The Death Code

I run, and the pain is so bad I am seeing flashes of white. I wonder if soon, I will pass out.

  I can’t. I have to keep going.

  Daddy! Meadow! Koi!

  I turn left, down a hall. I know this route and will never forget it.

  Two soldiers are stationed in front of his door.

  Two squeezes to the trigger, and they are down.

  I reach the door, but of course it is locked.

  You will never reach me, the Commander says. I’ll kill your sister before you ever get to me.

  I fire the gun. One, two, three times, then in rapid fire. The door does not buckle or break. It is made of thick, unbending metal.

  It is only when I see Sparrow arrive at my side, see her typing codes into a NoteScreen on the wall, that I know I’m close.

  “You’ll never touch my sister again,” I say to the Commander. I know he can hear me.

  The door slides open as the NoteScreen turns green, and I see him sitting at his desk.

  He looks up, his face a mask of horror, his mouth hanging half-open, his eyes as wide as the fullest midnight moon.

  I shoot him once, in the shoulder. He screams, as blood explodes in a spray of crimson, the brightest, most beautiful color.

  He presses the button on his wrist, and Peri’s screams get louder. So loud that my whole body trembles. I cross the room at a staggering walk. My breath comes out in hitches, and I hear a low, rumbling laugh coming from deep in my chest.

  The Commander crawls underneath his desk, tries to hide and block me out, like a child.

  I sling my rifle back over my shoulder and grab the dagger instead.

  “Don’t do this!” the Commander shouts. “I’ll give you anything, anything you want. It’s yours!” He’s cowering, shivering like a wounded animal, and it makes my lips curl into a cold, deadly smile.

  He screams as I stoop down to his level. Laughter leaves my lips, escapes like a breath of fresh air. I wrap my hand around the back of his head, hold his face steady, so he’s forced to look at me.

  “I’ll see you in hell,” I whisper.

  Then I plunge the knife right through his eye.

  Sparrow is silent as she follows me back to the doorway, where hopefully Rhone and Zephyr will be waiting.

  I wipe my blade clean on my shirt, tuck it into my waistband again, and for a hint of a moment, I feel like the old Meadow again.

  But then I pass a mirror that hangs on the wall, and I catch a glimpse of my reflection. The Regulator, the blood staining my shortened curls, the wild look in my eyes.

  I am not the same Meadow.

  I will never be the same again. Not until I have my family back.

  “Your father trained you well,” Sparrow says behind me. She is out of breath, hardly able to keep up.

  I can’t look at her. If I do, I’ll kill her. All these years, she wanted to kill me. And yet, she helped me attack the Commander, get my revenge.

  And I need her to help us get out of the Shallows, first. We reach the small door that leads to the marsh. Sparrow slides to the floor, gasping.

  “You have to understand, I wasn’t always this weak,” she says. She sighs, rubs her hand across her ruined skin. “I’m not the woman I used to be.”

  A flash of memories slides through me, flickers of my torture, Peri’s pain, my mother dying in my arms. “Neither am I,” I say. I look at the NoteScreen on the wall. “Can you program it, so I can see Peri? The Commander did it once, and made me watch.”

  Sparrow’s one eye darkens. “I’m sorry. The system is down.”

  The door behind us opens.

  I spin with the rifle at the ready, but it’s only Rhone.

  Zephyr is slung over his shoulders, unconscious, but I can see him breathing.

  He’s alive. I give Rhone a nod of thanks.

  “Well, now that the gang is back together, can we move on?” Sparrow says. She rises unsteadily to her feet.

  “Which way?” Rhone asks. He looks at the blood all over my shirt, my hands and arms. “What did I miss?”

  “Payback” is all I say. “Let’s go, back of the building. The exit is through the cell room.”

  Rhone shrugs, Sparrow nods, and we rush forward into the halls.

  Behind us, there’s an explosion that rocks the building. The ceiling trembles. Dust falls over our heads. Then I hear voices and shouts. Zephyr starts to moan, lifting his hands like he’s stretching out for something.

  “Not yet, Zero,” Rhone says, and slams Zephyr sideways against the wall. Zephyr’s head hits it with a smack, and he goes still again.

  “Damn.” Sparrow whistles. Then she laughs.

  Rhone looks up at us with wide eyes. “What?” he says. “Someone has to keep him under control, otherwise he’ll go crazy on the Leeches. We don’t have time for that. Come on.”

  We keep moving.

  A bullet soars past, whistling, and lands in the wall to our right. I dive, then turn, and fire.

  An Initiative guard drops.

  “For the love of god, would someone watch our backs?” Rhone asks through gritted teeth.

  “I’m on it,” I say.

  I walk backward, trailing them and taking out guards as we go. Two, three, four. I hit them all square in between the eyes. Their heads explode, and I smile. I can’t feel the pain of the Regulator anymore. Peri’s screams have disappeared. But something new has taken their place, a darkness that creeps into me, cold and heavy and unlike anything I have ever experienced before.

  I welcome it. I let it steal me away.

  We reach the cell room. Rhone kicks the door open, and I sprint ahead of them.

  I shoot two guards, one right after the other.

  I’m out of rounds. I drop the rifle and reach for my dagger, but there’s no one left here. Only prisoners huddled inside cells, and the smell of dead all around. I cough, cover my nose with my shirt.

  “Sketch,” I gasp.

  I nearly forgot about her.

  And suddenly I’m running up and down the cells.

  “Set them free!” I scream, and behind me, Sparrow must have tapped something on the wall, because the cell doors spring open.

  Prisoners rush out, stumble past each other in their hunger for escape. I shove past them, check all the cells, but I don’t see her.

  Not until I reach the very last one.

  She’s cuffed to the iron bars of the cell, waiting.

  “It’s about time you came for me, Woodson,” Sketch says, with a smile on her beaten face. She’s covered in blood and bruises, and she’s so thin, too thin. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten me.”

  The building trembles again. Another bomb must have gone off.

  I can hear screams now, footsteps coming closer. I don’t know if they belong to Initiative soldiers or Patients or citizens. I know we have to leave, now.

  “Help me get her free!” I shout.

  Sparrow hobbles closer, drops to her knees. She starts to work on the MagnaCuffs, and as she does, she’s gasping for breath.

  I see red staining her shirt, mixing with the mud and grime. But she hasn’t killed anyone. She’s not strong enough. Was she hit?

  “When you get out, follow the tracks,” Sparrow says. She breaks Sketch’s left wrist free, then moves on to the right. “But don’t get caught. The trains run up and down the tracks. Search parties, collectors. Stay smart. The Ridge is on the other side of the country. You can’t walk there. Find another way.”

  “You aren’t coming?” I ask.

  She looks down at her stomach. “I won’t make it half a mile before I’m dead.”

  “I wanted to kill you myself,” I whisper.

  Sparrow’s head snaps up. Her gray eyes, so much like my mother’s, stare back at me.

  “I know you’ve been trying to kill me for years,” I whisper.

  Sparrow nods. “It isn’t personal. It’s the only way to end the system.”

  “I know,” I say. She is almost done with Sketch’s other wr
ist. “I hate you.”

  Sparrow smiles, a gruesome look that makes her scars squirm. “You’re a lot like your mother. I can see so much of her in you, you know. Even when you were younger, I had a feeling you’d turn out just like Lark.”

  “I am not my mother,” I hiss. I swallow, hard. “You killed her. She might have been a monster, but . . .” I hold out my dagger. My wrist shakes, but I steady it. I can finish Sparrow off now. I can get my revenge for my mother’s death.

  “I didn’t touch her, Meadow,” Sparrow says. “Someone else took my sister’s life.”

  The MagnaCuff pops free. “Flux, that feels good,” Sketch says. “Woodson, come on.” She stands to leave the cell.

  But I stay, staring at Sparrow.

  “Who?” I ask. “Who killed my mother?”

  She’s about to answer when the door to the cell room bursts open. I hear commotion, shouts. I stand up, move into the hallway between cells.

  Orion is here.

  “Ah, just in time,” Orion says. She looks nearly the same as she did when I last saw her. But her eyes are darker, somehow, like they have seen too much they cannot forget.

  “Be careful, Meadow,” Sparrow sighs. She stands up and hobbles away, starts working on the codes to the outside door.

  “What are you doing here? Are you coming with us?” I ask Orion.

  She smiles when she looks at me, but the light doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “Blondie,” she says. “You’re exactly who I came to see. I know your dirty little secret.”

  “Orion, no,” Rhone says. Zephyr is slumped in the corner, next to him, finally waking. Rhone stands, and moves toward Orion, and I don’t know why.

  Not until she swings a gun forward.

  She aims it at me.

  And shoots.

  CHAPTER 35

  ZEPHYR

  I wake up in time to see Orion talking to Meadow, and Rhone moving toward Orion, and Orion smiling a cold, deadly smile.

  It happens in slow motion.

  The gun in Orion’s hand.

  The bullet being fired.

  The casing shooting out of the side of the gun, and the actual bullet soaring toward Meadow.

  It hits her.

  Meadow drops, and I scream.

  And then I’m leaping to my feet, diving on top of Orion.

  I hit her again and again. Revenge is still calling my name, begging me to go after the Leeches, but right now, Orion is a Leech.

  A bloodsucking, life-stealing Leech, and she deserves to die.

  Crimson stains my hands.

  I punch.

  And punch.

  Someone hauls me off her. “Zero, stop it!” Rhone shouts. “It’s over! She’s gone!”

  Orion is a bloody mess, lying on the floor of the cell room.

  Meadow.

  I shove away from Rhone, sprint for Meadow, and I don’t want to see her body, as lifeless as Orion’s. But I have to. I have to say good-bye.

  I skid to a stop. Meadow is doubled over, groaning as she leans against the bars of a cell. Blood drips down her shirt, splashing into a small puddle on the stone floor.

  I gasp when she looks up.

  “Meadow,” I say. “You’re . . .”

  The bullet hit her in the shoulder. Orion missed.

  “She’s fine, Zero,” Sketch snaps. “Now shut up before you start crying. And help me walk, will you? Leech bastards busted my knee and it’s time we get out of this hellhole.”

  Meadow smiles and laughs, but there is a twinge of something new behind that laugh. Something unsteady, and dark.

  “It’s time to go,” Rhone says, from the exit door. He’s holding Sparrow up, as she tries in vain to type the final codes.

  She’s dying, fast.

  The NoteScreen by the door turns green, suddenly. It opens with a hiss, and I see the way to freedom. The bright green on the other side.

  “The Perimeter will be open for sixty seconds,” Sparrow hisses. “Go.” She waves a bloody hand. “Go!”

  Rhone helps her to the ground. She leans her head back against the wall. She’s smiling, and for once her face doesn’t look so bad. She almost looks pretty, in her own twisted way.

  “I’m out of here,” Sketch says.

  She goes through the door.

  I follow, but stop when Meadow kneels beside Sparrow.

  “Thank you,” Meadow says. She leans down, whispers something into Sparrow’s ear.

  Sparrow’s eyes widen. “I can’t help you with that,” she whispers. What are they talking about?

  They see me looking.

  “Just go before I change my mind and finish you off,” Sparrow says to Meadow. “Forty-five seconds left. Go.”

  Meadow nods.

  I turn to Rhone. “Are you coming?”

  “No,” he says. “I’m staying here. If the Patients win, the Shallows will need a new leader.”

  I want to argue with him, but there’s no time. And he’s already made up his mind.

  Instead I hold out my hand.

  He takes it, and his grip is firm. Solid. He’ll be a good leader, if he’s able to take control.

  “Give ’em hell, Zephyr,” Rhone says, and I realize it’s one of the few times he’s used my real name.

  “You, too,” I say.

  I turn and grab Meadow’s hand.

  She holds it tight.

  We take our first steps toward freedom, out into the afternoon light.

  CHAPTER 36

  MEADOW

  A groaning noise comes from the Perimeter. A trembling in the ground that I can feel in my toes.

  “Thirty seconds,” I tell Zephyr.

  Sketch is ahead, hobbling toward the exit. The Perimeter slides open, and suddenly, as my feet carry me away, my oldest dream comes true. The one I used to have on stormy nights, when the boat wouldn’t stop rocking. The dream that chased my nightmares, left me with enough hope to go out and look at the sun in the morning.

  I push my legs faster, harder, because if I don’t, I might stop. I might turn back to the only world I have ever known, feel the fear that came with my mother’s dying secret. Tears slide down my cheeks, and as we cross over, and our toes hit cool green grass, and we see train tracks that lead into an endless, open world . . . I smile.

  I am outside of the Shallows.

  And I am never going back.

  PART TWO

  THE OUTSIDERS

  CHAPTER 37

  MEADOW

  We run for hours, following the tracks like Sparrow said.

  We stop for breath, and I am staring out at a world I have never known. It finally hits me. Freedom.

  I am free.

  Free.

  Zephyr takes my hand, squeezes it tight. “We made it,” he breathes.

  “Holy balls,” Sketch says from my left. She turns around, stares at the Perimeter in the distance, holds up both middle fingers. “Flux you! Flux all of you!” She laughs, and Zephyr and I join in, and we all laugh until we can’t anymore.

  “What now?” I ask, when everyone calms down. And reality hits us.

  No one answers.

  So we simply stand for a while, watching the world. Most of the landscape looks like the Reserve. Marshlands, with the beach to the far left. The train tracks cut across the marsh, jagged as stitches. The wind blows across the tops of palm trees, bending them at their middles, making them bow like they’re welcoming us to the outside. There is a small brick building, crumbled and forgotten, half of it blown to bits by the Fall.

  I turn around, stare at the Perimeter in the distance.

  From here, I could cover it up with my thumb.

  But it still separates me from the only world I have ever known. Inside are my people.

  My memories.

  My mother. Her secret.

  And here . . . there is only open space.

  Suddenly I feel alone. I feel the tug of doubt, whispering to my soul. Not in my father’s voice, but my mother’s. You’ll die out
here. You’ll never save your family.

  I feel a flash of a memory. Pain from the Interrogator. The ghost of Peri’s screams. The pressure of the knife in my hand, tearing through the Commander’s eye.

  I need the sand on my toes, the waves tugging at my ankles. I can see the ocean in the distance, beyond the palms, calling me home.

  I drop Zephyr’s hand and run.

  “Meadow!” he screams.

  I don’t stop. I just sprint, arms pumping, breathing in and out, until my feet hit the sand. The waves crash onshore, and there’s trash just like there was in the Shallows, floating with the waves as they explode against the beach. I run a few steps into the water, then dive headfirst into silence.

  Here, I can breathe.

  Here, I can pretend I am myself again, the Meadow before the Initiative. The Meadow before the Murder Complex.

  I can feel the touch of my father’s hand on my shoulder, the softness of Peri’s cheek as she leans against me in sleep. I can hear my mother’s old lullaby, and the scratching of Koi’s knife on driftwood. I could stay here forever, in peace.

  But hands grab me from behind and haul me to the surface. I gasp, water dripping from my eyes.

  “Meadow!” It’s Zephyr. He whirls me around and pulls me to his chest and holds me tight. “What are you doing?”

  “I felt lost,” I say.

  “You’ll never be lost,” he says. “I’m here now. I’m here.”

  “But my family isn’t,” I say.

  “Meadow,” he whispers. “We’ll find them. I promise.”

  There is beauty in every part of him, and sunlight in his smile, and the softness of a summer rainstorm in his voice. So why can’t I feel the way for him that I once felt?

  A lifetime has passed since we last saw each other. I have secrets from him, and from Sketch, and I wonder if he holds secrets from me, too. I look away.

  He touches my chin, lifts my head up so that our eyes meet again.

  He smiles, and the wind blows the hair away from his face. All of the fear, the doubt that I would never see him again, fades. He touches my Regulator gently, moves a curl from my face.

  “You’re . . .”

  “Mutilated,” I whisper. I move so that he can’t see the machine on my skull, but he steps closer.