by Teri Terry
CHAPTER 18
CALLIE
WHEN I FIND WILF, he is hanging from his knees upside down on a low branch of a tree.
“Have you seen Shay?” I say. “I’m looking for her.”
“I saw her early this morning.”
“Where?”
He swings himself up so he is sitting upright on the branch, then climbs down to stand next to me.
“I’ll show you.”
We walk across Community. “I was in that tree,” he says, and points at the one that overlooks the library and research center. I’ve climbed up there myself before. It’s a good spot to watch the comings and goings of this place.
There’s a pang inside when I remember: that was the first time I saw Shay. I didn’t know who she was then, that she’s my sister. It’s not that long ago, but it’s like my life and all the things in it have changed completely since then—mostly because of her.
“I was high up in the branches, out of sight,” Wilf says. “It was very early; I’d been watching the sun come up.” I must give him a questioning look. “Merlin woke me up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I feel safe in trees. Anyway, I saw Shay walk across below me and then go through that door.” He’s pointing at the research center.
We walk over to the door. I turn the handle, but it won’t open. I’m shocked. I’ve never, ever come across a locked door in Community before. I didn’t even know they could be locked.
“Was anybody with her? Did anyone follow her in?”
“No. Well, Merlin tried to, but she didn’t let him. And Freja went in a while before Shay did—it wasn’t quite light yet then.”
Freja? The one who seems always to be with Xander since she got here? Now I’m feeling sick inside. What has happened to Shay? She wouldn’t stay in there of her own choice; I know it. She’d be with Iona and me.
“What’s wrong?” Wilf says.
“Nothing.”
“You can’t lie to me, you know. I’m a survivor. I can see how worried you are. Why don’t you ask Freja? Though she’s not always easy to find.” I feel there is something behind what he says, and now I’m wondering why he’s really climbing trees in the middle of the night.
“Are you all right?” I say.
“Did they tell you about me?”
“No. What do you mean?”
He hesitates. “I saw some bad stuff.”
“You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t. Then Freja brought me here to the land of weird.”
I almost laugh. “Good description. You don’t want to be here?”
“I’ve got nowhere else to be. But I don’t think we should have left like we did, sneaking out on Kai like that.”
“You know Kai?” My eyes are wide now. “How is he? When did you see him? Where?”
“Whoa with all the questions! I take it you know him too?”
“He’s my brother.”
“Small world—I didn’t know. He wanted to come with us, at least to make sure we got here okay. But Freja said he couldn’t, because he’s not a survivor.”
Disappointment crushes through me. He’s not here; he doesn’t know where we are. “I’m not a survivor either.”
“Er…sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Freja’s weird about it, is all.”
“It’s all right,” I say, even though it isn’t. “Look. If it’s okay, could you not mention to Freja that we’ve been talking about all this and that I’ve been looking for Shay?”
Curiosity crosses his face, then he shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”
I make excuses, then walk away.
Despite what he said, I’m not sure of Wilf, that he won’t say anything. What will happen if he does?
If they know I’m asking questions, poking around, I’m sure they’ll mess with my mind again like Cepta used to, until I don’t ask any more questions. Maybe I won’t remember Shay; maybe I won’t even know my own name again.
Shay can’t help me. Iona won’t even move. There is no one here who can do anything about this but me, but what can I do alone?
I can’t even leave to get help!
I kick a tree, and then I’m hopping because my toes hurt. I’m so…useless!
Though I haven’t gone to the edge of the world lately.
I have to try.
* * *
I go back to our house, try to rouse Iona, and then give up. One thing I do know is this: she needs to have water even if nothing else. I pull her up half sitting, drip water into her mouth for a while, then let her slide back down again. She seems to almost wake up, and then she’s gone again. I make sure she has food, water in reach, then pack some for myself but only a small amount—anything else would raise suspicions if I’m seen.
Chamberlain watches while I rush around, then follows me out the door.
I walk toward the gardens and, once out of sight of Community, go the long way around the perimeter to the place where the path disappears. The wind is picking up, the sky darkening.
I sit down on the path and stare at the place where it leads to nothing. Take a pebble and throw it. It disappears, and Chamberlain dashes after it. He disappears too.
I can sense Jenna’s presence, feel that she’s willing me to leave, to look for help for Shay. But trying to go past this point has never worked before: why should it now?
Think things through, Callie. Think.
Fact: the world doesn’t really end.
Fact: my senses say that it does.
Guess: Cepta put this into my mind—a block, Shay called this kind of thing. It was so deep that Shay couldn’t find it.
Fact: Cepta is gone. She said goodbye.
I lie back on the ground and close my eyes. That night there’d been a rush of thought and feeling from Cepta—so much that I couldn’t follow it, as if it were all tangled in a knot. I try to remember, to think back to that moment. She was telling me something, I’m sure of it—to be free. I’d sensed that more as a feeling than an understanding at the time.
But when I look here, the world still ends. If it was Cepta who put a block in my mind, how could something from her mind live on beyond her in mine?
There’s a faint nudge from Jenna—reminding me she is there. Well, Jenna died, and somehow she’s still around in my mind, so it can happen.
Guess: the world ends because I still think that it does. I have to unthink it.
Jenna, can you help me?
I imagine her as she saw herself, a form of darkness. I stand up, hold out my hand as if I were taking hers in mine. Chamberlain is back now from pebble chasing and looks up at me.
“Let’s get out of here, okay?” I say, and he seems to agree.
I gesture at the disappearing path, take a step forward, another…
Focusing on Jenna, on her darkness against the foggy whiteness where the world ends…
Chamberlain is at my feet, walking along beside us. The wind is whipping my hair around my face, and I use my other hand to hold it.
Okay, this is it. This is the moment.
Jenna being with me is an impossible thing. The world ending is an impossible thing. Let one cancel out the other—now.
The world shimmers, and the white fog dissolves in the wind.
We walk down the path together.
CHAPTER 19
SHAY
“LET ME OUT!” I bang on the door again uselessly. It’s thick, strong, and only unlocks from the other side.
I’ve lost all sense of time. I’m thirsty, my voice is hoarse from yelling, and my arms ache from banging on the door, but I can’t stop myself from doing it.
Then my eyes catch movement in the window: it’s Freja.
“You tricked me! And locked me in here. Why?”
Is there regret on her face? She moves out of view, a
nd then—there is a clicking noise.
“Sorry about that, Shay.” It’s Freja’s disembodied voice.
“But why?”
“You were going to go against Xander, against all survivors. We had no choice. You know Xander is right: this is the only way. Survivors need to seize the world and save it.”
Her words are sinking in even as I want to push them away. I’m shaking with fear. There is only one way survivors can seize the world. The epidemic has to eliminate everyone else.
If Xander wants another contagion like Jenna to spread the epidemic far and wide, then he needs a survivor to burn in fire. It didn’t work with Cepta; her house wasn’t a closed system. But now he has me trapped here, in a quiet room—one that is built like the room Jenna died in.
Xander—my father—could he really plan to do this? To burn me alive?
And Freja: I trusted her.
“How could you do this to me?” I say.
“Me? What about you? You’re the one who betrays those who care about you time and again. First Kai, then Xander and all of us.”
“What? You know why I left Kai—to find his sister.”
“But you still left him—for the second time. And there were too many secrets between you. He’ll never forgive you for that.” And as Freja speaks, I’m starting to get a suspicion, a realization, one that tears into me inside.
“You never told him, did you? You never gave him my message.”
“No. You should thank me, Shay. You could never have reconciled with Kai even if he did forgive you—you’re too different from him now. Like I am. There was no way for it to work. It’s easier this way than having to say goodbye again later.”
I’m slumped down on the floor now, arms around myself. Kai doesn’t know why I left him. Freja never told him I went to find Callie. And that’s not all. That means he’s not out there somewhere, waiting or coming for us, is he? The hope I’d found when I saw Freja here—no. It was false.
“How could you do that to Kai? I thought you were his friend.”
“And that’s why I didn’t tell him.”
Whatever twisted logic she might have applied in that case, it’s nothing compared to pushing me in here to be burned alive for Xander’s scheme. Why?
There can only be one answer as to who is behind this now.
“What has Xander done to you, Freja?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know how to protect yourself, how to block? He’s good at it; I’ll give him that. At manipulating people, getting them to do what he wants. Don’t let him use you!”
“He’s not! I make my own decisions.”
“You may think that, but fight against him, Freja. Why did you even come to talk to me now? You must be having doubts inside about what you’ve done—what he wants to do. Push him out! Think for yourself!”
“No. No, you’re wrong! Anyway, this is all your own fault. If you hadn’t betrayed Xander—and Kai—none of this would have happened. Poor Shay. I understand better than you think how hard all this is for you. You see, after you were gone, Kai needed a shoulder to cry on. So did I, for other reasons. We needed each other.”
A shoulder to cry on…They needed each other? What is she saying? I try to push the words out, but I can’t.
“We were together—Kai and me.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“It’s true. We became very close.”
Her words are burning inside me, and I can’t see her aura or reach her mind. I can’t taste the truth of what she says in any way—but despite that, I know. I just know, like acid burns and knives stab. She’s telling the truth this time.
“So you see, I understand how hard it was to be so close to Kai, and then to leave him. I had to do it too—leave him behind—so I could have forgiven you for that. But I can’t forgive what you were planning to do to Xander, to all survivors.”
And then the mike clicks off. She’s gone.
How could I have trusted her? How could I have been so stupid, telling her everything that I did?
She was Kai’s friend—I trusted his judgment—but that’s not the only reason. If I’m honest, it was also because I was so desperate for help, to confide in somebody after so long going it alone. Xander may have twisted and manipulated her thoroughly, but he couldn’t have succeeded at that unless she agreed with him, at least on some level. She really thinks it’s them or us: normals or survivors.
And with everything else, there are four words going over and over in my mind: She didn’t tell Kai. She didn’t tell Kai. She didn’t tell Kai…
And she said they were together. What does that mean? Did he hold her, kiss her? Did she do more—what I’d promised Kai on Shetland and didn’t deliver? Who could blame him? She was there, gorgeous, available. He thought I’d betrayed him, that he didn’t owe me anything.
But still I howl silently inside. I loved him—I still do—so much. How could he betray that? Didn’t he feel the same? I thought he did, but if he did, even if he thought he’d never see me again, how could he? Maybe I was wrong about him—about us—from the beginning.
There’s a core of hurt and pain so deep inside me it threatens to pull me in and drown all that I am. I’m too sad to move; too sad to even cry. I can barely convince myself to breathe.
CHAPTER 20
KAI
“NO, NO, NO. WHY ARE YOU HERE?” Despite what I’m saying, I’m still smiling as I give Mum a hug. We’re in the middle of chaos—people and equipment rushing all around us—but this is a moment to hold on to.
“I got myself attached to the medical contingent,” she says. “Pulled a few strings. Immune doctors are in short supply.”
“You don’t know what we might find.”
“Neither do you.”
No. But maybe I’ve got a better idea what Alex is capable of, though I keep that to myself.
We’re assigned to aircraft, belted in. There are just over a hundred of us now. All serious, quiet. All immune—tattooed—and taken from various forces, like Rohan said. It’s not a standard military operation with everyone mixed up like this. Even I can see that. They’ve had to go everywhere they could to find enough immune personnel to go on this mission.
We take off at dusk. We’re going to land at a deserted airfield suggested by Kirkland-Smith—one that is far enough from our target for us not to be heard or spotted in the air.
What then?
Then. I hope.
CHAPTER 21
FREJA
XANDER HAILS ME. Callie is missing. He’s not happy.
What? Where could she be?
I have some other things to attend to. See if you can find her.
He’s cut off now. Gone.
Where could Callie have gotten to?
I reach out, all around, but don’t feel her presence. Of course, she’s not a survivor, so unless she is near, there is nothing much to feel—it’s hard to find non-survivors this way unless you know them very well, and I don’t.
I focus on Callie—use her to push thoughts of Shay, and the crazy things she said, out of my mind.
Xander said Callie couldn’t leave Community, that she’s blocked mentally to prevent her from doing so, but there are only so many places she could be here.
The weather is drawing in: great.
I start at one end of Community and walk the length and breadth of it, sending my senses out for her, using my eyes too, but there’s no sign of her.
I keep looking, afraid to stop. Afraid to tell Xander that I’ve failed.
CHAPTER 22
CALLIE
ADMIT IT, CALLIE, IF ONLY TO YOURSELF. You were so convinced you wouldn’t actually be able to leave Community that anything approaching a plan for after didn’t really enter your head.
Rain pelts down in heavy drops so hard they sti
ng. Chamberlain has vanished; he probably ran home for a warm dry bed, and it’s hard to blame him. I can’t decide whether to huddle under a tree or keep walking.
By now somebody must have noticed I’m missing. Should I get off the path in case they come this way looking for me?
Or maybe no one has noticed. Without Shay there, I’m not sure anyone would have a clue where I should be.
I find a knot of determination, deep inside. Shay did so much for me. I have to get help for her—I have to.
I walk on through the rain. After what must be a few miles, the path leads to a road. There is thunder and lightning. Should I get away from the tall trees at the sides of the road? I don’t know if it’s better to be on the road or under the trees, and so I go for ease of walking: the road.
Another crash of thunder sounds, and the sky lights up. And this time when it does, I can see something ahead, on or near the road. Some dim lights and dark shapes in the rain.
Friend or enemy? I don’t know. I stand there, not sure what to do.
Then I see movement ahead. Someone is walking toward me on the road.
“Is that Callie?” a voice calls out. Anyone who knows who I am must be linked with Community. I’m poised to run when there is a touch on my mind.
It’s okay, Callie. It’s Beatriz. Elena is here too, and some other friends. We’ve come to help.
There’s reassurance, but the usual sort; no one is messing around with my brain.
Help is what Shay needs. They were her friends when they arrived, weren’t they?
I walk forward in the rain. As I get closer, I see the dark shapes are a truck and a van. A light flashes briefly in the night. I see a flashlight in the hand of the figure I saw. It isn’t Beatriz, but a man, one I haven’t met.
He’s soaked like I am. “Crappy weather or what?” he says. “I’m JJ. Come on, let’s get out of this.”