I’d rather die than go back.
“Keli said the balloon would appear one day,” said Drake softly. “A huge, bright, striped balloon, floating through the sky.”
She fell silent again. He noticed the lapse into the past tense, as though Drake was too tired to pretend any longer, to offer respect because respect could not restore the dead.
He glanced across at Nils and Ilona. They slept side by side, Nils’s arm hugging Ilona’s tiny body tightly against him.
But if I can’t go back, then there’s something I have to do.
Vikram got up and stepped stealthily around the sleeping bodies of the others.
“Drake. I need to see Adelaide.”
Drake’s eyes darted towards the door, towards the room where Adelaide was being held. She looked back at him and her forehead was creased.
“Vik—”
“It’s alright,” he said quietly. “I know.”
He slipped away before she could protest.
He turned the handle and pushed it open. The sour smell of confinement wafted out.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “I’m going to switch on the torch.”
There was no reply. He could not tell if she was awake or asleep. He flicked on the torch. She was in a foetal position, her face hidden as it had been before. Her wrists were tiny in the ring of the handcuffs and the joints of her hands were swollen. He felt a surge of pity.
“Adelaide. I’ve brought you a light. And something to eat.”
No response. He moved the beam of the torch directly upon her.
“It’s Vikram,” he tried.
He shut the door and put the torch on the ground. He knelt in front of Adelaide to set down the two flasks he had brought. She looked to be carved out of stone.
He touched her arm lightly and she shuddered. A sigh of relief escaped him. She was still alive. Now he needed her conscious.
“Adelaide. Look at me, if you can.”
Still she gave no answer, so he took her shoulders and turned her towards him. Her head drooped. He pushed aside the tangled hair. Her eyes were slits. Vikram brought the flask of water to her lips and dribbled a little into her mouth. She gasped and began to shake.
“Woke me,” she mumbled. “Woke… me…”
“You need to drink,” he ordered. “Water first. Open your mouth.” He tilted the flask once more. “Swallow. Good.”
He saw the effect of the liquid with every drop. She had been lapsing into hypothermia. It was lucky she had City clothes, ripped and filthy but locking in some crucial insulation. Next, he took the flask of broth. She choked on the first mouthful. Her eyes sprang open, suddenly bright. She glared at him. He knew that glare. He had seen it in other people, in westerners, in visitors to the shelter; the helpless defiance of the already defeated. He pushed the flask mercilessly against her mouth.
“Drink. If you don’t drink this your body is going to shut down and you’ll collapse. You mustn’t go to sleep. You have to stay alert.”
“Nothing… keep me awake.”
“I won’t leave you on your own again. You’re getting sick.”
He examined her properly, with a curious sense of reversal. Had Adelaide’s brother looked at Vikram with this same, scientific scrutiny? Assessing his body’s deterioration, its potential for one final surge of activity? The skin around her eyes was shiny and tender, but her face had lost weight. With her bone structure newly close to the surface, she had the freakish beauty of the otherworldly.
He took a bit of wire he’d found on the floor from his pocket and inserted it into the handcuff lock. It took only a minute to release them. He massaged her wrists to revive the circulation. She winced. He took an adrenalin syringe out of its plastic packaging and rolled up her sleeve. He found a vein in the crook of her elbow, inserted the needle, squeezed the fluid out.
“My leg got hurt.”
He looked down. Her trousers had ripped and there was a six inch gash down her calf. The surrounding flesh was swollen with infection.
“Went through… a bridge…”
Shit, he thought. That would slow her, if she got the chance to run. But he said nothing, dug out a couple of the antibiotic pills from the nurse’s bag and pushed them between her lips. He put the water flask into her hands and to her mouth again. Water trickled down her chin. She wiped it away. The gesture took a long time.
“Why did you come here?” he said. It sounded harsher than he had meant.
She blinked.
“What — what is — this place?”
“It’s the unremembered quarters.”
She put down the flask. The adrenalin would take effect soon. Her pulse would quicken. Darts of pain would spark in her limbs as sensation returned alongside full consciousness. He had experienced it many times; it would be new to her.
“Why did you come?” he repeated.
She wrapped her arms once more around her body. “Cold.”
“I know. Adelaide—”
“Why did I come. To the west, you mean. To your city.”
“It was madness,” he said roughly.
“Then I came because I’m mad.” She attempted a smile. He saw a bead of blood forming on her lips where the skin had flaked and cracked. He took her right hand and began to knead her muscles through the fabric of the glove. He worked steadily up the arm, towards her shoulder.
“There’s no point in playing games now.” He kept his voice even.
“Then let me out of here, and stop… talking to me.”
“I can’t let you out. You’re the only leverage they have.”
“They?”
His eyes flicked to hers. “We.”
“I’m not sure you’re so sure.”
Vikram’s thumbs paused. “Those people out there have been my life. Whatever’s happened, I owe them mine and everything that’s part of it.”
“I suppose my father made you a good offer.”
“I didn’t see Feodor. I saw Linus.”
“Even better. Don’t tell me it hasn’t played on your mind. Especially here. There’s only death here. And cold. So cold. You don’t like the cold, Vik.”
The abbreviation dropped from her mouth, easily, a little sadly. How hard it is, he thought, to let go the trappings of intimacy. He knew this girl; he knew the patterns of her skin beneath the dirt, the conundrum of freckles. He knew the hiccups in her breathing cycle. He knew the smell of her, as though she was made from sea-stuff, as she would one day return to it. He knew that in the aftermath of a nightmare, her eyelids flew open and she would stare at the ceiling, oxygen stopped in her lungs, before she let go the breath.
They knew each other’s loss. That was what had drawn them together; two spirits reaching into the past, whose fingertips had touched in searching.
Adelaide was shivering. Vikram’s hands had stopped moving, circling her upper arm. He let her go.
“I’m used to the cold,” he said.
“You told me you like fire. Love fire, you said.”
“I told you a lot of things I shouldn’t have.”
Adelaide lifted her eyes to his. They were bright with moisture, like oysters glistening in their shells.
“Shame,” she said softly. “I thought perhaps you were going to bust me out after all.”
“We need you,” he said. “You’re too valuable.”
Again she smiled, and the bead of blood spread. He suppressed the impulse to wipe it away.
“Don’t overestimate me. I’m as much use to them dead as I am alive. Not the best ending for the Rechnovs, two children down, but I’d become a martyr. They’re very marketable. And then other people would do other things, and gradually, they’d forget me. There’s always someone to come after.”