by Louise Cole
For a while there was nothing but the sound of the breeze through the heather and the rustle of the leaves above us. Normally, this moorland felt like the top of the world. Today, it felt like the end of the world, like we were the last two people alive and had no more use for words.
When I looked at Jace, he was gazing at me intently, eyes cloaked by his long dark lashes.
“So . . . you still feel up to doing this?” When I didn’t reply instantly, he added, “Talk to me.”
“Jeez, you sound like Ella. ‘Share yourself, Callie.’” I drawled. “‘Show us who you are.’”
Jace looked away, a deep red flushing his neck.
“Oh my God, I’m right. She told you to find out how I feel.” I scrambled to sitting. “Are you kidding me?” God, that woman was toxic. If there was one thing I had learned growing up, it was that you don’t dwell on how you feel. Not when it’s bad stuff. Survival 101.
“It’s not like that,” he said uneasily. “She’s worried about you.”
“Yeah, right.” I looked at him. “Well, like I said, it isn’t important. You can tell her—”
“I won’t tell her anything,” he interjected. “You can tell me if you want, but I won’t tell Ella. I just need to know you’re OK.”
“So that we can get on and do this reading?” I studied him for a moment. He nodded abruptly but wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I didn’t know what to tell him. Yes, I thought I should do it. If I could save lives, how could I say no? But they didn’t know what they were asking.
Words filled my throat and mouth, thick, ugly, truthful words that I couldn’t bring myself to speak aloud. This reading required me to show I felt. To drop all my barriers. I couldn’t share how I felt. The years of sadness, of loneliness. Of feeling my father’s cold rejection because he’d got me and not my dead mother. Ella didn’t get that. Hell, I couldn’t even bear to feel how I felt right now. Sometimes life just held too much hurt for you to let it out.
“I wish I knew what you were thinking.” Jace’s voice was lullaby soft.
I gave a hard laugh, ragged at the edges. “Be careful what you wish for. Ella reckons knowing how everyone feels ruined her life. It killed her relationship stone dead.”
Jace raised his eyebrows. “She said that?”
“Not in so many words, but . . . yeah.” A sudden suspicion wormed its way to the surface. “Why? Is it not true?”
Jace shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know,” he said quickly. “I don’t know anything about Ella’s personal life.”
I wasn’t convinced either way, but it really didn’t matter. I’d said that a lot recently. How many things could stop mattering before you no longer had a life worth living?
“We’re running out of time,” I said.
Jace nodded. “The peace talks start tomorrow. Ella’s worried you won’t be ready.”
Brushing twigs and grass from my jeans, I scrambled up and began the heavy hike back up the moor. The crazy full-tilt flight on the way down was replaced by a dull leaden thud.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said.
Jace fell into step beside me, his gaze locked onto the horizon.
“Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘You’ll all have time. You all have futures’?” I asked, echoing Mr. Patterson’s bleak speech.
He stiffened. “Would you believe me?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head. “But it might be nice to hear.”
Jace swallowed and looked at me. “Most of you will be fine. Statistically speaking.”
“Wow,” I said. “Great pep talk. I feel so much better now.” Faces flitted through my head, friends, kids who had never become my friends, their brothers, sisters. Amber. Her brother Joe. How many of them would come back? Could this reading really save us from anything?
Jace hooked his fingers through my jeans belt loop as I opened the car door and tugged me toward him.
“You’ll have time,” he whispered. “You’ll have a future.” And he kissed me.
His mouth closed over mine so softly, so coaxingly, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other still possessively tangled in my belt, and for an instant, I was sure I felt a pulse of deep longing. Of regret so deep I could taste it on his tongue. It wasn’t just an ordinary kiss. It was a wish, a desire, a heartbreaking lie.
He turned away from me so abruptly I still stood like a fool with my mouth open, as he ran to the driver’s side and jumped in.
We drove home in silence. We didn’t even speak when Jace pulled in to fill up with petrol. I didn’t know what to say to him. I wanted to tell him it was all right, that, God, that kiss was more than all right. That it was like balm for my soul, a rainbow’s promise after torrential rain.
That I’d like, more than anything in the world, for him to do it again.
I didn’t dare say anything, terrified of sounding stupid. Terrified of seeing the truth in his face—that it had been a moment of kindness, of comfort, never to be repeated. I couldn’t bear the thought that he might be kind when he told me no.
Now I was close to it again, the vague noise of the book buzzed at the back of my head, and I reluctantly pushed aside thoughts of Jace.
The need to make a decision—an adult, crucial decision—weighed on me like a sandbag around my shoulders. How many lives had this reading, this whole weird project, cost? On the other hand, what of my mother and the kids in my school and the young soldiers whose final homecoming was in a rosewood box? I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t trust Ella. I didn’t know what this Order was really about. The Cadaveri were destroying my town. Yet, how could I refuse to read from a book if it could save lives? Countless, precious lives.
Hell, I’d do it in a heartbeat if it would bring Gavin back.
Jace swung up alongside Ella’s Porsche. Elbows almost at her ears, she was hauling a suitcase toward her trunk. Jace jumped out to take it from her.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she called. “We’re leaving.”
Hope leaped and then crashed inside me. If they left, I was free. The Order would move onto another Reader, give them the book, and the Cadaveri would follow. No more responsibility. No more danger. Then the rebound. If they left, Jace would go, too. So would the book. The idea of losing either of them hurt, but . . . the book was mine. I didn’t want it, but somehow that didn’t matter. It . . . fit with me. Belonged with me. The throbbing in my belly and my head intensified. It was like hearing a cat purr inside you, its sharp claws dragging through your flesh.
And Jace. That kiss. I watched him toss boxes and cases into the car like they weighed nothing, sweat tousling his dark hair. If he left I would never know if there had been a chance. Would never see what that kiss could really have meant. He wasn’t the kind of man who would ever let you down.
They disappeared into the house, and I slid out of the truck to follow. I put the book in my little rucksack and then rummaged for Amber’s phone which I carried off my person as much as possible in a vague attempt to extend its life. One missed call. I pressed voice mail and listened to it as I wandered into the sitting room.
“Callie, I’m at home. I need to talk to you. It’s important.” Amber’s voice was rough but better than it had been. I’d ask Jace to drive me over there.
The sound of angry voices stopped me short, my hand still on the kitchen door.
“It’s not right,” Jace said. “We can’t do it like this.”
“It is the way it is, Jace,” Ella said. “We don’t get to choose these things.” Ella was calm and soothing.
“Everyone gets choices, Ella. Or they should. Don’t give me that crap.”
“Jace, you knew what this job was. So what’s changed? What exactly is bothering you?”
“She is, Ella. She’s too young. This isn’t right.” His voice was hard and emphatic. “If you don’t know that, you should.”
My hand slipped, and the door opened, and Ella spun brightly. “Callie. Are you ready to leave?”
“Callie!” Ella said.
“What?” My gaze was riveted to Jace. The man who would never let you down . . . I was such a fool.
“We’re leaving for London. I’ve spoken to Washington, and we’re to go to the peace talks and do the reading as soon as they start.” Ella walked briskly across the kitchen and picked up her jacket. “Well? Let’s go.”
An avalanche of panic broke over me as though I’d been watching little pebbles fall in a daze and hadn’t heard the distant rumble from the mountainside.
“What? No. No. I can’t. I have to . . .” This couldn’t be real. They couldn’t just take me away. Why had I not seen this coming?
I scrambled for a sound argument, but all that came out was: “No. I’m not leaving yet. I won’t leave without seeing my father. Or Amber. I have to see Amber.”
“What on earth for? Do you realize what’s at stake here?” Ella grabbed my shoulders, and I instinctively threw her off, arms lashing out. My elbow caught her shoulder, and she stumbled back.
“I said no,” I growled. “Get your hands off me. Anyway,” I added, with a snide look at Jace, “I’m too young to be good for anything. Isn’t that right?”
“Callie, you don’t understand . . .” Jace sounded almost despairing.
“Oh, I think I understand perfectly. Now, I’m going to see my friend who almost died today because of you people. Are you taking me, or am I going alone?” The doorway was a blurred point of light at the end of the hall, and my feet earned their own personal bravery medal in propelling me toward it, while my vision swam with tears and my head swirled.
I’d said I’d read. Why did it matter where? I couldn’t leave here. This was my home. I couldn’t leave my Dad. I wasn’t about to get in a car with people I barely knew or trusted and drive hundreds of miles to do, what? I didn’t even know how to read, project, or whatever the hell it was. An image of the book flared in my mind, like a firework display with me at the center. Everything spun. My legs stumbled on, away from the cottage, away from them both, until my knees buckled, and I retched onto the gravel.
***
The Seer shook his head to clear it. “In and out, in and out. Out again.”
“The girl’s in the open again?” Scarman shook the gap-toothed old man. “You can feel her, track her?”
“She’s near,” he replied. “Daddy’s girl is so close.”
Scarman turned to Wulf and Sailor. “This time, kill the bodyguard. Don’t take any chances.”
Wulf looked uncertain. “He’s fast and strong. A trained fighter. And they shield well.”
“Then don’t get close. Run him over, shoot him, blow him up, I don’t care.”
He turned back to the Seer. “You called her Daddy’s girl?”
The Seer clapped his hands in delight. “It sings so loud. Just a little girl. Singing for her daddy.”
Scarman grinned. It pushed his scars together until they looked like knots in wood. “I hear you, old man. We go after the girl, and in case we fail, this time we will arrange insurance.”
Cyrus frowned. “What insurance?”
Scarman’s grin widened. “Her father.”
***
I snatched the proffered tissue from Jace’s hand and tried to recover a little dignity.
“You have thirty minutes!” Ella yelled, as Jace slammed the passenger door and ran around to his side.
“She’s frustrated, because she can’t make you do what she wants short of putting a gun to your head,” he said, revving the engine.
“Is that what’s next? Threats?” My voice kept changing key.
“No. I promise you.” Jace put his hand out to mine, but I pulled away. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
After a few minutes, he slowed the car slightly. “Callie, what you heard . . . it isn’t what you—”
“‘It doesn’t matter.’ It’s my new mantra. Do you like it?”
“You don’t understand the context. It’s not that you are too young to be effective or useful, it’s—”
“That I’m too young to care about? Too young to kiss? Yeah, I got it all. Don’t worry.”
He sighed. “You’re being obtuse. Let me explain.”
“Yeah, teenagers are obtuse. It goes with the whole being too young thing. Don’t worry about it, Jace. Really. My father said no man would want a woman like me.” The last words left my mouth in a rush, and I really wished I could swallow them back. I’d never told anyone that, and I really hadn’t wanted to tell him. Heat and cold swept over my skin like a fever. “Just forget it, all right? We’re here.”
I grabbed my book-laden rucksack, jumped out of the car, and ran up the drive into Amber’s house.
***
“I need someone who knows how to blow up a car,” said Wulf to the ramshackle collection of Cadaveri all fighting to grab food and drink from a pile of fresh supplies. “Are any of you any bleedin’ use at all?”
“Need fuel, oxygen”—the scrawny little creature took a big bite of bread and chewed it with his mouth open—“and heat. Car go boom.”
“You can do it? I don’t need someone who’s just talk.”
“Sure. Used to like playing with fire, I did.”
“All right then.” Wulf grabbed a loaf in passing. “You’re with me.”
***
I almost tripped over a suitcase just inside Amber’s front door. Her brother, Joe, steadied me. He was wearing green camouflage pants and jacket, the creases where it had been folded still showing across his chest.
“I was just trying it on,” he murmured.
“Looks good on you. Dashing,” I replied, but I couldn’t make myself smile. Joe gave an abrupt nod and turned away, his face the color of milk.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Amber was hurt, and that mattered, it really did. World war was coming, and I was supposed to be leaving, and Amber had something important to tell me, and Gavin—oh God, Gavin. Yet, what came out of my mouth when I raced into her bedroom was, “Jace kissed me, and then he told Ella I was too young.” Then, to my intense mortification, I burst into tears.
Amber pulled me down onto the bed and kept her arm over me as I sobbed.
“You know,” she said, her voice still three-parts gravel, “you are possibly the most self-obsessed person I’ve ever loved. Luckily, I’m going to let you off, because recently I’ve realized crying is a lot more complicated than I ever thought. Take my Mum,” she continued. I could feel the pillow shift as she let her head flop back. I continued to hiccup and cry and shake, and I couldn’t even work out why. “She cried when she thought my dad would be drafted. That’s like two years ago now. Then she wept buckets when she found out Joe was going to be drafted. My dad wrote to the Ministry of Defence to volunteer to join up in Joe’s place, and she cried when they said no. She cried when she saw my throat, but then she also cried when the hospital said I could come home.” Amber wiped my damp hair off my face.
“So what I realized was, she doesn’t just cry because she’s sad. She cries because she feels powerless. She cries because she doesn’t know what else to do.”
I gave a deeply unattractive gurgle as I tried to control my sobs and said, “You know you aren’t just the best friend I ever had, right? You’re the best friend anyone ever had.”
“Thanks, sweetness.” Even through the gravel, her voice sounded like a smile. “That’s good, because I need to ask you something.”
I rolled over to face her. “Anything. Name it.”
“I want you to tell Jace and this Order to go to hell. Tell them to leave here and never come back.” She took a deep breath. “I’m serious, Callie. The draft sucks, and the war sucks, but look at what’s happened to us since they turned up. Not just to you and me but to everyone around here.”
“I’m not blind, Amber. I’ve thought about n
othing else. But it’s the Cadaveri hurting people, not the Order,” I whispered.
“Who brought them here? There’s another Reader out there, right?”
I folded an edge of duvet between my fingers. “Somewhere.”
“So when the Order leaves to find that Reader, the Cadaveri will go with them to stop the next reading. And we’ll be safe.” She grabbed my hands. “You have to tell them to get lost.”
I pushed myself up to sitting and wiped my face with the back of my hand. “They want me to go to London. Tonight. To read.”
“No. You can’t go. Give them the book, and send them away.”
“I-I’m not sure giving them the book will make a difference. I think . . . I think I know the book well enough now that they can hear it in my head.” I paused and then found the courage to look at her. “I can feel it in my head. Like a pressure, or . . . like something banging at a door, hard.” I shuddered. “It’s like it wants to get in. Or get out. I’m scared, Amber. I think the Cadaveri won’t stop until I’m dead.”
“I always knew that book was creepy.” She ran a finger over her bruised neck. “Give it to Jace, tell your dad everything, and make him take you away. Just drive, Callie. Keep driving and moving until the Order are long gone and the Cadaveri have followed them.”
“What if my dad doesn’t believe me?”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
Like I said: best best friend ever.
Chapter 17
“This won’t be fancy. I ain’t got a timer or anything.” The Cadaveri slid the siphon hose through the broken car window and let some of the fuel pour out onto the seats.
“Then wait until the bodyguard comes back. Make it count,” said Wulf. “I’ll draw him this way.”
He crossed to the far side of the street and waited.
***
Jace punched in the senator’s number while he scanned the perimeter of Amber’s house. He hadn’t called Washington since the fire at the barn, but leaving communication with their boss to Ella no longer seemed like such a good idea. Not when they had radically different ideas about how to proceed.