That, maybe, they all are.
I close my eyes, and the tugging is right there in the center of my chest. All at once, I can feel my brother’s presence lingering in this clearing like the scent of Mom’s perfume. It makes me miss him so much I can barely breathe.
Ian’s hand drops onto my shoulder. “If Charlie was still here, he would’ve shown himself by now. He’s probably gone to find shelter. The weather is turning again.”
For the first time in minutes, I become aware of my surroundings. The light around us is fading fast, and the cloud cover is getting thicker by the minute. It’s warmer than it was when we started out this morning. The snow is already turning wet and heavy under our feet.
The rush of finding Charlie’s message is still pulsing through my blood when the sharpest tug yet draws my eyes to my name in the snow. Desperate for some kind of physical connection to my brother, I reach for the familiar letters. My palm presses into the cold snow, directly between the O and the S.
It happens without warning. A wave of agony hits me with the force of a sledgehammer.
There’s a flash of gold, and then my hand is on fire. So hot it feels like the bones will melt right through the skin.
Darkness rushes toward me from the edges of my vision, a curtain falling on the world. It’s almost blinded me completely when I see him.
Charlie.
Trapped behind a wall of darkness. His body gives off a soft glow, the only source of light in the pitch-black.
His head is bent. His entire body pitched as he grips something against his chest.
Darkness bleeds from the wall. Tentacles of shadow. They reach for him.
Run. The command is a scream trapped inside of my head.
But Charlie doesn’t run. He doesn’t even hide. He just grits his teeth and offers something to the dark.
His hand.
The shadows writhe around it, smothering its soft glow.
My heart stutters. Charlie looks up, almost like he can hear it.
The blood turns to ice in my veins.
Charlie’s eyes. The violet eyes he got from our mother are two black spots in his beautiful face.
The light in my brother’s hand starts to flicker. His lips part in a silent scream.
I stare at the place where Charlie’s hand was just a moment ago. It’s dark. Like the wall around him. Like his eyes.
Gone.
The realization sends a crack through my foundation. And then I’m collapsing in on myself like a house made of paper.
The darkness rushes toward me. I watch it come and this time, I can’t fight it.
I reach out to Charlie one more time.
I’m still reaching when all the colors run to black.
TWENTY
My searching hand connects with something hard.
Charlie!
My eyes won’t work, so I go by touch alone. He feels solid. Warm.
Whole.
I dig my face into Charlie’s neck and breathe in his scent. Oranges and snow. Honey and oil.
Oil?
Something shifts. The darkness goes gray at the edges. And then I’m not holding on to Charlie anymore. He’s holding me. He strokes my hair and whispers reassurances into my ear.
Cold. It’s so cold.
Stubble scratches my cheek.
No. That isn’t right.
My eyes flutter open to cement sky.
I lean back to the sight of Ian’s anxious face.
“Damnit, Rose.” He breathes the words into my hair. My body relaxes into his embrace for a second before another wave of pain crashes into me.
Oh God.
With a groan, I pull my burning hand into my chest.
Ian’s grip on me tightens. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just breathe, Rose. Breathe through it.”
A memory echoes through my head. The same words coming out of my mouth three years ago.
Breathe, Charlie. Just keep breathing.
Another wave of pain drives the past back behind the wall inside of me. Where it belongs. Swell after swell rocks through me as I lie in Ian’s arms. Each one a little less intense until I can finally sit up on my own. The first thing I do when I regain control of my body is crane my neck to see around Ian’s wide shoulders. It’s still there. Solid letters in the snow.
Every muscle in my body goes limp.
It was real. I didn’t imagine it.
“It’s the pain again?” Ian asks.
I nod, my gaze still locked on my name as I rub at the lingering ache in my bones.
“You blacked out for a minute.” Ian helps me sit all the way up. “Scared the hell out of me.”
A warmth that has nothing to do with the rapidly changing weather spreads through my belly. It’s almost enough to make me forget about the throbbing in my hand. “Were my eyes—?”
“Normal. Just like last time.” Ian’s touch is surprisingly gentle as he cups my elbows. “Can you walk?” When I nod, he lifts me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s get back to the others.”
Blaine is on me the second we come back into view. “You look like a ghost. Why do you look like a ghost?” His voice drives a spike straight through my temple.
“Let her breathe, will you?” Becca offers me the canteen. I take it gratefully. Her eyes dip to my trembling hand, but she doesn’t say a word. If I didn’t already like the kid, that would’ve clinched it.
Blaine bounces back and forth on his feet. It’s obviously taking every ounce of his self-control to keep his mouth shut. I can’t decide if he’s concerned for my safety, or terrified that he’ll end up stuck out here alone with Ian if I somehow drop dead.
Which is looking more and more like an actual possibility.
I sit down hard on the wooden seat and concentrate on breathing. My hand still throbs, but it isn’t the pain that’s stealing my air. It’s the image burned on the back of my eyelids. The one of Charlie reaching out to me. The pain on his face and those blacked-out parts of him. He needs me. I can feel it. The knowledge is a thousand-pound weight crushing my chest. It’s getting harder to breathe. Harder to think. All I know is that I have to find him. Now. Before whoever is hunting us decides to switch to easier prey. Before I lose my mind completely, or the dark pulse erases Charlie the way it is slowly erasing Becca.
Before there’s nothing left.
I grind my teeth to keep them from chattering. My heart beats out of control against my ribs. I might be imagining all of this. It might be my mind searching for a way to rationalize the pain, but I don’t think so.
Certainty flows through me along with the strange tugging in my chest.
A pair of fingers snap inches from my nose.
“Earth to Rose.”
Blaine’s anxious face comes back into focus.
“What’s the deal with your hand?” he asks.
With effort, I let it drop down to my side. “It’s fine.”
“She’s getting flashes of pain,” Ian speaks up. “They’re not tied to the dark pulse. Her eyes are totally normal when they hit.” He pauses. “I think they’re getting worse.”
I shoot Ian a look, but he just stares right back, daring me to disagree. I haven’t said a word about the pain getting worse, but Ian must’ve noticed. Just like he notices everything. “You were talking to someone,” he says. “When you blacked out. It was like you were somewhere else.”
“It’s nothing.” Ian’s gaze turns sharp on my face, but I pretend not to notice. “There was pain, and now it’s gone, and that’s all I remember.”
I ignore the little twinge I feel at the lie. The visions of Charlie are important. But whenever I try to find the words to describe them, the wall inside of me rises up to block my throat. Besides, Blaine and Ian already think I’ve got a blind spot when it comes to my brother. Going into detail about hallucinations of him disappearing piece by piece isn’t going to help.
The pain. The visions. The tugging. All of it is tied together in a way I can’t figure out
, but I will. The same way I figure out everything else.
On my own.
A rush of adrenaline flows through my veins. I take one more deep breath, and then I stand to face the others. “My brother is here, and I can finally prove it.” I lead them to the edge of the clearing. “It’s a message,” I say. “To let me know he’s still alive.”
Blaine studies the letters in the snow for a long moment before he says, “Tell me about Charlie.”
Ten years of protective instinct kick in without warning. “Why?”
“Roughly two thousand people disappeared when things went south at the DARC. So far, there’s only one known survivor. That makes all information on the subject of Charlie Montgomery relevant.” Intelligent eyes narrow thoughtfully on my face. “Something makes you think he could pull this off. I need to know what it is.”
“Charlie isn’t like anybody else,” I say. “There’s this light around him. He doesn’t see things the way we do. He doesn’t look at people and think how terrible they are. He only sees how good they can be, and when he’s looking at you, just for a minute, you believe it too.”
“Okay, I get it. He’s good people,” Blaine says.
I gnaw the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning. How am I supposed to explain something I don’t even understand? I rack my brain, but the words I’m searching for aren’t there.
They never are when I need them.
“It’s more than that,” Ian says. He tosses his pack onto the supply sled. “There was something about him—about the way he looked at me.” His eyes meet mine briefly. “It made me wonder if there was more to the world than what I could see.”
My shoulders slump because that’s it. Exactly.
“As unexpectedly poetic as that is,” Blaine says, “I’m not sure how it’s relevant.”
“It’s relevant,” I say. “Charlie could hear the dark pulse, Blaine. He’s called it music. It’s been hurting him. Ever since we moved to Fort Glory.”
Blaine eyes narrow on me with laser focus. “Explain.”
When I’m done, Blaine stares at my name in the snow. “If Charlie can hear the dark pulse—if he somehow evaded the wormhole, we need to know how.” He glances up at me. “We have to find him.”
I don’t realize how much I needed to hear those words until he says them. My face goes hot as tears prick the corners of my eyes.
“There’s another storm blowing in,” Ian says, drawing attention away from me.
I quickly wipe my face while I look up at the sky. It’s getting steadily darker. Either time in the Fold is pulling another fast one on us, or something nasty is headed this way.
I study the clearing one last time. If Charlie was here, he would’ve heard me call for him by now. He’s probably gone to wait out the weather in whatever shelter he’s used to survive these past few days. There’s nothing left for me here.
Ian tosses me the rope to the supply sled, switching it up so that he’s the one pulling Becca. His impatience is contagious. This weather is scary.
We resume the trek. The rope digs into my shoulders. My back. It’s getting harder and harder to lift my legs. Ian doesn’t say a word, but it’s obvious I’m slowing him down.
“Go ahead,” I say the second time he doubles back for me. “Take Blaine and Becca and head for the caverns. She needs that shelter more than any of us.”
Ian looks up at the sky. The clouds are tinted lime green.
His mouth sets in a hard line. “They aren’t far. When I’ve got them settled I’ll come back for you and the supplies. Just follow my tracks. Don’t leave the trail I cut. For any reason, okay?” Ian waits for my nod before he pulls ahead. Within minutes he’s vanished into the trees up ahead.
I keep walking. One painful foot at a time. Thoughts of Charlie chase me the whole way. I can’t escape the feeling that he’s close. Like we’re back at the trailer and he’s just in the next room. Separated from me by a flimsy wall. The sensation is so intense, I keep expecting to see him. Behind every tree. Around every turn in the path Ian cut. But whenever I look, there’s nothing there.
After a few more minutes, I pause to catch my breath. I’m reaching back for the canteen when something in the snow draws my attention.
A single set of footprints.
They lead down to the bottom of the narrow ravine a dozen yards to my right.
Lightning flashes in the distance.
My hands move to the rope and freeze. Ian told me not to leave the path for any reason. But this isn’t just any reason. This is Charlie.
The rope falls to the snow behind me as I make my way down to the bottom of the ravine. The grade isn’t steep. My right hand is still tender, so I brace myself with my left. I’m about a quarter of the way down when my feet slip out from under me. I finish the descent in an inelegant slide, coming to a stop directly next to a little stream. I’m so intent on Charlie’s footprints, it takes me a minute to realize.
I am not alone.
A boy stands on the opposite side of the creek. Not Charlie. A soldier in uniform. He’s young—not much older than I am—with sharp, handsome features and short-cropped black hair. Something metallic gleams in his hand.
I rocket to my feet.
The boy lifts his weapon, and then I’m staring down the barrel of a gun.
My heart slams into my throat as I come face-to-face with the person who’s been following us. The one who pushed me into the river.
I resist the urge to back up. Any sudden movement could set him off. The soldier doesn’t look deranged; all the same, the dark pulse must have control of him. Why else would he draw his gun?
My eyes dart to the ridge. Twelve yards of icy slope. I might be able to beat him to the top, but what if he decides to put a bullet in my back instead?
A dozen questions are still running through my mind when the soldier takes a step forward, making the decision for me.
I trip over my feet in my hurry to back up. The soldier frowns and follows my gaze to the weapon in his hands. He quickly lowers the gun.
I make my move.
“Wait!” he calls out as I turn and sprint up the gulch. Boots splash through water behind me.
I’ve made it ten yards when a gloved hand closes around my ankle. My leg flies out from under me as the soldier drags me toward him on my stomach. I kick and scream and spin around to face him. His body presses mine into the snow.
“Stop,” he says.
I lash out. He blocks the punch. In one swift move, he has both of my arms pinned over my head. “Cut it out. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You are hurting me.” His weight is crushing, and his fingers dig into my wrists.
Hazel eyes widen. The soldier raises himself up onto his elbows and quickly drops my hands. It’s not something a crazy person would do, but I don’t give myself time to think about that.
My next blow catches him off guard. The soldier swears and sits back. It’s the opening I need. I wriggle free and lurch to my feet.
I’m halfway up the ridge when he calls out. “Rose?”
When I turn, the soldier is sitting right where I left him. “It’s you, isn’t it?” He rises slowly to his feet. “Rose Montgomery?”
Blood pounds in my ears. “How do you know my name? Why have you been following us?”
“Following you? I haven’t been—” The soldier’s eyes dart over my shoulder. Every muscle in his body goes rigid.
Ian’s approach is soundless, but somehow, I know it’s him. As soon as he reaches my side, the tension seeps out of me.
“You’re here.” The relief in my voice takes us both by surprise.
Ian frowns at me. “I didn’t feel right leaving you, so I turned back. Are you okay?” A muscle jumps in his jaw when he sees the grip marks on my wrist where the soldier grabbed me.
“Fine. He surprised me, but Ian. He knows who I am.”
Ian’s gaze swings to the soldier. Something dark slithers across his features, and suddenly, I’m
looking at a completely different person. Someone who’s capable of all the awful things people accuse him of.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” the soldier says, ignoring Ian completely. “But I needed to find out if it was really you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You’re Rose Ellen Montgomery, right?” the soldier asks. “Seventeen-year-old transfer student to the local high school? You live with your mother, Helen, and your little brother, Charles, in a trailer last seen on Glory Point.”
“How do you know that?” All at once, I feel like I’m in one of those interrogation rooms with the one-way mirrors. “Why have you been following us?”
“I already told you. I haven’t been following you, and as it happens, I know a lot about you, Rose.”
I study the soldier’s dirt-streaked face. If he hasn’t been following us, who has? More important, what’s he doing here? Unless …
“Charlie.” I take a step forward. “My brother. Have you seen him? Did he tell you about me?”
The soldier shakes his head. “I’m sorry. You’re the first person I’ve seen since yesterday.”
“What about the town?” Ian cuts in. “Do you know anything about that?”
The soldier gathers himself before he looks at Ian. “Since Fort Glory disappeared three days ago, there’s been nothing. No signs of the town. No traces of the two thousand plus people who lived there. There’s talk that it had something to do with the DARC, but really, there’ve been no actual leads. Except one.”
I take a step backward. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“The same day Fort Glory disappeared, a girl went missing. Word is she vanished into thin air. Right in front of some local cops.”
My stomach sinks into the soles of my sneakers.
“The story blew up,” the soldier continues. “People went nuts trying to connect the girl to the DARC. To the town.” He shakes his head. “That’s how I know you. Because, Rose Montgomery, your face is plastered on every newspaper and television screen in the world.”
Before I Disappear Page 15
