But he didn’t mean for someone else to read all about him. I click back through the records. The microcard wasn’t only viewed last night; it was viewed the night before, the night before, the night before.
Indie’s been looking at this all along. When? While I was sleeping?
“Do you know Xander’s secret?” I ask her.
“I think so,” she says.
“Tell me, then,” I say.
“It’s his secret to tell,” she says, echoing Ky. Her voice sounds unrepentant, as always. But I notice something; a softening around her eyes as she looks at the picture on the screen.
And then I see. It’s not Ky she loves after all.
“You’re in love with Xander,” I say, my voice too hard, too cruel.
Indie doesn’t deny it. Xander is the kind of person an Aberration can never have. A golden boy, as close to perfect as they come in the Society.
He’s not her Match, though. He’s mine.
With Xander, I could have a family, a good job, be loved, be happy, live in a Borough with clean streets and neat lives. With Xander, I would be able to do the things I always thought I would.
But with Ky, I do things I never thought I could.
I want both.
But that’s impossible. I look again at Xander’s face. And, though he seems to tell me that he won’t change, I know he will. I know there are parts of him I don’t know, things happening in Camas that I don’t see, secrets of his that I haven’t learned that he will have to tell me himself. He makes mistakes, too — like giving me the blue tablets, a gift that was given with great risk and care but was not what he thought it would be. It didn’t save me.
Being with Xander might be less complicated, but it would still be love. And I have found that love brings you to new places.
“What did you want with Ky?” I ask Indie. “What were you trying to do when you showed him that scrap and gave him that map?”
“I could tell he knew more about the Rising than he’d say,” Indie says. “I wanted to make him tell me what it was.”
“Why did you give this back to me?” I say, holding out the microcard. “Why now?”
“You need to choose,” Indie says. “I don’t think you see either of them clearly.”
“And you do,” I say. Anger wells up in me. She doesn’t know Ky, not like I do. And she’s never even met Xander.
“I figured out Xander’s secret.” Indie moves toward the entrance of the cave. “And it never occurred to you that Ky might be the Pilot.”
She disappears through the door.
Someone touches my arm. Eli. His eyes are wide with worry and it shakes me out of my trance. We have to get Eli out of here. We have to hurry. This can all be sorted later.
I am tucking the microcard in my pack when I see it there among the blue.
My red tablet.
Indie and Ky and Xander are all immune.
But I don’t know what I am.
I hesitate. I could put that red in my mouth and I wouldn’t wait for it to dissolve. I would bite down, hard. Maybe even hard enough that my blood would mix with the red and it would truly be my choice, not the Society’s.
If the tablet works, I will forget everything that happened in the last twelve hours. I won’t remember what happened with Ky. I wouldn’t have to forgive him for lying to me because I wouldn’t know that he had. And I wouldn’t remember what he said about my sorting him.
If it doesn’t work, I will finally know, once and for all, if I’m immune. If I’m special like Ky, and Xander, and Indie.
I lift the tablet to my mouth. And then I hear a voice from a place deep in my memory.
You are strong enough to go without.
Fine, Grandfather, I think to myself. I will be strong enough to go without the tablet. But there are other things I’m not strong enough to go without, and I intend to fight for them.
CHAPTER 41
KY
Carrying the boat is like carrying a body; it’s heavy and bulky and awkward. “Only two can fit inside,” Hunter warns me.
“That doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s still what I want.”
He looks at me as if he’s about to say something but then he decides against it.
We drop the boat in the little house at the edge of the township where Cassia, Indie, and Eli have gathered to wait for us. The boat hits the ground with a heavy thump.
“What is that?” Eli asks.
“A boat,” Hunter says. He doesn’t elaborate. Indie, Cassia, and Eli stare at the heavy roll of plastic in disbelief.
“I’ve never seen a boat like that,” Indie says.
“I’ve never seen a boat,” Cassia and Eli say at the same time, and then she smiles at him.
“It’s for the stream,” Indie realizes. “So some of us can get to the Rising fast.”
“But the stream’s all broken up,” Eli says.
“It won’t be anymore,” I tell him. “A rain like this will have run it back together.”
“So who’s going in the boat?” Indie asks.
“We don’t know yet,” I say. I don’t look over at Cassia. I haven’t been able to meet her eyes since she found me burning the map.
Eli hands me a pack. “I brought this for you,” he says. “Food, some things from the cave.”
“Thanks, Eli,” I say.
“There’s something else,” he whispers to me. “Can I show you?”
I nod. “Hurry.”
Eli makes sure that the others can’t see and then he holds out—
A tube from the blue-lit Cavern.
“Eli,” I say in surprise. I take the tube from him and turn it over. Inside the liquid rolls and shifts. When I read the name engraved on the outside I draw in my breath sharply. “You shouldn’t have taken this.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Eli says.
I should break the tube against the ground or let it go in the river. Instead I put it in my pocket.
The rain has loosened rocks and turned the ground to mud. It won’t take much to trigger a landslide and render the path to the caves impassable, but we also have to seal off the doors of the cave without destroying what’s inside.
Hunter shows me the plan; a neatly organized diagram of where and how and what to wire. It’s impressive. “Did you make this?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Our leader did before she left. Anna.”
Anna, I think. Did my father know her, too?
I don’t ask. I follow her diagram and Hunter’s adjustments. The rain pounds down above us and we do our best to keep the explosives dry.
“Go down and tell the others that I’m going to set the fuse,” Hunter says.
“I’ll do it,” I say.
Hunter looks at me. “This was my assignment,” he says. “Anna trusted me to get it right.”
“You know this land better than I do,” I say. “You know the farmers. If something goes wrong with the fuse, you’re the one who can get everyone else out of here.”
“This isn’t some kind of self-punishment, is it?” Hunter asks me. “Because you were going to burn the map?”
“No,” I say. “It’s just the truth.”
Hunter looks at me and then nods his head.
I set the timer on the fuse and run. It’s instinct — I should have plenty of time. My feet hit the ground near the stream and I sprint toward the others. I haven’t quite reached them when I hear the explosion go off.
I can’t help myself — I turn and look.
The few small trees clinging to the cliff seem to come away first; their roots tear away rocks and dirt with them. For a moment I see the dark distinct tangles of each life and then I realize the whole cliff beneath them slides too. The path severs into fragments and is turned under by water, mud, rock.