He catches up to Stephan, who’s still holding J—who’s still having seizures—and I crawl toward a tree, using the trunk to hoist myself off the ground. I drag myself after them, flinching involuntarily at a sudden breeze. I turn too fast, scanning the open woods for debris or a flying boulder, and find only Nazeera, who rests a hand on my arm.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re safe within the borders of the Sanctuary.”

I blink at her. And then around, at the familiar white tents that cloak every solid, freestanding structure on the glorified campsite that is this place of refuge.

Nazeera nods. “Yeah—that’s what the tents are for. Nouria enhanced all of her light protections with some kind of antidote that makes us immune to the illusions Emmaline creates. Both acres of land are protected, and the reflective material covering the tents provides more assured protection indoors.”

“How do you know all of that?”

“I asked.”

I blink at her again. I feel dumb. Numb. Like I broke something deep inside my brain. Deep inside my body.

“Juliette,” I say.

It’s the only word I’ve got right now, and Nazeera doesn’t even bother to correct me, to tell me her real name is Ella. She just takes my hand and squeezes.

ELLA

JULIETTE

When I dream, I dream of sound.

Rain, taking its time, softly popping against concrete. Rain, gathering, drumming, until sound turns into static. Rain, so sudden, so strong, it startles itself. I dream of water dripping down lips and tips of noses, rain falling off branches into shallow, murky pools. I hear death when puddles shatter, assaulted by heavy feet.

I hear leaves—

Leaves, shuddering under the weight of resignation, yoked to branches too easily bent, broken. I dream of wind, lengths of it. Yards of wind, acres of wind, infinite whispers fusing to create a single breeze. I hear wind comb the wild grass of distant mountains, I hear wind howling confessions in empty, lonely plains. I hear the sh sh sh of desperate rivers trying to hush the world in a fruitless effort to hush itself.

But

buried

in the din

is a single scream so steady it goes every day unheard. We see, but do not understand the way it stutters hearts, clenches jaws, curls fingers into fists. It’s a surprise, always a surprise, when it finally stops screaming long enough to speak.

Fingers tremble.

Flowers die.

The sun flinches, the stars expire.

You are in a room, a closet, a vault, no key—

Just a single voice that says

Kill me

KENJI

 

J is sleeping.

She seems so close to death I can hardly look at her. Skin so white it’s blue. Lips so blue they’re purple. Somehow, in the last couple of hours, she lost weight. She looks like a little bird, young and small and fragile. Her long hair is fanned around her face and she’s motionless, a little blue doll with her face pointed straight up at the ceiling. She looks like she could be lying in a casket.

I don’t say any of this out loud, of course.

Warner seems pretty close to death himself. He looks pale, disoriented. Sickly.

And he’s become impossible to talk to.

These past months of forced camaraderie nearly had me brainwashed; I’d almost forgotten what Warner used to be like.

Cold. Cutting. Eerily quiet.

He seems like an echo of himself right now, sitting stiffly in a chair next to her bed. We dragged J back here hours ago and he still won’t really look at anyone. The cut on his chest looks even worse now, but he does nothing about it. He disappeared at one point, but only for a couple of minutes, and returned wearing his boots. He didn’t bother to wipe the blood off his body. Didn’t stop long enough to put on a shirt. He could easily steal Sonya’s and Sara’s powers to heal himself, but he makes no effort. He refuses to be touched. He refuses to eat. The few words out of his mouth were so scathing he made three different people cry. Nouria finally told him that if he didn’t stop attacking her teammates she’d take him out back and shoot him. I think it was Warner’s lack of protest that kept her from following through.

He’s nothing but thorns.

Old Kenji would’ve shrugged it off and rolled his eyes. Old Kenji would’ve thrown a dart at Dickhead Warner and, honestly, would’ve probably been happy to see him suffer like this.

But I’m not that guy anymore.

I know Warner too well now. I know how much he loves J. I know he’d turn his skin inside out just to make her happy. He wanted to marry her, for God’s sake. And I just watched him nearly kill himself to save her, suffering for hours through the worst levels of hell just to keep her alive.

Almost two hours, to be exact.

Warner said he’d been out there with J for nearly an hour before I showed up, and it was at least another forty-five minutes before the girls were able to stabilize her. He spent nearly two hours physically fighting to keep Juliette from harm, protecting her with his own body as he was lashed by fallen trees, flying rocks, errant debris, and violent winds. The girls said they could tell just by looking at him that he had at least two broken ribs. A fracture in his right arm. A dislocated shoulder. Probably internal bleeding. They raged at him so much that he finally sat down in a chair, wrapped his good hand around the wrist of his injured arm, and pulled his own shoulder back in place. The only proof of his pain was a single, sharp breath.

Sonya screamed, rushing forward, too late to stop him.

And then he broke open the seam at the ankle of his sweatpants, tore off a length of cotton, and made a sling for his freshly socketed arm. Only after that did he finally look up at the girls.

“Now leave me alone,” he said darkly.

Sonya and Sara looked so frustrated—their eyes blazing with rare anger—I almost didn’t recognize them.

I know he’s being an asshole.

I know he’s being stubborn and stupid and cruel. But I can’t find the strength to be mad at him right now. I can’t.

My heart is breaking for the guy.

We’re all standing around J’s bed, just staring at her. A monitor beeps softly in the corner. The room smells like chemicals. Sonya and Sara had to inject J with serious tranquilizers in order to get her body to settle, but it seemed to help: the moment she slowed down, the world outside did, too.

The Reestablishment was quick on the uptake, doing such seamless damage control I almost couldn’t believe it. They capitalized on the problem, claiming that what happened this morning was a taste of future devastation. They claimed that they managed to get it under control before it got any worse, and they reminded the people to be grateful for the protections provided by The Reestablishment; that, without them, the world would be a lot worse. It fairly scared the shit out of everyone. Things feel a lot quieter now. The civilians seem subdued in a way they weren’t before. It’s stunning, really, how The Reestablishment managed to convince people that the sky collapsing while the sun just disappeared for a full minute were normal things that could happen in the world.

It’s unbelievable that they feed people that kind of bullshit, and it’s unbelievable that people eat it up.

But when I’m being super honest with myself, I’ll admit that what scares me the most is that, if I didn’t know any better, I might’ve eaten that shit up, too.