by Casey Hays
“Why?” I ask.
“Because . . . we have become something else.” He’s charged with a new energy that spills from him. “A city that is invincible. Indestructible. And another Fall will not be able to take us out. Not this time. This is why we stay.”
I absorb his words. He turns away from me and continues up the road. I follow, silent.
“We never should have let Ian talk us into going back for you,” he exclaims, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and casting a quick glance at me over his shoulder. “It was a bad idea from the beginning, and we all knew it. Even him. I should have done more to stop him. He just wouldn’t listen.” He tosses me a regretful glance. “Nothing against you, Kate. I like you and all, but we came after you with no plan. It was stupid. Ian wanted to carry you off into the sunset so you could live happily ever after. That’s all he could think about.”
“And where were we going to live?” I ask.
He sighs, relaxes his shoulders under the weight of his pack, and looks straight into my eyes. “Like I said, we had no plan. He just wanted you.”
His eyes are soft, and his words—beautifully painful—send me into silence. We take a few more steps. I sheath my useless knife. Up the path, Diana has stopped to wait for us.
“I’ve said too much,” he repeats. A fear lines his voice, and the thought crosses my mind that he truly believes he’s committed treason by his revelations. “We all could be in the biggest mess of our lives when we get back. And not just with our parents.”
Worry creases his handsome face. He takes hold of the backpack straps and hitches the pack up a bit higher.
“Who’s going to tell her,” I say with a nod toward Diana, and a flood of apprehension consumes me. I fear she will not take any of this well.
“We aren’t going to tell her.” Justin says the words with that easy manner of his, and my apprehension converts once more to shock.
“Yes, we are.”
Gently, he takes my arm and pulls me to a stop.
“No, we are not. I wasn’t even going to tell you until you bombarded me with all your questions. To tell her now would only be cruel. We will wait until we get to Jordan. There, it will be safer to tell her everything. She’s emotionally fragile right now. We don’t need to upset her.”
I frown. “Does she seem emotional to you? Or fragile?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“She’s putting up a great front.”
Diana is making her way toward us.
“So you weren’t going to tell me? You were going to simply take us to Jordan and let us believe we were in Eden? Is that it?”
He smiles. “You’re too smart for all that. There is no way you would’ve mistaken Jordan for Eden. And no. I was not going to tell.” He cocks his head, shrugging. “I was going to let Ian do it when he got back. This is his deal. His responsibility. Unfortunately, you dragged it out of me.”
“And now you expect me to say nothing to Diana. Do any of you ever tell the truth? Is lying part of your precious Code?”
He raises an exasperated brow, and he chooses to ignore most of what I’ve said. “The damage is done. No point in making her suffer for the entire journey. We wait.”
“She needs to know.” I pierce him, but he holds his gaze. “I can’t keep this from her.”
“Then you say nothing, and I will keep it from her for you.” He nods with a twinkle in his eyes, even as I smirk at his illogical statement. “Just . . . let her ride it out. I promise you, it’s best to wait.”
His promises are of such little worth, and I want to scream. I clench my fists as he moves off down the road.
“And Tabitha?” I call after him in a hushed but angry tone. “What if she dies before Diana sees her again? How will you explain it then?”
“Don’t think ahead. Just concentrate on what we need to do now.”
“Oh, yes. That’s the perfect plan,” I mumble. I don’t hide my sarcasm.
He tosses me one last look just before we reach Diana. She stands before him, her eyes pleading.
“Can we run?” she asks, and my breath catches in my throat.
Justin smiles, easing her anxiety with a mere glance. I watch him, and the grain of irritation grows larger and burrows in to sit and wait with me.
“You want to run?”
She nods energetically.
“Tell you what. Let’s wait until it’s closer to dark. We’ll eat, and then we can run for a few hours before we make camp.”
Her face creases with concern. “Why must we wait until dark?”
He leans in and speaks in a low voice. “We don’t need unwanted attention. From . . . people who might see us.”
“But . . . what about Ian?” Diana whispers. She searches his face, wringing her hands. “Might he be seen? And what if someone decides to throw knives at him again?”
His calm demeanor affixes itself to his face. “They won’t. Look, he’ll be fine. By himself he can be discreet.”
I close my eyes resignedly. His smooth manner runs over Diana like oil and caresses her fears. It isn’t an entirely awful skill, but it infuriates me because his present tenderness damages my urge to smack at him. Diana takes him at his word because she hasn’t the knowledge or the power to do anything else. He connects with me, his eyes dark with warning but full of assurance, and my heart slows its erratic beating a bit to bask in their safety despite myself.
But in that split second, as he takes Diana by the elbow and guides her down the road in front of me, something else happens too. Every misgiving I hold rises to the surface and floats around me like dead fish in a diseased pond.
I doubt Ian’s love for me. I doubt that I can trust him. I doubt that Tabitha will get better. I doubt that we are traveling to a village at all. And I fear that Diana and I will die out here in this foreign land with these boys we hardly know.
And then I look at Justin in all his fortitude and steady reserve. A wave rides in and stills my doubts and fears. This irritates me, too—that he has this power over my emotions.
But he does. Because he is full of reason and safety. He is here, and Ian is not. And for now, there is nothing else for me to do but rely on him even when I don’t want to.
My guilt tugs at me the remainder of the day, like ropes around my wrists. I rub at my scars unconsciously, force myself to believe that Justin is right. He is right. Telling Diana the truth will only magnify her anxiousness and make her that much more frightened for Tabitha, and we have much farther to travel. We have to consider the well-being of her other baby. Diana needs some kind of hope, and this is how we will give it. By keeping her from the truth.
And so I’m pulled into this web of deception. I don’t like it.
The skies darken once again with billowing rain clouds that threaten us with growling thunder in the distance, but they never come any closer. They tease us, make us insane and on edge, and they flutter away to laugh behind our backs. Perhaps they convince the Archer to be kind and save his arrows of lightening for another day.
For Tabitha’s sake, I hope Ian has made good progress.
I focus on these thoughts, but they do nothing to ease my own conscience.
Near dark, we stop and make a small fire near the river. Justin catches and fries three enormous trout, the tasty aroma wafting up into the air all around us. A chill creeps in on me with the setting sun, and I sit close to the fire, shuddering, and lose myself in its flickering warmth. For a little while, I wrap myself in a blanket of forgetfulness.
I know too much . . . and not enough. And the unveiling of each new secret eats at me.
Max is on watch tonight. He scans the trees, making a wide circle around the perimeter of the fire with his larger knife in hand. After one pass around the site, he sheathes the knife in his boot and produces his pocket knife. He flicks it open in one quick motion, flicks it closed with another. He’s always watchful, observant, his eyes constantly surveying our surroundings. He puts me at ease. I sense that nothing unexp
ected will startle him.
I watch him pass a time or two more, and I picture the Set-Typhon briefly, with their knives and serpent tattoos hiding in the branches of low hanging trees or behind the wide trunks until panic threatens. I force the images out of my mind.
I wish Ian was here. And I’m glad he isn’t. And these contrasting feelings wrestle each other deep inside my heart.
Mostly . . . I just wish he was here.
I’m so angry with him.
I miss him. I miss his laugh and the way he runs his hand through his hair or across the back of his neck. I miss how he looks at me with eyes so full of trust. He always has, ever since the Pit when I proved myself to him. He trusts me, and yet he didn’t tell me about Eden.
I scowl, picking at my food. He is poison laced with honey.
Jesse sits beside me in all his bulk, and I feel immensely small. His baseball cap sits backwards on his head, and a tuft of curls escapes to hang over his forehead. He offers me a drink from his water bottle.
“We’re going to run for a while now that it’s dark enough,” he says. “Just for a while. Diana insists.”
He says this as if there’s no arguing to be had. I take a deep drink of water and don’t answer.
“I’m taking you with me.”
I tense, wipe my mouth on my sleeve, and try to appear indifferent.
“I’m not as fast as Ian, but I’m a lot more comfortable.” He nods with a playful confidence. I smile.
“I’m actually glad for that. I’m not so thrilled about running.”
“I know.”
“Why must we run?” I search him. “Walking will get us to the same destination just as easily.”
He laughs, raises his cap and replaces it. “Well, we’re late for one. If we don’t get back soon, people will start looking for us. And when I say people, I mean parents.” He smiles. “It’s never good when parents start looking for you.”
I nod, and he leans his large body toward me, confidentially.
“Actually, we kind of like it. The running, I mean. It’s amazing since the Shift. It’s new to us, and . . . it’s fun. Makes us feel powerful.”
I study his sincere expression. And part of me believes this is the most honesty I’ve seen since leaving the Village.
“Don’t worry,” he winks. “I won’t drop you.”
His promise doesn’t ease the anxious flutter in my belly.
The trout is good, and a silence falls over us as we eat. Diana sits on the other side of me and nibbles at her meal. Her spunk has waned as evening glides in, and so has her appetite. I nudge her.
“You must eat.”
She nods. “I know. I’ll try.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m so worried for Tabitha.”
In the quiet of evening, her emotions catch up to her. She is spent, and I see the weariness in her face. I ease an arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t be.” I force confidence into my voice, a confidence that ebbs. “Ian will get her there. I’m certain of it.”
“I hope so.” She picks at her fish. “She must live, Kate.”
My embrace tightens, and I scowl at Justin across the fire. He slowly shakes his head, and my anger only deepens.
Diana will hate me for this. Not him. Me.
Chapter 12
Ruined. Empty. Lifeless.
Every place on earth bears the same marks, and the loneliness that envelops this world saddens me.
A rusty and crooked sign on the outskirts of town greets us with “Welcome to Edmonton. Population: 4,819.” But Edmonton spreads out before us, battered and broken. And empty of all 4,819 residents.
Only stragglers remain.
Stragglers. And us.
Another empty town. Another wave of doubt.
I examine the dirty, barren streets of Edmonton. The houses we first come upon are tattered, every window broken. Some are in such a state of decay that they barely stand. The moon brightens intensely, as if it’s pushed the clouds aside, and in its light, the dark and looming abodes gawk at us eerily. I shiver, edging closer to Justin’s side.
To my astonishment, a girl—no more than seven or eight years of age—skitters across our path up ahead. In the light of the moon, her hair is so fair it’s nearly white, and at first, I am certain I’ve seen a ghost. What else could it be amid such desolation? She’s immensely thin, and her worn clothes hang loosely about her. She doesn’t toss a single glance our way as she scampers past a bent street light and disappears around the side of a building.
“Why are they still here?” I ask Justin. “How do they manage to survive?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs, his voice a whisper. “I’ve never been this far from Eden. I’ve never been on this side of the river.” He clutches my elbow, an urgency in the touch, and pushes me slightly forward to walk just ahead of him next to Diana. “I’m just as surprised as you are every time I see them.”
“Ian told me villages are everywhere,” I say over my shoulder. “But these are not villages. These are skeletons.”
“We aren’t far enough east yet.” He adjusts his pack, looping his thumbs through the straps. “On the other side of the river? That’s where the real people are. Out here?” He shakes his head. “We need to be careful.”
Oh, yes. The other side of the river. A tinge of familiar anger invades me. It all began with that first, small lie. How many more will surface before this journey’s end?
“And that little girl?” I nod at the building as we pass, and Diana searches his face as well. “What do you make of her? Must we fear her, too?”
“I think where there are children, there are adults. And those are the ones we need to fear.”
I nod, exchanging a glance with Diana, but I can’t imagine we would need to be afraid of such feeble beings.
Max searches out an old house, and he and Jesse inspect it thoroughly before letting us enter. It’s sturdy enough that none of them believe it will collapse upon us. The once white walls are now a dull gray, coated with sheets of dust and cobwebs.
I can’t help but wonder about the people who once lived here—before the Fall. A man and his wife? Children? Perhaps a dog? I’ve read about dogs. Pets they were called. I’ve never seen a dog. I’m not certain they exist anymore, but I try to picture a family here, happy and whole and with a dog. My imagination is limited in such things, and all I can see of a dog is what sits inside a cave in the form of stock. And the Pit looms in my memory again.
“Go ahead and pick a room, girls,” Jesse hands me a flashlight and gestures toward a flight of stairs that climbs up a drab wall and disappears in darkness at the top. “We’ve checked it out up there. All’s clear.”
The first room we come too contains a large bed—with a lumpy but semi-decent mattress and big enough for three people, especially when one is a baby. This thought scampers through my mind before I can catch it, and my heart sinks. We have no baby. I blot out the thought and step into the room.
“This will do,” I say, waving the beam across the length of small space. Diana says nothing. Instead, she drops her bag at her feet, pushes past me, and climbs into the bed. She’s wrapped in a blanket, and she pulls it up around her until her head is completely covered.
I flash the beam over the contents of the room. It contains very little. Aside from the bed, there is a chair in the corner. Coiled springs poke their heads out of the cushion like spiraling worms wiggling their way up from under the earth. A rug is sprawled across the floor at the foot of the bed, but the most pleasantly surprising aspect of the room causes my breath to catch sharply.
Tucked behind the old chair and partially hidden from view squats a bookcase. I squeeze around the chair and kneel in front of it. Astonished, I find three books stacked one on top of the other.
I take up one book and blow dust from the cover. It is tattered, the cover splintered and peeling. Half the book is missing pages, and the remaining pages are yellowed and crumbling. This matters not to me. In my mind, I�
�ve stumbled across the greatest treasure of my life.
The title is called Random Poems of the Unknowns. I tuck the flashlight under my arm, angled just so, and I open the book to the first poem. And the words smiling up at me from the worn pages coax tears from my eyes.
Do you believe in Love at first Hello?
I never did until I saw your face.
You slipped into my life as still as snow
Swept up my heart and left yours in its place.
Now Love can be a tricky little thing
She never lets you know she’s in so soon.
But then you feel your Heart begin to sing.
And Love announces her part in the tune.
So if you find yourself in such a bind
Perhaps its time to set your heart a flight
To spread its wings to guide your soul and mind
Unto that place that only Love can sight
For love will never wait upon your sign
Before she steals your heart to give to mine.
I sigh, and my tears blur my vision until the words on the page transform into black squiggles. I wipe at my eyes. How long has it been since I held a book in my hands?
The other two books are novels, and I tuck all three of them into my pouch with overwhelming happiness as an image of the woman who read to me invades my mind. To think that there could still be something precious in this broken world.
I don’t realize how exhausted I am until I’ve laid down my head beside Diana. The mattress is musty and uncomfortable, but we’ve slept in much less adequate places, and I force myself to be grateful for the roof over our heads.
It seems impossible that Ian only left with Tabitha just this morning. The day has been far too long.
The moonlight shimmers in through the window, reminding me that the rains have stayed away. If they continue to do so, Ian could be in Eden by the day after tomorrow. I try to picture where he may be along the road, but it’s difficult to do when I don’t even know what the terrain will look like from day to day. Sometimes it’s carved with miles and miles of empty road, fields rolling out on each side with the river in the distance. Other times, it’s armed with cities full of buildings, windows shattered, tops missing. Rubble in the streets, strange signs with strange words half-hanging above doorways. Mama Pete’s Pizzeria. Bubbles Laundro-Mat.Perkins Piano and Guitar Repair. Or simply a badly faded number—written at the end of a long cement drive in front of a house: 420. 719. 1001. I don’t know what they once meant.