“Because I’m in shock,” I defended. “I’ve just had the most terrifying week of my life. I grew claws and…and a ring from nowhere. I think I’m allowed to worry about myself.”
“There you go again,” she countered without a second of hesitation. “You don’t think Thad and I haven’t been through the same thing? Rings, claws…all of it? But on top of that, we’ve been stuck in a cell. We’ve had needles shoved into our arms, we’ve been beaten and yelled at. We’ve been waiting to just turn into dust any second when you got yourself killed.”
Her voice had started to rise with anger, but she managed to force composure at the end. I was left in shambles again. Why was I letting this girl have the power to tear me to shreds?
“And this is you not hating me?” I said. “I’d be terrified to see you when you love someone.”
She rolled over on to her side, facing me but closing her eyes as if she was going back to sleep. Damn it, Michael. I needed to learn when to keep my mouth shut. But I wasn’t used to someone else being right.
Quiet fell again, leaving us to the sounds of birds and the wind in the untamed grass. Part of me wanted to just give up on Callista. I didn’t deserve this treatment from her—I’d just been nearly murdered twice in the past week. It wasn’t my fault that she’d become a part of it.
There you go again… again, her voice echoed in my head. My thoughts had immediately turned back to myself, and my problems, and how much my life had been in danger. I’d completely forgotten the very newspaper article that I’d first seen Callista in: the one about the deaths of her family.
Was I completely blind? Her family had been killed so the Guardians could catch her. And she’d been caught so the Guardians could find me. I was the reason that she was now alone.
Of course she had every reason to hate me. Here I’d been running free, while the only thing she had left—her own life—was hanging around me like a fragile glass necklace, just waiting for me to stumble and crush it. If I were her, I’d have hated me too.
And yet she lay with such a mask of calm control. I could never have held it together as well as she did.
“I—I never said thank you,” I broke the silence. “I don’t know any other girls who’d take down a plane to save me.”
Finally, something worked, because I saw one end of her mouth fighting against a smirk that threatened to reveal itself.
“I don’t do it because I care,” she told me. “I do it because I have to.”
A tiny victory for me, at least? As if reading my mind, she narrowed her eyes.
“Look,” she told me, “if I didn’t need to keep you safe, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be out there chasing each and every one of these Guardians myself and blowing their brains out.”
I swallowed. The harsh words were like poison flowing from her mouth.
“But I’m stuck,” she said. “The Guardians seemed certain I’d die if you did, and after everything I’ve seen, I’m leaning to believe them.”
“Have you even stopped to ask why?” I said.
“Does it really matter?” she muttered in reply. “We’re here now. We better start getting to know each other because I think we’ll be stuck this way for a while.”
I wanted badly to read her eyes. I still hadn’t had a chance to. With her back to me now, she’d erected the wall between us even higher. All I got was the hint of desolation in her voice: emptiness, hopelessness, and a future devoid of anything other than survival. Her only reason to live was to stay alive.
I almost asked more, wanting to know why we were so supernaturally connected. But I was done trying to break through her shell. So I rolled over too, and we lay on the rocks with our backs to each other, letting the whistling wind fill the void instead.
Not much time passed until Thad returned, carrying two plastic grocery bags in his arms. He regarded me and Callista in our opposing positions with some worry but didn’t ask, because he was a smart person and knew when to keep his mouth shut, unlike another male on that cliff. I sat up as he dropped one of the bags, filled with bottles of water. He held the other out toward me.
“Happy birthday,” he proclaimed, sweeping the plastic away to reveal a boxed-up birthday cake hiding inside. It was one of the cheap, undecorated cakes that grocery stores sell in their bakery. At the sight of it, I felt a thrill. I was seventeen now. I’d forgotten but Thad hadn’t.
I nodded my thanks at Thad. He looked quite happy that he’d been able to brighten things up, and he waved an arm for Callista to come with us.
“Forks?” Callista asked. Thad stopped.
“Plates?” she tried. His face fell slightly.
“I—I just thought of the cake…” he said defensively.
“We can use our hands,” I said, sitting down and putting the cake in front of me. Thad and Callista sat down and we made a small circle with the cake at the center, and dug pieces of it out with our fingers. Icing got stuck all over our palms but in the end none of us really cared. The cake tasted glorious, and served as a much needed distraction.
When I was done, I licked my fingers clean and stood to roll my sleeping bag up. The others went on gobbling bits of cake, and I figured it was because they hadn’t had much real food in a while.
Absently, I leaned forward to pull the edge of my sleeping bag up. To my surprise, I found that under my bag—down where my feet had been—was a piece of paper. It’d been there the entire time without me noticing.
“What’s this?” I asked them, gesturing. I bent down to grab it.
Suddenly, before my fingers could touch the paper, I was lifted up from the ground from behind, two arms looped around my shoulders. I gasped as I was whisked through the air.
“Don’t touch it!” I heard Thad hiss from behind me. In a second, he and Callista and I were against the stonewall.
“Where did that come from?” Callista demanded—claws out. The cake had been overturned in their outburst, splattered onto the rocks. I fought against Thad and he finally dropped me to my feet.
“What was that?” I shouted. “What’s wrong with both of you?”
“Did you put it there?” Thad asked Callista, ignoring me. She shook her head.
“I didn’t even see it until now.” She looked at me. “Did you bring it? Was it in your pocket or something?”
“No!” I told them. I didn’t know why they were reacting this way. Callista saw my confusion and swiftly grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me back to look at the envelope.
“See?” she said, pointing.
Now I knew why they’d gotten such a fright. On the front of the envelope, written in large letters, were three words: TO: MICHAEL ASHER.
12
Anonymity
The lonely white envelope sat amidst a sea of gray stone, its edge lifting slightly in the wind though never overturning. The paper was crisp and new, and its center bulged out from something held inside.
“This isn’t good,” Callista said, looking up at the sky and then around the edges of the walls that hid us. “Someone had to have come here last night and left it. That means they know where we are.”
“Just to drop off a letter?” Thad said. “Does that make sense?”
“What have they done that’s ever made sense?” Callista countered, waving her hand toward the envelope. “Thad, you’ve seen some of the crazy stuff they have.”
“He’s right, though,” I said. The others looked at me. I swallowed quickly.