inDIVISIBLE (9 page)

CHAPTER 10

T’s right hand had healed enough for a simple bandage, making him much less conspicuous than me with my navy blue dishtowel. We’d torn it in strips but it still stood out like a banner waving traitor. That banner, along with my wheezing, propelled us to commit our first official crime together, breaking into a home on Fifth Circle.

I didn’t know the people who lived
there, but I’d seen their daughter use an allergy injection at school one day so I had a pretty good idea we may find something inside to counter the penicillin. I tried to take a deep breath but the air only scraped through my throat, rattling on its way in and back out. My arms were now streaked with scratch marks where I’d tried to relieve the relentless itching and I knew if we didn’t hurry, I’d lose any ability to suck in air. We walked up to the entry  like we lived there, neither of us speaking. Once inside, T tried the handle and we cringed when nothing happened. Of course it would be locked. Most doors did that automatically, only opening with the residents’ swipe.

He tried again
but the handle remained firm.

“Stand over there,” he instructed.

I moved across the entry way and braced myself against the wall, my lungs burning now and my throat throbbing.

T took a step back, raised one leg and kicked beside the door handle. The door cracked but didn’t open. He kicked a second time and a third, splintering the door and pushing it open on drooping hinges. “We only have a few minutes,” he whispered and rushed down the stairs.

The noise of the exploding door would have been heard over the monitoring system and the idea made my head spin again. I grasped the railing and rushed down the spiral staircase apologizing to the girl I’d seen at school over and over again in my mind.

Nearly at the bottom of the steps, I stumbled, my feet pelting the concrete floor that looked so much like mine, like
all of them in Section Seven. T steadied me, raised one eyebrow as if to ask if I was okay. I nodded and he released me before rushing to the kitchen cabinets.

He
searched the cabinets, gathering food as he rummaged for medicine. He motioned toward the bathroom and I skirted quickly through the garden to the bathroom that looked nothing like the one I’d left behind. Dirty towels were piled on the floor, mildew grew up around the shower walls and the smell of filthy bodies pelted my nose.

My
throat tightened and my vision blurred. I grasped for the countertop to steady me but my hands slipped away in time for my body to crash to the filthy floor. It didn’t hurt like I thought it would—everything just went black and gratefully, the pain ceased.

The air felt cool in my throat, filling my lungs to capacity and I sucked in enough that I thought they’d burst. I exhaled and the tingle of breath worked its way along my arms and legs, a soothing yet nervous sensation and my eyes shot open. T crouched over me, an injector in one hand.

“Thank God,” he whispered. He dropped the injector to the floor and pulled me close for a hug. I returned the embrace but stiffened when I
saw the girl from my school tied on the far side of the room, back pressed against the glass skylight, eyes wide with terror.

“What’s going on?” I whispere
d as quietly as I could, my lips pressed against T’s ear.

He glanced over his shoulder and licked his lips before responding. “This is Mary,” T said just loud
ly enough for the bugs to transmit. “She invited us for lunch but I explained that we’d have to take it to go.” He spoke casually—like Mary was an old friend, not someone he’d tied and gagged while I lay passed out. “It’s been too long, Mary,” T gave me the sign for silence and continued. “Maybe we can chat longer next time we’re in town.”

The girl’s chest rose and fell so quickly I feared she’d hyperventilate. Her eyes flickered back and forth between T and I
so that I knew she was taking notes, memorizing details to hand off to officers.

I
stepped away from T, noticed a second injector on the floor beside the first and looked back at Mary. Her eyes widened as she recognized me but I had to take the time to say it anyway, “Thank you so much, really. Thank you and I’m sorry—” I caught myself, “sorry we can’t stay.”

T handed me a change of clothes and motioned toward the bathroom. I changed quickly, grateful I’d picked a home
with someone close to my size and more grateful T had found something practical for me to wear. Mary’s jeans hugged my waist but fell away a little baggy in the thighs, her shirt was just big enough to disguise my body and her gym shoes were perfect for running, which, I was afraid we’d be doing a lot more of before we found safety. By the time I emerged, he had my backpack ready to sling over my shoulder and fresh bandages in his free hand. He stripped the dishrag from my hand and dropped it in the biohazard chute before he dabbed a clear ointment on my wound and rewrapped it with an entire role of fresh gauze.

“Do I really need all that?” I whispered.

“Trust me,” T replied, tossing the empty packaging into the recycle bin. “We’re late for our bus,” he said casually and pushed me ahead of him as we made our way up the stairs. I rushed, using the railing to pull myself faster, my heart still stuck with the terrified woman downstairs. T gripped my good hand and fell into place beside me as soon as we stepped into the sunlight. His pace slowed as we reached the corner and turned toward the shopping district.

“
She’ll contact the Alliance as soon as she can get to her PCA. With her descriptions of us, they’ll know exactly who we are and that we’re together,” T said.

“They heard our voices,” I said. “Why did you start talking, anyway?”

“To try and set them at ease, and make it sound like we were friends.”

“
After we kicked the door in?”

“They heard a crash. I explained to Mary that I was sorry I tripped and knocked the bookshelf over when she entered.”

“But to leave her tied up like that.”

He slowed even further. “I didn’t want to do that either, but she’s going to contact the Alliance
, and we have to put in some distance before she does.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone
, I just wanted my freedom back but I knew I couldn’t gain that if the Alliance waited one step away. “I don’t like this, T.”

“She’s not hurt,
Brynn, but she’s a real Citizen and she’ll report us. We have to buy time.”

I tried to shake the memory of her teary eyes.
I wiggled the fingers on my right hand, the bandages huge and bulky. “Why did you wrap this so much, it’s not as if it’s broken,” I mumbled.

T grinned. “No, but that’s what we want them to think.”

We had nearly merged with shoppers when I caught the eye of a young mother pushing her baby along in a cart. She only glanced at the bandage before continuing, unfazed by my injury.

“Brilliant,” I mumbled.

T smiled, and I saw that same smile he’d had on the beach in Greece, when we’d stood with the sunset before us, the sun disappearing behind a low strip of land that made the horizon. The waves reflecting that sunset couldn’t compare with my fluttering of infatuation, or the first taste of his lips against mine. I wondered then, seeing his profile against the afternoon sun, would he ever try to kiss me again? Did I even want him to try? The stirring in my belly screamed yes.

CHAPTER 11

We knew the longer it took to escape from the city the closer the Alliance would be watching for us, but there were a few more things we had to do before we fled to our safe haven—which T insisted existed.

“They’ll look for people who are running—showing f
ear and anxiety,” he said as we settled near a stream in an unfamiliar park amid unfamiliar homes.

“So we blend in,” I said.

“Like lovers ready to apply for marriage courses.”

I blushed and dipped my fingers in the mountain stream. Icy to the touch, it sent a shock of life back through my body.
“Lovers?”

T scooted closer, running his fingers over my shoulder to
tickle the back of my neck. “Too far a stretch for you?”

I wiggled away, my head so thick with fog I could no longer concentrate. “A stretch?” I’d forgotten what he’d asked.

“Friends then?” he asked, dropping his hand to draw circles in the river bank.

             
“Friends.” I nearly kicked myself. Had I really resigned myself to being
just friends
?

T wiped out the circles he’d drawn and leaned back on his elbows. “Friends … for starters. Tomorrow, we’ll see—”

I brought my hand from the river and splashed him. He sat straight up and grabbed my hand, keeping it between his as he said, “About Cray …”

His voice had dropped and it sent a shiver through my chest. “How important is it that we find him again?” I asked.

T cocked his head. “We’re not leaving until we get you on an antibiotic.”

I knew he’d say that. I pulled my hand away and trailed my fingers again. “I don’t know how to find him.”

“We need a PCA or computer to look him up.”

I chuckled. “Good luck.”

T dropped back to his elbows and crossed his legs at the ankles. “What about the notebooks? Did your father mention him? Give any contact information?”

I pulled the notebooks out of my backpack and handed them over. “I’ve only read a bit. See what you can find.”

T rolled onto his side, his back to the park so the few children who played near their mothers couldn’t see, and opened the first notebook.

My fingers tingled, numbing from the cold water
. I dried them on my shirt.

He flipped the page, scanned and flipped another.
I laid back on the grass, folded my hands over my stomach and watched the drifting clouds. My eyes had just closed when T said, “Brynn.”

“Hmmm?”

“There are some things in here you need to read.”

“Anything about the Carmichals?
”

“Not yet
, but—”

I sat and crossed my legs. “What are we going to do tonight?”

He closed the notebook. “I thought it looked cozy in those bushes over there.”

             
He opened another notebook and began reading.
Was he serious?
“The park closes at dark.”

“What’s it matter if they can’t see us?”

I’d never slept outside before and the idea formed a lump in my throat. “What if they catch us?”

A young mother stood, a woman with bobbed hair and freckles. She called to her child, a boy with the same sandy hair and baseball cap. The boy kept swinging until she stopped the swing and took him by the hand. They waved to the other child and walked away, the boy jabbering while his mother pretended to listen.

“One more to go,” T said, “then we make our way into those bushes and find some comfy grass for a pillow.”

“T,” I said.

He glanced up.

“I’ve never slept anywhere but my bed.”

“Scared?” he asked, eyebrows arched.

I rubbed the area around my wound, barely able to feel anything through the layers of gauze. “Nervous.”

He slapped his hand down on my leg and said, “Don’t worry about it.
No bed means no monsters, and I’ll protect you from the bogie man.”

I shoved his hand aside and crouched by the river. The water gurgled by
, and I wondered how to lure him closer. I didn’t have to think long before he made the move himself. He put his hand on my back, his voice contrite. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you—”

I splashed him and he leapt away
, his smile back, the dimple deep enough to see even with dark settling. “You’re in trouble,” he whispered.

I cocked an eyebrow, smirking. “Trouble? That will be a first.”

T picked up the notebooks, careful to keep his back to the others and closed the covers. He slipped them into my pack and slung it over his back, relieving me of the burden. “There’s a lot more in those books, but I don’t think he’s recorded any contact information,” he said.

The last woman slipped her PCA into a case and set it in the basket behind her bicycle. She strapped a helmet on her son and held his bike upright until he straddled it and started down the street.

“Park’s closed,” I whispered.

T pulled me in for a hug and the water
pressed through my shirt. I shoved him away and he laughed. “Tired?”

“Not even close.”

“Me neither.” T picked his way through thick reeds that grew along the stream until he found a place trampled by previous visitors. “Bed’s already been made,” he whispered when I stepped through. I sat, the reeds nearly eye-level now, trees blocking the rest of the view from the street.