Follow Me Through Darkness (28 page)

“He’s the best,” Asher says.

Asher Bishop is right here. The boy who died seventeen years ago is alive. He’s saved us. Thorne’s just met his brother.

Thorne pulls his hand from mine, and a wall goes up again. He doesn’t want me to know what he’s feeling. I look toward him, but he doesn’t meet my gaze. I wonder how they both got here.

The short answer, it strikes me, is because of me. My eyes dart back and forth between Thorne and the brother who’s been gone for seventeen years.

90 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE

THORNE HAS BEEN GONE
for seventeen days, and the sky has been dark every day since he left. The fisherboats met a storm; no one has heard from them yet. No one knows if they are alive or dead. I know though. I can still feel Thorne-not that I can say anything
.

I’m doing the shopping for Sara the day he comes back, and I feel him before I even see him, as surely as one feels the sun on their skin. When I turn, he’s running toward me. My heart is light, and my body anticipates his touch, fueled by the desire I feel through the connection
.

By the time he reaches me, I can’t control myself. My emotions and his tangle together-one big mess of love and longing. His hair is damp, clothes dirty, shirt sticking to his chest like glue. He smiles-the big, boyish grin that he’s never outgrown-and my heart flops
.

“I thought I’d never see your face again,” he says in almost a whisper. I feel the truth of it, the relief of being here, coursing through his body. The love he has covers me like a wave, and the desire-the strong, strong desire-is the undertow. He’s washed up in it, and I am, too
.

His hands are running up and down my back. My branding is tingling, a mixture of emotions and his hot breath on my skin. Just as I remember the rules for residents about showing affection in public, he forgets. His mouth meets mine. The eggs I carry slip to the ground. I forget everything else right along with him. My hands wander, and my lips enjoy their moment as his fire devours me
.

When he pulls away, it’s not the embers that are still sparking within that worry me. It’s not the fear that I want more of his touch. It’s the people who are staring at us. It’s the look on their faces-filled with warning and worry and shame that we kissed in public. It’s the voice that shouts for us to run. It’s the sound of everything falling apart, like the eggs I just bought now broken under the feet of the Troopers
.

There’s noise outside. Thorne leans against the door, panting with his hair sticking to his face. He touches my cheek and removes it quickly. “I’m so sorry,” Thorne says. “I’m so sorry. I’m-”

I put my finger to his lips, and his eyes find mine. We broke a rule and everyone saw, and I should be sorry, be scared, but I’m not. There’s a knock at the door, and we look away from each other as Kai comes in at the commotion. He’s out of breath, staring at us, and he doesn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes says he knows we did something wrong
.

My father is standing on the other side of the door, Troopers lined up behind him. He looks between us
.

“Take him away,” Father says. The Troopers grab Thorne’s arms and haul him away. I follow after them, Kai nearby, until my father pulls me by the arm. He studies my face like he doesn’t know me at all
.

“You were warned, Cornelia,” he says. Then he drops my arm and follows the Troopers
.

Kai steps up beside me and rests a hand on my shoulder as I try not to cry. Even without a branding, I can feel his pain as he watches the only brother he has left being dragged away. I don’t speak, unsure of what to say
.

DEADLINE: 11D, 20H, 26M

SOMEWHERE IN THE OLD WORLD

THORNE AND ASHER SAT
only feet apart all night, and neither of them knew what to say. We left the spot as soon as the sun broke through the sky. If ever there is a time to say things, this is it. Asher’s been dead for seventeen years, a ghost, a reminder of some deep sadness that I never understood. Even when I tried.

Asher was only six when he died, the same time as their father. Sara never explained, even though it seems she has always been the center of loss. Her husband, her son, her real daughter, my mother, me, now Thorne. The vile taste creeps up my throat. I’ve made it worse for her now-first with me and then with Thorne. Kai is the only one she has left.

“What happened to you?”

Asher eyes me from a mirror in the front of the van. “That’s a long story.” Asher’s only twenty-three, but the deep lines on his face make him look worn and tired. In the lighting, I can even make out gray flecks in his hair.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Thorne responds.

Asher locks his jaw, and the harsh line of it reflects back in the mirror. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt you, and I meant it.”

He’s spunky like Sara. “Where are you taking us?”

“Depends. Where are you going?”

The silence resumes again. Thorne’s hands are clenched at his side, and I hear the faint sound of his knuckles cracking. I still can’t feel his tension, but with that movement, he confirms the nervousness is there.

“San Francisco.”

There’s another beat, long enough that life seems to pass us by. The sun breaks the sky through the branches. “I’m what the Remnants call a Chainer. It’s my job to trade goods for people. Most Chainers do it for the profit. They make all the money and sell anyone to anyone else. They don’t care. Me? I work with the Mavericks to give people a new life. They provide everything I need to make it happen.”

“A new life?”

“You’d be surprised how many people are sold every day. That camp you just left? They’re the best in human trade in all the camps. I get people from them all the time. Two weeks ago, I got a young girl— maybe seven or eight,” he says. “Whole family died in a Trooper attack, and other Chainers found her in the desert when they scoped the area. Word got to me, and I took her to a settlement camp on the outskirts of the ocean. She’ll be good there.”

I touch the green bracelet on my wrist from Delilah. It’s painful to imagine someone her age out there alone. “You saved her.”

“I don’t know about that. But I did give her a chance. That’s more than most people get out here.”

“How did you know who we were?” Thorne asks. Asher clears his throat. “I didn’t. I mean, I got word of two people from the Compound traipsing through the landscape and heard lots of ruckus at some of the camps about where they’d go next. They said one was the director’s daughter, and that’s who I came looking for. The Snatcher camp sent out a signal that they had prisoners for trade, and I’m the Chainer who does business with them. I didn’t know I’d find you there until I was outside of the camp. I heard your name on the outskirts from some old guy in a beat-up truck.”

Thorne nods in silence. I reach out my hand to him, and he takes it, squeezes it, and drops it.

“How long have you been one of these Chainers? How long have you been out here?” Thorne asks.

The soft hum of the engine fills the small space. We bump along over some rocky road, on toward wherever Asher is taking us.

“What do you know about me and Dad?” Asher asks.

Thorne shifts in his seat, clears his throat. “He was chosen by the Elders to go to the North. Mom was pregnant with me, and Kai was three. You wanted to go with him, and the director let you. You died there a couple months later when the Compound was infiltrated by rebels.”

Asher smiles weakly. “That’s not quite how it happened, but the Elders always spin things in ways that make them look good.” He looks at me again through the mirror. “It’s true that they wanted Dad for the trip, but it wasn’t to the North. It was to the Middle, in the old region near the Great Lakes.”

“There’s a Compound there?” Thorne asks.

“Not anymore-it’s fallen. But seventeen years ago, Father agreed to go. Lucian Ambrose asked for Dad’s help, said the Elders wanted him to go, but he didn’t want to leave his wife-and Lucian’s father, the director, refused to let him go. Amelia Ambrose’s pregnancy had been rough, and even at six months she was having difficulties. The Healers feared an early and complicated delivery, and the director refused to have his son and daughter-in-law anywhere but the South.”

He eyes me through the mirror. “I remember your mom. She always brought me lollipops, and I never understood where she got them. She would wink at me and tell me not to share my secret.”

I swallow and try to nod, but it all gets stuck in my throat. My head doesn’t respond to anything, only focuses on not crying. Thorne’s hand finds mine. This is his brother, who he’s found out is alive after seventeen years, and he’s comforting me. I don’t deserve him.

“The orders were only for two months,” Asher continues. “Dad would go to the Compound and help the director there restore order. Apparently, there was an uproar over some escapees in the North, and those in the Middle were attempting to overthrow the Elders. Our dad was one of those people who had influence among the Elders, so they agreed he could go. They assured Dad he’d be back before Mom had the babies.”

“Mom’s never mentioned that Dad was held in high regard,” Thorne says.

“With him gone, she’d have no protection. I’m sure you’ve realized that Mom knows things that others don’t. I was six the last time I saw her, but I knew that even then.”

I know the truth of that statement as soon as he says it. Sara has always pushed the boundaries, challenged my father with a glance, told us things in her own secret way. She talked in code and lived in code and not much surprised her.

“So Dad was to go. I remember the day he told Kai and me. I wanted to go with him, that part is true, but they all told me it wasn’t going to happen. It was no place for children. I was mad about it. I loved our parents, but Mom had Kai and the babies coming and Dad had no one.” Asher pauses. In the silence around us, he takes a deep breath. “I snuck out that night, followed him, and put myself in the cargo unit of a trucker. I fell asleep there and woke up in MWC5. Let’s just say Dad wasn’t very happy to see me.” Asher smiles to himself at the memory and then cringes. “I spent most of my time locked away in a bedroom. Sometimes I’d talk with other children. There was a lot of fighting, arguing, and discourse until they rebelled completely, and then it was chaos.”

“My father sent your dad into a rebellion?” I ask.

“I really don’t think he knew what it was.” Asher shrugs. “Your grandfather wanted Lucian to go, but Dad went instead. They were friends. They grew up together more like brothers.”

The van slows to a stop. Asher sighs and opens his door. Ours follow just after. It’s good to stretch my feet, even if we don’t walk anywhere. Asher watches me as I turn and bend to stretch, and then his eyes widen slightly. He looks away. He’s just noticed my branding.

“It was almost three months later when Troopers stormed the Compound,” he adds.

“The Elders sent Troopers to take down their own Compound? Why?”

“The rebellion,” Asher says. “The Elders’ fear has always been losing control, so they eliminated the threat. The Troopers killed everyone who put up a fight and hauled the others away, while the Mavericks saved everyone they could. The last time I saw Dad, he pushed me in a hole under a building and told me not to leave until he returned.”

“He’s dead,” Thorne says.

Asher nods, quietly looking around. The way he likes to avoid whatever he doesn’t want to feel or see or explain is so much like me that I completely understand how hard this conversation is for him to relive. It’s hard to let people in when all you want to do is forget and move on. “I tried to find him, but by the time I came out of hiding, everyone was gone or dead. I can still remember the sound of that Compound blowing up and disintegrating.”

“What did you do?” I ask.

“I walked. I didn’t get very far when I met a woman,” he says. “She was with the Mavericks, helping the escapees find refuge and new life. She led me to a family who had a son near my age, and they let me travel with them. Most of the survivors came here, but others spread out along the way. Some even found freedom in San Francisco. Others never made it that far.”

“Why stay here when it’s dangerous?”

“I’ve been waiting.”

“For what?”

He moves toward me, his fingers touching my neck quickly. “For you.” He drops his hand and looks at Thorne. “The woman who helped me had that branding.” He points to Thorne’s neck, too. “She said to wait for the next pair to find me, so I have been waiting. She told me that they would be coming, and they would need me. I remember I asked her how she knew and she smiled, said she had dreams.”

“Deanna,” I say. Cecily’s twin. They worked with the Mavericks after they escaped.

Asher nods. “Deanna said to go as far as we could and wait for the one who would follow in her steps. I didn’t understand, but she showed me this branding. ‘The mark will be like mine; that’s how you will know.’ So I did what she said. I had nowhere else to go since I couldn’t go back. I thought she was crazy over the last few years, that I was crazy for listening, but the Mavericks took me in. Helped me find a place in this world, and I made it work. When I heard the news of the director’s daughter and her journey, I knew I had to find you.”