by Casey Hays
The thought of Jones pierces my conscience. Like everyone else, he’s trapped in Eden. Is he busy preparing his students for their worst challenge yet? A real live dangerous mission to protect Eden at all cost? And will they be ready? Not if they’re a student like me, they won’t. I wrestle with that thought a moment.
I never did show him how I’d mastered the leap and land, and this hits me hard in the gut. I hope I get the chance.
“Ian,” Kate’s voice pulls me back under the trees with her. “I have no desire to staunch the qualities in you that make up who you are. What would I be if I asked that of you?” She pauses, and then reaches up to lay her hand gently against the side of my face. My pulse quickens. “I fell in love with all of you,” she whispers. “I would never want anything else.”
I lift her up, and she wraps her arms around my neck, pressing in close. My clothes are still damp, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
“I only ask three things of you,” she continues, her eyes full of pleading. “Always be truthful with me. Always be true to yourself. And be careful with both.”
I can’t breathe, lost in her eyes, lost in her words and the promise I sense in them.
“Just . . . be careful, Ian.” She closes her eyes, pressing her forehead to mine. “You have a terrible habit of forgetting to do this one thing. I never want to see you at the bottom of a pit again.”
A bird whistles loud and clear in the trees above us, and she raises her eyes to find it.
“I told you once I never wanted to disappoint you,” I say, and she drops her eyes to my face. “I meant it. And you told me that was impossible. And you’re right. It is. But what you just asked for? This I can do.”
She smiles, tilting her head. “I know you can. This is why I asked it of you.”
And I kiss her then, and she yields to me with all her grace and strength still intact. And the bird keeps up his whistling, and the river keeps up its rushing, and my heart keeps up its beating with the only love it will ever know.
The river begins to narrow out the farther we walk north, until the other side of the embankment comes clearly into view. I take Kate right up to the edge of a rocky overhang, dangerously high, and I point across the river.
“Do you see those buildings way over there?” I ask. She nods. “That’s a place called Gath. And all those fields surrounding it? Those are wheat fields, and they stretch for miles. We trade with Gath for the best breads. And when we get over there, I’m going to get you the biggest loaf you’ve ever eaten.”
She smiles, shading her eyes in the sun. “And can you see Jordan from here?”
“No. It’s on the other side of Scarlet Forest. We’ll travel through Gaza and Gath and the forest before we get there.”
Disappointment crosses her face. “So much farther?” She sighs.
“We can run the whole way if you want,” I tease. And she shoves at me playfully.
“No, thank you. I’ll manage.” She takes a tentative step nearer the edge and looks down. “I can’t imagine what possessed you to jump.”
I smile. “Adrenaline. Once it starts pumping through your veins, you feel like you can do anything.” I wait a moment before I add. “You felt it . . . when you saved me from Mona.”
She stills beside me. “I never want to feel that again.”
I touch her shoulder. “You wouldn’t be standing here right now if you hadn’t.”
Her look is full of pain, but she nods and casts her eyes over the river toward Gath.
“How far across are the waters here?”
“I’m not sure,” I shrug. “The river is narrower at the bridge. But I can shoot an arrow around sixteen hundred feet. Let’s see if I can make it across.”
I scan the opposite bank for a tree to use as a target, and pull an arrow from the quiver. I examine the tip. It could be sharper. I turn my back—for just a second—as I dig for my pocketknife. Just a split second. And with that seemingly trivial decision, my life changes forever.
Over the rumbling rush of the waters, the report of a gun hits my ears. Boom! Once. Twice. I duck under the exploding sound. My muscles tense, and I turn, running my hands across my chest, fear pounding through every inch of me. But I’m not hit.
Kate isn’t even two yards behind me. Two yards! She’s that close. Right here, safe and whole. And then . . .
Her arms fly up at the impact—a bird taking flight—before they drift in slow motion back to her sides. She lowers her head, sees the blood where the bullet wounds have penetrated her chest. It seeps into her white blouse, forever changing the color. Slowly, she lifts her head; her chocolate eyes—filled with shock— find me. She blinks once, releasing a lone tear. And she topples, slowly, slowly, slowly backwards and off the edge of the cliff.
“Kaaaaate!”
The jagged rip of my heart is all I feel before a click reverberates through my body more intensely than ever. Another intake of breath, and my feet hit the edge of the overhang.
And I leap.
Look for Book 3 of
The Arrow's Flight Series
Coming 2016
And . . .
Read on for a Special Bonus Feature.
From The Cadence by Casey Hays comes:
"La Faim"
A companion short story.
"La Faim"
The room held very little. A twin bed with a pretty floral comforter. A small desk squeezed into a corner bearing a black and silver study lamp. An empty chest of drawers anxiously waiting for me to fill it with my vast abundance of possessions. Everything I owned was stuffed into the black duffel bag hanging limply at my side. I allowed it to slip from my shoulder and hit the wood floor with a heavy thud.
My latest foster parent stood behind me, watching, I supposed, for a sudden shift of my quiet demeanor into the monster my former hosts had painted me as.
They—Mr. and Mrs. Alexander—had not been able to tolerate another minute of my oddities in their home. This, at least, is what they’d told Maxine, my long-time social worker.
“She wears nothing but black. Black! It’s gloomy!” Mrs. Alexander had exclaimed in her shrill tone. I’d stood near the door of Maxine’s office failing to blend into the drab gray walls surrounding me, even in my aforementioned dark attire. “And she never speaks. Never! And there are other things—things I won’t mention so as not to embarrass her, but—”
She’d lowered her voice then and shielded her mouth with her hand before continuing.
“She is strange.” She hadn’t dared to look at me as she said it. “I think you may need to get her some therapy. Something is not right with her and—and—I think she can read my mind!”
This last part she’d said with a hushed whisper and a point of her finger toward her head, indicating my insanity, or my ability to read her mind, or both. Maxine had listened to all of Mrs. Alexander’s complaints with her trained professionalism, feigned concern, and thanked her for her services at the door before facing me, hands on hips.
“Sabrina, what am I to do with you?” She'd sighed heavily and circled her desk to sit, pressing her fingertips together in the shape of a little, spindly tent. “I’m running out of options.”
I did feel guilty. Truly I did. Not for anything I’d done, per se, but for the fact that Maxine had to go to the trouble of finding another home for me. My sixth one this year. Maxine had always been good to me, and I didn’t like feeling as if I was letting her down in some way. Again.
“Sit down.”
She’d gestured toward the chair Mrs. Alexander had recently vacated, and I’d obeyed, eyes glued to the floor.
“I have one last foster home on the list before I will have to resort to sending you out of state. One. Do you understand me?”
I’d pursed my lips.
“Look at me, Sabrina.” Her face had been grim with disappointment when I’d met her gaze. “What is going on with you?”
From the look in her eyes, it was clear she’d given me an invitation to def
end myself, and I’d known in that moment, she might have believed me had I offered an explanation. And a small and very indistinct voice deep inside me—a voice I chose to ignore quite often—had wanted to give her a true answer. To tell her all about the real Sabrina Dowe. But the piece of me that lived on the surface—the one that dealt with every heart-wrenching blow after blow and had to protect what was left of myself at all costs—had known it didn’t matter what I might have said. What Maxine chose to believe about me wouldn’t change the fact that I was still an orphan or that I was going to the home of yet another set of foster parents who would find yet another reason to one day rid themselves of me.
So I’d ignored the voice—again—and Maxine had sighed and leaned back in her chair until it had squeaked against her weight.
“I wish you would talk to me. I would be able to help you so much more easily if you would just tell me what goes on inside of that little brain of yours.” Her eyes had flicked toward me when I’d still given no response. She had sighed again and straightened an already straight stack of papers on her desk. “Well, I have no choice this time. You’re going to a group home.”
She had said the words flatly, and I’d raised my brows. But she’d merely shaken her head in a last resort kind of motion.
“You’re seventeen. In your case, we are past the adoption phase—and without a single bite. And frankly, I’m tired of trying to find you the perfect fit. It’s exhausting. King is your last hope, and I think this group situation could work for you. He’s done good things with troubled kids like you, so don’t blow it. Just—try to appear ‘normal’ for once in your life, okay?”
That one-sided conversation was a four hour bus ride and a soggy turkey sandwich ago. It was four hours and sixteen minutes before I’d met my new roommates in the foyer downstairs, and four hours and twenty-three minutes before Ben King had shown me to my room and stood quietly behind me while I took in my surroundings.
He cleared his throat.
“Well, Sabrina. I’ll let you get settled in. Dinner is at six, and . . . .”
I turned as his voice trailed, caught his eyes—warm and soft, like honey dripping.
“I’m glad to have you here. I hope you stay a while.”
He left, easing the door closed with a quiet click. I stood still and listened to his footsteps retreating, and I sank onto the end of the bed. A sigh escaped my lungs where it had been trapped for the last seven minutes at least.
The turkey sandwich had worn off long ago, and with that realization, I scanned scanned the room until I found the one item I’d come to expect with every move. The small refrigerator stood squat and sturdy and glaringly white against the wall under the window. I stood, walked over, and ran my hand across the top just to feel the warm humming.
It was my one request—to have a refrigerator in my room—and it was the one thing Maxine made sure I always had at every home in which she placed me. I was perceptive enough to know that she was also aware it was the reason I was asked to leave nearly every home I’d been in since Margaret had died and sent me hurtling back into the system. And yet, Maxine—faithful and trustworthy Maxine—never failed to honor it.
Still, with each move, an overwhelming fear filled me. Perhaps this time, the refrigerator would not be there.
At the sight of it, the anxiety I’d been feeling since I’d set foot into this too-brightly-lit house with its seemingly happy occupants and a host with honey-dripping eyes dissipated just like that. My heartbeat began to throb at a steady, even pace once more.
“La faim,” I whispered.
I unzipped my duffel bag and rummaged through my meager wardrobe until my fingers brushed against cool plastic buried at the bottom. One by one, I pulled out each container until all twelve were sitting on the bed. One by one, I stacked them in sets of three—perfectly straight and sealed tightly—on top of my refrigerator. I stepped back, scrutinized my work and was satisfied by the safety I saw.
* * *
Everything was going to be just fine. I had to make sure this time.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander hadn’t been completely wrong in their assessment of me. I was odd, and I knew it as soon as I was old enough to understand I existed. I’d never met anyone else like me, and I didn’t anticipate that I ever would.
The fact that I was different was not necessarily a negative in my life, even if it might have been the reason my biological parents felt they couldn’t raise me themselves. But if I tried too hard to wrap my mind around that one, I might truly drive myself insane. So I chose not to think about it much and instead found other ways to occupy my mind.
For one, I observed every moment in life as if it were a movie rolling out before me. I never missed a single scene, and I made a game of memorizing minute details of entire days. And some things, I never forgot.
Margaret, for instance, was forever ingrained in my mind, my soul, every part of who I had become. She had been the first mother-figure to ever enter my life, and for this reason, images of her have been the most difficult to erase. Her slender, white fingers wrapped around the edges of a book remained my strongest memory. She’d sit straight-backed, one foot tucked behind the other on the bench at the park we’d frequented, and read her book for hours while I played nearby. Her flaming red hair had always been piled on top of her head, wisps of it falling around her face which had always been tense with concentration or worry or fear. I’d believed I was the cause for the fear . . . and possibly the worry, too.
I remembered other foster parents. Carlie Applegate had been fat and loud and sported a man’s mustache, which she shaved daily. Still a dark shadow had haunted her upper lip despite her efforts. When I was ten, I had lived with Ronald and Della Stapleton for five and a half months until Della had found out she was pregnant after years of trying. Suddenly, the Stapletons had no more use for me. And Mr. Alexander—who’d only let me call him Mr. Alexander—had liked to dress up in Mrs. Alexander’s clothes when she wasn’t home. I’d kept his secret, but I had strong suspicions that my knowledge of his habit may have been a motivator for why I was no longer with them.
Of all my foster parents, Margaret was the one I chose to preserve in my memories, even if she didn’t deserve the honor. I’d been placed with Margaret at age two, and for seven straight years it had been Margaret who had neglected and ignored and starved me in more ways than one. If anyone deserved my distaste, it was Margaret. But she’d never received that from me. I’d been a loyal dog no matter how many times she’d kicked me. No. For Margaret, I’d built a shrine.
Every one of these foster homes had one aspect in common, which I didn’t recognize until the eighth grade. I'd been living with the Fosters—which I found humorous in and of itself—and it was my first year of French class. As it turned out, I happened to be very good with languages.
I had immersed myself in that foreign therapy, wrapping my tongue around the beautiful and different sounds, perfecting my accent. I had practiced conjugating verbs until I’d memorized all the tenses and conversation flowed from me as if I’d been born under the Eiffel Tower. It had been invigorating, and I was good at it. Good enough to impress every French teacher I ever had after that.
Conjugation took on a new meaning for me the first week of eighth grade. It was a puzzle I pieced together one verb at a time. To drink - ả boire, I drink – je bois, you drink- vous buvez . . . To sleep- dormir, I sleep- je dors, you sleep- vous dormez . . . To hunger - ả la faim, I hunger- J’ai faim, you hunger- vous faim, he hungers-la faim . . .
I hunger. J’ai faim
To hunger. ảla faim
Hunger.
Hunger.
La faim.
Suddenly, I understood the gnawing, aching reality of my life. I should have figured it out long before then, but simply put, the beauty I discovered in the newly learned words brought with it the meaning I’d failed to grasp. Always in every home in which I’d been placed . . . I was hungry.
* * *
I expected to feel no less hungry after my first night at Ben King’s dinner table. I took care with the servings when the dishes were passed, as I’d been so diligently trained to do throughout my life. Taking too much meant greed, which often let to punishment. Taking too little meant you wouldn’t get your fill because there would not be seconds. It was a decisively precise process, and I had learned it well. The Richardsons had only served two meals a day and no snacks in between. The Bostwicks, who had taken on five foster children, had only fed us cheese and bread. Cheese and bread for every meal, and very little at that. Margaret had meted out every serving with measuring cups so there would be plenty of leftovers for another meal. She was adamant about leftovers. So when Ben King examined my plate and asked me if that was all I wanted, I was thrown completely off my course.
“There’s plenty here, Sabrina. You can have more.”
The other kids at the table turned all eyes on me, and I shrank deeper in my seat.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, placing my hands in my lap, and let my long, black hair fall forward to hide my face. Eyes burned into me.
“Well, all right. But you are welcome to have all you want. The kitchen is always open. The chef demands it.”
He chuckled then, and got a couple laughs from the others.
“King’s the boss.”
It was Jay Martin who spoke. He was seventeen, blond, and tan with beautiful crystal, blue eyes. He smiled at me from across the table. I blushed, but it wasn’t out of attraction for him that I did so, for all his good looks. It was something else. I knew that if he’d wanted to, he could have seen right through me. My fears, my darkest places, the very beating of my heart could have been at his disposal. He winked—one blue spark—and I shrank in on myself another inch.