Burn (Pure #3)(87)

“Clothes stacked for you. Change fast.”

“Wait. Who are you?”

“We’re Cygnus. We can get you to your brother.” He shuts the door.

Cygnus? Like the constellation? The swan. This all ties back to her mother. She feels, strongly, for just a brief moment, that her mother is with her.

And she is on the inside. This is it. The Dome. She’s stunned. She touches the white tile, leaving a smear of ash.

She looks at the nozzles, bracing for water—or poisonous gas?

Nothing comes.

She lifts the clothes from the stack—a guard’s uniform, including a holster. She remembers the first time she wore the OSR uniform, how much she loved the puff of the warm regulation jacket even though she hated herself for it. She feels that same twinge here. She shouldn’t be excited to be on the inside. Bradwell would be seething. El Capitan would want to bash the guard’s head in—here to help him or not, the bastard got in. The end. But she’s hopeful. They’ll take her to her brother, who’s innocent. Pressia wants to see the boys’ and girls’ academies with ball fields, the apartment buildings with tidy rooms and bunk beds, the fields and food and fake sun and light and no cold, no suffering, no absolute darkness. But she’s been warned: This will be bloody.

There’s a small basin in one corner with a bar of soap and a towel. They want her to wash up. Good thing her skin is no longer a gold hue. She dresses quickly, nervously cinching the holster around her waist. She won’t be able to wear the backpack. It will stand out too much. She opens it up, reaches in and pulls out the box. She pops the latch and checks that the vial is intact, the formula in place. She closes the box, slips it under her fitted shirt and tight jacket, and lodges it over one hip, as the clothes are tight enough to hold it in place. She moves to the basin, scrubs her face, her neck, and then she stares and stares at the doll head. In the joy of being inside the Dome, making it all the way here, she’d forgotten this—the doll head’s ash-smeared skin, its small pursed lips, its clicking eyes. She washes its face, rubs the row of plastic lashes and then the doll’s skull, where Pressia’s knuckles are fused beneath the surface. She pats it dry with the hand towel, and the doll head looks fresh and clean, pink cheeked. Could it be removed? Could she be cured here? She steps out of the room, leaving the empty backpack behind.

The guard hands her a gun like his. She slips it in the holster and raises the doll head.

“What about this?” she says. But he’s already prepared. He pulls out a bandage roll.

She lifts her arm, and he winds the bandage around the doll head, obviously disturbed by it. He covers it so tightly that for a second, she imagines that the doll won’t be able to breathe. Ridiculous, she knows. He clips the bandage in place.

“If anyone asks, tell them you were in an accident.”

She nods, but she feels sick. It was no accident. That’s the whole reason she’s here. This was done to her on purpose. All of the losses, murders, deaths were on purpose. Bradwell would say, Look how fast they’ve hidden the truth.

The guard taps the side of his face, the same spot of her crescent-shaped burn. “Cover that up,” he says. “Pull some hair forward.” He hands her a cap. “And keep this on.”

It’s a betrayal. All of it. She’s sickened by it.

He leads her down hallways. She hears distant rumbling and thinks about the Dusts surrounding Crazy John-Johns. She feels the same vibrations up through the soles of her boots. She’s scared and has no idea what to expect.

But soon they’re standing by a tunnel, and a train pulls up. It’s a sleek, beautiful machine—so shiny she can see her own reflection. She’s a guard now.

The doors open. They step inside. The car is empty.

“Everyone’s in front of their televisions today,” the guard says.

“Why’s that?”

He looks at her and then away. “Wedding. Partridge is getting married.”

“He’s getting married?”

“Yep.”

She thinks of Lyda and the baby. Are Partridge and Lyda getting married because it’s mandatory in the Dome if someone gets pregnant? She’d ask, but she’s not sure if the pregnancy is common knowledge. She thinks of her wedding in the woods. Real but not real. Intimate. A secret. The only way it seems like it could exist in her ashen, desolate homeland. But love inside the Dome must be different. Here, falling in love can be an event, a proclamation without acknowledging that everyone you love could die an awful death, that loving someone is an acceptance of impending loss.

She feels a little dizzy. She grabs the train’s shiny pole, so clean it squeaks when her hand slips. This is my brother’s wedding day, she thinks, and despite everything, she feels happy, maybe even hopeful.

But at the same time, the train car reminds her of the buried one that the mothers had tunneled down to, its jacked floor and punched windows. Here she smells the lingering perfumes of the Pures’ shampoos, aftershaves, hairspray—a sweetness she remembers from her childhood in the barbershop with its small bottles of tonics and gels. Most of all, there’s the absence of rot and death, smoke and char. It makes her feel giddy and yet also like she might cry.

She straightens up and says, “Are you taking me to the wedding ceremony?”

The guard checks his watch. “The reception. The place will be packed with guards. High security. You’ll fit in.”