Salvage by Duncan Alexandra

Author:Duncan, Alexandra
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Greenwillow Books

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER .20

The morning sun hits the water, near blinding me. I can’t remember which word I’m supposed to use. Creek? River? Stream? It’s the bigger kind, but not the very biggest. Miyole would know, but she’s asleep under a lean-to of shipping pallets in the alley where we spent the night, and I don’t want to rouse her. Let her stay away from this world as long as possible. And when she wakes, at least I’ll have water.

I roll up the legs of my pants, pull off my boots, and tie their laces together so I can sling them over my shoulder. Then I slip down the muddy bank and slosh into the shallows. The water is cool. On the opposite shore, a group of people wade into the slow-moving current to bathe. Farther down, a group of gangly boys in shorts stand on a concrete slab jutting out over the water. As I watch, one of them pushes another over the side, and then they’re all shrieking and jumping in. Swimming, I think. I clamp my mind closed on the memories that try to rush me.

A ship passes low overhead, sending a thrum through my body I can feel as much as hear. It follows the water’s path upstream, then pivots right and sinks between the rooftops. I lower our bottle beneath the current. We were so close to this place last night. If only we had walked a few streets over.

I lift the bottle from the water and tilt it back to drink.

“Wait!” The bottle flies from my hand and splashes down into the mud.

“Nine hells!” I wheel around, my body singing for a fight, and come face-to-face with a boy maybe a turn or two older than me. Sweat plasters his black, short-cropped hair to his neck and temples. He wears thick, squarish glasses with black plastic rims. Tattoos scroll down his bare brown arms and up his neck.

“Sorry.” He steps back and holds up his hands. His nose has been broken and mended and his eyebrows angle down, as if he’s thinking. “You don’t want to drink that. Unless you’re bulimic or something.”

I make a face. “Bulimic?”

He bends down and scoops my bottle out of the mud. “Yeah. You know . . .” He pretends to gag and vomit into the river.

I stare at him.

He gives me an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. I guess maybe that wasn’t the best way—” He stops himself, takes a breath, and holds out a hand. “Let me start over. Hi, I’m Rushil. You don’t want to drink the canal water. It’ll make you sick.”

I take his hand. “Ava.” I glance over at the people swimming. “What about them?”

“It’s all right for swimming and washing and all that,” Rushil says. “But for drinking, you really want the filtered stuff from the stores.”

I drop down onto a rock jutting out from the bank and stare at my muddy feet. “That’s what everyone says.”

Rushil peers at me as if he’s taking me in for the first time.

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