The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [19]
“Annah—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Why are you asking me these things? What’s going on?”
He stands up, arms by his sides as if he’s trying to prove he’s not dangerous. I don’t fall for it. I scour the station, trying to figure out where I could run to get away. My stomach heaves again, throwing me off balance, and I stagger.
He steps forward to help me but I hold up my arms, warding him off. “Stay away from me,” I growl.
Something hardens in his eyes. “I need to know if you’re infected,” he says, his tone blunt.
It takes a moment for my mind to process the meaning of his words but they don’t make sense. “Why would I be infected?”
“Because you’re clearly sick—you can barely stay on your feet. There’s something wrong with you and you touched my blood when we fell,” he says matter-of-factly.
I frown. I’ve seen plenty of infected people—like the woman from last night. I know what it looks like and I know how it’s caused and there’s no way that’s what’s wrong with me. I haven’t been bitten; therefore, I can’t be infected. “Why would your blood have anything to do with it?”
He stares at me for a long time, his jaw clenching as if he’s frustrated at my lack of understanding. “Because I’m infected,” he finally says.
I nod slowly and cross my arms over my chest. “I know. I saw what happened on the bridge. But I’m fairly certain you can’t pass the infection until you’re dead, and as far as I can tell, that hasn’t happened to you yet.”
I realize suddenly how flippant I sound. While I’ve known he’s infected, I haven’t really thought about what that means to him. That he’s dying. The man standing in front of me, who looks strong and healthy and handsome, will be dead in a matter of days. I’m used to people becoming infected and dying and Returning—it happens all the time in the Neverlands and it’s contained pretty quickly. It’s something we’re used to seeing—something I’m used to seeing. Just not to people I know, since I make a point to know no one.
What a waste. And then a small voice whispers in my head that I’m trapped underground with an Infected. That this is serious—I don’t know exactly where I am, where he carried me when I blacked out. I don’t know where my knife is. Catcher’s infected and I don’t really know how much time he has, which makes him dangerous, and once he dies he’ll come for me. Like with the woman last night, I might be the one to have to kill him. He could even turn Breaker if there aren’t other plague rats around that he can sense, and I’m not sure my little knife would be a match for that kind of speed and ferocity.
Anxiety begins to burn under my skin and I start feeling restless—my legs itching to run even though the rest of my body feels weak. “I’m not infected,” I assure him.
Something shifts in his eyes and he turns away but not before I see sadness flooding his face. “We can’t be sure yet. It could still be inside you,” he says.
I walk past him back to the fire and kneel next to my quilt and bag. I feel a little woozy and press my hand to the ground to steady myself. My fingers shake as I pretend to fold the quilt while I look for my knife.
I hear a clatter behind me and then metal sliding over concrete as Catcher drops my knife and kicks it over to me. I stare at it before glancing up at him.
“You’re not going to need it,” he says, still keeping his distance. “At least not against me. I’m not going to turn—I’m immune.”
I wrap my fingers around the handle, flicking my thumb over the blade. Fire shines along the metal without a trace of his blood. He cleaned it after I passed out. “You’re immune to being stabbed?” I ask.
A small smile flickers over his lips. It’s lopsided, one side of his mouth ticking higher than the other. It’s gone as fast as it came and it leaves me slightly off balance. He looked so different, so much younger and relaxed.
He looked