The Trap (22 page)

She gasps softly. “We left him behind. All by himself.”

“There was little we could do. We had no choice. We barely survived ourselves.”

“Maybe he—”

“I don’t think so, Sissy. I searched the Convention Center this morning. There was no sign of him.”

“The TextTrans,” Sissy says after a long, silent minute. “Let me see.”

I take it out of my pocket. “Water got in, ruined it. Look, everything on the screen is garbled.”

She takes it, presses a few buttons randomly. Her shoulders slump.

“Leave it out in the sun,” I say softly, taking it from her. “Maybe it’ll dry out, start working again.”

She shrugs her shoulders disconsolately. Her strength suddenly vanishes; she half-collapses to the ground. She starts to laugh, and it is full of sorrow and torment. “Look at me,”
she says. “I’m pathetic. I’ve never felt so weak in my life.”

I sit beside her and we lean against each other. The horses, still harnessed to the carriage, stand withdrawn under the shade of the tree. The sky is a pure cerulean blue, not a hint of a cloud
across its wide, invisible dome.

“What now?” I say gently.

She leans her head against my shoulder. “Let’s just sit here. For five minutes. Let’s pretend everything is okay and we’re just resting from a nice, leisurely
hike.”

“I think we can do that.”

“Five minutes. We can talk about what to do next after that.”

I inhale the air saturated with the fragrance of ripeness, of grass and fruit and leaves. Feel the soothing warmth of the sun, her body pressed up against my side, how she so perfectly and
softly fits into the nook of my body. “Let’s make it ten minutes.”

She nods against my shoulder.

Ten minutes turns to one hour. One hour becomes two, then three. We nap, three, four times, sleep lulling us throughout the afternoon. We eat between naps, feel energy return.
And now, in the late afternoon, we’re at last restored. We chew the slices of orange slowly, savoring the taste. There’s more than enough other fruit dangling from the trees, but
neither of us wants to get up.

Sissy looks much better, her complexion returned to normal. Alertness again shines in her eyes. “This is where you got your fruit? Your whole life?”

I nod.

She takes in the trees. “So you’d come here with your father?”

“Yeah. Every few weeks or so. Until he . . . went away.”

She looks at me. “He never told you . . . anything?”

“No. Nothing. And then he was gone. Made me believe he’d turned, then perished in the sun.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

I pull a blade of grass from the ground. “It was lonely. A part of me refused to let go. For the longest time, I pretended he just went away somewhere.” I smile sadly. “I used
to walk the streets in the daytime hoping to . . . no, never mind.”

“No, what?” She angles her body to face me. “Really.”

“It’s ridiculous, but I used to think he hadn’t died. That he had made it somewhere safe, some place far away. And that he would send me a message to tell me he was
okay.” I pull another blade of grass. “Thought he’d send it by a remote-controlled plane. Yeah, I know, it was silly. But I was a little boy, alone for the first time in my life.
All I could do was cling on to fantasy.”

“Well, you were right,” she says lightheartedly. “He
did
just go away.”

I don’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, putting her hand on mine. “I didn’t mean to make light of what happened.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” I give her a quick smile to let her know everything is okay.

“I actually know what it feels like,” she says after a minute. “He did it to me, too.” She stares into the distance, her eyes moistening. “It was the suddenness of
it. No good-bye. No explanation. One day here, the next day . . . gone. Like I didn’t even matter.”

I twirl the blades of grass around my finger, snap them. “That’s what I don’t get. I mean, we know why he left me. It was to go to the Institute and protect you.” I turn
to her. “But Sissy, why did he leave you? And why only months before the Heper Hunt was to begin?”

She leans forward, arms on her thighs. “I can’t figure it out,” she says.

“No one can. Not even the chief advisor.”

She nods. “And you know what really bothers me as well? Why did your father leave the Mission only weeks before we were to arrive? I know he was having it bad with Krugman, but still. Why
not hold out in that cabin for just a little longer?” She exhales in frustration. “Something must have happened for him to jet off so quickly.”

I clear my throat. And when I speak, it’s with a quiet, broken voice. “Maybe it’s obvious.”

“What is?”

“Something caused him to suddenly leave the Institute. And something later caused him to leave the Mission.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe it’s not something . . . but someone.”

Her eyes turn to mine.

“It’s pretty obvious if you think about it,” I say. “Each time, he moves just before a certain someone is due to arrive.” I go on, ignoring Sissy’s shaking
head. “Me, Sissy. Before I’m due to arrive at the Institute, he leaves. Before I’m supposed to arrive at the Mission, he leaves. It’s like he’s avoiding me,
deliberately trying to make sure we never meet again.”

“Gene—”

“Maybe it’s me.”

“We don’t know that—”

“Certainly looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Gene,” she says, and when I don’t look up to meet her gaze she touches my chin lightly, tilts my head to her. “He loved you. You were precious to him. We can’t go
jumping to these conclusions.”

“It adds up, though, doesn’t it?”

She shakes her head, her eyes never wavering from mine. “We don’t know that. There’s a dozen different ways to interpret his movements. And we’ve got to give him the
benefit of the doubt.”

I stare into the distance. “I want to find him more than ever,” I whisper.

“I know, Gene,” she says. “I know.”

For ten minutes, we watch a scrim of clouds drift across the blue sky. A gentle breeze blows, rustling the tree leaves. Sissy’s stomach rumbles with hunger.

“Wish I had my daggers,” she says. “What I wouldn’t do for some barbequed game.” Her fingers absentmindedly stroke her waist where she usually sheathed her
daggers.

“We still got our guns.”

She shakes her head. “No good. Dagger’s the way to go. Clean, efficient.”

“You really think you’d have energy to go chasing prairie dogs? And then make fire?”

She spits a seed out of her mouth. “Good point there.” She spits out another seed, this time with distance.

I spit out a seed from my mouth. It sails only a couple of feet away.

“You’re going to have do better than that if you want to beat me,” Sissy says, a small grin on her face.

“I haven’t even begun,” I say, and take another bite. “Game on.” I spit out a seed. Despite rising high up into the air, it falls less than halfway to Sissy’s
seed.

“That’s just pathetic, Gene,” she says, laughing. She slaps the grass. “Even
Ben
could have done better than that. When he was, like, three.”

“Hey, this is my first time, okay! I haven’t had years of training like you guys!”

She laughs again, in her usual deep-throated manner. “If Epap were here, he’d totally school you. Nobody was better than him. That boy could spit farther than he could
throw.”

We both laugh. But the mention of his name is a painful reminder of reality. Our laughter fades away, the brief moment of lightness over.

“He never had a chance, did he?” she says quietly after a minute. “
We
never had a chance. Of saving him. I think we both knew that from the get-go. We were clinging to
a hope that was more fantasy than reality.”

“Sometimes fantasy is all you have.”

She is silent. I know what is turning in her mind, the words before she even gives voice to them. “And what about saving David?” she finally says. “Going back to the Palace to
rescue him—is that fantasy, too?”

It is. I realize that now. Even if we had been able to kill Ashley June and been able to return unscathed to the Palace, the Ruler would never have released us, his promise notwithstanding.

Sissy curls her toes into the grass, turning her digits white. “The whole time we were underwater in the fountain pool, I kept thinking of David. That he was in exactly the same situation,
submerged in water. But how much worse off he was. Because he was alone.” She turns her eyes to me. “I won’t leave him there.”

“Sissy,” I say reluctantly. “We both know it’s suicide to return to the Palace. We’ll surely die.”

“Then we die,” she says quickly with a flash of anger. She stands up, walks a few paces away, her back to me.

I stand. Softly, I utter words I know she will be repulsed by. “Maybe we should accept what can’t be changed.”

“What do you mean by that?” she says without turning around.

“You and me, Sissy. We have horses. We can go anywhere. Nobody knows we’re alive. Not the Palace, not the metropolis. They all think we’re dead.”

She pauses. I expect her to lash out with objections. But she has not spoken.

“We make our own world, Sissy. Away from everyone, everything. Go far, far, far away, never to be found again. Start afresh. Just you and me.”

She stands very still. A desert breeze blows through her hair.

“But we can’t go back to the Palace,” I say. “Even if we were somehow able to escape from there, they’d never stop coming after us. Not the duskers, not the
Originators. Once they know we’re still alive, we’ll be hunted forever.”

And still, she does not speak.

“I’m just trying to be honest with you,” I say.

“Have you, Gene?” She turns around now, and her eyes are moist. But these are not tears of sadness or resignation but something else I can’t quite identify. “Have you
been completely honest with me?”

Of course I have,
I’m about to say, but the words choke up inside me.

She speaks, and her voice quivers with anger. “Why did you bring me? From the Palace into the metropolis? You say it was because you needed help. That’s not true, is it?” Her
eyes pierce into mine. “Because in the metropolis, I’m a liability. You would have been better off without me.”

She folds her arms in front of her chest, then unfolds them, stuffing her hands into her pockets. She doesn’t know what to do with them. They are like her emotions, her thoughts, unable to
find a place to alight. “At first, I thought it was because you just wanted us to be together. Because you wanted me. But then yesterday, when you didn’t take the shot, you hung me out
to dry. You just about killed me.”

“No, Sissy, I—”

“Stop, Gene.” And she turns away, walks out of the shade and into the sunlight.

I follow after her. No words. Just my feet, taking me toward her. She spins to face me before I reach her. She’s standing in the white purity of day; I’m in the shadows.

“I know why you brought me with you.” Her eyes shimmer with angry, pained tears. “You need my blood. It’s not
me
you want. Just my blood.”

“Sissy—”

“I suspected all along. But I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Held out believing, hoping that you’d actually take down Ashley June and kill off my
suspicions.”

“Sissy, please—”

“And you know what, Gene?” Her voice hitches with a raw intensity that can only be honesty. “I would have come with you. Even if you’d told me you only wanted me for my
blood, that you only needed me for Ashley June, I still would have come.”

All I can do is stare into the sun. Directly into it, wanting the intense whiteness to burn holes into my corneas, wanting pain, needing the punishment.

“I’m sorry, Sissy,” I finally say, my voice strangled and raspy.

She wipes her nose with her fist, her chin tilting up. “I know she gave her life up to save yours. I get it.” Tears glimmer but don’t overflow. “And I would have been
fine with it, you wanting to do the same for her. Even if it meant I came second to her. Even then, Gene. But only if you were truthful about that.” She winces. “Because what I
can’t live with is dishonesty. Deceit.”

“You’re not second, Sissy.”

“Stop.”

“I was there yesterday to
kill
her. Please believe me.” I take a step toward Sissy, my hands spread open before me, pleading. “Yes, you’re right. When we left
the Palace, my initial plan was to try to re-turn her. Yes, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how to make you understand. I’m sorry. But I couldn’t take it anymore
after a while. The deceiving, the putting you at risk. So I changed my mind. Believe me, Sissy, it became every bit my intent to kill her. You’re not second.”

Her eyes search mine. “So you say. And yet still. You couldn’t take the shot last night,” she says, but softly, without recrimination. I was expecting more anger, reproach, not
this sudden gentleness. “You had her in your crosshairs, but you couldn’t pull the trigger.”

I stare down at the ground, unable to look into Sissy’s probing eyes.

“I don’t hate you, Gene, for that. I understand. Because if it were you in her shoes, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, either.” She stares off into the distance, then
at the horses. “But it’s the dishonesty. That’s what does me in.” Then her next words. “I can’t trust you anymore.”

“Sissy,” I say. I step toward her. “I’m going to prove it to you. That you’re not second. Somehow, someway, I’m going to show you.”

“You already had your chance,” she says. “You’ve already shown me.”

“Sissy. Please.”

She turns, walks to the carriage.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going back to the Palace for David. There’re two horses. I’ll take one. You take the other, go wherever you want. To the metropolis. Or with me to get David. Or head
east alone. It’s your choice. But as for me, I’m going back for David.”

“Sissy, don’t—”

“I can’t desert him, I can’t betray his trust.” Her next words, they sting. “Loyalty is the proof of love.” I know she didn’t say it viciously. But her
words hurt all the more for that.