But Meadow can’t die. She’s stronger than death, and she’ll switch again soon. She has to. She has to.
“Woodson,” Sketch says, taking Meadow’s face in her hands. “Woodson, what’s the signal? We’re here. We’ve made it. We have to alert them now.”
Meadow shakes her head.
“Not without him,” she whispers.
Peri is sobbing in Koi’s arms, and Tox is mumbling something about the Green, and right now it all seems so stupid.
In a world without Meadow, there is no Green.
She can’t die. Not like this. Not ever, not in Lark Woodson’s world.
CHAPTER 109
MEADOW
“Give the signal, Meadow,” Zephyr says. He kneels in front of me, beside Sketch. “We have to give it now. They’ll come, and they’ll save you. They have to know a way.”
But I can’t tell him that there is no way.
This is how it was always going to end.
I look around, at all the faces of the people who have come so far with me.
Sketch, with her defiance, with her ability to bring laughter to a world where darkness is more common than light.
Saxon, who welcomed us into his tribe, defied the ways of the Ridge because he trusted my brother and father.
Peri, who sits a foot away, while Koi whispers soothing words to her. Rubs her back and kisses her on the forehead. They are soft in a place that demands survivors to be hard as steel. But they have survived. They have made it, and that is their way of denying the world.
“Meadow,” Zephyr says. “I know it’s hard to think, right now. But we have to give the signal.”
He touches my cheek, gently.
His green eyes are so bright, so soothing. I could sink into them and find peace, and maybe that’s what I will do when it’s all over. Maybe death is green, instead of black, full of light summer breezes and soft grass on bare toes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I think of everything we have been through. The pain, the wins and the losses, the journey we’ve taken to get to this moment in time. Hoping for freedom. That is all I have ever wanted, and now I am going to give it away, to him.
To all of them.
There is a jolt of pain, then the pressure of relief, as the switch happens. The number on my cuff slides down, down, until it reaches a C again.
Zephyr is smiling, holding me to his chest, and Sketch is shouting that I’m okay, that we’re going to give the signal now and get the hell out of here.
But I won’t be with them. I can’t be.
My mother’s secret whispers into me. Once you leave the Shallows, Meadow . . . you will die.
There is a Needle in the ground, fallen and forgotten, beside me. I slide my fingers toward it. Wrap my hand around it, tight, and Zephyr only notices when it’s too late.
“Meadow, what are you . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and as I say it, I look at him and Peri and Koi and Sketch, and my heart swells with that one horrible thing I always ran from.
Love. But it’s enough, the sweetest thing in the world, and for the first time in my life, I welcome it.
Then I plunge the Needle deep into my chest.
“No!” Zephyr screams.
My heart slows.
My vision wanes.
Zephyr falls in front of me, his hands turning me over, hauling me into his lap.
His body is warm. And I am so, so cold.
“No,” he says. “No! I love you.”
I try to answer.
But my lips won’t move. I see everyone rushing over, sprinting for me. Sketch rips the Needle from my chest and tries to stop the blood, but I know it won’t stop. Peri screams. Koi screams along with her. They are shouting my name, sobbing.
It’s my final offer, the General said to me, the morning we left for the Ridge. You die, the Murder Complex dies with you, and they’ll never be able to replicate it again. Either you go in there and die, or you never come back out. If you die, I’ll give them all a good life. I’ll set them free. The choice is yours. Death is the signal, Meadow Woodson. The question is whether or not you’ll send it our way.
I didn’t have to make the choice. Leaving the Shallows did it for me. Now death calls to me, a song that whispers in the wind.
It sucks me under, the one thing I’ve tried so hard to escape. But as I die, I realize this is what I was always meant to do.
Live for a while. Then die, for peace. The Murder Complex will die with me, forever fade, impossible to replicate now that my mother is gone. The New Militia will come and break down the walls, and the war will begin. The Initiative will fall.
I can feel it in my head. Almost hear the Murder Complex system screaming, as together, we turn and face the last Dark Time, the one that I have heard ends with pain and fear and unanswered questions, but that there is hope, and light, and love on the other side.
The sound of my father’s voice carries me away, calls me forth into the unknown.
Close your eyes.
Relax your mind.
Die fearlessly, Meadow.
You are so, so brave.
CHAPTER 110
ZEPHYR
I can feel the Murder Complex die with her.
I can feel it like I feel my own heartbeat.
It’s a pierce of pain in my skull. A gasp of my breath, a scream that comes from my lungs.
And then it’s gone forever. And I’m free.
But she isn’t with me. Nothing in the world can make this right, and I want the Murder Complex back, because when it lives, Meadow lives.
I scream.
Everyone screams with me. Koi and Peri hold each other tightly.
Meadow’s eyes are still open, staring up at mine. Gray and soft and gentle, in death.
My tears fall into them.
And seeing them splash against her face, seeing how peaceful she looks . . . “Come back!” I scream. “You aren’t done with this life yet, Meadow. Please.”
I press my lips against hers, beg them to feel warm.
But they are only cold.
“Come back! Don’t leave me, not like this!” I shake her. I sob, screaming her name.
Someone arrives behind me, pulls me back. Sketch, I think. Koi and Peri fall over Meadow, mourn for her, but she is mine to mourn, too.
“Meadow!” I reach for her, as Sketch hauls me backward, and Saxon helps. “No!”
And I want to kill. Kill anyone, if only it would bring Meadow back, trade their life for hers. Why did she do it? Why did she leave me?
I see the first memory I have of her when I was just a boy. It was like moonlight, falling on the face of a girl I felt like I knew.
Her laugh, on the swings in Cortez.
Her hands, skimming mine as we swam in the ocean.
Her scream, as she told me to kiss her ass in the Graveyard.
Her lips, pressing against mine as she sacrificed herself in the Leech building.
Her blood, running through my veins.