When
the rain stopped we left the doorway and began to run. It was dark, but the
streetlights cast an electric blue glow, flickering beautiful and eerie against
the wet pavement, making patterns on the drifting mist.

I wished we could run in the
light. Instead we ran in the shadow of the rough cinderblock wall that divided
the street from the houses.

The wall had cameras on both
sides, but
Meritt
knew which eyes were blind. He led
me back and forth from the street side to the house side, through the
intermittent gaps in the wall, weaving us through the web of invisible threads
so that none of them ever touched us.

We ran a long way, through air
that was crisp and damp and smelled like autumn leaves, and it felt good to
run, to pour the tension of the past week into sweat and breath and motion.
Tomorrow the tight fist of anxiety in my chest would be back, but tonight,
running hard through the wet forbidden streets, I could breathe.

When the white spotlight from
the watchtower swept toward us we paused, pressing against the rough wall; when
it passed, we eased out and ran again.
Meritt
kept
pace with me until the houses ended, until the street and wall ran past nothing
but orchards and empty
stubbled
ground. Then he let
loose and raced ahead, hurtling through black shadows and pockets of blue
light.

I couldn’t keep up with him; I
didn’t even try. Instead I slowed to push a stray lock of hair back under my
black cap as a few belated raindrops pattered down, cold against my hot skin,
and the rising breeze sent the sharp tang of fermenting windfall apples wafting
past. Breathing deep, I tasted the damp night air, felt the last knots of
tension relax in my shoulders, my neck. This was good. This was the happiest I
ever was, out running with
Meritt
in the dark.

Ahead of me
Meritt
turned and raised a hand, trying to get me to hurry. He didn’t call to me
because we weren’t supposed to be out this late, we weren’t supposed to be
here, we weren’t supposed to be together, and we certainly weren’t supposed to
be meeting
Rafe
.

But I didn’t want to hurry. I
was tired, and he knew he was faster. It wouldn’t hurt him to slow down and
wait for me. So I waved back, cheerily, as if he were just waving to be
friendly.

He shook his head at me,
reproving. He was still moving, jogging backwards, and as we pantomimed our
little argument he veered a bit, away from the wall, into the glow of the
electric blue lights. They caught at the sharp planes of his face, danced in
his unruly black hair, and a cold fist formed in my stomach and I stopped
moving altogether.

He didn’t look like himself. He
didn’t look like the
Meritt
I’d known all my life.
The street was dark and empty and we were all alone, and he had turned to light
and shadow, wrong-colored, frightening and strangely beautiful.

He looked like the things in the
woods.

Now he was truly exasperated,
spreading his arms wide—
what are
you doing?—
but I couldn’t move. I put one hand against the wall
beside me, feeling its rough surface, the cold damp scratchiness of it, and it
was hard and real and kept me upright while my vision darkened and then
cleared, lightheadedness passing when I remembered that breathing was a good
thing, remembered, too, that there weren’t really things in the woods. Those
were stories, nothing more. Bogeymen to keep people in line.

Or so I hoped.

The white spotlight swept toward
us again and
Meritt
backed against the wall, but I
was still paralyzed. The light flashed in my eyes, blinding me, and all I could
do was stand frozen and try not to attract attention with any sudden movement.
We mustn’t get caught. Bad things happened to people who got caught breaking
the rules—prison time, cut rations, reassignment to the worst jobs. I
didn’t know what exactly the wardens would do to me if they caught me out after
curfew, and I didn’t want to find out.

Then the spotlight moved on and
my eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw
Meritt
up
ahead, looking like himself again, grimacing wryly at me. With one last adamant
sweep of his arm—
come on
—he
spun and sprinted toward the end of the street, toward the opening in the other
wall, the outer one that circled the entire city.

After one last deep breath,
feeling my head clear and my heart unclench, I started running too.

We were meeting
Rafe
outside the outer wall, in the broad stretch of sand
and scraggly grass that marked the boundary between the city and the woods. We
called that strip of boundary the wasteland, but despite the ugly name we liked
the place. It wasn’t the suffocating city, and it wasn’t the dangerous woods.
We went there whenever we could, and this time
Rafe
would be there with us. He’d been one of our teachers back in school, my
favorite because he was good at explaining things and, most of all, because he
never treated me like an outcast or a freak. On bad days I
pretended—secretly—that he was my father. If I loved anyone as much
as
Meritt
, it was
Rafe
.

Slowly, throbbing through my
veins, joy began to return.
Meritt
and
Rafe
, both at the same time. I felt a smile start and I
leaned into the wind, running hard, while ahead of me
Meritt
sprinted full-out down a thin channel of shadow, his bare feet flashing, the
muscles in his back moving beneath the gray uniform shirt, all of him lit in
fits and starts by the blue light shifting and shining along the periphery.

That sight will always stay with
me, that feeling. It was the last moment of
before
.
I dream about it now, and I’ve dreamt it so often I can count
Meritt’s
steps, hear the soft whistle of the rising wind,
feel the last breath I drew in—too harsh, too loud—when I saw what
was going to happen and had to bite back a shout, had to stop again and let him
go.

She was standing in the shadows
against the wall. I saw her before
Meritt
did, but
there was nothing I could do to warn him. She stepped out when he was only a
split second away, blocking his path, her white-blonde hair glinting in the
electric blue lights. In that last second before
Meritt’s
body blocked my view, I saw that she was smiling. My own smile was still on my
lips, stiff and empty, as if she had taken its soul.

Meritt
skidded to a stop. He was going too fast and would have slammed into her, but
he jerked sideways at the very last second and ricocheted into the wall
instead. I felt the impact in my own shoulder, saw him reach up and grab his
own.

She took a step toward him. He
backed away, glancing around, checking his options, but he didn’t look at me;
he would never give me away.

Then there was noise, sounds I
couldn’t decipher, muted thumps and thuds. An odd electric smell simmered in
the air, cast a metallic taste in the back of my throat.

The woman came forward another
pace and the blue light shone on her face and I recognized her for certain,
then—the blonde hair pulled tightly back from her face, the black warden’s
uniform that did nothing to hide her figure. She had been watching
Meritt
for months, swallowing him with her eyes when he
passed on the street. I’d seen her do it; I’d told him so.

She held up a hand—
stop
—and spoke. I heard her voice
but not her words.

Meritt
reached up and clasped his hands on top of his head.

Staying deep in the shadows of
the rough wall, I began to creep closer. I had to be careful—wardens
rarely traveled alone. I had to be careful—but I made a mistake, the
second one that night. My bare foot touched a cold puddle of water and the
water rippled out into the light.

Someone shouted.

My heart lurched.

But I wasn’t the one being
shouted at, I hadn’t been seen—the shout had come from the wasteland, and
there was another heavy thud, and now through the gap in the wall I could see
shadows thrashing, dark and confused against the pale half-dead grass.

A figure stumbled into the wedge of blue
light spilling from the street, the silver in his hair glinting bright and
distinctive.
Rafe
.

I saw him, but I couldn’t
believe my eyes.
Rafe
was so careful, always so
careful, and wardens never ventured out into the wasteland, so close to the
woods. Even they were afraid of the woods, afraid of the stories.

The female warden beside
Meritt
half turned, looking toward the wasteland.
Meritt
could have run then, while she was distracted, and I
wanted him to run but he didn’t and I understood why—he’d already been
seen and recognized, and anyway how could we run when
Rafe
was in trouble?

Not that we could do anything to
help. All I could do was stand there, hiding in the shadows, feeling like a
coward but knowing
Rafe
would want me to stay out of
sight.

Rafe
turned from side to side, looking for an out, but he was surrounded. The
wardens edged in, tightening their circle. They gestured to each other but
didn’t speak.

One lunged forward. He caught
Rafe
from behind, pinning his arms.
Rafe
lifted both legs and kicked another warden hard in the stomach. The man went
down, doubling over, and the warden holding
Rafe
lost
his balance, staggered sideways, taking
Rafe
with him
so that they both ended up on the ground.

Rafe
broke
free and rolled to his feet. A cry rose in my throat—
run
—but I swallowed it and the third warden sprang, lunging
fast. The low buzz of a stunner rang out, the smell of hot metal intensifying.

Rafe
went
limp, crumpling into an uneven shadow on the ground.

Like vultures the wardens
swooped in, bending over him. Still they were silent—other than that
first shout, the whole thing played out voicelessly. No one wanted to attract
the attention of anything in the woods.

The wardens hauled
Rafe
upright. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he
didn’t have the strength to stand. He swayed, almost fell, and they caught him
and half-dragged, half-carried him out of my line of sight.

And
Meritt
—
Meritt
was shifting slightly from side to side, his hands
still clasped behind his head. It took me a second to understand: He was
breathing, that was all. He was breathing the way he always did when he was
opening his lungs after a hard run.

Why hadn’t the blonde warden
cuffed him?

Maybe she’d been distracted by
the fight in the wasteland, but it was careless of her.
Meritt
could have gotten away.

Now she was gesturing toward the
group in the wasteland. She was pointing at something. She was talking.

Meritt
dropped his arms and shrugged.

The woman smiled.

She stepped toward
Meritt
and I thought she would finally cuff him. Instead
she reached up and put her arms around his neck, tilting her face up to his.

I blinked hard, feeling suddenly
chilled.

Then I turned my back on them,
and started back the way I’d come.

It was what I’d promised to do
if ever we ran into trouble, and I understood why I had to do it. All the same,
I hated myself.
Meritt
and
Rafe
would never have run away and left me. They were the closest thing to family
that I had.

The concrete felt colder against
my bare feet, harder. I was alone and it was a long way back and the streets
stretched before me, glinting blue and empty, smelling of rain and wet dead
leaves. I was alone and I had to remember the cameras, had to avoid the eyes, I
couldn’t simply follow
Meritt
as I’d done
before—
Meritt
had been caught,
Rafe
had been caught.

What would the wardens do to
them?

The wind gusted, sending pale
leaves spinning across my path like living things. Leaves from the woods, from
the dying trees, from the place where strange things lived.

Only stories. They were surely
only stories, and I knew I was thinking about the woods because that fear was a
familiar fear, easier than thinking about what might be happening to
Meritt
and
Rafe
. I ran and tried
not to stumble on stretches of crumbling pavement and tried to think of
something to do, some way to help, but there was no one to tell, nothing to do,
nothing except not getting caught myself—it would go worse for all of us
if I got caught.

One house had not yet gone dark,
and as I ducked my head to make myself smaller and passed through the faint
halo of its lighted windows, somewhere, not far away, an engine growled to life.
Yellow lights flashed on and cast hazy arcs through the mist up toward the sky.

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