Away From the Sun (6 page)

When Gabe told me about Remi, I had started to shake. It was as if I was afraid, but it was something different—an overwhelming desire for good news, perhaps. Everything had been going badly for us. The moment we ran into Scarecrow and his raiders, everything went downhill. Lucas was killed…the greyskin attack on the school in Foley…my inability to save Gilbert. Hearing that my sister might be alive just seems too good to be true. I had Gabe describe everything about her—from her appearance, way down to how she talks.

“She’s beautiful,” he started. “Her green eyes are as vivid and bright as a field of grass. She has dark hair. Long. She usually keeps it in a ponytail. Her nose is—”

“Pointy?” I asked.

“Not in a bad way,” he said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “Looks a lot like yours actually. You two have very similar faces. But your eyes are blue, aren’t they?”
 

I nodded yes. “I take after my dad.”

He then described that she put on a tough front all the time. He didn’t know if she had always been that way, or if it was a characteristic she had gained since the outbreak, but she seemed to be a person that liked to take care of herself.

“No,” I said. “She’s always been that way. “She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever known, though it has gotten her into trouble in the past.”

“That sure would be something if it is her,” Ethan said. He sat close to me in the back of the SUV. I looked at him and smiled hopefully. It was good that Ethan was with me. I’m not sure what I would have done over the past week without him. Though Gilbert had just made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us, his temperament would have been unbearable for me if Ethan had not been around. Since Lucas died, Ethan has been by my side, ready to help me.

But thinking of him only makes me think about this weird new ability that I gained the same time we came across Scarecrow. For some reason or another, when I touch someone, I can see into his or her future. Only, so far I have been unable to control
what
or
when
I see. For Lucas, I saw only seconds into his future. For Gilbert, I had seen days ahead. For Scarecrow, I saw minutes. Only then had I been able to change what I saw, giving me the confidence to know what I needed to do for Ethan.
 

I had held his hand, but only for a second. A second was enough. I saw him walking through a street that I have never seen before, but these days they all look the same. He was holding a rifle and was alone. The sun was behind him and he had a look of determination on his face. Then, without warning, a loud gunshot blasted and a bullet passed through his chest. He fell to the ground and closed his eyes. I don’t know if he was dead or alive. The vision didn’t linger enough for me to see if he was breathing.

What disturbs me the most is that I never saw a shooter. I know I can change the future now if I see it beforehand, but this situation eludes me. How can I change it if I have nothing else to go on? I could try to never let Ethan out of my sight, but I know that won’t work. I can’t stay on him every hour of the day. Besides, there is no way to know when this will happen either. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month, or two years from now for all I know.

I haven’t told him about it. He and Gabe now know about my ability, but there has been little time to talk about it. We drove through the night and stopped to rest in the middle of Elkhorn. Each of us fell asleep in the car. Gabe leaned a little in the front seat, while Ethan sat up straight as I rested my head against the window. When I woke a few hours later, Ethan’s jacket was over me. He later told me that I was shivering in the middle of the night, but I don’t remember being too cold.

In the morning, Gabe spotted a lot of debris that looked like a barrier. When we drove up, we were met by guards with rifles pointed at us. My first thought was that we had come up on a group of raiders. I wasn’t prepared to deal with it, but it soon became apparent that these were just people like us. Their leader was away, but they eventually let us in, and I hoped they would let us stay for the night. The guards separated us, and now I’m in a room alone. I assume Ethan and Gabe are in a room like mine—mostly empty but for a cot and a window. The only security is a deadbolt on the other side of the door.

I told one of the guards that we were looking for someone named Remi. I was shocked when he said that she was here, but gone with their leader, Stephen. I asked what that meant, but they refused to tell us more. I’m okay with it. Remi will be back, I’m sure.

It’s weird to think that while I was in Crestwood, Remi had just left. Gabe told us that she was kicked out for stealing something important. That didn’t sound like Remi, but what do I know? I haven’t seen her in three years. He then went on to say that it wasn’t what it sounded like. She was trying to learn about someone that calls himself Shadowface—the same person that hired Scarecrow and his men.
 

Shadowface wants the canister.
 

I reach into my pocket and pull it out. It’s small and metal. It unscrews in the middle and inside is a glass vial of liquid that looks like blood. I was afraid the guards were going to take it away from me when they searched us at the gate, but they didn’t see it as a threat, nor did they ask what it was. Yet this little object was enough for Paxton to kick us out and let the raiders do what they wanted with us. It was enough for this Shadowface to track us down. I wish Gilbert would have never found it in the first place. At one point, it was meant to be kept as a bargaining chip against the raiders, but now it’s little more than a liability. Just because Scarecrow failed to get the canister, doesn’t mean Shadowface is going to stop looking for it.

The thought makes me shiver. I don’t like the sound of the name Shadowface. Someone that wants to keep his identity a secret and employ people like Scarecrow has to be dangerous. I would be happy to just give him the cylinder in exchange for a promise that I will never hear from him again. I just want to live in peace.
 

I almost laugh at the thought. No one lives in peace anymore. The closest thing I’ve seen to peaceful were the people at Crestwood, but I’m slowly getting the feeling that it wasn’t real. Paxton is in league with Shadowface and that’s bad enough. The people might be fine now, but with Shadowface lurking in…well…the shadows, there is no way things will remain peaceful for them. I see a future of war and violence with people like Shadowface running things.
 

But people seem to forget that the real enemy is the greyskin virus. Why can’t we be working to get rid of the greyskins instead?

Because there are bad people who want nothing more than to take advantage of good people.
 

The thought makes me angry. Despite what the world is like, greyskin virus or no, there will be and have always been people that prey on the innocent. All anyone else is trying to do is survive, but it isn’t enough for some. There are always those that crave more.

For the next couple of hours, I’m lost in my thoughts. I press my palm against the window again and it feels just as cold as it did earlier. When I look out onto the parking lot below, I can see people huddled together around little fires, talking about something. I wonder why they aren’t inside. Their clothes flap in the wind and they bunch up so tightly they look miserable.

I turn my head when I hear footsteps down the hallway coming toward my door. I’m not sure whoever it is will stop, but when they do, my heart leaps. The doorknob twists open and it is the same guard that brought me to the room earlier this morning.
 

When he opens the door, he looks at me awkwardly for a moment. “I uh…I was just ordered to come and get you,” he says. “You have a visitor.”

I feel numb, but not in a bad way. My stomach has butterflies like the feeling of jumping off a hundred-foot cliff into deep water. I don’t know why I feel nervous to see her. Maybe I’m just afraid of what I will see. Maybe I’m afraid that despite the accurate descriptions of her, this Remi isn’t actually my sister.
 

The guard leads me through the hallway and down a flight of stairs. We go through another corridor until we reach a door at the end.
 

“You can go ahead,” the guard says. “She’s in there.”

The lump in my throat won’t go away. What if it isn’t her? What if it is someone else that I don’t know? What would I say?

I reach for the door and open it slowly. The girl stands in front of me, her eyebrows twisted and her forehead crinkled as if she’s about to burst. She brings her hands to her mouth and water forms in her eyes instantly. Of course, I can barely see any of this through the tears in my own. Remi, my sister, stands in front of me.

We don’t speak. The only noise we hear are the quiet sobs that pass by our lips. Remi walks toward me with her arms wide open, ready to embrace me, but I am forced to take a step away from her. She gives me a strange look and kind of cocks her head to the side in confusion.
 

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Remi, it’s so good to see you, but I can’t hug you right now…I…I can’t explain.”

I can’t tell her that it’s because I’m too scared to see her future. I can’t handle seeing another vision right now. It would ruin the moment. It would take me away from the feeling of happiness.
 

Remi lowers her arms and shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s really good to see you.
 

We sit together at a table, and at first, neither of us know where to begin. We talk about the crazy chances of our ending up here together, but the conversation inevitably comes to our parents. I tell her everything I saw on their last day.
 

“So, that was it then?” Remi asked. “You heard mom through the door and dad over the phone, and that was it?”

I nod. “It was horrible.”

Remi shakes her head, her eyes fixed on the table in front of us. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I’m sorry you had to spend the last three years wondering,” I tell her.
 

She lets out a breath from her nose. It seems like a laugh, but an empty one. “I had plenty of other things to fill my head,” she says. “I’m sad to say that Mom and Dad’s fate didn’t take priority in my mind for very long.”

“I understand,” I say. A few seconds of silence sits between us. It is surreal to see her…unsettling even. I have accepted the fact that my entire family was gone long ago. To see Remi fills me with joy and dread at the same time. Joy, because it is so good to see her. Nothing makes me happier than to know she’s alive. Dread, because now I will live fearing that she could die. I want to ask her about all the things she has gone through. I want to know what kind of person she is now. What I see in front of me looks nothing like the sister I saw three years ago. And I know I’ve changed a lot too.
 

“I can’t believe you’re seventeen now,” she says to me. “I don’t guess you ever got your license.”

I can’t help but smirk. “No, but I’ve learned to drive a little.”

“Are you with a group?” she asks.

“Just over a week,” I say. I bite my lower lip and look away.
 

“You’ve lost some, haven’t you?”

I nod.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve lost a lot of people, too. Before I was at Crestwood.”

“We were at Crestwood,” I say.
 

She sits up straighter, her eyebrows darting forward. “When?”

“We were kicked out a day ago.”

“You were the ones,” she says.
 

“Huh?”

She shakes her head. “I was there when you were there. I overheard someone saying something about a raider. Paxton was going to kick you out and let him have you. The raider was after something.”

I reach for my pocket and pull out the small cylinder. “We called him Scarecrow. He was after this.” I unscrew the metal and pull out the glass vial filled with red liquid. “I think it’s blood, but I don’t know why it would be important.”

Remi shakes her head again. “Your Scarecrow worked for someone named Shadowface.”

“Gabe mentioned something about that.”

“I can’t believe you’re with Gabe,” she says.
 

“There are three of us,” I say. “Gabe, Ethan, and me. There was a fourth when Scarecrow got to us, but he died. His name was Gilbert.”

I see the color from Remi’s face drain.
 

“What is it?” I ask.

She leans forward and rests her forehead in her hands. “This is getting crazy,” she says.
 

“What is?”

“Everything. The fact that you were at Crestwood…Gabe is locked away upstairs…” She looks up at me sharply. “Was Gilbert’s last name
Beal?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I was only with him for about a week. He was a very independent kind of guy.” I leave out that most of the time he was a complete jerk. He did sacrifice himself, after all. “Really dark hair. Tall. He had a sharp attitude,” I say nicely, “but it’s because of him that we’re here. He saved us all.”

Remi looks away from me for a moment, lost in thought. Then finally, she looks up at me, her eyes more watery than before. “I just can’t believe that you’re mixed in with Shadowface like I am.”

“How are you mixed in with him?” I ask.
 

“I just got back from a meeting with him,” she says. “Or at least a meeting with one of his people. Or
her
people, I’m not sure which.”

“Her?”
I ask.
 

“It’s possible,” Remi says. “Who knows, really? Either way, I think it’s bad business. I just traveled with three people who have made it their sole mission to kill Shadowface.”

“What?”

“Yeah. They didn’t say much, but the leader here, Stephen, is considering joining with Shadowface. I think there’s going to be a big meeting.”

“I think they are all crazy,” I say.
 

Remi smiles at me. “You got that right. I just want to find a place to rest my head comfortably. I don’t want to have to think about greyskins, shadow faces—none of it.”