It is blood.
“Meadow,” he says. “My Meadow.”
His voice is a raw croak, the sound of sickness. But sickness isn’t possible. It isn’t real, not in the world my mother has cured. There is no way the Initiative has succeeded in breaking the Cure.
I fall at my father’s side. He reaches out. My hands close over his, feel his warmth. He is too warm, and his forehead is beaded with sweat.
We simply watch each other for a time. The world around us fades away, and for a moment, we are back on the houseboat, father and daughter, lost in our own world.
It is one of training and toughness.
Love is cast aside, and only the art of survival remains.
I can almost taste the salt air. Feel the gentle lull of the waves beneath my feet. Hear the cawing of the gulls overhead, the sloshing of water against the sides of the boat. The sound of Peri’s laughter in the background, and the carving of a knife on driftwood, as Koi creates another beautiful image.
“You left the Shallows,” my father says, bringing us back to the here and now. The Ridge.
“I did what you trained me to do,” I say back, nodding. “I came to keep my family safe.”
“You put yourself in the line of danger.” He blinks, and more blood drips from his eyes. What is wrong with him? Why does he look this way? So broken. So weak. And yet, when he speaks, his words are still filled with training. Authority. “Why did you come? Why did you leave your home?”
“Because my home is here, with you,” I say. “Family is everything. The only thing. You taught me that.”
He nods. He swallows, hard. And then he does the one thing he hasn’t done in years. He reaches out. He pulls me into his arms. And he hugs me.
My father hugs me. Holds me.
“I don’t know how you made it, and I don’t want to know,” he says.
I am about to explain anyways, but he keeps going, and I let him speak.
“But I’m proud, Meadow.” He takes a deep, rattling breath. “I’m so proud of you.”
It’s all I’ve ever wanted. My father’s pride.
And at his words, I let the tears fall.
For once, he doesn’t tell me to stop. He doesn’t tell me to be strong, or to wipe them away, or to throw a punch or a kick or wield a sharpened knife.
He lets me break.
And as I break, I whisper that my mother is dead, for good this time. She is no longer a life behind a lie, but a corpse, probably already burned to ashes in the incinerator. I tell him the secret she told me, trembling as the words spill from my lips. His grip tightens. I tell him about Peri, and the Regulator that is on her spine. How she’s out there, somewhere, terrified.
As I speak, I see my mother’s dead eyes, staring at me from my memories. I hear her whispered words. I’m sorry. I hear her begging me to stay, to just stay, to live.
I tell him that soon, I will die.
I tell him that soon, I will join my mother on the other side, in fire and ash.
I have to set the world right again before that moment comes.
I have to find my sister.
CHAPTER 88
ZEPHYR
I wait for Meadow to join us at the fire.
I fight to stay awake, but eventually, exhaustion takes over. I fall asleep.
I’m only a kid.
Lying in a bed in the Initiative Headquarters, staring up at a screen, as images flicker by, showing me memories. Hopes. Dreams. Desires.
Two Leeches move around the room, checking vitals of everyone in the beds.
They come to me, ready to tape my eyelids open, so I’m forced to watch. I like the videos. They make me feel safe. Alive.
“I’m transferring,” one of the Leeches says. A woman. “I’m leaving tomorrow for the Drop or the Ridge, wherever they assign me. And if you love me, you’ll come with me.”
“You keep saying that,” another Leech answers. This one is a man. “But you never actually go. What’s so bad about here?”
“It’s them,” she says. I see her lean over me. She’s pretty. Young. She tapes open my first eyelid, her hands gentle and soft. “This is wrong, Peter. We’re playing with the natural order.”
“And isn’t that exactly what they’re doing in the other sites? What’s wrong is you allowing yourself to think that way. You want to go to the Ridge? Test them, make them wish they were dead? Look at this kid.” He points at me. “He’s higher than the clouds right now. We’re making the Patients happy. They like listening to us. They like killing, doing what needs to be done for the system. We’re giving them a reason to live.”
They tape my second eyelid open.
The woman sighs. “I just can’t get over it. It gives me nightmares. I can’t sleep. So maybe we don’t go to another site. Maybe we could just go to the Green, and . . .”
“The Green isn’t real,” he says. He reaches across my body, grabs the woman by the chin. She gasps, but he holds her strong. “How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not leaving here. You’ll stay, and do everything the Commander tells you to do, and forget about imaginary places.”
“We could have sanctuary,” she says. Her voice shakes.
“Sanctuary is here,” he tells her. “Face it, babe. The Shallows is as good as this world gets.”
He releases her. She holds back tears. They move on, and I’m left to stare at an image of a broken place. Buildings blown to bits, a world that is my job to purge clean.
The Shallows.
I wake up, gasping, drenched in sweat.
Damned flashbacks. I thought they were gone.
I think of Meadow.
She’s still alive, which means the system is still alive, too. No matter how far I run from the Shallows, and even with the Creator dead, I’m still a Patient. My mind is still beyond my total control.
I sit up, and a blanket falls from my chest. Sketch is asleep beside me, curled into herself. Shivering. I toss the blanket over her instead, then stand up.
I try to piece together the memory I just had. The Green. It’s the second time I’ve had a memory about it, and now with the old man Tox carving it, I’m sure.
It means something.
The Green.
I have to find Meadow.
CHAPTER 89
MEADOW
Zephyr finds me later, when I am sitting by the dying light of the fire.
His eyes are heavy, with dark circles beneath them.
“Hey,” he says. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I let you sleep. You looked tired.”
“Thanks,” he says. He sits down beside me, but far enough away that I can’t touch him.
My father is asleep a few feet from us, curled up in a blanket. Snoring, which is something he never did before on the houseboat. “He’s sick,” I whisper. “His breathing is labored. His heart rate is slowing.”