The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [95]
Parts of the drawing have been blasted clean by the wind but much of it is still there on the section sheltered from the worst weather.
“Who did this?” she asks, her voice soft as a whisper.
I stare at my feet, cheeks burning, unable to take credit. But she knows—just from seeing me squirm she figures it out.
“I had no idea,” she says, mesmerized, her eyes taking in the flow of lines.
I shrug. “It’s nothing. Really.”
She turns back to me. “No, it’s good, Annah. Really good. I could never do anything like this.”
I blush harder. “I just …” I shrug again, trying to figure out how to explain the night on the roof after the infected woman jumped and I found her powders and stains. How something welled in me like a scream that dulled with the color and movement.
“I guess I never really knew I could do it either,” I finally say, just to fill the silence. “I never took the time before.”
She presses her hand against the wall. “It’s beautiful,” she says, staring back at me.
It takes everything I have not to duck my head. Instead I smile and accept the compliment: “Thank you.”
That night I pull the covers over my head and try to will away the darkness. I’m tangled in nightmares when some part of me feels the mattress sag, feels a body slipping under the blankets.
The Recruiter on the platform immediately rears in my mind and I’m about to lash out when the bright heat of Catcher’s body pushes up against my back, his arms wrapping around my waist and his face pressing the nape of my neck.
Before I can say anything, before I can even utter his name, his lips move against my skin. “I can’t do it, Annah, I can’t,” he murmurs, his breath whispering over the tiny hairs along my spine.
“Catcher, what’s going on?” I try not to let fear creep into my voice as I turn to face him, but he holds me in place, wrapped around me. He feels so hot, and I can’t tell whether it’s the natural heat of him or if there’s something else causing it.
He weaves his fingers through mine, holding them so tight it’s like he’d be lost if he let go. “I can’t save them,” he finally says.
“Catcher—” I start to respond, but his body begins to tremble and his voice cracks.
“I tried. I’ve done everything I know how to do. But they keep dying. The survivors in the Dark City keep dying, and it’s my fault. I can bring some here and give them a chance but even that—”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” I tell him, pulling our hands up until I can press my lips to his burning knuckles. His wrists feel dangerously thin. Every part of him seems fragile.
“It’s not okay. I’m the only one who can save them. I’m the only one who can get supplies to them—food and blankets and wood and I just can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t handle it. I’ve tried and tried and …”
He takes a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t know what to do anymore. The City’s going to die and it’s all going to be my fault.”
“Oh, Catcher.” I grasp his hand tighter, my heart aching for him. “You can’t save them all. You’re only one person.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” he says. “What it sounds like when they see that I have food. When I carry it to the cable car to bring here. How they call out to me and the desperation in their eyes. You don’t know what it’s like to watch them die and know that if you’d just tried harder … if you’d just been better …”
He swallows whatever he was going to say next. I don’t know what to tell him to make it okay. I don’t know how to fix this. “You haven’t been eating,” I say and he doesn’t answer me, just presses his face against my back, his tears hot on my skin.
“There was a girl,” he finally says. “This morning there was a girl on a fire escape and she called out to me. She had a baby. This skinny little boy who clutched at her legs when she cried for me to stop.” He pauses, as if seeing it all in his mind.
Taking a deep breath, he continues. “She told me they were out of food. She said she’d heard about me. That I could cross the horde and bring supplies. She begged me.…” His voice breaks. “She begged me,” he says again.
His body shakes and he has a hard time catching