The Ward (26 page)

Governor Voss must hear me gasp, because the pocketknife stops its whittling. When he looks over, he says nothing. We exchange glances, and he nods for me to keep reading.

I continued to send envoy after envoy, each one sabotaged, and turning up in a manner similar to the first, in the same manner of killing. Only one man survived. With his dying words, he told me of the existence and location of the “Minetta Brook,” they call it: a brook with unusual, healing capabilities
.

The following day, the day I ordered the attack on that area, there was no evidence a spring had ever been there. That was our final skirmish—no natives returned from the dead again
.

Admittedly, I ordered the attack without the approval of the Advisory Council, but you must understand: you cannot defeat an enemy that does not die. I was forced to act quickly. That is the tale in its entirety, I beg that you believe me, or I will consider myself shamed
.

—Director of New Netherlands, Willem Van Kieft

At the last word, I look up.

“He’s my ancestor,” the governor explains, and returns to sit on the bench beside me. Not once does he lift his eyes from the thing he’s carving. “That letter is how I first came to learn of the spring’s existence. Now, Miss Dane . . . I want you to think about what we could do with such defenses on our side. Who could withhold their water stores from us then?”

I’m not listening to him anymore.
That symbol
. . .

As I turn off the comm, my forearm goes blank, no tattoo there. It was too unusual to be coincidence.

Derek must be one of the Tètai.

I bite my lip to keep in all the ugly words I want to say. I’d like to hurl the cuffcomm onto the ground. Why would he keep the cure a secret? Not just from the world . . . but from me. Aven.

The hospital last night . . .
I put the pieces together fast, and if I were alone I would be wiping my face clean of all the places where his mouth touched mine. This was why. He left us there in the waiting room with no explanation.

He left to fill the gap in the subway. To close off the spring. To stop me from going back.

I clench my teeth together. Dig my nails to the skin.

“You recognize the symbol, don’t you?” Governor Voss’s eyes, the same steel color as his hair, meet mine. To himself he whispers, “She’s still alive, then,” looking away from the statue.

She?

“I knew it,” he goes on. “Kitaneh runs in your circle, after all. Friendly with a gambler who works the races. She has kept me from finding the spring many times.”

He has no idea about Derek.

I could tell him right now, but some pathetic sense of loyalty makes me keep my mouth shut. “Why don’t you go to her yourself?” I ask. “Doubt she’ll listen to me.”

“If I went after Kitaneh, or any of the Tètai directly, it would only end in death. And I can’t afford to kill them off.” Rubbing his thumb over what looks like the neck of some animal’s neck, he brings the knife there. Narrows it. “No, you’re going to talk to them for me.”

I stand up and begin pacing back and forth on the stone pathway.
There’s no time for this
. “What makes you think I’d get an answer?” I say, frustration cracking my voice.

The governor ignores my question.

He keeps carving that thing.
Scrape, scrape
. . .

All of a sudden the air goes tight again. I want to get out. He said he understood, but I need to leave, and he’s still keeping me here.

“Miss Dane, why do you think they’ve been hiding it?” he asks calmly.

The question takes me by surprise, pauses my pacing.

“I don’t know.” I speak honestly, and wonder if there’s some answer to that question that could bring me to forgive Derek. I don’t think so.

Governor Voss looks up. Makes a fist around the figurine. “Perhaps it is out of fear. Fear of what people in power—like myself—might do with it. They fail to comprehend the real fear.” He pauses there, and waits. Makes sure I’m paying attention.

“It is not what I might do with it, but, rather, what I might do
without
it.”

Each word is delivered like a boulder, heavy with some threat that I don’t understand.

“What would you do?” I ask, unable to stop the words from wavering.

“Only what the people want.” The governor reaches up from the bench and takes my hand, opening it up, same as he did with the pine needles. Inside, he places the small wooden statue. “Give this to Kitaneh. She will know it’s from me, and she will know its meaning. Tell them that I am giving the Tètai a chance to fix things. But I need to know where to find another location.”

Gripping the object in my palm, “A horse?” I murmur. It’s more complex than I’d originally thought, but still rough edged. Made like a child’s toy, with spokes and wheels at its hooves, even an empty compartment in its belly.

The seed of an idea forms in my mind. I could buy Aven more time. Callum, too . . . “If I do this—if I talk to her, could you have Aven’s surgery rescheduled?”

Governor Voss stands up, placing me eye level with his jacket buttons. He rests a hand on my shoulder, firm, and says, “Miss Dane, if you’re able to convince Kitaneh, Aven won’t need surgery.”

Not exactly the answer I was hoping for.

I look around the arboretum—it’s too calm in here. No wind . . .
arboretum
is just a fancy word for a glass cage. When I meet his eyes again, I’m fixed by that idea, caught under the steel of his irises. The longer I stare, the harder they look.

“You’re to report to Chief Dunn via comm with their answer in—” The governor glances at his cuffcomm. “Four hours. I would not waste any more time.”

Four hours?
I can’t look away from him—I’m an animal, trapped, clutching the strange wooden horse in my hand.

“
Go
,” he hisses.

Are they tailing me?

I lean over the banister in the stairwell to listen for footsteps, but I don’t hear a sound. That means nothing though. Could be they’re keeping quiet . . . watching. Waiting to see what I’ll do.

Well, the easiest place to lose them is here. Right now. In the hospital. And I can think of only one way to do it.

I race up another flight of stairs and into the hall, but instead of making a right toward the main stairs, I keep straight. Straight on to the red double doors at the opposite end of the corridor.

Painted in white lettering on each door: “Contagious.”

They’ll leave this exit unattended for sure.

I push the doors open and walk through. Find myself sucking in my air, like I’m still afraid of catching it. So many years pretending, hiding. It’s not that I ever forget I’m immune, but I don’t always remember it either.
Exhale
, I remind myself. I remind myself to inhale, too, though I’m sure the air’s megafiltered anyway.

I take slow steps through the empty hall, my path wide open. I should run . . . but my feet disagree. My heart disagrees.

I can see
every
patient.

All the rooms—made of clear, double-layered glass panes. Visitors can look, but they can’t touch. There are never visitors, it seems. Ain’t even that many patients. Hospital care is too expensive. Most, like Aven and me, opt for the cheaper route: house calls and black market daggers.

But the ones who are here . . . each of them could be helped by the cure that
Derek
keeps hidden. I want to be sick, and not from the retching noises coming from my left.

A young girl looks up, peers back at me through a room made of glass.

Her hair does me in; not quite as sunny as Aven’s, but enough to confuse me. I walk closer, and she brings her hand up to the plastic canopy that surrounds her bed. Holds it there like she’s shielding her eyes. But she’s not—she’s trying to see.

Me
.

She’s trying to see me.

That hair, that hair . . . She’s not Aven—the girl ain’t no more than eight—but my insides don’t care what my brain knows. Through the blurry plastic and the glass, she’s Aven. Before I ever met her. Before her dad dropped her off at Nale’s, ’cause he was dying and couldn’t take care of her alone.

I place my hand on the glass, the hand not holding the carved horse, and suddenly I’m back in the Tank. I’m Aven, seeing the world from Before for the very first time.

“Who are you?” a voice asks, tinny and weak, through the comm built into the panels. The sound startles me and I step away, dropping my hand. “Don’t go—” She’s pleading. . . .

I look around the empty hallway, then back at her glass room and her white plastic door. I could turn the knob. Go inside. Touch her hand.

My palm is on the metal. Then, echoes from the entryway—

The doors . . . someone’s coming.

I’m sorry
, I mouth to the girl, and I drop my hand. Spinning around, I bolt for the end of the corridor. Every patient turns their head as I race by.

When I swing myself into the stairwell, I hear the static of cuffcomms crackling from behind, but no footsteps. . . . They’ll be hiding outside instead.

I clamber down the stairs—if I could, I’d jump the banister, but I’d need both hands for that. The horse grows sweaty in my fist and I’m making a racket, but there’s no other way.

Breathless and staggering, I hit the last stair and I’ve reached my exit. Then I’m out the staff door, onto the narrows.

Planks wobble under my feet, and though the walkway is empty but for me, I don’t slow.
Forget the Cloud
, I think, realizing that it’s docked around front.
I’ll hoof it instead
. They’ll have a harder time following me that way.

East. I need to head east, toward Mad Ave. Toward Derek’s. Let him tell me no to my face. He kissed me. That must mean something, even if I don’t know what. Maybe . . . maybe he cares enough that he won’t be able to turn me away. And if he does, Callum is only a few blocks north.

Looking up, I know which way to go. The day is still early—I run in the direction of the sun.

28

9:00 A.M., SUNDAY

I
hit Mad Ave at its worst. The vendors are out with their hotcakes and their black market water. I don’t want to deal with all the foot traffic, not now. But all those crowds make this the safest route to Derek’s, and I can see Lihn’s Take-Out just across the avenue.

I swing left, throwing myself into the thick of it.

Like swimming upstream, I push through a pack of neighborhood Derby boys mobbed together this side of the boardwalk. The future roofrat generation, no doubt. They snigger meanly in their shoddy tweed jackets, tossing punches at one another. Every ten seconds one of ’em jumps down on a loose plank, and five feet off, the boardwalk chucks another unsuspecting victim into the air.

This time, it’s an older woman, her gray hair neat in a bun. She flies forward, then falls to her knees. Her bag spills out onto the walkway, and as she reaches around people’s moving feet to gather her belongings, the area clears without warning.

I move to help her, but
—Uh-oh . . .

Stumbling backward, I know full well why a random area of the boardwalk might clear without warning.
Bouncers
. They’re testing.

I just need to cross the boardwalk, then I’ll be at Lihn’s
.

But I can’t. One makes his way closer, the yellow of his jacket near blinding under this sun. Backing away real slow, I try not to look suspicious. As he nears . . . I recognize him.
It’s Ro
.

I exhale and laugh.

He throws me a smile and a nod, and starts to walk over. As if in warning, though, a buzz runs through my muscles and they harden. Ready for something. Ro lifts his cuffcomm to his mouth, and I watch him close. Every twinge around his eyes, every muscle of his mouth—

She’s here
, I read on his lips.
Quad Five
. He drops his hand. Flashes me another easy smile.

Brack—

Like a powder keg, my legs explode ahead, aimed directly for the crowds. I can’t make it to Derek’s now; I’d be leading them straight to him. I shouldn’t even go to Callum’s, but they have no clue about him, and it’s probably the safest place to be. Assuming I can keep from being followed.

Knocking into the rush, I fold myself between mother and stroller, doctor and cane. Curses follow me, rounds of invisible bullets. I pretend not to notice them. A man drops his bag as I elbow him to the side—planting seeds spill everywhere. Onto the planks and into water . . . it’ll cost him more than if he’d just dropped his change.

He scowls, gives me the finger.

When I look behind me, there’s Ro, mouth at his comm again.

Just a few more blocks to Callum’s. . . .

Hammering my fist against his door, “Let me in—” I whine through gritted teeth, and glance back at Mad Ave. With so many people, Ro can’t have seen me turn onto this block. But right now, one glance to the left and he’d spot me, easy.

The door opens.

I fall in. Straighten myself. Slamming it shut behind me, I lean back to try and catch my breath. “The DI . . .” I manage, panting. “They’re keeping tabs on me. . . . Bouncers, too.”

Callum’s eyes widen. “And you led them here? What were you thinking?”

“No one saw,” I insist, though I’m not 100 percent sure—I don’t tell him that.

Stepping away from the door, I reach for his arm. “You don’t understand, Callum. That cure—I need it. There’s no time. The doctor . . . he gave Aven forty-eight hours.” My voice breaks in odd places as I speak. Crackles at random.

Callum squints in confusion as he checks his cuffcomm. “She should be in surgery now—I cleared payment with the head doctor and everything. . . .”

I don’t know what to say. Back at the hospital, he told me that he might be able to “do something to help,” but I’d had no clue what that meant. No way did I believe he’d
actually
pay for it.

When he sees my expression, he waves his hand like it was nothing. But it’s not nothing. It’s my sister. “Chief Dunn had it canceled,” I tell him.