Meridian. Josin L McQuein
Tobin says.
Of all the people inside the Arclight, Honoria is least likely to break the rules of contact with someone Fade-touched, and she’s always seen me as contaminated. What gives?
“I don’t wear these to protect myself; I wear them to protect everyone else. With you, there’s no need.”
She fixes the glove back in place and drags a chair across the room to the front.
“Are those burns?” I ask.
“Collateral damage,” she says in a weary voice. “I made a choice many, many years ago, and that was to not be like those who live outside this compound. I’m not like you. The suppressants help, but I can’t be cured with a dart and an inhaler. If I want to stay free of the Fade, it costs me.”
She can’t honestly think going from Cherish to Marina cost me nothing.
“The nanites have never stopped replicating in my system; when they start to spike, I do the only thing that works: I cut myself, drawing them to the wound, and burn them out again.”
“You kill them for trying to help you!”
“Help is a subjective concept.”
The only things keeping me in my skin and in this room are Tobin and the sound of laughter and feet. Anne-Marie returns with a line of students who go silent when they see Honoria waiting at the front.
“Everyone, stand to the side and mind the glass,” Honoria says. “Once it’s clear, you can take a seat.”
The children all file into a line against the wall, as though this were a Red-Wall drill. Anne-Marie joins me and Tobin as we lean against the teacher’s desk at the back while Honoria quickly clears as much of the mess as she can.
“What happened?” Anne-Marie asks, looking at my hand and at the towel wrapped into my fist.
“You abandoned her,” Tobin says, but she doesn’t take the bait.
“Marina?” she asks instead.
I can’t really explain beyond saying, “It was an accident.”
She scowls at me, as though dropping bottles of juice was a violation of her order not to try and kill Honoria.
“Uh-huh.” She crosses her arms and sets her sights on the front of the room, where the children have started to chatter nervously in line.
“I thought she left,” one boy whispers.
“She didn’t leave, she went nuts,” another beside him answers.
“Why’s she here?” a girl asks nervously.
“No one’s told you?” Honoria asks, silencing them. Her hearing’s as keen as mine—she caught every whisper. “Usually, those with older siblings get clued in early.”
She shoves the bottle bin under her chair and takes a seat. A reverent hush falls over the faces watching her with absolute attention.
“I’m here to tell you what lies beyond our borders, lurking out of the light.”
She raises her head, looking me straight in the eye.
“Today, I tell you the truth about the Fade.”
TOBIN
Marina twitches, ready to jump up, but Annie’s hand nails hers to the desk.
“This is how things work,” Annie says.
“How they stay broken, you mean,” Marina mutters, pulling her hand free to tuck it under her arm. Her other hand tightens its grip on the towel, but she doesn’t argue.
She should—and a lot more.
Honoria’s twisted truths nearly forced a war between us and the Fade—one we would have lost.
“This is her first chance to make it right,” Annie says. “I want to know if she takes it.”
“You think she will?” Marina’s hoping for a yes, I can tell, but she should know better.
“This is how we find out.” Annie shrugs. She pushes off the desk to replace the shattered juice bottles with new ones from the room’s snack dispenser.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell Marina.
“I want to,” she says. “If Honoria’s going to lie, let her do it to my face.”
It wouldn’t be the first time.
I take a seat beside her on the desk, too tired to stand without moving. Every time my eyes relax, they conjure up shapes and shadows in the corners. I shake my head and focus on the front of the room, where the lights are brightest.
The scene’s surreal. Aside from Annie and the juice stains, it looks exactly like it did the day Honoria gave our class this speech—right down to the cookies and the cushions on the floor. The patches on the kids’ sleeves are the ones we wore. Honoria’s holding the same book she read to us. We could be watching a recording of that day, her voice is so similar.
“Sky’s gotten worse since he saw Dad beyond the safety fires. He wanders a lot, talking to himself. He doesn’t eat and doesn’t sleep. I catch him staring out the windows into the darkness, and I know we’re going to lose him, and soon.”
“Are you awake?” Marina asks, and I realize I’m drifting.
I was out of it just enough that the sequence Honoria read played out in my head, as though it was happening in real time.
I blink, and Marina’s hair turns to tarlike sludge dripping down her face. There’s an ocean of it all around, so deep that only the kids’ heads are above it. It’s over my ankles.
I wrench backward to pull my legs free, but they’re clean and dry, and the room is normal again. No one noticed a thing—except Marina.
“Tobin?”
“Sorry,” I say, lowering my feet off the desk. “Dozed off.”
She looks at me weird, but only for a moment before turning back to Honoria. I look for something sharp to hold in my palm. If I can squeeze it, the pain will keep me awake.
I don’t remember Honoria tearing up when she read this to us, but she is now. The light pinging off her eyes turns them shiny. It’s an illusion, but it makes me shiver.
She does the same and has to take a drink of water before she can read more.
“It’s how Tracey acted before she changed,” she says, monotone now. “And how Major Gardener used to stare before he went after his wife. Sky’s not listening to real people anymore. All he hears is Jimmy, and Jimmy’s been gone a week.”
Marina’s enthralled. This all new for her, and she’s probably hoping Honoria will share something worth her attention, but she won’t. Honoria won’t even admit what she is—not here.
Her eyes don’t glow like a Fade’s, but she’s not completely human. She’s a freak of nature. Frozen, like the memory of the people in that book. Too many of our elders use that as an excuse for pity.
Her snapping was understandable, they’d say. It’s remarkable she fared so well for so long .
What a load of crap.
They’re lazy.
They’re so used to her doing the hard things and making the difficult decisions for them, they’ve put her on a no-fault system. Whatever she did, she had a good reason .
They’ve forgotten how to think for themselves.
Even Dad, with his: She was a kid, too, Tobin . She