The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan Read Free Book Online Page B

against his strength, my legs losing all sensation, my fingers going numb.
    I retch again, my back arching as I heave, my mouth filling with saliva that starts to choke me. I gasp for air, my body feeling like it’s floating. Bright spots flare in my vision, almost beautiful, like stars with darker voids swallowing them.
    “Annah,” Catcher yells again, holding me close. I slip alonghim, falling to the ground as the world tilts and sways and I don’t know what’s up and what’s down. My head screams pain, my skull too small to hold it all in.
    He lays me on my back and runs his hands up my body, over my arms and legs and finally along my neck until he’s cupping my cheeks in his palms. His pulse beats against my skin, hot. My eyes flutter, the heat so nice. Something to focus on. Something to curl up against as chills spike through the rest of my body.
    “My blood,” he says. He’s leaning over me, close now. I can feel his breath, taste the desperation in his voice. “Did you touch it?” He holds my cheeks tighter in his hands, his fingers arching under my neck. “Annah, this is important. I need to know.”
    My eyes roll back in my head but it doesn’t matter. They were useless anyway. I much prefer the colors dancing in my mind. A woolen fog seeps in around me, blurring the pain and tempting me to dream.
    “Annah!” Catcher calls to me, his voice loud but so far away. It slides along my consciousness, fading into the sound of water rushing and the wind howling. I want to raise my hand to his cheek. I want to tell him it’s okay. That it’s pretty here in my head and it doesn’t hurt. But instead I just let the black wash of waves roll over me and drag me under.

W hen I wake up there’s light and the crackle of a fire. I open my eyes and stare at an intricately carved ceiling of interwoven bricks arching overhead. The flames flick oranges and yellows over them, shadows stretching and snapping. Smoke curls through a small vent, disappearing into the void above.
    We’re still underground at an old subway station somewhere in the Neverlands. I’m lying on my back on the platform, the quilt from my bag spread over me, its smell familiar and comforting. I let my head fall to the side, wincing as a dull ache throbs along my spine.
    The stranger, Catcher, sits on the other side of the fire, staring at nothing. He’s so lost in his own thoughts, his own world, that he doesn’t realize I’m awake. I let my gaze wander over his features: sharp jaw, blond hair, brown eyes so dark they seem almost fathomless. His knees are bent with his elbows draped over them, a strip of cloth wrapped around hislower arm from where I cut him when we fell. Bruises from our tumble down the stairs already bloom under his skin.
    There’s something about him that seems familiar, and I search my mind trying to figure out why. Generally I don’t bother with other people, don’t care what they look like or who they are. Everyone around me’s always a stranger.
    It’s safer that way.
    And then I realize what it is. “You’re the one from the bridge.” Belatedly it hits me what that means: He’s infected. I scour his face with my gaze, trying to detect how far along he is—how close to turning. But his skin’s flushed with health, his eyes clear. He looks nothing like the woman on the roof, only heartbeats away from death.
    His eyes flick to meet mine. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.
    I push myself up until I’m sitting, the quilt falling from my shoulders and pooling in my lap. I shiver, feeling dizzy and sick, but I shove the sensations away. “You’re the one who climbed the wall and fell in the river. They thought you were dead. You should’ve drowned.”
    He drops his head a little, rubs the back of his neck with his hand. It’s such a familiar gesture that I stop breathing for a second. It’s something Elias always used to do. To buy time, to think, to figure out a way to swim through the awkward