by Casey Hays
Justin’s breath tickles my cheek lifting a loose strand of hair in its wake, and I tremble in his arms. And amid all the tears and the tenderness, I am suddenly too aware of his closeness. I push away from him, and his arms drop from around me.
Eventually, Diana eases away from Ian, her eyes red and puffy. She stares at the ground, her fingers fumbling with the end of her shirt. Ian runs a hand through his hair, and cautiously settles back in the dirt beside her.
“It was the toxin.”
Ian says it quietly and to no one in particular, but I straighten as he continues.
“It poisoned her just like we thought.” He looks wearily at Justin. “Doc confirmed it.”
Diana begins to shake—all over. But when Ian reaches out to her, she furiously shoves him away and covers her face. I sit still, numbed by this newest revelation, but Justin rises, shaking his head in disbelief.
“But— the toxin is contained.”
“Yeah. So says your dad. And my dad swears there are no leaks.” Ian clasps his hands together over his propped knees and shrugs. “But you saw her, Justin. We all did. It’s not contained.”
“No way,” Jesse exclaims, a shock exploding from him. He steps forward, big and intimidating, and full of disbelief as usual. “It’s always been contained. If it isn’t, the girls should be just as sick, or dead by now. They aren’t.”
Ian climbs to his feet. “We all saw that baby, Jesse. What other explanation is there? And what do we really know about the toxin except what they tell us? Maybe there’s more to it. Maybe we need to be more curious.”
Jesse waves a sweeping hand. “Kate and Diana have not had the Serum, and they are not sick. The toxin is contained,” he insists.
He removes his cap and punches an agitated fist into it. I see the frustration written on his face. He doesn’t like that things may be displaced from his idea of normal. It interferes with his realistic outlook. I’ve known him long enough to understand he prefers for things to be either black or white. But this? This slides into a mucky gray he can’t accept.
“Okay. Let’s say you’re right.” Ian points straight at me. “But Kate has a friend in her village who says he was in Eden for two months. Two months! That was over two years ago, and he’s still alive. How do you explain that?”
His eyes roam from Jesse’s stunned expression to Max’s wide-eyed stare, and finally rest on Justin. None of them seem to know what to say to this.
“Are you sure about Kate’s friend?” Justin finally asks. “I mean, first, it doesn’t seem possible that he could’ve traveled all this way by himself.”
When Ian doesn’t answer, he turns to me.
“John says he was there.” I am adamant. “And I believe him.”
“This is ridiculous!” Jesse throws his hands in the air. “No Outsider was in Eden for two months. Do you even see how ludicrous that would be? Ian, did you lose your mind on your way back to Eden? The toxin is contained!”
“How do you explain what happened to the baby, then? She was all the way out here on this side of the river. She’d never been to Eden. The system has to be defective, or broken, or something. Look, we don’t have time to be arguing—”
“Ian.” Diana’s chillingly, quiet voice breaks into the fray, and hearing his name stops him cold in the middle of his sentence. She sits in the same place, her knees still drawn up to her chest, wet streaks tracked down each cheek. She rocks back and forth, and in the same quiet manner, she asks, “How did my baby die?”
I suck in a quick breath as Justin’s description of death by toxin invades my memory, and I brace myself. Ian’s face tenses, and he can’t bring himself to say anything at first. But she bores into him, never looking away. He sighs, shaking his head.
“You don’t want to know.” His voice is so low, so full of resistance to share Tabitha’s last moments with her.
“But I do. I need to know.”
He shakes his head again and kneels before her. “Diana—“
“Tell me! Just . . . tell me. What did this poison do to my baby?”
Her voice explodes with fervent desperation, and still Ian hesitates. He looks to Justin for help, but Justin looks away. He has no wise words to share for such a time as this.
Don’t tell us. We don’t need to know.
Ian blows a long puff of air through his lips, rubs a hand across the back of his neck just below the hairline.
“She suffocated,” he manages. “On her own blood.”
It’s enough to cause an image to materialize in the mind, and Diana’s face pinches with anguish. I break free from the invisible hands that hold me in place, and I’m crawling. I move across the small space that separates us as quickly as I can to hug her to me. She wraps her arms around my waist, buries her face into the folds of my shirt. Her sobs are a silent heaving this time, and it is the worst display of despair—worse than open weeping. It tears at my heart.
“You saw my dad?” Justin asks.
“Yeah, and mine,” Ian replies.
“How are you not restricted?”
“I am.”
“Then how did you get out?” Jesse’s disbelief fills him.
Ian stands, dusting off his pants. “Tunnels.”
Justin narrows in on him. “What?”
“It turns out a series of tunnels runs beneath the city.”
His words send all of them into a brief, shocked silence.
“Tunnels?” Justin exclaims. “You’re kidding!”
“Nope. I met a guard who knew about them. They’ve been there for almost two centuries. Said they’ll be used if we ever need a city-wide evacuation.”
“Why would we need to do that?” Jesse shakes his head in sheer exasperation by now. “That’s absurd.”
“I guess it isn’t,” Ian interjects. “And since I’m the one who crawled through them, I guess I’d know better than anyone.” He pins Jesse with a hard look. “Your parents have all requested a search expedition to find you. But I doubt that’s a top priority at the moment.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Ian glances at me and then lowers his voice. But I hear every word. “I saw something.”
“You saw what?” Justin eyes Ian cautiously. For the first time on this journey, he seems ruffled, and this frightens me. Since I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him as anything but composed. Even in my village, locked in a metal cage and facing execution, he was calm and collected in a way I’d never seen. In my mind, fire could rain down upon us in flaming sheets, and Justin would be the only one who didn’t panic in the heat.
But for the first time, his composure appears weakened.
Ian licks his lips. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.”
“What did you see?” Justin repeats more intensely this time, and all the hairs on my arms stand on end.
“A plane.”
Justin blinks in disbelief. Jesse is speechless this time, his mouth dropping in shock. And I am numb with a new kind of fear. A plane? The idea of such a thing coming to life is more fearsome than any other fear, and a trembling begins to echo deep within. Even Diana, exhausted with crying, raises her head to stare at Ian in shock. And Max, who has been quietly observing this interaction, clears his throat to speak for the first time.
“You saw a plane? Flying? Like in the sky?”
“Yes. Right over the top of the city.”
“Are you sure, Ian?” Justin’s voice screams with worry. “You’re sure it wasn’t just another eagle?”
Ian’s blue eyes intensify.
“It was a plane.”
The words demand belief, and Justin looks away, grave concern flooding all of his features. He runs a nervous hand up the side of his face.
“Where did it come from?” Jesse finally finds his tongue.
“I don’t know.” Ian gives a defeated shake of his head. “There was only one, and it was dark, so I couldn’t read its markings.”
Am I truly hearing this? Airplanes no long
er exist, except as hunks of debris, disused and decaying from the instant they fell from the sky. There is no means left for flying them, just as there is no means left for driving cars and trucks. This is a piece of the past never to be revived. All of the boys have said so at one point or another on this journey. There is no fuel left on Earth. And yet, if Ian saw a plane—and I have no doubt he believes this is what he saw—it is sure proof that someone has found a way to raise these monsters from the dead.
And why?
One word flares in the depths of my worst fears.
War.
I shudder, and Diana responds to the vibration with a shudder of her own.
“We need to go.” Ian moves to one of the tents and pulls up a stake. He pauses. “It’s been a couple of days since I left Eden. Who knows what might be happening there now? I don’t feel good about any of it.”
Justin stoops to reach inside the collapsed tent and drag out the sleeping bag and other items Ian failed to remove first. “And the Set-Typhon? Have you seen any sign of them?”
Ian shakes his head. “But I left the knife with Kyle, the guard I mentioned? He’s got a knack for knowing things. I’m hoping he’ll find something.”
The others look extremely disturbed, but they don’t mention the fire, sensing that Ian has enough on his shoulders without piling on more worries. He disappears inside my tent and tosses the sleeping bag out into the grass. He reappears, his hair ruffled.
“What are you thinking?” Max asks him, and Ian shrugs.
“I don’t know what to think,” he concludes.
“So what’s our plan now?” Jesse crosses his arms over his chest and towers tall and strong over the rest of us. “Do we go to Jordan?”
“No.” Ian’s answer is harsh. “We can’t take the girls across the river. I don’t know how widespread the toxin is.”
Justin frowns. “That’s absurd thinking, Ian. We are closer to the bridge now than we were when Tabitha got sick. And we have nowhere else to take them. We go to Jordan, as planned.”
Ian opens his mouth to protest, but Diana interrupts.
“Why will Jordan be any safer in light of these things?” Her voice lacks all emotion. She raises dull eyes. “If the world is falling apart all over again, how can we be safe anywhere we go? What does it matter?”
Ian pauses, with a stake in his hand, seemingly lost as to how to address her. It’s Justin who answers. He kneels in front of us, forcing us both to look at him.
“Nothing is ever promised,” he says in his gentle way. “But until there is nothing left to do, we keep doing something. We keep moving. We keep living.” He tilts his head, lifts Diana’s chin. “I know you feel like your life is over right now. But it isn’t.”
He pauses for only a single heartbeat before he reaches out and lays his palm against her curved belly.
“It isn’t,” he repeats, and all his cool composure has returned, and in it, I feel a blanket of safety drop snugly around us both. I concentrate on him, letting the words absorb. “So we keep moving. We keep doing something.”
We keep living.
Diana stares at him, unblinking, until a small sigh escapes her as if a tiny pinprick has popped a bubble inside her to release the rest of her grief. And she raises herself up, rears back her shoulders, and nods.
“Good,” Justin nods once. “Now let’s go to Jordan.”
Chapter 28
Death pricks at me with the thorns of an ever growing briar that spreads across the vast expanse of my heart. The creeping, spiny tangles threaten to overtake it entirely. And the throbbing, raw ache of it thrums louder with pulsing stabs.
If I had not read of her death on Ian’s face, I would not believe that Tabitha is truly gone. I did not witness it, and for this reason it is much more difficult to accept. I didn’t see the slashing of a knife or a beaten and bruised body hanging limply from a post. I didn’t see her in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of a Pit. But I feel her absence, strong and sure. The air itself is . . . different somehow.
I have had enough of Death to last a lifetime. It staunches my hope.
Who is next? Which one of the people I care about most in this world will next fall prey to Death’s sting?
This lone thought won’t let me be. It assaults my mind, invades my heart, fills me with an aching that presses against my ribcage and threatens to break it in two.
I hang back today, bringing up the rear of our group. Ian walks a few paces ahead of me. I stare at the broad outline of his back. He’s been quiet as a stone since we left camp. So many things between us have been left unsaid. But I feel trepidation at the thought of disrupting his silence, so I do not. He’s brooding. I know he grieves in his own way over the baby he barely knew. Despite his strength, the horror of watching Death take its turn with a life is never easy. Even supernatural abilities do not prepare anyone for this.
A hefty piece of me thinks he purposely avoids me now, afraid to share the dreadful things that have been added to his heart since we last spoke. And I grieve for this, too. For the chasm that looms between us full of ugly things, preventing us from reaching each other.
I sigh heavily and tug on my braid—a habit that has become more prevalent in the last few days. It’s a nervous motion, but I have nothing to keep my hands busy. Misery is my companion, and I cannot steer my mind from dark thoughts. I feel useless at times, too dependant on the boys. I miss being able to make a contribution somehow instead of always being a burden. As strange as it is to think it, I miss these things about the Village. I miss relying on no one but myself.
I trace Ian’s shoulders, observe how the breeze picks up a strand of his blond locks. He turns his head to the side, and I catch a glimpse of his jawline as it tenses and relaxes. He tosses a glance over his left shoulder, winks an ocean blue eye at me, and I remember how it feels to ride on that sea.
I am afraid of how much I love him. Loving him has been the best thing. It has added a new and beautiful realm to my existence, full of passion and tenderness. But it has been littered with sorrow and mistrust along the way, and I begin to understand the cost that comes with loving something too much. It is a dangerous price. It exposes the heart, makes it vulnerable—makes it afraid of losing the thing it loves most.
Makes it breakable.
It makes me question how far I am willing to go.
Who can say when airplanes roam the skies again? Nothing is as it should be, and I shudder.
Ian falls back to walk beside me. He tentatively slips his hand into mine, entangling our fingers until our palms smash together. His blood runs warm, his touch soothing the chill that hangs in the morning air. I close my eyes and concentrate on his warmth, and I try to forget how much he has disappointed me even after he promised he wouldn’t.
We move toward Jordan despite Ian’s misgivings. And I am frightened because he is frightened. But I cling to the belief that new life awaits us on the other side of the river, and all will be well if only we can reach it.
Diana knows of Jordan, and the heaviness of that secret passes. In the relief, I find myself longing for this village—for a sense of the normalcy once again, as much as I can understand normal. I desire to see what I may become in this new place where I will not be known as a breeder.
The others walk ahead of us. The stance of Diana’s body echoes with the sorrow that dwells within. Tabitha’s absence is harsh with wide emptiness that fills up every part of her grief. For a time, there will be nothing else.
Her tears have ended, and she is simply numb. Numb with a sadness only she can understand. It is the worst monster, Grief. It promises a journey each one of us must walk alone even in our joint sorrow
We move quickly, our footsteps crunching on the broken asphalt. Ian squeezes my hand.
“Look, Kate!” His excitement abruptly tugs me out of my reverie. “It’s an eagle!”
I follow the line of his finger as he points. A big bird swoops low over the horizon with an impressive wingspa
n. It flaps its great wings once before they freeze into place, and it glides along the breeze.
“Have you seen one before?”
I shake my head.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispers.
We watch the creature soar overhead and out of sight above the trees. And it is beautiful. I examine Ian.
“Is this why your tattoo has wings?” I ask.
He smiles, nodding.
“Our history claims the eagle was significant once. A symbol of the freedom of our people. They’re supposed to be extinct, but this is the second time I’ve seen one.” He smiles again. “My tattoo? I wanted it to reflect that kind of freedom.”
I don’t respond, and we walk in silence a few more steps until our eyes meet, and Ian heaves a sigh that vibrates through both of us.
“I never meant to bring you out into this mess.”
I purse my lips, hesitate a moment before I ask, “Did you also never intend to tell me the truth about Eden?”
His fingers tighten in my hand. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Kate.” He pleads now. “You know I tried to tell you before I left. There wasn’t time.”
Familiar pangs of anger rumble deep inside me, and I struggle to press them down. The aching that accompanies them brings sudden tears to my eyes. I am weary of collecting one by one trailing strings of truth that seem to drag behind me.
We edge ourselves around one of many fossilized vehicles stalled along the road. It is hot today, and the air is at a standstill. I wipe a trickle of sweat from my brow.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I find myself saying with a sigh of resignation. “I know more than I should.” I glance at him sidelong. “I suppose in your mind, this puts me in danger. That has been the reason for all your lies, hasn’t it? To keep me safe?”