Wilder Girls(52)

The fence ends right at the lip of the cliff, forming a T with a thick brick column so big, so close to the edge, that there’s no way around it. Not for us, not for the animals. But there are scratches and teeth broken off in the mortar. It’s not like they haven’t tried to get through.

Slowly, I drag Reese over and prop her up against the brick column. She’s pale, her eyes glazed and staring.

“Hey,” I say, shaking her lightly. I smooth my hand along her cheek, her skin too cold, too pale. Shock, maybe. I remember the sound her shoulder made, the way she screamed. She needs more help than we can afford to get her. “Come back,” I try. “Reese, it’s me.”

She blinks, slow like it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done. “I’m so tired,” she croaks.

   “I know. One last push, okay?”

Here, the iron bars and the brick hit at a right angle, and there are enough breaks worn into the brick that we should be able to find a few footholds to boost us up and over. I help Reese stand and turn her around.

“See?” I say, pointing to one spot on the column, about knee-high, where some animal’s torn a chunk out. “Climb up. I’ll spot you.”

Her right arm limp by her side, useless and wrong, but Reese is stronger than anybody I’ve ever met. And even after everything, she braces her injured shoulder against the fence, wedges her foot into the crack in the brick, and levers herself up with a muffled scream. Her scaled left hand scraping the mortar loose, and I watch with a strange sort of pride swelling in my chest as she pulls her body over the fence.

She’s left scoring in the brick, and that makes it easier for me to follow her. Soon I’m jumping down from the top of the column and landing with a groan on the battered lawn. School-side, this time. We’re home.

Reese staggers to her feet with a whimper. Even the glow of her hair seems dimmed, like the whole of her is draining away.

“You go upstairs,” I whisper. “I’ll put the gun back in the barn and meet you there.”

She nods, and I think she’s about to say something—an apology, maybe, for what she said at her house—but then she’s turning around and drawing up her hood, the shape of her disappearing into the dawn.



* * *



—

   It was so easy sneaking to the barn that I kept looking behind me, waiting for Welch to step out of the shadows and press her pistol to my forehead, yet nobody came. But if that was easy, this, Reese—this is the hard part.

She’s in our room when I get back, sitting on my bunk, clutching her injured shoulder, and for a second I just watch her, watch the play of light on her skin. It was her life that fell apart out there, not mine. I have to be the one to put us back together.

“Hey,” I say. “You okay?”

She chuckles, shakes her head. “Okay?”

“Sorry. Stupid question.” At least she’s talking to me. I come farther into the room, shut the door behind me. “Let me do something for your shoulder.”

She doesn’t answer, so I step around her and reach for my pillow. It still has a pillowcase even though most of the others got stitched into makeshift blankets. I peel the pillowcase off and start ripping down the side seam.

“I don’t think it’s popped all the way out,” I say, but that’s not why she’s angry, and we both know it. “I’ll make a sling, and you can just rest it for a bit.”

I help Reese cradle her right arm against her chest and loop the pillowcase around. I bend over her to make a knot in the sling, and freeze when I feel her let out a shaky breath, her forehead leaning against my chest.

   “What the hell happened to him?” she whispers.

“I don’t know,” I say. “He was out there a long time.” And, I want to say, he’s not like us. The Tox swallowed him whole the way I’ve never seen it touch a Raxter girl.

I take one more moment, brush my thumb against the nape of her neck, and then I drop onto the bed next to her. “Maybe we can get you a real bandage tomorrow. Or some painkillers.”

She doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure she’s breathing. I can’t let her disappear into herself. I can’t let the Tox win.

I reach out, rest my hand on her knee, and squeeze. Just to reassure her, just to remind her I’m with her. But she flinches away from me.

“Reese?”

“Don’t,” she says, and I jerk back as she lurches to her feet, scrubs at her face with her silver hand. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve asked.”

“I mean all of it,” she says, and when she turns to look at me, it’s like I can see it, the mask of calm she’s wearing and the anguish underneath. “You have to stop, Hetty.”

“Okay,” I say, holding up my hands. We just need to calm down, and we will figure out a way to fix this. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Reese snaps. “It’s not fucking okay.” She sounds so resigned, so close to giving up, and I feel a bright flare of panic, because I can’t lose her too. “I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work after what you did.”

   And no, I can’t lose her, but there are only so many ways I can explain this. Only so many times I can justify keeping us alive before I lose my grip.