Arclight (17 page)

“We had no idea what her lengthy exposure to the Dark might lead to,” Dr. Wolff says. “Once she was cleared, we moved her up to the hospital.”

This has to be the place Dr. Wolff was going to put Trey.

“I remember,” I say.

As quickly as it comes, the memory leaves my mind, ripped away as sure as if someone reached in and clawed it loose.

Pain races down my spine, along every nerve until even my feet are shrieking. The room swirls down a drain that shouldn’t exist, coming to a point between my eyes. Everything flips from black and white to a sheet of red, then sickening green, before it’s obliterated in a shower of sparks and spots that leaves me on the ground, seizing.

“Here.” Tobin fishes the inhaler out from between my arms and holds it to my mouth. “Breathe.”

Easier said than done. My first attempt fails miserably as though my lungs have collapsed and refuse to take in air. I try again and end up clawing at my throat.

In his cell, the Fade goes berserk. He launches himself at the glass partition, beating his body against it full force until a pool of dark blood forms under his palm. The impact rolls through the floor, knocking M. Olivet to the ground.

The room dims, growing smaller under my closing eyelids . . . this isn’t so bad. It feels like falling asleep without the fear of nightmares coming to torment me. I see Honoria standing close, glancing back and forth between me and the Fade. Her face definitely isn’t the last thing I want to see.

Then something warm blows into my mouth. A blurred Tobin has the inhaler in his hand, pulling the medicine into his own mouth and breathing it out into me.

Listen
.

The command comes in the Fade’s odd speech.

Calm
.

Gentle rain falls against my skin. I can smell it even without the air passing through my nose. Slowly, the medicine sinks into my lungs.

Breathe
.

I feel the air as though I’m part of it and as though it forms my body instead of flesh and blood and bone.

Breathe
.

I exhale without a hitch and take the inhaler from Tobin, sucking down medication until it doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Get her sleeve,” Dr. Wolff’s voice orders.

Someone strips my arm out of my shirt. A needle pricks my shoulder, followed by a flood of stinging nerves where he depresses the plunger, and the last of the weight lifts off my chest.

Tobin leaves me sitting there to face the Fade in the cage.

“What did you do to her?” He slams his fist against the glass.

“Stop.” My valiant attempt at a shout falls flat as I struggle to stand.

I don’t so much walk as pitch, but I make it to the wall, blocking Tobin as he reaches for the light dial.

“That thing almost killed you!”

“He helped me, Tobin,” I say.

“That’s crazy.”

“Fine, I’m crazy. But I know what I felt.”

“You’re hallucinating.”

“I am not!”

“Step away.” Honoria drags me from the containment side, while the others in the room watch the Fade with their rifles at the ready.

“Let go,” I demand. When I pull away, it’s with marks from her fingernails where she tries to hold me still.

“It
was
you, wasn’t it?” I ask the Fade.

He stands statue-still, eyes fixed on my face, his hand on the glass in a smear of his own blood; the broken skin behind it closes seamlessly into perfect flesh. On my side of the glass, spots form where Honoria’s scratches bleed down my wrist.

Damaged
.

“Just an accident,” I say. “We take a little longer to heal.”

But I’ve misunderstood; the Fade isn’t talking about me. He falters and slips to the floor. The patterns on his skin come alive, branching out across his chest and down his limbs. They weave across his face into delicate lines more intricate than lace.

“Is he all right?” I look back, trusting my elders to have the answers I don’t.

“I’ve never seen this behavior before,” Dr. Wolff says, joining me by the glass.

“Then perhaps it’s best we let the creature be and see what happens,” Honoria suggests. “Between this incident and your nightmares, I think Doctor Wolff needs to reevaluate your medication. It’s time to leave.”

“But—”

“Rule three, no arguments,” she says.

“Help . . .”

The Fade speaks. Hoarse and strained, but it’s a real word.

“Tell me I hallucinated
that
.”

“Did it just . . . talk?” Tobin asks.

The Fade slaps his open hand against the glass again. M. Olivet and Lt. Sykes back farther away from the cell.

“Everyone freeze,” Honoria orders.

“Stolen,” the Fade rasps, struggling over the words as though they cause him physical pain. “Removed . . . void . . .”

“What was stolen?” I ask. Honoria hooks the back of my belt with a finger, pulling me toward her when I try to get closer to the cell.

“Stay back.”

“You want information, let me ask him for it,” I say, then repeat my question to the Fade.

“Cherish,” he says, after a pause where he seems to be deciding the best way to fit the word in his mouth.

“Cherish?”

“Mine . . . is blank.”

I’m not in the White Room anymore; I’m on a hill in a clearing between huge trees. Vines like the crystals that form the Fade’s hair reach from the branches to the ground; black lines crisscross the terrain. The Fade from the cage is there, standing beside a female until she’s ripped away—off the hill, out of his reach, and out of my sight.

“Stolen,” he says.

“She’s a friend?”

His brow knits together, frustrated, and his eyes make that same constriction of the blue band into the iris. A gentle nudge in my brain picks out the words he needs to fill in the ones he doesn’t know.

Cherish. Life
.

Not aloud, but spoken to me with the dull thud of a heartbeat behind it, and the smell of open air.

Soul. Mine
.

The heart beats faster, then dies into silence. Lost to the void.

Void
.

He nods, assuming I understand things I’m not sure I can interpret.

“She’s your mate?”

“Mine . . . Cherish . . . is blank. Is silent.” He lays his hand against the glass, over my palm. “Return.”

“What’s your name?” I ask again.

The Fade sinks as the light leeches the last of his strength. A line of black blood streaks across the glass. “Return Cherish.”

Help. Assist . . . Truth
.

A last plea, for my ears only. His silvered eyes close and the veil draws tight around his face.

M
AYBE
if I hadn’t told Honoria about my dream, or maybe if the Fade had said anything other than
help
when it finally opened its mouth, things would have been different, but my fate was sealed as soon as he spoke. Honoria ordered me into the hospital; there was no sense arguing. Truth is, that one word made me want to beg Dr. Wolff for a bed.

Of course, I didn’t expect that bed to come with a parade of people through the sliding doors to “check” on me.

The first day, I assumed they were visiting Jove. Without parents at home, Dr. Wolff kept him longer, and they all started off at
his
bedside; but without fail, they’d drift my way.

The second day, most of our classmates had used up their visitor privileges, so they manufactured excuses to wander through. Minor injuries, aches and pains, anything to provide a reason to poke their heads in the door and peek behind the curtains I kept closing.

Now into the fourth day, things haven’t improved.

They keep coming with their robotic greetings and awkward words. I watch dozens of questions falter before they can be asked, and at least as many conversations stall before they start. Awe has replaced dread for my presence.

I blame the Fade. They haven’t attacked once since we dog-piled the one outside Tobin’s apartment. There’ve been no flashing lights, no alarms. The others think the Fade are scared, and count it as one more accomplishment on the list of things I haven’t actually done.

But none of the irritation I feel around them compares to the stomach-sinking, skin-crawling uneasiness that hits every time I realize the eyes watching me belong to Honoria rather than someone my age. It would be easy to think she’s keeping watch over all of the kids in the hospital, but she never says anything to Jove, and she doesn’t approach the screenedoff part of the room where Trey’s been isolated. She haunts the space around my bed, the chill of her presence waking me every time, and then she leaves once she knows I’ve seen her.

It’s weird.

Even Jove’s being civil.

He actually wrote me an apology on a napkin. Dr. Wolff moved him across the room, but if I make the mistake of glancing his way, he’ll catch my eye for some new attempt at reconciliation. I usually humor him, offering a wave or weak smile, but it’s getting annoying. I think I’d hug him if he managed a threat.

“Anne-Marie’s responsible for this, isn’t she?” I ask Tobin when he visits.

“She had help. Dante and Silver have been talking you up. Without you being able to confirm or deny anything, the stories are getting better and better.”

Stories? Plural?

“Between capturing that Fade, my arm, the cleaning crew at my house, and your stay in the hospital, everyone’s jumping to their own conclusions.” He takes a seat on the end of my bed, with his legs toward me. “Did you know you killed three Fade with your bare hands?”

“Dante?” I ask, wincing.

“A lower-year named Melisande who’s taken to following Annie around. She even acts it out . . . apparently you beat one to death with my door.”

“Shut up.”

“After saving my life from another two. That’s how I hurt my arm, in case you were wondering. The mechanics are a bit sketchy, but I’ve heard there was definite gnawing.”

He mimes chewing on his wounded arm, which is no longer immobilized, but rewrapped into something smaller.

“Remind me to maim Anne-Marie in some public and humiliating way when I get out of here.”

“Don’t worry,” Tobin says. “Dr. Wolff’s restricted access to the hospital. No more visitors allowed, only the sick or injured.”

“Then how are you here?”

“I have a legitimate reason.” He rolls his shoulder forward and makes a comically pained face.

“Pathetic.”

“Oh sure,” he says. “I come all the way down here, dragging my agony-wracked self to thank the person who sucked the Fade poison out of my shoulder. . . . That one you
can
thank Annie for, by the way.”

“One more smirk, and I slap it off.”

“Are you annoying my patient, Mr. Lutrell?” Dr. Wolff, emerging from the isolation area, heads toward the half of the hospital I’ve starting thinking of as “mine.” I’ve been here enough, they should just monogram my name on the sheets.

“I’m innocent, Dr. Wolff, I swear,” Tobin says. “I’m only here for you to check my bandage.”

Tobin jokes about it, but the stories about his injuries and my medical incarceration have quickly gained the same weight and reverence as the existing rumors of the Fade, and they’re no more true.

“How’s your arm?” I ask while Dr. Wolff re-dresses Tobin’s shoulder.

“Curiously overworked,” Dr. Wolff answers for him. “I hope you haven’t been overextending yourself with the cleanup. I know we’re short on hands, but going slow will benefit you in the long run.”

To keep everyone busy, and out of trouble, our elders have decided that anyone over the age of eleven has to help clean up the mess left from the night of the Red-Wall. The adults cleared the rubble from the hall; the kids handling the rest.

“I’ve been assigned a soap bucket,” Tobin says.

“
Assigned
is not synonymous with
used
. I’ve dealt with teenagers long enough to know misdirection when I hear it.” He taps Tobin on the head with his medical file before returning it to its proper place on the shelf.

“As for you, young lady,” Dr. Wolff says with a warm smile, “I see no reason you can’t follow Mr. Lutrell out of here and help. I know for a fact there are some upturned filing cabinets in desperate need of attention.”

“I can leave?” I ask hopefully.

“You may leave. If you’re in the room, I think this one will behave himself better.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Tobin protests.

“Then consider her your supervisor. I don’t want you lifting anything heavier than a scrub brush—understood?”

With assurances that I’ll stop Tobin from clearing debris, I’m granted my freedom.

“Are you still working with Anne-Marie in the nursery rooms?” I ask. Areas for the babies were made the first priority after the essential sectors dealing with power and security.

“Unfortunately. Do you know what a diaper bin smells like after it’s been sealed in for more than three days?” He slows his pace by degrees until he stops us both.

“You have to go back, no matter how long it takes us to get there,” I say, facing him.

“I’m getting very good with my misery face. All I have to do is wince; no one expects me to do anything.”

“Sorry, not convincing.”

“You were a lot easier to deal with when you were afraid of me.”

“I was never afraid of you.”

Until now.

I don’t know what to think—I
can’t
think with him here, and me here, and no one else.

“You were a lot easier to deal with when I could
pretend
you were afraid of me,” he amends.

He’s so close, I can feel his breath. I try to step in closer, but my legs misunderstand and go the other way, backing up a step as though invisible hands are pushing us apart.

Tobin’s face falls, dejected. He thinks I’m rejecting him.

“Maybe we should . . . um . . . Annie doesn’t like being by herself for too long.” He turns away, and I stumble forward, caught in his momentum.

“How much longer do you think they’ll make us do this?” Anne-Marie asks, as a white blob of paint drips down to splatter on her head. She’s occupied the far corner of the room for the last two hours, repainting the same spot over and over. It’s going to be three inches thicker than the rest of the ceiling when it dries.