“We’re not enough?” He smiles and laughs, pulling her around faster, and she tilts her head back farther so that the light of the moon trails along her neck.
I want to look away, feeling as if I’m watching some sort of intimate dance. But I can’t. I’ve heard people talk about the Dark City my whole life. Even though it’s over two weeks’ journey by foot up the coast, it’s the closest large city, one of the last fortified bastions from before the Return. It’s where the Protectorate, the loose confederate government, sits. But it never occurred to me to want to go there. Never occurred to me I’d ever be able to pay the heavy rents to stay.
“Can you imagine living in those old buildings?” another girl says, walking toward where Mellie and Griffin are dancing. “I hear some of them are forty stories or more.” She tilts her chin to her chest so that she’s looking at Griffin through heavy-lidded eyes and he leaves Mellie to take this new girl in his arms, his grin wide. Their laughter’s almost too loud in the darkness.
I’m so aware of Catcher standing next to me and I’m sure I must look as awkward as I feel. Mellie seems so graceful and free and beautiful and I wonder if Catcher wants to dance like the others are. If he wishes I were more like the other girls. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to spread my arms wide and twirl in the night, not worrying about the dark corners or the possibility of Mudo and death. I glance at where Cira leans her head close to one of Catcher’s friends, as if they’re oblivious to everything around us.
I cross my arms over my chest and grip my elbows. My skin is thick with goose bumps.
I can’t stop thinking about what it must have been like here when the Return hit. The panic. The confusion. The bodies packed so close in one space. The inability to escape. The moans.
Always the moans.
The group migrates closer to the coaster, their voices buzzing with rumors of the Dark City and plans for leaving Vista. I wait for Catcher to go with them, for me to be left to follow behind. But he lets them go until it’s just the two of us standing in their echoes.
He brushes his hand over my arm and I swallow down a million words. The air mingles with the scent from his body; it fills my head and replaces my fear of being beyond the Barrier. There’s something about Mellie’s abandon that makes me want to be free as well.
I want to be like her. I want to forget my constant worry and dance around the old amusement park rides, twirling with the faded animals on the carousel or spinning around in the chipped teacups.
But I don’t. I just stand there and feel Catcher’s fingertips against my skin. It’s as if we’re the first ones to find this old world. To slip past everything that used to hold us tight. The air outside the Barrier seems different, seems to hum with possibility. And every time I draw a breath of it I feel as though I’m leaving behind who I used to be and becoming something else.
I begin to think that maybe I’ve been wrong to fear the world outside the Barrier. That maybe I can be like the others my age and dream about making the trek to the Dark City. That maybe there’s more to the world than hiding away in such a dead-end town as Vista.
Catcher opens his mouth to say something and I’m leaning toward him when we hear a shout.
“What about you, Catcher? You in for a race up the coaster?” Blane, one of Mellie’s tagalong friends, says as she walks slowly toward us, one eyebrow raised high. Catcher’s eyes flare a little in response and I try to study her grace. To memorize it. I feel the awkward hunch of my own shoulders and deflate a little. How could he like me when there are girls like her around?
“I’ll leave the stunts to the twins,” he says, nodding at the two brothers goofing around on the old wooden trellis, trying to show each other up.
“Aw, come on, Catch,” she says, not letting up. He tenses next to me and I remember his confession—his fear of heights.
“It’s me,” I say. My voice is a squeak, the exact opposite of Blane’s low purr. I try to clear my throat, try to stop my hands from sweating as every eye turns toward me. I’m not used to being the center of attention. I feel too keenly that I’m younger and not one of them, not part of their group.
“I … ah … I don’t like … um … don’t like heights,” I say, utterly failing to hide my embarrassment.
Blane rests a hand on her hip, cocking it to the side, and is about to say more when Catcher slides his arm around me and I feel my body freeze. Afraid that if I move he’ll somehow slip away.
“Gabry and I’ll sit this one out,” he says.
Blane narrows her eyes at me and then turns to the others. “Please tell me someone is willing to show us what they’re made of,” she says loudly, striding toward the base of the coaster, where the twins are already halfway to the top of the highest rise.
I wait for Catcher to let me go, as if he were only holding me as protection against Blane. But instead the pads of his fingers press against the skin of my shoulder, pulling me closer. I’ve never been so aware of my own body, so in awe that it could contain the quivering of excitement inside me.
I hear their shouts as they egg on the racing boys, shadows beneath the moonlight. Catcher tugs me away from them toward the carousel with the faded animals, the chipped red and green and purple and blue paint along its peaked roof.
I slide a leg over the unicorn, the tip of its horn long gone, and Catcher stands next to me. One hand on my thigh, the other on the pole by my head. His stomach slightly touches my hip and I squeeze my knees against the side of the ride.
I can feel the possibility between us. My sweaty fingers clench the pommel of the saddle, afraid I’ll slip away, that somehow I’ll take off and fly.
My mother once told me about her first kiss. I was feverish in bed—delirious, she told me later—but I remember her voice and how she told me about the boy she’d known growing up. He’d been from her village in the Forest and he’d been injured and feverish like me. She’d stayed by his bed, refusing to give up on him, and later when he was better she’d stood on a hill with him and dreamed of the ocean and kissed him then and there, with all the hopes of her future rolled out before her.
I think about that now, while Catcher’s breath hovers around me. I can feel him, can feel the air pulse between us. His gaze flicks to my mouth and before I can stop myself I lick my lips, scared that maybe he isn’t interested in me and nervous that maybe he is. More than anything I’m skittish about the silence. A pressure to say something gnaws inside me.
“I’m glad you decided to come with us,” Catcher tells me.
I shift, relieved. The heat of the summer night causes my shirt to stick to my back. I don’t know how to tell him that I’ve never wanted to test the Barrier before. That I’m not like Mellie and the others who want to go explore the world and I’m happy with the safety of home.
Instead I mumble, “I am too.” And then there’s silence between us again. I tap my foot against the unicorn’s leg, wondering how to fill the awkward gap. A crazy thought circles my mind that I should admit how much I like him but I shake it away.
He reaches out and takes the tip of my braid in his hands, running his fingers along the fan of my hair, and I can’t hold back my smile.
“It feels like things have changed,” he says, and I don’t know if he means in a good way or a bad way.
“How so?” I ask, my voice bordering on a squeak.
He focuses on his fingers in my hair, running the ends of it against the palm of his hand. I stare, mesmerized.
He clears his throat. “You know how you can know someone—or—think you know them—but maybe you only know them in one way?” He sneaks a glance up at me and I notice that his cheeks are red in the moonlight. I nod, my eyes wide, too afraid to hope he’s talking about me and the possibility of us.
He takes a deep breath, letting go of my braid. As it slides down along my shoulder I realize that my lungs are burning, waiting for him to continue.
“Maybe you know someone as your little sister’s frien
d,” he says. “And then maybe something shifts. Maybe one day you hear them say something unexpected. Or hear the way they laugh and then suddenly you see them all over again. Like this time it’s different.”
He places a hand on my shoulder, his thumb on my collarbone. I have a hard time catching my breath, wanting so desperately to hear him tell me how he feels about me. That he thinks about me as much as I do about him.
“This time, maybe you see them as …” He pauses. Above us stars whirl and collide and eke out their light only for us. “Beautiful,” he finishes, and my body explodes, my heart filling every part of me.
Catcher leans in closer. “Wonderful and funny and …” He leans in even closer.
My body tingles at being so near to him. I realize how right he is. How we still see people as who they were before and maybe not as they are now. I run my tongue over my lips and dive in, my voice shaking only a little. “And maybe you start to see your best friend’s brother differently too.”
I wonder what I’m supposed to do—if I should lean in to him as well—how this is all supposed to work and if I’m doing something wrong.
He smiles that secret smile, except this time I think that maybe I understand what it is. Possibility sparks and skitters between us. He glances down at my mouth, his breath puffs against my lips.
Once, when I was a child, the ground trembled beneath my feet. They said that it was the earth shifting, settling. But in doing so it threw up a massive wave. I remember standing in the lighthouse and seeing it coming. I remember the compression of air before it hit, the way everything stilled and pulled back for just a breath, and held.
That’s how it feels when Catcher moves toward me. The compression of air between us, the still pause, and then his lips brushing against mine.
I feel their heat first. Feel the way his mouth pauses over mine before pressing in again. I place a hand over his on the bar and he twines his fingers in mine.
It’s as if everything in my life has led me to this moment. That this is what I’ve been waiting for. All the years growing up with Catcher, the times he chased me around the twisted streets of the town playing tag, the times he’d laugh as Cira and I would compose complex plays and act them out for him, the times he would linger just a little longer when I was around.
As if this entire summer we’ve been spinning around each other, coming closer and closer to some inevitable spark that’s just ignited. As if this is everything that was meant to be. I press against him and he presses back.
I’m so wrapped up in my first kiss, in the excitement of being with Catcher, that initially I don’t hear the tumbling moan through the night ripping us apart.
The moan echoes around us, slicing into the hum of our bodies pressing together, and is followed by a silence so complete that I feel empty inside. My heart skids in my chest, every fear from earlier in the night fizzing along my skin.
Catcher pulls away from me and I almost fall into the space his body just occupied. He stumbles from the carousel with his arms out, searching the night with his fingers. I’m still trying to focus, still trying to find my bearings when I see the Mudo girl careening toward us in the pale moonlight. Her moans echoing all around me.
Catcher understands everything before I do. It takes me more time to figure out that the Mudo girl is a Breaker. I’ve never seen one before because Infected become Breakers only when there aren’t enough other Mudo around when they turn, and anyone infected in Vista is killed before Returning.
Tearing around the corner of one of the rides, the Breaker sprints into the middle of the park—a girl no older than us, looking almost normal except for the moaning. Her mouth open, teeth bared, hands clawing the night.
I react too slowly, my mind tripping over the fact that she’s running. She pauses slightly, just enough to turn her head left toward Catcher and me and then right toward the rest of the group huddled around the coaster, still loudly cheering on the two brothers, who are almost near the top. Cira’s in the middle of them, her arms raised, clapping.
They’re all oblivious but if either Catcher or I shouts to warn them, it might lure the Breaker toward us.
I clamp my hands over my mouth, terrified to move. Terrified to draw her attention. My fingers dig into my cheeks and screams threaten to pour out, choking me. Only one thought blares in my mind: This can’t be happening.
The Breaker veers toward the others—toward Cira standing at the base of the coaster—and then Catcher moves in a blur. The moonlight reaches only so far, leaving the edges around us soft and faded. He’s a shadow, moving to another shadow. The flashes of his pale skin echo the gleam of the Breaker’s teeth.
I jump from the carousel and am grabbing for my knife when I hear a high-pitched scream. I don’t want to look up but I do. I don’t want to see but I can’t help it. The Breaker crashes into the group at the base of the coaster. They scatter but she grabs a girl, a tall skinny girl, and when she spins into the moonlight I recognize Mellie.
My throat stings, my eyes cloud with tears and my stomach twists in terror but still I see it. The Breaker grasping at Mellie’s hair and yanking her to the ground, sinking her teeth into the flesh of Mellie’s forearm and tearing. A spray of blood.
But that’s all that matters. The bite will infect Mellie. The bites always infect. And the Infected always turn. Mellie is dead already.
Everyone else scatters and screams. The chaos of human flesh causes the Breaker to drop Mellie, the urge to infect more important than lingering over a fresh kill. Mellie’s mouth moves in a whimper and she holds her hand to the wound. Blood spills through her fingers. She shakes and sobs and rocks.
The Breaker lunges for her next target. And all I can do is stand and watch. I try to make sense of it. To reconcile the dry lessons we’re taught in school about the Breakers with the reality of the girl in front of me. And for the first time I fully grasp the stories from the decades after the Return, when the Recruiters would recapture cities only to find a small pocket of Mudo that would reignite the infection all over again.
I understand how the Breakers could keep the living from reclaiming the world.
But none of us had ever seen one. None of us had ever truly understood them. It’s one thing to be told something in the safety of the classroom and another to see it in the flesh. We’re too used to the Mudo that wash up on the shores—slow and sluggish and waterlogged—or the ones that find their way to the Barrier and press against it.
We were taught growing up how to defend against those. But this girl, she’s too fast. A blink and she’s already pulling down another boy. He swings an ax and it lodges in her arm but it doesn’t slow her. Her teeth find his throat before he can dislodge his weapon and he falls, a stream of blood black in the night.
I take a step back, wanting to run away. Knowing the safest thing to do is run. But then I see Catcher. He’s sprinting not toward the Barrier, but toward the Breaker. She veers from her next target, racing to meet him. He holds a knife in his hand, a blade that seems too small and useless against her impending onslaught.
Something inside me pulls tight and loud like a scream as she draws closer to him. It happens too fast. He steps aside at the last minute and she streaks past. He grabs her hair and yanks her head back, his hand against her throat. With a guttural cry he sinks the blade into the base of her skull, his arms jerking with the effort.
It’s as if everything stops in the moment his wide eyes meet mine, her sagging body between us. She was already dead. Had been dead. She was nothing but want and need and infection. But still I can see something in his face and I know it’s echoed in my own: regret and resignation.
She was once a girl. She used to be like us. Her body slips to the ground and he bends over her, pulling out his knife, placing his hands over her eyes.
And that’s why he doesn’t see it. Like heat lightning on the horizon, a flicker at the edge of my vision that’s nothing but movement. It’s Mellie crawling to her feet, teeth bared
and hands grasping. She’s already bled out, died and Returned.
I hear another scream that rips down my spine. Catcher twists toward the panicked group at the base of the coaster, where the Infected boy, the one bitten in the throat, jumps to his feet, moans frothing from his mouth.
Catcher pushes toward the group but Mellie’s faster. I do the only thing I know that will save him, that will buy him time. I shout and yell, pumping my weapon in the night air.
It works. Mellie turns from Catcher and sprints toward me. I don’t even look to see Catcher’s reaction; I don’t have time to think or give in to the terror pushing against my chest. I plant my feet the way I was taught. I tighten my grip around the handle of my weapon until I remember to loosen my muscles, to relax and wait for her to get within range of my blade.
I see every detail in the moonlight as Mellie moves closer. Her eyes are still clear, her long brown hair whipping freely around her face. Her skin bronzed and smooth, glistening with blood.
All I can think about as she runs toward me is the graceful way she danced earlier. All I can think about is how much I wanted to be like her. How maybe we could have been friends. How I could have tried harder to know her. How this isn’t what’s supposed to happen.
She was supposed to be safe. We were all supposed to be safe and happy and have futures to dream about.
I want to close my eyes; I want to remember her the way she was. To erase the sight of how she wants nothing more than to tear the flesh from my bones. To devour me. I want to give in to the terror that eats at me, claws me to the ground.
Run! my mind screams. Swing! it shouts. Do something! Anything!
The darkness of the night crowds around me, closes me into itself, blocks out everything but the sound of Mellie’s feet beating against the earth, chewing up the distance between us.
My head roars: Swing! Swing! She’s too close! Swing!
I clench my teeth, trying to keep my arm steady. The moment stretches thin, every strand of Mellie’s hair floating behind her head, her mouth slowly opening, teeth glimmering. I focus on her neck. I think about my blade slicing through it. I try to wait. Try to remember the training.