excuse myself and leave.

“Your complexion is remarkable. Flawless, in fact,” Doc interrupts, tapping his chin with a finger. “The whites of your eyes are so clear. No yellowing in them.” He clutches my right hand and inspects it. “No discoloration, no ulcers on your fingers. It is absolutely incredible.”

I jerk my hand from his and scoot my chair back.

Doc pulls the medispectacles perched on top of his head over his eyes and twists knobs on either side of them. Several lenses of different shapes and sizes shift, clicking into place and magnifying his blue eyes. As with Justice’s spectacles, the lenses give him a bug-eyed appearance. He moves his face close to mine. “Stick out your tongue.”

Wiggling free from the little space between us, I stand and back up toward the door. “I think this might have been a mistake. Perhaps I’ll come back later.” Eager to leave, I hurry to the entrance.

“Wait!” he says as I touch the doorknob. He walks toward me, slowly removing the medispectacles from his face and placing them back on top of his head. The lenses, still protruding from the frames, give the illusion of two horns poking from his skull. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. The only female I’ve seen in months is Bella. Then you show up completely healthy. It’s a miracle. How have you done it? How have you survived?”

I say nothing, gripping the doorknob tightly.

“I’ve spent months scouring every book, magazine, journal, and old newspaper article searching for anything to find a cure, but have had no success. The best I have been able to do is to slow the progression, but I haven’t found an antidote. Bella, the only surviving girl, gets worse every day, which led me to believe there was no hope for your gender.”

His attentive stare gives me butterflies. I pick up one of the textbooks, pretending to read it, hoping to break his stare.

Someone knocks, interrupting the awkwardness. “Doc, I see you’ve met Gwen,” Pete says, striding into the room.

“I have,” Doc says, still staring at me, not meeting Pete’s gaze. “She’s incredible.”

There is an unnerving air between them: Pete’s fixed stare and Doc’s refusal to meet it.

“Do you think she’s immune?” Pete asks, his words pointed like the tip of a dagger. “Can she help Bella?”

“It’s hard to say. I’d need to draw blood, separate out the white blood cells, and combine it with Bella’s medication. But it would be Gwen’s decision to make. I wouldn’t experiment without her permission.”

Experiment
—a word almost as vile as
immune
. I shudder, imagining myself lying on one of Doc’s cots with needles, tubes, and the whirring of equipment around me. Everything would be done by hand, slowly and painfully.

“Right,” Pete says. He gazes at me with concerned eyes. “Of course it would be her decision.”

I drop my chin to my chest and plop onto the closest cot. “I’ve already agreed to help. Let’s just get this over with so we can go get Joanna.”

“Who’s Joanna?” Doc asks.

“Joanna’s my sister. Hook has her,” I say. “Pete agreed to help me get her back and in exchange I agreed to helping you find an antidote for Bella.”

“He did what?” Doc asks, glaring at Pete. “Pete, do you know the risks you’re taking? There is no way you and Gwen will make it past Hook’s men alone. You might as well march right up to the palace doors and surrender.”

“You’re right,” Pete says. “Alone we wouldn’t get within a kilometer of Hook’s bunkers without being caught. That’s why I’m taking a team.”

“A team? You can’t be serious,” Doc says. He places his fists on his hips and watches Pete with a stone-cold stare.

Pete crosses his arms, undaunted by Doc’s rebuttal. “Sous is packing rations for us, and Blade is preparing our weapons.”

“Pete, you of all people know how dangerous this ludicrous plan is. No one has ever come back from Everland. Ever! They always end up in Hook’s lab. It’s one thing when you put your own life at risk, but are you really willing to risk the lives of other Lost Boys? Or Gwen’s? She’s the first healthy girl we’ve seen.”

The impact of his words strikes me hard, and the guilt is overwhelming. How could I endanger the lives of any of the Lost Boys for a problem that is all my own? It is my fault. I should never have left Joanna and Mikey alone with the Marauders so close to our hideout.

“Lost Kids,” Pete says smugly.

“What do mean, Lost Kids?” Doc asks, eyeing Pete.

“Bella is coming with us,” Pete says.

“Bella?” Shocked, I shake my head. “No, Pete, she’s much too sick to come with us. She should stay here where Doc can continue to treat her.”

“If I leave without her, she’ll just follow us anyway,” Pete says, sighing as he sits on the cot next to me. The springs creak in protest. He leans his elbows on his knees and gazes down at his calloused hands. “We’re family; we saved each other. She lost everything, everyone important to her, and I lost the only person important to me. Bella means everything to me. She’s my little sister. There’s no way she’d let me leave her behind.” Pete shoots Doc a glare. Doc looks away, unwilling to meet his gaze.

I’m surprised by this display of raw emotion but decide not to press him further.