I’m not a murderer. I couldn’t ever be. It isn’t possible, not Zephyr James. Not the poor, pathetic Ward who scrubs the blood off the streets each week, who gives his rations to the children in the Marsh, and looks after careless, wild, broken Talan, trying to keep her safe. Not Zephyr James. He isn’t a murderer.
But he is. I am.
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CHAPTER 7
MEADOW
I have never seen a man cry.
My father never does. Not even when Peri fell off of the houseboat and almost drowned. Not even when my mother died. At least, not in front of me.
No. I have never seen a man cry.
But right now, lying on the floor beside my mother’s plaque in the Catalogue Dome, a boy is sobbing. I’ve heard mourning in the streets, deep moans and agonizing screams of fury, but the boy’s cries are soft. I take an awkward step toward him, but stop. It could be a trap, and suddenly his weakness disgusts me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, through his sobs. He’s facedown now on the tile floor, his fingertips touching the image of an elderly olive-skinned woman. I wonder briefly how she died, but then I see it. She was murdered, of course, like the thousands and thousands of others in this building. “I’m so sorry,” the boy whispers again.
“Sorry for what?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. They are entirely too loud.
The boy stops moving, stops breathing. I slide my dagger out, let it hang ready at my side. This is stupid, against everything my father has ever taught me. I turn around to leave. I’d only wanted to share my triumph with my mother, to show her the badge tucked securely in my pocket. But before I can take another step, I see it. The mark of a Ward, a thick black X tattooed onto the back of his neck. The woman on the plaque could be his aunt. His grandmother. His mother, even. And now he is alone.
Wards have nothing. They matter to no one. To the Initiative, they are nothing. They may as well be invisible.
I’m clutching lilies in my other fist. I got them on my way back from the city, thinking to give them to my mother. They’re feeling prickly, and suddenly I know they aren’t meant for my mother’s memorial. Not today, at least.
I tiptoe forward. His T-shirt clings to his back. Strong muscles like Koi’s peek through.
I stop, stoop down, and place the flowers on the floor, the crushed white petals just touching his fingertips.
“I’m sorry, too,” I whisper, so softly I can hardly even hear my own voice, and then I turn and run. I leave him there, alone, on the tear-soaked floors of the Catalogue Dome.
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CHAPTER 8
ZEPHYR
I run the entire way home to beat the darkness.
I lose myself in the pumping of my legs, the hammering of my heart. I’m all body, and no mind. It feels good to be nothing, and even better to do something.
The train tracks lead out of the city, so I follow them. A long time ago, the city was bigger. But then there was a month straight of rain that softened the ground, and a sinkhole swallowed half of the Shallows whole. I stay as far from the Pit as I can, circling around it until I reach the marshlands that make up the Ward Reserve.
I slow down once I reach the gates. An old catalogue scanner sticks out of the warped metal, low enough that I have to stoop down to place my forehead against it. There’s a click and the gates slide open.
Thousands of patched white tents stretch before me, swaying in the wind like little ghosts. Pools of muddy water make the ground look like it’s some puzzle with missing pieces, the water so dark that sometimes I like to pretend there’s no bottom to it, and I could just fall into one of the pools and sink forever.
The scattered trees grow low to the ground, with thick branches that stretch out like skeletal arms, and every so often, my feet disappear in the mud, and I have to stop to pull myself out.
A few crackling fires light up the night. “Hey Zephyr,” a little boy calls to me. Thomas, I think, but there are so many kids I can hardly remember their names. “I caught a squirrel. I broke its neck with my bare hands.”
His face is covered in filth. There’s no one to teach him how to take care of himself. But he looks proud beneath all the mess, and he grins at me like I’m the nicest person in the world.
“Clean yourself up tonight, okay?” I say, laughing. “And good job on the squirrel!” He nods, and I pat him on the shoulder as I pass by. Others smile and wave as I walk between the tents. Most are younger than me, but some are adults who have managed to survive. I break up a fight between a girl and a boy, wrestling over a loaf of moldering bread.
Talan’s patchwork tent sits directly across from mine. My heart speeds up like it always does when I peer inside to make sure she’s made it home safe. It settles when I see her, curled up in her blanket.
“Talan?” I whisper.
“I’m home, Father,” she says, waving me away.
When I make it to my tent, I fall asleep not a second after my head hits the hard ground.
I spend the rest of the night waking to my own screams. Nightmares happen to all of us, but mine are full of faces and numbers.
When I’m finally too afraid to go back to sleep, I roll over in my sleeping bag and peel back the plastic flap that hangs in the doorway of my tent. The stars are out tonight. But the stars aren’t what I want to see right now.
It’s the moon. The moon that reminds me of the moonlit girl.
My moonlit girl. She’s the cure to my nightmares, the one thing that helps me feel safe when I can’t even trust my own dreams to harbor me.
I close one eye and hold my thumb up, so that it covers the silver orb that hangs in the sky. I open that eye and close the other and there it is again, just like that. Always waiting for me.
I imagine a life full of happiness. A life of safety, and eating three meals a day that leave me feeling full. There aren’t many things I want.
But stars, I want the moonlit girl.
Someday, I’ll meet her. She must be real, not just my imaginary protector. I feel her, strongly, like she’s lying right next to me, and today, in the Dome, someone left me flowers. It’s stupid, but for a minute I pretend it was her today, like she saw my pain and wanted to make it better. I can almost imagine her voice, whispering in my ear, telling me everything will get better.
But tonight, I’m alone. I close my eyes.
Finally, I dream of something different.
I dream of a meadow full of crushed white flowers.
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CHAPTER 9
MEADOW
My dagger shines bright silver. I imagine there are stains deep in the steel, the color of crimson from the blood of the girl with the red heels.
I fasten it to the sheath on my thigh before I head back out to the houseboat.
What scares me is I don’t feel bad for what I have done. I did it to survive. Not for myself, but for Peri.
Tonight the beach is packed with people. I move quickly across the sand. I try to ignore a woman who asks me for food. Her teeth are rotting so badly she should pull them out. She reaches for me.
“Get back!” I yell, and the woman stumbles away.
Tonight, the dinghy is gone, probably out to sea with someone else, so I dive into the waves and start the swim, navigating my way through the wrecks and fields of floating garbage. By the time the houseboat finally comes into view, the Night Siren has gone off, warning me that the Dark Time is nearly here.
Moonlight shines down on the boat, illuminating the deck. Peri is there waiting for me, her white nightgown and si
lver curls dancing in the wind. So many nights my mother would be here waiting. It was her favorite spot, and she would stare out at the shore, watching the world fade away with the light. Looking exactly the way my younger sister does now. I dive deep and release the escape hatch, then surface and climb the ladder to the deck.
“Meadow!” Peri scampers over to me and buries her face in my stomach and I wrap my arms around her. She’s skinnier, even more so than yesterday, if that is even possible. I press her closer to me. “Did you get it? Did you get the job?” she asks.
My father and Koi emerge from the cabin and watch me with tired eyes. My father has been working all day. Fishing off the docks, like most Shallows men do. It is a good job, and if he reaches his quota by the end of the year, he gets to bring home an actual fish for us to eat. Sometimes, we even get to go to the marketplace and buy extra clothing, a box of matches, a bundle of dried meat. But those things cost far too many Creds, and we don’t indulge ourselves often.
Koi has spent the day guarding the boat, and more importantly, guarding Peri. “Well?” he asks. “What happened?”
“See for yourself.” I smile. I place my badge into Peri’s small hands.
“You’re so badass!” she says, and I am so shocked that I laugh before I scold her. Her smile is different tonight. She is missing a tooth.
I stoop down to her side and run my hands through her curls. “You lost another tooth,” I say to her. “You know what that means, right?”
“Koi says all my teeth will fall out and I’ll look like a fish.”
I glare at Koi, and he stifles a laugh. “You’re just growing up,” I say, “that’s all. Soon you’ll be as big as me!” I tickle her, right above her hips, the same place Koi used to tickle me.
Peri’s laugh is sweet, like music. She falls to the deck of the boat, clutching her stomach, and for a second, I just kneel there beside her, wishing I could stop time.
Soon, my father will begin her training. I don’t want to think about what my father will do to her, how he will harden her soft edges. How someday, she will be faced with a choice: kill or be killed.
I know Peri will be strong enough to survive. She’s smart, and she can swim fast. She even knows how to read. I taught her with the History of the Shallows book. She knows how to take care of herself, too. But thinking of her being out on the streets makes me feel sick. So instead, I commit this moment to memory, the smile on her face, her laughter.
“All right, quiet down,” Koi says. I plant a kiss on Peri’s cheek. She giggles and wipes it off.
“Your mother would be proud, Meadow.” My father is standing behind me, watching me, I’m sure. I don’t know why I feel so empty at the mention of her. I don’t know why I feel so dead inside.
I should be proud. But Koi is staring at me like I am dripping with someone else’s blood. We all know what happened in that room today.
“Did she suffer?” he whispers to me. I shake my head. No.
His eyes meet mine, just for a moment, before he whispers something under his breath. “You did what you had to do.” Then he walks away and down the ladder to the engine room.
“Let’s go talk in private for a moment, shall we?” My father places his calloused hand on my shoulder, and I flinch. His touch means the slice of a knife, a sudden spar, a jarring slam to the floor. His touch means training. It never means fatherly affection.
We settle down on the bow of the boat, both of us cross-legged, facing each other. The engine rumbles beneath us as Koi starts it up, and then our houseboat begins to move across the surface of the ocean in silence. Tonight, the sea is glass.
“There’s something you should know,” my father begins, his voice cracking strangely.
“All right.” I nod, unsure of what else to say.
“It’s about your mother. What do you remember about her, Meadow?”
My eyes close and there she is. Tall, brilliant, hair the color of the moon, the color of the seashell charm she gave me the last night I ever saw her.
She was an engineer, always the one to fix our boat when something went haywire. And she could sing. Oh, she could sing, and at night, when I sleep, when I dream of her, I hear her voice. It is beautiful, like a bird singing its summer song, like the sound of rushing water over smooth pebbles, or wind tickling the set of seashell chimes I made for her birthday years ago.
“She was perfect.” It’s all I can say because the tears have begun spilling down my face. They drop onto my ankles and splatter, hot and sticky in the night air.
“She wasn’t perfect,” my father whispers.
My head pops up. “How can you say that?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He sighs, squeezing the bridge of his nose with filthy fingertips. “What I mean is . . . to you, to your brother and sister, she was wonderful. But Meadow, you have to understand. Your mother was a dangerous woman.”
A sad laugh flies from my lips. Dangerous? My mother could defend herself, sure. We all can, thanks to him. But dangerous? For the last months she was with us, I watched her strength fade, as she refused to train, and her happiness wither away.
My father continues. “You know that the Initiative is all-controlling. That we no longer have the freedom to make choices because of them. Water—it isn’t ours to drink anymore. The fish I catch—I can’t bring them home to my family to eat unless I earn the right. Human lives—they are no longer precious the way they should be. We aren’t precious, Meadow. We are numbers to them. That is it. Nothing more.”
“I know all that. What does this have to do with Mom?” I’m getting frustrated, breathing too hard.
“You wear a number close to hers on your forehead. We all do. Similar ones. Recognizable ones.”
“So?”
“So keep this in mind. You are of age, with a job in the city. Tomorrow you will get a Cred Orb. It will track your work hours, the rations you earn, and the Initiative will be watching you now, closer than they ever have. Things will change. You must always, always be ready to defend yourself.”
He’s not making any sense. I feel like I’ve just been smacked in the head with a two-by-four, and everything is confusing, buzzing around me like a horsefly. Why would they want to watch me? I am no one. My mother was no one. We are all no one, but I don’t have time to think it through, because suddenly a flash of silver catches my eye. My father lunges at me with his knife, silent and deadly. Faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move before.
I stand and leap high and sideways, over the edge of the boat. The barbed wire clips me as I go.
I hit the water and it sprays into my nostrils. I kick toward the surface, and burst through the waves in time to see my father shaking his head at me in the moonlight.
“Damn it!” I scream, furious he caught me off guard. “What was that for?”
“It was a lesson,” he calls down to me. “Swim to shore and come back tomorrow. You need practice surviving the Dark Time alone.”
He turns and disappears into the cabin.
An hour later I drag my aching body onto shore. The warm sand has never felt better than it does now, pressed up against my cheek. I allow myself a moment to catch my breath, then head for the trees. I pick the tallest one and start to climb. And as I make my way up silently, branch by branch, I can’t help but wonder if my father’s words were true. I loved my mother. But did I really know her? I think of the way she was always on guard, always alert, almost like a predator.
Like me.
My bracelet catches on a tree branch, and I stop for a moment. The moonlight illuminates the smooth silver. A strange, swirling pattern is etched onto the back of the charm, lines overlapping each other in all directions. My mother never told me what the pattern meant. I think of the countless hours she spent in the closet beside the engine room of our boat, behind a locked door. It was the one place we could never go, the one part of our home that was off-limits. I remember the way her eyes were always glazed over when she emerged. The way she wo
uld paddle away from the houseboat and disappear for hours. When she returned in the middle of the night, she would kiss us all and sing to us, but tears would leak from the corners of her eyes.
My mother had secrets of her own. Like everyone does in the Shallows.
“You can’t escape destiny, Meadow,” she whispered into my ear the last night I saw her.
I look at the swirling pattern etched on the charm bracelet she gave to me.
The wind blows, and I shiver, even though it is full of summery warmth.
I’ll find out what my father was talking about.
I’ll find out who killed my mother.
And when I do, slowly, painfully, I will take them from the earth.
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CHAPTER 10
ZEPHYR
The cracked concrete and run-down buildings of the city are nothing like the salt marshes, where everything is rumored to drip blood, and the nights are filled with the moans of the dying Wards it’s reserved for. Of course none of that’s true.
But we like to keep people thinking it is. There are colors in the marshes. Browns and greens, and sounds that aren’t born of mankind. No one bothers us there. It’s the only bit of freedom we get from the Leeches.
Work on Mondays starts early, before dawn. Talan walks beside me, and together, we push a second large cart full of mangled bodies and twisted, blackened limbs into the Leech building. Our footsteps echo eerily. Only the security lights remain on.
“I could eat five bags of rations right now.” Talan is chattering away, as usual, completely ignoring the corpses flopping around as our cart hits a bump on the floor. “Actually, I could eat one of these guys!” She flicks the corner of the tarp and I get a whiff of death. That guy died only hours before he was collected.