Authors: Erin Bowman
“Gray,” Xavier begs. “Please—”
Emma presses the weapon against his head a bit harder, and he falls silent. The rest of the team spills into camp behind me and I hear them freeze in their tracks.
“Emma, why are you doing this? Did Frank promise you something? Did he say he’d let Carter go? Free Claysoot?”
“You think I don’t
want
to be doing this?” she sneers. “You think I’m experiencing some moment of weakness?”
It’s like I’m talking to a stranger. “There’s no way you actually want to do this, Emma.”
“But I do!” she practically shouts. “I’ve wanted this from the moment you took me out of Taem, and I can’t even tell you how hard it was to be so patient, to wait for exactly the right moment. And that’s why it’s so surprising, isn’t it, Gray? Because unlike Blaine and Jackson, you didn’t even think this was possible.”
My breath catches and I see the truth.
This isn’t Emma.
This was never Emma.
Emma is still in Taem. Or worse, dead. The girl standing before me only looks like her. I was foolish—so, so foolish—to assume that a Forgery would only be made from a Heisted subject.
“I could have ended it all that morning on the
Catherine
,” she adds, “but no, you had to come barging in, forcing me to drop my call the very moment I was able to make contact. I was
so
close
, and I just had to quit. Get all shy and meek and bat my eyelashes and act flustered by your presence.”
She looks disgusted by the idea. The expression triggers a handful of moments, all of which now seem painfully obvious. How she hasn’t shed a single tear since I rescued her from Taem, despite all she’s been through. Her annoyance when I let Jackson speak to the Order in Bone Harbor instead of her, and her offhand comment about his speed when he opened the Outer Ring, because maybe it really
could
have been done faster. And her eyes. They’ve seemed so lifeless and dead lately, so emotionless. So unlike Emma. She even pointed out that sign to us, told us how to identify her own kind, and I was too blind to see it.
I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me.
“But you never gave us up when we were at Crevice Valley,” I say. “And it wouldn’t have been hard for you to sneak into the technology wing, figure out how to contact the Order.”
“I wasn’t going to call them when I was
there
, and they were foolish to think I would. Why would I willingly give them a read on my location—the
Rebels’
location—and let them end my own life with the bombs they were sure to drop? How dumb do they think I am?”
She’s just like Jackson in Stonewall: putting her own life before her mission. Self-preservation is the strongest of motivators.
“So now we’re here,” she says, “and I’ve finally gotten through to them. Granted, Crevice Valley is just a damn nickname and I don’t know exactly how to find it, have no direct coordinates to report. I’ve told them to check where my tracker last transmitted. It should be enough for them to find your precious headquarters, but just in case, we’ll wait. As soon as the Order isn’t quite so busy”—she tilts her head toward the Wall as an explosion momentarily lights up the sky—“you can confirm things, Gray.”
I’m starting to feel sick. From blood loss. From her. From everything.
“Emma, I can’t just wait and let you hand us over. You have to know that. But if you put the gun down, we can figure something out.” I move toward her cautiously.
“Not another step.”
I take one anyway.
“You think I won’t do it?” She pushes the barrel harder against Xavier’s skull.
“I know you won’t.” Another step. “Because you’re in there somewhere, Emma. And you’re better than this. You can help us. Like Jackson.”
“If he helped you, it means he’s an older model. I’m stronger than him.”
She’s a mere arm’s length away now. One more step and I can grab the gun. One more step and everything will be fine.
“If you don’t stop right now, he’s dead.”
“You’re not a killer, Emma. I know you.”
She looks right at me, and for the briefest moment, I think she hears me. I reach for the weapon and the recognition on her face vanishes. Her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare and she says, “I’m not your Emma. You don’t know anything about me.”
And she pulls the trigger.
And the blast echoes.
And she points the weapon at my chest.
And there’s another gunshot.
I paw at my front.
But I’m not bleeding. I’m . . . fine.
Emma looks down to find her jacket blooming with darkness. She falls to her knees, and then sideways, legs bent beneath her.
I spin around, searching for the shooter. Bree is lowering her rifle. Her eyes are impossibly heavy as they meet mine, her lips pressed together as though they are stitched shut. Sammy is staring at the dead bodies as though he’s seen a ghost.
There’s noise behind us. Distant flashlights.
The Forgeries.
Everyone bolts for the car but I check Xavier. He’s gone. He’s gone and it’s bad and I want to unsee it, but can’t. I throw up in the snow.
“Gray?” Emma coughs.
And even when I know it’s not her, I move to her side. I go to her because she’s saying my name and her voice sounds exactly like Emma’s and I can’t ignore it. She reaches for my hand, grabbing, fingers sticky with blood, and she smiles. She’s dying but she’s beaming like it’s the best day of her life.
“They’re coming.”
The sound of Bree opening fire makes me flinch, but even still I can’t move.
“Where is she?” I ask hurriedly. “The real Emma?”
She takes a few shallow breaths. “I don’t know.”
Sammy shouts for me from the car.
“Dammit, Emma.” I shake her hand. “Is she alive at least? Tell me she’s alive!”
“I don’t know,” she repeats. “But it was so easy to be her . . . to pretend I loved you.” She coughs up a small amount of blood. “Her memories . . . emotions . . . I felt them clear as day.”
I pry her fingers from mine. “Don’t act like you know her. You are nothing like her. The way you deceived us, what you did here tonight.”
“But you never . . . suspected me,” she says between gasps. “Not once.” A smile. “Maybe
you’re
the one . . . who doesn’t know her.”
And I have nothing to say because I worry it’s true. First with the Forged version of my brother; now Emma. How can I claim to know these people and not be able to sense such a foul wrongness in them?
Sammy is cursing, waving his arms like a madman from the driver’s seat. I look at Bo and Xavier in the snow. They won’t even get a proper burial.
“There’s no time!” Sammy shouts, and I know he’s right.
I turn my back on Emma, and sprint for the car.
BREE CLIMBS INTO THE FRONT
seat, and me, the rear. We’ve barely shut the doors when the Forgeries enter the extended glow of the campfire, Forged Me still in the lead. We pull away and he loses it. Screaming, shouting, kicking at the snow. His back is arched in rage, his arms outstretched.
He scares me. He scares me more than anything I’ve ever faced.
He waves the other Forgeries after us. Bree leans out the window, firing as they chase us, coming blindly, fearlessly, endlessly after our car. The ground is slick with snow, but Sammy must be driving fast enough, because Bree ducks back inside a moment later. Even though it is too dark to properly see anything, I stare at my hands.
How did this happen? I couldn’t sense that something was off with Emma and now Bo and Xavier are dead as a result. Clipper may as well be. I’ve seen the blood. I know he won’t last long.
And then everything seems to crash on me at once. I see the Forgeries torn apart, smell their burning flesh. I see Emma dead, Isaac dead, my father dead. I see Forged Me aiming his gun at my chest and slashing Jackson’s neck and screaming after our fleeing car. How could I be the basis for that? Why was Jackson able fight his orders, and my Forgery was not?
I punch the seat in front of me, cover my mouth with my hands, and shout swears into them.
“Not now, Gray,” Bree says from the front. I want to scream at her lack of emotion. I want to call her heartless. I want to tell her she might as well be a Forgery for how callous she is. But then she says, “Later—I promise later—but not now,” and I realize she’s saying exactly the words I need to hear. It’s not that I can’t feel these things; it’s that I can’t let them own me in this moment.
“Clipper,” I say, flinching at the sound of my own voice. It is uneven and I struggle to steady it. “I’m sorry about earlier. You were right to send that distress call hailing the Expats. It’s the only reason we’re alive right now.”
I don’t mention that I’m rushing to apologize because I fear I won’t get another chance, that he’ll be dead if I put it off.
“Right or not . . . I still . . . got punished,” Clipper gasps. “Shrapnel to the shoulder.”
“We’ll get you to a doctor. Maybe in that town you spotted beyond Burg.” I wanted to head west immediately, toward the Expats, but Clipper isn’t going to last long. “Which way was it again?”
“North,” he wheezes. “Head north.”
And then he passes out.
The sky outside the car illuminates with another explosion and I swear I can hear the Forgeries shouting even though we are too far for this to be possible. My thigh is throbbing, my pant leg heavy with blood. I wonder if I’m starting to lose my sense of reality.
“We’re coming up on the exit,” Sammy announces. I see the Outer Ring whiz by outside my window but before I can feel even the slightest wave of relief, Sammy slams on the brakes. We all lurch forward.
“Sammy!” Bree yells. “What the—”
But she doesn’t bother with another word because it becomes very obvious what Sammy has stopped for.
A barricade of light appears before us. We’re trapped. Again.
Sammy curses luck and the heavens and odds and a number of other things, smacking the steering wheel in rage as he does so. Bree twists around to face me and the light from outside the car is so bright I can see every inch of her expression. Determination in her brow. Worry in her eyes. Fear at the corners of her lips.
“What now?” she asks.
But dark figures are already descending on the car, ripping the doors open. They leave Clipper untouched, but Sammy and Bree are yanked from the front, followed by Bleak and me in the rear. I stare at how white the snow is. How crisp and perfect and pure. This is the end for sure. If it’s the Forged version of myself who will do the deed, I don’t want to look.
A pair of boots steps into my vision, but they are not the typical Order model. I glance up, startled.
The man before me wears thick pants that tuck into the boots, a woolen hat, and gloves that are cut away to expose his fingers, and even though it’s freezing, he’s opted for a bulky sweater instead of a jacket. He looks about my father’s age and dark stubble covers his jaw. The attire of the woman with him is just as mismatched.
I peer at the vehicle behind them. It looks something like the Order’s helicopters, only a bit more battered. The emblem on its side is familiar: a blue circle positioned inside a red triangle, with a pale, unadorned star at its center.
It’s them. AmWest. The people whose ancestors started the Second Civil War and released a virus on millions of innocent lives. The people who today saw reason to answer our call for help, even when just months earlier I watched their planes attack Taem.
“Who’s in charge?” the man asks. His voice is low and raspy, like he doesn’t use it much.
I raise a hand and he tilts his head to the side and looks us over, something like curiosity and doubt flicking across his expression.
The woman motions at us with a knife. “They don’t look like much, Adam.”
The man, Adam, doesn’t take his eyes off us as he answers. “Neither did we.”
There’s an explosion in the distance and I’m pulled back into the moment, hyperaware that the Forgeries are still chasing us, that Clipper is bleeding out in the car.
“One of our team needs a doctor.” As I say this, my leg spasms with pain and I realize I need one as well.
Adam simply raises his eyebrows. “How many are you?”
“Five.”
He motions a forefinger in a small circle. “
All
of you.”
“We lost four just earlier, and another on the Gulf. Split up with one more before setting sail.”
Adam inclines his chin, still waiting, and I throw my hands up in frustration. “I have a boy on the verge of death in this car! If you have a deeper question, just say it. I don’t have time for games, even if you did save our asses back there.”
Adam smiles at this: a wide, brilliant smile that is so white it matches the snow. “I meant what I said: All of you. Your people. How many?”
Bree seems to hear the heart of his question because she answers for me. “Last time there was a head count we were just over two thousand.”
Adam purses his lips, like he’s tasting the number and finds its flavor rather curious. What had Isaac said?
If you have good information—methods of undermining AmEast—AmWest is always willing to make a trade or strike a deal.
Could this be true now? They answered our distress call only because they thought we might be beneficial to their cause and now Adam’s sizing up the Rebels’ numbers to see if those assumptions were correct?
“Someone told us the real patriots are Expats,” I say, repeating words I first heard from Isaac.
Adam’s eyes light up.
“I was thinking we could maybe work together. Your people. Our people. We might have more success united.”
“You know,” Adam says, a small grin appearing, “I had the same thought when we decided to answer your call.”
We reach for each other, and in one curt handshake, I strike an allegiance with the Expats.
WE LIFT INTO THE SKY
and I instantly feel nauseous. I keep a hand against the window, watching Burg disappear from view. It is still bursting with explosions of light and chaos. I worry about the rest of Bleak’s people, wonder how they are holding up. At least with the Expats’ aid they stand a chance of surviving. There are others still fighting by air behind the Wall, and just before we took off, I heard Adam give an order to keep it that way until the Order was defeated.