So she’s wondering it, too.
“Zero and I should sleep somewhere else,” Sketch says. “Just in case.”
“No,” Meadow says. She glares at us both. “We stay together.”
Sketch sighs. “Fine, Woodson, but if we turn on you, it’s your death.”
“No one is dying,” Meadow says. Her voice turns to a whisper. “Not until we find my family.”
“Unless we do die first.” Sketch laughs. But she sees the look on Meadows face, like there’s fire in her eyes. Sketch sighs. “It’ll be fine, Woodson. We made it this far. We’ll make it all the way if that’s what it takes.”
Meadow swallows, hard. She stares straight ahead. “I guess so.”
“I’ll stay up,” I say. “You two rest.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Sketch says.
In seconds, she’s snoring, twitching every few minutes. Mumbling in her sleep. I watch her, waiting for something to happen. I try to reach out and touch the system in my mind. But it feels emptier now. Like I could sleep, and I wouldn’t see the faces of people begging to be ripped from this world.
Meadow lies down beside me, just out of reach. “Come closer,” I say. “You’ve been far away for too long.” She hesitates, then scoots over and lays her head in my lap. I can feel the machine on her, cold and hard against my legs.
“What does it do?” I ask.
She stiffens. “It’s a Regulator. It controls me,” she says. Then she changes her mind. “Or it used to, at least. Peri has one just like it.”
When she says her sister’s name, her voice cracks.
“Can we remove it?” It’s solid black, thick and heavy.
“No,” she says. “At least, we can’t. They put it in surgically.”
My stomach whirls. “We’ll worry about it later. Get some sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep,” she says, even though she yawns.
“Why not?” I ask.
“I have nightmares,” she whispers. “They’re too real.”
“Don’t worry.” I smile down at her, even though her eyes are already closed. “I’ll keep them away.”
“My mother,” Meadow says. “I know she was a monster.”
“She was,” I say, and I’m about to tell her that it was me, that I was the one who fired that arrow into Lark’s chest.
But then I see the look in Meadow’s eyes. The pain of loss.
I wait for her to speak.
“When she . . . when she died,” Meadow says, like she’s testing the word on her tongue, “she was apologizing for something. But she didn’t get to finish. What if she was trying to change, Zephyr? She could have escaped with us. Or fixed things. She told me . . .” She trails off, shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore what she said. Because now she’s dead, and it’s my fault. I lured her out. And for what? A sister I might find? A father and a brother that may or may not already be dead?” She takes a deep breath, and I notice her fingers have gone back to her dagger.
“We’ll find your family, Meadow. They aren’t dead.”
She takes the tip of the dagger, moves it toward her ankle. I see lines carved there, numerals that have turned to scars.
Before I can stop her, she turns the knife to her ankle and carves another line in her skin. Fresh blood drips down like a river.
Then the cut turns to a scab, as the nanites stitch it back up.
“You shouldn’t hurt yourself,” I say. I reach out, try to take the knife from her, but I stop myself. Meadow isn’t Meadow without a weapon, and right now, I’m seeing a girl that’s not the same as she was before.
I wonder if she’ll ever come back.
“I’m not hurting myself,” Meadow whispers. She sits up, trails the tip of the knife on the dusty floor. “I’m marking the days they’ve been gone.” Her gray eyes flit upward to meet mine. There’s a trickle of moonlight coming through a hole in the roof, and she looks ghostly pale.
Dead.
“You promised me you’d find them,” Meadow whispers. “I helped you escape so that you’d find them. And you’re still here.”
There’s a hitch in her voice.
The darkness again.
“Meadow,” I say, but she stops me by holding up the knife.
“You wasted time waiting on me,” she says. “You waited around for nothing, Zephyr. And now my mother is dead. I have a Regulator on my spine, and I’m . . .” Her breath hitches. “It doesn’t matter what I am. What matters is finding them. Nothing more.”
“I stayed for you,” I say. “Because that’s what you do for love, Meadow.”
“Love is a joke,” she says. “I loved my mother, and now she’s gone, and all I’m feeling is pain. I’ll kill the person who killed her. If she’s dead, they deserve to die, too.”
I can’t tell her.
“If we don’t find my family,” she whispers. “Then her death will have been for nothing.”
There’s this horrible guilt in her eyes. Like she really believes she’s the one who killed her mother. But it’s me. I’ve got Lark’s blood on my hands.
The guilt should be in my eyes, the same way it’s been all these years of waking up with people dead at my feet. But not tonight.
I can’t tell her.
“Kill or be killed,” Meadow whispers.
Oh, stars, I can never tell her. I just got her back.
I say nothing. She turns away from me, lies down with the Regulator against the hard ground. I hear her voice, whispering horrible things to the darkness. The whisper in her voice isn’t Meadow’s.
It’s Lark’s.
I will kill you.
I will find you.
I am already dead.
When she wakes up screaming, hours later, I go to her. I hold her tight, kiss her forehead, tell her it’s not real.
But we both know it is.
I wish I could’ve saved her sooner.
Because I can tell that a part of her is already dead.
CHAPTER 39
MEADOW
In the morning, we walk along the tracks. They lead toward the coast, cutting near the sand. I think of Koi, how he prepared me for the day I’d jump and try to make it onto the red or blue train. I stop looking at the tracks, because the memories hurt too much.
Sketch counts our steps, and announces when we’ve hit another mile. I walk alone in front.
Sketch and Zephyr speak in hushed voices behind me.
I’m not listening, because I don’t care.
The heat of the day is like fire, making it hard to breathe, hard to concentrate, hard to keep going.
But I won’t stop. Not until I know my family is safe. Sometimes, I imagine my mother’s ghost is walking beside me. Whispering the last words she ever said.
I don’t want them to be true. But if anything, when it came to her science, my mother never lied. What I know haunts me, and when the wind blows, I shiver. I whirl around at every noise. I stare into the trees, and I think I can see faces.
I think I can see Peri.
I think I can hear her screams.
“MEADOW!”
It’s louder than it’s ever been.