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Authors: Sarah Crossan

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BOOK: Breathe
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This room is dark because the curtains are drawn and a draft blows the door shut as I step inside.

I wait for my eyes to adjust, holding the knife out in front of me just in case. There is a low gurgling noise in the room, like water trickling through a pipe. The roof must be leaking in here, too. I see a mound of clothes in the corner of the room and not much else except a few boxes and piles of dishes here and there. I’m about to leave when, slowly, the pile of clothes begins to move toward the door, toward me. I gasp. It’s an old drifter with long, matted hair. She can’t move too quickly because she is attached to something—a large, cumbersome box, a solar respirator, which she is dragging behind her.

“If you come any nearer I’ll use this,” I say, wielding the knife. I turn to flee and stumble in the gloom.

“No need to be afraid of lil’ ol’ me, treasure,” she rasps. “Let me touch your face. Let me get near to you now.” When I turn around she is still sliding toward me, gurgling and huffing.

I can smell her—a sweet dirt, like candied urine. How many years has she been in this house? It’s possible she’s a hundred years old. She looks like she must be. She looks like she is already decaying and she isn’t even dead yet. I feel my stomach start to heave.

“Get away from me!” I yell, holding out the blade and backing myself into the corner. The woman stops and in a moment of surprising vigor, throws off the layers of blankets. She is wearing a light nightdress thin enough to reveal her scraggy, withered frame.

I don’t want her to touch me. I flatten myself against the wall hoping it will swallow me up.

“Ain’t no need to be scared,” she croaks, shuffling across the moldy carpet. “Maude Blue wants to take a gander, that’s all.”

“Who’s Maude?” I manage.

“Who’s Maude? Ain’t I got no reputation?” She coughs, brings up something, and spits it onto the carpet. My stomach turns again.

“Naughty Maude Blue,” she shrieks. Maybe she managed to escape from the pod’s Mental Sanitation Unit and is foraging in deserted kitchens to keep herself alive.

“Let me out. I won’t tell anyone I saw you,” I say.

“I know you won’t,” she chortles. I have never seen a breathing apparatus like the one she’s attached to, though I’ve heard of them. It looks like a small refrigerator.

“I’m leaving,” I say, groping for the door handle. All I feel is damp wallpaper.

“Don’t leave me,” she whines. When she is close enough that I can see the grime in her few remaining teeth, she strokes my arm. I scream and swing my knife. “She’s a wild one, all right,” she wheezes, and laughs again before lunging at me. With one hand she tries to rip the mask from my face and with the other begins unbuckling my tank from the belt. I kick and push her away.

“Think you’ll hurt Maude Blue and get away with it?” she shrieks, and charges at me again. I duck as her hands reach for my throat and run to the other side of the room. This is stupid. Now I’m even farther from the door. “I’m gettin’ outta this house. Gimme your portable air,” she crows.

“Get away, you witch! Get away!” I scream.

“Get away,” she mimics. “Get away.” She laughs. I swing again as she comes toward me, but this time, as she shoves me the knife slips from my fingers, and she snatches it up from the carpet. She slices the air with the blade, so I protect my head with my hands, but as I do the rusty knife slices right down my arm. I’m too shocked to feel any pain and simply hold the gash with my hand and watch as blood seeps between my fingers. As it drips onto the carpet, Maude Blue bends down and dips her finger in it.

“How fragile we are,” she says. She looks up with her narrow eyes. She holds the knife in front of my face.

I have to get out of this room, even if it means throwing myself from the window, but Maude Blue seems to have other ideas. She holds the knife to my throat and removes my airtank. I close my eyes as she unfastens my facemask. “I’m sorry, treasure,” she whispers, running a bony, dry finger from my forehead down to my chin. I try to breathe, but unlike the Resistance members who live at The Grove, I’m not ready to cope with such limited oxygen. In an instant, I feel nauseous.

Maude pulls off her own breathing apparatus and slips mine over her mouth and nose. She drops the knife, but I don’t think I can even stand up much longer. I lean against the wall and slide down onto the dank carpet.

“It’ll expire in a day or two,” I croak. Maude Blue looks at my tank and strokes it. She crawls over to me and attaches her old mask to my face. I should be glad of this, but the smell is so foul I don’t know if I can bear it. I’m probably losing so much blood I’ll die anyway.

I wonder how it happened to Abel. I wonder whether he thought of me at the end, whether he blamed me. He had every right to.

Then I hear a noise out on the landing. Does Maude have backup, a smelly old lover who has been out prowling and is now back to finish me off? She jumps up and grabs the knife again, so I know she’s not expecting anyone. My next thought is Breathe; they must have followed me. Either way I’m doomed. But then Bea bursts into the room swinging a knife. Quinn too, and he’s also brandishing something. It appears to be a small mallet that he is whirling above his head. He is so serious, so tall and strong, and the weapon is so inadequate, that even in my condition, I have an urge to giggle.

“Get away from her,” Quinn hollers.

“She has a knife,” I warn them.

“We have a knife, too. And there are two of us,” Bea says. “Three,” she adds, looking at me.

Maude frantically waves the knife at Bea and Quinn. “Come get me, kids!” she screeches.

“You grab her arm!” Bea tells Quinn.

It doesn’t take much for the three of us to grab Maude, take the knife from her, and retrieve my tank. Maude hurriedly reclaims her own stinking mask and slinks into a corner of the room, muttering to herself.

Quinn stuffs the hammer into a pocket of his backpack and Bea hands her knife to him before rushing over to examine my arm. “Did you follow me?” I ask, and it comes out more accusingly than I want it to.

“We’ll need to clean that and wrap it,” she says. She stands and opens the curtains to let the light in, then digs through her backpack and pulls out an antiseptic spray and bandage. Quinn moves to guard Maude.

“You came prepared,” I say as Bea pushes back my sleeve and starts to clean and dress my injury.

“We’ve been planning this trip for a few days. We weren’t on the run.” I don’t know whether she’s admonishing me or being kind.

“What do you want to do with
her
?” Quinn asks, pointing at Maude. I don’t have any idea what to do with her; I haven’t been trained for this, but common sense tells me we should just leave her here.

“Take me wiv ya,” Maude whines. “I’ll die if you leave us here. Why do you think I wanted that airtank? I’m too old to be hauling this thing about.” She gives the respirator a weak kick. “How am I meant to scavenge for berries or search in old houses for cans of tasties when I can’t even get anywhere anymore? Don’t leave me ’ere. I’m too old for this life.”

“We can’t trust her,” I say. “We have to leave her here.” Bea flinches but continues to bind the bandage.

“You’re gonna let me waste away?” Maude says. Quinn rubs his temples and tries to attract Bea’s attention by nudging her with his foot. She doesn’t look up.

Bea uses a safety pin to fix my bandage in place, stands up, and moves to the window. “She’s just an old lady,” she says. Her voice is calm but lined with indignation. “We can’t abandon her to die slowly of starvation.”

I look at Maude, who stares back at me. Even if she hadn’t attacked me, I couldn’t help her escape this place. I need to move quickly and she’d slow me down. They all would. She has to stay here where we found her, but negotiating with Bea and Quinn won’t be easy; I need them to believe I’m merciless and that leaving Maude would be a gift. So I say, “It would be mean just to let her starve. Maybe … maybe it would be kinder to kill her.”

14
BEA

They’re talking about murder as though they’re talking about the weather. Quinn can’t possibly agree with what Alina’s saying; he’s trying to be ruthless because he doesn’t want her to think he’s weak. But killing someone? She’s an old woman.

They’ve spent the last ten minutes trying to decide what to do. Should they leave her here to die alone, take away her respirator and let her suffocate, or put her out of her misery by stabbing her? Stabbing her! Why doesn’t Quinn just use his mallet to bludgeon her to death? I stand by the window watching them. They’re doing an excellent job of pretending that they’re perfectly resolved to end this old woman’s life. Finally Quinn says, “What do you think, Bea?”

“You know what I think,” I say, which he does. And this is the reason he hasn’t been able to look at me.

“What?” Alina asks Quinn, as though I need an interpreter, as though she can’t speak to me directly.

“Bea thinks we should help her,” he says. Alina laughs, and I hate the sound of it because it means it’s Alina and Quinn now, not Quinn and Bea.

“Why are you in The Outlands anyway?” I say, looking at Maude.

“Don’t talk to her,” Quinn says.

“She’s helpless, Quinn, look at the state of her.” Maude is muttering uncontrollably. “What are you doing so far from the pod?” I ask again.

“She’ll probably kill the next person who comes along. We should make sure that doesn’t happen,” Alina says.

“Please stop talking like that,” I beg, and the old woman squawks. “It’s murder,” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m not screaming, urging them not to do this. And if they decide to go ahead anyway, then what will I do?

“Back in the pod it may have been murder. Different laws apply here. My main concern is protecting the Resistance,” Alina says.

“I don’t care about the law. I care about what’s right,” I say.

“And how can you know what’s right? How can any of us know that what they taught us is true? Everything’s a lie. You don’t even know the half of it.”

“It has nothing to do with what I’ve been taught. It has to do with how I
feel
,” I say. Alina stares at me.

“How you gonna argue with that now, huh?” Maude mumbles.

“Shut up!” Alina shouts. Quinn watches her closely, hoping, I know, that she’s changing her mind. Why doesn’t he say how he feels? Is he really prepared to let her stop him from saving a person’s life?

“Maybe we
should
talk to her,” he says at last.

Alina is rubbing her chin. When she looks at Quinn she stops, and they gaze at each other: Alina staring into Quinn’s eyes, Quinn looking into hers. And me, off to the side.

“Okay, Maude Blue …” Alina advances on the old woman, who has curled herself tight into the corner of the room, where she is scratching her groin. “Tell us why you tried to hurt me. This better be good, for your sake.” Maude pulls her matted hair into her mouth and begins to chew. “Maude Blue, I’m talking to you!” Alina shouts, and I think she’s about to kick her, but she stomps on a cracked plate on the floor next to her instead.

Maude raises her head. “I chose a house with large bay windows. I chose a room that gets the sun. First time I closed the curtains was when I saw yous coming along.” I don’t understand. She pats the respirator.

“It’s solar powered,” Alina says, “I know that. So why steal
my
air? As long as you stay in the light, you’ll have enough in that thing to keep you going forever.”

“I thought you wanted to kill me, you little brat.” Maude coughs into her hand, then wipes it on a dirty blanket.

“I still might.”

“The Ministry gives you a choice: Mental Sanitation Unit or The Outlands. Well, we all chose The Outlands thinking it’d be a lot better than some loony ward, until they handed us these things.” She taps the respirator again. “Solar powered and portable, all right, which is jolly when you’re a young’un, but look at me. I’m too worn out to be lugging that thing around looking for grub. So even if the air keeps tick-tick-ticking along, I’d not have lasted more than another week if yous lot hadn’t come in ’ere.”

“Why did you get expelled?” Quinn asks. He squats down in front of Maude so he’s eye level with her. There’s a softness to his voice at last.

“We know too much and that’s dangerous to ’em. We all gets expelled eventually, but they don’t tell you that when you sign up. Unless you’re a bigwig, you don’t never escape the cut. They thinks it’s a gift, letting us live. A gift for all the service we’ve given ’em.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’?” Quinn asks.

“You know exactly who I mean. And by the look of your sweet purple lobe, you’re one of ’em, too.” When I look closer at Maude, I see that she has a circular tattoo on her earlobe.

“You were a Premium?” I ask. I thought drifters were lunatics and criminals. Surely Premiums could never be degraded like this.

“The drifters are all ex-Breathe,” Alina says impatiently, as though I should know this already.

The solar respirator clanks and Maude elbows it. “Tha’s right. But we was dubbed the Hope Hitmen back in the old days. If we found anything living, we sprayed it and whoosh—gone—jus’ like that. Trees means hope. So they’ve always wanted rid of ’em.”

Alina doesn’t look surprised, and I try not to seem too shocked either, but I am. Breathe destroy trees? “The Switch was an accident and now the trees won’t grow back because there’s so much lightning,” I say, fearing I’ll be contradicted.

BOOK: Breathe
7.76Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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