“I missed you,” he says in a whisper. I feel my body lean into him, torn between wanting and not wanting. He leans back into me, too, his lips close and his arms tight around me.
A shiver runs down my spine, and I pull away. Cool air seeps into the space between us. The gentle almost-press of his lips, the warmth of his body, the racing of my heart are all gone.
“You can’t do that,” I say, putting more space between us. “I’m with Thorne. You should go.”
Xenith reaches for his notebook and moves back toward me. Not toward me-around me. He doesn’t even look as he passes, but I hear him mutter “sorry.” At least I think I do.
For once, I feel like I did the right thing with him. I trusted him, but now I really have to trust myself more.
2 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE
“YOU TRUST ME, RIGHT?” Xenith asks. His voice is soft, and his eyes peek up to meet mine. We’re both sitting on the couch, waiting for time to catch up to us. There are only two days now until I need to go. Until I leave the Compound.
“Of course.”
“There’s something I should say then,” Xenith says. “I need to know you won’t be miserable with me.”
The room spins, a little out of focus at his words. I fight to breathe in some air, to calm down. “What?”
He shifts in the space next to me. “I don’t want you to be miserable. With me.”
I shake my head, not sure what to say. I’d miss Xenith, but I love Thorne and he’s not Thorne. Leaving him like this, without a clue and in pain, is something I try not to think about, but it’s killing me.
“I want you to always trust me,” Xenith adds. He reaches over and swipes a piece of auburn hair behind my ear. “I can’t bear a world where you don’t trust me.”
“Xenith, I-”
“I can make you happy. I’m not Thorne, but I can make you happy. Keep you safe. I want that,” he says. His blue eyes pour into mine, but I can’t think of what to say. I don’t even know if I’m breathing.
There’s no precursor. No long, drawn-out explanation. There are just the words. Words that don’t make any sense to me based on everything that’s happened. I came to him for help and he gave it, but it cost me Thorne.
“The other night in the bathroom-that kiss is all I can think about. Pulling away from you was not easy.”
I don’t know what to say to him. Obviously my heart is with Thorne. It always has been and always will be. There’s no question about that. Thorne is the one for me. He’s the one. Always. Forever. Thorne.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to be with Thorne. The branding’s the thing that makes you feel that way. If you didn’t have it, Neely, I think you could love me.”
I open my mouth to speak, but then I see the look on his face. He’s so sincere, so unlike the version of Xenith he shows the rest of the world. This boy is the one who sat with me after my nightmares. His name is the one I call out now for comfort. That matters.
Xenith touches my cheek and pulls my face toward him. He has a way of doing that, a way which makes me weak and light-headed. He leans into me, quick and certain. His hand moves from my chin to my shoulder to my neck, and then his lips are on mine. It’s instant, this attraction, and my mind is spinning with it as he pulls me against his chest and deepens the kiss. I don’t think anymore. My arms wrap around him. My lips part, and his kiss devours me.
But then I remember why I am here. Because of the Elders, to save Thorne, to help my father, to learn the truth. I’m not with Thorne because of Xenith, and now he’s kissing me, and I can’t do this. I push him away and move from the couch like it’s on fire. I can’t do this. I love Thorne.
And Xenith is the reason Thorne isn’t there.
“But there is a branding,” I say loudly. “And things aren’t that simple. You can’t just kiss me and try to make me trust you. There’s too much at stake.”
“You don’t feel anything for me?”
“I love Thorne,” I say.
“It’s not real,” Xenith says back. Every time he says that, it pierces me because what if it’s not real? Or what if it is?
“Maybe it is real,” I say. “Or not. I can’t do that to him or to you until I know for sure.”
Xenith’s eyes darken, and I can see his disappointment. He really feels something for me.
“If all you say is true, then I deserve to find out the answers for myself. Isn’t that why you aren’t going with me?”
“When you find them, I’ll still feel this way about you, and I’ll still be here. I’m not going away.”
“Then do what you promised me. Keep Thorne safe. Let me find the truth. Let me make my own decisions,” I say.
He nods quickly, and then he leaves the room. For once since I’ve come here, my mind isn’t racing. It’s not filled with worry or guilt or questions. It’s determined. I finally know this is the right thing to do.
DEADLINE: 5D, 14H, 21M
MAVERICKS HEADQUARTERS
FINALLY!
I stand up so quickly that the blueprints of the Compound scatter around me and fall to the floor. I pull one page off the floor and run out of the Hub, letting the door slam behind me. I haven’t moved in so many hours that my legs could be jelly. I don’t let that stop me. I’ve been working on this all day. I buried myself in it after I made Xenith walk out, and now I know the only way to distract my father.
I think I hear Carrigan yelling after me while I run. Xenith definitely calls my name. I move until I’m across the room, standing between Thorne and Bane and Handler.
“How soon can you get me out of here?” I ask. The three of them stare at me. Handler asks me to repeat the question. “I think I’ve figured a way to distract my father and get us all inside. But we need to act quickly- and now. By tonight, if possible.”
Handler scratches his head and reaches out toward the paper in my hand. I hold it back so he can’t see it, then I look at Thorne.
“It’s me. I’m the distraction, and I don’t have to kill him to get you in. The Elders want me, and my father has to listen to them. If I show up, uncooperative, they’ll do whatever they have to do to get answers.”
Thorne shakes his head, and I see the spark in his eye pleading me not to say it. Because once I say it, I can’t unsay it. I can’t take it back. I’ve done enough not-saying things that I can’t do it again.
“You were right-I’m the only one who can get close enough to him. We agreed I had to kill him, and this is the only way. He has to think he’s winning if I’m getting anywhere near him.”
And as much as I hate saying it, I know it’s true. I’m the only one. This has always been about me, and I made it my mission to stop the Elders. This is the way.
Thorne stares at me in the silence, his eyes darker than usual, and I send as much through our connection as I can. The way I felt when my father used to look at me or leave me notes with my breakfast or smile. When I saw him changing. When he pulled Thorne from me after our kiss outside. The way I felt when he tore my mother’s picture, when he tortured Thorne, when he locked me in the safehouse. When I found out that none of it was on his own… I have to go back.
And I have to do it alone.
Thorne inhales a large breath of air. “No way, Neely. No way.”
I step closer to him. “You know it will work, Thorne. This is my job, remember?” His eyes are intense on mine, and in them, I can see that he does. He does.
“That’s crazy, Neely,” Xenith’s voice calls out. I’m not exactly sure when he joined our circle. I try to ignore the tug that wants me to turn around, to respond. It may be crazy, but it’s our best hope. Deep down, I think he knows it, too. Everyone does.
“It’s a risky plan,” Agent Handler says.
“You asked me what I’d be willing to lose to stop them,” I say. “This is all I have. It’s a risk, but this is our best shot.”
I know it won’t be pleasant, but I can hold up. I can adapt to it. I can survive a torture rou
nd with my father and do it so that everyone can get inside. “Can we be ready by tonight?” I ask.
Carrigan clears her throat from behind me. I turn and see her and Mitchell, whose hair is blue today. “Yes,” she says.
I nod at her and look at the others. “Then, Agent Handler, please take me home.”
DEADLINE: 4D, 20H, 15M
SOMEWHERE IN THE SKY
THORNE INSISTED ON riding in the helicopter with me. I told him not to, but he refused to be anywhere else. It’s just the two of us up here-and the pilot. I rest my head in the crook of his shoulder, and he laces his fingers with mine. We haven’t said much, and in just a couple minutes, I’m going to be back in the Compound. Back home.
Home. What a funny word. This place was never my home, and now it is. Now, as I’m about to help destroy it-or, if that fails, be destroyed by it.
“I know you’re still upset about Xenith,” I say.
“It’s fine. We’ll deal with it later. Don’t think about that going into this.”
I reach up and touch his cheek. “I don’t want my last moment with you to be one where you hate me.” “I don’t hate you. I love you,” Thorne says. “That’s why it’s so painful. To know that you’re only with me now because you have to be.”
I shake my head. “That’s not true.”
“It feels true,” he says. “You don’t owe anyone anything. We can find another way. You may not come out again.”
I shake my head. “I owe so many people, but I’m not doing this for that. I’m doing this because it’s right. I haven’t gone this far to give up now.”
And I believe that. I made it to the Mavericks, despite all the odds. I accomplished my mission. Now, they’ll be able to save everyone from the horrible future that the Elders have planned for them. I have a role to play to make sure that happens. That everyone is saved.
He presses his lips to my temple. “I love you.”
“This isn’t goodbye. I told you always,” I say. I stand and strap the bag over my shoulders. Thorne watches as I tighten the straps of the parachute, and when I look up he pulls me into him. My hands trail up the back of his shirt, and my whole body burns up from our connection. I push myself into his kiss. Is this the last time I’ll ever feel his desire for me? The last time our bodies will touch like this? It can’t be. The thought is too devastating, and he feels it too because he’s kissing me harder, more passionately, down my neck, with his hands in my hair and his lips back on mine. The fire burns through our connection, on my hand, in my chest-
“This is where you jump,” the pilot yells back.
My skin is on edge, my brain trying to catch up. This is the end.
Thorne presses his forehead against mine. “I’m with you.”
I nod as I move from him toward the door of the helicopter. After one last adjustment of the straps, I take a breath and jump. All I see is darkness.
My eyes are flooded by light. White, glorious light. I have to squint in the room to make out shapes clearly. A pounding reverberates through my head. I try to move my hand up to my face, but it’s strapped to a table. I can’t move.
Then I hear his voice.
“Welcome home, Cornelia.”
END OF BOOK ONE
TURN THE PAGE
FOR A SNEAK PEEK
OF BOOK TWO
IN THE BOUNDLESS TRILOGY
SEEK ME IN SHADOWS
COMING OCTOBER 2015 FROM
SPENCER HILL PRESS
SINCE THE FALL: 55D, 9H, 49M
REMNANT CAMP #22
WHERE THERE IS DEATH there is always pleading.
That’s one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been in the Old World.
Whether the dying pleads to live longer-a rarity among the camps-or they plead for a loved one to be at their side in their last moments, or for death to be swift depends on the person. Sometimes, they grab my arm and plead for me to take down the Elders, to restore the world. I always say, “we will,” though as the days pass, I’m less and less sure of how to do that.
Almost always, it’s the ones left behind who plead to whatever power runs the universe to spare their mother or their father or their daughter or their husband. There’s always pleading, and the sound is the same cry of desperation, of hope, of fear. I try to keep their pleas in my head, so I can have more people to fight for.
Today is no different, except today, I am with a child.
I hate when children plead for life, because there is nothing else we can do. It’s a boy today, who is small for his age. He is so frail that I can barely stand to hold his hand. I am not good with the dying, or with the pleading, yet he asked for me. “The pretty girl with the hair like the sun-kissed sky.’ I’ve never thought of my hair that way, but now that he has called it that, I will never think of it another way. The boy coughs next to me, his breaths getting more ragged. There is nothing we can do but wait. He doesn’t plead, this boy. He’s ready. Even I am not ready for death.
“What is your name?” I ask him.
He starts to speak and sputters through a cough. “Raymond,” he says.
I smile. “Raymond. I’m Neely.”
“You’re a Maverick?”
I nod. I’m a Maverick. It seems weird to think of myself that way; I still don’t feel like one of them. This world, this cause, this place-none of it feels like me. It feels like a dream.
“You’re going to destroy them all-right, Neely?”
I know he means the Elders. They always mean the Elders. The ones who plotted the destruction of the Old World and forced mankind to live one of two lives: a life surrounded by the lies of the Compound, or a life surrounded by the darkness of a dead world. I used to be the first one, a captive in the Compound. Now I’m the second, a Remnant. One who remains.
“We will,” I say, and I try to mean it. Raymond’s eyes light up like I’ve given him the secret to life. His breaths get sparser, deeper. In the last two months, the time I’ve been traveling through the Remnant camps with the Mavericks, I know that sound means he’s at the end. He squeezes my hand and beyond us through the open door, the sounds of the Remnants outside push back toward us. Children laughing and running, the sounds of footsteps, the wind. The grasp of Raymond’s hand in mine is getting looser. Life is outside and death is inside.
“How will you take them down?” Raymond asks in short, raspy breaths.
I lean in closer to him. “We’ve almost destroyed them,” I say. “They only have one Compound left-just the North.”
The South has fallen. The phrase said on a boat three months ago still lingers in my ears. We took it down, and it’s only a matter of time before we take down the North. But the North is well-fortified and protected. Especially since the Elders have pushed all their resources toward the last piece of their twisted vision.
“I was there when the South was destroyed. One of their brave spies was sent in to distract the leader of the Compound and while he was busy, the Mavericks snuck in.” I say it like a story, instead of a memory. It’s easier to recap it that way, less involved and connected to myself. “The Mavericks ushered the people out, the ones who didn’t know the truth, and brought them to the camps. The Elders were there with their weapons and power and fear, but they couldn’t stop the Mavericks. Everyone was saved, and the Compound was destroyed, and now there’s only one more place. The Elders can’t hide forever, and we will find them, and we will make sure they never hurt anyone ever again.”
As I finish, Raymond’s hand falls from mine. I close my eyes and push down the feeling in my throat that wants to come to the surface. I can’t cry for him, or for anyone. Not here. I can’t be weak. I lay Raymond’s hands over his chest and go to find a Healer. There is no room for crying, no room for mourning. Our battle has only just begun.
Outside, I scan the crowd for Thorne. The Remnants are helping the Mavericks unload supplies. There’s only a small batch of us here-Thorne, Carrington, Handler, and me. Handler doesn’t usually come, but the governor
of this camp requested a meeting. The others are mingled with the Remnants, but I feel Thorne’s joy through our branding connection before I see him and move toward him across the crowd.
In the time we’ve been with the Mavericks he’s been happy. Consistently. I know the work that the Mavericks do, helping other people, brings him a kind of purpose. I also know that he believes they can help us, despite any kind of reservations he once had about Xenith being involved with them. Sometimes, Thorne believes that being with them is a simple life, more like the one that we were meant to have. That with them we can be everyone else’s version of normal. That we can be free.
I have not felt the same.
There’s something about this new way of life that leaves me unsettled. The Compound was predictable, and this life as a Maverick, as a Remnant, is not. Any day we could wake up and lose everything. That’s not freedom, just another unforeseen threat to our lives. At least in the Compound we knew what to expect; we knew who the enemy was. Here we don’t know anything, and everything we think we know changes too frequently to make a move. The Mavericks insist they have it all under control, but I’m not convinced.
“Hey,” Thorne says, grabbing my hand. He moves in closer to me and we walk along the edge of the forest. Those who don’t stay in the Burrows come to a camp. Most of the camps are built hidden in the woods of the Old World, nestled deep within and spread out. The Remnants know how to blend in.
“Is he gone?”
I nod. Twelve in the camps have now died in two months-and those are just the ones I’ve been there to sit with.
We stop walking and Thorne holds my face in his hands. “You okay?”
I force a smile, but I’m not sure that I am. He must sense that through our connection, through the branding that allows us to share emotions, because he presses a kiss against my forehead. It’s not as comforting as he meant it to be.
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