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.
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. 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, 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.
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 leap from the train. I run the rest of the way down an empty alley that heads to the beach.
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 silver 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.