The Dead-Tossed Waves Read Online Free PDF Page B

go with her anymore—it was stupid to tempt danger and leave the protection of shore.
    Eventually she stopped sailing. She seemed to forget about the old boat on its shelf by the lighthouse, where it still sits. And just like everything else in our world, it’s slowly and inevitably fallen apart: its sail tattered, its hull slightly warped. I wonder if I have the strength to drag it to the water. To hoist the mast, hold the sail and whip out into the night. Let the void swallow me.
    Instead I let my feet sink into the sand, the waves tugging around my ankles. I think about the crescent wound on Catcher’s shoulder and wonder at how everything can change so fast.
    I imagine that’s what it must have been like to ride the roller coaster back in the before time. One moment teetering at the top, the world laid out before you and the rush of life filling your lungs … and then the plummet. The lack of control. That’s what I’ve started to learn about this world. It might give, but it always takes away.

    That night I lie in bed so aware of the sheets against my body. It’s the first time I’ve thought about the feel of Catcher’s skin skimming my own. The air is hot, close, heavy. It pushes me into the bed until I can’t breathe and suddenly I panic. I throw off the covers, pressing my hand to my chest and gulping air. I can’t believe I left them. I can’t believe I ran away.
    I stumble from my room and run up the stairs to the gallery, shoving my hips against the railing and waiting for the light to roll across the darkness and hit the curves of the coaster in the distance.
    My body still vibrates. I’m safe, I remind myself. I’m safe. But it doesn’t help. Because I don’t know if anyone else is.
    And I’m terrified that it won’t last.
    In the distance I see flickers of light where there should be none—the Militia at the amusement park. I wonder if Cira or one of the others is telling them about how I was there. About how I ran away. I’m just as guilty as any of them, only I ran before they found me. I stretch up on my toes and look down at the path that snakes from Vista to the lighthouse, waiting tosee the light of torches. Waiting for them to come and take me away.
    But they don’t. Wind and light gather on the horizon and the lights in the amusement park fade to nothing and still I stand waiting.
    I feel traitorous for being safe when my friends aren’t. For being alive when they could be infected.
    But most of all I feel traitorous because, even as I hate myself for it, I want more than anything to remember the feel of Catcher’s lips against my own. Feel his fingers on my wrist. Just one memory from the night that isn’t pain and fear and regret.
    But I can’t. I can only see the blood.
    And I realize that I’ll never see him again. I’ll never feel him again. All the possibility and freedom I’d felt is gone forever.

T he early-morning sun seeps around the edges of the window blind and highlights the creases in my mother’s face as she sits on the side of my bed and pushes tangles of hair from my cheeks, even her lightest touch pulling me from the depth of my dreams.
    Something tugs at my body, a memory that I’m supposed to be sad and upset, and it takes me too long to remember. Catcher’s infected. The Breaker. Mellie and the others and me running away. Leaving Cira behind.
    The emotions of the night before hit me, overwhelm me. I want to crumble in on myself but instead I hold my breath, swallowing back the sting of tears. I press the ridges of my nails into my palms, the sharp pain a focus.
    “Mom,” I whisper, letting her believe it’s the weight of sleep that dulls my voice.
    She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. For most of my life this has been our morning ritual. Her coming into my room, sitting on my bed, gently waking me up to face the day.Sometimes she sings a soft song; sometimes she tells me news of the village. Sometimes we just exist in silence.
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