The scars are still there. None of this makes any sense.
With my fingertips resting on the jagged pink suture, I glance up at Oliver, who skids to a stop just outside the driver’s door. His expression falls as he stoops down to peer into the car. A thousand questions flash in my eyes, but there’s no time for him to explain the mysteries of life—and death—to me. Besides, he doesn’t even notice my confusion because he’s too focused on something beyond me. His eyes widen for a moment, white swallowing up the deep brown of his irises. My heart rate—already ridiculously out of control—triples. I don’t want to turn around and see what he sees. There are only so many surprises I can handle before my heart bursts like a water balloon.
I reach for the door handle to bolt, but I can’t find the stupid thing in this ancient tank. I claw at the door, searching for anything, and connect to a long silver bar with a knob on the end. I try to pull it down and it spins in my hand instead. As it does, my window lurches downward. What in the . . . ?
“Oliver! I can’t . . .”
He doesn’t come any closer to the car, shooting an alarmed glance toward town and the forest beyond.
“I knew he’d take care of you, niña.” Her voice comes from the passenger seat. I know it as well as I know anything, but I can’t bring myself to look. We’re in a car together. I don’t know what I’ll do if I look at her and she’s . . .
“Don’t be afraid, Lucy,” Mom says. The cracked vinyl seat groans as she shifts her weight. I can feel her near. Maybe she’s stretching out her hand to touch me when she talks, like she always used to, but I shrink away from her.
This can’t be happening.
“I’m fine, Lucy.” There’s a smile in her words. “I’m more than fine. I’m with my girl again.”
I sneak the tiniest peek in her direction, freaking out inside that she’ll be sitting in a pool of crimson or her head will dangle at an impossible angle, having parted company with most of her spine. But there she sits, next to me, her favorite jeans spotless; her body whole. A grin lights up her face, or at least I think it does. Tears well up in my eyes, blurring my vision until I blink and send them racing down my cheeks. I launch into her arms.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” My words come out muffled against her shoulder. “I never meant to . . .”
“Shh. Honey, I know.” She squeezes me, the most basic movement of Mom reassurances, then pauses. “You feel thin. You’re not eating. Why aren’t you eating?”
I want to tell her that Aunt Perdita is—was—the worst roommate ever, but Oliver raps on the window.
“Hate to cut the moment short, ladies, but we don’t have much time.”
Mom purses her lips and nods with understanding. “I hate this. But we’ll have so much more—oh my god! What happened?” Before I can stop her, she slides the scarf from my head, exposing the plot lines crisscrossing my skull. The scarf, my lame disguise, flutters out of sight, out of mind. “My poor baby!”
In another time or another place, I would have rolled my eyes so hard they would’ve snapped off at the optic nerve. I would have pretended I was too cool to be her baby. But that was before she died. That was before I killed her.
In a life that consists of two time periods: B. A. (Before the Accident) and A. A. (After the Accident), I’ve given myself no other choice but to hold everything together, to act like I didn’t care about anyone or anything. With my mom here, the cracks in my foundation give way to the floodwaters.
“What did I do to you?” She sighs, taking me in her arms again. I sob into her shoulder, the dull flick of her heart twitching beneath my cheek. Her heart beats, but I was there when they . . . when they said she was gone. It’s not the same. I can’t put my finger on it, but the rhythm isn’t . . . right. Here in this place, where I’m the weirdo in a town full of zombies, I don’t know what’s real anymore. She feels real, though. Her hair even smells like peach ginger, the shampoo she always bought from Glam Salon over on Fourth Street. I close my eyes and focus on the not-quite-right-rightness of being with her again. It can’t last.
“What did I do to you?” Mom repeats. Her voice trembles and she brushes her lips over the scars on top of my head. “This never should have happened. Please forgive me, Lucy.”
I bolt upright, eyes wide. “Forgive you for what? I’m the one who—”
“I should have trusted you to tell me the truth. With Tanya.” Her hands find my cheeks, and her intense brown eyes, so much like mine, fill my vision. “This wasn’t your fault.”
The words ring inside of me, the unfinished words of a dying man, squeezing the air from my lungs. My dad didn’t blame me, and he tried to tell me with his last breath. He wasn’t here at all—never had been. He’d had no regrets.
“The roses. That was you?”
A small smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “Yes, for a while. Then Perdy had to step in. You were getting too close.”
“But—” I can’t disguise the hurt in my voice. She had been right here this whole time.
“Don’t you see?” Mom looks away from me and scans what’s left of my friends, waiting outside the station wagon. “They needed you here. What you’ve done for so many of them is . . . huge. I don’t think you even understand.”
I open my mouth to tell her that I might understand, but I don’t get a chance. Oliver heaves the car door open with a metallic, long-suffering groan, his gaze riveted toward the center of town. The leaves on the trees, usually as deathly still as everything else in Mitte, roar in a swirling gale. “Ladies, we gotta move. Now.”
I look from Oliver to Mom, then back again. He hesitates, then grabs my hand, the bolt of electricity muted by the warmth of my mom’s presence.
“Lucy, now!” Oliver yanks on my hand. “I can see them. At the end of the street.”
The stench of char stings my nose and gags me. They’re close.
“I knew he would take care of you,” Mom says, her words thick and heavy with tears. “Go, be safe, Lucy. It’s okay.”
Oliver takes this as his signal to move and practically drags me from the car, but I can’t leave my mom. I know the plan, and the plan was not for her to be transported. I clutch the door frame and lean back inside the car.
“I forgive you, Mom.” I have to push the words from my mouth, because I never blamed her for anything. “I love you so much, and I’ll see you soon.”
Before I even finish speaking, she disappears.
I want to collapse in Oliver’s arms, broken with the second loss of my mom, but there’s no time. Together, we dart down a side street, anxious to put space between us and the station wagon of the apocalypse.
“Letty told me to tell you goodbye, and thank you for saving her babies. Angus is gone, too.” Oliver steals a glance over his shoulder, and his face clouds with concern. “You okay?”
I can still feel the tremble of Mom’s fingertips on my forehead, and my eyes threaten to flood again. I lift my hand to the edge of my scar minefield and frown.
All color drains from his face. “Your scarf. They’ll know you were there. I can’t let them—”
The smell of sulfur overpowers my senses and the ground rolls beneath our feet, but Oliver doesn’t think twice. He’s already halfway back to the station wagon.
“Oliver! Leave it!” I yell so loudly my throat feels like it’s on fire, but it’s like screaming into a wind tunnel. All I can hear is the thunder of The Conductors as they creep our way.
I didn’t think I could fall for him any harder than I already have, but there he goes, proving me wrong again.
I chase him back to the station wagon, waiting for us with its door open. He dives inside and emerges seconds later with the purple fabric trailing from his fist. I let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God. Now, hurry . . .” My words chatter from me as the street pitches and twists beneath my feet. The air thickens and grows so awful that I have to fight off dizziness. Tears blur my vision, so I don’t immediately understand what happens
next.
Oliver lunges away from the car, but jolts backward. He’s caught. His eyebrows furrow as he looks for whatever has its hold on him.
“Your suspenders!” I call out, jumping up and down and pointing at the car door. They must have snagged on that long metal lever, the window thing-a-ma-jig, on his way out
Oliver fumbles to free himself, the tail of the scarf dancing furiously from the effort, but it’s too late.
When the three Conductors blaze up to the wreckage, they don’t even look my way.
“You have violated the decrees,” one of them snarls. “Violators must be punished.”
The remaining two take Oliver’s arms in their burning grasp. Oliver shrieks in agony, his eyes rolling back in his head. With tears streaming down my face, I run too close to the horrible creatures.
“Leave him alone! He didn’t do anything,” I plead. “Take me! I’m the one you want.”
“Silence, woman!” one of them growls, backhanding me with such force and blistering heat that I end up on the pavement. Stunned, I remain there for a moment before I can stand again.
They drag Oliver away toward The Divide; I have to sprint to catch up with them. One of the other Conductors sneers at me. “We have no use for you! I command you, do not stand in the way of punishment for one who has broken our statutes.”
“He didn’t break any statutes,” I insist. “He’s not guilty.”
The Conductors refuse to listen to my pleas, dragging Oliver further into the forest and toward a fate he doesn’t deserve.
Even saving so many, the truth remains: I kill those I love. Tears continue to fall down my cheeks as I race behind them.
“Lucy,” Oliver groans, and I focus on his limp form. “It’s okay. This wasn’t your—”
“Don’t you dare say that,” I sob. “Because it’s not true!”
“Not your . . . fault they . . . won’t listen!” His deep brown eyes roll toward me. The pain reflected back is too much.
“Then I’ll make them listen.” I lift my chin and pass the procession, letting my legs fall into a blistering rhythm. There are no guarantees this will work, but if it doesn’t, I’ll be okay with that, too. Living without Oliver is out of the question.
Before long, the foliage grows together into a thick wall, forcing me to run off to the right. There’s not enough time to struggle my way through the vines—they’d pass into The Divide with Oliver before I could get their attention. Instead, I sprint until I reach the silent two-lane road and the landmark that stands there—the old, carved headstone marking the beginning and the end. My chest screams for air and for Oliver’s safety. I close my eyes and run into the void.
The Conductors swarm me before I realize I’ve crossed the boundary. The solitary conductor not restraining Oliver grabs my wrist, and I shriek as my skin bubbles beneath its claws. Oliver lolls his head toward me, and sadness floods his face. Sadness for me, sadness for us.
“Why?” he rasps, a tear streaking down his cheek.
“I’m not . . . letting you go alone,” I croak. The pain threatens to steal my consciousness.
“Oliver . . . does it . . . hurt to die?” I ask suddenly.
He turns his head in my direction, mustering every ounce of his remaining strength. “Dying’s . . . nothing compared to . . . living without you.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but as we continue deeper into the void, The Conductor’s hold on my wrist grows lazy. When it falters just long enough to give me the advantage, I push off from the earth, hard, and knock the creature off balance. The skin rips free from my arm and I cry out in agony and determination.
“Ayeeee!” The Conductor roars, staggering back to its feet.
When they catch me, and they will, it will be the last thing I ever do. I choose to spend my last moment alive with my lips on Oliver’s. Our mouths melt together urgently, mourning the loss of what our lifetime together could have been. Glimpses of countless moments we won’t get to share flash through my mind—sunrises and sunsets, bouquets of flowers, Oliver’s crooked smile, his hand in mine. Bittersweet tears slide from between my lashes and fall to the ground.
And then the darkness takes us both away.
Chapter 28
My eyes flutter open slowly. The sterile light blinds me, and I blink to bring the room into focus.
A woman with hot pink-rimmed glasses and a blonde ponytail hovers over me. “She’s conscious.” A gentle smile spreads across her face as she touches my hand. “Good morning, sunshine.”
I know those words. Oliver greeted me in the morning with those words, happy to see me even when I had been in my most miserable state. Oliver, the one who loved me enough to sacrifice himself to keep me safe.
My eyes frantically scan the room for him, but I don’t recognize a single person. No, no, no! I don’t understand. Why . . . ? My heart pounds in my chest, and my wasted muscles flicker, anxious to find him, anxious to run away from whatever this is.
“Hi, Ms. Torres,” a male voice near the foot of my bed interrupts my panic. “I’m Dr. Friedman. You’ve been in a coma for quite a while now.”
Behind me, a machine beeps at an alarmingly high rate, and the nurse with the pink glasses glances at it with a look of concern. Our eyes connect, and she smiles again. “I need you to calm down, Lucy. Can you do that for me?”
I nod, my movement so slight it may have only happened in my mind. It doesn’t matter—I’m pretty sure her question was rhetorical anyway. She wants me to calm down, to slow down the heartbeat thundering within me like a herd of wild horses.
Jasper.
Tears leak from my eyes, but I don’t have the strength to brush them away. The people in the room all begin speaking, calling out numbers and words I can’t decipher. They tell me to relax and breathe and a million other things that don’t register. All I can think of is the great, aching hole in my heart from realizing I’ve lost them, too. Calm down? No! I cannot be calm about that.
Eventually, when I settle down, the doctor tells me I slipped into a coma right after the crash that took my parents’ lives. I struggle with this truth, trying to match it up with all that happened in Mitte. Everything had felt so real, from Magnolia’s chubby hand in mine, to the electricity and passion passed between Oliver and me as we kissed good-bye. Even galloping away from The Conductors on Jasper’s back and the horrible, bloody deaths I witnessed during my time there made more sense than the notion that I dreamed it all up.
I don’t mention my experience to anyone, not even the sweet nurse who gave me the pretty purple scarf. I’m afraid I’m crazy. On top of my physical therapy and all the other hoops the hospital staff has me jumping through, I can’t bear the thought of adding a shrink to the mix. Even though I probably need it more than ever. Instead, I pretend Mitte is out there somewhere, and when I grow strong enough to leave, it will be waiting for me. Still delusional, sure, but enough to push me along in my exercises when all I want to do is quit.
On the day they discharge me, I walk out the front doors of the hospital with nothing but a pair of secondhand yoga pants, a t-shirt, and the lavender scarf to call my own. I wait at the curb, watching as people file in and out of the revolving door, most of them joined by a loved one or two. Every now and then a grey-haired man or woman shuffles away alone, and I wonder if anyone would be there to greet them when they get to where they’re headed. No one would be at my house ever again. My eyes mist over, feeling sorry for myself for the millionth time. I lift my chin and let the comforting breeze wash over me and sweep the long tail of my scarf across the pale skin of my arm.
I don’t know where to go from here. Maybe I’ll sit down on a bench and stay until security makes me move along.
“Miss,” someone calls from the window of a taxi across the loading zone.
“Uh, yeah?”
The cab driver removes his grease-stained trucker cap and smooths his bushy salt-and-pepper hair. “You Lucille Torres?” He punctuates the question by spitting ont
o the pavement.
I flinch, both at the use of my full name and the spitting grossness, but nod. “That’s me. Can I help you?”
“Looks like I’m your ride, hon.” He climbs out of the driver’s door with some amount of difficulty and opens the door to the back seat.
I hesitate, remembering the advice grilled into all kids—never accept a ride from a stranger. In my case, that narrows it down to, you know, everyone.
Whatever. Besides, there’s something familiar about the cabbie.
We drive for a long while, mostly in silence. The driver passes the time by humming along with the twangy song on the radio while tapping on the top of the steering wheel. Normally I’d find this completely annoying, but I’m so relieved to be free from the computerized monotony of the hospital that I keep my mouth shut. For a split second, I even consider singing along since I actually know the words to this one, but I decide against it. Country music is all about heartbreak and losing things. I’ve lost everything now, twice, and nothing about it makes want to sing.
The trees flash by, and I rest my head against the window. I watch as they leave me behind, as so many have done. I can’t look at the pines without a knot forming in my stomach, as every memory I hold of the forest revolves around Oliver. If I squeeze my eyes shut just so, the trees blur into endless green and brown, but it hurts my head to hold my eyes like that. I nod off.
“Here we are,” the cab driver says, jolting me from my dreams of rose gardens and apple orchards. I yawn and rub my eyes, watching as the sleepy town slips closer.
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