Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

“Who are you?” the doctor practically snarls. He’s young, probably a resident, and has bloodshot eyes with defeat written all over them.

“Sorry!” Yellow says. “Wrong bed. Looking for my mom.” The doctor turns back around, and Yellow swipes a scalpel from his tray. I raise my eyes at her, but she tucks the scalpel into the sleeve of her sweater and leads me out of the ER, onto the street. Only then does she drop my hand.

She hands me the scalpel and holds out her arm. “Cut it out.”

“Excuse me?”

“The tracker. Cut it out of my arm.” Her hand is shaking. The scalpel waves in front of me like a flag in the wind.

“I’m not cutting anything out of your arm. I want you to leave me alone. Go back to the present, Yellow.”

“Like it or not, I’m your only ally now. Alpha has everyone convinced that you’re trying to bring down Annum Guard.”

“So go back and convince everyone otherwise!”

“You don’t understand the climate there. It’s freaking scary, Iris. Alpha has everyone on lockdown. There are cameras all over the place. More cameras. Everyone thinks you’re dangerous. Even my dad.”

I shake my head. “Why should I believe that your dad wasn’t a part of this setup from the get-go? He knew my dad, too.”

“I don’t know what he knew.” She drops down onto a bench and cradles her head in her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe my dad did know about you all along. Maybe he’s been in on the lie. I don’t know who to trust anymore. And that’s why I can’t go back there. So I’m staying, and you’re going to help me cut this damned tracker out of my arm. That’ll send a message. My tracker will deactivate, and they’ll know I’m not a puppet anymore either. That will rattle them.”

“Or they’ll think I killed you, and that will only strengthen their resolve.”

Yellow holds out her arm again. “Cut it out. Now. Or I will.”

“Yellow—”

“Use the scalpel, Iris!”

“You’re going to need medical attention. How are you going to get it if Annum Guard is already following up on every arm injury to teenage girls recorded in the last—whatever—years? You’re going to get caught.”

Yellow doesn’t respond, but her teeth tug on her bottom lip, so I know she didn’t think about that.

“We’ll go back before there were records,” she says. “We won’t get caught if we go back far enough.”

“And you also might die of blood loss.”

“1812,” Yellow says. “This date, 1812. Set your watch.”

“Yellow, that’s ridiculous. I’m not going to—”

POP!

Yellow and I gasp and turn. Orange stands a few feet in front of us at the entrance to the hospital. His eyes narrow when he sees us.

“Yellow,” he snarls. “What the hell are you doing?”

Yellow turns to me with panicked eyes. “Do it!”

My fingers fumble with my watch as I turn the year dial. The hands fly around the face, and I pray I counted right.

Yellow shuts her pendant, and there’s another POP! as she disappears out of view.

“No!” Orange screams, then he looks right at me. “Don’t you dare!”

“Don’t believe everything you’re told,” I tell him. And then I project back to 1812.

When I land, I’m standing on an empty tract of land where Massachusetts General Hospital will one day be.

“Sixty seconds,” Yellow gasps beside me. “That’s all we have. More like fifty seconds now. Cut it, and we’ll project again!”

“This is crazy, Yellow, where do you expect to project to?”

“Forty-five seconds!”

I grab the scalpel from her. “Damn you!” I snarl. “Hold out your arm and grit your teeth!”

Yellow steadies her feet and turns her head to the side. “Do it.”

I take a breath and dig the tip of the scalpel into Yellow’s forearm. She gasps but doesn’t yell. But then I cut deeper, and she does. She lets out a scream that echoes across all of Boston. I’m hurting her. I flinch, but then there it is! I dig the little green chip out with the blade of the scalpel. The cut is much cleaner than the one I made on my own arm. Having a proper medical tool sure helps.

“Five seconds.” Yellow’s voice is all breathy and stunted.

“Done!”

I fiddle with her watch, giving it a half turn back. My hands are covered with blood, and my fingernails clatter against the face. I wipe my hands on the old lady’s dress before I turn my own dial.

“Here we go. We’re going to 1782. I’m sorry.” And then we project.

There are even fewer buildings than there were before. 1782. I try to remember my history. Is the Revolution still being fought? Dammit, are we going to walk into a battle? I should have been more careful.

But there’s no one around. I think it’s really early in the morning, judging by the sun. Yellow is grumbling beside me. She’s taken off her sweater and pressed it around her arm as a tourniquet, but blood still spills down her shirt and gray corduroy skirt.

“This hurts so much.” She pants.

I want to tell her it’s her own damned fault, but I don’t. “Come on.” I take hold of her shoulder and drag her across the empty plot of land, toward the Old State House. We need to find people.

Yellow stumbles, and her knee lands on the ground. I pick her up. And then in the distance I see a boy atop a horse, guiding a wagon. He can’t be more than twelve or thirteen.

“Help!” I shout at him. “Help, please!”

The boy turns his head and sees us, then turns the reins so the wagon heads toward us.

“Hold on, Yellow, he’s coming.” My head whips over to her as she stumbles. I loop my arm under her elbow and yank her up.

The boy’s face scrunches up into a confused expression the closer he gets. It’s understandable. I’m wearing an old lady’s blood-stained muumuu, and Yellow’s in a miniskirt. Not exactly colonial garb. But then he takes one look at Yellow’s arm, and his eyes grow wide. It’s clear our clothes are instantly forgotten.

“We need a doctor,” I tell him.

“Who are you?” He sounds horrified.

“Does that matter?” I snap as I guide Yellow into the back of the wagon. I jump up behind her. “Please, just take us to a doctor.”

The boy looks back at us, then snaps the reins, and the horse starts toward the harbor.

Yellow sits slumped over, cradling her arm.

“How are you?” I ask.

“This hurts,” she whispers. But I have to say, she looks a lot more coherent than I was. Of course, I did do a better job of cutting the tracker out of her arm than I did my own. I was more careful. More precise. I didn’t go digging around for the damned thing, probably nicking several arteries in the process.

A few minutes later, after we’ve passed the Meeting Hall, a very primitive form of Fanueil Hall—hard to believe that will be a tourist mecca someday—and a street that will one day house a line of bars, the boy stops the wagon in front of a shingled two-story house.

“Dr. Hatch lives here,” the boy says.

I jump from the back of the wagon. “Thank you.” As I help Yellow down, I turn back to him. “Is the doctor at home?”

The boy shrugs his shoulders. His eyes are wide, as if he’s afraid of us. He looks away, flicks the reins, and the wagon takes off.

Yellow pulls away the sweater to examine her injury. “Looks like the bleeding is slowing down.”

I peer in to look, too. She’s right. The blood’s still flowing, but it isn’t pouring out of her arm like it was before. And Yellow seems fine. Well, not fine, I guess, but she’s in no danger of passing out like I was. Although it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to use cashmere as a tourniquet. Little ivory fuzzies are now mixed in with the blood.