I could hear her stumble to bring out any words. She summed up the courage regardless, and I effortlessly shoved it back down without any forethought. “Get back inside.” My voice felt foreign. It was strained, no doubt from the bruising, but I hadn't expected it to sound so hurtful. I tried again, softer this time without ever seeing the girl's face, though I knew she was still there. “You're safe. I'm gonna get you out of here, but I need you to get back inside. Can you do that?” She didn't say anything after a moment, so I added, “Please?”
The door gently closed in response.
Good.
She didn't have to experience the next part.
I leaned down and pressed the tip of the pistol against the man's head. I didn't think I would be able to hit him unless the shot was point blank. He whimpered at the sensation of a barrel being pressed up against his forehead, but otherwise stayed silent. He would undoubtedly suffer a slow and painful death from his wounds if the fire didn't get to him first. I could put him out of his misery. I had to. I might have even owed it to him. Regardless of whether or not he had hurt any of the girls in the room, he had attacked me. He had taken the chance to kill me and he had lost. I had the obligation to end it there and then.
I could feel the unseen stranger's body shake against my leg as I continued to lean into him. His breathes were shallow, but he was trying his best to calm himself down. I pushed the pistol deeper towards his skull and kept my hand stiff. My finger rubbed against the tip of the trigger. For a split second, I was on top of Kyle again in the middle of an empty auditorium. I had a choice.
I waited on the edge, the eventual whisper slipping past my lips as if it were nothing. “I'm sorry...”
The bus ride back to Tent City felt like home.
There was something about the way the bullet holes filtered specks of light all along the sides of the vehicle like aluminum Swiss cheese. The way the shattered windows let the breeze roll in unconditionally and pulled my hair back as we sped down another dirt road. The way I could drag a boot and feel spent casings roll underneath the heel. Hear the way the brass chimed against pieces of glass. Smell the faint odor of blood and firearm residue smeared against the torn, fake leather seats.
Or maybe it was simply the fact that we weren't
there
anymore.
Maryville had been a test for all of us. It had been a trap, of course, but it had also been more. Somehow, someone knew that we would arrive there out of desperation. They knew that we would be a loose group thrown together underneath an unforgiving time restraint. They knew that we would make rushed decisions. They knew exactly what they would need to bring us out into the open and they knew that we would be defenseless to stop it. They had laid a trap miles from our position and we had walked straight into it. It was easy to remind myself why I was still alive.
I glanced up above the seat in front of me and watched as Olivia sat near the front of the bus, staring out the side as the rest of the world passed us by. Grey was driving and I kept to myself near the back. It was just the three of us and nobody said a word. I was pretty sure I preferred it that way. After I had brought fourteen scared, teenage girls out of their entrapment and into the openness of the parking lot, I didn't want to hear or say anything.
The look on everyone's faces as they went from angry and panicked as they sought me out to suddenly dumbstruck was almost worth it itself, minus the hurtful bruising that had been required to get the girls out. They had been loaded onto a new bus and the rest of our group had been divided amongst itself to bring the vehicles back. I probably should have stayed with the kids. It might have comforted them to stay near, but I had not wanted to. I belonged on the bus that looked more like a long strainer than anything else. I should have died on it back in Maryville. The very fact that I didn't seemed to me that it also had a part in saving my life. Maybe it would do it again.
I glanced up again as Olivia got up from her seat and made her way back down the aisle. She stopped in front of me and bounced in reaction to the bus rolling over something bumpy.
She tilted her head up. “That seat taken?”
I scooched over without answering and looked outside. The long, dry fields of vegetation that rolled off into the distance would all soon be scorched earth. Behind us, three more school buses comprised our short convoy as it ran away from a wall of fiery death. Against all odds, we had accomplished what we had set out to do and then some. So why did it feel like we had failed?
Olivia cleared her throat next to me but stayed silent. I pretended to pick at something on the rifle in between my legs and gave her an opening to speak whenever it would fit. I had accidentally felt her trepidations just as we had arrived in Maryville. She probably knew we had been walking into a trap more than anyone else. If it weighed heavily on her, I would help. She didn't deserve to bear it all by herself. I would find a way to help her piece by piece until the load would be split evenly.
It wasn't long before she decided to shift in her seat and hold out something for me to take.
My journal.
I grabbed the small book and pressed my fingers into the leather binding. The cover had gotten scratched, but it was otherwise in good shape. I looked to her for an answer about its appearance.
“You dropped it.” Then: “I didn't take it again. Promise.” She smiled a bit and I let myself match it.
My body felt bone dry. I was sure I could have fallen asleep the moment the bus had pulled out of Maryville, but I didn't want to close my eyes until we had picked up what was left of Tent City and were on our way towards the rendezvous point. Even then I was worried if I would actually be able let myself slip away. I was incredibly drained, though the vibrations of my gun going off in my arms and the sight of blood spurting out of a screaming body seemed too fresh to garner any sleep. I wondered how long it would last. I played with the frayed blue ribbon around my gun. Would Sarah have understood what I did?
Olivia must have felt the same way, at least in part, because she had only said a few words to Grey during the entire ride and she continued to keep our own conversation light. She nodded at my journal. “Did you think of a title?”
I stared at the blank cover, unsure. I had almost forgotten that I had written my memories as a story. The thoughts came easier that way. It was weird to think that eventually someone might read it. I made a mental note to change the names of the people and places mentioned inside if that ever happened. Better safe than sorry. They all deserved their own privacy.
I flipped the book in my hands, still uncertain, and repeated the thought. “I don't know...” If my story deserved a title, then it had to fit the content. It had to belong to an event. A turning point. It had to mean something. I flipped through the pages to see that about two thirds had yet be filled out. I hadn't really gotten a chance to do so. Even if I could fit everything that had happened since Chris' death, I was pretty sure the last few pages wouldn't sit well on their own. I was a fan of the big and unexpected, yet there I was sitting on a bus. Not much of an ending.
“You did a good job.”
I looked at Olivia to see a soft, reassuring smile that I couldn't bring myself to.
Maybe.
Maybe I had done better in Maryville than either of us had expected, but it had been too close for me to be okay with. Most of our group would have scars to tell stories over. I couldn't even think of what Isabel would have to go through. And Conner had given his life so that we could make it out. All because I was too afraid to stand up. I looked down at my journal and promised myself that I would include them no matter how much it hurt. I would write Hayes' propaganda editorial piece. Whatever it took. What had happened in Maryville had been a massacre. People needed to know about the sacrifices that others had made for them, on both sides. It was the least I could do.
I let my next batch of words out without realizing they hadn't been restrained to my head until it was too late. “I don't know if I can be what you want...” The thought was cut off. I glanced at Olivia to see that she understand without me having to finish. I was flattered to have her offer me an apprenticeship—honored, even—but I wasn't sure if I was strong enough for it. If I went through with the process, I wouldn't be able to go in halfheartedly. There was still something that was holding me back. I had promised Olivia that I would follow her to the Order, but I still needed to find my family. If they were still alive, then I needed to help them.
If.
It hurt to think like that, though I knew it was the only way that would lead to the truth. I needed to follow the path wherever it led. I barely had any good leads: a name, a face, an event. It was enough to start. After witnessing Arrino and Maryville first hand, the thought of my family being attacked by a monster or feeling vulnerable enough to fall victim to empty promises left my blood feeling thin.
I had wanted to go into Maryville to help, to do something with my own two hands instead of running away. Really, I had failed. I hadn't been able to stand up for those who needed me the most. And the girls I had found in the school had practically been a quick run of luck. I had felt them, felt their fear. I still wasn't sure what it meant for me to be an Empath, but I thought if I could learn to control the ability better, it could help me to find my family.
I opened my mouth again, this time a vague plan reshaping itself in my mind. Regardless of what I did next, I didn't know enough and I was weak; it was obvious, and innocent people were getting hurt because of it. I needed to fill in the blanks. I needed to learn. “I need you to tell me...” I paused at that. If I couldn't think of anything specific, then Olivia would just have to go through— “Everything.”
She eyed that curiously so I kept at it.
“Everyone. Everything.” I needed to know what was going on. I needed to know why two Knights saved my life and the next one wanted to kill me. “I just...” I couldn't think of any other way to put it. “I need to know. I need to be able to fight.”
I stared at her intently. I didn't even realize I had been holding my breath or keeping a tight fist around the stock of my rifle until the word came.
“Okay.” She kept her eyes on me. Simple.
“Okay...” I let myself relax a little bit. Everything had been happening so quickly lately. It felt strange to have a quiet moment when I wasn't unconscious or sleeping.
“I don't know if I have all the answers to your questions...” she started again, glancing forward at Grey—the closest possible source for information. “But I promise that we can try to find them together. Does that work?”
I thought about it for a moment. I couldn't think of anything better. “Yeah.”
“Good.” She patted a hand on my knee. Because you've already been really patient. I think you're stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
I froze. I had heard those words before in another form, somewhere, like a burning whisper in the dark.
Emma.
'You need to be patient...'
Knox had appeared to me in Arrino as I was set to die. She had said that I needed to wait only a little while longer.
'You need to become stronger...'
She had said that I needed to learn.
'You need to work against me to gain their trust...'
The remembrance left me breathless. The people of Maryville had killed and died for something bigger than themselves, an entity they had called
mother,
whose force manifested itself as a Knight—her Arbiter. If Emma's power to manipulate was really so strong...
Olivia shifted toward me, her face growing somber by the second. “What's wrong?”
I shook my head. It couldn't have all been her. It couldn't. But only she could have had the far reaching resolve to affect so much. The girls in Arrino and Maryville were all young. They were all like me. Some had been forced to try on jewelry, most likely potential artifacts, in the hopes of a visible reaction. Everywhere Knox or her followers were, they had been looking for Paranormals like me—like a young Emma.
“Hey.” Olivia grabbed my arm and I had to fight the urge to snap it back.
I brought my eyes back to see her worried. How to even begin to explain it all? “
Emma
wanted me to become stronger...”
Her forehead collapsed at that. She almost looked angry. “What?”
I tried lifting up my journal up as evidence. “You saw it.”
Didn't you?
She shook her head. “No. No, your artifact only showed her saving you from Juno. Your memories didn't show you two talking to each other.”
Was that right? Could Emma have altered what memories had gotten left behind?
“Tess.” Olivia brought her face close to mine, and I couldn't help but feel like I had made a huge mistake—a fuck-up so bad that it proved that everything was my fault just as I had thought before. “Listen to me. Very. Carefully.” The points were concise, almost as if they had been meant to break skin. “What else did Knox tell you?”
I failed to come up with the words. “I—”
“What does Emma want you to do?”
I bit my tongue and shook my head. The truth felt lacking. “I don't know...”
The force from her glare boring holes into my skull were lost just as Grey called us from the front. “Hey. You two expecting anyone?”
Out here? In the middle of nowhere?
“No,” said Olivia. She forgot about me and immediately made her way to the front of the bus. I joined her and leaned past Grey. A few miles out ahead of us in a barren field, a huge crowd was shifting across the ground like a panicked school of fish. Just a mile beyond them—maybe even less—a much smaller group was moving about in the same way, though spread out enough to reveal the individual shapes from one another.
Grey checked the mirrors to his side, but otherwise kept driving us closer with his arms tense. “So then what the hell are we looking at?”
I spotted a beat-down truck among the crowd with a fleck of white on top and blurted it out without even thinking about it. “Tent City.”
“No,” said Olivia. “We're still hours from where we left them. They're supposed to be walking toward the rendezvous on their own. We're supposed to meet them almost halfway there.”
“Okay...” said Grey, revving the bus to go even faster. “Then someone needs to tell 'em they've been going the wrong way.”
It barely took a few seconds until we passed by the first stragglers. I craned my neck to look at them through the windows and my heart sank. They were waving at us and yelling something I couldn't make out. Then it dawned on me that they weren't stragglers at all. They were the fastest of the group. The remainder of Tent City was running towards the fire, not away, and apparently for a very good reason. “I think they want us to stop.”
“Why?”
I looked ahead at the group beyond the crowd again and it all came together. A few shapes stopped moving and specks of light flashed soundlessly from in front of their bodies.