by Ashley Maker
“Everyone stand down,” Mathias barks, but before anyone can react, Laila bursts through the door, bashing into all of us.
I’m flung into Mathias’ chest. Out of reflex, I grab for his rifle as Kade shoves the headmaster from the side, loosening his grip. I dig my fingers into the grooves of the rifle, yanking with everything I’ve got, wresting it into my control, even though I’m holding it backward and have no idea what to do with it. Somehow, I don’t let go of the gun, not even when someone’s clawing hands try to pry the steel out of my grip. Flashes of movement follow, arms and legs and guns moving in and out of my vision as I’m pushed out of the cluster of bodies, almost falling to the ground behind Mathias.
When Tarry grabs hold of Laila’s arm, attempting to pull her away, she becomes hysterical, thrashing to get free. “Let go of me! He shot mom, Tarry. He. Shot. Mom.”
Everyone freezes, like they’re suspended in slow motion, and then bursts into a blur of movement as Tarry, Laila, and Mathias converge on Kade.
He fights back, backing them off with his handgun, blocking attacks from the side, but it’s three against one. It’s only a matter of time before one of them finds an opening and takes a shot.
He has no chance.
And then I remember what Instructor Morris said. That anything can be turned into a weapon—even the wrong side of a gun. Rushing forward, I swing the rifle with all my strength, ramming the buttstock of the gun into a blond-haired skull.
Mathias slumps unconscious to the ground. I gasp at the blossoming spot of blood marring the side of the headmaster’s head and look up to find Tarry gaping at me across his father’s body
A scream of rage is the only warning I have before Laila slams into me. Her fist goes back, and I react without thinking, jamming the buttstock of the rifle into her abdomen.
Laila collapses onto her side in the grass, hands to her belly, her mouth opening and closing like she’s trying and failing to breathe. The pain and loathing in her eyes before she closes them is more than I can take.
Tears blurring my vision, I shrink back, gaze zipping from my hands to the gun to her bloody stomach. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry…”
Kade steps in before I completely fall apart and grabs the rifle. He holds it correctly and points it at Tarry.
For the first time, I notice the blood.
Blood is all over Tarry—staining strands of disheveled white hair, streaking the tattered black clothing, even covering the hand clenched on his pistol. But even with all that blood, my gaze ends up caught by his contorted brow and darkened, rage-filled green eyes focused on Kade.
“Put the gun down and kick it away,” Kade says, his voice full of dark intent.
“Or what?” Tarry sneers. “Are you going to shoot me, too?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“Both of you…please,” I choke out. “Please stop.”
Tarry’s gaze flickers to mine, tracing first my tears, then the trauma on my face before coming back to my eyes. Pain and contempt shimmer in his own, nearly spilling over. His voice is filled with it when he says, “Why are you helping him?”
Blinking fast, I swallow at the burning ache in the back of my throat, but it doesn’t leave. “You’ve got it wrong. He’s helping me. There’s so much you don’t know—”
“No,” Tarry says, voice cracking. “You’re supposed to be good. They all said you were an implant, and I never believed them. But look at what you’ve done.” He looks at his father and sister. “Has anything about you been real?”
My breath draws in sharply. The distrustful glance he shoots at me rips my heart. For the first time, he’s looking at me like almost everybody else at the compound. I open my mouth to defend myself and shut it again, my tongue feeling too heavy to form words. I thought Tarry was one of my best friends. He knows me. How could he think that way about me?
Kade takes a menacing step forward, tense shoulder and back muscles bulging beneath his T-shirt as he stares down the barrel of the rifle at Tarry. “Last chance, Blaydell.”
“Shove. Off,” Tarry growls through gritted teeth, but he slowly bends down and places the gun on the grass.
“Kick it away from you, then kneel on the ground,” Kade snaps. “Do it now.”
Tarry kicks the pistol several feet away. He makes eye contact, but it’s like he doesn’t see me. Like he doesn’t even know who I am. Right then, I feel it, our friendship breaking into a million, jagged pieces I’m not sure can ever be put back together. My gasp is high-pitched, audible, more a sob than an intake of air. The longer we stare at one another, the less I see my Tarry—the loveable goofball I’ve grown to care for and thought was my friend—and instead all I see is a wounded and savage-eyed stranger.
The second Tarry’s knees touch the ground, Kade grabs my hand and half leads, half drags me away. “Run,” he says with a glance over his shoulder.
I don’t let myself look back. Taking a deep, lung-searing breath, I let go of Kade’s hand and push forward, drawing alongside him. I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, not letting myself think about what could be lurking in the shadows as we enter the tree line, or all that we’re leaving behind. Left foot. Right foot. Over and over, losing myself in the movement and panting breaths and the pounding of blood near my ears.
The world starts coming back when Kade slows and stops. We’ve traveled deep into the forest with trees clustered all around, blocking out the moon and stars. My arms sting from the aftermath of outreaching thorns and branches. Every breath turns to agony in my lungs, and yet I can’t seem to get enough of them.
Choking back dry heaves, I swallow hard and finally push down the acid climbing up the back of my throat.
Kade crouches, harsh breaths blending with mine, then stands abruptly and paces to a nearby tree. He looks at the stars, then another tree, before nodding, apparently satisfied with whatever it is he’s doing.
“What’s wrong?” I manage to gasp out in a barely audible whisper, still painfully gulping in mouthfuls of precious air.
He turns to me slowly, looking as wary as I feel. “You’re not going to like this.”
My stomach immediately locks up tight. “Not like what?”
“We need to get away from Evergreen.”
“Okay…”
“No, you don’t get it.” He rubs a hand across the back of his neck and takes a deep breath. “We’re going to have to jump.”
Curse words flit through my mind, and I groan. “Jump what?”
“Do you remember the waterfall?”
I give him a funny look. Of course I remember the waterfall. First kisses are kind of hard to forget, and—
No! No, he’s joking. He has to be joking. My voice raises to a squeak, “That is your idea of getting away from Evergreen? You are out of your mind. Kade, you know I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can.” His fixed gaze is pure challenge. “The main road isn’t an option. Jumping is the only other way I know to leave Evergreen, especially if you don’t want to travel by foot all the way across Colorado.”
“But—but,” I sputter, trying to figure out another way and coming up empty. This is a nightmare. Some awful, distorted version of reality.
Kade steps closer and grips my arms. “We can’t go back, Clare.”
I can’t disagree with him there. Going back would be suicide, capture, or possibly getting locked up. There’s no telling how many people are working with Pam, still roving around looking for Seers. Besides, Laila and Tarry probably want nothing to do with me, and Mathias…well, it doesn’t exactly help that I assaulted the already-paranoid headmaster.
“All right,” I finally say, staring right into Kade’s eyes, meeting his challenge head on. “I’ll do it. I’ll jump.”
Kade nods, and we take off running again, swallowed by the forest as it folds us deep into the mountain trails, leading us to the cliff. The sound of gunshots and screaming echoes from the compound, growing fainter the farther we
go. Alternating between walking and jogging, we navigate up a steep incline, and then we’re there. The trail spits us out into the rocky clearing. A gushing roar fills my ears.
There’s no hesitation this time—no stopping—as I push ahead, leading the way to the right spot to jump.
The symbol is on the rock under my feet. I stare at it, barely able to make out the design in the dark, too scared to look over the edge. Tarry, Piper, Laila—all of them, and more, are back at the compound, caught up in a war they didn’t start. I want to help them, but I can’t do it if I’m captured. And, somewhere, Mom is out there, possibly hurting or even dying. If I let my fear win now, I’ll never be able to save her. This is my mission. I can’t complete it if I don’t make this jump.
For all of them—and for myself—I have to do this.
Sealing off every thought, every fear, I picture Mom’s face and step to the edge. Every part of me buzzes with adrenaline, heart pounding so fast I can hardly distinguish between the beats. With each breath coming quicker and quicker, I lift my chin and launch myself off the cliff, arms stretching out like an eagle’s wings.
Down, down, down, I plunge.
For someone who hates heights, I’ve never felt more alive. Air rushes against my skin. Then, I feel the click, and I gasp.
Pain explodes in my chest.
Everything goes dark.
41
The water strikes my body like a cement hand before sucking me down in a vortex of freezing gravity. Down, I sink, too heavy and stunned to fight it.
Pain radiates down one arm, and my heartbeat thumps hard, stops, thumps a few times again. A rush of air gurgles over my lips. The surface seems miles away, but I reach for it anyway, hanging on despite the clawing panic telling me I won’t make it. Agony constricts my chest, like it’s bursting and caving in at the same time. Darkness is everywhere. My eyelids flutter against the stinging water.
Suddenly, a hand clamps around my wrist, then my waist. Movement turns the water to a smooth rush caressing my ice-numb skin. The darkness splits and a heavy weight lifts as precious air rushes to fill my lungs. I gasp again and again. My chest rattles as I cough and sputter.
“Stay with me!” Kade whispers hoarsely in my ear, the words barely audible over the sloshing water.
Strands of hair plaster my face, clinging to my nose and lips. I groan but don’t have the strength to push them away. Everything hurts. My chest aches with each breath.
Kade swims forever, dragging me along with one arm wrapped tight around me. The water is so cold it turns even the worst of my pain to muted pinpricks. By the time his feet finally find purchase in the muddy soil, I’m no longer sure I want to emerge. My teeth chatter almost immediately when the fluid blanket slips away, exposing my skin to air that feels colder than the water.
His feet squelch through the mud on the bank. My head lolls onto Kade’s shoulder as he readjusts his grip. He staggers and hits his knees, breaths coming in and out in quick rasps. His arms shake as he places me on the ground. Blades of grass scratch and tickle against my neck. Cold fingers push the hair out of my eyes and face.
“Talk to me,” Kade says between breaths. “Tell me you’re okay.”
The mud is cool on my cheek when I turn my head to the side. I’ve never felt so horrible in my life. “I don’t know,” I groan, finding it harder than normal to catch my breath. “Something happened when I jumped. My chest hurts.”
Kade shakes his head when I try to move, dripping water onto my cheek. “Not yet. Give yourself a minute to rest.”
I don’t know how long I stay like that, listening to the steady thunder of the nearby waterfall, staring at Kade’s shadowed features and the blurry haze of stars as I wait for my breathing and eyesight to return to normal. They finally do. Gritting my teeth, I sit up slowly, a dull ache pounding under my ribcage.
A fog of vertigo clouds my senses. I close my eyes until it passes.
Kade sits in the mud next to me and runs both hands through his hair, leaving them there for a second and taking a deep, shuddering breath before dropping them to his knees and glancing over for what must be the hundredth time.
“Thank you,” I finally manage to say, cringing at the way each word pulls at my wounds, “for believing me back at the compound.”
His hand flexes, like maybe he wants to reach out to me, but he curls it into a fist against his knee instead. “I need to know what happened.”
I tell him everything, from the moment we split up until I raced back. Knowing the full story, Kade appraises my wounds again, eyes lingering on the spot where Pam hit me. The worry in his eyes chips away at something in me. I don’t protest or pull away when he shifts closer and slides both hands into my hair, tilting my head into the moonlight, looking, searching.
Whatever anger is between us dissolves, if only for that moment, as his gaze travels over every inch of my face, taking in the bruising and scrapes. He cringes at some of them before moving on to examine my hands, wrists, arms. Nothing escapes his careful perusal. When he’s done, I do the same to him, gently inspecting the shallow cut over his left eye before moving to the bruising on one cheekbone and the swelling along his jaw. Other than the cut, which probably needs stitches, nothing looks too serious.
Our wounds will heal, but what strikes me the most is we almost died.
So many times we could have been killed or captured. Others did die. The sound of gunshots and screams of fear and pain might be far away, but I can hear them all so clearly in my head.
I want to reach out to touch Kade again, but I’m not sure who I would be reassuring, so I don’t. We almost died together, and while that doesn’t undo everything that came before, now we’re stuck in an awkward limbo of being too close and too far away at the same time.
Feeling self-conscious, I reach up and touch my jaw and cheek. “Do you think anyone else will believe me? Laila didn’t.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know that either.” Kade sighs, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him sound so unsure, reminding me that even though he’s a few years older and has had more training, he’s been turned upside down by this as much as I have. He doesn’t have the answers this time.
And it’s my fault he shot the headmaster’s wife.
I mean, not really—it’s her fault. But will anyone else see that? Will Kade get in trouble because he helped me?
He shot someone for me. Could have killed her. Would have. He might not have known who she was when he pulled the trigger, but something deep inside of me whispers he still would have, if he’d known.
My heart winds itself into an intricate kaleidoscope, shifting, shifting, not quite settling before twisting again.
Nothing and everything has changed.
It’s all too much to take in at once. I don’t know what to think anymore.
Kade must sense my inner turmoil, or maybe he’s experiencing something similar, because he clears his throat and says, “There’s a garage at the outer perimeter gate with supplies and a Jeep. We’ll probably have to hotwire it, but it should get us out of here.” He sounds way steadier than I feel, and I mentally kick myself. If he can focus on something other than feelings, so can I.
Glancing all around at the forest and water, I frown. “How far is the garage from here?”
“Not far. A half mile or so.”
“And why is there a Jeep sitting in a garage this far out in the middle of nowhere?”
He stands and offers a hand. “It’s a getaway car in case of an ambush.”
“Oh, right.” I take his hand and let him pull me up, ignoring the sudden sharp twinge in my chest from the movement. “I forgot how paranoid you Corasha are.”
Kade tightens his grip, and for a second I think he’s not going to let go, but then he does. He turns and trudges toward the tree line, throwing back over his shoulder, “Don’t you mean we Corasha? You’re one of us, you know.”
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I slog through the muddy bank to catch up. A part of me wants to argue with him. The larger part, however, takes pride in his words, because it’s true.
I am one of them.
I’m a Seer, and this is my world now.
There might be monsters in this world who are looking for me, but I have too much to lose, and too much to gain, and I refuse to become another Seer who gets taken. People like Pam and the Alliance—even the Rogues—will learn I’m not going to let them win.
Trudging through relentless tall grass and weeds, I smack a low-hanging tree branch out of the way before it slaps me in the face. Sweat stings the cuts on my cheeks and forehead, and my calves burn every time I put one water-logged shoe in front of the other. The half mile of hiking to the Jeep quickly turns into a brutal gauntlet worthy of competing with the trek to Mordor.
Kade insists the garage will be around the next bend in the trail, but he said that five bends ago, and I’m pretty sure he’s lost. I’m more than ready to tell him “I told you so!” and “What now, O Flawless Navigator?” when the path suddenly opens into a clearing and Kade stops me with a hand on my elbow, pointing across the open space to a camouflaged wooden structure blending in with the trees all around.
“I told you it’d be there,” he says with a tired smirk.
I’d push him down, if I had the energy.
We inspect the garage and find there’s no keypad or other kind of electronic entry. Just a chain and padlock keeping the huge wooden door closed. After rattling the door with his hands, Kade steps back, and with a guttural exhale aims a stepping sidekick at the wood beside the lock.
The wood splinters, and Kade sidekicks again and again, until the metal plate the lock is attached to swings free of the wood. Sweat trickling down his brow, Kade wrenches the door open and ushers me inside.
He goes straight to a shelf of supplies on one wall while I eye the four-door Jeep taking up most of the floor space. It looks nice. Not the newest model, but new enough it looks dependable.
Kade digs into a crate and pulls out a clunky cell phone that looks more like a small radio than the sleek electronics I’m used to. He powers it on. After the screen comes up, he punches in a number and holds it to his ear.
