Forged(61)

Bree swears awkwardly through her ruined mouth. “Is it bad?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, because I know she doesn’t want a lie. “But you’ll be fine.”

I find a surgical needle, medical thread. I can stitch, and I can fix her. Not that she’s broken. She has never, ever been capable of being broken. Not even at the hands of that worthless lump of flesh cooling down the hall—some horrible shadow of myself.

Bree sits on the edge of the sink as I try to clean away the excess blood, but the bandage catches the ragged flesh of her cheek. And that’s when the tears come.

She’s caught sight of herself in the mirror.

I’ll admit it’s nasty. It’s one of the worst, most unnatural things I’ve ever seen, a smile that stretches into her cheek. She swears again. The tears fall. I tell her I can make it better even though I’m not positive I can.

I clean the wound with a solution I find in the kit. She screams, her hands digging into my forearms.

“You’re okay. You’re going to be fine.”

She digs her nails deeper into my skin.

Next come the stitches. The needle snags as I force it into her cheek. It takes all my self-restraint to calm my shaking hand, to continue drawing her cheek together, to look at her perfect face and know I’m going to scar her. That this, even the good I’m trying to do now, is another wound she’ll wear for the rest of her life.

I’ve sewn to the corner of her mouth before it dawns on me that I don’t know how to close off the stitches. I wish Emma was here to make this right. Her work would be cleaner, less intrusive. But she’s not, and so I do as best I can. I tie off my work, snip the excess string with a flimsy pair of scissors I find in the kit. The moment I finish, I kiss Bree. Right on that wrecked mouth, as far away from the fresh stitches as possible. She tastes like blood and I hate that it makes me cringe.

I throw the dirty bandages and utensils in the sink and dress the injury. It’s bulky and awkward, the way the gauze is taped over the lower half of her cheek. She’s shaking, I realize. Her entire body is convulsing.

“What is it? Pain? Do you need something?”

The front of her leather jacket is shiny with blood, and a few dried streaks trail down her chin and neck. Something defeated is written on her features, a sort of doubt and hopelessness I’ve sensed in her only once before—when we were trapped beneath Burg and she cried against my chest in a pitch-black holding cell.

“Hey.”

She won’t pull her gaze away from the mirror.

“Bree!” I grab her wrist and her face snaps to mine. “I love you so damn much,” I tell her.

Her bottom lip quivers, and her eyes work over me, lingering on my hairline. She fishes a wipe from the med kit and pulls me nearer. I stand between Bree’s knees, my thighs against the cool sink she sits on, while she tends to my forehead. I’d forgotten about my own injury, the blood I felt trickle behind the blindfold as the vehicle rolled. She cleans the wound, fighting against the shaking of her own fingers, and then applies a small bandage. No stitches needed, I guess.

The alarm keeps blaring, dulled slightly by the door that separates us from the hallway. The fighting seems incredibly distant right now.

Bree looks at me. No, not just at me, but into me. It makes me feel weak and capable in the same breath. Then, as though something has jolted her out of a dream, she jumps from the sink and snatches up her gun.

“The sewers. We’re late and Sammy’s going to think the worst.”

It’s only when she’s resorted to her typical demeanor—channeling strength and sureness—that the shock crashes down on me. My legs go slack. I brace myself against the wall, my opposite hand shaking as I clench the gun.

I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t.

“Gray,” she says. “I need you with me.”

I swallow. With both hands on her gun, Bree trains it up and steps into the hall. Because she asked me to, and because there’s no one I’d rather follow, I make myself move.





THIRTY-ONE


I HOP FROM THE LADDER and my feet hit the water with a splat.

It smells fouler than death down here. Like mold and waste and stale liquid.

“Watch your mouth, the bandage.”

“Relax, Gray. I’m not about to stick my face in this filth.”

Her words might be slow and clumsy, but the Forgery’s knife certainly didn’t injure her sarcastic tongue.

The tunnel is barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and the only light source comes from street-level grates every hundred paces or so. As we walk farther into the sewers, the murky water grows deeper. Thankfully there’s a raised walkway at the next intersection. The new cross tunnel is twice as large, with a ladder leading to an elevated area running parallel to the water flow. I try not to think that my hands are holding rungs Bree’s filthy boots just trekked waste against as I climb after her. Overhead, an occasional vehicle rumbles past on the streets.

“Do you think they’ll track us?” I ask.

“They’ll try. Especially once they get a reading on where that Forgery last transmitted.” A backward glance. “You should see the signs in town. Frank’s promoting the heck out of the Sunder Rally, asking everyone across the country to tune in. He’s even offering extra water ration cards to families as a way to ensure they’ll attend in person.