I have no idea how he’s still moving.
He’s not even wearing shoes. No shirt, no socks, no shoes. Just a pair of sweatpants. I notice for the first time that he’s got a huge gash across his chest. Several cuts on his arms. A nasty scratch on his neck. Blood is dripping slowly down his torso, and Warner doesn’t even seem to notice. Scars all over his back, blood smeared across his front. He looks insane. But he’s still moving, his eyes hot with rage and something else— Something that scares the shit out of me.
He catches up to Stephan, who’s still holding J—who’s still having seizures—and I crawl toward a tree, using the trunk to hoist myself off the ground. I drag myself after them, flinching involuntarily at a sudden breeze. I turn too fast, scanning the open woods for debris or a flying boulder, and find only Nazeera, who rests a hand on my arm.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re safe within the borders of the Sanctuary.”
I blink at her. And then around, at the familiar white tents that cloak every solid, freestanding structure on the glorified campsite that is this place of refuge.
Nazeera nods. “Yeah—that’s what the tents are for. Nouria enhanced all of her light protections with some kind of antidote that makes us immune to the illusions Emmaline creates. Both acres of land are protected, and the reflective material covering the tents provides more assured protection indoors.”
“How do you know all of that?”
“I asked.”
I blink at her again. I feel dumb. Numb. Like I broke something deep inside my brain. Deep inside my body.
“Juliette,” I say.
It’s the only word I’ve got right now, and Nazeera doesn’t even bother to correct me, to tell me her real name is Ella. She just takes my hand and squeezes.
ELLA
JULIETTE
When I dream, I dream of sound.
Rain, taking its time, softly popping against concrete. Rain, gathering, drumming, until sound turns into static. Rain, so sudden, so strong, it startles itself. I dream of water dripping down lips and tips of noses, rain falling off branches into shallow, murky pools. I hear death when puddles shatter, assaulted by heavy feet.
I hear leaves—
Leaves, shuddering under the weight of resignation, yoked to branches too easily bent, broken. I dream of wind, lengths of it. Yards of wind, acres of wind, infinite whispers fusing to create a single breeze. I hear wind comb the wild grass of distant mountains, I hear wind howling confessions in empty, lonely plains. I hear the sh sh sh of desperate rivers trying to hush the world in a fruitless effort to hush itself.
But
buried
in the din
is a single scream so steady it goes every day unheard. We see, but do not understand the way it stutters hearts, clenches jaws, curls fingers into fists. It’s a surprise, always a surprise, when it finally stops screaming long enough to speak.
Fingers tremble.
Flowers die.
The sun flinches, the stars expire.
You are in a room, a closet, a vault, no key—
Just a single voice that says
Kill me
KENJI
J is sleeping.
She seems so close to death I can hardly look at her. Skin so white it’s blue. Lips so blue they’re purple. Somehow, in the last couple of hours, she lost weight. She looks like a little bird, young and small and fragile. Her long hair is fanned around her face and she’s motionless, a little blue doll with her face pointed straight up at the ceiling. She looks like she could be lying in a casket.
I don’t say any of this out loud, of course.
Warner seems pretty close to death himself. He looks pale, disoriented. Sickly.
And he’s become impossible to talk to.
These past months of forced camaraderie nearly had me brainwashed; I’d almost forgotten what Warner used to be like.
Cold. Cutting. Eerily quiet.
He seems like an echo of himself right now, sitting stiffly in a chair next to her bed. We dragged J back here hours ago and he still won’t really look at anyone. The cut on his chest looks even worse now, but he does nothing about it. He disappeared at one point, but only for a couple of minutes, and returned wearing his boots. He didn’t bother to wipe the blood off his body. Didn’t stop long enough to put on a shirt. He could easily steal Sonya’s and Sara’s powers to heal himself, but he makes no effort. He refuses to be touched. He refuses to eat. The few words out of his mouth were so scathing he made three different people cry. Nouria finally told him that if he didn’t stop attacking her teammates she’d take him out back and shoot him. I think it was Warner’s lack of protest that kept her from following through.