Once (5 page)

“Of course,” Delia snapped. She was calmer now that she was in Isis's and Maeve's grip. She refused to look them in the eye. “He had tried to barter with me for my boots. And then the other day he pointed to the new ones he was wearing and laughed, saying he'd stolen them from a guy he found out on Route Eighty.”

Every part of me was awake, alive, my fingers and toes pulsing with energy. “What did they look like … the boots?”

Delia wiped the corners of her mouth, where a thin coat of spittle had formed. “They were brown with green laces. Came up to about here.” She pointed to the soft flesh above her ankle.

I let out a deep breath, determined to keep calm. They sounded like the boots Caleb had worn as he walked beside me, winding our way through the city streets. I couldn't be certain. “Was the boy alive?”

“He said he found him in that furniture warehouse on the side of the road, in that stretch right before San Francisco,” she said, looking at one of the older women. “IKEA? He said that he was badly injured. His leg was infected from a stab wound.”

I only saw Delia's lips moving, heard the words that were coming out of her mouth. I tried to process them one by one. “Where? Where is that?”

“Now listen.” Maeve put up her hands. “This is probably just a rumor. There's nothing to prove that—”

“He could be dead by now,” I said softly, the thought even more frightening now that I'd spoken it aloud.

Isis shook her head. “He was probably making it up. He's a Stray.”

Regina was smiling. “She loves him. She can't just leave him out there.”

A few of the women started to agree, but Maeve raised her hand to silence them. “No one is going to find Caleb,” Maeve announced. “Because Caleb isn't even there. The Stray probably lied. They always do.” Then she turned to me, her face full of concern. “Besides, we couldn't have you going back into the wild now, not with the King after you.”

All I heard were the intentions lurking behind each word.
You will never leave here
, she seemed to say.
I won't let you
. She grabbed my arm and ushered me out, following close behind Isis, who was taking Delia. A few other women helped Missy into a chair, offering her their condolences for the knot forming on the back of her head.

Outside, the night was cold and damp. I slipped out of Maeve's grip. “You're right,” I said meekly. “It has to be a lie. I guess I just wanted to believe it.”

Maeve's face softened and she reached out to squeeze my shoulder. She held Lilac close to her side. “We hear these types of things all the time. Better not to entertain them.”

I shook my head. “I won't then. I promise.”

But as we walked back to her house I slowed my pace, letting her, Lilac, Delia, and Isis get a few steps ahead. Arden ran up behind me. We were both smiling in the dark. She nodded toward the bridge, the idea already taking root. The question that had consumed us was answered. Finally, we knew what to do.

“JUST A LITTLE FARTHER,” ARDEN SAID. SHE CROUCHED BEHIND
a burned-out car, her breath short as she pulled Heddy to her, gripping the dog's rope collar so she wouldn't move. “We're almost there.”

I peered through the binoculars, looking at the tiny, nearly imperceptible lantern light that shone at the top of the stone ledge. Isis was just outside the front entrance to Califia, a black dot moving against the gray landscape. “I can't tell if she's using her binoculars anymore,” I said. That night, long after Maeve and Lilac had gone to sleep, we crept into the storage room, carefully collecting supplies and loading them into two backpacks. Then we'd made our way across the bridge, darting from car to truck to car, zigzagging so as not to be seen. Now we'd nearly reached the end: Only a few yards separated us from the short tunnel leading into the city.

“Let's sprint it just in case,” I said. Each step was unsteady, and my legs felt like they might give out beneath me.

Arden looked at Heddy, smoothing down her soft black ears. “You ready, girl?” she asked. “You have to run fast. Can you do that?” The dog stared at her with big amber eyes, as if she understood. Then Arden turned to me and nodded, signaling for me to go first.

I sprang up from our hiding place, pumping my legs as fast as I could, not looking back at Califia or the lantern or Isis's silhouette, pacing in front of the stone ledge. Arden followed close behind, jumping over deflated tires, charred bones, and overturned motorcycles. The bag was heavy on my back. The jarred berries and meats inside clanked together as Arden darted ahead, the dog right beside her. I kept running, clutching the binoculars and sprinting toward the black mouth of the tunnel.

I didn't even see the battered cart. It was lying beneath a truck, its hooked handle reaching for my ankle as I passed. It pulled me, pack and all, to the ground. I screamed as my knee met the pavement.

As Arden ran she turned back, her gaze scanning the mountains. “Get up, get up, get up,” she urged, stepping over the last of the debris until she was safe, out of sight, in the entrance of the tunnel. She and Heddy watched me from there, her voice calling beyond the darkness.

I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the binoculars, which had been crushed beneath me in the fall. My backpack was dripping, and something thick and purple ran down my legs as I limped forward, trying to get out of Isis's line of sight. When I reached the tunnel, I collapsed against the wall.

“Has she spotted us?” Arden asked, holding the dog back to keep her from licking my face. “Where are the binoculars?”

“Right here.” I held them up. The center had cracked, leaving the two scopes connected by only a narrow piece of plastic. I pressed them to my face, searching the hillside for signs of her, but both lenses were black. “I can't see anything,” I said frantically, banging the binoculars against the palm of my hand, trying to fix them.

Isis was probably halfway down the dirt path by now, sprinting to the houses to wake up Maeve. It wouldn't be long before she came across the bridge to retrieve us. “Come on,” I whispered to myself, shaking the silly contraption to get it to work.

But when I held them to my face again I still couldn't see anything. No Isis. No Quinn. No Maeve. There was only infinite black in front of me, and my eyes, bloodshot and frightened, reflected in the glass.

THE NARROW HOUSES OF SAN FRANCISCO WERE COVERED IN
colorful, ornate carvings, their paint peeling off in sheets. Burned-out cars were piled at the bottom of each hill. There was shattered glass everywhere, making the pavement sparkle.

“We need to pick up the pace,” Arden said. She and Heddy were a few yards ahead of me, wading through the litter on the sidewalk, crushed plastic bottles and foil wrappers coming up past her ankles. She glanced above us. The moon was disappearing, the giant black dome of the sky now streaked with light. “We have to get there before the sun rises.”

“I'm coming,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the store behind me. A car had smashed through its front window, shattering the glass. Vines and moss hung down over the opening. Inside, beyond some overturned shelves, something moved. I squinted into the darkness, trying to make sense of the shadow, but then it was bounding toward me.

Heddy barked as the deer sprinted out of the store. I watched it disappear down the road. We'd been traveling for four hours, maybe more, snaking our way through the city. We were almost at Route 80 and the bridge that would take us to Caleb. Soon the entrance ramp appeared, covered in moss. I kept waiting for Maeve or Quinn to show up, or for a Stray to jump out and force us to surrender our supplies. But neither happened. I was going to be with Caleb again. With each step I took, it seemed more certain, more real. From now on, it would be Caleb, me, Arden, and Heddy—our own little tribe—hiding out in the wild.

We made our way up the ramp onto 80, weaving through the cars that would be forever frozen in traffic. My steps were lighter as we passed the old construction site Caleb and I had seen the day we'd first arrived. “That's it!” I cried, as the road curved up, hugging the ocean. The giant building was just ahead, its blue plaster falling down in clumps.
IK A
was spelled out in yellow letters, with only a faint shadow where the
E
had once been.

All that separated me from Caleb was an empty parking lot and a concrete wall. I started running, ignoring the ache in my knee from where I had fallen, and Arden's voice calling out behind me. “You shouldn't go alone,” she tried.

I had thought about this moment so many times. In those weeks after I arrived in Califia, I'd stare up at the sky, reminding myself that Caleb and I were both underneath it. That wherever he was, whatever he was doing (Hunting? Sleeping? Preparing dinner over a fire?), we would always share something. Sometimes I'd pick a specific building in the city and imagine him inside, reading a water-stained book as he rested there, waiting for his leg to heal. I was convinced we would return to one another—it was only the how and when that had yet to be decided.

When I reached the glass doors, they were locked, their metal handles threaded with a heavy chain. But two of the bottom panes had been kicked out, and I crawled through, careful not to cut myself on the shards of glass. Inside, the massive store was dark and silent. The morning light coming in through the doors cast a faint glow on the concrete floor. I felt for the flashlight in my pack and turned it on, making my way farther in.

The beam flitted around the room, settling on a crate of moldy pillows, then on an old bed frame and a dresser, a lamp and books sitting on top of it as though it were someone's home. A kitchen was nestled in one corner, the refrigerator and stove still in place, and a sitting room down the hall with a long blue sofa. I had passed stores before, seen their long, narrow interiors, but this felt like a giant maze, with each room spilling into the next.

I heard a rustling and jumped back, the beam of the flashlight hitting the floor just in time to reveal a rat scurrying by. In the dining room beyond, a few of the chairs were turned on their sides. I didn't want to risk calling out into the darkness. Instead I kept silent, walking as lightly as I could over litter and broken glass.

I wound through the rooms, shining the flashlight in corners to be certain I hadn't missed anything. I moved past beds and tables and chairs, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dark. I was looking in one of the fake shower stalls when I heard it: a faint coughing. It was coming from my right, a few rooms away. “Here,” a voice called weakly. “Eve? I'm here.”

I covered my mouth, too shaken to reply. Instead I ran, weaving through the rooms, my heart light. Caleb was alive. He was here. He had survived.

As I got closer I spotted three candles on the floor. A man's silhouette was visible on the bed. I started toward him, but when I reached the bedroom, he wasn't alone. There were more of them—three men altogether. One sat in an armchair in the corner, his skin ghostly pale. Another stood by the room's other entrance, blocking the path through. His face was scarred, and he wore dirt-caked pants and the same boots Missy had described in Califia. The others were in uniform, the New American crest pasted on their shirtsleeves.

“Hello, Eve,” the man on the bed offered. “We've been waiting for you.” He sat up slowly and studied me, his face half in shadow. The thin hairs on the back of my neck bristled. I knew him. I knew this man.

His eyes looked out from behind thick black lashes. He was young—no older than seventeen—but his face seemed more mature than it did when we'd encountered him at the base of the mountain that day. The day I had shot and killed the two soldiers. After he had stitched up Caleb's leg, I had released him. I had let him go free, only to find him here, now, in this strange place.

The soldier with the scarred face crossed his arms over his chest. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to get the message.” He looked to the others. “Word spreads quickly among Strays, doesn't it?”

My thoughts went immediately to Arden. She and Heddy were probably at the door, working their way inside the building. They had followed me here, on my stupid insistence. I had led Arden into danger once before. It couldn't happen again.

I needed to warn them.

The young soldier nodded to the other two and they rushed forward. The flashlight was heavy in my hand. I didn't think. As the pale one came at me, I swung, landing one blow across his cheekbone. He stumbled backward, into the other one, giving me just enough time to slip away. I took off through the maze, jumping over chairs and tables and broken lamps. I could hear them gaining on me, their steps close as I reached the entrance.

Arden was readying herself to climb through the broken glass door. Heddy started barking, growing more frantic as we neared. Boots pounded the concrete floor behind me. Heddy barked even louder. I kept running, aiming for the opening in the door. I didn't look back as I threw myself through it, screaming the only word I could manage.

“Run!”

GLASS SLICED INTO MY BARE ARM. FOR A BRIEF MOMENT THE
world was completely still. My body was halfway through the broken door. I saw the empty parking lot before me, weeds sprouting up through the cracks in the pavement. Heddy was snarling. Frantic, Arden grabbed me under the arms and pulled, trying to get me out. Then a hand was on my ankle, fingernails digging into my skin as one of the soldiers dragged me back into the warehouse.