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 wrist. “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.