“Remember that I have to win only once,” I say, and I laugh, and the ghosts of the lost laugh with me, their teeth so sharp, their eyes so bright, their inevitable end so final.
BURN 3
KAMI GARCIA
Kami Garcia is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures and Dangerous Creatures novels. Beautiful Creatures has been published in fifty countries and translated into thirty-nine languages, and the film Beautiful Creatures was released in theaters in 2013 from Warner Brothers. Kami’s solo series, The Legion, includes the instant New York Times bestseller Unbreakable, and the sequel Unmarked, both of which were nominated for Bram Stoker Awards. Her other works include The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos and the YA contemporary novels The Lovely Reckless and Broken Beautiful Hearts. Kami was a teacher for seventeen years before co-authoring her first novel on a dare from seven of her students. She lives in Maryland with her family, and their dogs Spike and Oz. Visit Kami at KamiGarcia.com.
The faces of missing children flash across three vid screens above our heads, forming a gargantuan triangle that looms over the street. Children have been disappearing for weeks now. Protectorate officers claim they’re runaways, but there’s nowhere to go inside the Dome. The truth is no one cares about a bunch of poor kids from Burn 3.
I glance at the screen again and squeeze my little sister’s hand tighter, dragging her through the filthy alley.
“Why are we running?” Sky asks.
“We’re just walking fast.”
I don’t like bringing her outside at night, but we’re out of purification tablets and she hasn’t had any water all day. The dirty streets are bathed in neon light from the signs marking the rows of identical black metal doors that serve as storefronts. In the distance, towering buildings covered in silver reflective panels rise up around a labyrinth of alleys. Those buildings are all that’s left of the city that stood here twenty years ago. Retrofitted and repurposed for the world we live in now. I’ve never been anywhere near there. It’s the wealthy part of Burn 3, no place for poor kids like us.
We reach an exposed stall draped in a black plastic tarp. An old woman swathed in layers of dark fabric huddles underneath. Her face is pebbled on one side, the result of poorly healed burns. Even though the Dome keeps us under a constant shadow, it’s dangerous to be outside all day, and I feel sorry for her. But few people can afford the high rent for an indoor shop.
“Two purification tablets, please.” I hold out the coins stamped with a crude number three on both sides.
She takes the currency in her gloved hand and gives me two pink tablets. They don’t look like much, but they’ll turn the black water running through the pipes a safer shade of gray. Before our father died, he told us stories about the world before the Burn. A time when water was clear and you could drink it straight from the faucet, and walk outside to stand in the sun without layers of protective clothing. That was before his mind deteriorated and I couldn’t tell if his stories were memories or delusions.
A siren eclipses the sounds around us and an automated voice issues a directive. “Alert: the atmosphere inside the Dome has reached Level 2. Please put on your goggles and return to your domiciles immediately. Alert: the atmosphere inside the Dome—”
“Hurry home,” the old woman says, collapsing the tarp around her like a tent.
My sister looks up at me, blue eyes wide. “I’m scared, Phoenix.”
“Put on your goggles.” I dig in my pocket for mine.
She unfolds the wraparound eyewear that makes everything look bright green, a color you never see inside the Dome.
“Run,” I yell, pulling her along behind me.
A man pushes Sky, and she stumbles. He glances at her and starts to turn away without offering help or an apology. Tears run down my sister’s face.
I shove him as hard as I can, and grab my sister’s hand. She runs behind me until we reach our building, a twenty-story domicile divided into single rooms. The Dome is so crowded that there’s nowhere left to build but up, even though it’s more dangerous on the higher floors.
Our room is on the eighteenth floor.
I unlock the door and push Sky inside. “Get in the shelter.”
She scrambles for the makeshift tent in the center of the room. It’s made from Firestall, an engineered material that absorbs heat and UV rays.
The Dome is supposed to protect us from the holes in the ozone layer—holes that turned more than two-thirds of the world to ash twenty years ago. But the sun’s invisible hand can still reach into the Dome. The burns people suffer on a daily basis are proof of that. Most of us have been victims at least once, our skin curling like the edges of burning paper.
Some people believe you’re more likely to get burned in the buildings without reflective panels like this one. I don’t know if it’s true, but I can’t take chances with my sister. Sky’s skin is perfectly smooth. She’s never felt the savage itching and heat of a burn, and I’m not going to let her feel it now.
We huddle together in the darkness, and Sky chokes back tears. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry.” I pull her closer and listen to the alert repeating over and over until I fall asleep, more worried than ever.
In the morning, I look out the small window and see people wandering through the streets. The alert must be over, though many are still wearing their protective goggles. My father told me this city was called New York before the Burn. The buildings were even taller than the ones beyond the alleys, so tall they seemed to touch the clouds. He said you could see the clouds too—white streaks in a blue sky. A sky filled with beauty instead of destruction.
The Burn happened suddenly, although scientists had predicted it years before. The sky turned red and the temperature rose dangerously. No one could step outside without suffering third-degree burns. Within weeks, the heat was melting steel and plastic. My father said hundreds of thousands died after inhaling the toxic fumes from their disintegrating homes.
For years, people lived in the sewers or underground shelters until scientists developed a compound strong enough to withstand the temperatures in the areas where the atmosphere was still intact.
People traveled hundreds of miles underground until they reached a safe zone—a place without a hole in the sky above it. They built the Dome and named our city Burn 3 because it was the third city in the world to turn to ash.
From where I stand looking down on the black coats rushing through the gray streets, the city still looks like it’s made of ash.
I drop the purification tablets into two black cups of water and watch the liquid turn a less lethal shade of charcoal. I choke mine down and leave Sky’s on the counter. She’s still asleep, blond hair peeking out from beneath the ratty blanket. I can’t stand to wake her. The world of her dreams is so much better than the one we live in.
I leave her a note instead.
An hour later, I climb the eighteen flights of stairs with two food packets tucked in my pocket. Noodles with spicy red sauce, Sky’s favorite. Orange doors line both sides of the hallways and I can see ours from the landing.
It’s wide open.
My pulse quickens, and I bolt up the stairs. Sky would never open the door for anyone. She knows better. “Sky?”
I glance around the room. She’s not here, but someone else was. Blankets are strewn all over the floor, and the shelter is shredded.