Follow Me Through Darkness (2 page)

“To understand the end, you need to understand the beginning,” Bayard says, his voice short.

We walk on in silence, vaguely hearing the echo of the other Remnants somewhere above us. I look up and try to see someone, but there’s nothing. There’s not enough light. I can barely make out the rounded top of the tunnel above us, obscured by the smoke of the Remnants’ fire pits. The smoke swirls above my head, seeping out into the other world through those little holes of sunlight.

“The people got fevers that made them act out, be irresponsible, irrational. Within hours, the skin changed and the symptoms spread rapidly from one person to the other. One by one, until the disease was widespread across the United States,” Bayard says. “After much death, a cure was discovered. The blackness disappeared. Humans were saved.”

But they weren’t. Bayard grunts again, and the silence consumes the space around me, the torch he carries lighting the path. There’s no noise except the echo of our feet, of his boots that clomp as we walk across the dirt- and rock-filled tunnel. I listen, counting each step. There are many things in the tunnels-trash, large bugs, smelly old rags that were once clothing, broken glass boxes with buttons, round rubber things.

His deep voice startles me against the silence, and I miss something he said. “But then the cured started going crazy, and instead of their flesh being eaten by the blackness, they started feasting on the flesh of others. They had no control, no humanity. The cure had failed, and in a few months, the whole world became a skeleton of what it was. Everything stopped, they say.”

The way he says that has too much sadness to it. I can’t imagine all that death. There isn’t much death where I come from-not in the same way. We have no real sickness and absolutely no disease. We are too perfect for diseases, too pure. People die in the Compound when it is their time, when they are elderly and their bodies fail. Sometimes there are accidents or unexpected deaths when bodies are tired or too complicated or worn too early. Like with my mother.

“Then the Elders came,” Bayard adds stiffly. “They’d risen up in the midst of tragedy, of a falling nation, and they had money, power, and hope. They’d discovered a new cure to this failure, had a plan, and everyone believed them. They needed someone to believe in. That’s when the Preservation started.”

There’s another sound from above, but again, I see nothing. Maybe they’re all ghosts and nothing is real. I could probably believe anything at this point. Maybe they are ghosts and this is a dream-some kind of nightmare-and I’ll wake up back at home and it will be as if the last two months never happened.

“During the Preservation-” Bayard’s voice brings me back to reality. This is the reality, even if I dream it isn’t. “-those who’d never been infected, the Clean, were tested. If they were found not to be carriers or have genes vulnerable to Raven’s Flesh, they were marked with the branding. But the Elders only chose the best of the uninfected, the people at the top of the broken world, those with the best genetic makeup. The strongest. The rest were forgotten, left to rot.”

A sick feeling rattles around in my stomach. “They never told us that they only took the best or that the others were left behind,” I say.

Others. The Remnants and those who probably didn’t even have time to call themselves anything. The lives down here have meaning, even if they didn’t before. The Elders were wrong. All people matter; all lives count.

“I’m not surprised,” Bayard says. “The Clean forced themselves underground to survive and start a new life. The infected ended themselves eventually, I guess.”

I don’t miss the disdain in his voice. That was centuries ago. Raven’s Flesh is gone, but we still get the branding. The brandings are uniform, all given at birth throughout our history and painted into our skin. Everyone I know has one on the back of his or her neck. Three circles that get smaller, one inside the other. The circles exist to remind them of the cycle of the Preservation-disease, death, salvation. And then the circles crossed in an X because they are saved. Clean. Perfect.

Has it always been a sign of the Elders’ deceit?

“That’s the end. Now we all survive the best we can,” Bayard says, falling silent. That’s it. But it’s only the beginning. “Have you ever seen the Elders?”

“No,” I say. They are a mystery, a force we can’t see. They came to our Compound once to visit my father, but I was too small to remember. It was when my grandfather died and I was still believed to belong to Sara. Before the Elders knew to look twice at me.

My mind drifts back to Thorne-the boy I love; the boy who was branded as my twin, even though he isn’t. I press my fingers into the half-circle on the back of my neck. My branding is not the same; I’m one of the exceptions. Twins have a different branding, one that marks them as one half instead of one whole. It’s the mark I have. The mark Thorne has. We got it before Cecily Lopez and her sister left the Northern Compound, before the Elders stopped giving it, and the branding has changed Thorne and me into something more than normal. What would it be like if he was here? What would he say to this story? This mission?

“No more questions, then?” Bayard scoffs in the silence after I shake my head. “Is something bothering you? You seem to always have a question in need of answer.”

I smirk. “Touche, old man.”

Bayard goes silent, waiting. I wouldn’t usually share details, but I’m with the man a few more days. Just long enough to escape. It shouldn’t matter if he knows something about me; it’s not like we’re going to be friends after this. “I’m just thinking about Thorne.”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s my…” But I can’t finish the thought. He’s a lot of things. “He’s someone I love that I left behind.”

Bayard sighs. “You can go back home someday, and he’ll be there, ready to see you again. I’m sure he’s thinking about you as well.”

I force a smile. “I hope you’re right.”

But will he be there? Will I go back home? I’ve hurt Thorne. Even with hundreds of miles of distance between us, I know that. There are some things that aren’t easy to forgive.

“I am. My daughter, my family will be home once I return. The people you love don’t leave so easily if they truly love you.”

I inhale as we walk, and press my finger into the branding on my neck. It’s a lot to hope that Thorne will understand this, that his love for me is stronger than this, because Bayard’s right. The people who love you don’t leave, and that’s exactly what I did. I faked my death to leave him, and he’ll never know why. A spark rushes through me from my branding, a warm heat coursing through my body that jolts me forward. The shock of it makes my feet fumble under me, and I run into Bayard, knocking the torch from his grip. My breath hitches at the sudden darkness that stretches before me.

70 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE

MY BREATH HITCHES AS I SEE
the outline of my father waiting for me at the end of a dark hallway in one of the lower levels of Headquarters. The branding on my neck tingles. Father is grinning, happy but devious. His blue eyes shimmer, and it chills me to the bone. Each step toward him feels as if it’s taking me further away from where I want to be. Each step makes my branding burn a little more
.

There’s a sudden jolt in my stomach, and I feel nauseous. It catches me so off-guard that I can’t catch my breath again. Thorne. His fear attacks me, this constant pressure washing over me. Where is he? What’s causing this? Thorne is never scared. Not like this. I look around the hallway, but there’s only my father at the other end
.

A scream echoes, barrels toward me. Pain spreads through my whole body, and I fall to my knees. I should get up, but nothing wants to move, muscles on strike and stiff. Fear and shock trample me. Thorne’s fear. Thorne’s agony. It’s like he’s dying, or I’m dying. The screams engulf me while I add my own to them, like a chorus. The sounds echo down the hallway-whether his or mine, I don’t know anymore. Then the pain subsides, but the fear and confusion are still very present. Thorne knows it’s coming again, and he’s terrified
.

“Look what I discovered, Cornelia,” my father says, pulling me to my feet
.

My fingers grip a large windowsill and my father’s arm as he holds me up to see. Thorne lies beyond the window, his arms and legs shackled to a table in a stark white room. There are poles and tubes running from his arms to a large machine in the ceiling
.

I yell Thorne’s name at the sight of him. Caramel eyes look in my direction, dark and glassy. His voice cries in low, steady groans, and then I read my name on his lips
.

There’s a noise, a simple buzzing, and a flicker of the lights in the hallway as the room he’s in fills with light. His body convulses. His wails are louder than before, and each one I mirror. The pain and fear are more intense than anything I’ve ever felt. The branding burns on my neck, but it’s so minor it barely compares to everything else. We connect more in times of intense emotion, and this is the strongest I have ever felt race through me. The emotions he’s feeling are so twisted and connected that my body is trying to process them, but it can’t. I can’t even think straight; everything is too jumbled. I want to run, but my body doesn’t seem to work. Burning waves vibrate through me-spreading and running through my veins. A constant piercing pressure, pulsing and throbbing. Fire burning through everything
.

“Please!” I beg my father. “Let him go.” It almost feels like it’s happening to me. I don’t know what he’s feeling or which emotion is the strongest, and that makes all this harder. I can’t take it from him. I can’t carry it for him. I can’t do anything except feel his terror and do nothing
.

Father’s stance doesn’t change, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes forward, his smile barely there but intentional. He’s so far from who he used to be that I don’t know if anyone can save him
.

“That’s interesting, isn’t it? How you can feel what he’s feeling?” my father says. He leans down to me, wiping a spot of blood off my lip. I must’ve bitten it. His eyes find the branding on my neck, and he pushes a finger against it. “Do not forget that I can take away everything you hold dear in your life if you disobey me.”

Father signals to someone through the glass. He steps away from me. “See you at dinner, Cornelia.” The door closes and resounds back to me in the silence
.

Thorne’s pain is gone, just like that, but the memory of it lingers. It must be that memory that continues to ring through his body. Exhaustion, fear, pain, confusion, love-they all make me sick as they merge in my stomach. Thorne catches my gaze through the window. His eyes are heavy, darker, exhausted, and I can’t handle the look on his face-the pain my father put there, the love he carries for me, the confusion about all of this. I can’t handle it, so I look away
.

DEADLINE: 32D, 13H, 32M

THE BURROWS

BAYARD LOOKS AT ME
, his eyes studying mine. “You need to stop?”

He picks up the torch from the ground, and the soft glow of it lights an area between us. I lean against the wall, gasping. After a second, I push away and apologize. Bayard grunts at me, his eyes narrowed and his face scowling.

I inhale a breath as we walk, but it’s hard to do. My head feels heavy, and I want to sleep, to curl up against a fluffy pillow and rest. I can’t shake the feeling of Thorne. About how I left him. How I let him think I died. How I betrayed him. Where is he right now? Would he recognize me if he saw me here, covered in dirt and shaded in lies?

“You sure you’re okay?” Bayard asks.

I nod, inhale the stale, sour air again. It burns in my chest until I have enough to form words. I need to steady my emotions, to change the subject. “How long have you been in the Burrows?”

“I was born here. Most of us who live here are from original families,” Bayard talks without hesitation, continuing the story of the past. I like the distraction of his voice echoing around me. “The Elders never thought to check below, and they didn’t care about the rest of us. Our families were the ones who were left to die, either from the infected or from the elements. The infected killed each other, and we survived as ghosts.”

The Elders don’t care about anyone but themselves. Even now. “How
have
you survived?”

“The Mavericks provide for us. They bring us some supplies every few months-torches, food, water. After three hundred years, we’ve figured it out. There are some Remnants who go above occasionally. I am not one of them, but my youngest daughter, Faye, likes to explore.” Bayard’s voice is rough as he talks about his daughter, and when I look at him, his eyes are narrowed, brows furrowed.

“You don’t approve?”

“I don’t want her to get hurt. There’s a difference. To love means to worry and want to protect, and that’s all I want for her. Safety,” he says softly. Perhaps I have been too hard on Bayard. His demeanor isn’t about our journey or me; it’s about the people he loves. Love, worry, protect. I understand that concept completely.

“Why don’t you go live above? Why stay in the darkness for centuries?”

Not just him, but all the Remnants. If the Mavericks are living above in this world and thriving, so much that they can help the Remnants who live below ground, then everyone could thrive together. If they wanted to.

Bayard holds the torch between us so the glow reflects off his face. His dark eyes peer from his dirt- covered face to explore mine, and then he gives me a curt nod. “This is all I know. Why should I trade this place for something that could be worse when I am safe and warm and have all I could need?”

I gulp back everything I’m feeling. The inadequacy. The urge to turn around and run all the way back to the Compound. There are reasons to go above. I miss the feel of the sun, seeing the ocean and the sky. To experience the endlessness of the three as they meld into one. I say none of this though because it’s not my place to question him. His life isn’t mine. I don’t know what it’s like out here, and my time isn’t enough for me to pretend as if I do.