Something is wrong.
I inch closer to the glass, straining to hear what she is saying. A thought is fluttering in the back of my mind, an idea I can’t quite hold on to. There’s something familiar about the lab tech, about the way she keeps using her hands, gesturing emphatically as she points the doctor out into the hall. He shakes his head, removes his gloves, and balls them up into his pocket. He barks a short command before striding out of the procedural room. One of the lab techs scurries after him.
Thomas Fineman is pushing his way to the door that gives entry to the lab. Julian is pale, and even from here I can tell that he is sweating. His voice is higher than normal, strained.
“What’s going on?” His voice floats up to me. “Someone tell me what’s happening.”
The lab tech with the braid has moved across the room and is opening the door for Thomas Fineman. She reaches into her lab coat as he bursts into the room, red-faced.
And just when the idea breaks, washes over me—the braid, the hands, Raven—there is a single explosion, a cracking noise, and Thomas Fineman’s mouth falls open, and he teeters ackward and slumps to the ground as red petals of blood bloom outward across his shirt front.
For a moment, everything seems to freeze: Thomas Fineman, splayed on the ground like a rag doll; Julian, white-faced on the table; the journalist with the camera still raised to his eye; the priest in the corner; the regulators next to Julian, weapons still strapped to their belts; Raven holding a gun.
Flash.
The lab tech, the real one, screams.
And everything is chaos.
More gunshots, ricocheting around the room. The regulators are screaming, “Down! Get down!”
Crack. A bullet lodges in the thick glass directly above my head, and from it a web of fissures begins to grow. That’s all I need. I grab a chair from behind me and swing it, hard, in an arc, praying that Julian has his head down.
The sound is tremendous, and for a split second everything is silent again except for the cascade of glass, a sharp-pointed rain. Then I vault over the concrete wall and drop to the floor below me. Glass crunches under my sneakers as I land, off balance, tipping down onto one hand to steady myself, which comes up smeared with blood.
Raven is a blur of motion. She twists her body out of reach of a regulator, doubles back, cracks down hard on his knee with the butt of her gun. As he bends forward, she plants a foot in his back and pushes: a crack as his head collides with the metal sink. And she is already turning toward the room that contains Fineman’s bodyguards, shoving a small metal scalpel into the keyhole of the door, jamming it. She wedges a metal rolling tray in front of the door for good measure. Medical instruments scatter everywhere as they push, shouting, tilting the table several inches. But the door won’t open, at least not just yet.
I’m ten feet from Julian—shouting, gunshots, and now an alarm is wailing, shrieking—then five feet, then next to him, grabbing his arms, his shoulders, wanting simply to feel him, to make sure he’s real.
“Lena!” He has been struggling with the handcuff that keeps one of his wrists clipped to the table, trying to pry it off. Now he looks up, eyes bright, shining, blue as sky. “What are you—”
“No time,” I tell him. “Stay low.”
I sprint toward the regulator still slumped by the sinks. Dimly, I am aware of shouting, and Raven still turning, spinning, ducking—from a distance, she might be dancing—and muffled explosions. The journalist is gone; he must have run.
The regulator is barely conscious. I kneel down and slice off his belt, quick, then grab the keys and sprint back toward the table. My right palm is wet with blood, but I can barely feel the pain. It takes me two tries to fit the key in the lock on the handcuffs; then I do, and Julian pulls his wrist free of the table, and draws me toward him.
“You came,” he says.
“Of course,” I say.
Then Raven is next to us. “Time to move.”
A minute, maybe less, and Thomas Fineman is dead, and the room is chaos, and we are free.
We sprint through the antechamber just as there is a shuddering, tinny crash, a clattering of metal, and a crescendo of shouts—the bodyguards must have gotten out. Then we duck into the hall, where the alarms are blaring and already we can hear pounding feet from the stairwell.
Raven jerks her head to the right, toward a door marked ROOFTOP ACCESS, EMERGENCIES ONLY. We move quickly, in silence, wound up—through the door and onto the fire escape. Then we pound down the metal stairs, single file, toward the street level. Raven wrestles out of her oversized lab coat and slips off the paper mask, discarding them in a Dumpster just underneath the stairs. I wonder where she got them, and I flash to the heavy woman at the front desk, her breasts nearly exploding out of her lab coat.
“This way,” Raven says shortly, as soon as we’re on the ground. When she turns her head, I see that she has several small cuts on her cheek and neck; the glass must have skimmed her.
We’ve ended up in a small, dingy courtyard, dominated by a set of rusted patio furniture and a patch of wiry brown grass. It is enclosed in a low chain-link fence, which Raven climbs easily. It is a little harder for me, and Julian, who is following, puts a hand up to steady me. My hand has started throbbing, and the chain-link is slick. It’s raining harder now.
On the other side of the fence is another tiny courtyard, nearly identical to the first, and another bleak brown building. Raven charges right through the door, which has been propped open with a cinder block, and we pass into a dark hall, and more closed doors affixed with gold placards. For a second I panic that we’ve ended up back in the labs. But then we emerge into a large lobby, also dark, and outfitted with several fake potted plants and various signs that point the way to EDWARD WU, ESQ. and METROPOLITAN VISION ASSOCIATES.. A set of glass revolving doors gives us a blurry view of the street outside: people streaming by, carrying umbrellas, jostling one another.
Raven heads right for the doors, pausing just long enough to scoop up a backpack she must have stashed earlier behind one of the plants. She turns around and tosses Julian and me an umbrella each. She slips on a yellow rain slicker and pulls the hood up over her head, cinching it tight so the cuts on her face are concealed.
Then we are flowing out into the street, moving into the blur of people on their way to or from somewhere—a faceless crowd, a mass of moving bodies. Never have I been more grateful for the hugeness of Manhattan, for its appetite; we are swallowed in it and by it, we become no one and anyone: a woman in a yellow poncho; a short girl in a red wind breaker; a boy with his face concealed by an enormous umbrella.
We make a right on Eighth Avenue, then a left on 24th Street. By now we have escaped the crowd: The streets are empty, the buildings blind, curtains drawn and shutters closed against the rain. Light smolders behind tissue-thin curtains above us; rooms turned inward, with their backs up against the street. We go undetected, unobserved, through the gray and watery world. The gutters are gushing, swirling with trash, bits of paper and cigarette butts. I have dropped Julian’s hand, but he walks close to me, adjusting his stride to the rhythm of my walk, so we are almost touching.
We come to a parking lot, empty except for a white van I recognize: the van outfitted like a CRAP cruiser. I think once again of my mother, but this is no time to ask Raven about her. Raven unlocks the double doors at the back of the van and flips off her hood.
“In,” she says.
Julian hesitates for a second. I see his eyes skating over the words: CITY OF NEW YORK, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION, REFORM, AND PURIFICATION.
“It’s okay,” I say, and climb into the back, sitting cross-legged on the dirty floor. He follows me in. Raven nods at me and shuts the door behind us. I hear her climb into the passenger seat. Then there is silence except for the drumming rain on the thin tin ceiling. Its rhythm sends a humming vibration through my whole body. It’s cold.
“What—,” Julian asks, but I shush him. We are not out of danger, not yet, and I will not relax until we are safely out of the city. I use the wind breaker to wipe the blood off my palm, ball up its hem, and squeeze.
We hear pounding footsteps, the driver’s door opening, and Tack’s voice, a grunt. “Got ’em?”
Raven’s reply: “Would I be here if I hadn’t?”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Just a scratch.”
“Let’s roll, then.”
The engine shudders to life, and all of a sudden I could shout for joy. Raven and Tack are back—snapping at each other, as they have always done and will always do. They came for me, and now we will go north: We are on the same side again. We will return to the Wilds, and I’ll see Hunter again, and Sarah, and Lu.
We will curl back into ourselves, like a fern folding up against the frost, and leave the resistance to its guns and its plans, and the Scavengers to their tunnels, and the DFA to their cures, and the whole world to its sickness and blindness. We will let it fall to ruin. We will be safe, shielded under the trees, nesting like birds.
And I have Julian. I found him, and he followed me. I reach out in the half dark, wordlessly, and find his hands. We interlace our fingers, and though he doesn’t say anything either, I can feel the warmth and energy passing between us, a soundless dialogue. Thank you, he is saying, and I am saying, I am so happy, I am so happy, I needed you to be safe.
I hope he understands.
I have not slept in twenty-four hours, and despite the jerking motion of the van, and the thunderous sound of the rain, at some point, I fall asleep. When I wake, it is because Julian is speaking my name quietly. I am resting on his lap, inhaling the smell of his jeans. I sit up quickly, embarrassed, rubbing my eyes.
“We’ve stopped,” he says, although it’s obvious. The rain has faded to a gentle patter. The van doors slam; Raven and Tack are hooting, exuberant and loud. We must have made it well past the border.
The double doors swing open and there Raven is, beaming, and Tack behind her, arms crossed, looking pleased with himself. I recognize the old warehouse from the cracked surface of the parking lot, and the peaked outhouse behind Tack.
Raven offers me her hand, helping me scoot out of the van. Her grip is strong.
“What’s the magic phrase?” she says, as soon as my feet hit the pavement. She is relaxed now, smiling and easy.
“How did you find me?” I ask. She wants me to say thank you, but I don’t. I don’t have to. She gives my hand a squeeze before pulling away, and I know she knows how grateful I am.
“There was only one place you would be,” she says, and her eyes flick behind me, to Julian, and then back to me. And I know that is her way of making peace with me, and admitting she was wrong.
Julian has climbed out of the van too, and he is staring around him, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. His hair is still wet, and has started to curl just a little at the ends.
“It’s okay,” I say to him. I reach back and take his hand. The joy surges through me again. Here it is okay to hold hands, to huddle together for warmth, to mold ourselves together at night, like statues designed to fit side by side.
