Infraction (27 page)

“
Don't try,” Jack says. “I have no
idea where that bullet is. Dave, you'll have to carry her.
Carefully. This could do more damage.”

Dave nods and stoops down, putting her arm around
his neck, cradling her into him so her wounded side is pressed
firmly against his, trying to stop the blood. She buries her head
into his neck, and then her tears slip out. She still has the thin,
red thread around her finger. He holds her so tightly, I wonder if
he could stitch her wound back together just from loving her.

Then there's a whistling in the air. I haven't heard
the sound before, and it pierces me. My brain sets off all kinds of
warning signals, but my tired body just doesn't process it. It's
Jack and Dave that give meaning to the sound.

“
Go
now
!” they both yell. Jack's command cuts through the exhaustion
and sends my legs churning again. The whistle grows louder and
changes pitch. We've passed both hangars and are beyond another
airplane when the whistle ends in a blast so loud it deafens me and
throws me to the ground. My cheek grates along the concrete, and I
gasp with the burning that fills me. Every inch of my skin that
touches the ground feels like it's on fire. I roll to one side. My
palms are skinned, bleeding, and small pebbles are ground into the
flesh. I feel dizzy seeing more blood. We're all sprawled out, but
Kai is already getting to her feet and stumbling toward the water.
Jane trails after her, limping. Madge looks disoriented as she
wobbles after them.

Dave shakes his head and then scoops up Mary. Her
head lolls back, and I think she's unconscious. Please, just let
her be unconscious.

Lily still lies on the ground, and her leg is
twisted at a funny angle. “I can't get up,” she moans.

“
Don't worry about it,” Jack says as
he picks her up as softly as he would a baby. “I'm sorry, this will
hurt.” She groans once, but doesn't make any more noise.

I grit my teeth, put my wounded palms on the ground,
and push myself up. Run, Terra, my brain yells at me. I sprint
after them all, looking behind me once. A fire blooms, and even
over here I can feel the heat of it. The two hangars gape open,
pouring out smoke, and their roofs send long streams of flame into
the sky. The helicopter hovers near the site, its light trained on
the inferno. The soldiers from the grass have finally made their
way over to it, and they carefully pick their way through the
rubble, shining lights into the buildings. They're looking for our
dead bodies.

My legs burn and my head throbs, but we have a few
minutes now until they discover we're not there. I catch up to Jack
and Lily and run beside him. Lily tries to smile, but her hand
clutches her thigh, and her face is too tight for smiling.

Beyond the silhouettes racing, the water opens up
before me, and I can finally hear it over the thud of the
helicopter. The waves call as they scud across the sand. They don't
beckon me home, but offer greeting and promises of peace for my
friends.

I'm amazed I can still hear peace in this world.

I search left and right down the narrow stretch of
beach, and to the south in the waves, hovering just under the
surface, the faint lights of a submarine glow blue. It's there; we
made it. One hundred yards to go.

I make a guttural noise. Everyone looks at me, their
eyes confused at my wild call. But I'm pointing frantically, my
hand waving through the air toward the water, and they follow it
and look to where the dark shape breaks the surface and glides to
rest in the shallow water.

Madge lets out a whoop and leads the charge toward
the water. She splashes in—it must be so cold now—without even
breaking stride. I wasn't sure how she'd react to this moment when
it came. The distrust and bitterness toward the colonies burned so
deep in her, but she's surprised me once again. She thumps her hand
against the sub's metal belly. It lets out a deep, hollow echo.
Then there's a hiss at the top and the hatch opens slowly, propped
up with a dark hand.

I recognize the halo of wild, curly hair before I
even see the face. Gaea has come. I try not to look at her as I
help Lily and Jack into the water, but I can't help it. Gaea's eyes
are wild as she takes in the ocean, the fire burning in the
distance, the figures racing through the foam toward her, and Madge
yelling at her to let us up. I know it's true what I always
suspected: she's never been on the Burn before.

She's a creature caught between two worlds. She
despised the colony and longed for the Burn, but she could never go
all the way. Why? Then her eyes settle on me, and I know. There's
such churning emotion there: grief, regret, guilt, and love. She
could never leave the ocean because she could never leave me and
Jessa behind. It's little comfort for the motherless years she put
me through. I can see the love there, the need to be near me. I
can't bear it, knowing I can't return that feeling. Not yet, maybe
not for a very long time.

Then another face appears next to hers, and my heart
soars. Jessa. She's here.

She pushes the hair out of her eyes. It's long
enough now to be bothersome, just long enough to touch the tops of
her ears. She looks annoyed by it, but I know she'll keep growing
it out until it's her black waterfall again. Her face is radiant as
she turns to me.

“
Terra!” she calls, waving. Then she
sees Madge, still trying to find a way up. “The ladder there, those
rungs.”

Madge smiles and climbs, turning to offer a hand to
Kai. Kai grunts and hefts herself up, having to turn to the side so
her belly doesn't hit the rungs. Dave approaches the sub, still
clutching Mary tight to him.

I look back to the runway and the flames, but I
don't see any figures silhouetted by the fire, and I think our luck
has finally changed. My friends will all get away.

“
What's wrong with her?” Jessa says.
I look up. Dave is trying to get an unconscious Mary up the
ladder.

“
She's shot!”

Jessa's brow furrows, and she disappears from the
hatch.

“
Is that your sister?” Jack asks. I
nod. “I never knew you had a sister.”

I'm not sure if Jack intends it this way, but it
comes out as an accusation. I hear the layers of meaning—the things
I've kept from him, the lies I've inadvertently told. My stomach
hits bottom when I see the pain in his eyes. I love him, but he
doesn't know it. I haven't let him know it; I haven't done enough.
The realization hits me and I stagger back. I have to tell him. I
have to show him.

I muster my courage and take two steps forward
through the water swirling around our legs. The cold bites into me,
but I ignore it, hearing only my heart beating for him. He watches
me warily. Then I kiss him. He's stiff against me, his lips hard. I
thought the water was cold, but the way he's so unyielding now
chills me to the bone. This is too little too late. I know that and
he does too.

Jessa appears with a sheet. She tells to Dave to use
it as a sling, wrap it around Mary, and together they'll hoist her
up. I watch the slow process in a fog, watch Dave gently wrap the
fabric around her limp body, touching her so tenderly my heart
breaks with it. I watch Jack turn from me, his eyes steely. He
climbs the ladder, Lily's arm still wrapped around his neck as she
uses her good leg. I watch him climb farther away from me. If only
I could say something, but I can't say anything now. I don't think
it would matter.

Jane wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly,
more tightly than I ever would have dreamed she had the strength
for. “Thanks, Terra.” There are tears in her eyes, and she doesn't
dash them away like I've seen so many times before. They linger on
her cheeks and shine like crystal. She climbs the ladder.

“
Come on!” she yells, beckoning me
forward.

I shake my head and step back.

“
What are you doing?”

I can't ever explain to her why I'm staying. Sure,
there's the easy reason: there's no room on the sub. Gaea and Jessa
will be quick to tell her that too many bodies equals not enough
food, not enough oxygen. But my real reasons would take far too
long to explain. Life down in the colony is too crushing for me.
Here there might be terror, but I'm breathing fresh air, and I
still haven't gotten my fill of that yet. And bigger still: I can't
see Jack every day and know how much I've hurt him; I'm still not
ready to face my mother; I could never go back to my father. There
are still so many things I don't know how to make right. There's no
time for such words. Jane must see some of it in my face, though,
because she closes her mouth into a half-smile, nods once, and
disappears into the hatch.

Then Jessa comes up. She tosses me a pack. “You'll
need this.”

I smile. She guessed before this night even happened
that I wouldn't be coming. I thread my arms through the straps.

“
I've missed you.” Her eyes are
wistful and shiny.

I love you,
I mouth. She
smiles brilliantly.

“
Don't know when I'll see you next,
but I'll say see you later anyway.”

I grin at her optimism. Jessa never let me down.

She waves and then pulls the hatch closed behind
her. It snaps in place, and the sub slips beneath the surface, with
only a few bubbles and the eerie blue light to let me know it was
here.

I wade out of the surf and finally slump to my knees
in the sand, the damp soaking through my pants and shivering me all
over, but I hardly register the cold. Jack left. It's my fault for
not telling him. Love is too important to wait for the right
moment, to wait for what might never come. I needed to make the
time. I see that now, and I touch my lips where they pressed
against his. The rest of me is cold, but my lips are on fire. I
hope to remember the taste of him for the rest of my life.

I wipe my nose and my eyes with the cuff of my
sleeve and blink the tears away. I tighten the pack's straps on my
shoulders and take in my surroundings. The fire in the hangars is
shrinking, and billows of smoke plume toward the sky as the
soldiers douse the blaze. I don't have much time left before they
realize there are no dead bodies. The forest reaches to the north,
beckoning me with its green fingers. I know the woods. They're the
closest thing I have to a friend right now. The best of my time on
the Burn was spent in this sprawling forest with Jack.

I sprint to the woods but not out of fear. I have no
fear of the soldiers or the agents and the physical pain they can
inflict. They can't take anything from me now. Jack is gone; my
friends are on their way to the colony. I'm running because the
only thing I have left to lose now is my freedom. Again. After
losing that for so many weeks, I know its value.

I jog through the spindly trees.
Gradually they thicken into huge evergreens. I run through a wild
marshy area that's crusty with frost. The running pounds a rhythm
into my head, the constant
thud
,
thud
,
thud
of my heart and my feet helping me forget what I
chose to leave at the water's edge. As soon as I'm under thick
cover, maybe a mile from the beach, I sit down against a tree and
unzip the pack. There's a plastic bag on top with a note stuck to
it.

Cut out your tracker.

I open the bag and find a scalpel. From Gaea,
obviously. She knew just as Jessa did that I wouldn't be coming
back. Just as she knew she could never really leave the colony, she
knew that I could never leave the Burn. We're both cowards in a
way. Neither of us can face our pain.

She's right about the tracker. The
idea that's been floating around my head would never work with a
tracker. Just under the scalpel lies a capped syringe.
Anesthetic
is written on it with marker.
How thoughtful. She doesn't want me to feel it. But the thought of
feeling something,
anything
right
now beside the heartache and loss wins over. There's a roll of
gauze in the bag. At least I won't have to use clothes for a
bandage.

I grit my teeth as I take the blade. I bite down on
a pair of socks from the pack as I place the tip of the scalpel
carefully at one end of the lump. I'm shaking so hard from cold and
sadness that the point wavers and I draw blood in about five
different spots before I slump back against the tree, take a deep
breath to steady myself, and try again. Better this time. At least
my hand isn't trembling. I bite the socks harder as I slice through
my flesh. Then I use the scalpel tip to fish out the tracker. The
tears slide down my cheeks before I can stop them. And once they
start, I don't just cry for my aching arm, but also for Jack and
for my friends who are gone forever now. I cry until my eyes are
blurry and I can't clearly see what I'm doing anymore.

I use two butterfly sutures to close the wound and
then wrap it with the length of gauze. The blood spots through the
layers of cotton, but it doesn't spread. I cut out the tracker
shallowly, carefully—the way Jack would if he were doing it for me.
I hold the sliver of metal and computer guts between two fingers
and watch the small blue light flash off and on, off and on. This
is the last time the agents will know where I am. I place the
tracker on a stone, and then crush it under the heel of my shoe.
Small shards of glass glint in the moonlight, and the blue light
flickers to nothing. I'm now as free as I'll ever be here.

I dig through the pack, find a sweatshirt, and pull
it over my head. I lean back against the tree that's nothing but
skinny trunk and tangled branches. For the first time in weeks, I'm
surrounded by silence. There's nothing but the wind singing through
the trees. It's too quiet.