“Seriously, Rachel. I’m not thirsty.”
“Don’t be difficult, Lena.” She sits down on the bed and forces the water to my lips. “You’ve been so good all day.”
I have no choice but to take a few mouthfuls—tasting, as I do, the acrid sting of medication. Definitely laced with something—more sleeping pills, no doubt. I hold the water in my mouth, refusing to swallow, and as soon as she stands and turns back to the door, I turn my head and let the water run out onto my pillow, into my hair. It’s kind of gross, but better than the alternative. Wetness seeps into my pillow, temporarily cooling the sting of pain in my shoulders.
Rachel hesitates at the door as though she’s trying to think of something meaningful to say. But all she comes up with is, “See you in the morning.”
Not if I can help it, I think, but I don’t say anything. Then she leaves me, closing the door behind her.
And then I’m left in total darkness, with just the passing of the hours, the minutes ticking forward. And as I lie there with nothing to do but think—as the house settles and goes silent around me—the fear returns, a terrible fog. I tell myself he must come—he has to—but the clock creeps forward, taunting me, and outside the streets are silent except for the occasional barking of a dog.
To keep my mind from cycling endlessly around the same question (Will Alex come, or won’t he?), I try to think of all the ways to kill myself on the way to the labs. If there’s any commercial traffic at all on Congress, I throw myself in front of one of the trucks. Or maybe I can make a break for the docks. It shouldn’t be too difficult to drown, especially if my hands are still tied. If worse comes to worst I can try to fight my way to the roof of the labs, like that girl did all those years ago, dropping out of the sky like a stone, cleaving the clouds.
I think of the image that was beamed onto televisions everywhere that day, the small trickle of blood, the strange expression of restfulness on her face. Now I understand. It sounds sick, but generating these plans actually makes me feel better, beats back the terrible flutterings of anxiety and fear inside of me. I’d rather die on my own terms than live on theirs. I’d rather die loving Alex than live without him.
Please, God, make him come for me.
I’ll never ask for anything again.
I’ll give up anything and everything I have.
Just please make him come.
At midnight the fear turns, suddenly, to desperation. If he’s not coming, I’ll have to get out of here myself.
I work my hands in their restraints, trying to leverage that extra centimeter of space. The cord cuts deeply into my skin, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out in the dark. No matter how I pull and tug and twist, the cord refuses to relax any further, but still I keep trying, until sweat is dripping down along my hairline and I’m worried that if I thrash any harder it will attract someone into the room. Something wet trickles down along my forearm, and when I crane my head backward I see a thick, dark line of blood streaking my skin, like an awful black snake: All my struggling has caused my skin to chafe away.
Outside, the streets are as quiet as they’ve ever been, and in that moment I know that it’s hopeless: I won’t be able to escape on my own. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and my aunt and Rachel and the regulators will escort me downtown, and the only chance of escape I’ll have will be into the ocean, or off the roof of the laboratories.
I think of Alex’s molten honey eyes and the softness of his touch and sleeping under a canopy of stars, stretched out above our heads like they were placed there just for us. Now, after so many years, I understand what the Coldness was and where it came from—this sense that everything is lost, and worthless, and meaningless. Finally, the cold and the despair turn merciful, dropping down on my mind like a dark veil, and miracle of miracles, I sleep.
I wake sometime later in ink purple darkness with the sensation of someone in the room, some loosening of the restraints on my wrists. For a second my heart soars and I think, Alex, but then I look up and see Gracie, perched at the head of my bed, working at the cords binding me to the headboard. She is pulling and untwisting and bending forward, occasionally, to chew at the nylon with her teeth, giving the impression of a quiet and industrious animal gnawing its way through a fence.
Just like that, the cord snaps and I’m free. The pain in my shoulders is agonizing; my arms are full of a thousand pinpricks. But still, in that moment of release, I could shout and jump for joy. This is how my mother must have felt when she saw the first shaft of sunlight penetrate the fissure in her stone prison walls.
I sit up, rubbing my wrists. Gracie crouches against the headboard, watching me, and I lean forward and wrap her up in a big hug. She smells like apple soap and a little like sweat. Her skin is hot, and I can’t think of how nervous she must have been, sneaking up to my room. I’m surprised by how thin and fragile she feels, trembling ever so slightly in my arms.
But she’s not fragile—not by a long shot. Gracie is strong, I realize, perhaps stronger than any of us. It occurs to me that for a long time she has been doing her own version of resisting, and the fact that she is a born resister makes me smile into her hair. She’ll be okay. She’ll be more than okay.
I pull away just a little bit so I can whisper in her ear. “Is Uncle William still out there?”
Gracie nods, then places both hands under the side of her head, indicating that William is sleeping.
I lean forward again. “Are there regulators in the house?”
Gracie nods again, holding up two fingers, and my stomach sinks. Not just one regulator—two of them.
I stand up, testing my legs, which are cramping from being immobilized for almost two full days. I tiptoe to the window and open the blinds as quietly as possible, conscious of Uncle William slumbering only ten feet away from me. The sky outside is a rich, dark purple, the color of eggplant, and the street is draped with shadows as though it has been covered over with velvet. Everything is totally still, totally silent, but at the horizon is just the faintest blush, a gradual lightening: Dawn isn’t far off.
I ease open the window carefully, feeling a sudden desire to smell the ocean. There it is: the smell of salt spray and mist, a smell mixed, in my mind, with the idea of constant revolution, an eternal tide. I feel overwhelmingly sad then. I know there’s no way to find Alex in the middle of this enormous sprawling, sleeping city, and no way for me to reach the border on my own. My best bet is to try and make it down to the cliffs, to the ocean, to walk into the water until it closes over my head. I wonder if it will hurt. I wonder if Alex will be thinking of me.
Somewhere deeper in the city a motor is running, a distant, earthy growl, like an animal panting. In a few hours the bright blush of morning will push through all that darkness, and shapes will reassert themselves, and people will wake up and yawn and brew coffee and get ready for work, everything the same as usual. Life will go on. Something aches at the very core of me, something ancient and deep and stronger than words: the filament that joins each of us to the root of existence, that ancient thing unfurling and resisting and grappling, desperately, for a foothold, a way to stay here, breathe, keep going. But I will it away; I will it to curl up again, to let go.