Follow Me Through Darkness

by Danielle Ellison

  “I saw you have the twin branding with Neely. How’s that work?”

  “My twin sister died at birth, and Amelia died giving birth to Neely. Do you remember Neely’s grandpa?”

  “The director then? He’s a hard man to forget.”

  “Mom says he wanted Amelia and her child for something, and Lucian wasn’t able to protect them. When Amelia died and my twin died, Liv Taylor saw an opportunity to protect Neely, so she switched them. Mom says she didn’t even know at first. That she woke up and there were her two babies in her arms.”

  I listen and imagine that it’s Sara telling us the story of waking up and holding us, how it was when she learned the truth. She’d always told it in a whisper and only on the beach where it wasn’t monitored, as if she was always scared someone would hear something different in her story.

  “We were two when the director died and Lucian Ambrose took over. With him at the lead, I guess Liv came forward with the truth. It was a confusing year for everyone, but when I got older it seemed more obvious since Neely never looked anything like us.”

  Asher doesn’t respond, at least not in a tone that I can hear. Thorne and Asher talk in low voices, and my mind runs back to what that must’ve been like for Sara. To hold me and think I was hers, only to find out it was a lie. To let me go. To watch me grow up and fall in love with her son. A part of her family, but not really.

  Asher’s voice is louder. “Deanna and her sister shared dreams, visions of sorts. It was the craziest thing how they could communicate. Do you and Neely have that?”

  I watch Thorne through my half-closed eyes and see him nod his head. “I know how she’s feeling all the time. When she’s sad or happy or any strong emotion. We feel each other.”

  Asher whistles. “That can’t be easy-not being your own.”

  Thorne shrugs. “I see it more like I’m part of something greater than just myself.”

  I’ve never seen us that way, not ever.

  “Isn’t it weird?”

  I hold my breath, waiting for his answer. He’s never been honest with me about it. Or if he has, it’s not anything I’ve believed. I guess I expect him to feel the way I do.

  “Sometimes,” Thorne says. Relief fills my chest because all this time I never thought he felt anything about our connection except acceptance. “But it’s always been part of me, and knowing her like that, knowing what she’s really feeling? I wouldn’t trade it. And trust me, sometimes it’s intense.”

  Intense is an understatement. Sometimes I don’t know which emotions are mine and which emotions are his.

  “Neely can feel a hundred things at once, and she doesn’t even realize it. She gets an idea in her head, and then she goes with it. It can be frustrating, but I always know why she does it. I can feel how positive she is that, whatever the outcome, the decision was a good one.”

  He’s the same way. When he feels one thing, he feels ten other conflicting ones.

  “Why would you follow her out here?” Asher asks.

  I wait for that answer. I know he thought he’d lost me, but is that his whole motivation?

  “She’s been part of my life since I was born. It sounds odd, but when she’s not around, it’s like I’m half-missing too. I had to come.” Thorne sighs. “And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting right here.”

  “You felt like you were missing because of the branding?”

  “I don’t know. She thinks so, and maybe it is,” Thorne says. His voice is just above a whisper. I have to strain myself to hear him. “For two years, she was raised as my sister, and while I don’t remember a lot from that time, I remember her. When she didn’t call Mom ‘mom’ and when she lived next door instead of down the hall, she was still Neely. This constant who always knew exactly what I needed and when. The first time I kissed her I knew everything was different. I was different.”

  Looking at where we are, at what we’ve been through, I feel like I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to him instead of the best. I’ve caused him confusion and trouble and pain. Yet he stays. Even when I run away, he’s always there.

  Thorne exhales. “It’s all for a purpose. You, us, all of this.”

  “I can agree with that. Before I found my place, I didn’t have a purpose aside from waiting for Deanna’s words to come true. Then I found a place, and now the thing that makes me wake up in the morning is knowing that I’m helping others,” Asher says. There’s a noticeable joy in his voice, a conviction, and even though I can’t see his face, I can bet it’s embedded there in every pore. “What’s your purpose-aside from following Neely?”

  Before we left the Compound, I wanted to teach. To be with all those kids and watch them grow up, learn. Thorne never talked about what he wanted since he was passed up as a Trader.

  “Aside from Neely,” he says sharply, “I don’t know. I used to want to study the Old World and understand how it worked. Catalog it, examine it.”

  “But now?”

  “Now I’m in it and it seems depressing.”

  “Seriously.” Asher chuckles.

  Thorne turns so I can see the profile of his face. In the light and from the side, he looks more serious than I’ve seen him before. Driven and purposeful. “I want to fight them, to make the Old World new and to give people hope. Not for Neely or for history or for anyone, but for myself.”

  Tears flood my eyes. When had that happened?

  “I’ve been aboveground and underground. I’ve seen people completely hide who they are and where they are just to survive, and that’s not how it should be. Everyone deserves to live in the truth and live how they want,” Thorne says.

  “To be free,” I add in a whisper. Maybe Thorne understands more than I believed.

  DEADLINE: 10D, 15H, 26M

  FREMONT, CALIFORNIA

  THIS IS THE PART WHERE we say goodbye. As we get out of the van, I wonder if they’ll ever get another chance together again. The ground feels odd under my feet after not walking for days. It takes a few seconds for the feeling to come back completely, and then I feel better than I have since I left home. Energized.

  “I’ve known Eddie for years,” Asher says. “Me and three other Chainers all use him.”

  “Where do you send people?” Thorne asks.

  “San Francisco is the biggest remaining city, but that’s because half of it is underground. There are three smaller ones that operate above and underground. Some have been rebuilt, and there are a few established outskirts camps if people don’t want a city.”

  We follow Asher to an old restaurant, and he pauses before we go in. “Don’t put your pack down. And hold her hand,” he says to Thorne.

  Thorne slides his hand into mine without a question, and when we open the door, a bell jingles. We follow Asher to a seat. Thorne pulls me into a booth and sits next to me. People aren’t staring at us directly, but their gazes drift toward us. It doesn’t take a genius to know we are the topic of conversation.

  The walls are yellow, the table is sticky, and mold grows in the cracks and crevices. There’s a greasy smell in the air.

  “This is where Eddie operates.”

  As Asher speaks, a grungy-looking man approaches us. He’s got a gut and a stained white T-shirt. His hair is mostly gone, and I can smell him, too-the same as everything else. He tosses a towel over his shoulder and pulls a notepad out of his back pocket. “What can I get you?”

  We look at Asher.

  “Three rounds of the special,” he says.

  The man grunts at Asher and writes it down. He hands Asher a paper with the number twenty-six. Then he’s gone.

  “That’s not him, is it?” I ask.

  Asher laughs, shakes his head.

  “You could come with us,” Thorne says to Asher. Asher stops laughing and his smile fades. “You could come with us and get back to Mom. She’d-I know she’d love to see you.”

  Asher looks as if he’s considering it, but he shakes his head. “I can’t go back there. I have a job
to do here.”

  “We’re going to help stop them, and then you won’t need this job,” Thorne says. “You can rejoin the family. Mom would be thrilled to know you’re alive.”

  “If you succeed, then I’d love nothing more than to see Mom.” He smiles softly and taps his fingers across the table. “But for now, I’m dead. And I’d prefer to stay the way I am.” His words are soft, but his eyes hold a warning.

  “Twenty-six,” the guy from before calls.

  “That’s us,” Asher says. He stands, and we all go to the back of the restaurant. Some of the others look at us when we pass them. Thorne has my hand again. The big, greasy guy opens a door, and we walk through it.

  Eddie’s room is in the back, and it’s actually bigger than the whole restaurant. The lights are dimmed. Large plastic boxes with clear fronts line the shelves on the walls. Eddie sits in the middle at a card-table- turned-desk, two metal folding chairs waiting for us. Eddie looks like a kid, with dark skin and soft boyish features. His black hair is pulled back in braids.

  “Asher Bishop,” he says. He extends a hand to Asher, and they shake. “These for me?”

  “They’re for you. Thorne and Neely.”

  He smiles toward us. “Hey, you haven’t heard from Aarons, have you?” Asher shakes his head, and Eddie curses. “He went to camp El Paso this last week. Haven’t heard from him. They got raided, you know? Cecily sent word a couple days ago.”

  “Raided? These two were there a week ago.”

  Eddie looks at us and back to Asher. “Then they were lucky.”

  “What happened?” I ask. Bile rises in my throat when I think about all the people we left there. More people are dead. What about Delilah? Joe and the baby? The Elders were chasing me. Me. This was me again.

  “Not enough survivors to know for sure, but probably what they always do.” Eddie’s voice drops an octave. “They send the Cleaners, and when that doesn’t work, they have other tools-like this bomblike weapon that completely eats through anything in its path or a gas that can line the ground and set it on fire at their command or even good old force from the Troopers.”

  Everywhere we go, disaster follows close behind. The Elders will never let me go.

  “Because of me,” I whisper. My insides shake, weighted with sadness and hot anger. We just left them all to die. Thorne grabs me and pulls me close to his chest but he offers no words, and in his silence, I notice his feelings are the same as mine. We both feel guilty.

  Asher comes over toward us, Eddie behind him. “Eddie will take care of you from here. You’re in good hands.” He looks at Thorne for another second. “I’m sorry it has to be like this. That I can’t stay with you.”

  “I get it,” he says back.

  Asher looks me over with a smile. “Good luck.”

  Thorne holds out his hand for Asher. There’s only a glimmer of hesitation before he takes it and then pulls his brother into a hug. It’s brief, but I can feel Thorne’s ease and sadness mingle together. There aren’t any words or drawn-out pauses. There’s not even a goodbye. We watch as Asher disappears back into the restaurant. Then we’re alone with Eddie.

  “Have a seat,” Eddie says. We follow him to the chairs, and mine wobbles when I sit. Eddie scatters a few papers around his desk and looks up at us. “Did Asher tell you your options?”

  Thorne shakes his head. Eddie looks between us.

  “What I do is give people a chance. Where you came from or who you used to be doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is where you’re going. Are you mountain people or ocean people? Farms or cities? I can put you anywhere. I can give you a new name, a history, a purpose. I help you find a new place to live. People from the old Compounds like to start over completely, and that’s what we do. It’s up to us to rebuild this country.” He picks up a paper from his desk. “Who do you want to be and where do you want to go?”

  I inhale some air. We can go anywhere. I can be anyone. How easy would it be to just leave all this and run away? There’d be no questions of why I was being targeted, of Xenith or my father. Thorne and I could start over. Forget the deadline. Forget the Compound. We could be together and be whoever we want to be. The thought is crippling. I wish I was that person who could just do it. I want to.

  “Anywhere?” I ask.

  Eddie nods. “Anywhere your heart desires.”

  Thorne looks at me, eyes sharp. He doesn’t feel the same way, and I shake my head because I don’t either. It’s a dream, but there’s blood on my hands. There will only be more until we end this.

  “We need to go to San Francisco,” he says to Eddie. “How soon can you get us there?”

  “I have a trip going day after tomorrow.”

  Thorne nods. “What do you need?”

  “Let’s slow down,” Eddie says with a smile. “You’re the escapees going to find the Mavericks, right? The ones with the twin branding?” Word must have travelled through the Remnant camps about us. “Let me see it.”

  Eddie doesn’t give us a chance to answer. He moves behind us, and his breath is close to my neck. He stares at them, as if they will disappear at any moment, before his fingers trail down my branding. His hand is gone just as quickly as it appeared, and then he’s in front of us, leaning back against the table.

  “I can get you there.” Eddie reaches back and grabs a large camera. “Smile,” he says. He takes a picture of me and then Thorne. “Come back in the morning.”

  DEADLINE: 9D, 23H, 42M

  FREMONT, CALIFORNIA

  WE WAIT IN THE RESTAURANT until the same man from yesterday calls, “Eighteen.”

  Thorne and I walk the same path to Eddie. He’s waiting for us when we get there, all smiles and a bright purple shirt. He claps his hands together when we sit and gives us each an envelope. It’s nothing extraordinary, rectangular and tan with a metal clasp, and I pull out the contents slowly. A small blue card with my picture on it and a name: Amy Williams, seventeen. Mother: deceased. Father: a banker named Joe. We live at 52-B Claret Street. My birthday is listed in December. There’s another larger paper that’s folded, full of dates and places and names that don’t make sense to me.

  “You’re now Caleb Redding and Amy Williams, both seventeen, both residents of an outskirts city coming here for a check-in report with the Mavericks. They have people stationed at other camps, liaisons of some sort that report back and forth in person about camp functionality or needs.”

  “Why do we have to be other people? Are Amy and Caleb real liaisons?” Thorne asks.

  “If I put the name Ambrose on a paper, every Remnant in the Old World will be on alert. It’s a precaution. The papers just show everyone that you’ve been saved and established somewhere. Otherwise there will be questions.”

  “Everyone has a paper like this?” Thorne asks.

  Eddie nods. “Anyone saved from a Compound by the Mavericks. It will help make your story stronger.”

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “Now, you cover up that mark,” Eddie says, tossing us a small box and bottle of concealer. Inside the box are small cloth strips. “Put that over your branding. Use the bottle to help cover it. If people see that branding, then it’s all over for you.”

  “Don’t the Mavericks let people keep their brandings?”

  Eddie shakes his head. “No.” He pauses. “After this, you wait. We pull out from the dock at midnight. Don’t be late.” That’s all he says to us before he turns away and leaves us staring at our new identities.

  I help Thorne cover up his branding with the sticky cloth strips. It takes a few minutes and most of the bottle, but the dark marks are almost unnoticeable. He does the same for me. The liquid is cold on my neck and has a weird iron scent. Thorne spreads it around with his fingers until all the traces of the branding are gone. He takes my hand before we go. The sensation is familiar, the magnets that pull us together, but we look normal. The branding is still there, just hidden, but to everyone else, it’s gone.

  Thor
ne and Neely are gone. Caleb and Amy remain.

  At least for now.

  2 HOURS BEFORE ESCAPE

  “NOW, WE’RE GOING. Remember, be quiet,” Xenith says. He puts a finger over his lips and races across the horizon in front of me, his blond hair the only thing noticeable in the darkness. The Compound teaches us to fear things that are different. I know he’s no exception, yet I follow him blindly through the quiet night.

  The air stings my face. I haven’t felt it for so long that it feels foreign. The salty smell of the water rushes my nostrils, and I want to stand here, take it all in. But I can’t. Not now. I will be back. I have to be back because the alternative leaves me dead.

  “Keep up,” Xenith snaps at me.

  I pick up my pace, and we run across the sand. There’s nothing to hide us. No trees, no buildings. We’ve already passed headquarters. It’s good, in this moment, that the Compound is strict about sleeping hours and not crossing this side of the Compound. No one is out, and the Troopers don’t come this far.

  Xenith turns to the right and pulls me with him. We’re standing behind the safehouse, and it’s just big enough to hide us both. I’m careful not to touch the wall.

  “We’ll go that way. The barrier opening is about a hundred yards away. Be careful that you don’t step on anything.” Xenith points into the distance, through the shadows, and we move.

  DEADLINE: 8D, 20H, 2M

  FREMONT, CALIFORNIA

  IN THE SHADOWS, we join a small huddled crowd. Not many people are there, but it’s good that we aren’t alone. Less obvious that we are running away from something. Eddie is quick in his orders, and no one else speaks. Crossing with us are a small boy and his father, an old couple, and three teenagers covered in piercings.

  The boat is small. We squeeze inside together and sit shoulder-to-shoulder. Eddie tells us the trip is three hours, depending on if we run into stops or cautions or checks. We are all to remain still and quiet and never ask questions if we are stopped. Eddie does all the talking.