Breathe

  “I think so,” I say. Pain runs across my abdomen. I hunch over and groan, but it only makes the pain more intense. I gasp. I can’t help it.

  “You must have cracked some ribs,” Silas says. “Nothing a doctor could do about that anyway. They’ll heal. You’ll be fine.”

  Silas and Inger look like they’d keep walking even if they lost their limbs—they’d try, anyway, and wouldn’t complain about it. So I pull the straps on my facemask tight and take a deep breath. Even doing this is so painful I have an urge to howl. I take small, shallow breaths and try to focus on the moon, shining as brightly as a new coin, and on the silvery angular shapes on the horizon. I try not to look at the buildings pressing in on us, their windows shattered, their roofs caved in at the corners.

  “How did you find out Alina was on the run?” I ask.

  “Alina lives with me and my parents.” Silas grunts and puts his arms through the straps of his backpack.

  “Why?”

  “Since her parents disappeared, she’s been like a sister to me,” he says.

  “Like a sister. Huh.” Silas doesn’t respond. “So, where we headed?” I ask.

  Silas frowns. “You’re going back to the pod,” he says.

  Inger nods and finally speaks, his voice a low growl. “You would be in our way,” he says. Because Silas has done all the talking until now, my initial impression was that Inger was something of a sidekick, but hearing him I know that can’t be true. There is a strength and authority to his voice.

  “Breathe will probably come hunting again tomorrow and you can hitch a ride with them. Flash that tattoo,” Silas says.

  “My best friend is heading into the city, and I’m responsible for her, so I’m coming with you,” I say.

  Inger sniffs and puts his hands in his pockets. “She’s your cousin,” he tells Silas.

  Silas, who has been holding my backpack, throws it at me and pulls up the hood on his jacket. “We found your stuff over there,” he says, pointing to the spot where I last saw Bea, Alina, and Maude. He looks up at the sky, clears his throat, and then, like he’s just seen his fate in the clouds says, “All right, you can come.” He manages a smile. “But we won’t get far tonight through this mess. There’s no road we can follow. Let’s find somewhere to get a bit of shut-eye until dawn.”

  “I have a tent,” I tell them. “Really easy to put up: all you have to do is shake it.”

  “You have a tent? Where did you get a tent?” Silas wants to know.

  “I bought it.”

  “’Course,” he snorts.

  “Well, my dad bought it,” I add, and then wish I hadn’t.

  We walk until we find a solid-looking house with a front garden. Inger and Silas stop, shrug off the bags, and kick the remnants of an old bicycle and some broken bottles aside while I slowly unravel the tent. Within a few minutes it’s ready.

  “I have these,” I say, pulling out the sleeping bags and tossing them onto the ground.

  “That must be the smallest thing I’ve ever seen.” Silas stares at the tent. He hasn’t said it, but what he really means is, We’ll have to lie really close to each other.

  “Oh well,” I say, trying to sound blasé but really, I’m weirded out too: I hardly know these guys and it is a small tent, even for two.

  “It’ll keep us dry,” Inger says, crouching down and crawling inside. Silas and I crawl in after him with the sleeping bags. We unzip them the whole way and use one as padding for the ground and the other one as a kind of blanket. We lie down, me in the middle. Inger and Silas turn their backs on me, so even though I usually sleep on my side, I can’t do this without spooning one of them. I lie looking up at the shadows, making sure I keep my feet together and hands on my chest.

  After a few minutes Silas says, “You’re sure Alina’s all right?”

  I know that what I need to say is, Yes, Alina’s fine, don’t worry, but the reasonable part of my brain shuts down momentarily as the concussed part kicks in. What I end up saying is, “Do you have a crush on her too, Silas?”

  “Really?” Inger exclaims, stifling a laugh.

  “What in hell’s name is wrong with him?” Silas says. I have no idea how to respond because I know that Silas is her cousin and I sound like some wacko. I pull the sleeping bag up under my chin.

  “I’m sixteen,” I say, like that’s an explanation. Silas laughs, thank God, instead of hitting me.

  “He’s sixteen,” Inger repeats.

  “He’s an idiot,” Silas says. “Go to sleep.”

  25

  BEA

  When we emerge from the underground into the dawn, I have to squint to protect my eyes from the light. The cold bites me, too. There are little flurries of white frost circling in the morning air and silently settling on the ground. “Beautiful,” Alina says, holding out her hand to catch some snowflakes and pulling away her facemask so she can taste them.

  I haven’t spoken for hours; none of us has, we’re saving our energy. And I have nothing to say.

  We walk in single file down a narrow road leading to an even narrower one, more like an alleyway than a road really. I have no idea where we are. I need a map. I don’t have one—Quinn had everything in his bags, so I wouldn’t have to carry anything and wear myself out—and my pad has no battery.

  Maude and I have been struggling to keep up with Alina. How she managed to maintain her fitness without ever getting caught by a steward or one of the Ministry’s cameras is astounding. I’m jealous and angry I didn’t try to break the law myself. I’ve been virtuous my whole life, practically saintly, and where did it get me?

  We’ve been walking through the night. When Maude needed to pee we all found nooks to get a minute’s privacy, but that was the longest break we took. We have to keep moving at exactly the right pace to ensure our air supplies last, though Alina’s will last longer because she’s trained herself to subsist on lower densities of oxygen.

  Alina keeps her head down and marches onward, turning left, then turning right, rarely looking up to check she’s on the correct road. She points occasionally, warning us to avoid glass or cracked skulls.

  I wonder whether or not Alina is thinking of Quinn. Maybe it feels better to be the one filled with desire than the one desired. I wouldn’t know. Maybe I’ll never know.

  Maude grabs my arm again. “How are you holding up?” I ask. She nods rather than making the effort to speak. She doesn’t disgust me anymore, old Maude Blue. I pity her, that’s all. “Be careful in the snow. It could get icy.”

  Alina turns. “Soon,” she tells us, “you’ll see what’s possible.” I don’t ask. I was curious for a while, but now I don’t care. As she walks, Alina continues to reach out now and again to allow snowflakes to settle on her palm. I watch her and am about to reach out too when a low murmuring sound, impossible to mistake, stops me.

  “Tank!” I shout. Alina reacts quickly. She points at a solid building with faces carved into its stonework. We all pound our way through the heavy door.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Alina wonders aloud. “We have to stay hidden.” She glances at the gauge on her airtank and looks at me seriously.

  “You’re low on fuel,” I guess. Alina shrugs.

  “We all must be,” she says. I look at my own gauge and see she’s right. Our air is running out. When I turn to check Maude’s gauge she isn’t there. She’s somehow managed to scoot to the other side of the room where she is looking up at the walls.

  “Amazing!” she calls out. “Amazing and horrible.” I move to where she is standing and look up, too.

  “Are they real?” I ask.

  “Books,” Maude says. “Books and books and books. Paper.” She laughs and reaches out to touch them. She pulls one from the shelf and opens it. The pages are black and moldy in the corners. A few Premiums own books, but most paper products were left in The Outlands to rot, and I’ve only ever seen pictures and videos of them.

  “‘In a word, I was too cowardly to do wha
t I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.’ It sounds different reading from paper, doesn’t it?” she says. I don’t recognize the words Maude is reading, but I can hear the difference in her voice: it is tender now, and light. “I’m keeping this one,” she says, slipping the book into her coat. “Choose one,” she demands. “Go on.” I run my hand along the spines.

  “What’s this one?” I ask.

  “Pride and Prejudice. Don’t you know it? What are they teaching you in school?”

  “Shakespeare, mainly. Our teacher says all literature is in Shakespeare.”

  “Yes, well, maybe it is. Anyway, I’ll take that one.” She grabs Pride and Prejudice from my hands and slips it into her coat before retrieving the first book and tossing it to me. “Great Expectations would be better for you. Pip would be right up your alley.” I slip the book into my own jacket, letting the hard edges rest against my stomach.

  Alina has climbed onto a table and is peering outside. “They’re getting closer,” she warns. The rumbling is louder and the ground beneath us starts to tremble. I stand next to Alina on the table. The tank is almost outside the building. Gradually the treads stop turning and the engine lulls to a complete silence. A figure emerges from the tank holding a rifle that he points into the air and fires.

  “What’s he doing?” I whisper.

  “I have no idea,” she says.

  “They’re playing,” Maude says, despite the fact that she can’t see what we’re seeing. “They’re bored, so they’re playing. That’s what we did. Bang-bang-bang. Fun and games.”

  “Are you sure?” Alina asks. Maude doesn’t answer. She is busy reading. When I look back at the tank, the soldiers are climbing out of the hatch. They start to saunter down the street, gazing up at the sky as they go.

  “They’ve stopped to enjoy the snow,” I tell Alina. A smile of relief appears as she sees I’m right: the soldiers are crouching down to touch the snow. They both push up the black visors of their helmets. One of the soldiers is a woman with a pointy chin, while the other is a man with a thin beard. In a strange way, they look alike. They are younger than I would have expected: no more than twenty. They gaze back up at the sky again and laugh before moving toward each other.

  “They’re normal. They look like completely normal people,” Alina says. “How’s that possible?”

  “They’re in love,” I add. I look at Maude, who is scratching the nape of her neck and muttering as she reads.

  The soldiers continue to laugh, but now they are apart, backing away from each other. They gather up handfuls of snow and pat it into tight, cold bullets. Still laughing, they throw the balls of snow at each other. The female soldier screams and runs. Around and around the tank they run, screaming and laughing and throwing snow. The female soldier abruptly stops running, and when the male soldier catches her, she points toward the building opposite and the two of them make a dash for it.

  We continue to watch for several minutes. Alina looks at me and raises her eyebrows. “Well, that’s one way to keep warm,” she says. I laugh. Alina checks her gauge. “Right. That’s it. We’re taking the tank.” I stare at her. She has to be joking.

  “No way!” I say.

  “No way what?” Maude calls, interested now there’s a dispute.

  “You’re helping me to steal that tank,” Alina tells her.

  “You’re damn right I am!” Maude yells, throwing the book she’s holding high into the air and letting it fall, with a crash, right back down on top of her own head.

  26

  ALINA

  It’s ridiculously easy. Maude clambers through the hatch and starts to power up the tank. I’m in front of the door the two soldiers disappeared through, and I’m wielding a knife, which I’ll use if either of the lovebirds come sauntering out of the building early. Bea is sitting on the turret; her job is to grab me and pull me aboard when the time’s right. I’m not sure that Bea even has the strength to haul me up, but I wasn’t going to give her the knife: if one of the soldiers appeared she’d likely collapse with guilt and slit her own throat.

  The tank hums to life and Bea calls out. “She’s ready. Come on! Come on!” I run and she grabs my hands. “They’re coming. Oh. My. God. They’re coming!” I look back. The soldiers are scrambling down an external fire exit several steps at a time. Bea pulls me up and within seconds we are both tumbling into the tank.

  It’s not as sophisticated as I’d expected—rudimentary knobs and levers, the space cramped and dirty. I peer through the periscope. The two soldiers are on the street and running hard, fighting to get back into their jackets, slipping on the snow as they charge toward us. “Fire!” Maude shouts, pointing to some levers she can’t reach and wielding Quinn’s tiny mallet.

  “Get that thing!” I shout at Bea, who quickly grabs it.

  “Fire at the scoundrels! Fire the guns!” Maude shouts again, looking for a way to control the guns herself.

  “Stop it,” Bea demands, slapping Maude’s hand away. The tank is rolling forward but the soldiers are close. Could they climb aboard with the tank moving? They don’t appear too keen to try, edging away as we growl forward. They are screaming at each other and waving. One of them pulls out a radio, pushes a few buttons, and yells something.

  “Why are we stealing it?” Bea wants to know.

  “Oh, it’s a clever move, girlies. Now that lot really know they have a war on their hands,” Maude declares. I shake my head, about to say no, that we need to move faster and save air, that’s all. But as I think about what Maude’s just said, it dawns on me that she’s right: I’ve started a war.

  27

  QUINN

  You know those films where a guy wakes up next to some girl, then creeps out of bed and kind of skulks off because he doesn’t want to have to have an awkward conversation? Well, it’s not exactly the same thing, but I still have that awkward feeling when I wake up next to Silas and Inger. Anything I say, even if I try and say it casually, is going to sound all weird and forced, so I get up and crawl out of the tent, trying not to wake them.

  Everything is covered in a thick layer of white. “Come and look,” I say, poking my head back into the tent. Silas sits up and yawns. Inger is still on his side, asleep.

  “Oh God, it’s completely light. Wake up, Inger,” Silas grumbles. He crawls out of the tent. “Wow,” he says when he sees the snow. “Wow.”

  The fine sheet of sparkling whiteness makes the ruins around us look less like mounds of destruction and more like spectacular monuments. If Bea were here, I could say something like that without feeling embarrassed. But I stay quiet.

  “The world doesn’t seem so bad when it looks like this, does it?” Silas says, looking at me. I don’t know if he wants me to respond. I sigh, which could mean anything. “You know what I mean?” he says. I look at him carefully. He rolls his eyes and crouches down, skimming his hand across the surface of the snow.

  Before long, Inger materializes. “Time to go,” he says.

  The roads are even worse today. The snow isn’t simply hiding the danger but making everything slick, too. Inger and Silas trek ahead, scrabbling over mounds of rubble, using their hands as well as their feet. It’s embarrassing: they’re ten times fitter than I am, yet I’ve had more air than them my whole life.

  After a few hours, I stop. I can’t walk any farther without eating. I take a few bites of a nutrition bar, then split the rest and hand the pieces to Silas and Inger. Silas pushes it into his mouth without saying thank you. Inger nods gratefully at least.

  “How much farther?” I ask.

  “You worried about your air?” Silas asks. He checks the display. “Two hours, if that gauge is accurate. Are you an efficient breather?”

  I don’t know what he means by “efficient breather.” I breathe in and out and that usually works fine: I’m still alive.

  “I’m efficient,” I say, finding myself inhaling deeply and exhaling a long breath.

&n
bsp; “Hey,” Silas warns. “Enough of the heavy breathing.” Before I get a chance to answer, Inger puts his fingers to his lips.

  “Can you hear that?” he whispers.

  “What?” I whisper back.

  Silas holds up his hand and scans the road behind us. Then he looks up at the sky and squints through the snow.

  “Zips,” Inger hisses. “Damn it.”

  “We need a building. A tall building,” Silas says. He darts across the road and pushes through a revolving door. After a moment he reappears, opens his coat, and fills it with snow before going back into the building again.

  “Let’s go,” Inger says. “Bring snow.” He opens his backpack, shovels snow into it, and bolts through the revolving doors behind Silas. I gaze up at the towering structure. If it’s a tank they’ve heard and it starts firing, none of us will survive being buried alive by this building. Silas’s face appears in a second-floor window. “Quinn! Get in here. Now!” he shouts.

  “I don’t want to get buried alive, Silas!” I yell. “You can call me a wimp if you like, I don’t care.” Rusted cars line the street, many abandoned right in the middle of it. I’ll hide in one of those.

  “I’ll bury you alive if you don’t quit your sniveling and get your backside in here. Use the stairs.”

  I don’t know why, but I race after them, into the building and up the stairs. I run and run, expecting to meet Silas and Inger, but I’m met with more stairs. “Not far now!” Silas calls from somewhere above. I keep climbing and eventually there he is, staring at me.

  “Come on,” he says. We dash along a darkening corridor past empty offices, the desks and chairs overturned, some with the computer screens smashed. “Inger?” he calls out.

  “I’m fine! Don’t worry!” Inger shouts.

  “Right,” Silas says when we are in almost complete darkness. “Take off your clothes,” he says. I stare at him as he starts to pull his coat and sweater over his head. He rips off his boots and socks and hurls them down the corridor. “Oi! Did you hear me or what?” His facemask has come loose and he struggles to refit it, holding the airtank under his arm.