Wilder Girls(59)

It’s a minute or two before we hear the foghorn, muted and almost hollow. Welch stops pacing, whips around to face the horizon. There’s a wildness in her eyes I’ve never seen before, one that’s all her own.

“Get ready, girls,” she says.

   Another bellow of the foghorn, and the tug appears through the mist. The seagulls are collecting now, cries overlapping. I want to cover my ears, but Julia nods to me and I follow her up to the start of the pier, Carson trailing behind.

It’s the same as before. The long, slow turn and the familiar markings. There’s nobody on the tail, and the closer the tug gets, the more we can see the emptiness. No high stacks of cartons. No pallets of canned food. Just what looks like one box, with bright markings on the sides.

I look over at Julia. She’s chewing hard on the inside of her cheek. “Does this happen sometimes?”

She shakes her head, says something, and the tug motor is so loud I can barely hear her, but the grim line of her mouth is enough.

A grinding and screech as the crane starts up. Hooks a crate—the only crate—and swings it out over the pier. Last time they let it drop, but today they lower it all the way down and only release when it’s settled. The crane reels back in, chain rattling, and then the final foghorn blast, ringing in my ears long after.

We watch the tug kick up a big wake as it moves away. Last time we could barely keep ourselves back. Now nobody wants to be the first to move.

I peer around Julia at Welch. Jaw clenched, a tear streaking down her cheek, its track glassy and freezing, and she’s shaking her head. I’ve never seen her like this before, not when the Tox started, not even when a girl broke her arm during my first semester and had the bone poking all the way through her skin.

   “Well?” She wheels around to stare at us, and I can’t help a quick step away from the redness of her eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

Julia smiles. “After you.”

A beat, the air so quiet I can hear Carson’s shaky breathing, and then Welch brushes past us, knocking against Julia as she goes. We follow her onto the pier. Boards whining underneath us, and the wind picking up.

We walk three abreast behind Welch, and I look down over the side of the pier, into the ocean. It’s a vivid, sick green today, layered with foam. I shift closer to Carson, safe in the middle.

The carton is smaller than the ones from my last trip, and it’s not wood, like the others were, but something else. Plastic, maybe. Smooth, gray, and curved at the corners, with two sets of buckles holding the lid down. There’s a symbol on the lid that I don’t recognize. Bright orange, a little smudged, like it was spray-painted through a stencil. Almost the biohazard symbol—that set of interlocking near-circles we all know by now—but not quite.

“Okay,” Welch says, holding out one hand. “Wait here.”

I’m happy to stay away. That box is too polished, too manufactured. Nothing like that belongs here, and I almost don’t want to know what’s inside. But Julia is stepping forward alongside Welch.

   “Let me help,” she says, and looks over her shoulder at me as she and Welch head for the box. I touch the waistband of my jeans, where my gun is, and nod. Bad enough when it was just Welch to worry about, but this is worse.

Near the end of the pier the boards are weathered black, algae creeping across them in green webs. Carson and I hang back, and I swallow my unease, undo the bottom clasp on my jacket to make it easier to reach my pistol.

“Should we take the whole box back?” Julia says. The wind is carrying her voice back to me, thin and skittering.

“No.” Welch crouches down and lays her hand flat on the top, like she’s feeling for movement. “We’ll open it here.”

Julia stays standing, and we watch Welch’s shoulders heave as she unlatches the last set of buckles, tendons straining in her arms.

The light on the rim of the lid blinks green. The lid springs up an inch or two, like a catch has released. Welch lifts it gingerly, her face turned away.

I can’t see inside. I can only see Julia’s frown deepen, can only see the way Welch slumps forward to rest her head in her hands.

“What is it?” Carson asks.

Nobody answers, so I step closer. Inside the box is a bed of black foam. And nestled snugly in the center is a small canister, glimmering chrome, maybe the size of my fist. It looks like a miniaturized oxygen tank, the kind you see people wheeling around in hospitals, but the valve is sealed shut with bright red tape, the same symbol from the lid emblazoned in a repeating pattern.

   Something inside me recoils, and I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.

“I don’t understand.” Carson is peering over my shoulder, her cheeks so pale it makes me nervous. “What is that?”

Julia doesn’t take her eyes off of Welch. “A cure, maybe?”

“I doubt it,” I say. Wouldn’t they tell us if it were? Wouldn’t they come?

“Where’s the food?” Carson says, louder now. “Where’s—”

Julia cuts her off. “It’s obviously not coming.”

Welch’s whole body is shaking, and I can hear a muffled sound, a strangled kind of sob from deep in her chest, the cold air cutting a ragged edge to her breathing.

“We don’t have enough food at home.” Carson steps around me. “What are we gonna do?”