Authors: Erin Bowman
I want him to yell back, scream at me, but he has the nerve to calmly place his hands on the table and say, “We can talk about your brother later. Right now, we’re discussing this new alliance.”
“Dammit, Ryder. I just want to see Blaine. I—” Everything seems broken. So many people are dead, and I’m here, separated from Blaine, feeling lost, sick. “How did this happen?” I mutter. “This wasn’t supposed to be my life.”
“And do you think I wished this to be mine?”
Now
he decides to yell. Not before, when I wanted it, but now. “I haven’t let my guard down since I was eighteen! My best friend is now dead. I’ve lost one of the finest captains I’ve had under my command. Is it terrible? Yes. Does it hurt? Worse than I can even begin to describe. But I square my shoulders, hold my head high, and carry on. Moving forward is the only option.”
I’m glaring at him now, because I can’t push feelings aside the way he describes. I don’t work that way. I don’t know how to exist if I don’t feel.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he continues. “You’re going to take some time to mourn for those you lost and then you are going to realize that this mission was not a waste. Look at all you’ve accomplished. You saved Bleak from a life underground and Adam’s men freed half his people. You met a Forgery that fought against his programming—bent his will to help you! Above all, you have given us our best edge in years: an ally. Adam has assured me that the Expats will put our numbers to shame, that together we will be unstoppable.”
I can see the logic to his words, but the price paid in the process of gaining these assets seems unjustly steep.
“Now as for this alliance,” Ryder continues, “I’m sending a captain to help oversee things out west. Elijah will meet Adam at neutral ground—about a three-hour hike north of Crevice Valley—and he should be to you by tomorrow evening at the latest.”
“And Blaine,” I say. “Send Blaine, too.”
“That was not a part of our agreement.”
I slam my hands on the table. “I don’t care, Ryder. Just send him!”
As if on cue, there is the sound of a door bursting open on Ryder’s end, and then Blaine, speaking from out of view.
“Is it true? I heard you made contact with them!” And then he’s stumbling into the frame, pushing against Ryder, who is trying to restrain him. “Gray!”
His hands go into his hair, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and I don’t know how I ever mistook a Forgery for him.
This
is Blaine, so real and alive I can feel it even though he’s only on a screen. Ryder is pointing back toward the door, asking Blaine to leave, but Blaine pulls up a chair.
“You look horrible,” he says as he sits down.
“Thank you?”
He laughs and I can’t help but laugh, too. It fills an empty space in my core.
“I’m coming,” Blaine announces. He says this so surely it’s almost as if he believes he can blink his eyes and be next to me.
“You are not,” Ryder says.
“Ryder, I’m going and that’s the end of it. I sat here when Gray went into Taem to get the vaccine and it nearly killed me. I spent the last month chewing my nails and worrying nonstop while he trekked across the country. You keep us apart again, and I’m just going to hike there myself. You know I can do it. I’m well enough now.”
I’m speechless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blaine disagree with someone so forcefully. Ryder opens his mouth, closes it.
“Fine,” he says eventually. “You two are as stubborn as your father.”
I’m beaming, because this seems like the very best kind of compliment, and Blaine thanks Ryder profusely.
“Gray, be sure Elijah gets in touch with me when you’re all settled over there,” Ryder says. “Until then, I’m sure you have some things to attend to.”
He stands and moves out of the frame. I hear a door close a moment later and I’m left with my brother. All I wanted was to see him, and now even this is not enough. Tomorrow seems terribly far away.
“Pa’s dead,” I blurt out.
“What?”
“He jumped in front of a bullet. To save me. And . . . it’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything when you get here. I promise. I just couldn’t keep it from you and I’m sorry it happened.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
He’s making one of his big-brother faces now, something like parental concern mixed with sympathy. “You’re okay, and that’s what matters.”
“He mattered, too, Blaine.”
“I’m not saying he didn’t. It’s just that you matter more.”
I shake my head. Blaine’s always doing this: weighing outcomes as though every piece of life is either more or less important than another. I don’t think he realizes that in no way does my living make our father’s death any easier to accept.
When I look up, Blaine’s hand is resting against the display, like he wanted to grab my shoulder and forgot we were on opposite ends of the country.
“I’ll see you real soon, Gray,” he says. “Promise.”
“If I’ve learned anything these past weeks, it’s that you shouldn’t make promises. Not ever. Nothing is so certain you can guarantee it.”
He smiles. “Oh, I’m guaranteeing this. There is nothing more important right now than getting to you. You come first. Always.”
I feel like we’ve had this conversation before, but I can’t help repeating his final word.
“Always.”
I ROUND UP THE TEAM
so that we can properly say good-bye to our dead. It is a crisp, clear afternoon, the sky so cheerfully blue I swear it is mocking us.
We walk behind the house and form a half ring around a small fire pit, the wind at our backs. I clear away the snow and nurse some flames to life. Sammy says a few words the way he did that day in Stonewall. A funeral should make you feel at ease, help you move on, but I just keep feeling guiltier and emptier and unworthy of being alive. I made it and they didn’t. That’s the bit that kills me most, but that’s how it is with death: It doesn’t care if you deserve to face it or not. It comes of its own accord and it takes life without considering how those left standing will feel. Death is a greedy, selfish thing.
Sammy brings things to a close and Bleak, Clipper, and Bree head inside, shivering.
“You going to be here awhile?” Sammy asks.
I stare at the flames. My legs feel like roots, suddenly, reaching deep into the earth. “I guess so.”
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
When he returns he’s clutching a near-empty glass jug, amber liquid sloshing in it as he walks. He takes a swig and passes it to me.
“Swiped it from the kitchen pantry.”
I take a drink and the burn of the alcohol is a welcome distraction. We pass the jug back and forth a few times, watching the fire like it’s doing something interesting.
“I loved her,” Sammy finally says. I have never before heard him say three words with more sincerity.
“I know,” I say, because I’ve suspected it for a while.
He seems startled by my answer and coughs on a bit of alcohol. “Was it anything like her, or did I fall for an illusion?”
“Sammy, that Forgery was so much like Emma it terrifies me. It had her personality and her voice and her mannerisms. I mean, it fooled me, and I grew up with her.”
We both take a few more swigs from the jug.
“I hope she’s okay,” he says. “I can’t lose them both. God, I can’t.” His eyes grow glossy and I realize he’s mourning not only for Emma, but for Xavier, too. They were best friends, always walking around Crevice Valley like they were each other’s shadow. And Sammy watched that friend die at the hands of a thing he thought he loved. He might be as messed up about Emma as I am.
“She has to be alive still,” I tell him, because the alternative is unthinkable. “We’ll find her somehow. I have to find her.”
“I feel the same way. It’s just that . . .” He takes a deep breath and looks right at me. “You don’t deserve her, Gray. Not if you can’t see her, and it’s so damn obvious that Nox is the only thing you really, truly see.”
“I know,” I say again. Deep down, I think I’ve known all along.
“That’s it?” Sammy looks confused. “I was sure you’d be furious with me for saying that.”
“Last week I might have been. Or even yesterday. But now I see what everyone else already knew, what Bree’s been trying to tell me for ages.” He still doesn’t look convinced. “I’ve loved Emma since I was six, Sammy. It’s sort of hard to admit you might love someone new more than the person you’ve loved for forever.”
He nods at this, stares at the fire.
We keep drinking and the ache of sorrow steadily surrenders. I grow warm despite the setting sun. We don’t exchange any more words. We don’t need to. Maybe I have a friend in him now. I’m not sure if it’s a real friendship, or something forced upon us from everything we’ve been through. Maybe the details don’t matter. Maybe a friend is a friend.
By the time we are called inside for dinner, the jug is empty.
Sylvia’s cooking is the best meal we’ve had in ages—some sort of meat stew with fresh bread. My head is humming, my body warm. I imagine Sammy is the same. We’re not belligerent by any means, but we keep laughing at things that aren’t very funny and fumbling with our spoons. Sylvia’s looking pretty annoyed and I start feeling bad about the whole thing. She did patch up our team and give us beds and agree to keep us under her roof until Adam returns with Elijah and Blaine. So I apologize for being rude, only to have Sammy tell her we’re not being rude at all. I knock over my bowl while trying to punch his arm.
“Dammit, I am so sorry,” I say, sopping up the mess.
“I’ve got it,” Sylvia says. “Just stop. I have it under control.”
“No. I’ll help.” I manage to knock Sammy’s bowl askew as I try to clean quicker than her. More stew floods the table.
“Why don’t you just excuse yourself,” she says to me sharply.
Everyone at the table is glaring at me and I have the foresight to not push things. I get up, leave. I have no intention of falling asleep, but when I lie down on my bed, the weight of the last few days is suddenly unbearable.
I wake to a knock on my door.
I’m cold now, the pleasant hum of alcohol replaced with guilt and regret and things I wish I could change. It’s dark out, the sun still hours away from rising. I couldn’t have been asleep long.
Another knock, less patient this time.
“Come in.”
Bree enters and tosses something on my bed. “I was going through the gear and found that in Owen’s pack. I thought you might want it.”
My fingers close around the handle of a small knife sheathed in leather. I pull it from the case. A couple of shavings fall onto my lap and the memory of a wooden duck Blaine and I played with as children hits me. It was a gift from our father, a product of his work with this very blade.
Weathersby
is carved into the handle.
My breath snags as I exhale, and I’m caught between wanting to laugh and needing to cry. I look at Bree and I can’t seem to get my mouth to form the words
thank you
, but she must hear me anyway because she says, “Don’t mention it.”
My eyes trail over her. The angle of her brows, her slender neck, the shape of her collarbone, which has been hidden beneath bulky attire for what feels like a lifetime. Bree turns to leave and I grab her wrist, pull her toward me.
She frowns. “I have to go now.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes. I do.” She twists free of my grasp.
I sit up, swing my legs over the mattress. “Bree, I was wrong. About us. About everything. I should—”
“I’m not your consolation prize,” she snaps.
It takes me a long moment to realize what she means.
“No. It’s not like that. I always needed . . . I just . . . I thought . . .” But I know I’m not making sense. I’m still half-asleep, flustered from being given Owen’s knife, aching from how much I need to pull Bree into my bed, to strip her bare and touch her everywhere and use my lips to tell her all the things I worked out earlier and am currently grappling for so poorly.
“You told me you needed
her
more than you needed
me
, Gray. That’s what you implied that night on the beach. So what happens when you see her again? The real her? What then?” She folds her arms across her chest. “If I wasn’t enough for you before, I don’t see why things would be any different now.”
She heads for the hallway and I’m left gaping after her, still trying to process her words.
“But we’re stronger together,” I say. “We both know it.”
She pauses near the doorway. “Yeah. We are.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The
problem
is I told you things I’ve told no one else. I let you get close to me. I stopped protecting myself all the time and dropped my guard. I trusted you to not shatter what we had, and when you did I felt so vulnerable, so exposed, so foreign in my own skin that I couldn’t think straight. I still feel this way and I hate it, Gray! I hate that you can make me so weak.”
So
this
is what she meant when she spoke about weakness in Burg. I think I understand her now, because a piece of who I am is so tied up in her that she’s made me feel weak, too. Weak when I’m without her. Never stronger than when we’re together. I want to tell her this but the concept seems too complex for words.
She pulls the door open.
“Don’t go,” is all I manage to say. “Please?”
But Bree just shakes her head.
“I already gave you everything, Gray, and I’m not doing it again. I’m putting myself first.”
IT IS MIDDAY WHEN ADAM
returns.
Our gear is packed—the team, restless. I’m sitting on my bed, sharpening Owen’s knife and replaying my conversation with Bree, when I hear the helicopter approaching. I slip the knife into its sheath and race from the room.
Adam is jumping from the vehicle when I burst outside. Elijah comes next, and finally, Blaine. He has a bag slung over his shoulder in this carefree manner, and he’s smiling so wide that I remember it is possible to be happy. We collide, our greeting a series of playful shoves that are punctuated by moments when one of us breaks down and clasps the other around the back.