Unraveled (19 page)

So Erik has finally admitted to his brother that he’s a Tailor.

“Then let’s talk to them.” I pull Jost’s arm, urging him back to the others.

When we reach them, Dante and Erik are discussing something in grim voices. Valery
hugs her arms to her chest and I place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t
look up, and Dante’s expression is grave.

“That girl needs your help,” Jost says. “I know you can patch.”

“Jost.” Erik places a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I have basic patching skills.
I don’t think I can do anything about that much … damage.”

“I alter by feel,” Dante says apologetically. “I don’t have the medic training or
equipment for such a severe case of…”

“So that’s it?” I ask, frustrated by how unfeeling they both sound. Beside me Jost
straightens a little in response to my indignation, as though he’s physically backing
up my moral stance.

“It’s not only that.” Erik pauses. “I’ve never seen damage like this before.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t fix it,” I say firmly.

Behind us the girl bellows out a groan that grows strangled as she gasps for air.
Jost takes a step toward her, but Erik grabs him, holding him back from helping her.

The girl’s skin sags as she lifts her hands out to us, her flesh falling in sickening
lumps to the ground. Her cry grows weaker, echoing from some pit deep inside her,
until she is silent and still.

I can’t tear my eyes from her body. I did nothing to help her. I only watched her
die.

We stand in mute shock as we try to process what we’ve witnessed.

“Didn’t she remind you of anything?” Erik asks us finally.

I don’t have to think hard. The frenetic speech pattern, the animal-like responses,
and most of all, her strange appearance.

“A Remnant,” I say. “But Remnants are more controlled than she was, and her skin wasn’t
scarred.”

“I don’t think she was altered,” Erik says. He speaks in slow, measured words. “This
is something else entirely.”

I shiver at the thought. I want them to help her, but I can’t deny this is something
we haven’t faced before. “It was like she was decaying.”

“I think that’s exactly what happened to her,” Erik says.

“Do you know something about this?” Dante asks him. “From your work with the Guild?”

Erik holds his hands up. He doesn’t look guilty but it’s obvious Dante doesn’t trust
him yet. “There were a lot of rumors flying around the Coventry. I never knew what
to believe. The Guild was always testing new weapons and alterations. If I had to
guess, I think that’s what we’re dealing with. But I have no experience with
this
.”

“Did you touch her?” Dante asks Jost.

“No, why?”

“Until we know what it is we need to assume it’s contagious.”

“I saw it,” I tell them. “It was like a swarm of insects.”

Dante looks to Erik, who nods slowly. I know he saw it, too.

“It’s possible,” Erik says. “They altered people to create Remnants. It wouldn’t be
that hard to manipulate animals or insects in similar ways.”

“You think it was an altered bug?” If he’s right there’s a good possibility I’ll be
seeing these things in my dreams.

“They dictated what came into Arras. They could eradicate entire species, or…” Erik
trails away, leaving us to our imaginations.

“Or create weapons,” Dante finishes.

“We should keep moving,” Erik suggests. I nod in agreement, but before we make it
out of the alley a man appears at its end, blocking our departure. He has the same
decaying appearance as the dead girl.

“We need to get out now,” I murmur.

“You want to run past him?” Dante asks. He has a point. “We need a distraction.”

Erik rummages through his rucksack but comes up empty-handed. “We can shoot him,”
he suggests weakly.

I don’t even know what to say to that suggestion. But I don’t have any suggestions
of my own. In this strange severed existence, I cannot be sure my powers will work.
I could do more harm than good.

“We don’t know how the disease travels. We don’t want any of his blood flying around.
It’s too dangerous,” Dante says.

“I’m out of ideas,” Erik says.

If we touch the man, we could become infected. But how are we going to get past him
without touching him or hurting him?

Dante motions for us to huddle together, but as we come closer, I notice something
is off. Our group is smaller.

“Wait. Where’s Val?” I ask, but I’m afraid I already know. I pop my head out of our
cluster and immediately spot her. She’s no longer waiting silently by us. I know what
she’s doing. And I know why. Valery, so in need of validation after her betrayal,
so eager to prove herself, is going to sacrifice herself. It is too late to stop her.

“Val!” Jost shouts, trying to call her back, but she’s already only a few steps from
the decaying man. She turns just as his arms close over her frail figure. When the
man opens his mouth, a swarm of insects spills out, engulfing Valery. They cover her
skin in a teeming black coat.

“No!” I yell. My fingers whip through the air, trying to latch on to the weave around
us, but Dante grabs my hand.

“Stop,” he commands me. It’s only then that I see the tear I’ve left in my wake. The
weave around it frays, unraveling into thin, brittle strands. This world is dying.
Valery is dying. And I can’t do anything to stop it.

Valery calls into the dead night, but her words are soft. The only one I’m sure I
understand is,
“Run!”

“It’s too late,” Dante says, dragging me beside him. I know he’s right. As we rush
past Valery, the insects have vanished, but then I see them trembling along under
her skin as it puckers and bubbles until the bugs begin to strip her flesh. Even through
her agony, she manages a small smile.

My fingers reach toward her, but Dante pushes me out of the alley and away from her.

“Did anyone touch the girl?” Dante demands.

I can’t bring myself to answer his question. Valery will be dead soon. There’s no
way to stop it. If one of us is infected, we all will be soon.

“Ad!” Dante shakes me.

“She’s clean,” Erik says. “If any of us were infected, there would already be signs.
You saw how quickly it infected Valery.” He places a protective arm around my shoulder,
and Dante turns his attention to the rest of us. No one shows signs of infection.
We have to hope we’re safe, but the truth is that none of us knows what we’re dealing
with.

We keep our lights on and move in a huddle. No one talks. A sense of shared urgency
pulses among us.

“Why would she do that?” Dante finally says. His words are a mix of disgust and admiration,
and I’m almost certain he’s not looking for an answer.

“Guilt.” Erik answers anyway, though his eyes never waver from the street ahead of
us. “She betrayed us. This was her way of making it right.”

I want to thank him for this obvious answer, but I know I’m looking for an outlet
for my anger. I want to crack a joke and make the ache in my chest go away. But it’s
not going to be that easy this time. If it was ever that easy before.

“She didn’t have to get herself killed.” Erik’s words are few, but full of meaning.

“Sometimes death is the only absolution,” Dante says.

I shake my head. I don’t buy that for one minute. “There is no absolution in death,
only escape.”

“There’s absolution in sacrifice,” Erik says softly. I hear it in his voice—the pain
of his own sacrifice. But what has he given up, and why?

“Sebrina’s house should be another block,” Jost says, switching the topic to something
practical to distract us from what we’ve lost.

“What if she isn’t there?” I ask, immediately wishing I hadn’t.

“She’s there,” Jost says. There’s not a trace of doubt in his voice.

I wish I had that kind of conviction. I wish it were as simple as deciding to believe—in
our plan, in the future, in who I am. My world is so tinged with little gray lies
I can’t be sure I know what to do or what to believe in anymore. The Eastern Sector
is playing tricks on my mind.

The darkness creeps around us and I’m reminded of the world I left behind at the Coventry.
But here the monster we face cannot be outwitted. It’s simply a matter of being faster
than it.

It’s as simple as not being touched.

NINETEEN

T
HE STREET IS FULL OF HOUSES THAT
blend into the night, each perfectly plain and unobtrusive. The trees are dying,
their thin branches drooping like broken limbs to the clumps of grass and remains
of plants in each yard. What was once precise and pleasing is now a neighborhood of
ghosts. Any of these houses could be infested by whatever the Guild has unleashed.
There’s no vitality to the weave. Tarnished time threads knit through the brittle,
frayed threads that make up the world around us. Only a few hours ago I believed there
was no Eastern Sector. Now that I’m here I know that, without looms, there won’t be
one much longer. Everything here is dying as time and space slip back into the universe.

We quietly pass each house and I realize I’m holding my breath, waiting for the next
attack.

None comes and that almost makes it worse.

The space between fear and anticipation is a waking nightmare of recrimination and
doubt. I’m perpetually trapped in the knowledge of my own inferiority.

Could I make the sacrifice Valery did?

Would it even matter in the end?

The farther we walk in silence, the more questions tumble through my head. I have
no answers and the lack of finality breeds more doubts until my mind is numb, overstuffed
with questions I can never answer. It is a table of plates with no food—a feast of
famine to gorge my mind on as we move closer to Sebrina.

I focus myself on this mission. I
can
effect change. I
can
save Jost’s daughter.

I can.

I can.

I can.

I repeat it over and over in my head, but I come no closer to believing it.

Jost stops in front of one of the houses and we wait for him to give us instructions.
After a few minutes I realize he’s as stuck as I am, caught in a loop of self-doubt.

I take his hand and hold it. “Let’s get Sebrina.”

But he doesn’t move, only turns to look at me. There’s something imploring in his
eyes. “What if she’s dead?”

“She’s not.” I channel his earlier certainty and try to sound as confident as he did
then.

“She won’t know me,” Jost says. “I’m a stranger, not her father.”

This time Dante is the one to speak. “You will always be her father. Nothing can change
that.”

A lump grows in my throat. Poor Dante is the closest to understanding how Jost feels.

I know what scares Jost. He’s worried that after everything he’s gone through to find
her, Sebrina will reject him. How do you swallow the truth after a diet of lies?

“Let’s check it out,” Erik says, pushing past us.

I want to stop him because I can’t bear to watch another person walk into the unknown.
Instead, I follow him, circling the house to check for signs of people.

The house appears deserted.

“I think it’s abandoned,” I say to Erik.

He gives me a grim look and he doesn’t have to say what I know he’s thinking.
Or they’re dead.

“We won’t know until we go in,” Jost says, moving toward the door.

It’s locked. His hand balls into a fist, but before he can knock against it, the door
opens a crack.

“Are you the doctor?” a small voice asks.

Jost drops to his knees until he’s level with the child peeping through the crack.

“We’ve come to help.” His voice is husky and I can hear the tears he’s holding back.

“My parents are sick,” the child says. “They won’t come out of their room.”

My stomach turns over. They have the virus.

Does Sebrina?

I bend down and smile at her. “Can we come in and help?”

There’s a moment of hesitation, but the girl nods.

As I stand up, Dante whispers in my ear, “Don’t touch her.”

I don’t like that he said it. Not only because I hate what he’s thinking, but also
because I worry what will happen to Jost if Sebrina is ill. And because this is now
an introduction layered with fear instead of joy.

The door opens and there she is. Already half my height, I know she has to be nearly
five years old with the time we’ve spent on Earth. I expect to see the same calculation
in Jost’s eyes when I turn to speak to him. But it’s not there.

Sebrina was a baby when the Guild took her from Jost. Now she’s a young girl, self-sufficient
enough to open the door for the doctor. She has wide, curious eyes that are the same
blue as her father’s. But her hair is dark and curly. She wrinkles her nose and crosses
her arms as she takes us in.

“You don’t look like doctors,” she says.

“We’re not,” I say, gesturing to Jost but adding quickly, “They are.”

As Tailors, Dante and Erik are as close to doctors as it’s possible for any of us
to be right now.

“What are you doing?” Dante whispers in my ear. “We can’t save her parents. We have
no renewal patches and no medicine. They’re probably already dead!”

Sebrina’s eyes flash up to his and her lower lip trembles.

“How long have your parents been sick?” I ask her, ignoring Dante’s paranoia and taking
her small hand.

“Father left to get food. He said it was too dark for me to come along, but I miss
going outside and I miss the sun.” She speaks in the rambles of a young child, trying
to get the information out as quickly as possible, but getting distracted along the
way.

“I know.” I squeeze her hand. “When did your father go out for food?”

“I don’t know,” she says, tears welling in her eyes.

“Ad,” Erik calls, and I find him in the kitchen. “He managed to find some.” On the
counter sit a few boxes of co-op instant dinners.