The Prey (31 page)

When we finally pulled away, my body radiated warmth.

“'Bout time,” Diana said, and some of the others laughed.

For the first time I noticed them. We all stood in a clumsy circle, not knowing what to say. Somehow, against odds far greater than who we were, we were still alive, surviving Hunters and fire. It seemed nothing less than a miracle.

“What now?” Flush asked.

“First we get this crud from our lungs,” I said.

“And then?”

“Then we wait for those flames to burn through that next section of forest.”

“And then?”

I looked the others in the eyes. I looked at Hope. “Then we head east.”

The water from our canteens was warm—in some cases downright hot—but it helped cut through the smoky grime that coated our throats. I looked around at my friends, at this motley collection, this band of brothers—and Sisters. I burst into laughter.

“What's so funny?” Flush asked, thinking he'd done something foolish.

“It's not you,” I said. “Look at us. We're a mess.”

It was true. Our clothes were blackened, red sores dotted our bodies where smoldering embers had branded us, and our skin was covered in soot. We suddenly began to laugh.

Red raised his canteen and offered a toast. “To Sisters.”

“To Less Thans,” Diana said.

“To prey,” I added, and we all took long swallows of tepid water.

We stood there laughing and coughing, seven Less Thans and nineteen Sisters in a blackened wilderness of fire. I had never felt such relief, such gratitude, such
friendship
. Yes, it was freedom we were after—that's why we'd escaped from our camps—but at that moment, fire-tested and ash-coated, I realized what K2 had been trying to teach me all along: there was something else lacking in my life. Friends. Companionship. A bond. For once, I
belonged
.

And how much sweeter life was because of it.

We few, we happy few . . .

T
HEY MARCH OVER SCORCHED
earth. The underbrush is burned away, exposing bare, blackened rock. Hot embers glow like devil's eyes. When they come to a river, they lower their ash-covered bodies into the eddies. The water cleanses and cools them, leaving a sooty trail that snakes into the winding current. For Hope, it's like shedding a layer of skin. A former life is past; a new one set to begin.

The kiss was proof of that.

A drizzle wakes them in the morning: the hiss and sizzle of raindrops landing atop smoldering earth. The river is deep, but they're able to ford it by hopping from rocks to logs to get across.

Although no one says as much, they feel like
explorers on the verge of a new continent. What they'll find in this other world—the Heartland—they can't say. All they hope is that it'll be less dangerous than where they came from—a life of being hunted, of being tortured for someone else's purpose, of being treated like animals.

That next night, sitting around the campfire, Sisters and Less Thans together, Twitch begins a ghost story and Book gets up and drifts away. Hope is compelled to follow him.

She finds him sitting on a boulder and takes a seat nearby. For the longest time neither speaks. Every so often the laughter of others drifts their way, but other than that the night is utterly silent.

“What do you think it's like?” Book finally says.

“What's
what
like?”

“Heaven. Hell.”

So
that's
what he's been thinking about,
she realizes, wondering what this has to do with his secrets—the part of him she doesn't know.

“I don't believe in heaven or hell,” she says.

“Then the afterlife, whatever you want to call it. How do you imagine it?”

“I don't.”

“Not a bit?”

“Well, it's not angels with wings on big, puffy clouds, if that's what you're getting at.”

For the longest time Book doesn't respond.

“You know how I picture it?” he asks. “I see it like a road. A long, dusty road in the middle of nowhere. And on this road are the people who've died before you. Like Frank and June Bug. And when you die, you walk awhile and eventually you catch up, and from that time on you walk with them, side by side.”

Hope isn't sure what to make of this. “So everyone who's dead is walking on this road?”

“That's right.”

“People you like, people you don't?”

“I suppose.”

“What if you don't want to walk with certain people?” She can think of any number of people she'd just as soon avoid.

“You don't have to. It's the afterlife; you get to choose who you walk with.”

“Hmm.” Then she asks, “Is there someone you want to walk with on that road?” Book grunts but says nothing.

Hope thinks of her mom and her dad—and Faith—and the memory prompts her to reach out and put her hand on Book's. He doesn't move away. His fingers are warm beneath hers, and a rush of contentment surges through her. She could stay here all night.

“I know, you know,” she murmurs. Her voice is quiet, subdued.

“Know what?”

“What you tried to do.”

Book pulls his hand away. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“It's okay,” she says.

“I have no idea what—”

“You tried to off yourself.”

From the look on Book's face, it seems this is the last thing he wants to talk about. Hope can only imagine the nightmare images floating through his mind.

“How did you know?” he finally asks.

“The scars.”

Book gets up and tugs at his sleeves.

“Is that why you go off by yourself sometimes?” Hope asks. “Because it's something you can't talk about?”

“Of course not. . . .”

“Because if you talk about it, it might help it go away.”

His head snaps toward her. “What do you know?”

“About pain? More than I want to.”

Book stands there, his arms hanging limply by his sides, and Hope wonders if she's gone too far, if she's crossed some invisible line. But the words are out there; there's no going back. Besides, there are things she wants to know.
Needs
to know.

“Why'd you do it?” she asks.

“Guess I was unhappy.”

“
Everyone's
unhappy. Why'd you take it further?”

Book doesn't respond. A feeling of disappointment washes over Hope. She's tried to get him to talk, to open up . . . and she's failed. There are things about Book she'll never know. A sigh escapes her lips as she pushes herself from the rock. As she starts to walk away, she gives him a final glance . . . and sees moisture in his eyes.

Tears.

He angles away to hide them, but there's no concealing them. Hope's heart breaks, and she reaches out a hand and lets it rest on his shoulder. She feels an intimacy in the gesture . . . and knows that Book feels it, too. They are surrounded by quiet.

When Book finally speaks, his words are slow, muted, deliberate. In halting sentences, he tells her all about K2—how two unlikely LTs became the best of friends. Hope listens quietly.

He starts from the beginning, telling her about the first time they met and then the bargain they made. The
friendship
they made. Book has to catch his breath as he explains how they were recruited to go up the mountain. They were chopping down trees. By the third day everyone was tired and grumpy and ready to come back down. The Brown Shirts weren't paying attention to what they were doing and all of a sudden a rope slipped—one used to guide the falling timber—and the
next thing Book knew a tree was dropping in the wrong direction, headed straight for him, a sixty-foot lodgepole pine.

Hope's hands are clenched, fingernails pressing into her palms. She has no idea where this is leading. Doesn't know if she wants to know.

“And I froze,” Book says. “This monster tree was headed right for me and I couldn't decide which direction to go.
Should I jump to my left? To my right?
So I didn't move at all and the tree was coming at me and K2 . . .”

Even as he describes it, Hope can hear the violent
snap
of the tree separating from the stump, the whoosh of air whistling through branches. A part of her doesn't want to hear the rest. Dreads it.

“K2 saw what was happening and ran over and pushed me—he got me out of the way. He saved my life. And then the tree fell.” Book pants for breath. “It landed right on him. Pinned him to the ground, the trunk right on his chest. He was alive but just barely. There was no way we could save him. I ran to his side and he opened his eyes and looked at me and . . .” Book is breathing heavy now, sucking air. “. . . and he said, ‘Why didn't you move? I thought we had a bargain.' And then he died. He died because of me.”

He gives his head a shake and Hope gets the feeling he's trying to dislodge the memories from his mind.
Not possible, of course. She knows that from Faith. It's what they have in common—what drives them both. Guilt. Survivor's guilt.

A long moment passes before Hope speaks. “Why didn't it work?” she asks, glancing at his wrists. “Cuts not deep enough?”

“No, they were deep enough. . . .”

“Then what?”

“Someone rescued me. Before I bled to death.”

Hope gives him a quizzical look. In the dim starlight, she can see his chest rising and falling.

“For real,” he explains. “Someone found me on the latrine floor.”

“Who?”

“Don't know. But whoever it was, they carried me to the infirmary and saved my life.” His voice is hoarse, his breathing heavy.

Hope wonders if Book has ever shared this story before.

“When was this?” she asks.

“About two years ago. I'd hoped these”—he gestures to the zigzag of lines on his wrists—“would be gone by now, but no.”

Wind whistles through the trees. An eerie, haunting sound.

“I'm glad someone saved you,” Hope says.

Book grunts. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“If they hadn't, no one would have saved
me
.” He looks over at her. “In the fire—you came back for me. You took my hand and led me out of there. You saved me. You saved all of us.”

A half smile etches itself on Book's face. “I did, didn't I?”

Hope matches his smile with one of her own. “You did.”

She looks at him with her wide brown eyes. He meets her stare and doesn't look away. They hold the look, neither saying a word, and it's like the first time they touched—that current of electricity passing through them. Hope feels her breath go shallow, her limbs tingly. It's a miracle she can stand at all.

Book steps forward and leans into her. For the longest moment they just stand there, separated by mere inches, inhaling the other's breaths, feeling the heat of the other's body. Neither makes a move.

Book slides his hands to her waist, then slowly pulls her into him, pressing his mouth against hers. His lips are soft and his breath tastes of cinnamon. Hope returns the kiss and the longer it lasts, the more passionate it becomes. She feels her heart slamming against her chest. They've kissed before—twice—but always with others around. This is the first time they're alone, and his hands run up and down her back. Her hands explore him with a hunger, an urgency, as though, finally, after
all these weeks together, they're able to pour their pain into the other person, to take the other person's pain away.

By the time they pull back, Hope can barely breathe. A million stars press down on them, glimmering in the other's eyes. The reverie is broken only when they hear an explosion of voices from the campfire. Their eyes remain locked.

“I guess we should be getting back,” Hope murmurs.

They don't move. The heat Hope feels is as intense as the fire they just escaped from. Book leans in for a second kiss, his hands easing around her neck, pulling her into him. For a long, beautiful instant that lasts forever and no time at all, they merge as one, the press of their bodies like melting wax.

When Book pulls back, Hope feels like the air is sucked out of her body. Sucked out of the sky.

“Shall we?” he asks, gesturing to the camp.

“You go on ahead,” Hope murmurs. “I'll be there in a moment.”

She watches as Book hikes the short distance to the others. Once he disappears into the dark, she leans against a boulder to catch her breath. She smiles to herself. It takes a long while before her heart rate returns to something resembling normal.

That night, when the others are fast asleep and the camp is a chorus of snores, Hope thinks about Book,
about their kiss.

She feels a giddy, unbridled joy—a sense of happiness she's never felt before—but she also experiences a stab of anxiety. There's no guarantee they'll reach the Heartland—and even less assurance that all will be well if they cross to the other side. And there's still the question of her father, of how he's connected to Dr. Gallingham. One way or the other, she has to find that out.

At one point she glances over at Book. He is curled up in a tight ball by the fire, Argos pressed against his side, and for a brief instant their eyes meet, as if he's aware she's watching him, has been aware this entire time.

For once, it's Hope who looks away first.

W
E WOKE WITH THE
sun and headed east. There was a new sense of camaraderie, and some of the group began to sing.

I felt something, too—a sensation I'd never experienced before. I didn't know what to do with it, where to put it. It was like a stray book in a library and I couldn't figure out what shelf it belonged on. All I knew for sure was I couldn't stop thinking about her.

Hope. A girl named Hope.

Then we finally reached the point where the fire stopped. Suddenly, there was grass and weeds and trees—life itself.