CHAPTER 45
MEADOW
Ray runs the whole way.
We follow, breathless, and the landscape changes from beach to marsh, then marsh to dry grasslands. We come to a wall made of wood timbers, held together by thick bands of metal. A trail of smoke rises from the center, and voices carry over the top of the wall.
“You want to survive out here, you gotta stick with the strong ones,” Ray says, pointing at the wall. “They’re strong. Which is exactly why we need to keep moving. Come on.”
We head into tall grasses that sway past our hips.
“Where is everyone?” I ask. “My father said that the Outside was overrun with people.”
“Oh, we’re overrun, that’s for sure,” Ray grunts from up ahead. “This is the outskirts, Chickadee. That big wall that surrounds the Shallows . . . It’s got rumors. Some say it’s cursed. Lots of people have tried to climb it, and bad things happen. Paralysis. Death. Besides, Initiative Collectors come this way all the time.”
Crickets leap from the grass, hitting our faces. I swat them away.
Soon we come to a patch of trees. They are thicker than the ones in the Shallows, and moss hangs like curtains from their branches. There is a fence of sorts, laced around the outside of the trees.
A sign hangs from the entrance, carved out of old wood. For one moment, there is a pang in my gut.
It reminds me of something Koi would have done. Only his would have been so much more beautiful, alive with life.
This sign has only words.
THADICUS.
“People crave the way things used to be, ya know?” Ray explains. “They try to create things from the past. Cities. Governments. It’s all good and well till the stronger ones come and take what ain’t theirs.”
We enter Thadicus.
Or what is left of it.
There is a small natural clearing in the trees. Once, this might have been a good place for a camp. There are remnants of shelters made of wood and sticks. Some of them have fallen over like broken limbs. Others have been seemingly picked clean of the strongest branches, perhaps taken for shelters elsewhere. An old, headless doll sits in the leaves, and scattered all around are the remains of burned-out fires, like scars on the earth.
Something catches my eye, at the far side of the clearing.
A rope swings from low-hanging branches.
A skeleton hangs from the rope. My stomach lurches. It is missing its hands.
“What happened here?” I whisper.
Ray stops next to me. “Death,” he simply says, and then he shrugs. “This is nothing. Welcome to the Outside, Chickadee. It only gets worse from here.”
CHAPTER 46
ZEPHYR
One second we’re walking in the trees, shoving through moss and sticks, and the next, we’re standing on a concrete road. Miles away, the outline of a city towers into the sky like a ghost.
The camps start here.
It’s like the Reserve back in the Shallows, just tons and tons of tents everywhere. Shelters made up of whatever people can find. Old metal cans, sticks, doors ripped from houses, window screens, tarps. We pass, and no one pays us much attention. At first there’s only a few here and there. But the farther we walk, the greater the number becomes.
It’s like the Shallows, countless faces and voices that rise all around. The only difference is that here, the land goes on forever. There’s no Perimeter surrounding this place.
Which means that there’s probably far more people than the Shallows ever could have had. I imagine that the Murder Complex can still reach me here. I imagine all of these people with Catalogue Numbers, just waiting to be picked off by Patients like me.
But so far, the system hasn’t come.
So far, I feel stronger. Better.
If it weren’t for Meadow’s mission, I’d be free.
Sketch is walking beside me, and Meadow is out of earshot from us.
“You realize this could be our new world, right?” I ask her.
She kicks a chunk of rubble out of the way. “What do you mean?”
I sigh. “I mean it would be already, if we didn’t have to go to the Ridge.”
She stares straight ahead, taking in the packed streets. “What are you getting at, Zero?”
“We’re following Meadow like homeless mutts, giving up our freedom for a mission that isn’t ours to begin with. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“No,” she says automatically. Then she swallows, hard. “Don’t tell her I agree with you. Don’t even tell her we talked.”
Here I am, in this open space, a world without walls. And I’m marching toward a new Perimeter. A new cage to close myself in.
But then Meadow looks back over her shoulder at us. I realized we’ve slowed down. “You okay?” she asks. There’s a hint of concern in her eyes, a wrinkle in her Catalogue Number that lets me know she cares.
And that makes my chest constrict.
Because sometimes, you do stupid things for the people you care about.
And stars, even when it hurts, I care about that broken girl.
“We’re fine, Woodson,” Sketch says, waving Meadow off. Then she looks back at me.
“I wasn’t asking because I wanted to stop this,” I say. “I was asking because I had to know that if I’m in this, you’re in this.” I lower my voice. “It’s obvious she’s not . . . not herself, lately.”
She laughs. “That’s the understatement of the century, Zero.”
I look into her amber eyes. “I need to find a way for us to keep going, when it gets tough. When we feel like backing out on her.”
Sketch scratches at her cheek.
Then she punches me in the face.
I stagger back, too shocked to do anything, and spit blood. “What the hell was that for?”
She laughs, a crazy sound that means she just enjoyed what she did. “You start to doubt, you get decked. Deal?”
I rub the burn away from my brow. Then I nod, walk closer to her, and swing my fist.
She dodges it.
“You gotta do better than that, Zero. Now let’s keep going before we turn this into an all-out war.”
The day gets hotter and hotter, and it’s hard to keep track of how long we’ve been walking. I realize, as we go, that this isn’t just for Meadow. It’s for me, too. I’m looking at things I’ve never seen. I’m out in the world that I never thought I’d see.
The tents stretch down the road, until there’s a blockage in the way.
A big graveyard of metal.
“What the hell are those?” Sketch asks.
She points ahead, where the road is packed with hunks of metal on wheels, hundreds of them scattered, all broken and forgotten. Just like the shipwrecked boats in the Shallows. Some of them have shattered windows. Shards of glass are spilled across the road, and they catch the sunlight and sparkle like droplets of liquid fire.
“They’re cars,” Ray says.
He points at a green one.
And as I look at the color, a memory slams into me.
I’m just a boy, training in combat back in the Initiative Headquarters.
There’s a guard standing behind me, whispering to his comrades.
“The Green, man,” he says. “What do you think?”
The other guard laughs. “I think you’re an idiot.”