Legend

“You’re being careful, right?” he asks. In the dark, we can pass for twins. Same hair, same eyes. Same expression. “I don’t want you putting yourself in unnecessary danger. If there’s any way for me to help you, I’ll do it. Maybe I can sneak out with you sometimes and—”

I scowl. “Don’t be stupid. If the soldiers catch you, you’ll all die. You know that.” John’s frustrated expression makes me feel guilty for dismissing his help so quickly. “I’m faster this way. Seriously. Better that only one of us is out there hunting for the money. You won’t do Mom any good if you’re dead.”

John nods, although I can tell he wants to say more. I avoid it by turning away. “I’ve got to go,” I say. “I’ll see you soon.”

DAY MUST HAVE THOUGHT I’D FALLEN ASLEEP. BUT I SEE him get up and leave in the middle of the night, so I follow him. He breaks into a quarantine zone, enters a house marked with a three-lined X, and reappears several minutes later.

It’s all I need to know.

I climb to the roof of a nearby building. Once there, I crouch in the shadows of a chimney and turn my mike on. I’m so angry with myself that I can’t stop my voice from shaking. I’d let myself get carried away with the last person I ever wanted to like. That I ever wanted to ache for.

Maybe Day didn’t kill Metias, I tell myself. Maybe it was someone else. God—am I making excuses to protect this boy now?

I’ve acted like an idiot in front of Metias’s murderer. Have the streets of Lake turned me into some simpleminded girl? Have I just shamed the memory of my brother?

“Thomas,” I whisper, “I found him.”

A full minute of static passes before I hear Thomas answer me. When he does, he sounds oddly detached. “Can you repeat that, Ms. Iparis?”

My temper rises. “I said I found him. Day. He just visited a house in one of Lake’s quarantine zones, a house with a three-lined X on its door. Corner of Figueroa and Watson.”

“Are you sure?” Thomas sounds more alert now. “You’re absolutely sure.”

I take the pendant out of my pocket. “Yes. No doubt about it.”

Some commotion on the other side. His voice grows excited. “Corner of Figueroa and Watson. That’s the special plague case we’re meant to investigate tomorrow morning. You’re sure it’s Day?” he asks again.

“Yes.”

“Medic trucks will be at the house tomorrow. We’re to take the inhabitants to the Central Hospital.”

“Then send for extra troops. I want backup when Day shows up to protect his family.” I remember the way Day had crawled under the floorboards. “He’ll have no time to get them out, so he’ll probably hide them somewhere in the house. We should take them to Batalla Hall’s hospital wing. No one’s to be hurt. I want them there for questioning.”

Thomas seems taken aback by my tone. “You’ll have your troops,” he manages to say. “And I hope to hell you’re right.”

The feel of Day’s lips, our heated kiss, and his hands running across my skin—it should all mean nothing to me now. Worse than nothing. “I am right.”

I return to the alley before Day can find me missing.

DURING THE FEW HOURS OF SLEEP I MANAGE TO GET before dawn, I dream of home.

At least, it seems like the home I remember. John sits with our mother at one end of the dining table, reading to her from a book of old Republic tales. Mom nods encouragingly to him when he gets through an entire page without flipping words or letters around. I smile at them from where I stand by the door. John is the strongest of us, but he has a patient, gentle streak that I didn’t inherit. A trait from our father. Eden is doodling something on paper at the other end of the table. Eden always seems to be drawing in my dreams. He never looks up, but I can tell he’s listening to John’s story as well, laughing at the appropriate places.

Then I realize that the Girl is standing next to me. I hold her hand. She gives me a smile, one that fills the room with light, and I smile back.

“I’d like you to meet my mother,” I say to her.

She shakes her head. When I look back to the dining table, John and Mom are still there, but Eden’s gone.

The Girl’s smile fades. She looks at me with tragic eyes. “Eden is dead,” she says.

A distant siren shakes me out of my sleep.

I lie quietly for a while, eyes open, trying to catch my breath. My dream is still seared into my mind. I focus on the sound of the siren to distract myself. Then I realize I’m not hearing the normal wail of a police siren. Nor is it an ambulance’s siren. This is a siren from a military medic truck, the ones used for transporting injured soldiers to the hospital. It’s louder and higher-pitched than the others because military trucks get first priority.

Except we have no injured soldiers coming back to Los Angeles. They get treated at the warfront’s border. The other thing these trucks are used for around here is to transport special plague cases to the labs, due to their better emergency equipment.

Even Tess recognizes the sound. “Where are they going?” she asks.