The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [52]
“And you grew up with Catcher?” I ask. I think about him standing in the middle of the Unconsecrated as if he were one of them. I think about the heat of him burning against my chest and thighs as he carried me through the dark tunnel.
I want to know more about him. I want to understand him.
She nods. “He was …” Her eyes lose focus for a moment and then she blinks fast. “He was my best friend’s older brother.” She walks closer to the Unconsecrated man. She’s staring at him as if trying to figure something out, trying to see the person he’d once been.
“He changed after he was bitten.” She laughs a little self-consciously. “I mean, of course he changed—he was infected and thought he’d die, but …”
I remember the moment I thought I’d been bitten when we were running from the horde in the Neverlands. The dread that all those years of fighting and struggling were suddenly worthless.
“How?” My voice comes out raw and I swallow before I continue. “How did he change? What was he like before?” It’s cold in the darkness and I cross my arms tightly over my chest, trying to keep in the heat.
My sister reaches out a finger, pressing it to the metal wheel containing the Unconsecrated, letting its dull rim turn under her flesh. “He was happy before.” She says it with such finality, as if his happiness existed in a past that is lost forever.
I frown. Hearing this makes me sad—more than sad, angry. Suddenly I realize how important his happiness is to me, which throws me off balance. “You don’t think he can be happy again?”
She presses her hand harder against the metal wheel, causing it to jerk and stop, the lights around us dimming. I want to grab her arm and pull her away but she seems so focused that I don’t move.
“I’m not sure anyone can,” she finally says. “Not anymore.”
I let out a strained laugh. “I saw you and Elias just now. You can’t tell me that’s not happiness.”
The Unconsecrated man moans and reaches for my sister, the chains holding him in the wheel rattling. I can almost smell the metal burning away the flesh of her palm, and I’m just starting to reach for her when she steps away and the wheel jerks forward, the Unconsecrated stumbling and falling.
The lights go out and we’re dipped into pure darkness for a moment. “I’m the one who woke the horde,” my sister says softly. She takes a deep shuddering breath and I don’t know what to say, what to tell her.
Slowly, the wheel starts to move again as the Unconsecrated finds his footing. There’s wheezing and creaking before the lights hum and begin to burn again with a low buzz. My sister holds one hand in the other, the palm red and smooth. In the dull light she turns to me, her eyes appearing hollow. “It’s my fault they’re coming to the City. I brought them here. I’m the reason the entire island across the river is gone. Dead.”
I frown. What she’s saying doesn’t make sense and I shake my head, wishing I knew how to respond but unable to stop staring at her red palm.
It’s as if she needs to confess. “Catcher and I were trying to escape and we crossed a bridge and the horde was in the valley and it was my blood …” She pauses and swallows. Turning back to the Unconsecrated, she says, “If I hadn’t been there—if we hadn’t escaped, they couldn’t have followed us out.”
In my mind I see the bridge she’s talking about. I remember crossing it with Elias during the storm, the bodies littering the ground so far below. “It doesn’t matter,” I finally tell her. I wish I could say something better, something she wants to hear. “They would have come eventually.”
“All those people.” Her face is white, lips colorless. “They’re all dying because of me.” She looks at me, almost desperate. “How can I be happy finally being with Elias again when I’ve killed so many people?”
I stare at the dead man, who will always keep walking. So long as there are living he can sense, he’ll be struggling