She lets go of the weapon, watches him slide to the ground, and collapses. The delicately ridged track of her spine is clear through her chalky skin.
Her shirt and sweater have been trampled into the carpet, and when I shake them, glass and dirt cling to the fibers like a razor-edged reminder of what’s happened.
I throw them aside, remove my coat, and pull my own sweater over my head.
A sob comes from deep inside her belly as I touch her gently on the back. She covers her chest with her arms. “Here,” I say, and turn away.
“I should have listened to you,” she says. “I was trying to be strong. Now I’m a killer.”
I turn back around and crouch beside her. “It was him or you.”
“I thought you’d left. I thought I was alone.” She can’t say any more. She’s crying too hard.
“I’d never have left you,” I say. I watch her and breathe in the deathly silence of the station. My gun is still warm. I fasten the safety catch. The men I killed are sprawled across the carpet. Perhaps I should feel a shred of remorse, but I don’t.
All I care about now is getting back to the pod. And I’m going to have to convince Jude to find a way to help Bea instead of Quinn.
Because she shouldn’t have to live out here.
No one should.
24
BEA
Ronan leads me to one of the green chairs, turning it to face the windows, so I don’t have to look at the drifters. He opens up a compartment in his backpack filled to the brim with protein and nutrition bars and hands me one. I pull away my mouthpiece and take a small bite, which is all I can stomach. “You have to keep up your strength,” he says.
He’s watching me for signs I’ll break down, but I wish he wouldn’t. Every time I catch his eye I see the pity and horror of what might have been. And I’m ashamed. It was my own fault. I wanted to prove to myself how strong I’d become. And I wanted to prove to Ronan that everything he knew about drifters was untrue. Except it wasn’t.
“What are you even doing in The Outlands, Ronan? Isn’t there a servant at home waiting to run you a hot bath and cook you a meal?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I told you, I’m looking for someone.” He pauses. “For Quinn Caffrey. His father sent me. Do you know where he is?”
I want to trust him, and after what he’s just done for me, I probably should, but if Mr. Caffrey’s the one looking for Quinn, it must mean trouble. “I haven’t seen Quinn since the pod.”
Ronan studies me. He knows it’s a lie. “Well, I have to find him,” he says. “Will you help me?”
“I wish I could.”
“I’m a member of the Special Forces, Bea. I was at The Grove. I know what the Ministry did because I was there fighting for them.”
I sit up, pull off the sweater he gave me using one hand to keep my facemask in place, and fling it at him. How could he have destroyed all those trees? And killed so many people?
He doesn’t have the face of an enemy, but that’s what he is—he’s his father’s son. “You. Make. Me. Sick,” I say, and head back into the restaurant, where the three dead men are still bleeding into the carpet.
Ronan runs after me and forces me to look at him. “I didn’t know what we were doing until it was too late. I know the Ministry is full of crap. I want out, and Jude said he’d help. If I find Quinn for him, he’ll change my identity and I can leave the Special Forces. He’ll do it for Quinn, too. . . . And you, I’m sure.” But he doesn’t sound so sure. No Premium father would want his son involved with the likes of me.
I scratch Jazz’s dried blood from my hands. “I don’t want to go back,” I say simply. “And how could you, after you’ve seen what’s possible?”
“I’ll become an auxiliary. I’ll be like you.” He says this like it’s the most magnanimous gesture in the world. It’s all I can do to put my hands behind my back to stop myself from punching his puffed-out chest.
“Do you know what it’s like to be an auxiliary? Do you like running or dancing or kissing or anything remotely normal? Because once you become like me, every breath will cost you. You think that’s a life I want to go back to or one I’d want for Quinn? Leaving the Special Forces and living in Zone Three isn’t going to solve anything. You’ll be in hiding, that’s all. A coward in hiding.” I stop. I’ve been shouting, and my throat hurts. I didn’t hit Ronan, but from his guilty expression, I might as well have.
“I don’t want to hurt people anymore,” he whispers, looking at the floor.
“So fight to make things better.”
Now it’s his turn to be angry. “And how will I do that? The Resistance worked for years to steal cuttings and build a new world. I’m one person. It’s not like I could overthrow the government.”
Maybe I’m being hard on him, but that’s because it’s only people in his privileged position who can change things. “What if we could overthrow the government?” I ask.
He stomps on a glass bottle and it smashes into a hundred pieces. “How?” he asks.
I don’t know yet. But at least I know that he’s willing. And if he is, we’ll find a way.
25
QUINN
Sequoia’s zip looks like it was dragged kicking and screaming from a swamp. The paint’s peeled away and the blades are covered in rust. I’m not sure it’s even going to make it off the ground let alone into the city and back again, and I’d refuse to get in if I had another choice. Maks sees my expression and slaps the side of the zip. “Found this beauty at an old RAF barracks,” he says.
I climb into the back next to some dude whose nails are bitten to the quick and the skin around them raw and peeling. When he sees me looking, he curls his hands around his rifle to hide them.
Maks sits next to the pilot. “Here,” he says, and throws two pairs of enormous earphones into the back. “We’re ready,” he says, his voice crackling through them.
The zip comes to life, the blades rotating so hard I’m rocked from side to side. The pilot sniffs and speaks: “Sequoia control. Takeoff direction: zero seven. Flight plan: eight hundred feet. Ready for immediate departure.”
“Sequoia station. Copy that. Clear to takeoff,” I hear.
“Roger that.” The pilot pulls back the steering column, and the zip lifts away from the tarmac. It creaks like hundreds of unoiled door hinges, and I grip the seat, scared witless that the whole thing’s going to come to pieces in the air.
The pilot pushes the column forward and the zip’s nose tilts forward with more creaking and groaning. But soon we’re high above the ground looking down at a land dotted with gray and black mounds of rubble and impassable, ruptured roads. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I want to take it all in, but I’m too worried about Jazz and Bea to enjoy the scenery. I hope we aren’t too late.
We lurch to the left, and I hold on to the door handle to stop myself from sliding along the seat. We careen over a wide river and sunken dock.
“Bit of wind. Nothing to worry about,” the pilot says, righting the aircraft.
Maks swivels in his seat to look at me. “You scared?” he says. I shake my head—no. He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you should be: I wouldn’t want to be you, if Vanya’s kid’s croaked it.” He laughs at the idea and turns away.