Wilder Girls(23)

“I need your help,” I say, kneeling over her. It empties me out to see her like this. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”

She reaches up, her hand shaking, and hooks her fingers in the collar of my shirt. I bend so close I can feel her saliva sticking to my cheek.

   “Hetty,” she says. “Hetty, please.”

It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Her voice sounds like metal on metal, like a million people all together, a scream and a whisper and everything in between, and it hurts, a real hurt reaching all the way to my bones. Like they’re cracking, like they’re glass.

I curl in on myself, press my hands to my ears. It feels like it lasts forever, until finally the rattle is gone from my body and I can think again.

“Shit,” Reese says, airy and weak like it hit her too. “What was that?”

I ignore her and crawl back to Byatt, who’s nearly hyperventilating, trying to sit up. And she looks afraid. A year and a half of the Tox. I’ve never seen her afraid until today.

“You’re all right,” I say, reaching out. But she shakes her head and presses her hand to my cheek. Like she’s asking, What about you?

Down the hall I can hear voices getting closer. Welch and a few others—probably Julia and Carson. This is what Boat Shift does. Clean up the mess, put it away. Except now the mess is Byatt, and I won’t let them take her from my sight.

“I’m fine,” I say when Byatt tugs on my earlobe, pulling my attention back. “Welch is coming, okay? She’s gonna look after you.”

   Byatt takes a breath, ready to say something, and Reese is there in a second, her hand clapped firmly over Byatt’s mouth.

“Don’t talk,” Reese says. “It’ll hurt.”

Welch jogs into the room, Julia and Carson a few steps behind. They’re watching Byatt, Julia’s hand lingering too close to the knife in her belt, but Welch turns to me. “Can she walk?”

I know what Byatt would say—that she’s right here, that she can speak for herself—but I don’t ever want to feel the way I did when she spoke. “I think so.”

Welch nods to Carson and Julia. “Take her up.”

I scramble to my feet, swaying a little. “I’ll help.”

“Absolutely not,” Welch says, shaking her head.

“It’s Boat Shift’s job. I’m Boat Shift.”

“Not for this you aren’t.”

Julia and Carson come closer, boots squeaking on the checkered tile. They keep from looking at me as they crouch on either side of Byatt and grab her elbows, help her up.

She doesn’t fight it. I think she knows there’s no point. She just looks at me as they take her past, and at the last second, she reaches out and smacks something into my palm.

The packet of crackers. Broken to pieces, now. She must’ve found Taylor’s stash.

I clutch them to my chest, try not to cry. She wanted me to eat. She said I shouldn’t go hungry.

   “You’re going to have to put those back,” Welch says, and I swing around to look at her. She can’t be serious.

“Excuse me?”

She nods to the crackers. “Food is food.”

I hardly know what to say. But I don’t have to.

“No, thanks,” Reese says. “I think we’ll keep them.”

She looks at me, and my heart feels too big for my chest. So this is what it’s like to have Reese go to bat for you.

Welch glances between us and then shrugs. Nobody is here to see her give in, and she’s still got a soft spot for us, when she can afford to let it show.

She’s almost out of the room when it bursts out of me. “Is Byatt going to be okay?” My voice is about to crack, and it would be embarrassing if I cared about that at all. “Will she come down soon?”

Welch stops. Doesn’t turn around. Just the line of her shoulders against the dark, and then she keeps going. Leaves me in the kitchen with my vision blurring. And even though I can still feel her hands around my neck, Reese is all I want.



* * *



—

“I bet it’s nothing,” I try, like it’ll make more sense if I say it out loud.

“That’s right,” Reese says.

She’s watching me from the top bunk. I’m underneath on mine, flat on my back, arms folded across my chest. I thought maybe she’d stay away, like she has been since I got Boat Shift, but she followed me upstairs as if none of that ever happened. And I tried to sleep—we both did—but halfway into the night I let out a sigh, and Reese leaned over the side of her bunk to look down at me.

   “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

But we both know only the sickest girls go up to the infirmary. And most of them never come down again.

I wrap myself up tighter in my jacket. “I’m worried.”

“I know.”

“She’s all I have.”

A heartbeat of quiet, and I realize how it must sound to Reese. Reese, who is right here.

“Sorry,” I say.

“It’s okay.”

I know this is the part where I’m supposed to tell her I didn’t mean it. But the truth is I never think of Reese as mine. As if someone like her could belong to someone like me, to anyone at all.