Wilder Girls(60)

And before I can stop her, she grabs Welch’s shoulder.

Welch rears up and swings around fast, her arm knocking Carson’s. She backs away from us so fast I worry she might go over the side. “Don’t,” she says.

“I’m sorry.” Carson’s chin trembles. “I didn’t mean—”

“Do you understand?” Welch is looking back and forth between us and Julia, and as the wind pushes her hair back, I see blood trailing down her chin from where she’s bitten her lip.

   Julia smiles easily and says, “Sure we do.” I know that tone, know a lie when I hear one. She’s trying to keep things calm, but she’s got her hand in the pocket of her coat where she’s stashed her pistol.

“No, you don’t. That’s—” And Welch’s voice snaps in half, comes back low and rough. “That’s the end of it. The food, us, everything. They’re never coming back.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course they are.” Julia’s getting closer to Welch, one hand outstretched, and she sounds like somebody’s mother. Patient, and controlled, because someone here has to be, and we’re children, but we stopped being kids a year and a half ago.

“Not after yesterday,” Welch says. “Somebody broke the quarantine.”

I can barely hear the wind over the roaring in my ears. This is it. She knows, she knows, and I’m about to find myself with her gun pressed to my temple.

I would do it again, I think. To be sure that Byatt’s alive.

“Who?” Julia asks. Surprise widening her eyes, stopping her in her tracks. I hold my breath. “Who did it?”

“I don’t know,” Welch says, and relief is thrumming sweet in my veins. “But it doesn’t matter.” Her face is wet, tears blown back across her cheeks and a long string of spit stuck to her chin. “Camp Nash has always been clear. We’re too high-risk. One strike and it’s all over.”

   One strike. Me and Reese, we’re the reason the dock is empty. We’re the reason we have no food, no supplies, no nothing. Shame burns hot on my cheeks, and I duck my chin behind my collar.

“They’re not gonna just disappear,” Julia says.

Welch shakes her head. “That canister? It’s the end. Whatever’s inside is designed to kill us.”

No. No, she’s wrong. They wouldn’t do that to us. They said they’d help. They promised.

“How do you know?” Julia says. Carson is starting to crumple, leaning heavily against me, and I push aside my own panic, take hold of her forearm and give it a reassuring squeeze.

Welch nods at the box. “The symbol.”

I glance at the canister quickly, afraid to look for too long.

“You could be wrong.” Julia is doing her best, but the defiance is leeching out of her.

“I’m not. I’m really not.” Welch scrubs at the tears scudding down her cheeks. “They gave it a shot, right? Gave it the good old college try. And now they’re calling it. No matter what I do, I can’t protect you girls.”

Protect us from what? From the Tox? From whatever’s in that box? I look to Julia, but she’s just as lost as I am, my rising terror mirrored on her face. This is more than we can handle. But the only person who could help us is Welch.

She laughs, hitching and broken. “Blood’s already on my hands, isn’t it? They wanted to experiment with that fucking food and I wouldn’t let them, and they wanted to test all of you but I wouldn’t let them, and I paid for it. I paid; I made choices and I sent you to die.”

   The food, I think. Is that why we tossed half of it out? “Wait,” I say, and there are so many more questions I have to ask, but I don’t have a chance before Welch’s feverish gaze swings to me.

“Hetty,” she says. “You can’t trust them. Okay? You have to remember that. The CDC, the Navy—”

“Hey,” I say, and it’s easy to pretend everything’s fine when you don’t know what’s wrong. “My dad’s Navy. There are good people there.” It doesn’t matter if I believe it. It doesn’t matter that Mr. Harker showed me what a good man can become, that I’ve seen what a father can do to his daughter. “They will help us. It’s not over.”

“Your dad?” She sighs. Pity, but more than anything, impatience. “Hetty, honey, your dad thinks you’re dead.”

“What?” She has to be lying. I push back a swell of nausea. She said not to trust the Navy, but it was her in the woods last night handing over Mona’s body. She’s the one we can’t trust. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s all of you,” Welch says. “Your families, your neighbors. You don’t understand. It’s been over for a long, long time.”

I don’t believe you, I repeat to myself, I don’t. It’s not working, though. Because it makes sense.

Oh God. Nobody worrying about us, nobody waiting. And we couldn’t talk to our parents anymore, and it was for security, but it wasn’t. It was just another lie, and we believed it.

   “Hang on,” Julia says. “You have to explain.” But Welch is looking at Carson now, and her face has turned soft.

“Carson,” she says. A whisper, the wind slipping it into our ears, and she holds out her hand. “Come here a minute. I need your help.”