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.Even this  I touch my fingers tomy neck, running them over the three-pronged scar  thiswas made-up too.Julian still doesn t say anything, although he has inchedbackward even farther and used the wall to pull himself intoa seated position.He keeps his knees bent, hands andfeet flat on the floor, as though if he could, he would springforward and run. I know you don t have a lot of reason to trust me rightnow, I say. But I m asking you to trust me anyway.If westay here, we ll be killed.I can get us out.But I m going toneed your help.There is a question in my words, and I stop, waiting forThere is a question in my words, and I stop, waiting forJulian s answer.For a long time there is silence.At last he croaks out, You.The venom in his voice surprises me. What? You, he repeats.And then,  You did this.To me.My heart starts beating hard against my chest,painfully.For a second I think I almost hope that he shaving some kind of attack, a hallucination or fantasy. What are you talking about? Your people, he says, and then I get a sick taste inmy mouth and I know that he s perfectly lucid.I know exactlywhat he means, and what he thinks. Your people did this. No, I say, and then repeat it a little more emphatically. No.We had nothing to do with  You re an Invalid.That s what you re telling me, right?You re infected. Julian s fingers are trembling lightlyagainst the ground, with a noise like the patter of rain.He sfurious, I realize, and probably scared, too. You re sick.He nearly spits out the word. Those aren t my people out there, I say, and now Ihave to stop the anger from coming and dragging meunder: It is a black force, a current tugging at the edges ofmy mind. Those people aren t&  I almost say, They aren thuman. They re not Invalids. Liar, Julian snarls.There it is.Just like the raccoonwhen Bram finally went to lift it from the mud and it leapt,snapping, and sank its teeth into the flesh of his right hand.The sick taste in my throat comes all the way from mystomach.I stand up, hoping Julian won t see that I, too, amshaking. You don t know what you re talking about, I say. You don t know anything about us, and you don t knowanything about me. Tell me, Julian says, still with that undercurrent ofrage and coldness.Each word sounds hard-edged andcutting. When did you catch it?I laugh, even though none of it is funny.The world isupside down and everything is shit and my life has beencleaved and there are two different Lenas running parallelto each other, the old and the new, and they will never, everbe whole again.And I know Julian won t help me now.I wasan idiot to think that he would.He s a zombie, just likeRaven has always said.And zombies do what they werebuilt to do: They trundle forward, blindly obedient, until theyrot away for good.Well, not me.I fish the knife out from under themattress and sit on the cot, then begin running the bladequickly along the metal bedpost, sharpening it, takingpleasure in the way it catches the light. It doesn t matter, I say to Julian. None of it matters. How? he persists. Who was it?The black space inside me gives a tiny shudder,widens another inch. Go to hell, I say to Julian, but calmlynow, and I keep my eyes on the knife, flashing, flashing,flashing, like a sign pointing the way out of the dark.thenWe stay four days at the first encampment.On the nightbefore we are supposed to set out again, Raven takes measide. It s time, she says.I m still angry at her for what she said to me at thetraps, although the rage has been replaced by a dull,thudding resentment.All this time, she has knowneverything about me.I feel as though she has reached intome, to a deep place, and broken something. Time for what? I say.Behind me, the campfire is burning low.Blue andSarah and some of the others have fallen asleep outside, atangle of blankets and hair and legs.They have begun tosleep this way a lot, like a human patchwork: It keeps themwarm.Lu and Grandpa are conversing in low voices.Grandpa is chewing some of his last tobacco, working it inand out of his mouth, spitting occasionally into the fire andcausing a burst of green flame.The others must have goneinto the tents.Raven gives me the barest trace of a smile. Time foryour cure.My heart jumps in my chest.The night is sharply cold,and it hurts my lungs to breathe deeply.Raven leads meaway from the camp, one hundred feet down along thestream, to a broad, flat stretch of bank.This is where we vebroken through the thick layer of ice every morning to pullwater.Bram is already there.He has built another fire.Thisone is burning high and hot, and my eyes sting with ash andsmoke when we re still five feet away.The wood isarranged in a teepee formation, and at its crown, blue andwhite flames are licking up toward the sky.The smoke is aneraser, blurring the stars above us. Ready? Raven asks. Just about, Bram says. Five minutes. He issquatting next to a warped wooden bucket, which is nestledbetween pieces of wood on the periphery of the fire.He willhave soaked it with water so it doesn t catch and burn.Theproximity of the fire will eventually cause the water in thebucket to boil.I see him remove a small, thin instrumentfrom a bag at his feet.It looks like a screwdriver, with a thin,round shaft, a sharp and glittering tip [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]