Wilder Girls(58)

   Headmistress is gone by the time we get downstairs. Welch is a mess in her wake, French braid loose and wispy, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. Usually, she likes to look as neat as Headmistress, but today there’s a pink stain ringing her lips.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Julia clears her throat. “Hetty and I need our stuff.”

“Well, hurry up, then.” She’s not even looking at us. It should be a relief, proof she doesn’t know it was me, but all it does is set my teeth on edge.

Julia grabs my sleeve and hustles me down the hall to the closet, where we store the jackets and supplies. She pulls open the door, checks the clip in her pistol, counts the bullets while I do up the clasps across the front of my coat. I’m yanking the red hat down low across my forehead when Julia reaches deep into the closet, under a stack of blankets, and fishes out a pistol twin to hers.

“Here.” She holds it out to me, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“No, I didn’t have this last time.”

“I know. Nobody did.”

I eye the pistol warily. Is this a trap somehow? “Did Welch tell you to—”

“Look,” Julia says, “you were on Gun Shift, right?”

   “Yeah,” I say, “but we didn’t use pistols.”

Julia barrels on. “And I’ve seen you out in the barn. You’re a good shot. I need a good shot out there today.”

“What for?” I press, Mr. Harker’s face hovering at the edge of my sight.

“I mean, did you see her?” She must be talking about Welch. “She’s gonna lose it. Maybe she already has.”

I swallow hard, look down. Bite back the urge to explain. Julia’s right. Welch is on the verge, and what if she finds out it was me who broke quarantine? What’ll she do then?

I take the gun. Grip ridged into my palm.

“Hide that under your coat,” Julia says. “I don’t want her knowing you have it.”

On a different day it would be a strange thing to say, because we don’t do that—we don’t keep things from Welch, and we don’t defend ourselves against her. But it’s today, and I’ve seen her leave Mona’s body in the woods, and I don’t think anything surprises me anymore.

Back in the main hall, Carson is shifting from foot to foot while Welch paces in front of the door. Julia beckons to Carson, who comes rushing over, a grateful smile on her face.

“Okay?” says Julia.

“She hasn’t said anything,” Carson says, nodding at Welch. “She’s been doing that the whole time.”

She doesn’t know. I keep repeating it to myself. She doesn’t know it was you. You have no reason to be afraid. But I’m still grateful when Julia takes her spot next to Welch and leaves me to walk with Carson.

   We pass the bulletin board, tap the note from the Navy for luck, and then it’s out the front doors and onto the path. Through the gate, with Carson just behind me, Welch and Julia ahead, and as we follow the road deeper into the woods, Julia looks back at me. The gun skin-warm. I feel the press of it with every step.



* * *



—

We reach the pier before midday. The whole way I kept my eye on the road, afraid any glimpse of the woods would put me back there with Mr. Harker, his heart still beating in my hands. Here, it’s blessedly open, sky stretching above us, endless and gray. Caution tape snapping in a brisk wind, waves smacking hard against the boards. Carson’s tucked her hair down her jacket to keep it out of her face. I take my hat off, stuff it into the bag I’m carrying so it doesn’t blow away.

“They better come soon,” Julia says. That exhaustion from yesterday is back, leeching the life from her voice, and when she coughs it’s a horrible, hacking sound. “It’s freezing today.”

“We could wait in the trees. For shelter.” Carson’s teeth are chattering. I think of how her lips felt against my cheek our first trip out. I wonder if her blood still runs as warm as mine or if the Tox took that from her.

   Julia shakes her head. “Safer out here. This way we can see if anything’s coming for us.”

Welch hasn’t moved since we arrived. She’s staring out at the horizon, squinting at the nothingness where the mainland sometimes is. It’s too gray today to see anything, but she’s trying anyway.

She didn’t say a word the whole walk across the island. I was grateful at first, but now it’s making me uneasy. I want to keep watch, try to get a read on what she’s thinking, but I can’t look at her too long. I’m worried she’ll see the guilt all over my face. Instead, I step back so I’m even with Carson, and press in close.

“Warmer this way,” I say when she looks taken aback.

Welch has started pacing again. Back and forth, back and forth. The last time we were out, she had a gun. I can’t see one now, but if there’s one hidden on me, there could be one hidden on her. Julia shuffles a few steps away from the pier, closer to me and Carson.

Sharp, breaking, a seagull’s cry in the air. I look up, draw in a quick breath. One is circling above us, wings dark against the sky, and soon there are two more. Just like last time, how they showed up just before the tug. They know it’s coming.