Requiem

Lena

I’m in a crowd, watching two children fight over a baby. They are playing tug-of-war, pulling it violently back and forth, and the baby is blue, and I know they are shaking it to death. I’m trying to push through the crowd, but more and more people are surging around me, blocking my path, making it impossible to move. And then, just as I feared, the baby falls: It hits the pavement and shatters into a thousand pieces, like a china doll.

Then all the people are gone. I am alone on a road, and in front of me, a girl with long, tangled hair is bent over the shattered doll, piecing it back together painstakingly, humming to herself. The day is bright and perfectly still. Each of my footsteps rings out like a gunshot, but she doesn’t look up until I am standing directly in front of her.

Then she does, and she is Grace.

“See?” she says, extending the doll toward me. “I fixed it.”

And I see that the doll’s face is my own, and webbed with thousands of tiny fissures and cracks.

Grace cradles the doll in her arms. “Wake up, wake up,” she croons.

“Wake up.”

I open my eyes: My mother is standing above me. I sit up, my body stiff, working feeling into my fingers and toes, flexing and unflexing. The air is hung with mist, and the sky is just beginning to lighten. The ground is covered with frost, which has seeped through my blanket while I was sleeping, and the wind has a bitter, morning edge. The camp is busy: Around me, people are stirring, standing, moving like shadows through the half darkness. Fires are sparking to life, and every so often, I hear a burst of conversation, a shouted command.

My mother reaches out a hand and helps me to my feet. Incredibly, she looks rested and alert. I stomp the stiffness out of my legs.

“Coffee will get your blood moving,” she says.

It doesn’t surprise me that Raven, Tack, Pippa, and Beast are already up. They are standing with Colin and a dozen others near one of the larger fire pits, their breath clouding the air as they speak in low tones. There is a stockpot of coffee on the fire: bitter and full of grains, but hot. I start to feel better and more awake after I’ve had only a few sips. But I can’t bring myself to eat anything.

Raven raises her eyebrows when she sees me. My mother gestures to her, a motion of resignation, and Raven turns back to Colin.

“All right,” he’s saying. “Like we talked about last night, we move in three groups into the city. First group goes in an hour, does the scouting, and makes contact with our friends. The main force doesn’t budge until the blast at twelve hundred hours. The third group will follow immediately afterward and head straight to the target. . . .”

“Hey.” Julian comes up behind me. His eyes still have a puffy, just-awake look, and his hair is hopelessly tangled. “I missed you last night.”

Last night, I couldn’t bring myself to lie down next to Julian. Instead I found a free blanket and made my bed out in the open, next to a hundred other women. For a long time, I stared up at the stars, remembering the first time I came to the Wilds with Alex—how he led me into one of the trailers, and unrolled the tarp that served as its ceiling so we could see the sky.

So much between us went unsaid; that is the danger, and beauty, of life without the cure. There is always wilderness and tangle, and the path is never clear.

Julian begins to reach for me, and I take a step backward.

“I was having trouble sleeping,” I say. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Julian frowns. I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with him. Over the past week, I’ve accepted that I will never love Julian as much as I loved Alex. But now that idea is overwhelming, like a wall between us. I will never love Julian like I love Alex.

“What’s wrong with you?” Julian is watching me warily.

“Nothing,” I say, and then repeat, “Nothing.”

“Did something—” Julian starts to say when Raven whirls around and glares at him.

“Hey, Jewels,” she barks out, which she has taken to calling Julian when she’s annoyed. “This isn’t gossip hour, okay? Shut it or clear out.”

Julian falls quiet. I turn my eyes to Colin, and Julian doesn’t try to touch me or move closer. The sky is now streaked with long filaments of orange and red, like the tendrils of a massive jellyfish, floating in a milk-white ocean. The mist rises; the earth begins to shake itself awake. Portland, too, will be stirring.

Colin tells us the plan.