“We’ll come, too,” Sketch says from behind me. Zephyr stands beside her. I sigh, check to make sure my knife is still with me.
“We kill anyone who stands in our way,” I tell them.
We leave the cave in search of my sister.
CHAPTER 94
ZEPHYR
Koi has made a map of places he’s searched.
It’s scratched on a slab of thick bark, and he points it all out, showing the Xs and marks where Peri hasn’t been.
“She could be with others, right?” I ask. “She’s obviously got a cuff. Have you checked all the other camps?”
“That’s what’s strange,” he says. “I can’t find her in any of them.”
Meadow slices a tree with her blade. “Peri is smart. She knows not to trust anyone. She’s probably on her own somewhere. Hiding.” There’s pain in her voice. “If she’d been trained sooner, she would know how to defend herself.”
“She was too young,” Koi says.
Meadow glares at him. “And we weren’t? As soon as we could walk we were learning how to wield knives. The only thing Peri could wield was her teddy bear.”
“Dad figured she’d be safe,” he says. “We were strong enough together.”
“Until you all got caught,” Meadow says. “What if she’s dead already, Koi? What if someone saw her Regulator, like mine, and thought it was something special, and killed her for it?” She’s screaming.
She’s shaking all over, and her eyes are crazy. It’s like she’s staring at an enemy, instead of her brother.
Koi steps forward, until his nose is almost touching hers. “Peri is alive. And we’re going to find her.”
Meadow slaps a thorn branch out of the way and stomps ahead.
We get to what Koi calls the Eye of the Ridge by the end of the hour. It’s a big, flat expanse of trees wiped away. An empty clearing, the very center of the whole forest. I freeze when we reach the edge of the clearing.
There’re other tribes here. Blues, Blacks, Yellows, Oranges, Pinks, all standing around. No one’s killing each other. They’re just staring into the clearing with hungry eyes. Waiting hands.
A ring of Leeches is in the center of them, standing beside a few black vehicles that are packed full of what looks like medical supplies.
“I check here, every other day,” Koi explains. “The Initiative comes. They give out extra rations to whoever shows up.”
“I swear, we’re never going to escape these mother-loving bastards,” Sketch hisses.
My stomach turns, seeing them. There are at least fifty, dressed in the same black uniforms they wore in the Shallows. They have bigger rifles, too. Ones that look like they could blow a hole right through your gut.
And something else is different about them.
“What’s on their bodies?” I ask.
When the Leeches move, something blue flickers across them. Almost like a second skin, glowing pale with electricity.
“Protection,” Koi explains, motioning for Sketch and I to follow. “Some kind of electric current. We can’t get to them. Bullets, knives, spears. You touch them, you get blown back. It’s a hell of an invention. Genius.”
“They had that surrounding their Compound, in the Shallows,” I say, remembering the night I went crazy with the rifle, trying to take out as many as I could under the influence of the Murder Complex.
“And they had the Cams,” Meadow says. One whizzes past, overhead.
“And the Perimeter,” Sketch adds.
It’s almost funny how similar the Shallows and the Ridge are. Similar, but different. They’re both hell, no matter which way you twist it.
We join the other groups, waiting on the sidelines. We get a few glares. Harsh words are exchanged, and Koi tells us to ignore the others. But no one does anything more than that and it’s this weird, peaceful moment in time. Like the massacre last night, or the encounter with the Greens on the first day we got here, didn’t even happen.
It sets me on edge.
The Leech in charge, a man who’s got to be almost seven feet tall, makes his way down the line. Scanning people’s cuffs.
He stops in front of a young boy, a kid who could be Peri’s age. I look over at Meadow. See the pain in her eyes, and I can’t take it anymore. I slip away from Sketch, walk quietly to Meadow’s side.
“Cuff,” the Leech growls.
The little boy holds out his arm. His whole body shakes uncontrollably, and he’s covered in little specks of yellow, all over his skin.
“A 73,” the Leech says. “Interesting.” He pulls out some kind of silver tube and presses it to the boy’s arm. The kid flinches, and the Leech pulls the tube away. It beeps, and he looks down at it.
“Smallpox,” the Leech says, to one of his comrades. “Highest level yet.”
“I just wanna eat.” The boy starts to cry. “Please.” But his tears don’t hit the ground.
His body does, instead, when the Leech swings a gun forward.
And shoots him in the leg. The boy screams. The sound echoes across the Ridge. Birds fly from the tops of trees, scatter into the sky.
Meadow grabs my hand. Squeezes it tight, like she’s holding herself back from attacking.
I squeeze back, and for this one second she’s mine again, willing to open up in the midst of her pain.
Some people flinch. I stand still and steady, because it’s just like the Rations Hall. Only this time, I don’t have to clean up the boy’s body. He’s crying, sobbing on the ground, but he’s alive.
“Stand up,” the Leech yells at him.
The boy can’t move.
“I said stand!”
Finally, Meadow releases my hand. “Meadow, don’t,” I say, but she rushes forward before any of us can stop her, shoving past the other colors standing around. She bends down, grabs the boy’s arm, and yanks him to his feet. He’s dripping blood. He passes out, but she holds him up.
“Fix him,” Meadow says, glaring at the Leeches.
One of them steps up, grabs her cuff. Looks at the C, and then at her Regulator on her skull.
“You’re the Woodson girl,” he says.
“Fix the boy,” she says back. “You shot him. Now fix him.”
The Cure should be healing him by now, stitching up the bullet wound. But the boy’s leg is a blasted mess. From here, I can see the number on his cuff, skyrocketing to a 94.
All I can do is stare.
“He’ll survive,” the Leech says. “They always do.” He takes a glass vial, lets some of the boy’s blood drip into it. Corks it shut, and moves on.
Meadow drags the boy over to us. Sketch rips off the bottom of her shirt, wraps up the kid’s leg. Gradually, the bleeding stops, and his cuff number sinks lower and lower.
He’ll live, just like the Leech said.
“She’s not here,” Koi says. “We need to move on.”
The Leeches go up and down the line, scanning people. Handing over rations bags to some, after they draw their blood. Scolding others, beating the ones that step out of line. I look left, right, searching for Meadow’s sister in the crowd. She isn’t here.
So where is she?
CHAPTER 95
MEADOW
We search all day.