The Legend Trilogy Collection (10 page)

SHE WON’T TELL ME HER NAME.

I can understand that well enough. Lots of kids on the streets of Lake try to keep their identities a secret, especially after participating in something illegal like a Skiz fight. Besides, I don’t want to know her name. I’m still upset about losing the bet. Kaede’s defeat cost me a thousand Notes. That was money toward a vial of cure. Time is running out, and it’s all this girl’s fault. Stupid me. If she hadn’t been responsible for getting Tess out of the ring, I would’ve left her to fend for herself.

But I know Tess would’ve given me sad puppy eyes for the rest of the day. So I didn’t.

Tess continues to ask questions as she helps the Girl—that’s what I’ll call her, I guess—clean the wound in her side as best as she can. I stay quiet for the most part. I’m on guard. After the Skiz fight and my dust bomb, the three of us ended up camping out on the balcony of an old library. (Does it still count as a balcony if the whole wall has collapsed and left this floor open to the air?) In fact, almost all the floors have collapsed walls. The library is part of an ancient high-rise that now lies almost entirely in the water several hundred feet from the lake’s eastern edge, completely overgrown with wild grasses. It’s a good place for people like us to find some shelter. I watch the streets along the banks for angry gamblers who might still be searching for the Girl. I look over my shoulder from where I sit on the balcony’s edge. The Girl says something to Tess, and Tess smiles cautiously in return.

“My name’s Tess,” I hear her say. She knows better than to say mine, but she keeps on talking. “What part of Lake are you from? Are you from another sector?” She studies the Girl’s wound. “That’s a nasty one, but nothing that can’t heal. I’ll try to find some goat milk for you in the morning. It’s good for you. Until then you’ll just have to spit on it. It’ll help with infections.”

I can tell from the Girl’s face that she knows this already. “Thank you,” she murmurs to Tess. She glances in my direction. “I’m grateful for your help.”

Tess smiles again, but I can tell even
she
feels a little uncomfortable with this newcomer.

“I’m grateful for yours.”

I tighten my jaw. Night will fall in about an hour or so, and I have a wounded stranger added to my duties.

After a while, I rise and join Tess and the Girl. Somewhere in the distance the Republic’s pledge has started blaring from the city’s speakers. “We’ll stay here for the night.” I look at the Girl. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” she replies. But it’s obvious she’s in pain. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she keeps reaching for her wound, then stopping herself. I have a sudden urge to comfort her. “Why did you save me?” she asks.

I snort. “No goddy clue. You cost me a thousand Notes.”

The Girl smiles for the first time, but there’s something eternally cautious about her eyes. She seems to take in and analyze my every word. She doesn’t trust me. “You bet big, don’t you? Sorry about that. She made me angry.” She shifts. “I’m guessing Kaede was no friend of yours.”

“She’s a bartender from the rim of Alta and Winter. Just a recent acquaintance.”

Tess laughs and gives me a look that I can’t quite read. “He likes to be acquainted with cute girls.”

I scowl at her. “Bite your tongue, cousin. Haven’t you had enough brushes with death for one day?”

Tess nods, a small smile on her face. “I’ll go get us some water.” She jumps up and heads down the open stairwell to the water’s edge.

When she’s gone, I sit down next to the Girl, and my hand accidentally brushes past her waist. She takes a small breath—I move away, afraid that I’ve hurt her.

“That should heal soon, if it doesn’t get infected. But you might want to rest a couple of days. You can stay with us.”

The Girl shrugs. “Thanks. When I feel better, I’m tracking Kaede down.”

I lean back and study the Girl’s face. She’s a little paler than other girls I see in the sector, and has large dark eyes that shine with flecks of gold in the waning light. I can’t tell
what
she is, which isn’t unusual around here—Native, maybe, or Caucasian. Or something. She’s pretty in a way that distracts me just like she did in the Skiz ring. No, pretty’s not the right word. Beautiful. And not only that, but she reminds me of someone. Maybe it’s the expression in her eyes, something at once coolly logical and fiercely defiant. . . . I feel my cheeks growing warm and suddenly look away, glad for the coming darkness. Maybe I shouldn’t have helped her. Way too distracting. At this moment all I’m thinking about is what I’d give up for the chance to kiss her or to run my fingers through her dark hair.

“So, Girl,” I say after a while, “thanks for your help today. For Tess, I mean. Where’d you learn to fight like that? You broke Kaede’s arm without even trying.”

The Girl hesitates. From the corner of my eye, I can see her watching me. I turn to face her, and she pretends to study the water instead, as if embarrassed to be caught looking. She absently touches her side and then makes a clicking sound with her tongue as if out of habit. “I hang around the edge of Batalla a lot. I like to watch the cadets practice.”

“Wow, you’re a risk-taker. But your fighting is pretty impressive. I bet you don’t have much trouble on your own.”

The Girl laughs. “You can see how well I did on my own today.” She shakes her head. Her long ponytail swings behind. “I shouldn’t have watched the Skiz fight at all, but what can I say? Your friend looked like she could use some help.” Then she shifts her gaze to me. That cautious expression still blankets her eyes. “What about you? Were you in the crowd?”

“No. Tess was down there because she likes seeing the action and she’s a little nearsighted. I like watching from a distance.”

“Tess. Is she your younger sister?”

I hesitate. “Yeah, close enough. It was really Tess I wanted to keep safe with my dust bomb, you know.”

The Girl raises an eyebrow at me. I watch her lips as they curl into a smile. “You’re so kind,” she says. “And does everyone around here know how to make a dust bomb?”

I wave my hand dismissively. “Oh, sure, even kids. It’s easy.” I look at her. “You’re not from the Lake sector, are you?”

The Girl shakes her head. “Tanagashi sector. I mean, I used to live there.”

“Tanagashi is pretty far away. You came all this way to see a Skiz fight?”

“Of course not.” The Girl leans back and carefully lies down. I can see the center of her bandage turning a dark red. “I scavenge on the streets. I end up traveling a lot.”

“Lake isn’t safe right now,” I say. A splash of turquoise in the corner of the balcony catches my eye. There’s a small patch of sea daisies growing from a crack in the floor.
Mom’s favorite.
“You might catch the plague down here.”

The Girl smiles at me, as if she knows something I don’t. I wish I could figure out who she reminds me of. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m a careful girl, when I’m not angry.”

When evening finally comes and the Girl has dozed off into a fitful sleep, I ask Tess to stay with her so I can sneak away to check on my family. Tess is happy to do it. Going to the plague-infected areas of Lake makes her nervous, and she always comes back scratching at her arms—as if she can feel an infection spreading on her skin.

I tuck a handful of sea daisies into the sleeve of my shirt and a couple of Notes into my pocket for good measure. Tess helps me wrap both of my hands in cloth before I go to avoid leaving fingerprints anywhere.

The night feels surprisingly cool. No plague patrols wander the streets, and the only sounds come from occasional cars and the distant blare of JumboTron ads. The strange
X
on our door is still there, as prominent as ever. In fact, I’m almost certain that the soldiers have been back at least once, because the
X
is bright and the paint’s fresh. They must have run a second check through the area. Whatever made them mark our door in the first place has apparently stuck around. I wait in the shadows near my mother’s house, close enough so I can actually peek through the gaps of our backyard’s rickety fence.

When I’m sure that no one is patrolling the street, I dart through the shadows toward the house and crawl to a broken board that leads under the porch. I slide the board aside. Then I crawl into the dark, stale-smelling crevice, and pull the board back into place behind me.

Small slivers of light come from between the floorboards in the rooms above me. I can hear my mother’s voice toward the back, where our one bedroom is. I make my way over there, then crouch beside the bedroom’s vent and look in.

John is sitting on the edge of the bed with his arms crossed. His posture tells me that he’s exhausted. His shoes are caked with dirt—I know Mom must’ve scolded him about that. John is looking toward the other side of the bedroom, where Mom must be standing.

I hear her voice again, this time loud enough to understand. “Neither of us is sick yet,” she says. John looks away and back toward the bed. “It doesn’t seem to be contagious. And Eden’s skin still looks good. No bleeding.”

“Not
yet
,” John replies. “We have to brace ourselves for the worst, Mom. In case Eden . . .”

Mom’s voice is firm. “I won’t have you saying that in my house, John.”

“He needs more than suppressants. Whoever gave them to us is very kind, but it’s not enough.” John shakes his head and gets up. Even now,
especially
now, he has to protect my mother from the truth of my whereabouts. When he moves away from the bed, I can see that Eden is lying there with a blanket pulled up to his chin, despite the heat. His skin looks oily with sweat. The color of it is strange too, a pale, sickly green. I don’t remember other plagues with symptoms like that. A lump rises in my throat.

The bedroom looks exactly the same, the few things in it old and worn but still comfortable. There’s the tattered mattress Eden’s on, and next to it is the scratched-up chest of drawers that I used to doodle on. There’s our obligatory portrait of the Elector hanging on the wall, surrounded by a handful of our own photos, as if he were a member of our family. That’s all our bedroom has. When Eden was a toddler, John and I used to hold his hands and help him walk from one end of this room to the other. John would give him high fives whenever he did it on his own.

Now I see Mom’s shadow stop in the middle of the room. She doesn’t say anything. I imagine her hunched shoulders, her head in her hands, her brave face finally gone.

John sighs. Footsteps echo above me, and I know he must’ve crossed the room to hug her. “Eden will be okay. Maybe this virus is less dangerous and he’ll recover on his own.” There’s a pause. “I’m going to see what we have for soup.” I hear him leave the bedroom.

I’m sure John hated working at the steam plant, but at least he got to leave the house and take his mind off things for a while. Now he’s trapped here, with no way to help Eden. It must be killing him. I clench the loose dirt under me and make as tight a fist as I can.

If only the hospital had cures.

Moments later I see Mom walk across the room and sit at the edge of Eden’s bed. Her hands are all bandaged up again. She murmurs something comforting to him and leans over to brush his hair from his face. I close my eyes. In my mind I conjure up a memory of her face, soft and beautiful and concerned, her eyes bright blue and her mouth rosy and smiling. My mother used to tuck me in, smoothing down my blankets and whispering a promise of good dreams. I wonder what she’s whispering to Eden now.

Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with missing her. I want to rush out from under here and knock on our door.

I push my fists harder into the dirt. No. The risk is too great.
I’ll find a way to save you, Eden. I promise.
I curse myself for risking so much money in a Skiz bet instead of finding a more reliable way to get cash.

I pull out the sea daisies that I had tucked into my shirt’s sleeve. Some of the blossoms are crumpled now, but I prop them up as carefully as I can and gently pat down dirt around them. Mom will probably never see them here. But
I
know they’re here. The flowers are proof to myself that I’m still alive. Still watching over them.