It’s not lost on me that he still hasn’t answered my question about what exactly I’ve just walked in on.
I let it go. For now.
“I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that, Natalin.” My words echo, echo, die.
“I don’t want them to starve.” Her voice is a dull knife, twisting. “I would never have compromised that information on purpose.”
“I know,” I say.
Because I want to believe her. Because I know, more than anything, that I’m giving everything I have to keep as many people alive as possible. Because I want to believe she and I aren’t so different at the core—that we clash so often because we both care passionately about the station, and our passion takes an equal-but-opposite approach. I want to believe her. I do.
But the truth is, Idon’tknow.
I’m halfway around the catwalk, trying to sneak a secret glance at the water panels before I leave, when Natalin calls out: “What are you doing with the test tube, by the way?”
I think fast, fast. “Running levels on the water, just to make sure the filter’s working properly and we’re all clear to drinkit.” True enough. I’m not about to tell her what I’mspecificallytesting for—even if I did trust her fully, it seems unwise to stress her out about the water when people are already refusing the food.
“Didn’t Zesi already double-check all of that?” she pushes back. “He tinkered with things for a good ten minutes after he got the filter to work.”
I adjust my hairpins, smooth down the nonexistent flyaway wisps. Is she trying to keep me from running another test? Did Zesi really spend ten minutes checking levels, or did he spend some of that time lacing the water with poison? Or—didNatalinput something in the water, after Zesi had finished? Did Heath help her?
Surely not, right?
“We can never be too sure,” I say, giving her a tight-lipped grin. “Better safe than sick.”Or dead, I think.
“You’re wasting everyone’s time,” Natalin says, “running the same tests twice instead of trusting that Zesi did it right in the first place.”
“You’re really going to lecture me about trust right now?” I struggle to tame my voice, to keep it from flaring like it did before. I... don’t succeed. “You couldn’t even keep confidential information to yourself, Natalin, and now it’s spread like wildfire through the station. You want me to trust someone did his job the right way, when we’vejustestablished that none of us are perfect? I don’t think so.” A buzz comes in, and it’s persistent,but I ignore it. “You’re right, though, it is a waste of everyone’s time. I really should be figuring out how to feed everyone, since you royally screwed up and no one will eat.”
She doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t say anything, and neither does Heath. I take the merciful silence, check the levels on the filter panels like I came down here to do, even though everything is a blur right now and I’m shaking.
Losing control, as it turns out, is a fast track to feeling worse, not better. A lump crawls into my throat, curls up there. I can’t even bring myself to apologize, the pride—fear—embarrassment—is so thick. My buzz screen vibrates again, but I just... I can’t.
I blink back my tears. Try to make sense of the panels. All the numbers, all the charts: they look just as they should. Nothing overtly out of normal range, no blood-red WARNING notifications.
My buzz screen goes off for the third time, and finally, I answer: it’s Haven. “Hey,” I say. “Everything okay?”
For all her urgency in trying to get through, she’s quiet on the other end. “Haven?”
“We—we’re all trying not to add more to your plate right now,” she says, which is news to me. “But... you should know... there’s been another one.” She pauses for a second, for two more. “Another death.”
The news knocks the wind out of me. When will this end?
I’m quiet, and for once, Haven doesn’t press me. Vaguely, I’maware of Heath in the background, and of Natalin.Who?Heath is saying, and Natalin:In the mezzanine—and there’s already a crowd?They’re not talking to each other. Both are pacing, hands to their ears. On calls of their own, with Leo and Zesi, presumably.
“In the mezzanine?” I ask Haven, and she affirms it. So much for our lockdown—it’s not quite as effective if people choose to do their own thing and ignore it. I take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ll be there in five.”
50
LIVING IN NIGHTMARES
INDIGO SUTTON: ANOTHER new name on the list. Another new body, undisturbed, when the six of us arrive.
Though the mezzanine is full—practically everyone on the station is here, defying the lockdown order, to a party none of us were invited to—I’ve never seen it so silent. It’s like the life slipped out of everyone all at once, not just the thin frame lying motionless on the floor in the center of some invisible circle no one dares to breach.
It’s not hard to piece together what the scene must have looked like just minutes ago. Half-empty liquor bottles—andempty-empty liquor bottles—stand in silent judgment all around the room; there are innumerable shot glasses and too-full tumblers and not a piece of food anywhere in sight.
“Have you all had a good night?” I scan the room, meeting as many eyes as possible before they turn down toward the floor. “Did the vodka take the edge off?” More eyes avoid mine.
