“Catcher, wait!” I call.
He stops in front of me and I see his shoulders rising and falling rapidly as if he’s trying to catch his breath. He doesn’t turn around and I go and place my hands on his back, tracing his spine. “Don’t do that, Gabrielle,” he says, glancing over his shoulder for just a moment, his eyes bright, before he turns and stomps on.
“Don’t do what?” I ask him, not understanding what he’s talking about.
He turns abruptly and my hands press against his chest. He grabs my wrists and holds them away from his body. “Don’t remind me of how everything’s different. Of us.”
My eyes go wide, my jaw dropping, but I don’t know what to say. He’s so severe and angry and I have no idea what’s going on.
He shakes me slightly. He opens his mouth but it’s as though he can’t find the words. And then before I know it he lowers his head to mine but stops just as his lips are hovering over my own. His skin is almost painfully hot, the heat scorching up my arms.
I have a hard time catching my breath. I ache to twitch my head forward, to press my mouth over his. I lean forward just barely and he backs away, keeping the distance between us.
“I want this—you—so badly,” he says, his teeth clenched. “I want to forget everything. To just pretend that nothing’s changed and you can be mine and I can dream about us together one day.”
His fingers are tight around my wrists, squeezing me. My chest feels bound as all the air is pushed from my body. He’s saying all the words I’ve always wanted to hear from him—that we could be together—but somehow it’s all wrong now and the pain of it is almost physical.
“I can be yours,” I tell him. “I am yours.”
His grip on me tightens and he closes his eyes, his breath shuddering as he brushes his mouth across my cheek and then along my jaw and across my forehead. His heat marks me and I’m shaking because I want so much more of him.
I try to reach for him, to pull him closer but he pushes me away. He stands there staring at me, both of us gulping air. A line of sweat weaves down my back. I wait for him to say something—anything to explain what’s going on. But he’s totally silent.
“Catcher,” I say, moving closer. My voice is a whisper, a plea, a question. He just holds up a hand to keep me away. And then he turns back and runs down the path to the others. I don’t even bother to chase him. I’m too stunned to even move. I can only bend over at the waist and grasp my knees with my hands, trying to breathe. Trying to figure out what just happened and what I’ve done wrong.
I feel bruised and sore and dazed. The Mudo are still moaning, only now it’s impossible to see them clearly in the darkness. It sounds as if they’re all around me, as if I’m trapped by them. I hear snaps and rustles from the Forest, each sound scraping across my nerves.
I start down the path to the safety of the others and by the time I make it back I’m almost sprinting, positive that the fences have been breached, that the Mudo are chasing me. I burst into the small clearing where Elias and Cira sit next to a fire. He jumps to his feet, catching me in his arms.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. He looks past me up the path, reaching for his knife.
My words are choked with panic. “Mudo,” I gasp. “The moans …”
Elias pushes me behind him and takes a few steps down the path. Cira reaches for me.
“Did they breach?” Elias asks. He looks ready to fight.
“I—I don’t know,” I stammer. “They seemed so close. Like they were right there on the path.”
He waits a while longer, the moans wafting over and around us. Finally my heartbeat calms, my mind clears. No bodies stumble into our little band of light.
“I think I just let it get to me,” I finally say, embarrassed at having panicked. “It was just dark and …”
Cira holds my hand in hers. “It’s okay,” she says softly. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
I turn to her, not realizing until now how much I needed to hear that. She pulls me into a hug and I want to sag against her but I’m careful, knowing that she’s still weak from dehydration and blood loss. I should be the one holding her, not the other way around. But right now I just need someone to reassure me.
“Where’s Catcher?” I ask her, wondering if I’ve driven him away completely.
She studies my face. Did Catcher tell her about me? Did he tell her about our almost-kiss? About him running away when I tried to press against him? Does she understand at all what’s going on with him?
“He said he wanted to retrace our steps, make sure no one followed us into the Forest,” she says, yawning.
I narrow my eyes and glance at Elias, who shrugs. I didn’t even think about that possibility—the chance that the Militia or Recruiters might be after us. It seems like it would be such a stupid risk—one that none of us is worth. I lie down beside Cira, wondering with each twig cracking if it’s the Mudo coming after us or if it’s some other threat we don’t know about yet.
“They’ve followed us,” Catcher says abruptly the next morning. We’ve been passing what little food we have around and trying to ignore the shuffling of the Mudo along the fence on either side of us. I stop mid-bite at Catcher’s words and wait for his eyes to flicker toward me, to see something that shows me how he feels about what happened between us last night. But he’s been avoiding my gaze ever since he got back.
“What?” I ask. Cira and Elias echo the same question.
“I cut through the Forest last night—these paths curve a lot,” Catcher says. Cira stiffens as her brother talks about roaming through the Forest with the Mudo but she doesn’t say anything. “I made it almost all the way back to the river and to Vista.” He glances at Elias and then down at the strap of the canteen that he twists in his fingers. “They’re making the Soulers extend the fences on the path to the bridge over the waterfall so that they can follow us without risking running through the Forest.”
Elias blanches and then clenches his hands into fists, the muscles tight along his jaw.
“What are you talking about, Catcher?” Cira asks, and I nod my head, still not understanding what’s going on.
“I don’t know who it is—whether it’s the Militia or the Recruiters or both. But they’re preparing to enter the Forest. To come after us on the path.”
Suddenly everything I’d eaten that morning feels sour in my stomach.
“Why would they come after us?” Cira asks. “They can’t care about me that much. I know I was supposed to join the Recruiters but why would they risk it?”
I push myself to my feet and take a few steps away from them. In my mind I see Daniel. I see the stain of red on his shirt. I see the way he looked at me. They’re after me, not Cira. They’re not going to let me get away with what I did. It’s all catching up to me except this time I’ve put my friends in danger too.
The realization dazes me and I start chewing on my thumbnail, turning everything over in my head. Everyone else talking falls to a buzz that fades into the background with the moans. “I’ll turn myself in.” I don’t even realize that I’ve spoken, don’t even remember forming the thought.
Catcher and Elias and Cira stare up at me, all of them surprised. “It’s me they’re after. For what I did to Daniel. I’ll go back down the path. You keep going. You’ll be safe.” I say the words in a monotone but it feels good to own up to what I’ve done. As if retribution for my running away that night at the amusement park has finally come full circle.
“I don’t understand. What does Daniel have to do with this?” Cira asks, her eyebrows drawn tight.
I turn to her but I can’t make myself say it. Catcher reaches out and takes her hand, shaking his head as if telling her not to ask. She presses her lips tight.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Catcher says.
“No,” I tell him. My heart is light, fluttery, like a hummingbird beating in my throat. “I killed him. I have to own up to it.”
Cira gasps, raising a hand t
o her mouth. Her eyes are wide and I look away from her.
“I’ve made up my mind,” I tell them. And I have. I’m terrified but this feels right.
Elias stares down the path, tapping his fingers against his hip. “Did you see them? See the Soulers?” he asks. His forehead is furrowed, as if he’s lost in thought.
Catcher nods.
“Who else was there? Were there Recruiters?”
I look back and forth between the two, trying to understand what point Elias is trying to make.
Catcher nods again. “Yeah, I think they were the ones shouting to the Soulers how to put the fences up.”
Elias presses his lips together and then runs a hand over his head, rubbing the hair growing in. “It doesn’t make sense,” he tells Catcher. “The Recruiters wouldn’t care about Daniel. Wouldn’t get involved in what they thought was Vista’s business to handle.” He laces his hands together and pulls on the back of his neck, his shoulders tensing. “And you’re sure you saw the Recruiters involved?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Catcher says, but his voice is hesitant. “I can go back and check, though. Tonight.”
Cira grabs his hand. “It’s too dangerous,” she murmurs to him.
“Gabry can’t go back there,” he says to her under his breath. “They’ll kill her.”
Hearing it put so starkly hits me like the crush of a wave. “Why else would they be after us?” I ask them. My voice barely carries any volume.
“Did anyone see you?” Elias asks Catcher, cutting into our conversation. “When you took the Mudo to the town did anyone see you with them?”
Catcher’s eyes open wide. “I …” He hesitates, thinking. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He looks up at the sky as if trying to relive that stretch of time. Everything around us seems to go quiet, the birds ceasing their morning chirps, even the moans receding just a little, as if all the Mudo waver at once. And then Catcher’s face goes pale and he drops his gaze back down to face us.
“There was someone,” he says. “When I got over the Barrier. I didn’t think about it because they ran when they saw the Mudo.”
“But you think they saw you with the Mudo?” Elias asks.
Catcher nods slowly. Cira and I stare at each other, both of us clearly lost about what’s going on.
Elias presses two fingers against the space between his closed eyes. “They’re not after Gabry,” he says. “They’re after Catcher. If they saw him with the Mudo they’ve figured out he’s immune.”
“So what?” Cira asks. “So what if he’s immune? Why would they care enough to risk the Forest?”
I hug my arms around my chest. The relief makes me feel weak, makes it hard to stand. They’re not after me; I don’t have to turn myself in. But these thoughts make me feel traitorous. How can I be relieved when Catcher is now the one who could be in trouble? When we’ve merely switched places?
“You don’t understand,” Elias says. “Immunity is rare—rarer than rare. Practically nonexistent. The Recruiters are desperate for Immunes.”
Cira opens her mouth to protest but he cuts her off. I can see the agitation prickling at Elias’s body as he talks. “An Immune can go anywhere. Do anything.” He begins to pace, tight little circles that make me dizzy to watch.
“Do you know how many towns and cities are out there that are so overrun with Unconsecrated that it’s impossible for any living person to get to them?” he asks. “Everything in the safe areas has been picked over. All the cities that survived—we’ve taken what we can from them. Think about all the places out there where an Immune could go and get supplies. And not just that: an Immune is the perfect weapon. They can walk into the middle of one of the hordes and kill every last Unconsecrated. They can rescue trapped men.” He puts his hands to his head. “The Recruiters, they’d do anything to get their hands on an Immune.”
Cira’s face is as pale as mine feels. I never considered this about Catcher, never thought about what the immunity really meant on a larger scale. All I cared about was that he hadn’t died—wasn’t going to die. That we could still be together. My legs feel shaky and I let myself crumple until I’m sitting on the ground. We’re all silent, considering this new information, each of us figuring out how it changes us and our relationship with Catcher.
“Then I’ll go back,” he says softly.
Cira yelps, “No!” She grabs his arm. “Not when I thought I’d lost you before. Not now—I need you. No, Catcher.”
He places a hand against her cheek but she just shakes her head. “No,” she says again. “No.”
“It’s like Gabry said.” He glances at me, holds my eyes. “It’s the only way to keep us safe. To keep the people I love safe.”
I can’t help but hold my breath when he says this. To feel the sizzle of the words along my skin. The people he loves, I think. “You can’t go,” I tell him softly. “Please.”
In just that second it feels as if we’re alone here. That everything else that’s going on drops away. There’s no Mudo, there’s no infection or path or Recruiters. It’s just us, looking at each other the way we did that night in the amusement park before our first kiss. I want to take this moment and wrap it up tightly and hold on to it forever.
But then Elias clears his throat and I’m snapped away. “That won’t stop them from coming after us,” he says. “That’s the problem. The Recruiters can’t control the Immunes—they just walk away into a horde or something if they want to escape. So the Recruiters capture and keep anyone close to the Immune. That’s the only way to make sure they come back—hold someone they love and the Immune will do their duty and always come back.”
I draw in a sharp gasp, looking at Cira.
“Me?” she says, her eyes wide and frightened.
Elias nods, glancing at me. “All of us,” he says. “We all escaped with him. Therefore they’ll think we all mean something to him. I’ve heard about it happening before.”
Catcher spits on the ground and walks away from us down the path, his hands laced tightly behind his head, knuckles white. I want to go take his arm in mine, soothe him, but the implications of what Elias is saying reverberate in my head. We’re all targets now. None of us can go back.
“We have time,” Cira says to her brother. “You said they weren’t even in the Forest yet. That the Soulers were still connecting the path to the bridge.”
Catcher shakes his head, pacing back to us. “I can’t, Cira,” he says. “I can’t let them use the Soulers like that. If any of them die it’s my fault.”
I’m about to tell him that if they die from being infected it’s probably what they’d want but Elias speaks up first.
“They’re not forcing the Soulers to do the work,” he says. “They’re doing it voluntarily. That’s the thing. To the Recruiters you’re a tool. But to the Soulers you’re like a prophet—you’ve survived the infection. They’ll do anything to get to you, just as much as the Recruiters will.”
Catcher drops his face into his hands. I just stand there staring at everyone. A part of me wants to release the pressure and fear inside me, to laugh at how everything’s changed so quickly again. At how crazy this world can be. Last week Catcher was just a normal guy with a normal future ahead of him. And now he’s gone from facing his own death to facing a cult that wants to worship him and an army that wants to use him.
“What do we do?” I voice the words I’m sure everyone else is thinking.
“We keep going,” Elias says simply.
We sit in silence, everyone lost in their own thoughts, trying to make sense of what’s happening. And then Catcher sighs and offers a hand to Cira and then one to me. His skin is still hot when I grasp him but it’s now a familiar heat and I wonder if I’ll ever think of Catcher again as he was before.
I stare down the path as we start moving again. Somewhere ahead of us is my mother. All I can hope is that if we can only find her everything will be okay. The way it was when I was a child and I’d scrape my knees
and elbows and she’d kiss them to make them better. All my life she’s been able to make it all right. It’s the hope that I hold on to as we walk and walk and walk on this endless path.
Because Cira is still weak and slower and Catcher and Elias have stayed back to walk with her I’m the first to come to the branch in the path and I drop my pack to the ground.
The fences on either side of the path seem different here, more fragile. The metal twisted and fatigued. I bend my fingers around it and tug, wondering if it can hold off the Mudo. When I pull my hand back my palm is coated in black like ash and I wipe it against my shirt.
The Forest here is thick and lush, but still fairly young growth. In the distance I can see a large tree with old burns and I close my eyes, trying to think back. Do I remember a fire? Do I remember the blackened tree trunks?
I kick at the fence in frustration and I hear the clank of something shifting. I bend down to look and that’s when I find a bar identical to the one on the gate, this one crusted with ash and dirt. Surprised, I smudge away the grime until I see the letters: VI.
This is the second number I’ve found, the second marker on the paths. I sink back on my heels, realizing what it means: The Forest has a code. Whispers of something skirt around the edges of my mind, tugging and then dancing away. Nothing I can grasp or examine.
“It looks like the paths are marked,” I tell the others when they catch up. I point to the bar. “This one is number six and the other is eight. The last one at the gate was four.”
“We must be getting deeper into the Forest,” Catcher says. “Maybe they’re like depth markers or something. A way to tell the distance.”
I scrunch my face. “Maybe,” I say, but I’m not convinced. I glance at Elias but he’s silent as he helps Cira to the ground, where she drapes her bandaged arms over her legs and takes deep breaths.
We should rest here. We shouldn’t push her as hard. And yet every time we try to make her take a break she refuses. We’re all aware of the Recruiters at our backs.