The Death Code

  I walk along the edge of the ravine, closer to the peak. I look left, far away, and see movement in the trees. Hear that awful, horrible buzzing. A wave of black swarms through the trees, like a giant, moving shadow.

  Biters.

  “The swarm is heading toward that camp,” I say.

  Koi bites his lip. “We should move. In case it changes directions. We don’t want to get caught up in that.”

  I turn, take a few steps after him. We are almost out of view of the meadow, at least a mile or two away, when I hear the scream.

  It’s undeniable. It echoes through the woods, across the field of flowers, up the ravine, finally ringing so loudly in my ears that I swear the voice is calling to my soul.

  I know that scream. Its sound used to pull me from a dead sleep, so many countless nights back in the Shallows.

  Koi and I whirl around to face each other.

  And then in a flash, we are both sprinting as fast as we can, skirting around the edge of the ravine, tearing down the giant hill toward the meadow.

  Because we both know who that scream came from.

  Peri.

  CHAPTER 98

  ZEPHYR

  Talan lies beside me in her tent back at the Reserve. Holding a pre-Fall book she bagged from the Library. How she got in there, I don’t know, but I never ask.

  The book is flat. Thin, with faded images of Pirates. Not the kind of Pirates we have in the Shallows.

  But they’re just as dirty, out for gold.

  “It’s a treasure map,” Talan says. She traces her fingers across one of the pages. Shows me images, little hash marks along the way. “X marks the spot.” Her muddy fingers stop on the X.

  I smile. “X marks the Ward, Talan.”

  “You’re no fun.” She pouts. “For once, imagine you and me. Free. Following a treasure map to some amazing place. Think of all the food we’d have once we got there . . .”

  My eyes open. The memory fades away. I look back at Tox, his carvings, his steady hands.

  “Can I borrow that?” I ask. I won’t take it from him by force..

  He nods, hands it gently over to me.

  Sketch comes back, and together, we look down at the walking stick. I twist it in my hands, and suddenly all the images make sense.

  It’s not the carvings of a crazed man with a lost mind.

  They’re the carvings of someone who’s very, very sane. He’s just trapped beneath the surface. He can’t bring the words forth because they’re stuck.

  So instead, he’s given us what he can.

  “It looks like the map inside the New Militia’s place, doesn’t it?”

  “Holy hell, Sketch. You’re right.” It’s like my eyes open wide, and finally, I can see.

  I look past her, right into Tox’s eyes. “You’ve had the answer this whole time,” I say. I hold up the stick. “That’s what this is, right Tox? It leads to the Green.”

  “Green,” he says, his smile showing through his wrinkles. “Yes.”

  I look down at the walking stick.

  But it’s much more than that. Because looking at it, I finally realize the reason why it’s stuck out so much to me. The New Militia had something very, very similar, sprawled across one of their walls. The same mountains, the same ocean. The same large piece of land, floating in the middle of it all, where Tox has an X instead.

  The stick is a different format, but it means the same thing.

  It’s a map. The same map the New Militia has.

  And it leads to the Green.

  CHAPTER 99

  MEADOW

  My feet cannot carry me fast enough.

  My boots hit the meadow, crush the flowers with every step. I am soaring, flying, lost in the rush of being so close to her, after so long.

  Koi is at my side the entire time. We’re a blur of silver in a world of yellow, and then green, as we hit the tree line and push forward.

  There are screams, everywhere.

  I can’t think.

  The fire is just ahead, darkened by the swarm of Biters. Wood huts are scattered about the place, forgotten. There are ten, maybe twenty people, running away. I see a man waving a fiery stick, trying to fight the Biters off.

  Hundreds of them swarm him. Women and children rush for the trees. People fall and are left behind, and the Biters dive down on them like predators to wounded prey.

  “Where is she?” I scream. I’m whirling in circles, searching for her. “Peri!”

  She was here.

  I know she was here.

  A Biter lunges at me, sticks itself into my arm. I cry out, slap it away, but the welt is already there, and the poison is spreading.

  Will I go blind, like Zephyr?

  I have to find her first. I have to see her.

  “This way!” Koi grabs my hand, yanks me into the trees, after the group of people still fleeing. I wait for my vision to go spotty and dim, but it doesn’t come.

  Instead I’m sprinting harder, and finally I see a figure up ahead, running fast.

  Peri always ran fast. She loved to run on the sand and chase the gulls.

  “There!” I scream. “She’s there!”

  “Peri!” Koi yells, but she can’t hear us.

  I sprint and leave him in my wake.

  I am close to her, so close, enough that I can see her bald head, covered in cuts and bruises. Her Regulator is so large on her tiny body that I wonder how she stays standing, has the strength to carry on. Her arms are covered in giant purple bruises and mud, her clothing ripped to near shreds. Her cuff is a teal that reminds me of the ocean in springtime.

  “Peri!” I yell, one final time, stretching out.

  She doesn’t stop.

  I leap. I wrap my arms around her, twist as we fall, so that she lands on top of me.

  She screams, bites at my arms, claws with her fingernails.

  The Biters dive at us. I flip around and push her flat against the ground, cover her body with mine. I can feel the hardness of her Regulator against my face. The Biters make impact. The pain is straight from my nightmares, piercing bite after bite into my skin. I cry out, beg myself not to move, so that they can’t get to Peri.

  And then, suddenly, it stops. The Biters lift off. Their buzzes carry them away into the woods, after the others who escaped.

  “Meadow!” Koi yells. I can hear his footsteps as he catches up.

  Peri squirms beneath me, whining, trying to get away.

  “Peri,” I gasp. “It’s okay, it’s me, it’s Meadow!”

  Koi reaches us, hauls me off of her.

  Peri scrambles backward, whirls to look at us. She lifts her arm, and she is holding a tiny, hand-carved blade, made from rock. It isn’t sharp enough to do any damage at all. Her hands shake, and her eyes are wild, like she is seeing a monster. Like she has seen too many horrors, all of the things we tried to keep her from for so many years, but we failed.

  We failed.

  “Peri,” I gasp. I drop to my knees, hold out my arms. “It’s Meadow.”

  I see the pieces click together in her mind. See her look at me, really focus, for the first time. She looks past my Regulator, past my newly cut hair, into my eyes.

  “M-Meadow?” she says. Her voice is soft, timid.

  “It’s me,” I say, and then I realize I am crying. “It’s me and Koi. We found you. It’s okay now. We’re here.”

  She lowers the knife. It drops to the ground with a dull thump.

  “Meadow,” she says again.

  She stands up.

  And throws herself into my arms.

  I wrap her up tight, hold her close, feel the soft fuzz of new hair growing on her head. Koi drops to his knees, puts his arms around both of us. We hold each other so tightly that for a moment, I almost think that our three beating hearts are the very same one.

  CHAPTER 100

  ZEPHYR

  If there’s anyone here who knows anything about this world, it’s the person who hates me most.

 
Meadow’s father.

  “Zero, do you want to die?” Sketch asks me. She chases me across the cave. “He’ll gut you like a fish!”

  “If there are rumors of the Green, he’ll confirm them,” I say. “He was on the Outside before it all happened. He was Lark Woodson’s husband. He’ll know.”

  “This I gotta see,” Sketch says, laughing behind me.

  I reach the fire. Sketch stops a few paces away.

  Meadow’s father is awake, slumped against the rock wall of the cave, sipping water from a woven basket.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say.

  He glares at me as I sit. It takes me back to the day he stuck a fishing hook through my cheek, yanked on it until the skin popped and the hook ripped through. I shiver, but I refuse to look away.

  “I told you to stay away from my daughter, did I not?” he asks.

  I nod. “You did. But I’m the only reason she wasn’t captured with the rest of you.”

  Meadow’s father rises to a sitting position. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Blood smears on his skin. “If you came for my gratitude, you’re going to be disappointed,” he says.

  I crack my knuckles. There’s a lot I’d like to say to this man. But I have to focus on what matters right now. “What’s the Green?” I ask.

  He chuckles under his breath. Takes another sip of water. When he swallows, he coughs it back up. I wait patiently.

  “The Green,” I say, again. “Have you heard of it?”

  His eyes flit upward. “Why?”

  I decide the truth is better than any lie I can come up with. “Because I think it’s real. I think it’s out there. And I think we need to find it.”

  “It’s a natural reaction, in the midst of so much death and decay, to hope for a better place. For Patients, like you, I guess it’s normal to believe in reaching the impossible. You aren’t used to getting no for answer.”

  “Is it real or not?” I ask.

  His bloody eyes turn to slits. “Don’t get an attitude with me, boy. Do I need to remind you what you did to my home? My family?”

  I lean forward, my hands in my lap. “I killed your wife,” I say. His mouth drops open, and I keep going. “After my arrow went through her chest, the entire army of Patients attacked the Initiative. After leading the fight, I then used your sister-in-law to my advantage, and got her to unlock the Perimeter, so that your daughter and I could escape. I was free, for the first time in my life, but instead of running away, I followed Meadow. I fought people. Killed people, so that Meadow could make it here. I gave up my own freedom so that she could come and buy yours.” I lean closer, so close I can smell the blood on his breath. “Now, sir, I’m going to ask you again. What do you know about the Green?”

  He’s silent, for a long time.

  At first, I think he’s going to kill me.

  I just told him I murdered his wife and followed his daughter across the country to get here.

  He takes a deep breath.

  And then he nods. “I don’t like your kind, Patient Zero. I never have, for obvious reasons. But you make a good argument.” He takes another sip of water, keeps it down. “I know that there once was a place, years ago, that was free of the Initiative. A small community of people that decided to branch off and do things their own way.”

  I gasp. “Where was it?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know for sure. Somewhere in the Pacific. Somewhere far. An island, off the grid.”

  Tox’s map. The New Militia’s map. They both lead to a place in the middle of a giant sea.

  “There’s a Perimeter around the country,” I say. “Is it outside of there?”

  Meadow’s father shrugs. “Hell if I know. Everyone was spreading rumors. This place was ruined, that place was safe. It’s all talk.”

  “What if it wasn’t just talk?” I ask. “What if I heard the Leeches discussing it, too?”

  He raises a brow. “That would be interesting,” he says. “But not necessarily any more true or false than anything else the world has said before, about sanctuaries.”

  “But the Leeches know things,” I say. “They have more facts than any of us ever have. And besides. I have a map.”

  “And where did you get this map?”

  I wave my hand. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is if it leads to the Green. What would it be like there?”

  He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “If it were real, it would be off the grid completely. It would be a place where there is no testing. No all-seeing Initiative. And best of all, there would be freedom.”

  There’s a lift in his voice as he speaks about it, like he wants it to be true, but he’s afraid to have hope.

  “Meadow says you’re dying,” I tell him. “Are you?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. But after all this time, wouldn’t it be just my luck, for the man who married the Creator to be the one whose blood has the power to reverse her Cure?”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that.

  “If you die, and we get out of here, I’m going to take Meadow to the Green,” I say. “But if you survive . . . I want you to come with us.”

  “I don’t want to burst your bubble,” he says, sighing. “But freedom isn’t real, Patient Zero. It never was. Not before the Cure, and not after.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I say. I stand up, look down at him. “Freedom is a choice. And I’m going to choose to make it.”

  I turn, about to head back to Sketch, when he calls out to me.

  “Patient Zero.”

  I look over my shoulder.

  “Meadow is smart. If she let you follow her here . . .” He sighs, shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s about to say. “Well, you must have something good to offer. If you find the Green, take her with you. Take all of them with you.”

  I nod. Then I join Sketch across the cave and tell her what I know.

  CHAPTER 101

  MEADOW

  We trade off holding Peri as we head for home.

  First she is in Koi’s arms. Then she’s in mine. She reaches up and touches my Regulator. Then she touches hers.

  She doesn’t speak. But there is true fear in her eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “They can’t hurt us anymore. I made sure of that.”

  The world smiles down on us, because I do not switch. For now, I am strong, and that is all I could ever have wanted. To hold my sister, alive and well, and make her feel safe.

  We make it to the waterfall.

  We swim together, Koi and I kicking beneath the surge of water, Peri in between us. We shove her through the hole in the surface, haul her to safety.

  She gasps, and she trembles. But she does not cry. Without the mud and dirt, she almost looks like she used to. But she is broken. She stares ahead, empty as an eggshell.

  By the time we make it to the cave, Peri is asleep in Koi’s arms. My heart is hammering strong and steady.

  We found her.

  I knock on the door, three times, and Abram answers, swinging his massive hands in our faces.

  Koi pushes through. We carry Peri inside. My father is there, gently snoring in his sleep. I touch his shoulder and he jolts awake, eyes wide like he is ready for a fight.

  “You need to see something,” I say.

  I help him sit up.

  His eyes adjust. He blinks, like he does not believe what he sees. But Koi approaches, Peri in his arms.

  “Is she . . .” My father’s words trail off. Horror in his voice, like he is afraid to ask the question. He glares at her Regulator like he wishes he could tear it from her skin.

  “She’s only sleeping,” I say. “She’s alive. She’s safe.”

  “Good.” He is in shock, the same way I was, and still am.

  He stands up, wobbling on his feet, but he recovers, crosses the fire to stand at Koi’s side. “Peri,” I hear him say. “My Peri.”

  Koi sets her into our father’s arms. He trembles as he
holds her, wraps her up like she is an infant again, and he refuses to let her go.

  A single, bloody tear slips down his cheek.

  And he smiles.

  CHAPTER 102

  ZEPHYR

  I wake to Meadow’s voice, whispering my name.

  My eyes fly open, and she’s there, alive. Safe.

  “I wanted to come after you,” I blurt out.

  “It’s okay,” she says.

  And then she actually smiles. She sits beside me, a blanket draped across her shoulders, her bare toes warming by the fire.

  “We found her, Zephyr,” she says. “We found Peri.”

  “What?” I sit up.

  And I see her. Peri, sitting beside Koi and her father. Stars, they actually found her.

  Peri is tiny, wrapped up in a blanket that swallows her whole. She’s covered in bruises. Her Regulator looks somehow worse than Meadow’s. She’s so small, and it’s taking over her. And her curls are gone, her head looking even smaller bald. She sits motionless, staring. Like her mind has disappeared.

  Her eyes are swollen, ringed with purple. There’s a fresh scar on her face, and she looks like she’s been in a war.

  It’s sick. It’s so sick my stomach aches, my heart throbs, my hands beg to hurt the Leeches who did this to her, put her in this place.

  “She’s in shock,” Meadow tells me. “After all she’s been through . . .”

  “She’ll come around. Kids bounce back easy. She’s safe now, Meadow. You found her.”

  Meadow nods. Her eyes are red, and sweat beads her brows. Still, there’s new light in her as she watches her sister.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. I gently take her hand, and lift it.

  Damn.

  Her cuff is at 97. The highest it’s ever been.

  “I did what I came here to do,” she says. Her voice cracks. She swallows, hard, and then she spits blood. “I can die happy now, Zephyr.”

  “You’re not going to die,” I whisper. “The New Militia can help. We’re going to make it out of here. We just have to give the signal. Tell me what it is, Meadow. I’ll do it for you, and they’ll come for us.”