Follow Me Through Darkness (12 page)

A tingle runs up my spine right to where he’s holding my chin. His eyes are searching mine for something. I know what they seek, but I’m not going to let him see it. I don’t want him to see it. It’s easier to hide the things I shouldn’t feel or want. These things only confuse me. I smile and look away. His hand falls down
.

What do I say? What do I say? I should say something. I can’t think
.

“Thanks,” I say. We both pause for a moment, a breath. I will not kiss him, even though the memory from days ago plays in my head. I clear my throat. “I think I’m going to turn in.”

He nods and straightens up. “Night, Neely.”

I stand and move away from him. The whole time I’m hoping my legs don’t give out on me. Xenith’s not usually so encouraging, and these brief glimpses into what’s underneath are overwhelming. I’m almost to the bedroom door when I turn to him. “If I were crazy, I’d say you wanted me to succeed.”

His eyes are mingled with sadness and surprise and something else. Something I don’t want to see there. He shrugs. “I do want that. Most days.”

“And the other days?”

He runs a hand through his hair. It reminds me so much of Thorne that I tremble at the movement
.

“The other days I’m very selfish.”

The words hang between us. I can feel them there even after the door closes
.

DEADLINE: 24D, 18H, 55M

10 MILES OUTSIDE EL PASO, TEXAS

XENITH’S DEEP GAZE,
sneaky grin, and soft words of courage float through my mind, distracting me just as they have been the last few days. I try to shake the thought of him but I can’t. I blame this place. From the last stop to here, there’s been practically nothing to look at. Only sky, barren trees, and crumbling concrete, and none of them are entertaining. The trek through the desert has been the longest five days of my life.

Thorne hasn’t said much, but sometimes I feel the pins and needles of his anxiety, mixed with pulses of excitement and piercing frustration as they seep through the connection. I can’t tell if he’s angry at me or at this place or Xenith. Maybe all of them. I don’t know how to console him, especially when I can’t make sense of this, either. I don’t want to feel my own uncertainty, let alone his.

The sudden changes remind me how quiet everything is. How the birds don’t make much noise, even as the sun lightens the eastern sky. The world is still, allowing memories to come back. All the things I’ve done to get here, all the things that were done to me, all the things I run from.

“We should stop,” Thorne says. “Find some more water and rest.”

I shake my head. “We’re almost to the camp, and then we can stop. The Remnants will help us. Cecily said they’d know we’re coming.”

I hope.

Thorne shakes his head as we walk. “But we haven’t stopped since sunset.”

“That’s because
someone
overslept at midday,” I snap. We’ve stopped enough already, and we have to make it. I don’t care about sleeping or resting, just getting there. It’s not really his fault, as he doesn’t know, but there’s no one else I can blame right now.

He glares at me, and I know it was childish to take that jab at him. I know he’s worried about me. “Yeah, I did. And when’s the last time you overslept? Or slept at all?”

“I’m fine,” I say, waving him away. “We’re almost to El Paso. It’s only a few more hours, and then we can rest.”

I pick up my pace and move away from him. I don’t want to look at him right now and be reminded of all the things between us. As much as I want to fix things, it’s easier to let him hate me because at least then he’s not worrying. His hand squeezes my arm, and he jerks me back to him. We stare at each other, neither one of us moving, and I barely breathe. The pull of our connection rushes through me, and my heart pounds, torn between wanting to taste him and wanting to run away from him, from the possibility of us. The possibility that I don’t want to admit to him. I can feel his annoyance, see it in his tensed jaw. His hands are sweaty on my arm, and only an inch rests between us, between our lips. An inch that could easily be closed if either of us moved in. I want him to kiss me. I want to feel that connection again, have us be the way we were before.

“Neely…”

His fingers trail up my arm, and chills move with them. I inhale and silently count up from one. His warm breath is on my chin, and I close my eyes, ready, aching for him and the fire of our connection when we kiss. But all the things I left behind flash before my eyes-all the reasons, the faces of the people who died, and the plans that have changed everything forever.

A flash of heat rushes through me, and I’m suddenly angry with Xenith. How could he risk this? He broke our deal by sending Thorne, and I was a fool for believing him. I open my eyes and pull away, jumping backward a few steps. I hate him being here. If he dies, all of this is meaningless.

“Neely,” Thorne says in a whisper.

I shake my head. The air is tense around us, as if the wind is holding its breath, too. Waiting to see what I do. Thorne looks at me, his eyes unsure and hard. He teeters, his weight on his toes. His eyes rest on me, and after a couple seconds, he shoves his hands into his pockets.

“We need to keep going,” I say quickly.

In the stillness, we only look at each other. I don’t like the way he studies me, like he’s trying to figure out who I really am. Like I’m some kind of new species he’s never seen before.

He’s the one who starts walking first, his pace a little faster than normal.

DEADLINE: 24D, 17H, 33M

2 MILES OUTSIDE EL PASO, TEXAS

“DOES IT RAIN IN THE DESERT?”
Thorne asks softly. The sky is gray with clouds, and the wind picks up enough to tell us something is coming. He walks past me. “We should find shelter.”

Our pace escalates with the wind, and the sand scatters sideways across broken asphalt as it blows. The long stretch of road and sparse grass does nothing to ease our shared anxiety. A streak of lightning flashes across the sky. I look up as we walk and count the seconds until the crackle of thunder echoes in the distance, the same way I did when I was a child.

A bird dashes across the sky and lands on a rock near us. It’s a raven, with long feathers so black that they have a dark, almost purple tint. It watches us with beady yellow eyes like it can’t decide if we’re friend or food. Chills run down my arms. Images from a book on Raven’s Flesh flash in my mind as the thunder comes again, crashing in the distance. We only saw a few pictures in the Compound, but they were enough to make an impression. People with darkened eyes, black veins covering their bodies, faces drooping and peeling away like dead skin. Sometimes it was bloody; other times it was murky. Every time, it was horrifying.

Twelve seconds.

The black bird jumps and flies toward the mountains in the distance. My hair whips into my face, obstructing my view. The bird cries out, as if it’s talking and waiting for someone to answer, but there is no one. I bet that was how the people in the Old World felt-alone and scared and calling out with no answer.

“We need to find a place before the rain comes,” Thorne says. His voice is calm but dissonant in the noise of the wind around us.

“There’s supposed to be some kind of border into the city.” A single drop of rain hits my forehead.

“What is that?” he asks. In the distance, the top of something dark and solid sticks up over us in the sky. I can’t see the whole thing, but it vaguely reminds me of home and of the walls that kept us inside the Compound.

“A barrier, I think.”

The force of the wind pushing against us makes walking feel more like running on a wet beach. The bird calls out again. It flies beyond my sight, and I strain my head to see. I make out large wings before it disappears completely. The sky flashes again, brighter than it has all afternoon. Almost as if the sun had returned.

The water pours after that. No other warnings, just pelting down on us from the sky. Apparently, it
can
rain in the desert. Chill bumps form over my skin, and within seconds, my hair and my clothes are matted to my face as we run through puddles of water.

13 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE

I RUN THROUGH A PUDDLE
and take notice of the dark color in the sky. It’s not raining right now, but it will again
.

It’s the perfect day to die
.

Part of me wants to tell Xenith that I’ve changed my mind, but I know I can’t run from my fate and I can’t hide from death. Not when I’m putting myself right in its path
.

I move toward the docks, and my breath fogs up the air. The sun hasn’t cracked the sky yet, but there’s an orange tint to the sky that says it’s ready. The fisherboats are off in the distance, and Thorne’s out there with them. They’ve only begun their day. The whole Compound will be waking up soon, ready to start something new, and my day is almost over. Only hours left
.

How many now? Twelve
.

I shake the number away and watch the boats turn into tiny specks. It puts some of my anxiety at ease to know that Thorne’s out there with them instead of here. If he somehow figured out my plan, he could stop me. Not now. Not when there are miles of water between us
.

The sky is a dark shade of gray. The sun must have decided it was taking the day off. Maybe it doesn’t want to shine on us anymore, doesn’t want to spread around any happiness. I eat lunch outside in the center of the courtyard. Three people pass by me with their lips turned down in scowls and brows furrowed. They don’t want me out here since I was locked away in the safehouse. My father did a good job of turning his people against me
.

This is part of the plan. People need to see me, need to ignore me, need to believe I’m not important. All these things will add up in the end, will make it stronger, more believable-at least, that’s what Xenith says
.

I move from the table and bump into a woman with a small child. An apple falls from the top of her bag, and I catch it before it hits the ground. When I hold it out to her, she doesn’t take it
.

“I’m sure it’s fine. It doesn’t look bruised,” I say
.

She stares back at me. I’m the serpent, and she’s the innocent girl in the garden. I’m tempting her, dooming her to lose everything just by taking it from my hand. I think that’s how the story went. She looks as if she wants to, and her hand moves forward before she freezes. Then, she shakes her head and pushes past me. She doesn’t take the apple. I stand, holding it out to nothing but air
.

Ten more minutes. In ten minutes, Kai will knock on the door. He’ll bring me a little envelope with a little white pill inside that has a red letter on it. I’ve seen it only once, the day that Xenith held it out to me in his quarters
.

“This will be the thing that kills you and keeps you alive,” he’d said
.

I’d squinted my eyes. “That thing? It’s small.”

“And powerful.”

I’m to take the little white and red pill when I’m on the beach. We decided that drowning was the most believable. The pill has the ability to keep me alive while making me appear dead-even to the most trained of Healers. It’s a ruse, but Xenith says it will work
.

Later, Kai will give me the cure while he’s at the Healers’ unit. He will save me before my body meets the traditional fiery tomb, and then they’ll replace my body with another’s. I will be dead and then alive again
.

There’s a knock on the door, and I swing it open too quickly, bouncing the door off the back wall. Kai stares back at me, an envelope in his hand. He holds it out to me and steadies his gaze. “Are you sure you want this?”

I nod and hold out my hand. He places it there without any objection
.

“Thank you,” I say
.

Kai hugs me, his movement sudden and tight, like he’s afraid to let go. It’s comforting to be in his arms. Then he leaves without a word, not that I expected one
.

There’s a note inside the envelope
.

See you on the other side. - X