“They made me sick,” he said between throttled gasps for air. “’Easy,’ they said. They’d done it a hundred times. Then they injected me with different serums, vaccines. Looking for the secret in the blood. The blood.” His chest rattled as he struggled to breathe. The flesh around his lips was as white as a fish’s underbelly. Lucy found herself digging her nails into the palms of her hands. The healed knife wound itched. She remembered how gentle he had been when he bandaged it. She pulled off a loose strip of skin, wondering why it didn’t hurt.
After a few torturous seconds, Leo continued. “It didn’t work, so the Sweepers dumped me. They promised the kids would be safe if I cooperated. And you,” he said, looking at Del.
Del sat up. Her fingers tightened around Leo’s hand. “Did they lie about that?” she asked. “What happened to the kids?”
He drew another shuddering breath. His face purpled, visible even through the black blood. His chest seemed to be laboring with no effect. “I don’t know. They weren’t in the hospital. No one alive there now.” His fingers tightened around her hand. “Del, she lied about everything.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GOING IN
Lucy stared at the mess of beans and overcooked rice on her plate. She pushed them around with her fork. She had tried to eat the food but it was tasteless, and just the sulfurous smell of it, the look of it, was making her stomach rebel. Across from her, Del was doing the same thing. Shoveling beans up into mountains and smashing them to mush, using her fork as a weapon. Her hair was a tangled mess. She’d gathered it back into a ponytail, but hanks of it fell forward over her face and trailed over the tabletop. And she’d chewed most of her fingernails off, one finger after another, spitting the half-moon curls into the air. One had ripped into a jagged edge, and a spot of blood welled next to the cuticle. She sat hunched in her seat as if her spine couldn’t support her, and her eyes were shadowed and looked huge in her face. Lucy probably looked just as crappy. She knew her hair was one big frizzy knot, but she couldn’t make herself care too much. She had the curious sensation that she wasn’t really in her body. Beside her, Aidan turned a hunk of bread into a pile of crumbs.
Leo had died half an hour ago, first his breath becoming more and more labored, then the veins on his thick neck standing out like cables. He’d been unable to bear the touch of blankets or wet cloths against his skin. Grammalie Rose and Henry had talked, quietly, and then given him a glass of cloudy water to drink. Leo had gripped Henry’s wrist and guided the edge of the glass to his lips. This time the big man hadn’t struggled, although it seemed as if most of the liquid had dribbled out of his mouth and onto his chest. He’d kept his hand on Henry’s wrist until the water was gone, and then he’d moved the hand to Henry’s shoulder before letting it fall limply to his side.
At least, Lucy had thought it was water, but afterward Leo had sunk back against Del’s pillowed sweatshirt and his eyes had closed. The lines of pain, the grooves between his blood-filled eyes, had smoothed, and it was only when Lucy had realized that she was holding her breath, waiting for his next breath, which did not come, that the truth became clear.
Now, she felt as if she’d hit her head. Her brain couldn’t process everything that had happened in the last few hours, and simple things like eating and talking were beyond her capabilities. She could only sit and stare at the congealed heap of food on her plate. The only thing that felt real and alive to her was Aidan’s hand wrapped around her own and the warmth his body gave off. Del had glanced at their interlaced hands and something had passed over her face, but it was so quickly replaced by a glazed expression that Lucy was convinced she had imagined it.
Del shivered now. Her bare arms were goose-pimpled. The wind had picked up, and she, Lucy, and Aidan sat at a far table, not wanting to be close to the people gathered by the fire. They’d made their way there by consensus, although it hadn’t been spoken out loud. Lucy didn’t think any of them had said more than two words in the last hour. Somehow, though, they had headed in the same direction, in a group, the three of them together.
Sammy had brought over the food. His white mask hung from his neck on a loop of string, his face bare for once. He’d put the plates down, a large bowl filled with beans and rice, bread, some water. He’d pulled Del into a hug. Surprisingly, she hadn’t jerked away from his touch. Instead she’d nestled under his arm, her face turned against his shoulder. A few sobs had escaped from her mouth, and Sammy had stroked her head, murmuring words too faint to catch, before letting her go. And then, after a worried glance at Aidan’s face and a nod to Lucy, he’d gone back to the huddled mass of people by the fire.
Lucy pulled her hoodie over her head and pushed it across the table, then shrugged back into her coat. Del glanced at her and put it on without a word. Afterward she went back to picking at her ragged fingernails.
Lucy looked over at the crowd. She thought that all the scavengers were grouped there, the young and the old. Henry was sitting close to Beth. She wore a pearly blue mask that glowed in the light of the flames and, instead of her usual black robes, a light sweater and a pair of jeans. Sammy was cross-legged on a bench. The kids sat in a circle on the ground, away from the flying embers, wrapped in blankets, and Lucy thought Sammy was telling them a story. He was clearly acting something out. She could see his extravagant gestures with his shadow leaping behind him on the hanging tarpaulins, the white mask catching the fire gleam, and she could hear the low hum of his voice. Every once in a while a child shrieked, but it was a joyful sound followed by squeals of laughter.
“Sammy knows how to scare them in just the right way,” Aidan said.
Lucy searched for Grammalie Rose’s unmistakable silhouette but didn’t find her. “What will happen now?” she asked quietly. She couldn’t tell if Del was listening or not. Her hands were pulled into the sleeves of Lucy’s sweatshirt. She had her head down, the hood up. Her silver bracelets sparkled in a stack in front of her. She’d stripped them off as well as the large gold hoops she wore in both ears, pulling so hard she’d ripped the lobe, but Lucy didn’t think she’d felt the pain.
“Connor and Scout are collecting wood,” Aidan said. “Once dinner is over and the kids go to bed, they’ll build up the fire.” His voice cracked. “We have gasoline. No cars, but plenty of fuel.”
Lucy felt the tears fill her eyes. She knew that was the way of it, but it filled her with horror. It brought back memories of the mattresses piled in the treelined street she had grown up on. She remembered the roar of orange flames and the surprising stink of burning fibers. The billowing black clouds that obliterated the sky like an eclipse.
“Does everyone know that he died of the plague?” Lucy asked.
“Not the littlest kids, but everyone else.”
“I can’t be here when they—” Del said.
Aidan cleared his throat. He squeezed Lucy’s hand and then let it go. He reached over for Del’s hand, but she just stared at his fingers until he withdrew them. Lucy noticed the hurt look that flashed across his face, and something in her belly hardened. Aidan cleared his throat again. “We won’t be,” he said. “We’re going to the tower.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Right?”
Lucy sat up. “Can we?”
“We know that the kids are in the tower, not the hospital. It probably won’t be guarded as well. I mean, they’re a bunch of kids, not one over eleven years old.” He sounded excited and determined. He looked at Del. “You saw the tower. You remember the basic layout.” She nodded slowly and sat up straight.