Meridian (11 page)

I
expect Honoria to charge after Rue and Bolt before they can escape, but she looks defeated. She sees Silver with Anne-Marie’s mother hovering around her and raises her eyes to the ceiling, shaking her head.

I don’t know what that means, but hopefully the pause is enough for Bolt to get Rue somewhere safe. He isn’t in much of a condition to run, and with dawn fast approaching, and the ominous whiteness of the hand that touched Silver, Rue’s ability to guard himself against sunlight is slim.

“What happened?” Dr. Wolff asks, emerging from his back room. He nearly drops the inhaler he’s just mixed in his haste to get to Silver.

“Rue tried to heal her,” I say. “It didn’t work.”

Fear returns to the room, whirling in like the dervishes that wind through the Grey at its wider points.

“We can’t leave her on the floor,” Anne-Marie’s mother says, but she doesn’t volunteer to pick her up.

Even Dr. Wolff, kneeling beside her, doesn’t let his hands get too close. He holds them above Silver’s skin, as though they’re some kind of scanning machine that can read her vitals from a distance.

“Is she alive?” Honoria asks.

“She’s breathing,” Dr. Wolff says. “I hate to risk dislodging any of these growths without knowing their precise configuration, but I won’t know her full condition until I can run tests.”

And still no one tries to pick her up.

“Keep away,” Tobin says when I kneel on Silver’s other side. “You saw what those things did.”

“She’s terrified,” I say, pulling loose. “Everyone standing around and staring at her won’t make her any better. Until someone figures out how to move her, I’m going to make sure she knows she’s not alone.”

If she’s turning Fade, loneliness is an added terror she doesn’t need. There’s enough of Cherish left to talk to Rue; maybe she can reach Silver, too.

“At least put these on over yours.” Tobin tugs his gloves off and passes them to me.

I slip them over the ones I’m already wearing. My hands feel restricted but also safer.

“Silver? Can you hear me?” I ask.

She gurgles in return. The protrusions that broke her skin punched through so viciously, they’ve ripped it open, leaving blood to seep around the edges; one cluster sits directly over her throat. Tears stream down her cheeks, soaking into her hair on either side of her neck.

Caution,
Cherish warns.
Your intent is flawed.

She knows the checklist I’m making in my head, starting with clearing as much of the muck off Silver’s skin as possible.

Then watch my back.

Negative. Your hands require observation.

“Give me a towel,” I say. Anne-Marie’s mother puts one in my outstretched hand. “Silver, it’s Marina. I’m sorry if this hurts, but I want to clean these so Doctor Wolff can fix them, okay?”

Another gurgle. I hope it means “yes,” rather than “That hurts so bad, I want to die.”

Going silent would be better
, Cherish says, but I can’t accept that. Death should never be the best-case scenario.

I slide my hand into Silver’s, happy to feel the pressure as her fingers close on mine.

“She’s conscious,” I tell the others. “She’s trying to squeeze my hand.”

“That’s good, right?” Tobin asks. “If she knows it’s Marina, that has to mean Silver’s still in there, doesn’t it?”

“Whether she can say it or not, she’ll always be in there,” Honoria says gravely. “That’s what makes it so terrible.”

I tune her out, refusing to let her negativity get to me, and focus only on my friend on the floor.

Whenever Silver was exposed, it must have been far after Dante. Her blood still runs easily, and her skin isn’t sealing itself as I wipe it. I finish one side of her face and start on her collarbone when a hand clamps my shoulder and yanks me backward.

“Move away,” Honoria says.

“I’m almost done,” I tell her.

“Marina, let go,” Tobin says.

Observe your hand,
Cherish says.

I raise my hand, to reassure everyone that both pairs of gloves are still in place and that Silver’s blood is still red, but Cherish speaks again:
Observe your hand.

I look at the other one. Miniature versions of the nanite growths covering Silver’s body have crossed from her hand to mine; they’re consuming Tobin’s glove.

I leap to my feet, slinging the glove to get the nanites off; they land on her chest.

It doesn’t occur to me to remove the glove itself until Tobin cuts through the wrist strap with his field knife. I drop what’s left beside Silver on the floor.

“Did they hit your skin?” Tobin asks.

No damage,
Cherish offers.
I do not hear them.

“I think I’m okay,” I say. My hand looks clear.

“No one else touches her,” Honoria barks. “Get her isolated, and scorch these floors!”

“Elias, take Dominique in the back and give her some scrubs,” Dr. Wolff says. “We’d best burn what she’s wearing.”

This time, Anne-Marie’s mother doesn’t argue. She leaves with Mr. Pace, disappearing into the room where Dr. Wolff makes his medications and hides the incinerator.

“Marina, you, too,” Col. Lutrell says. “You can get a new uniform later. Get changed, and then I want you kids out of here.”

I nod, still numb from the shock of what’s happening, and start for the back room.

“Just a minute.” Honoria seizes my hand for another inspection, and it’s only now I realize how lucky I am that this isn’t the one I sliced with the broken bottle. A few missing scratches she’d overlook, but not a wound as deep as that piece of glass went.

She turns my hand in every angle before cutting her eyes back up to my face and staring, as though she’s searching for something hidden there. I stop breathing, unsure what clue she’s looking for and afraid that if I do the wrong thing, she’ll think she’s found it.

“Is she all right?” Col. Lutrell asks.

Please,
I beg, willing her to hear me like Cherish or Rue would.
Please don’t do this to me again.

I don’t want to go back in a box.

Neither do I,
says Cherish.

“She’s clear.”

Honoria shoves my hand away. All I can think about is Rue with his bone-white hand, Dante with the Death Tree down his spine, and how I’ve come way too close to finding out how exposure to these new Fade would affect me.

“This way.” Tobin takes hold of my fingers.

We go through the door, and I stop to close it behind us, then lean against it for a minute to catch my breath and my thoughts.

“You’re okay,” Tobin says, still holding my hand. He looks blurry. “That’s the one thing I trust that woman not to lie about, anymore. If you were in danger, she would have kept you with Silver and Dante.”

I throw my arms around his neck and hang on tight. He hugs me back.

“Hey.” He pushes me off to look at my face because I won’t let go on my own. “You
are
okay, aren’t you?”

“Thanks to you,” I tell him. “They could have gotten me. I’d be like Silver.”

“You don’t know that.”

He squeezes my fingers, and that’s when I really start to worry. The hand he held was the one those things tried to swarm. Those were his gloves I lost. Now we’re both unprotected.

The blurriness gets worse.

What if some of the nanites got through? What if one or two of them made their way into my glove and then into my skin? They’re microscopic; no one would know until they took over. They could have jumped from me to him because I was dumb enough to want someone to hold my hand.

They do not speak,
Cherish insists.

Tobin’s talking, too, but I can’t understand him. Spots of light and dark blink in and out over his face, set to the beat of my heart against my temples. Is this what a panic attack feels like?

“Marina!” he says, stern and loud, and the film over my mind breaks. “I said, you believe me, don’t you?”

“Those things hurt Rue. What do you think they would have done to me?”

“I think there’s no point in making guesses about things we’ll never know the answer to.”

And I think that’s empty hope. We’re on the verge of more questions. The only way to deal with them is seeking out answers we might not want to hear.

Dr. Wolff’s mixing room is belowground; I should have thought of that.

Tobin takes us down a set of stairs to an area full of boxes and shelves. “Scrubs” turn out to be the boxy monochrome sets of clothes patients wear in the hospital. I was in there so often when I first came to the Arclight that I thought I’d seen every color, but this is the first time someone’s given me maroon.

I leave the changing area to rejoin the others, but Tobin’s gone.

“His dad needed a word with him,” Mr. Pace says as he throws my uniform into the incinerator. Blanca’s flower’s still in the pocket.

“Are they words about how he knows what a Death Tree is because he was around when you called it that?” I ask.

“How—”

“Colonel and Lieutenant,” I say, rather than confessing I’ve read Honoria’s book. “They’re the only people here who have titles. After I figured that out, I starting paying attention. I haven’t figured out why your eyes are still brown. Contacts?”

“They never changed; the contact was too slight, and I burned myself too fast. James’s were green, until they healed him. Most people don’t pay attention.”

“I sure didn’t,” Anne-Marie’s mother says. Her scrubs are purple. “By the time I realized they weren’t aging, it was time for them to tell us the truth. That was an interesting day.”

“It always is,” he says. “You never know how people will react.”

“Does Anne-Marie know?”

“Not yet,” her mother says.

I guess this is another of those graduation surprises we have to look forward to, like finding out we’re not actually on the verge of starvation and discovering that the woman supposedly protecting us from the Fade is riddled with nanites.

“Do I have to stay in the hospital?” I ask, picking at my scrubs.

“No. The clothes are a precaution.”

That’s a relief. I hate the hospital, especially when Honoria’s in it.

I start for the door.

“Where are you going?” Anne-Marie’s mother asks. “Your room or James’s apartment?”

“My room.”

“Not alone, you’re not,” Mr. Pace says. “They cleared the bunkers after Dante, but the living areas are on lockdown. You can’t go up without an escort. In fact, I don’t think you should be alone in your room, either.”

“I’m used to it.” And I want the chance to sort a few things out with no one but Cherish around.

“Not tonight—today, actually. It’s nearly dawn.” Ms. Johnston checks her wristband. “Today, you keep Annie company so I don’t have to worry about either one of you being by yourself.”

She hugs me again. It’s her go-to answer for everything.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you under my roof,” she says as she steers me from the supply room.

She must have forgotten that all of our roofs are under Honoria’s, and plenty can happen in her house.

S
YKES
kept his promise. A woman I don’t know stands at attention outside Anne-Marie’s apartment. She picks up her radio as we approach and presses the transmit button: “They’re here.”

She nods and tells us, “You can go in.”

“It’s my home,” Ms. Johnston says. “I don’t need permission.” She unlocks the door with her wristband.

“Marina!” Anne-Marie pounces as soon as her door’s open. “Are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt? Why are you wearing hospital clothes? Are you sick? Is it worse? Where’s Trey?”

She must have spent the last few hours coming up with questions.

“I was going crazy in here,” she says. Her eyes are red and puffy, with sticky patches on her cheeks. I bet she misses when her curls were long enough to fall forward when she tipped her head. They made it easier to hide when she was crying. “I keep hearing doors slam, but the alarms are still red, and no one came here, so I don’ t know—”

“Sit.” Her mother points at the nearest chair, then pinches her fingers together. “And zip it.”

Anne-Marie plops down, mouth snapped shut.

Is that all it takes?

Her mother gives her the short version of what’s happened tonight, leaving out the darker details. Silver’s ordeal gets sanitized into: “Dante passed it along.” Anne-Marie gasps, anyway.

“But they fixed it, right?” she says. “Your Fade friends came and put her back the way she’s supposed to be?”

“Not exactly,” I say.

“Silver can’t be a Fade, Marina. She can’t survive outdoors. She can’t survive without a hairbrush. Tell them—”

“They tried,” I say. “It didn’t work.”

Ms. Johnston stands to leave and opens the door.

“I’m going back to the hospital, and you two are staying here,” she says, pausing at the sight of the guard outside. “Do not leave this apartment for anything short of life or death. Elias set that lock, and there’s no one out there who can break it. Understood?”

She looks at me, not Anne-Marie. The apartment’s Honoria-proof. Got it.

I nod, and she leaves me alone with Anne-Marie and Anne-Marie’s nervous chatter.

“Was it awful?” she asks seriously.

“Awful, bad, chaotic—just keep going down the alphabet.”

“Did Trey—”

“He’s still asleep, and he’s not like them,” I tell her.

Now she’s hugging me, too, soaking my shoulder with tears the way Silver did her mother.

“Sorry,” Anne-Marie says, straightening up. “Worry makes me weird.”

“I know the feeling,” I say. “Is there a bathroom I can use? I haven’t had the chance tonight.”

“Down the hall,” she says. “If I’d seen someone turn Fade, I would have peed my pants.”

I don’t really need the toilet as much as I need isolation. That way, both of me can speak freely. I go inside and lock the door behind me. How can one night have been this long?

Silver was begging to not become the thing I was born. How do you forget something like that?

Negative,
Cherish says, pushing me the image of Dante’s marked back.
We were not this.

Now, I see Silver on the floor with all those spikes coming out of her.

We do not silence.

Now, Rue’s white hand.

Her plea was to not go dark. To keep her voice. Included, she would keep her voice, and gain ours.

You make it sound like there’s more than one kind of Fade out there,
I say.

She goes quiet.

Cherish?

Nothing.

“Talk to me!” I brace my hands against the sink’s edge, staring myself in the eye. This is the only way I’ve ever truly seen Cherish, and this is a conversation that needs to be face-to-face. “Tell me what’s going on.”

What little pigment exists in my complexion drains. My hair goes the other way, charring soot black and taking on the crystalline sheen worn by the Fade. Thin, feathered wisps appear on my face, first at the chin and cheeks, but soon the patterns sketch themselves everywhere my skin’s not covered.

I’m Marina; my reflection is Cherish. I have no idea which one of us is scowling.

“Tell me,” I say, swallowing my nerves before she can realize she intimidates me. “Stop keeping secrets. Stop holding back. Tell me everything.”

Her answer comes as a taunting echo—
Careful what you wish for.
She lifts the veil between us and lets “everything” come roaring through.

It’s the full knowledge of the Fade. Through the hive, they disperse their knowledge through an infinite number of voices and thoughts and memories. It’s too much for one human mind to hold; you can’t pour the infinite into a finite container.

Stop!
I scream to her.
Cease. Please!

Cherish hasn’t been selfishly hoarding knowledge that belongs to me. She’s been functioning like a valve, allowing only as much information into my mind as it can process. She cuts back the flow, and I’m left with the static of a tuning radio.

I catch my breath, before trying again. “Show me what I need to know. What can I tell Honoria that will help them? There has to be something.”

Affirmed,
she says
. Forbidden. Guarded. Secret.

“Tell me, anyway.”

Everything nonessential drifts into the background while Cherish arranges the imperative sequences in ultrafine detail.

My nightmares—what I
thought
were nightmares—aren’t dreams at all. They’re a peek through the cracks into the Fade’s greatest secret.

The Darkness.

The answer.

“Thank you,” I say.

Now I owe her. That’s the excuse I give myself to reach out for Rue and see if he’ll respond.

Rue?
I call.
Can you hear me? Are you still here?

Affirmed. Present.

His response is hazy, a conversation heard through too many doors, but he answers. Cherish thrills with the joy of hearing his voice and frets over his condition, turning my body flame hot from hair to toenails.

Injured?
I ask. He feels so weak.

My hand goes numb—the same hand that stayed white on him after he was separated from Silver.

I flex my fingers as Rue tries to convey what’s happening to him. Black lines stretch toward the back of my hand, but they hit some sort of barrier at my wrist. They shrivel up and disappear. Each nanite that tries to heal him falls silent. Something’s attacking him.

Someone bangs on the bathroom door, startling me.

“Marina?” Anne-Marie calls through the door. “Are you okay? You’ve been in there a long time.”

She didn’t hear me, did she? I don’t think I was speaking out loud.

“I’m fine,” I answer, shaking my still-numb hand. “I just . . . um . . . just give me a minute, okay?”

“You sound weird.”

“Because I don’t usually talk to people while I’m in the bathroom. I’m fine, I swear.”

Rue,
I call again, once Anne-Marie’s stopped.
Can’t Bolt heal you?

Negative!
he shouts with such force that I nearly stagger back.
Darkness. Infects.

He refuses assistance for fear of spreading the Darkness.
Bolt’s stronger voice takes over.

Are you safe?
I ask.

Through his eyes, I see them moving through the tunnels, but it’s a temporary solution.

We must return to home,
Bolt says.
I am insufficient. He needs home. My other must understand this.

Rue’s won’t make it across the wider points, not with all the dangers of the Grey that lurk there. At nightfall Bolt will have a chance to get safely home via the short side, but only if Honoria doesn’t tighten security to the point that they can’t leave.

“I’ll try,” I assure him.

Success is required
.
An attempt without success will bring silence.

He doesn’t say anything else.

“Can we do this?” I ask Cherish, looking directly into the mirror.

“Marina?” Anne-Marie knocks again.

“I’m coming!”

Success,
Cherish says, and leaves the mirror, so my reflection is all that’s left.

I can do this.

We
can do this.

Together, Cherish and I outnumber Honoria. We have the advantage.

“What were you doing in there? I thought you had to pee,” Anne-Marie says when I come flying out of the bathroom so fast, I nearly fall over my own feet. She looks past me through the door.

“I need Trey’s sketches,” I tell her.

“Wait a minute.”

“I know how to help them—Rue, Trey, everyone,” I tell her. “She told me how, but I need proof. It’s in the drawings.”

“She who? Who were you talking to in my bathroom?” Anne-Marie shuffles after me, down the hall to Trey’s room. The door’s still unlocked, but the mess is gone. Someone’s packed all of Trey’s things into crates, stacked neatly on his desk and bed.

“What happened in here?” I ask.

“Honoria sent someone to search Trey’s stuff. Mom threw them out before they could finish. Now who was in my bathroom, and what’s in the sketches?”

“Me, and something he saw.”

I tear the lids off one box after another, but only find clothes and mementos.

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I know.” I reach for another box, but Anne-Marie takes it away.

“You want the sealed ones,” she says. “What did he see?”

“Something big, if I’m right.” I rip the tape off of a secure box on Trey’s bed. As promised, it’s nothing but stacks of paper filled with dark figures and shadow creatures.

Pay dirt.

“Do you see it?” I can feel the smile spreading across my face.

These images are exactly what Cherish showed me; I should have seen it myself. Anne-Marie snatches one out of my hand.

“I don’t see the big deal. It’s just a shadow monster.”

“And Rue isn’t one. If the Fade look like Rue and my sister, then what’s this thing?”

The world’s about to tilt again. I grab a handful of pictures off the top, then run for the front door.

“Marina!” Anne-Marie runs after me. “You can’t just rifle through my brother’s stuff and run out of here talking like a crazy person! Mom said not to leave.”

But I have to. I need reinforcements.