Arclight (28 page)

“Move,” I say to Rue.

“Did he hurt you?” Tobin demands. He jerks Rue around by his shoulder, but size isn’t necessarily an advantage against the Fade.

“No one’s hurt, Tobin. Move,” I say again, hoping to distract them from each other, but neither gives quarter. “Fine. You two stay put; I’ll move.”

I slip around them and take off again, ignoring the familiar feeling of being watched that trails down my back. They’re following. Whether Rue or Tobin broke first doesn’t matter—neither stayed behind.

A bright line glows before my feet as sure as if someone painted it with phosphorescent dye. It cuts a path I couldn’t have found on my own, skirting knots of roots and rocks and taking me through the trees where the branches hang low enough to skim the top of my head. I don’t care if it’s real or Rue’s creation. For once, I’m running
to
something instead of away from it.

The Dark passes in a blur. The promise of answers shines up ahead.

“Marina!” Tobin’s feet pound behind me, but I can barely hear them over the sound of my own. “Slow down.”

“No!”

Not until I know for sure.

I know I should be afraid . . . I
am
afraid. These are the sorts of nerves that come from standing on the edge of something, with nothing underneath to catch me when I fall.

“Marina! Dad says it’s not safe out here.”

Even with my newfound speed and grace, Tobin catches me, but it doesn’t matter. We’re in the Grey. We’re here.

“We have to go back.”

That’s what I’m trying to do—go back. Hopefully it’ll be far enough to do me some good.

“What are we doing out here?” he asks, glancing nervously at the water as though one of those red-eyed creatures might be lurking nearby.

“Looking for answers,” I say.

“It’s him, isn’t it? That Fade.” Tobin spins me around to face him, though he’s looking over the top of my head. I don’t need to see him to know Rue’s there. “He lied, didn’t he? He left some of those . . .
things
. . . in you, and he’s back in your head.”

I’m not sure what to say. It’s not Rue calling me out here, but I think it’s the Fade.

Rue was right to destroy my inhaler. Now that I’ve lived with the pain for a while, I remember the fog that manifested with every breath through that little silver disk. I remember how close I’d come to latching on to something from my past only to watch it wither and drown beneath a fresh coat of whitewash. I’d lose the pain, but I’d also lose my train of thought, and by the time I found it again, another headache would require another hit to start the process over.

And over.

And over . . .

Alteration
.

Or maybe it’s Tobin who was right; maybe Rue missed a few nanites and, like drones, they’re trying to line up my thoughts with the hive. How would I know? All the things I thought I knew are suddenly as insubstantial as a daydream.

“Answer me,” Tobin says, frantic.

“No.”

“You can fight this, Marina.”

“I wasn’t arguing. ‘No’ was my answer. It’s not Rue.”

Tobin’s expression clouds over. He throws another fierce look over my shoulder and leans down. I assume he’s going to whisper something in my ear, but he smashes his mouth on top of mine so fast all I see is the disheveled black mess of his hair where it’s fallen in his face.

I think my heart may have actually stopped. I certainly can’t breathe . . . there’s no room for air between us.

“Stop it!” I gasp, using him as leverage to push myself back.

“What’d I do?” he asks. His voice is choked with hurt; his face marred by betrayal. “It helped before. You said if you didn’t think about him . . . I thought . . .”

A storm builds in the space behind me, making the air crackle with current, but there’s no mistaking this for an act of nature.

“Rue, don’t,” I say sharply, pivoting into the path of a tenebrous haze.

Pure toxic intent rushes past as a wave, smooth and fluid. It’s so thick in the air, and so heavy with loathing, I can actually see it spearing toward Tobin. He has the smallest inkling of what’s happened, shuddering when it touches him, but there’s no way he interprets the hatred that makes up the cloud’s mass.

Tobin’s father, Anne-Marie, and the Fade who followed us struggle to keep Rue’s rage in check, physically restraining him, and an unfathomable reality of my life before the Arclight begins to dawn on me.

I know what happened to Cherish.

“This is where it happened,” I say. “It’s where they found me.”

What Rue called dead water stretches toward a misty horizon. The water’s perfectly still, with a frosted mirror surface. Boats lie smashed along the shore and bare trees jut from water. No way are there any fish in there.

“I was under that deck when I saw your father.” I glance up at Col. Lutrell, and he gives me a slight nod.

The memory begins to solidify.

“I didn’t think he saw me, but he sent Mr. Pace in after me. He told me I was safe, but I was terrified.”

“Of course you were,” Tobin says.

“Of him, Tobin. I was afraid of your dad. Mr. Pace and Lieutenant Sykes, and all the others . . . they just kept coming. And they made so much noise.”

Memories roar back into the vacuum of my empty mind, all topsy-turvy and backward.

“You didn’t know what you were doing,” Tobin says. “You’d been out here alone all that time—of course you ran when you heard people. You probably thought they were Fade.”

“I don’t think so.” His version makes sense, but it’s not what happened. “I was trying to get somewhere, but then they came . . . I had to hide from—”

The worst pain of my life takes me to my knees beside the water.

“You need your inhaler,” Tobin says.

“No! That’s why Rue smashed it, he knew—” Another stab, and my fingers curl into the squish of saturated sand, but there’s nothing I can anchor myself to.

It’s not the first time this has happened to me.

Another kind of sickness hits my stomach as one memory filters through the jumble completely clear.

“He knew . . .”

I can still hear Dr. Wolff tell that first, worst lie:
“You’re safe here, Marina.”

This time, when the pain comes, I use it for fuel. Another shard of myself breaks free, hacking its way out of the void, propelling me forward, back onto my feet.

“I didn’t know my name,” I say desperately. “I didn’t recognize it when Doctor Wolff said it.”

Another jolt nearly knocks me over. It feels like all I can do anymore is scream.

“Where is it?” I call to Rue. “Where’d you see it?”

“Near the water.”

I run, stumbling, using my hands for balance when I need them, toward a pile of debris that’s been heaped against the pier by the water’s natural ebb and flow.

I focus on Tobin’s father as I fling junk out of my way. Pieces of wood fly out of my hands as fast as I can fill them, and all the while the sun sinks farther so that the sky changes color.

“Marina, what are you doing?” Tobin reaches for me, but I take a step farther down the pile.

“Let her be, son. I tried to warn this one that forcing her memories out could do her more damage, but he wouldn’t listen.” He jerks his head toward Rue, and Rue blows an angry puff of air out of his nose.

“It’s here.” Everything comes back to the water. “It’s . . . there!”

Tobin reaches for the faded piece of wood that holds the key to everything. He hands it to me, curiosity and confusion on his face.

“Where are we?” I ask, facing him with the board hugged to my chest.

“Marina, you’re scaring me,” Tobin says. “I don’t care if you’re getting your memories back, it’s not worth this.”

The only one not scared or confused or even angry anymore is Rue. He’s smiling. Relief breaks across his skin like dawn itself until he nearly glows. A gentle humming sound comes from his direction, almost like laughter or purring, and the hive takes it up, making the air vibrate with their joy.

Blanca drops Anne-Marie’s hand and scampers over the uneven terrain. She stops beside me, throws one slim arm around my leg, and leans in.

“M’winna hears,” she says resolutely; one of my hands drops to rest on top of her head.

“What is this place?” I ask Tobin again. “The water, what is it?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of lake or reservoir. It’s too small to be the ocean.”

I turn the piece of wood in my hands so he can read the washed-out and cracked paint:
CYPRESS HILL MARINA
. “I’m not Marina—this place is.”

With that one, simple admission, the inhaler-fueled barricades in my mind shatter, blowing apart from the inside. As each one goes, it pulls another with it, and another, and another until there’s nothing left to hide behind.

Smell’s the strongest impression, and what comes through first is the scent of antiseptic, mixed with mildew from soaked clothes, and fear. I can actually smell their fear.

“
Where was she caught?
” Honoria’s voice asks.

Funny that my brain changed
caught
to
found
so long as I believed the lies she told me.

“Klick and a half into the Grey, almost to the Dark. She was hiding in the water.”

Yes, I was hiding. Hiding from them.

The memory rewinds, starting over at the point I started listening to them.

“They got lucky. Seems like our girl was a free spirit even in the hive. They found her out alone and stunned her with a first dose of suppressant, but it wasn’t enough. She panicked.”

“How is she?” Honoria asks
.

“Confused,” Dr. Wolff says. “Which is to be expected. Her viable parasite load is below measurable levels, which means it’s either non-existent or hovering. Her blood’s gone red. All we can do is wait and see how she does.”

“Keep her away from the others until you’re certain.”

“And here I was planning a party.”

“This isn’t a joking matter, Wolff. We’re handing them a real, honest-to-God survivor after all this time. Even with the casualties, morale’s barely taken a hit. I’m not going to be the one to tell them it’s a farce.”

They either don’t know I’m awake, or don’t think I can understand them because they speak openly, and I hear every word from where I’m tethered to the hospital bed.

“I know exactly what it means,” Dr. Wolff says. “Don’t forget who burned the bodies of ones who came before her. I have no intention of letting anyone see this child until I’m sure she’s not another one of your mistakes.”

“What came before was progress. All that matters now is what comes after.”

Honoria heads for the door.

“With the nanites suppressed, her conscious memories no longer exist. If she was taken young enough, she may not have any memories independent of the hive. She may not have a name,” Dr. Wolff says
.

“Where was she caught?”

“Klick and a half into the Grey, almost to the Dark. She was hiding in the water.”

“Marina, it is,” Honoria says
.

Hot tears fall on my hands; a soft weight leans against my hip as Blanca props her head there. Either regaining my memories makes it possible, or Rue lets up on the reins, because another one of those flower impressions pops into my head, and despite myself, I laugh.

“Thanks,” I say softly, hugging her.

“M’winna hear?”

“Yeah . . . I can hear you.”

An excited squeal bursts from her mouth and suddenly she’s not leaning on me, but hanging off my neck like a strangling vine.

“I’m sorry,” Tobin’s father says. “We thought you were a kid like one of ours. We thought . . . I’m so sorry.”

I can’t answer him, so I nod against Blanca’s crystalline hair, holding her as tight as I can.

“Colonel Lutrell?” Anne-Marie finally speaks. She’s bouncing around like she’s ready to pop. “Is Marina all right?”

“I don’t know, Annie,” he says. “I truly don’t.”

“Marina, look at me,” Tobin begs. He’s beside me, trying to pull my face away from the tiny Fade-girl in my arms, but I won’t let her go. Not again. “Look at me!”

I can’t. Instead, I raise my eyes and look past him, to the line of pale bodies standing near the brush line to avoid the last bit of the day’s light. Their markings have migrated toward the setting sun, leaving them with meridian lines down their faces. In a few moments, the Arclight will be turning on the lamps, knitting together that web of solid light I used to think protected me.

Rue stands alone. That odd glow I thought I’d seen before is nothing compared to what I see now. It’s a full-color aura, radiating off his skin and pulsing in time to his heart.

I hear that distant
thump, thump, thump
he’d tried to make me understand before. The Fade are all there, blended and blurred into a constant drone, but his . . . notes, I guess—they stand out. Louder and richer. My own heart answers right back, but with a duller sound that’s more melancholy.

I’ve found Cherish.

And she’s never felt so alone.

“I
’M
a Fade.”

I test the words, but the part of me who still clings to what I learned inside the Arclight rejects them. That part of me bristles, disgusted by the suggestion, while Cherish, who has been chained inside Marina’s static form for too long, thrills at the chance to breathe again.

This isn’t what getting my memories back was supposed to be like. I don’t feel whole at all; I feel like someone’s drawn a line down the center of my mind. The human me occupies one side and the Fade takes the other.

I
am a Fade.

I am
a Fade
.

I
am
a Fade.

No matter how I say it, nothing changes the meaning into something better. It doesn’t make me who or what I thought I was. Mr. Pace was right—there
is
something worse than not knowing.

“What?” Tobin shakes me, as though he could jar me hard enough that I’ll forget myself again.

“I’m a Fade.”

He steps back. Forward. Back again. He looks to his father, but Col. Lutrell won’t meet his eyes or mine. Tobin even risks a glance at Rue, but Rue’s attention is on me.
Cherish
.