seized her skirt, fanning out the cotton. His other hand slid down, past the hem, skimming her knee and settling at the widest part of her calf, encased in thick tights. She could feel the warmth of his hand through the knit material, the pressure of each individual finger. Then he squeezed, and she made a small sound of surprise. He squeezed harder.
It didn’t hurt at first, exactly, though it was surprising how much power he had in his hand. But then he kept increasing the pressure slowly, watching her face with his lips parted, breathing shallowly, until Lucy gasped with pain. Only then did he abruptly let go.
“You get home now,” Rickenbocker said, rising gracefully and stepping aside so she could pass. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”
Lucy backed away from him with the shape of his hand burning on her skin. She thought of the bruises that she had seen on her mother’s arms and knew she’d bear his mark by morning.
She stumbled into the darkness outside and the door slammed shut behind her. The wind howled and she blinked as fine grains blew against her face, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. She set off for Block Fourteen, moving as quickly as she dared, trembling too badly to run.
But the street wasn’t entirely empty. She had gone only a block when a figure came flying toward her with unfastened coat trailing behind like wings. Lucy knew even before she was swept into her sobbing embrace that it was her mother.
“How did you know?” Lucy whispered against Miyako’s neck. And then she remembered the look on the slight girl’s face, her expression of pain mixed with hatred. The girl had gone to Miyako. The girl had told because she wanted revenge.
“It doesn’t matter,” Miyako whispered. “What did he do? What did he do to you?”
“N-nothing,” Lucy stammered. She could still feel where his fingers dug cruelly into her soft flesh. She would find a way to hide the marks from her mother, until the bruises faded.
But Miyako moaned, pressing Lucy even tighter against her. “You must tell me,” she begged. “You must.”
“He...” A tremor racked Lucy’s body and she felt that she might vomit. She couldn’t stop thinking of his hands. The way they slid up her leg, as though he meant to keep going until he’d burrowed a path through her, until he’d torn her flesh from bone. “He said he was sure we would be seeing each other again soon.”
“No, no,” Miyako wailed, over and over, her cold lips against Lucy’s ear, and Lucy wrapped her arms tightly around her mother’s neck, breathing in her sweat, the smell of her fatigue.
A searchlight swept past them and then returned, bathing them in a harsh, yellow pool of light. Lucy froze, the terror of the guards’ invisible nighttime reign seizing her breath. She hated the lights, and over the months she had learned to evade them on her nighttime walks. She knew to stick to the less-traveled paths, use the shelter of buildings whenever possible. But now she and her mother were exposed, crouched in the middle of the street, huddled in each other’s arms, and the light lingered, looking its fill, mocking them.
Finally it swept away, apparently satisfied, flashing its sickly arc elsewhere, looking for the innocent, the hapless, the defenseless. Night surrounded them once again, Miyako’s keening cries carried away on the wind.
17
In the morning, Lucy woke on the floor beside her mother’s bed. Miyako had not wanted to let go of her, and Lucy lay in her arms until she finally heard her mother’s breathing grow steady with sleep. But even exhaustion was not enough to help her fall asleep in the narrow cot, and in the end she pulled the covers off her own bed and made a pallet on the floor.
A storm had come through during the night, and a thin ray of winter sunlight now slanted through the window. Lucy hurried to fold the bedclothes, afraid she would miss breakfast and the chance to bring her mother something to eat. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, and didn’t bother changing now, knowing that underneath her tights were the marks George Rickenbocker left on her flesh.
She was pulling on her coat, struggling with the buttons, when she discovered the envelope in her pocket. Reg’s letter. Her breath caught as she remembered the vow Mrs. Kadonada had extracted from her: “You must make sure he gets this today,” she’d said,