Follow Me Through Darkness Page 19

  “What was that?” He looks tired. The lines on his forehead have deepened, and there are circles under his eyes. What else are the Elders making my father do? It seems to be taking a toll on him.

  “Nothing,” I say. I evade his gaze and look around the room, playing it off. He doesn’t buy it. He moves toward the bed and pushes me out of the way. I fight his hand, try to keep it from stealing my only memory, but he wins. He pulls up my pillow and, with it, the picture of my mother. I cry out, and he looks from her to me.

  “Where did you get this?” I don’t respond. He grabs my chin in his hand and forces me to look at him. “Did you take this from my office?”

  I don’t answer again. He lets go of my face, and I lose my balance. “The boy?”

  “His name is Thorne, but I didn’t get it from him.” I did get it from Thorne, but I’m not going to tell him that. I got it two years ago as a birthday present. He traded Xenith for it. I never asked what it cost him, and he never would’ve told me. “Give it back to me.” I hold out my hand like the disobedient child I am. “Now.”

  My father’s face is expressionless. He looks at the picture once more and holds it in the air between us, ready to hand it over.

  But he doesn’t.

  He rips it down the center, through my mother’s smile. He rips across her deep green eyes and shreds her red hair into strips. He rips it until it’s nothing but confetti, and then he throws it in the air. I lunge at him.

  My hands are pulling, punching, gripping onto any part of him I can touch. He’s holding me back, but not successfully. Blood fills the space under my fingernails.

  This is not my father; this is only a monster.

  He hurls me to the floor. My chest is heaving and my face is flushed, but my father stands there and bleeds on my carpet. He smiles, too. One of those devious smiles that make my stomach jump to my throat.

  “That, little girl, was a mistake you will pay dearly for,” he says.

  “You can’t hurt me.”

  He squats down to me. His cheek is bright red, three marks down it. My marks. They look less human and more animal.

  “I can do everything to hurt you,” he says. “Don’t you see that?”

  I shake my head. “You won’t.”

  “Why won’t I?”

  “I’m your daughter. If the people see you hurt your own daughter, they’ll never trust your lies. They’ll start to question you.” I lean toward him, and even though I know it’s impossible that they’ll question him, I can play the cards anyway. My father doesn’t know that I know everything. “You don’t want them to ask questions, do you, Father? To doubt you or the Elders or this place?”

  He meets my gaze before he stands. He looks in my mirror and wipes the blood from his cheek with his hand. “Cornelia, you’re wrong. That would never happen.” His voice is soft and smooth, less like an evil tyrant and more like a person talking to a baby. No piece of my father remains. This man is something else entirely. The way he’s looking at me, I know I’ve made a mistake.

  “And if it threatened to, I now have an example.”

  Me.

  DEADLINE: 17D, 16H, 48M

  OLD COMPOUND: PHOENIX, ARIZONA

  THORNE WAKES ME UP with a kiss on my cheek and a spread of breakfast in front of me. It takes me a second to pry my eyes open, but when I see it, I realize I’m hungry. I’ve gotten used to eating less, but the plate of dried berries and vegetables, of nuts and grains that’d we found before make my stomach growl.

  “What is that?” I ask, pointing to the other substance. The jar we took from the market outside is in his hand, and the yellow, half-liquid, half-solid forms inside are familiar to me.

  “Peaches,” Thorne says. His smile is half-cocked on his mouth. “They’re not bad.”

  I sit up so he can sit beside me on the bed, and together we eat. It’s the most normal thing we’ve done since we’ve been outside, aside from sitting in an abandoned replica of the Compound while we do it. I sigh and let all the other pressures fade away, until Thorne breaks the moment into pieces.

  “You had another dream last night. What was it about?”

  I push the peaches back toward him and wrap a thread from the blanket on the bed around my fingertip. “My father and the Elders.” He stiffens beside me, exhales. “They found us here.”

  “You’re hundreds of miles away from them,” he says. His words aren’t as comforting as I want them to be or as he means them to be. We both know distance won’t stop the Elders, even if we aren’t saying it. Benny had no problem saying it, and Cecily had no problem with the fact that the Elders know exactly where we are right now. Maybe the Remnants are better with the truth than we are.

  Thorne moves from the bed and puts the lid on the remaining peaches. He stretches his arms over his head as he sets the food on the dresser. I look away. Sunlight explodes into the room through the windows, bright and warm.

  “We should go,” I say.

  I stand up, and Thorne’s in front of me, hands on my hips, holding me in place. “I just wanted to say one thing,” he says, then pauses and lowers his forehead to mine. A breath, a nervousness, flows through our branding. “I get it.”

  “You get what?” I ask.

  “Xenith,” he says. “I know you used to believe in us, and then one day you didn’t anymore. One day you had all these doubts. I felt them, and I never mentioned it because it didn’t matter. I believed enough for both of us.”

  “Thorne-” I start.

  “Let me get this out, okay?”

  I nod softly, and Thorne exhales. “I get that he knows things, and I guess you could talk to him about all the things you’d spent your life dreaming of, wishing for, and though you didn’t feel you could come to me for some reason-”

  “That’s not-”

  “-I was there, Neely. I was right beside you, and you were so busy protecting me or hiding the truth from me that you didn’t see. I don’t think you wanted to. But you don’t see with Xenith either. You don’t know what you feel, you don’t know why you kissed him, and you don’t know his real motives. When you do, I’ll still be the one who’s here.” All of his emotions surge through me again: the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the sadness, the longing. “Whatever the branding means for us, I’m still going to be here.”

  I don’t have time to process all the emotions before he’s pulling me into a kiss. His body melds against mine, and the branding is on fire. His emotions are swirling within me, a big mess of power, and mine are rushing, too. I don’t know what is his or what is mine. He can’t be close enough. I can’t be close enough. I want to be his clothes, his skin. We tumble down to the bed, and he straddles me. The connection rushes through, makes me want more of him. All of him. It’s different than any kiss we’ve ever shared. More desperate and more passionate. His lips greet my cheek, trail down my neck, trace my stomach. Each place he touches creates a small fire that builds up in my body. My hand entangles in his hair, and I pull his mouth back up to mine.

  I know it’s not forgiveness, but it’s something like forgetting. At least for now.

  DEADLINE: 17D, 14H, 12M

  OLD COMPOUND: PHOENIX, ARIZONA

  WE SEARCH THE OLD COMPOUND for food before we leave. We raid the houses, and I try not to imagine the people from home, even though this place reminds me of them. There isn’t much here that we can take, but we find a little more than we had before and it’s better than nothing.

  “Ready?” Thorne asks me. I shake my head, and we walk toward the exit. Thorne moves with a new determination.

  DEADLINE: 17D, 12H, 34M

  SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT

  WE HAVEN’T GONE VERY FAR, and we already have to stop. The sun is mercilessly hot, but we manage to find a place to rest. I lower myself to the fallen tree trunk and stretch out my legs, sip some water. Thorne doesn’t sit, even though I know he’s tired. He stands and keeps a lookout.

  There’s not much to see. There are some trees,
but the ground is mostly dirt, covered in dust and branches and debris. This part of the Old World is barren.

  “Hey, look over there,” Thorne says. I stand and look with him.

  In the distance, I can see the outline of another Remnant camp-or maybe a real city instead of the shadow. The buildings are spread all over, and it’s a shell of a place, or so it seems. They are old structures. Some have fallen in, others with only frames left. They must be from before, more depressing reminders of what was. From here, it is as if I could hold this whole view in my hands. They are merely tiny toys. I could break them if I stamped my foot down.

  “We should try to get there. Could be a good place to spend the night.”

  “Sure,” I say. I take a sip of the water in my bottle. It’s almost empty. We need water under this heat. We could make it maybe a day without it. The odds are stacking against us the closer we get, and though Pete said the Elders don’t come out this far, if they are following me, if they’re desperate to stop me, how long will it be before they catch up?

  “Don’t look so worried,” Thorne says, bumping my shoulder with his. A smile plays on his lips, but that doesn’t fool me. I can feel his anxiety. He’s pretending so I’ll feel better.

  “I’m just tired,” I say.

  I didn’t sleep well with the dreams of my father. And somehow, Thorne knowing everything is more exhausting than lying to him about it. He’s letting me in, talking to me, and that means some kind of progress. It takes everything I have to keep him out of my emotions, but now I don’t know what he’ll do. I’m not even sure I know how loss or desperation can make a person behave.

  He smiles at me again, weak and uncertain. The concern plays in his eyes as he digs through his pack. “We’ll rest here a minute, and then keep moving.” I nod and take some of the nuts from his hand. We’re both silent as we eat.

  Everything is jumbled inside me, and for once I wonder if I made the right decision. I’m risking myself, the others in the Compound, and the people I’m trying to save. And for what? If the Mavericks have as much power as Xenith said they have, why are they doing nothing to stop the Elders?

  It all made sense before. It was the best thing for everyone. For me. But if we don’t make it, then it’s a waste. If we don’t make it to the Mavericks in time, then I’ve failed everyone.

  “Neely.”

  I look up at Thorne. He’s so gorgeous. His eyes light brown and specked with gold. The way his dark hair falls in his face and hides the scruff on his jawline. His smile, his lips. He’s perfect.

  He touches my face and pushes a loose piece of hair behind my ear. His hand is warm against my chin. “Are you with me?”

  I nod my head and put my hand into his empty one. “I’m always with you.”

  He smiles and pulls me off the ground. “Let’s keep walking then,” he says, and he picks up his pack.

  21 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE

  MY FATHER PICKS UP THE BROKEN pieces that once formed my mother and stuffs them into his pocket.

  “Example?” I whisper.

  “Oh, yes,” he says. His dark eyes find me. “Rules are rules. They are for our good, and everyone, even my daughter, must obey them.”

  I stand while he speaks, even though part of me wants to stay where I am and surrender. If my father was a kinder man, one who treated a daughter like she ought to be treated, I would run into his arms and cry in them. He’s not that person, though, and I’m not foolish enough to think of him as such.

  “Perhaps it’s what you need. The rules are absolute. No kissing in public, no sneaking on the beach, no lying or plotting. You are not to question our ways, and there are no second chances. Regardless of you being my daughter, there are no second chances.” He turns to face me. “I told you to stay away from Thorne Bishop.”

  “I have been.”

  His look is disgusted, shocked almost. “You’re a liar.”

  “That’s you,” I say.

  My father slaps me, and I fall to the floor. I was so unprepared for it. I cover my face where his hand met my cheek. It burns, and I can feel it swelling. The tears slip through my eyes, even though I will them not to come out. He pulls me to my feet by my hair and doesn’t let go.

  On the way out the door, he pushes a button. The bell to gather the residents of the Compound. He releases me until we’re outside in the center of the courtyard, and then he holds my arm tighter. I’m the example, and they’re all coming to look.

  DEADLINE: 17D, 6H, 41M

  SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT

  “LOOK,” THORNE SAYS TO ME. He takes my hand and directs me to hide behind a rock. Outlines of large signs hang twisted in the air, but whatever they were before is long gone. Like most other things, it’s just the skeleton.

  “I think there are people over there.” He points down to where a small line of people stand. Another Remnant camp?

  Someone grabs me from behind, and I scream as a hand clamps over my mouth. More hands hold me in place, tightening a grip on my arms. Thorne pulls the gun out of his pocket. It looks ineffective when up against three other guns.

  “Put the gun down, kid.”

  The men are dressed in brown clothes that match their bronzed skin and dark hair. They aren’t tall, but they’ve each got more muscle than Thorne and me put together. The one who holds me has a good grasp. I would never be able to force my way out of his arms. All three of them bear a resemblance to each other, and each one makes me nervous. I feel a burst of Thorne’s heat through me, and I reach out through our connection and pour as much peace into him as I can. Underneath the anger, I feel the prickling sensation of his anxiety. He can’t lose it on them. They’re way bigger than us.

  Thorne examines the four of us quickly before his eyes rest on me. I feel him level out.

  The one who holds me presses his gun into my back and twists my arm around, and then my own fear pushes its way to the surface. It bubbles up, and tears press behind my eyes. Thorne takes some of it from me, and then he’s lowering his gun to the ground and raising his hands to the air. One of them captures him almost immediately.

  “Pretty little girl,” the guy holding me whispers in my ear. He smells like onions. Stay calm, I tell myself. “Don’t get many pretty girls.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Thorne yells.

  The guy turns to him and knocks him in the face. His lip bleeds.

  “Let’s take them in. I bet we’ll get extra for the pretty girl.”

  They laugh before they push me along through a patch of trees toward the small gathering of people.

  21 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE

  IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG for the people to gather. My father hasn’t released me. Instead, he’s only held on tighter. I can’t see his face, but I wonder if it hurts as much as my head aches from how tightly he’s holding it.

  “As everyone knows, the Compound operates on a system,” my father yells over the crowd. He’s got his voice on-the one he hides behind when he’s leading them, the one that makes him appear to be stronger, more trustworthy. “There are rules, requests, responsibilities. The societies of the past have all collapsed and died because they failed to follow these three simple formulas.”

  I search for soothing, familiar eyes in the people I’ve known all my life, but only find Xenith’s in the back of the crowd. I avoid them and look around at all the people I have known all my life. People who are now looking at me with judgment. They looked the same way a few months ago when I kissed Thorne out here-with disgust and disappointment. I hate that this is happening, that none of them know why they respond as they do or what they are really feeling. That all these emotions and all this disapproval is because they have been trained to feel it.

  Sara’s eyes catch mine while I scan the crowd. Kai stands next to her, and between the two of them, I feel lost. Concern and worry are etched on their faces. None of us know what this man who used to be my father will do next.

  I know it’s not really him, but I’m still angry. I feel my
resolve for him crumbling, even knowing what I know, and I clench my fingers into fists to hold back my anger. It’s good that Thorne is on the water today. If he was standing in the crowd, I know he wouldn’t be as calm as I am trying to be.

  “We have the rules for a reason. We are taught them from birth, and the rules apply to everyone, even my daughter,” my father yells. The others all nod. “My daughter has forgotten her place in our home. It seems she believes she is above the rules. As our bylaws indicate, there is a consequence for every action and every person.” He sounds like a recording, a machine that someone’s turned on.

  “What has she done?” Sara asks.

  My father glares at her, and the others mumble because no one questions. No one. They aren’t able. How is Sara able to question? I’ve never wondered that until right now, but there must be a reason. She has the branding, too, so she shouldn’t be able to.

  My father looks at me. There is a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, but only for a moment. I know he’s going to lie to them. “Cornelia Ambrose tried to leave the Compound.”

  My heart stops beating. I search for Xenith in the crowd. He looks confused, and I’ve never seen him like that. My father can’t know I’m trying to leave when I haven’t even done it yet. Has my father been tipped off somehow? Do the Elders know of my plan?

  “She tried to swim off-shore.” My father’s voice stays calm and steady, despite his false words. He’s mastered lying so well that it can’t be anything but perfect. “Fisherboats found her in the ocean, near death, in the night. She claimed that she was running away.”

  “That’s a lie,” I yell, thrashing in this hands. Troopers surround me and hold me back, pulling me from his grasp.

  “I would not be dishonest with you,” he says to the crowd. “My daughter is unwell. She told me she hates all of you.” His words spread in murmurs through the crowd. Through my people. My friends. “She has been corrupted to believe that this place is evil and that everyone in it is evil. I fear she may have the fever.”