Breathless City Page 13

  Gavin froze as his throat went dry. A nice man, with access to the bad pills, did this? All the evidence seemed to point to the same person. Gavin put the image of one nice man he knew out of his mind. He didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it until he had all the facts.

  “They weren’t just killed, Gavin. They were murdered. Someone did this to them. I don’t know why anyone would even want to do that. Celia’s gang was different, nothing like ours. They were just scavengers, picking at everything and making trades. They never hurt anyone. I stayed with them as they died. All of them.” Sam hung his head as his shoulders slumped.

  “I don’t know how to say this, but I actually came to thank you,” Sam admitted. “As soon as you left, Xander started acting crazy. Yelling for no reason, breaking things. I knew I had to find a way out. I went to Celia’s gang and got mixed with all that. I kept on thinking how I didn’t have any way to keep Nat safe. She’s already a couple months pregnant. The two of us were going to be next. If you hadn’t made that deal with Xander, we would be.”

  “I promised Natalia I’d help if I could. It’s a stupid rule anyway,” Gavin replied.

  “I can see why Stella likes you,” Sam told him matter-of-factly.

  Gavin jerked his head back. Was Sam serious? He ducked his chin to hide the flush of heat creeping up the back of his neck and jaw.

  “I’m not so sure that she does,” he replied honestly.

  “She wouldn’t have tried to save you if she didn’t,” Sam said. “Plenty of guys have fallen in love with Stella before and she just ignored them.”

  “Xander’s in love with her, too. He was planning on going into New York after her,” Gavin said.

  “How did you find out about that?” Sam asked. He didn’t even bother trying to deny it.

  “I heard it.” Gavin left out the fact that he had heard it from Ben as the man continued trying to scare him away from Stella.

  “If Stella wanted to be with Xander, it would have already happened.”

  He shouldn’t push it, but the curiosity nagged at him. Gavin opened his mouth to ask more.

  Their conversation was interrupted when the door opened again and Gavin’s guard stepped in, holding out a bag.

  “This is sand. I can’t use this.” Gavin grabbed a handful of the dried-out material and let it slip through his fingers back into the bag. “Soil will be under plants. I saw some blackened weeds that took out most of the toxins. I can show you where.” Gavin was cut off as the guard turned his back on him and walked out the door.

  “They’re under orders not to let you out of here. The more you ask to get out, the less likely it’s going to happen,” Sam warned him. “I know what plants you’re talking about. I’ll go get some people together and bring that for you.” Sam stepped back out of the room.

  A half hour or so passed before Sam and the others returned, carrying bags of soil. Real—albeit dry—soil. It would work. Gavin set to work checking the soil, dispersing the toxins within and using heat to get the rest out of it, as Sam and the others left to fetch more. They continued in that cycle for hours—Sam and the men digging up soil and bringing it back, and Gavin filtering the toxins out of it. Now that Gavin was under the rhythm and spell of work, time slipped by again.

  The pool was already halfway filled with soil by the time the gang members who had gone on the raids returned. They walked into the room and deposited the tools and things they had collected on the floor. Some of them looked around, surprised at the changes in the room, or walked close to the hollow where the soil was beginning to go curiously. But Gavin was more interested in the ones who looked dazed, the ones who were sporting injuries that were either visibly bandaged or hidden somewhere out of view. It appeared that the raids were not as simple and organized as he had thought. It looked like the raids, like everything else out here, had the potential to go very wrong.

  When Gavin finally saw her again, she looked fine. He knew that with Stella, appearances meant very little. He had seen her just a couple of minutes after she had been attacked and brutally bitten by an infected and she had acted like nothing was wrong then, either. All of the pain, the stress, and the trauma of the experience were hidden completely away. Gavin just wanted a chance to talk to her, to make sure she was all right.

  She avoided his gaze. Something must have happened. As Stella entered the room, Xander followed in close after her. Gavin didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. Was she injured? Did Xander say something to her?

  Xander grabbed his satchel and reached inside. All eyes were on him as he pulled out two peaches, a handful of strawberries, and some bruised yet plump red apples, placing the fruit down gently next to the other tools.

  “So you did manage to get the fruit,” Stella said.

  Things must have really gone wrong if Stella returned without even knowing whether her part in the raid was successful or not. Gavin tried to gauge whether she looked emotionally affected, but it was difficult. She definitely didn’t have the small traces of humor she usually showed. It was too hard, though, studying her as she ignored him. Gavin looked away.

  “Did you want one?” Xander handed Stella one of the apples.

  She looked at it curiously, picking up the apple and twirling it in her palm, before shaking her head no.

  She tossed it back to Xander. “Better to save it and grow it.”

  Xander took the fruit back. “You sure? You’re the only one out here who’s never had fruit at least once.”

  Gavin didn’t have to look her way to know that she would silently refuse. Stella would never give in to a moment of pleasure if it risked their safety.

  “So you’ll be able to use this?” Xander asked him, looking at the assortment of tools and fruit taken in the raid.

  Gavin looked it all over. “This should work.”

  But his mind was still processing what could have happened in the raid.

  Stella was skilled at hiding pain. Except that now she was quiet. Too quiet. She was avoiding him purposefully. That couldn’t have been the result of something he’d done—he’d been here. Something must have happened when she and Xander were alone together.

  Gavin ground his teeth at the thought of Xander putting Stella at risk just to get her away from another man.

  “Tomorrow, then, we’ll organize some groups to get the metals and other supplies,” Xander announced before pulling his things together and leaving.

  Having dropped off everything, the other gang members began to quietly file out of the room, off to do whatever other things they had to do—nurse wounds and eat, go back to their rooms and just fall asleep. Gavin half expected Stella to stay, to let him know what had happened and what to expect next. But when the others left the swimming room, Stella joined them. She left without a word—without even a glance his way.

  13

  Stella walked down a corridor lined with numbered doors and knocked on a wood panel with the knuckle of her finger. There was the sound of a latch turning from within, then Nat opened the door wide to let her in.

  Stella eased a drawstring bag off her shoulders, opening it to reveal her haul—painkillers, bandages, antibiotics. Even a baby bottle. It was a good thing plastic never decomposed. The plastic goods out there would likely outlast them all. She laid out each item on Nat’s table, lining them up with care.

  “You don’t have to keep scavenging for me.” Natalia scooped up the pills and stashed them in a drawer, along with the others Stella had gathered for her. “I’m pregnant, not on my deathbed. Besides, I’ve got months to go.”

  Natalia pressed her hand against her mostly flat stomach. As she was wearing a loose shirt, it was like nothing had changed at all. But one of the first things Stella had brought back from scavenging was a pregnancy test. The double lines confirmed it. Natalia’s life was about to get more complicated.

  “Xander’s had teams scavenging for days. It’d be stupid not to look for medicine too.”

  “You grabbed this r
ight under Xander’s nose?” Nat held up the baby bottle, and smirked when Stella nodded. “He’d lose his mind if he saw that.”

  “He’s already lost his mind.” Stella muttered, without thinking.

  Natalia placed the bottle back down carefully. “And you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Where’s your mind at?”

  Stella shook her head. “I don’t even know.”

  The longer she avoided Gavin, the more she thought of him. She would be rummaging through a deserted house, searching for metal in the form of necklaces and pots and electronics, when she’d remember the blush on Gavin’s face the first time she saw him, or the little smile when she held his hand. Every day she thought things were going to get easier, and every day she realized she was wrong.

  “Sam says you aren’t talking to Gavin anymore. Is that what you want?”

  “No.” Stella pressed her eyes closed and shook her head. What she wanted? She couldn’t have what she wanted. Not if it meant putting the people she cared about at risk.

  “Stella.” Natalia reached out and held her hand. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

  “I have to.” Stella said in a dull voice. “I don’t have a choice. He’s not safe around me.”

  “Why? Because of Xander?”

  As Stella nodded, Natalia squeezed her hand.

  “I know what you did for me. The trade underground to get medicine.” Natalia pointed to the drawer filled with scavenged medical supplies. “You keep risking your life. You can’t keep helping people if you destroy yourself in the process. Right now, it sounds like you’re making the wrong choice for the right reasons and pretending it isn’t the wrong choice. ”

  “I don’t know what else to do. I can’t take seeing another person I care about die. Because of me.”

  She’d made her bargain with Xander. Now she’d just have to live with it. How else could she get Gavin home? Getting him through hordes of the infected was one thing. But the underground city? The administrators were out for her blood. Now, she could never take him back. Not on her own.

  Natalia pulled Stella into a hug, holding her tight. Leaning in close, Natalia whispered, “Whatever you do, make sure it is the right choice for you. Take care of yourself for once.”

  Do something for herself?

  If nothing else, she’d see him one last time. Even if it was only to say a last goodbye.

  This wasn’t Gavin’s home. He came from a different world. He didn’t belong out here. With her. Getting him home always meant letting him go.

  14

  The work was much the same thing that Gavin would have done back at the factory. He was checking the levels of the soil and assembling the project. He lay down with his back touching the warm soil as he worked under the machine. The air purification machine would be the first thing he assembled.

  Working here, he could almost imagine he was back at home, back at the oxygen factory. He was busy; he was doing what he knew. Except that if he concentrated, he wouldn’t be able to see the occasional shape of a massive sea creature out beyond the boundary. He could only see yellow skies, listless clouds, and the disfigured silhouette of mutated pigeons.

  Gavin melted down the metals that came to him from the different raids in the form of everything from old women’s jewelry to battered traffic signs, and kitchen utensils like stainless steel pots and pans and iron skillets. He separated the piles into the three sorts of metals he would need: copper, iron, and steel.

  Gavin couldn’t help but notice that whenever there was a plan for people to get more parts, Xander always paired himself with Stella. He tried not to notice that when the two of them went anywhere, they always walked together. Stella still hadn’t spoken to him since they had come back from New York City.

  So Gavin just retreated back into his work and tried his best not to think about it.

  He had almost lost track of the days, just settling into a pattern of work, watching the machine grow and take shape under his experienced hands. He molded each piece of melted-down metal like he would have done back home at the factory, interlaced with wires and forged with connections.

  When it came to machines, things made sense. Sometimes people around him would do things he couldn’t understand, things that had no flow or logic to them. People could just hurt one another, and he didn’t know why. Like Stella. She just stopped talking to him, right when he had thought that they had a connection. Now he didn’t know what he was going to do about it.

  The world of machines, on the other hand, made sense to him. He could look at something and figure out how it was put together—the wires, the metal embedded in the wires, the positive and negative flow of electricity. All of it was something that could be broken down and understood. Machines, no matter what they were built for, all followed the same basic principles. Once he understood one of those principles, he could apply it to them all. He wished that people were the same way. He missed Stella.

  Gavin worked on the machine late into the night. The fact that the others had already fallen asleep wasn’t important. He was so close to finishing that he could taste it. If he stopped now, he would face a sleepless night thinking about what little he needed to do to have a working machine. It would eat at him until the morning.

  Focused on work, he didn’t notice at first that he wasn’t alone.

  He didn’t hear anything, but rather felt the eyes on him, watching him. Gavin glanced up from his place on his back and looked into her beautiful violet eyes—the rich purple surrounded by those snowy white lashes. She was simply lovely at first glance, with her face arranged into an expression of easy confidence. There was a quiet, flickering sense of power radiating from her presence, underlying her every movement. The slender curves of her face contrasted sharply with her short, cropped hair, and Gavin couldn’t help but imagine what it would look like if it was longer, if those delicate white strands were allowed to grow and fall in waves, contrasting against the deep violet.

  Gavin forced himself to look away from her, turning back to the machine. He could remember every touch. He could remember the way her slender hands felt against his own. He could remember how he held her, protecting her against the infected. Even in his arms, she was the one with the power to protect him.

  He tried to put her presence out of his mind, to forget the stories that she had shared with him, forget the time in the van after all of those infected had charged them down. All the times that he thought nothing would stop him from death, she was there—scaring off the infected, finding a hiding place, always prepared, coming up with a solution and keeping the two of them alive. He remembered those words she had said to him in the van.

  “You trusted your instincts in there, and you saved my life. I don’t know why you doubt yourself. I will never come back to this city again. Never. Unless it’s with you. I wouldn’t want anyone else beside me.”

  Then she had leaned in closer to him and stared at his lips. Gavin remembered how every muscle in his body had tensed and how his thoughts cleared out of his head, leaving him completely aware and transfixed by her presence. Nothing existed in the entire world except her. He was sure that after everything they had been through, they were about to kiss. He had never felt closer to anyone else before, had never let anyone else in. Stella was different. But now he was just left thinking that he was wrong.

  He didn’t ask her what had happened in the underground city; he didn’t need to hear all the details. But there was just one thing he had to know. He had to ask it.

  “Are you in a relationship with Xander?” Gavin tightened a screw on the machine. He didn’t look at her and kept working instead.

  “No,” Stella replied, sounding tired.

  “He wants you. Everybody knows it.” Gavin checked the wires.

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Do you want to be with him?” Gavin asked.

  Stella paused before she answered, and Gavin’s heart rate sped up.

  “I’ve
known him since he was just twelve years old, before he started up the gang. We’ve been through a lot together.”

  Already, Gavin could feel his heart sinking in his chest. It sounded like an explanation on her part, and he didn’t want to hear it. He had been wrong, and it was as simple as that. He had gone to a new place for the first time and met someone amazing. But the truth was that it had been just too good to be true. He had seen more than what was there.

  “So you do.” Though his hands were still on the machine, they were no longer moving. Gavin tried to show the same level of calm that he had shown since the beginning of their conversation, despite the fact that everything was different now. Stella would never be with him. He didn’t know what he was going to do without her.

  “Xander was the first friend I ever had. In all the time I’ve known him, all I wanted was to be his friend. But that’s not good enough for him,” Stella admitted.

  Gavin waited, preparing for the truth, knowing he needed to hear it even if the words weren’t what he wanted.

  “He’s found a way to get rid of every guy who has ever been interested in me and killed the ones he couldn’t scare away,” Stella said.

  Gavin stopped what he was doing, staring at Stella with wide eyes.

  “If I cared about you at all, I would stay away from you,” Stella whispered.

  “If you want to be with me, then be with me,” Gavin disagreed, finding his voice.

  Stella pressed her lips together in a slight grimace. “You don’t know him like I do. I’ve known Xander longer than anyone else here. Why do you think I don’t want to be with him?”

  “Well, then, what are you going to do?” Gavin said. “Are you going to end up with him? You can’t just keep him waiting forever.”

  “I can’t be with you if it ends with you getting hurt. I can’t see someone else I care about die.”

  “I’m a little harder to kill than you think. I’ve dealt with people like Xander before. Trust me.”