Follow Me Through Darkness

by Danielle Ellison

“That is not an option for so many reasons.”

  “Why?” Xenith doesn’t answer me, and I can’t leave until I know Thorne is safe. “Then promise you’ll protect him. I love him.”

  He laughs. It’s short and crisp and purposeful. He’s mocking me. “You’re branded to him. That’s not love, Neely. There’s a difference, I promise.”

  I shake my head. I don’t know what he means, and I don’t care. I can’t leave Thorne here. Not alone. “I need to be certain he will be safe from my father while I’m gone. You’re the only one who can do that.”

  Xenith is quiet. He and Thorne are far from friends, but will he risk Thorne’s life? If I’m not here, then no one will be able to stop my father-no one except Xenith. He moves with the book to the side of the table where he stood when I first entered, and he’s silent until he sets it on the table with a sigh.

  “The cost for that, Neely, is too great.”

  “What is it?” I ask, moving toward him. I’ll do anything to protect Thorne. Anything.

  He looks up at me, his light hair falling in his face. It’s like he has control over those strands and the way they fall perfectly to half-cover his eyes. He moves to meet me in the dead space. He’s inches from my face, his warmth mingling with mine.

  “You.”

  I huff and take a step back. He wants me? That is a joke. There’s no way he can be serious. Why would he want me?

  But Xenith isn’t joking. “Me?”

  “You.” He smiles, taking a step forward so he’s close. The heat of his body fuses with mine, and I can almost hear his heart beating. His breath brushes my skin, and I shudder. “Thorne is protected, and you’re trading yourself to me. Your life for his.”

  I freeze, looking at him. Xenith doesn’t look fazed by the response, but my mind is racing. “You want to kill me?”

  “No.”

  I shake my head. This is insane. My life for Thorne’s- but he’s not going to kill me. What does he mean then? I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have given in. I can find another way. I turn away, and Xenith calls my name.

  “I’m not speaking of your death-your life is worth a great deal more than you know. I promise you that. And when I ask you, you have to hand your life over to me. Of course, even if you say no, it all still falls on your shoulders.”

  I still don’t understand what he wants with me, and his half-answers are annoying. “What does?”

  “There’s a change coming,” he says with a pause. “The Elders aren’t so happy with the way things are going. It’s been in talks for a while, but I know they’re going to act sooner rather than later.”

  “Act how? What are you talking about?”

  Xenith shakes his head. “I can’t lay all my cards out on the table. Not until you’ve decided what you’re willing to risk or stand up against.”

  This is the chance. I can be free from the Compound, from my father, from all the things I’m supposed to be, but I’d have to give up Thorne. I’d have to leave him. To let him go. A pain forms in my chest at the thought, but leaving him is the only way I can keep him safe and stop the Elders.

  My life for Thorne’s. If I stay, he’s taken from me-or worse. If I leave, I’m not with him, but at least he could live. That’s what matters. Him living. With or without me. That’s all that matters.

  “I’ll do it,” I say. Even as I say the words, I push down my feelings of uncertainty. I’m losing Thorne by saying yes. Can I live without him?

  His gaze freezes on me. “You really should take some time to consider-”

  “I’ll do it,” I say again.

  Xenith smiles and touches my cheek. His hand is warm, calloused, and rough as it rubs against the smooth skin of my cheek. The contrast sends another shiver down my spine, and I have to resist the urge to turn into it. I can’t want his hand on my face. I can’t want his fingers to caress me.

  He leans into my ear, his warm breath tickling me. A rush of breath escapes my parted lips. “It’s done, then. I’ll be in touch.”

  DEADLINE: 32D, 8H, 9M

  THE BURROWS

  I TOUCH THE WALL WITH MY FINGERS, and it crumbles in bits to the ground. Things I can’t see crackle under my feet as I walk. I don’t even want to imagine what I’m stepping on, yet it’s all I can do. Dried-up food. Bits of broken glass. Rocks. Rusty nails. Insects. Bones, most definitely bones, probably from whatever it was that I ate before, tossed into the dark corners and left to rot.

  What do they do with their dead? People die. My mother died. Thorne’s father died. Xenith’s parents died. The Healers burn the bodies, and we scatter them into the ocean. Am I walking on dead people right now? Children, babies, adults? Three hundred years’ worth of people?

  A weight skitters over my foot. I squeal, and Bayard turns to me.

  “Some-something was on my leg!”

  “Probably just a rat.”

  I raise my eyebrow, even though he can’t see it. “Rat.” I shake my leg because it still feels like something is on me. I shiver, and Bayard starts to walk again.

  “Next time that happens, try to catch the little bugger. Those are a delicacy in these parts.” I can hear the amusement in his voice.

  I can’t wait to get out of here. Away from the iron and dirt walls. From the smell and the darkness and the rats. This is not why I came here, to be trapped underground, and I know it’s part of my journey but I’m ready for the next part. I’m ready for the end.

  I run into something hard and bounce back like a rubber ball. Bayard looks down at me, his brow furrowed and his face taut with annoyance. Twice I’ve run into him.

  “We’ll be sleeping here tonight. This is a safe area.”

  I look around him at the makeshift steps leading up to a higher platform. We climb the steps and up here, torches line the walls. The golden glow is bright enough that I can see my feet for the first time today. My gray-laced shoes are cloaked in black, but I can’t tell if it is dirt or darkness.

  All around me are oddities. Everything from glass bottles to keys hanging off strings to tattered books litter the ground and are crammed into the shelves that have been built into the walls. The whole space is overflowing in Old World treasures.

  “Third tent down from here,” Bayard says.

  His steps are wobbly and wide as he moves in front of me. I adjust my pack on my shoulders and follow behind him. As we pass the row of books, I try to make out any of the titles, but it’s too dark. Some of the covers are destroyed, while the others are just too dark for me to see. I desperately want to explore them. I’ve only touched twelve books from the Old World. A small group of us used to meet on the beach next to the barrier that separates the Compound from the Old World and dream about what it had been like.

  Rowan was the first one to bring us a book from this world. His forbidden stories were wrapped in the shell of “approved” reading, books that the Elders and the director deemed good for us to know. Those approved stories all fit the same kind of mold and were nothing like the books Rowan brought us-books about a king and his knights and the great battles and injustices they fought. Or the one about creation in a garden of perfection with Adam and Eve, and the misery they set forth by pursuing the forbidden. We shared the stories, passed them around in secret for the entire year before Rowan was transferred. I never had the chance to ask him how he got the books. Now I know I never will.

  Bayard puts his hand on my shoulder, and the sudden movement makes me jump. “You’ll be out of here soon. I know it’s hard if you’re not used to it.”

  I look up and meet his dark eyes. There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, probably forced and more out of pity than anything else, but it warms me. The look’s gone as quickly as I see it.

  The flap of the tent in front of us pops out in our path, and with it comes a lady shorter than me. Her hair is back in a bun, pulled close to her head except for the poof that rests on top.

  “Bayard Toffy! Look at you! It’s been ages since I’
ve seen you!” The woman’s practically yelling it, she’s so excited. I’m sure there’s no one around who doesn’t know we’re here now.

  She and Bayard hug, chattering quickly in a language I don’t understand. I never knew the people in the Old World spoke differently until I got here. To be fair, I never knew there were people. English was the standard before the Preservation, but Rover said the Remnants spoke in Spanish once they were established. That way, if any were found, they could pretend they didn’t understand. We didn’t get to learn Spanish in the Compound; we’d learned only enough about the Old World to teach us a lesson about gratitude toward the Elders for saving us.

  They stop talking and look at me. “This here is Neely. I’m guiding her above,” Bayard says in English. He looks at me with something almost like pride. The look sticks with me and rattles something in my heart. It’s been so long since my father wore that expression. So long since he’s been anything like a father.

  The woman’s eyes grow three sizes wider. “Why does she want to go up there?”

  Bayard looks between us. “She’s only passing through.”

  “Where’s she from? There’s nothing up there, girl. Nothing but death and danger.”

  I open my mouth to speak and close it again when I realize I have nothing to say.

  Bayard crosses his arms. “She’s on a mission, Francine. No need knowing any more than that. I was hoping we could sleep here tonight. We’ve a good two more days of walking ahead of us.”

  They say a few more words in their Spanish language, Francine stealing glances at me while they talk. They pause, and then Francine smiles and hugs me. She takes the pack off my back and hangs Bayard’s torch on the wall.

  “You’re just in time for supper,” she says in her high- pitched voice. “My Jordan did some hunting today. We had a lucky day, we did.”

  They use that word a lot. Lucky.

  Francine winds my arm through hers. She’s so welcoming that I can’t keep up with her whirlwind movements. She whistles through her teeth, something that Kai tried to teach me to do more times than I can count, and people from the first two tents poke their heads out.

  The next thing I know, we’re all sitting on the ground around a cauldron of stew. There’s a thin boy who keeps smiling at me with his missing teeth and dirty face, and an old man made up of bones who keeps staring at me-well, the branding on the back of my neck-his mouth ajar. I let my hair down around it to block his view, and my hair is matted together. I’m more like a Remnant each day. The thought isn’t as horrible as I imagine. It feels nice to belong with them, even temporarily.

  Bayard sits across from me, talking to the others like they are long-lost friends. The sight of it makes me miss my own friends. The ache forming in my chest disappears when some little girl hands me a chipped black bowl. A boy comes behind her and slops something tan into it. Even as the others wait for food, they giggle and talk excitedly over each other. I smile as I watch them. They look like the kids I taught in the Compound, yet they live nothing like them. How does someone live in darkness forever and carry so much contagious light?

  Francine stands up. “Let’s say a blessing and give thanks.”

  And they do. Each one of them lifts up a voice and chants the same thing while I sit and listen. I don’t need to know what they are saying to feel the joy. The Compound is about control, but this world is family and freedom. They deserve more than this life, and I want to help them all find it. Stopping the Elders, finding the Mavericks-I can do that for them. Fight for the innocent at the Compound and the ones forced into hiding. Save us all.

  “Thank you, Jordan, for the delicacy of tonight’s dinner!” Francine beams. The young boy who put food in my bowl blushes and buries his head into his bowl. I lift the spoon up from the thick, pasty stew and catch Bayard’s eye from across the circle. He’s smiling while he chews, his face completely bright with something hilarious. I look toward Jordan and the food and back at Bayard.

  A delicacy. Rat stew.

  I am not strong enough for this.

  “Something wrong, honey?” one of the women next to me asks. Her belly is wide and round with pregnancy, and I can imagine her having that baby at any time. I stare at her stomach as she rubs it. “You can touch it,” she says.

  I shake my head. “How far along?”

  “A few more weeks,” she says, face lit up with happiness.

  I smile, but the thought of having a baby in this world is baffling. There’s nothing to look forward to, nowhere to go, and yet the Remnants are alive. I lift my spoon and can hear Bayard chuckle in the crowd, but I avoid looking at him. I close my eyes, stick the spoon in my mouth, and try to not think while I chew. Just chew. And when I do, it’s familiar. Tangy and spicy. Stringy and gristly.

  I’ve had rat before.

  That should be comforting, but it’s not. It makes me want out of this place that much more. It makes me long for Thorne, for home, for times like before. All things I’m not allowed to wish.

  4 YEARS BEFORE ESCAPE

  WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO make wishes in the Compound. There’s no need to desire anything more, but that’s one of many rules Sara loves to break.

  “Did you get candles?” Dad asks her. His jacket hangs on the chair behind me, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up, tie undone. He looks very at rest, unlike the times when he’s working in his office with his “director” face on.

  Sara places a chocolate cake on the table in front of us. She always does this for birthdays. It’s a tradition from the Old World, one where all the people feed cake to each other. It’s silly, but Sara loves it.

  She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to cause a commotion trying to find them.”

  Kai bumps shoulders with me while our parents search through cabinets. His face is round and smiling. “Birthday girl,” he says.

  “Don’t forget birthday boy!” Thorne adds as he sits beside me on a stool. The two of us smile at each other. “We don’t need candles.”

  Kai stands next to Thorne, and I study them together with their dark hair and dark eyes and skin like they never leave the sun, just like Sara. I am all auburn hair and light skin, equal parts my mother and my father, and I wonder how, for those first two years of life, anyone thought I was related to the Bishop family.

  Dad moves next to me, and Sara stands across from the four of us. Though we aren’t all blood, we’re some kind of makeshift family. Two halves that were shoved together, imperfect and lopsided but somehow whole. Dad and I are better with the Bishops.

  “Thirteen,” Sara says. Her eyes glaze a little, like she’s reliving a memory.

  “Make a wish, even without the candles,” Kai says.

  Thorne and I hold hands as we close our eyes. I wish that this would never change. When I open them, Father hugs me and presses me against his shoulder, while Sara hands Thorne the first piece, me the second, and Kai the third. Kai stuffs a bite in his mouth and then rams some of it into Thorne’s face. They always do this, too. The Old World had weird traditions. Thorne yells and tackles Kai to the floor.

  I stay out of it and enjoy my cake. Sara wanders around the room, trying to make Kai and Thorne stop getting icing all over the living room furniture.

  Father sits next to me, and even though I’m thirteen now, I like having him here. He takes a bite of his big piece of chocolate cake and smiles at me. “You look more and more like your mother every day,” he says.

  “You told me that in your note this morning,” I say. Father smiles. He leaves me a note every morning. He has for as long as I can remember, and earlier this year, since I was old enough to take care of myself, he’s been leaving for work before I wake up. Even after he’s gone, he leaves me breakfast on the stove and a note on the counter.

  “It’s true, though,” he says. Father doesn’t talk about Mother much. Most of what I know of her comes from Sara. But when he does, his eyes light up and his face changes from sadness to happiness to a deeper sadness. “You’r
e a lot like her. Too much sometimes.”

  “How?” I ask softly.

  He tilts his head to look at me. “You have her eyes and her nose and those freckles right there.” He points to my cheek. “She was smart, beautiful, always made everyone laugh, and she was fiercely devoted.”

  I smile widely.

  “And she had that smile,” Father adds. I hug him, and he pats my head. In his arms, I feel safe.

  “Hey, Neely!” Kai says. I turn around in my chair, just in time for him to smash me in the face with cake. I lick my lips and then jump into the boys. No one makes us stop, even though the floor, the walls, and the furniture get covered in icing.

  When we are done, my father announces that he has to go back to work, and he lets me hug him before he goes, leaving a trail of brown icing on his white shirt.

  DEADLINE: 31D, 22H, 59M

  THE BURROWS

  MY SHIRT USED TO BE A DIFFERENT COLOR. Cleaner, brighter, not as smudged.

  Maybe the darkness of the Burrows is rubbing off on me. Tainting me.

  DEADLINE: 31D, 19H, 10M

  THE BURROWS

  THEY’RE TRYING TO SUFFOCATE ME. These Burrows seem to go on and on, never getting smaller or shorter, only thinner and closer together.

  DEADLINE: 31D, 17H, 23M

  THE BURROWS

  WHAT WOULD MY MOTHER SAY if she knew I was here? Everything would’ve been different. My father would be normal. She would’ve sung songs to me instead of Sara. I wouldn’t be branded to Thorne. And I wouldn’t be here.

  I’d be home, and it’d be all I needed. She’d be there, instead of dead.

  DEADLINE: 31D, 16H, 15M

  THE BURROWS

  THERE’S A FIGURE UP AHEAD that I recognize. My heart beats faster, and I imagine that it’s Thorne. That he’s waiting for me. He’s right there, holding out his hand, talking to me. I just have to reach him.