“Peri,” I gasp. I drop to my knees, hold out my arms. “It’s Meadow.”
I see the pieces click together in her mind. See her look at me, really focus, for the first time. She looks past my Regulator, past my newly cut hair, into my eyes.
“M-Meadow?” she says. Her voice is soft, timid.
“It’s me,” I say, and then I realize I am crying. “It’s me and Koi. We found you. It’s okay now. We’re here.”
She lowers the knife. It drops to the ground with a dull thump.
“Meadow,” she says again.
She stands up.
And throws herself into my arms.
I wrap her up tight, hold her close, feel the soft fuzz of new hair growing on her head. Koi drops to his knees, puts his arms around both of us. We hold each other so tightly that for a moment, I almost think that our three beating hearts are the very same one.
CHAPTER 100
ZEPHYR
If there’s anyone here who knows anything about this world, it’s the person who hates me most.
Meadow’s father.
“Zero, do you want to die?” Sketch asks me. She chases me across the cave. “He’ll gut you like a fish!”
“If there are rumors of the Green, he’ll confirm them,” I say. “He was on the Outside before it all happened. He was Lark Woodson’s husband. He’ll know.”
“This I gotta see,” Sketch says, laughing behind me.
I reach the fire. Sketch stops a few paces away.
Meadow’s father is awake, slumped against the rock wall of the cave, sipping water from a woven basket.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
He glares at me as I sit. It takes me back to the day he stuck a fishing hook through my cheek, yanked on it until the skin popped and the hook ripped through. I shiver, but I refuse to look away.
“I told you to stay away from my daughter, did I not?” he asks.
I nod. “You did. But I’m the only reason she wasn’t captured with the rest of you.”
Meadow’s father rises to a sitting position. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Blood smears on his skin. “If you came for my gratitude, you’re going to be disappointed,” he says.
I crack my knuckles. There’s a lot I’d like to say to this man. But I have to focus on what matters right now. “What’s the Green?” I ask.
He chuckles under his breath. Takes another sip of water. When he swallows, he coughs it back up. I wait patiently.
“The Green,” I say, again. “Have you heard of it?”
His eyes flit upward. “Why?”
I decide the truth is better than any lie I can come up with. “Because I think it’s real. I think it’s out there. And I think we need to find it.”
“It’s a natural reaction, in the midst of so much death and decay, to hope for a better place. For Patients, like you, I guess it’s normal to believe in reaching the impossible. You aren’t used to getting no for answer.”
“Is it real or not?” I ask.
His bloody eyes turn to slits. “Don’t get an attitude with me, boy. Do I need to remind you what you did to my home? My family?”
I lean forward, my hands in my lap. “I killed your wife,” I say. His mouth drops open, and I keep going. “After my arrow went through her chest, the entire army of Patients attacked the Initiative. After leading the fight, I then used your sister-in-law to my advantage, and got her to unlock the Perimeter, so that your daughter and I could escape. I was free, for the first time in my life, but instead of running away, I followed Meadow. I fought people. Killed people, so that Meadow could make it here. I gave up my own freedom so that she could come and buy yours.” I lean closer, so close I can smell the blood on his breath. “Now, sir, I’m going to ask you again. What do you know about the Green?”
He’s silent, for a long time.
At first, I think he’s going to kill me.
I just told him I murdered his wife and followed his daughter across the country to get here.
He takes a deep breath.
And then he nods. “I don’t like your kind, Patient Zero. I never have, for obvious reasons. But you make a good argument.” He takes another sip of water, keeps it down. “I know that there once was a place, years ago, that was free of the Initiative. A small community of people that decided to branch off and do things their own way.”
I gasp. “Where was it?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know for sure. Somewhere in the Pacific. Somewhere far. An island, off the grid.”
Tox’s map. The New Militia’s map. They both lead to a place in the middle of a giant sea.
“There’s a Perimeter around the country,” I say. “Is it outside of there?”
Meadow’s father shrugs. “Hell if I know. Everyone was spreading rumors. This place was ruined, that place was safe. It’s all talk.”
“What if it wasn’t just talk?” I ask. “What if I heard the Leeches discussing it, too?”
He raises a brow. “That would be interesting,” he says. “But not necessarily any more true or false than anything else the world has said before, about sanctuaries.”
“But the Leeches know things,” I say. “They have more facts than any of us ever have. And besides. I have a map.”
“And where did you get this map?”
I wave my hand. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is if it leads to the Green. What would it be like there?”
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “If it were real, it would be off the grid completely. It would be a place where there is no testing. No all-seeing Initiative. And best of all, there would be freedom.”
There’s a lift in his voice as he speaks about it, like he wants it to be true, but he’s afraid to have hope.
“Meadow says you’re dying,” I tell him. “Are you?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But after all this time, wouldn’t it be just my luck, for the man who married the Creator to be the one whose blood has the power to reverse her Cure?”
I hadn’t thought of it like that.
“If you die, and we get out of here, I’m going to take Meadow to the Green,” I say. “But if you survive . . . I want you to come with us.”
“I don’t want to burst your bubble,” he says, sighing. “But freedom isn’t real, Patient Zero. It never was. Not before the Cure, and not after.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say. I stand up, look down at him. “Freedom is a choice. And I’m going to choose to make it.”
I turn, about to head back to Sketch, when he calls out to me.
“Patient Zero.”
I look over my shoulder.
“Meadow is smart. If she let you follow her here . . .” He sighs, shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s about to say. “Well, you must have something good to offer. If you find the Green, take her with you. Take all of them with you.”
I nod. Then I join Sketch across the cave and tell her what I know.
CHAPTER 101
MEADOW
We trade off holding Peri as we head for home.
First she is in Koi’s arms. Then she’s in mine. She reaches up and touches my Regulator. Then she touches hers.
She doesn’t speak. But there is true fear in her eyes.
“It’s okay,” I say. “They can’t hurt us anymore. I made sure of that.”