The Death Code

  “I was going to say more beautiful than I remember,” he says. “But mutilated works, too.”

  A laugh escapes me.

  He rushes forward.

  And kisses me.

  At first, I want to pull away. But he presses harder, kisses stronger, and suddenly I am in his arms, being lifted from the sea.

  “Meadow,” he gasps, and my name on his lips is so sweet. I kiss him like he is air and I need so desperately to breathe. The world fades away.

  His breath, my breath.

  His arms around my waist, my fingers in his hair.

  I never thought I’d feel his lips again, never thought I’d be here with him.

  Outside. Free.

  “Hey, ChumHeads!” Sketch screams from the shore. “That’s enough! Stop it before I puke!”

  Zephyr laughs against my lips. I can feel him smile, and it radiates into me. But he pulls away, and the darkness settles back in, wraps itself around my heart.

  “We should get moving,” he says.

  I nod.

  He kisses my forehead before he sets me down.

  Then he takes my hand, and together we head for the shore.

  CHAPTER 38

  ZEPHYR

  We spend the rest of the day hunting for food.

  There’s nothing.

  No fish, no crabs. Not even coconuts in the palm trees.

  The sun melts into the sea. The three of us stand onshore, watching. It’s the same sun we’ve always seen in the Shallows. But now it sort of looks . . . different.

  “It goes on forever,” Meadow says. She’s right. In the Shallows, the ocean ended with the Perimeter. But now, it just stretches on and on.

  I nod. “It’s like it never ends.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” Meadow asks.

  Sketch tosses a shell into the waves. “Everything ends, Woodson,” she says.

  They share a meaningful look that reminds me of two old friends. Not two killers.

  But I guess they’ve been through hell and back together.

  “We should find shelter,” I say.

  Even though we’re free, and there are no Patients after us, and no Leeches hunting us down, I feel like we’re being watched. I feel like these train tracks are leading us somewhere dark. Somewhere dangerous.

  It’s like a chill in my spine. A weird, tingling feeling that raises the hair on my arms. I wonder if the Murder Complex can still reach me here.

  We haven’t talked about it yet, and I’m afraid what might happen, if Sketch and I both turn on Meadow in the night.

  “Let’s try that building up ahead,” Sketch says.

  We make our way inside, crawling over piles of broken glass and brick. It looks like it might’ve had stuff a long time ago. But now it’s been picked clean.

  All that’s left is an old chair, the stuffing ripped out of it.

  Meadow uses a brick to bash it to pieces, and we make a fire from the wood.

  “Who’s going to take watch?” Meadow asks. In the firelight, she’s got dark circles under her eyes. I wonder if she’s slept, really slept, since the Leeches took her.

  “There’s no one out here,” I say.

  Sketch laughs. “That’s where you’re wrong, Zero.” She spits into the fire. “The whole reason for the Murder Complex is because there’s too many people out here. Right?”

  “That’s what my father always told me.” Meadow nods. She holds the dagger in her hands, twirling it the way she used to. But now, her hands shake a little. She drops it, and her eyes widen. She scoops it up, then tucks it into her waistband. “Do you think . . . Does the system reach you here?”

  So she’s wondering it, too.

  “Zero and I should sleep somewhere else,” Sketch says. “Just in case.”

  “No,” Meadow says. She glares at us both. “We stay together.”

  Sketch sighs. “Fine, Woodson, but if we turn on you, it’s your death.”

  “No one is dying,” Meadow says. Her voice turns to a whisper. “Not until we find my family.”

  “Unless we do die first.” Sketch laughs. But she sees the look on Meadows face, like there’s fire in her eyes. Sketch sighs. “It’ll be fine, Woodson. We made it this far. We’ll make it all the way if that’s what it takes.”

  Meadow swallows, hard. She stares straight ahead. “I guess so.”

  “I’ll stay up,” I say. “You two rest.”

  “Don’t have to ask me twice,” Sketch says.

  In seconds, she’s snoring, twitching every few minutes. Mumbling in her sleep. I watch her, waiting for something to happen. I try to reach out and touch the system in my mind. But it feels emptier now. Like I could sleep, and I wouldn’t see the faces of people begging to be ripped from this world.

  Meadow lies down beside me, just out of reach. “Come closer,” I say. “You’ve been far away for too long.” She hesitates, then scoots over and lays her head in my lap. I can feel the machine on her, cold and hard against my legs.

  “What does it do?” I ask.

  She stiffens. “It’s a Regulator. It controls me,” she says. Then she changes her mind. “Or it used to, at least. Peri has one just like it.”

  When she says her sister’s name, her voice cracks.

  “Can we remove it?” It’s solid black, thick and heavy.

  “No,” she says. “At least, we can’t. They put it in surgically.”

  My stomach whirls. “We’ll worry about it later. Get some sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” she says, even though she yawns.

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “I have nightmares,” she whispers. “They’re too real.”

  “Don’t worry.” I smile down at her, even though her eyes are already closed. “I’ll keep them away.”

  “My mother,” Meadow says. “I know she was a monster.”

  “She was,” I say, and I’m about to tell her that it was me, that I was the one who fired that arrow into Lark’s chest.

  But then I see the look in Meadow’s eyes. The pain of loss.

  I wait for her to speak.

  “When she . . . when she died,” Meadow says, like she’s testing the word on her tongue, “she was apologizing for something. But she didn’t get to finish. What if she was trying to change, Zephyr? She could have escaped with us. Or fixed things. She told me . . .” She trails off, shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore what she said. Because now she’s dead, and it’s my fault. I lured her out. And for what? A sister I might find? A father and a brother that may or may not already be dead?” She takes a deep breath, and I notice her fingers have gone back to her dagger.

  “We’ll find your family, Meadow. They aren’t dead.”

  She takes the tip of the dagger, moves it toward her ankle. I see lines carved there, numerals that have turned to scars.

  Before I can stop her, she turns the knife to her ankle and carves another line in her skin. Fresh blood drips down like a river.

  Then the cut turns to a scab, as the nanites stitch it back up.

  “You shouldn’t hurt yourself,” I say. I reach out, try to take the knife from her, but I stop myself. Meadow isn’t Meadow without a weapon, and right now, I’m seeing a girl that’s not the same as she was before.

  I wonder if she’ll ever come back.

  “I’m not hurting myself,” Meadow whispers. She sits up, trails the tip of the knife on the dusty floor. “I’m marking the days they’ve been gone.” Her gray eyes flit upward to meet mine. There’s a trickle of moonlight coming through a hole in the roof, and she looks ghostly pale.

  Dead.

  “You promised me you’d find them,” Meadow whispers. “I helped you escape so that you’d find them. And you’re still here.”

  There’s a hitch in her voice.

  The darkness again.

  “Meadow,” I say, but she stops me by holding up the knife.

  “You wasted time waiting on me,” she says. “You waited around for nothing, Zeph
yr. And now my mother is dead. I have a Regulator on my spine, and I’m . . .” Her breath hitches. “It doesn’t matter what I am. What matters is finding them. Nothing more.”

  “I stayed for you,” I say. “Because that’s what you do for love, Meadow.”

  “Love is a joke,” she says. “I loved my mother, and now she’s gone, and all I’m feeling is pain. I’ll kill the person who killed her. If she’s dead, they deserve to die, too.”

  I can’t tell her.

  “If we don’t find my family,” she whispers. “Then her death will have been for nothing.”

  There’s this horrible guilt in her eyes. Like she really believes she’s the one who killed her mother. But it’s me. I’ve got Lark’s blood on my hands.

  The guilt should be in my eyes, the same way it’s been all these years of waking up with people dead at my feet. But not tonight.

  I can’t tell her.

  “Kill or be killed,” Meadow whispers.

  Oh, stars, I can never tell her. I just got her back.

  I say nothing. She turns away from me, lies down with the Regulator against the hard ground. I hear her voice, whispering horrible things to the darkness. The whisper in her voice isn’t Meadow’s.

  It’s Lark’s.

  I will kill you.

  I will find you.

  I am already dead.

  When she wakes up screaming, hours later, I go to her. I hold her tight, kiss her forehead, tell her it’s not real.

  But we both know it is.

  I wish I could’ve saved her sooner.

  Because I can tell that a part of her is already dead.

  CHAPTER 39

  MEADOW

  In the morning, we walk along the tracks. They lead toward the coast, cutting near the sand. I think of Koi, how he prepared me for the day I’d jump and try to make it onto the red or blue train. I stop looking at the tracks, because the memories hurt too much.

  Sketch counts our steps, and announces when we’ve hit another mile. I walk alone in front.

  Sketch and Zephyr speak in hushed voices behind me.

  I’m not listening, because I don’t care.

  The heat of the day is like fire, making it hard to breathe, hard to concentrate, hard to keep going.

  But I won’t stop. Not until I know my family is safe. Sometimes, I imagine my mother’s ghost is walking beside me. Whispering the last words she ever said.

  I don’t want them to be true. But if anything, when it came to her science, my mother never lied. What I know haunts me, and when the wind blows, I shiver. I whirl around at every noise. I stare into the trees, and I think I can see faces.

  I think I can see Peri.

  I think I can hear her screams.

  “MEADOW!”

  It’s louder than it’s ever been.

  I slam my hands against my ears, claw at them with my fingernails. I cry out, and suddenly Zephyr and Sketch are rushing for me, trying to calm me down.

  They hold my arms to my sides. I thrash and fight, but I’m exhausted.

  I can’t get free.

  Zephyr kneels in front of me, looks into my eyes.

  “It’s not real,” he says. “I’m real. Look at me, Meadow. Right here.”

  I see two pools of endless green, hear a voice that’s calm and gentle and safe.

  My breathing slows.

  Peri’s screams fade, but the looks on Zephyr’s and Sketch’s faces do not.

  They think I am insane.

  And I realize, as I swallow back tears and force myself to focus . . . they are right.

  CHAPTER 40

  ZEPHYR

  It’s halfway through the day, and Meadow’s losing her mind.

  We force her to rest, for five minutes. Because with every step, she’s getting worse. I tell myself she’s hungry, thirsty, tired. I tell myself this isn’t Meadow.

  I wish I believed that.

  She sits beside me on the sand, in the shadow of a mossy tree. She’s running her fingertips across the cuts on her legs, whispering the numbers of the days she’s been without her family.

  “Too long,” Meadow says.

  I look sideways at her. “What?”

  She doesn’t move, just keeps staring down at her scars. “They’re been gone for too long.”

  I can’t sit here any longer. “I’ll go find you some water,” I say. “Stay here.”

  I stand up and cross the sand. Sketch is sitting by the water’s edge, tossing trash into the waves.

  She tenses when she hears me coming. “What do you want, Zero?”

  “The truth,” I say. I sit down beside her in the hot sand. “What happened back there?”

  “Woodson lost herself for a second,” Sketch says with a shrug. The wind blows onshore, but her dreadlocks stay motionless, heavy as hell.

  “I don’t mean today,” I say. “I’m asking what happened in the Leech building? What did they do to her?”

  It’s a long time before Sketch answers. She sighs, leans back on her elbows. “I didn’t know Meadow before the torture, not like you did. They tried like hell to hurt us, Zero, and they did. Cutting us. Burning us. Beating us until we blacked out, and then doing it all over again. But Meadow didn’t break, not from any of that. She laughed in their faces. She killed one of them.”

  I shut out images that come from Sketch’s words. Meadow, bleeding, screaming, but never begging.

  “Then what?” I ask. “The Meadow I know would never act this way. The Meadow I know is too strong.”

  Sketch nods. “She’s strong, yeah. We were strong together, until they took her away. Because Woodson has a weakness that I don’t have.”

  I look at her, raise my eyebrows. “What weakness is that?”

  “Love,” Sketch says.

  Love makes us weak.

  Meadow said that to me, once, in the Shallows. She didn’t realize she was a victim to that already.

  “She whispered her sister’s name in her sleep,” Sketch says. “Every night. The Leeches might be bastards, but they aren’t idiots.” She turns to me, and I notice for the first time that she has amber eyes. Like a sunset. “The Initiative saw someone strong, someone willing to fight back. They took what means the most to her in this world. They used it against her.”

  She stands up, brushes sand from her thighs. “Meadow is broken from the inside out. And until she finds her family again, no one in this world will be able to put her back together. Not even you.”

  “And if they’re dead?” I ask. “If we make it there, and they’re already gone?”

  Sketch’s voice is barely a whisper. “Then we can say good-bye to Meadow. Because she won’t live in a world where her family no longer exists.”

  She leaves me.

  I sit alone by the shore, watching piles of trash drown in the waves.

  Wondering, for the first time, if following Meadow is really worth it.

  CHAPTER 41

  MEADOW

  You’re strong enough, my father’s voice says to me. Don’t give up. Not now, Meadow. Not ever.

  I cling to him. Beg him to keep speaking to me, because I am tired. I need him to lend me his strength, so that I can feel whole again.

  We move on. I tell myself that soon, I will be able to hear my father’s real voice. I will be able to lean against him and let him scold me for falling apart.

  I will grit my teeth and nod, and I will be the daughter he trained me to be.

  Not now.

  Now I know that to be the Meadow I once was, I have to find my father alive. All of them, alive.

  “Thirty-seven miles,” Sketch says from behind me, when the sun is high in the sky. “We’ve been walking all day and there’s nothing.”

  It’s empty. The train hasn’t passed by yet on the tracks, and we haven’t seen anyone. Where are the survivors from the Fall? Where are all the people my father talked about? The millions . . . billions? The reason for the Cure? He said it made us live forever, that there were too many peopl
e out here. That the world was being crushed under our weight.

  “Smoke,” Zephyr says. He points into the distance, a few miles away, where the shore breaks up into a pile of rocks. “You think there’re people over there?”

  He’s right.

  A trail of smoke rises from the other side of the rocks. And as we get closer, walking in silence, we hear voices, people laughing.

  I tighten my hand over my dagger.

  We are not alone.

  No one can be trusted, Meadow. My father’s voice. And he is right. This is not the Shallows, where people are weak, and starved, and fight with the sloppy moves of a child.

  This is the Outside.

  I know nothing about the people here.

  “We should avoid them,” I say. Sweat drips down my neck, and I wipe it away.

  “We could kill them all and take what they’ve got,” Sketch adds, grinning like the madwoman she is.

  “We’re not killing anyone,” Zephyr says, putting his hand on Sketch’s scarred arm.

  She shrugs him off, then kicks up a spray of sand. “Relax, Zero. I didn’t say we had to kill them. I said maybe we could.”

  “We could scout them out. Figure out who they are, what they’re up to. If there’s a fire, they’re at least surviving,” I say. “Maybe we’ll figure out what they’re eating, how they’re staying alive out here.”

  Zephyr puts a hand on my arm. “Are you okay? Can you . . .”

  “Can I what?” I ask. “Can I handle this? Is that what you’re going to ask me?”

  He takes a half-step back.

  “I can handle anything,” I say, my voice rising. It feels good to say it, because I need it to be true.

  My mother’s secret is toying with me, tugging at the back of my mind, a constant whisper that begs me to be weak.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  Sketch and Zephyr nod, but then we hear a crack. We whirl around, and there are two men, walking across the sand toward us. They are tall and bony, with sunken cheeks and eyes. The one on the right twitches every few seconds, as they get closer. “Maybe,” he says, pointing a sharp three-pronged weapon at us, “you three should just shut the crack up and come with us.”

  “What’s in it for us?” Sketch calls out. I want to tell her to stop talking.