The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,220

her head to see Peter standing in the doorway. What did he mean, it’s her? As if he knew her, as if he knew who this girl was? But of course that was impossible.

“Turn her on her side. Peter, help them.”

Sara positioned herself behind the girl, taking up a needle and a spool of thread, and began to stitch the wound. There was blood everywhere now, pooling on the mattress, dripping onto the floor.

“Sara, what should I do?” Caleb’s compress was sodden already.

“Just keep pressure on it.” She drew the needle through the girl’s skin, pulling a stitch taut. “I need more light over here, someone!”

Three stitches, four, five, each one pulling the edges of the wound together. But it was no use, she knew. The bolt must have nicked the subclavian artery. That’s where all the blood was coming from. The girl would be dead within minutes. Fourteen years old, Sara thought. Where did you come from?

“I think it’s stopping,” Caleb said.

Sara was tying off the last stitch. “That can’t be right. Just keep pressure on it.”

“No, really. Look for yourself.”

They rolled the girl onto her back again, and Sara pulled the sodden compress aside. It was true: the bleeding had slowed. The entry wound even looked smaller, pink and puckered at the edges. The girl’s face was gently composed, as if she were napping. Sara placed her fingers at the girl’s throat; a hard, regular beat met her fingertips. What in the world?

“Peter, hold that lantern over here.”

Peter swung the lantern over the girl’s face; Sara gently peeled back the lid of her left eye—a dark, dewy orb, the disklike pupil contracting to reveal the ribbed iris, the color of wet earth. But something was different; something was there.

“Bring it closer.”

As Peter shifted the lantern, blazing the eye with light, she felt it. A sensation like falling, as if the earth had opened under her feet—worse than dying, worse than death. A terrible blackness all around and she was falling, falling forever into it.

“Sara, what’s wrong?”

She was on her feet, backing away. Her heart was lurching in her chest, her hands were shaking like leaves in the wind. Everyone was looking at her; she tried to speak but no words came. What had she seen? But it wasn’t something she’d seen, it was something she’d felt. Sara thought the word: alone. Alone! That’s what she was, what they all were. That was what her parents were, their souls falling forever in blackness. They were alone!

She became aware that others were in the ward now. Sanjay and, beside him, Soo Ramirez. Two more Watchers hovered behind them. Everyone was waiting for her to say something; she could feel the heat of all their eyes upon her.

Sanjay stepped forward. “Will she live?”

She took a breath to calm herself. “I don’t know.” Her voice felt weak in her throat. “It’s a bad wound, Sanjay. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

Sanjay regarded the girl a moment. He appeared to be deciding what to think of her, how to account for her impossible presence. Then he turned toward Caleb, who was standing by the cot with the blood-soaked compress in his hands. Something seemed to harden in the air; the men at the door came forward, hands on their blades.

“Come with us, Caleb.”

The two men—Jimmy Molyneau and Ben Chou—grabbed the boy by the arms; he was too surprised to resist.

“Sanjay, what are you doing?” Alicia said. “Soo, what the hell is this about?”

It was Sanjay who answered. “Caleb is under arrest.”

“Arrest?” the boy squealed. “What am I under arrest for?”

“Caleb opened the gate. He knows the law as well as anyone. Jimmy, get him out of here.”

Jimmy and Ben began to pull the struggling boy toward the curtain. “Lish!” he cried.

She quickly blocked their way, positioning herself in front of the door. “Soo, tell them,” Alicia said. “It was me. I was the one who went over. If you want to arrest someone, arrest me.”

Standing beside Sanjay, Soo said nothing.

“Soo?”

But the woman shook her head. “I can’t, Lish.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“Because it isn’t up to her,” Sanjay said. “Teacher is dead. Caleb is under arrest for murder.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

By midmorning, everyone in the Colony knew the story of the night before, or some version of it. A Walker had appeared outside the walls; Caleb had opened the gate, letting in a viral. The Walker, a young girl, was in the Infirmary, dying, shot by a bolt from a Watcher’s cross. The Colonel was