by Tom Isbell
They return to the small cemetery at the edge of the No Water, not so very far from the mesquite bush where Book first found Cat all those months ago. And there, one week after Cat’s death, they bury him next to Major Karsten—his dad.
The ceremony is brief and informal—just how Cat would like it—but many of the LTs say a word or two. It wouldn’t be right not to. They talk about the wolf attack up on Skeleton Ridge, the propane blast, his skill with a bow, how he was always making arrows and firing them accurately, even with only one arm. War stories.
Book speaks the longest, reciting not Cat’s accomplishments but rather something from a play by Shakespeare.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
As he speaks, he and Hope hold hands, their fingers intertwined. This is their final day together, and it’s important they make each moment count.
Hope looks around; the life of every Sister and Less Than present was saved by Cat at one time or another. He came to their rescue on multiple occasions, and now he is a memory. A treasured place within their hearts.
When the mourners ease away from the cemetery, shuffling through sand and sage, there isn’t a dry eye among them. Only Hope and Book remain at the graveside. She leans to one side, still favoring her leg.
“What did he say to you?” she asks Book.
“When?”
“There at the end.”
Book opens his mouth to speak, then changes his mind. “Nothing,” he says. “He asked me to take his hand.”
“Nothing more?”
Book gives his head a shake.
A spring wind stirs the dust, bringing with it the clean smell of desert and pine and mountains. It’s an intoxicating perfume.
“Was he afraid, do you think?” Hope asks.
“Of death? No way. If I was death, I’d be afraid of him.”
Hope smiles at that. Heaven had better make sure the rules up there make sense; otherwise, Cat will see to it that things change in a hurry. He might see to it anyway.
“What now?” she asks. Even though they’ve talked about it a hundred times, it’s become a ritual: sharing the details of their future. Now that President Vasquez understands what’s been happening in the Western Federation all these years, the world is suddenly different. They’re no longer prey. They get to make actual choices.
“Go back up to Frank’s place,” Book says. “Rebuild the cabin.”
“With a library?”
“Already collecting books to take up there.”
Hope smiles. She knows Book won’t be happy unless he’s surrounded by his namesake.
“You?” he asks.
“Heywood offered me a job with the presidential guard. Who woulda thought I’d be working for the government?”
“I know, right?” Then Book asks, “Is it permanent?”
“As permanent as I want it to be.”
Book grunts but says nothing.
She turns to him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Were you going to say—”
“No.”
Hope’s heart falls. It’s been an odd time, the last few days. Here she accomplished what she set out to do—exacting her revenge on the people who tortured and killed her family—and yet, surprisingly, she feels remarkably unsatisfied. No, that’s not the word. Incomplete. She’s excited by the future and the promise of working for people who value her skills. But at the same time, she knows there’s something missing. It’s like there’s an enormous hole in her heart.
“Tonight?” she asks.
“Tonight,” Book says.
They separate, Book walking back to the former shantytown, Hope toward the foothills. When she’s off alone, far away from the eyes and ears of others, tears begin to flow. Although she swipes them angrily with her fingertips, her hands can’t keep up. The tears are far too many and come much too fast and eventually she just gives in. She leans against an aspen tree until her shoulders ache from sobbing. At one point, she lifts her head back and cries out in a scream that is primal and painful and comes from someplace deep within. An appeal to the heavens, soaring to the blue sky above.
And then she collapses to the ground.
61.
I ALWAYS SAID IT started the day we found Cat in the desert, dying from dehydration. He told us things we didn’t know, and after a year of battles and captures, of victories and disappointments, of friends and enemies and love and life and death, the world was changed.
We were changed.
“She would’ve been proud, you know,” Goodwoman Marciniak said to me that evening as we sat around a campfire. I knew without asking she was talking about my grandmother.
“Maybe.”
“No ‘maybe’ about it, she would’ve been.” Then she whispered, “There’s something else.”
Her tone was serious, and a part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she was about to say.
“There’s one thing you might want to know before we say good-bye tomorrow.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Your real name.”
My eyes widened. “You know?”
“She told me once.”
I couldn’t believe it. It was something I’d been dreaming about for years—my true identity. I had even fantasized about it, imagining the acquisition of a new name the way one dreams about receiving a gift. I nodded eagerly, about to learn—for the first time—what my parents had called me.
Goodwoman Marciniak leaned in to tell me … and I suddenly leaned back.
“No,” I said, changing my mind. “It’s better this way.”
She gave me a questioning look. “You don’t want to know?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
The fact was that I already knew. I was a Less Than. I was Book the Less Than, and Flush was Flush and Twitch was Twitch … and Cat was Cat. Finding out my given name might just make me turn my back on who I really was, and I didn’t want that.
I thanked Goodwoman Marciniak and walked away from the fire.
Hope and I spent our final night together in my hut. A dozen or so candles spread an amber glow, and we lay on our sides, my arms wrapped around her, my chest pressed against her back. It was as though all the emotions we’d ever experienced—the sorrows, joys, frustrations, downright longing—were channeled into one night. I never let her go—not once.
In the morning, when sunlight flooded through the hut’s cracks, we held each other awkwardly, kissed briefly, then shuffled off to get ready for our departures. I made the rounds and said good-bye to my friends. The new government was thrilled with this sudden infusion of young people and had promised to enroll them in a new school they were starting. Some, like Red and Flush, promised to come visit when they got vacation time. Others, like Scylla, I had a feeling I’d never see again. I would miss her. I would miss all of them.
Then it was time for Hope and me to say good-bye. We had already said it once that morning, and we were in no mood to repeat it. One farewell was enough. Too many, in fact.
We kind of looked at each other, kind of didn’t. Like there were things we wanted to say but didn’t know how. Even if we could find the words, I’m not sure we were capable of putting them together. My mouth and tongue felt oddly clumsy, as if I was chewing on a bag of rocks.
“Hope,” I said, stalling. I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say, and Hope cut me off before I had the chance.
“Don’t,” she said, and we just looked at each other for a long time. Then she broke the silence and said, “I’d better get going.”
“Yeah, I guess you’d better.”
We locked eyes a moment more, and then she strode off to join the others. Those were our final words.
&nbs
p; Everyone saddled and mounted their horses. A group of soldiers was set to lead the column of riders back to the capital in its new—and perhaps permanent—position. I was the only one staying behind.
Even though she was still recovering from a gunshot wound, Hope climbed atop her horse as effortlessly as rising from a chair. She gave a backward glance, then quickly turned around. When everyone was in line and ready to move out, the horses started forward.
“Bye, Book!” Flush yelled.
“See you l-l-later,” Red called.
I waved good-bye but said nothing. My throat was way too tight to allow the passage of words. Shielding my eyes from the morning sun, I watched them depart, a line of horses and riders snaking east, heading for the river and the next territory and the new capital. No more Western Federation for them. Argos gave a soft whimper and leaned into me. I scratched his head.
The others rode on, the horses’ hooves printing themselves in the damp earth. Because Hope was last in line, she was the easiest to follow, her black hair shimmering in morning light. I stood there frozen, watching her get smaller and smaller until she was the tiniest speck on the horizon, a final star evaporating into the day’s blue sky.
And then she was gone, and once more I was alone.
62.
THEY RIDE ALL DAY, the miles disappearing beneath the horses’ hooves. The landscape slowly alters before their eyes, and in the foothills, the first desert flowers bloom, perfuming the air with sweetness.
Hope barely notices. She is still reliving her night with Book. It feels as though there’s a mark on every part of her skin where he touched her. Beautiful tattoos.
They set up camp, and Hope wonders what it is with words, why they’re so difficult to say—the ones that really matter, anyway. Why couldn’t she tell Book what she wanted to tell him? Why couldn’t she express her real feelings?
Why didn’t she convince him to come with her?
Stars explode in the sky as though someone flipped a switch, and the only sounds in camp are murmured conversations, the nickering of horses, the quiet crackle of fires.
Hope knows that sleep isn’t possible, and so she rises from her bed and edges away from camp. Solitude tugs at her.
She doesn’t know what life was like in pre-Omega days, but as she takes in this enormous wilderness all around her—scent of sage and woodsmoke, final bird cries of the evening, a distant coyote nipping at the air—she vows to help protect it. To live in a world worth living, for everyone.
Without knowing why, she strains a hand upward and tries to touch the stars.
“Live today,” she says aloud.
There’s no one there to complete the thought.
EPILOGUE
THE DREAM WAS ALWAYS the same: racing across the prairie, fleeing from Brown Shirts, chased by an angry swarm of bullets. A hazy gunpowder hung in the air, wrinkling my nose with its acrid smell. My four-year-old hand was encompassed in my grandmother’s, even as we ran for our lives.
And then, I discovered years later, it wasn’t a dream. It happened. It was a memory. Soldiers were after us because I was a Less Than, and by letting me be captured instead of killed, my grandmother saved me.
Now when I race across the prairie, the smoke that hangs in the air is not from gunpowder but morning mist, rising lazily to the sky as the sun warms the damp earth. It’s not the singing of bullets but birdsong. Our hands are locked, Hope’s and mine, our fingers intertwined.
We surprised each other in the night. As Argos and I left Libertyville and followed the soldiers’ trail east, Hope was retracing her way west. We met somewhere in between.
“Book?” she asked, trying to confirm that it was really me.
“Hope?” I asked in return, not really believing it was her, there in the dark in the middle of the high desert.
She nodded. Argos barked.
“Come on,” I said.
She stared at me a moment. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know, but we’re about to find out. And wherever it is, it’s going to be a hell of an adventure.”
My hand took hers, and then we circled in place until we were dizzy. When we came to a stop, fighting to keep from falling down, there was a vast and untouched prairie in front of us, stretching as far as the eye could see.
“Which way are we facing?” she asked.
“Does it matter?”
She smiled, and without a word between us we began to run. My eyes landed on her wounded leg.
“Can you do this?” I asked.
“I can definitely do this,” she said.
And so that’s what we do. We run. Maybe not as fast as in times past, and certainly not as desperately, but still we run, even as the stars disappear and the sun rises bright and golden against a blue dome of sky.
Although we have yet to open our hearts and say the things we want to say, we’re together. And for once our running isn’t because we’re fleeing anybody, it’s because we’re headed toward something. To a future we can’t yet guess. To a shared life.
Book and Hope together.
We run for the longest time, sometimes laughing, mainly just enjoying the sound of each other’s breathing and our muted footsteps on the earth. Neither of us quite believes we’re together.
“Wait,” she finally says, coming to a halt.
My chest heaves, inhaling crisp morning air. Hope is red cheeked from running.
“I never told you,” she says.
“Told me what?”
She hesitates, bites her bottom lip, musters courage. “How I feel about you.” Those piercing brown eyes of hers look into me. Through me.
I give my head a slight shake. “You don’t need to tell me. I know. Because I feel the same way about you.”
A smile brighter than the sun lights her face.
“But there is something I need,” I say.
“What, Book?” she asks, concerned. “What do you need?”
I slip my hands to her face, stroking those blushing cheeks, those beautiful two Xs. I slide my fingers behind her neck and pull her gently forward. Our lips brush, hesitate, brush again.
“This,” I say. “This is what I need.”
My beloved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I BELIEVE IN COMMUNITY. Whether it’s geography that brings people together, or a sports team, or putting on a play, there is value in the team.
As this final book of the Prey trilogy makes it into readers’ hands, I want to acknowledge how honored I am to be a part of the HarperCollins community. They have championed this series from the beginning, and I can’t thank them enough for their belief in this story and for all the hard work they do to publish and promote young adult literature.
I am indebted to senior editor Alyson Day, assistant editors Abbe Goldberg and Tessa Meischeid, copyeditors Renée Cafiero and Valerie Shea, designer Joel Tippie, marketing manager Jenna Lisanti, publicist Lindsey Karl, and all the wonderful people at HarperCollins who tackle the countless assignments it takes to publish a book. Thank you, each and every one of you, for doing what you do … and doing it so well.
I want to give particular thanks to my editor, Alyson Day. For a number of years now we have worked on these three books, and with every single interaction Alyson has treated me with respect, with humor, with kindness, with gentle prodding (when needed), and always with utter graciousness. She does her job with efficiency and, just as important, with compassion. I am more grateful to her than I can possibly express.
The same goes for my wonderful agents—Victoria Sanders, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Chris Kepner, Jessica Spivey. They bolster my spirits when they need bolstering and challenge my writing when it needs challenging. Again, there aren’t the words to fully express my gratitude. I am honored to be on the VSA team.
As always, I want to thank my early readers who have accompanied me on this journey, in particular Ryan Gallagher and Katie Caskey. They asked the tough questions, even when I didn’t always want to hear t
hem asked. I’m grateful they persisted.
I’ve dedicated this book to my parents. Although they’ve both passed away, they continue to be with me: guiding, encouraging, supporting.
Finally, I want to thank Pat, my true companion. She was with me when I had the idea for these books—when the notions of Book and Hope and Cat and the Less Thans first entered my mind—and she’s been with me every step along the way. More important, she teaches me the three Ls: to laugh, to live, to love. I am the luckiest guy in the world to get to travel through life with her.
Also By Tom Isbell
Prey Trilogy
The Prey
The Capture
The Release
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