“Dylan!”
He knew the voice and was immediately on high alert, looking to the sky for a sign of where she was. Seconds later the block of stone, which sat like granite on Dylan’s chest, flew up in the air, turned sharply, and glanced past Clara’s head on its way to landing in the bleachers.
“Looks like someone is back,” said Clara, following Dylan’s gaze. “And that one, I know, is no second pulse.”
She was full of pleasure at the idea of killing Faith Daniels. Nothing she could think of would give her so much pleasure. The problem was, she couldn’t see Faith. She was up there, but the floodlights that remained turned everything behind them pitch-black.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Clara said teasingly. She’d stopped firing objects at Dylan, but Wade hadn’t lost a beat. He continued to pummel Dylan against the cement wall, picking up the heaviest objects he could find and slamming them into Dylan again and again.
“Leave him alone!” Faith howled from the sky above. She’d moved directly over Clara and Wade.
“Faith, no! You can’t kill them,” Dylan yelled. “Just get out of here. Now!”
A van tire slammed into what remained of the gym wall near Dylan’s head, and he dodged pieces of stone as they broke free; but he couldn’t avoid them all. The second pulse was weakening. He really felt it, all the way down to his skate shoes.
Clara turned her attention to the stadium lights, turning them slowly in the direction of the sky. Everything on the field turned dark, but the sky above lit up as bright as could be. What she saw confused her; and looking up, it confused Wade as well.
“I said, leave him alone!” Faith screamed. They could only see her in fragments, because a huge swath of something was held skyward between them and Faith. Clara had a strange feeling in her belly, a sense that something wasn’t right, and she looked at Wade.
“Go!” she yelled, but Wade just stood there, confused and angry. Clara started to fly as a net bigger than the football field started falling out of the sky. Dylan was far enough to the edge that he could fly up the side of the gymnasium, free of whatever fate awaited Wade and Clara in the center of the field.
Faith had flown back to the old grade school. She’d used every bit of strength she had to uproot the endless, tangled ivy from the walls of the old building. The net that came down on Clara and Wade Quinn was green and full of life. Clara became entangled in it first, feeling her strength fail her like never before. When it reached the ground, Wade tried to run, but it had him, too. Wade’s vulnerability was the same as Clara’s.
Dylan knew it wouldn’t hold them for long, but he hoped it would be long enough. He came up alongside Faith and took her hand, high in the air.
“Not bad,” he said, tugging gently. She looked less sad, more herself. The two of them would have been smart to get away from the Quinns as fast as possible, especially given that the floodlights were pointed up. From her tangled mess on the ground, Clara wasn’t trying to break free. She was putting every ounce of energy she had into one task. Her eyes focused on Faith Daniels, whom she could make out in bits and pieces through the vines that held her. She closed her eyes, thinking only of the hammer that lay in the gymnasium. She could feel it beginning to move as Dylan and Faith slowly started to drift away. Soon it would be out of the giant hole in the cinder-block wall and free in the sky.
“We need to move fast,” Dylan said. “Everyone else is already gone.”
“Gone? Where to?”
She held his hand tighter, felt the power of his presence up her arm and into her neck. When he turned to her, she wanted nothing more than to feel his lips on her own, to fix all the broken pieces of her life.
But that was not to be. She closed her eyes, leaned in as they moved across the sky, and then felt a blow to the back of her head that made her see stars and stars and stars. The pain was deep and sharp and full; but when it was gone, she understood the peace of feeling nothing at all.
Chapter 20
Morning Glory
No one, not even the people from inside the States, had any interest in the California coast. It was a place of extraordinary wreckage and pain. And unless you were an Intel like Hawk, finding a signal for Tablets was impossible. Feral cats and wild dogs roamed the streets of Valencia, a city that had once been fifty miles off the coast. It currently had a marvelous view of the ocean, and no one believed it would last forever. It was only a matter of time before Valencia, too, fell victim to the rising Pacific.
Valencia, California, had been chosen for this very reason. A place that was but might not be for long had a certain appeal for a rebellion. Abandoned buildings lined the streets like empty coffins. Time was what they needed. Time to prepare, to plan, to gain skills they hadn’t yet acquired.
“We’ve got at least four months,” Hawk said. He’d calculated the time it would take for the unrelenting ocean to devour their hideaway. “That enough time?”
“Yeah, that should do it,” Dylan answered. He’d been quieter than usual during the first two weeks, but now he wondered aloud how Hawk’s parents were doing. “I’m glad we could bring them along. They okay today?”
Hawk shrugged. Both of his parents were second-generation Intels, two of the last remaining of their kind. They were part themselves, part Hotspur Chance, and slowly losing their minds.
“I don’t think they’ll be leaving when we do,” he said. After being recruited and talking to Meredith alone, he understood that once the real downward spiral began with his parents, it was only a matter of months, not years, before they’d be gone. He sometimes couldn’t believe how recently they’d seemed only bookish, reading away most of the day in silence. Now they were more like idiot savants, staring at things for hours on end, almost never speaking, typing unintelligible nonsense into their Tablets. The idea that he might end up the same way, if he lived that long, was something he preferred not to think about unless he was forced to.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dylan said clumsily, not knowing how to comfort his young friend. Hawk was smarter than Dylan could ever hope to be. It was hard to say how he dealt with certain emotional traumas. It had been Dylan who’d taken Hawk’s Tablet more than once, each time passing it to Meredith so she could see for sure. Over the course of several different opportunities with Hawk’s Tablet she’d come to know for sure that he was an Intel, possibly the youngest of his kind. And she’d known, too, that someone of his intellect would be necessary if they stood a chance in what lay ahead.
Hawk shrugged, a reaction that was becoming more commonplace as the weight on his shoulders grew heavier. He would be counted on for many things in the days to come, tasks no one else could achieve. Sometimes, he knew, saying nothing was the safest response. This was certainly true when it applied to his parents.
“And her?” Dylan asked. He’d spent another night watching Faith sleep. He’d become accustomed to this during the long months of her early training, and he’d enjoyed watching her for as many hours as she would stay in bed. Now he only wished she’d wake up.
“She’s not losing brain functions, as far as I can tell,” Hawk said. He’d been monitoring her vital signs since their arrival ten days earlier. “But she can’t stay like that forever. She needs to wake up pretty soon.”
“How soon is pretty soon?” Dylan asked. Hawk shrugged. It was one of the few questions he couldn’t answer.
Dylan glanced into the corner of the room and felt a wave of regret. The ball and chain lay in a heap on the tile floor. Looking at it reminded him of how he’d failed her. Hawk followed his gaze.
“What a couple of a-holes.”
“You said it,” Dylan replied, and he couldn’t help smiling.
“Let’s don’t let them win,” Hawk said, then he passed through the doorway and left Dylan and Faith alone in the room.
Dylan spent the next hour trying to coax her awake. He did this by concentrating on her, lifting her a foot off the bed with his mind, holding her in his
arms in a weightless state of dreaming.
“Come on, Faith. I can’t do this without you. I won’t make it.”
Between himself, Hawk, and Faith, they might stand a chance. Wade was dangerous and unpredictable, and he was a second pulse. It would take everything Dylan had when the time came, and he wasn’t near ready yet. Wade would get stronger, he was sure of that much. Dylan would need to get stronger, too. But Clara was the real problem.
“We won’t be able to stop them without her. Not with Clara on their side.”
Meredith had come into the room, or almost in. She was standing in the doorway, looking at her son.
“I know,” Dylan said. “Clara Quinn, the only one with all three.”
Meredith frowned, her papery skin folding into tight wrinkles around the edges of her mouth. “First pulse, second pulse, and Intel, all rolled up into one tidy package. I don’t think even Clara knows how powerful she is.”
Clara Quinn, the whole deal in one strikingly beautiful girl. She was unstoppable unless they had Hawk’s intellect and another second pulse. And the only second pulse they could hope for was Faith. She had the traits; she was young enough; she’d been carefully groomed. Dylan held her in his arms and wished for something that was starting to feel impossible.
“We could hold them back,” Dylan said. His mother could be cold; he knew this about her. But she could train them all in ways no one else could. And she loved him more than anyone else, certainly more than his father ever had.
“True,” Meredith said. “But eventually they’d prevail. It’s what Andre wants. It’s what Gretchen wants. And they generally get what they want unless someone stronger shows up.”
“You don’t think I can do it?”
“No, I don’t. Sorry, champ, there’s only one of you. And one’s not enough.”
It hurt that she didn’t believe enough in him to think he could get the job done, but he also knew she spoke the truth. It was simple math that even Wade could figure out. There were two of them and one of him. He could never do it all by himself.
“Training session in an hour,” Meredith said. “Better get something to eat. Clooger is making waffles, and we found a huge stash of coffee at the old Trader Joe’s. Who’d of thought something that special would get left behind?”
Coffee and waffles sounded good, but Dylan didn’t follow Meredith. He could eat later; there were sure to be leftovers the way Clooger cooked.
“Faith, please.”
He didn’t know what else to say. He’d brought her into this mess, and now she was practically lifeless in his arms. She’d saved him on the field at Old Park Hill. If it hadn’t been for her, he’d still be pinned under a slab of concrete, his second pulse lost forever. The only thing that moved was her chest. In and out. In and out. Slow and steady, like she were resting up for something that would take everything she had.
Dylan let her go, and she floated above the bed. He’d found bright yellow sheets at the deserted Bed Bath & Beyond. He thought they looked happy, like the daisies she drew sometimes, and figured they’d be cool against her skin. He lowered her to the sheets, letting her head rest softly on the pillow. He’d waited all this time to kiss her because he had a feeling about a kiss that scared him half to death. It felt to him that it would either be a kiss good-bye or that it would be the thing that would bring her back. It was stupid, he knew, but that was how he felt about it. Kissing her would be serious business.
He was sixteen, and he’d never been in love. Looking at Faith, he realized how much he needed her, and not just because they had no chance without her. He needed her in order to keep breathing. Every day she was gone was like a death march, walking through the day in a fog, his heart heavy like the hammer.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he said. Enough was enough. At least he could do it while she was alive and in a state in which she couldn’t say Gross! Back off, loser.
He leaned over her body, touched the soft skin of her arm. His hand drifted down to her hand, which he had kept soft with half-hardened lotion he’d found at the Bath & Body Works. He put his ear to her mouth and felt her soft breath as it escaped from her nose in waves. He could feel the air going in and coming out, like the tides that would soon cover the very room he sat in.
Dylan touched her face with the palm of his hand, turning her slightly in his direction. Her face was incredibly soft, and he wondered if the trembling in his fingers would wake her. He touched his lips to hers and pressed in close. Seconds passed and Faith didn’t move. He pulled away, tried again. He wasn’t going to stop until she moved or gave him a sign. He would stay right there all day if that’s what it took. But this, too, was dumb. It was a sort of final insult that he knew he couldn’t sit next to her bed kissing her all day long. Bittersweet. He tingled with excitement because he was kissing the girl he loved. But she didn’t move, and that definitely ruined everything.
He pulled back very slowly, letting the full weight of disappointment sink in. But then he realized it was her hand, not his, that was creating a sense of pressure on his palm. She was holding his hand, not the other way around. He watched her face, saw the smallest beginning of a smile, and kissed her again.
Faith was still a moment longer. Was she awake and enjoying the moment, or had it all been the unconnected movements of a girl in a coma? But then she pushed Dylan away and drew a great, bottomless breath, her eyes wide with a knowing she couldn’t express. Her breathing steadied, and she spoke in a leathery whisper.
“I felt it.”
“Sorry, I—I’m sorry,” Dylan stammered. He was overjoyed that she was awake, embarrassed that he’d kissed her while she was unconscious.
Faith smiled, larger this time, and pulled him close by his white, V-neck T-shirt. This time it was her kissing him. When they parted she said it again.
“I felt it.”
“I felt it, too.”
Faith shook her head gently. She wasn’t talking about the feel of his soft lips against hers. She was talking about something else. All at once Dylan understood what it was.
“You felt a second pulse. Are you sure?”
Faith nodded, smiling, and pulled him into a hug.
“Pick me up again,” she said. “I like when you hold me.”
Dylan lifted her off the bed and wished she weighed more than she did. She’d need time to gain back her strength.
“My kisses are kind of amazing,” Dylan said. “Are you sure you felt a second pulse? Might have been me.”
Faith thought about what a second pulse meant: nothing the world could throw at her could do any damage. She looked into Dylan’s eyes and wondered if that included a kiss. She took his hand and placed it on her neck, pressing his fingers firmly into the seam under her chin. And then she thought about her second pulse, which was growing stronger inside her. Dylan felt the first pulse, strong and steady, and right behind it, a shadow pulse, softer but definitely there.
“Meredith is going to be very pleased,” he said.
“Let’s not tell her just yet. Can we get back in bed?”
Dylan shut the door to the room with his mind and let Faith float free out in front of him, laying her gently on the small bed. He turned and lay down beside her, and Faith placed her fingers on the soft part of his neck, searching for a pulse.
A time of trouble was coming. It would test their devotion and push them to the very limits of their strength. But for the moment it was just the two of them alone, thinking only of each other at the edge of the battered world.
A week later Faith was sitting on the very same cot on a bright, early morning. She was not alone, as the needle stabbed her over and over again. It had run two circles around her forearm already, and now they’d come to the hardest part.
Faith was glad Glory was one of them, glad she’d made the move with the Drifters.
“Come to the end of the chain,” Glory said. “Last part’s gonna hurt the most.”
The needle was busy humming, doing its wo
rk on the palm side of Faith’s wrist. It was a sensitive area, like the skin on the back side of her legs.
“It all hurts, Glory. That’s why I do it.”
“You keep talking like that and it’ll get under your skin, do some real damage.”
Without even realizing it, Faith had discovered her own weakness. The fact that the needle could penetrate her skin at all was a mystery. She had a second pulse. It should have been protecting her from anything that could harm her, but the needle was going in and out; the million little shocks of pain were real. She wondered if, in the end, the sharp tip of a knife would find its way to her heart.