She peered more closely at it, bringing her lantern to the paper. It was Will, but there was another detail that caused her to suck in her breath. He had a hangman's noose tight around his neck. The other end of the rope was curled up above he head to form what was very clearly a question mark.
And there was also a shadowy, less clearly defined figure behind him, which vaguely resembled Cal. While Will had the desperate look of the condemned, this second figure smiled serenely. The expressions on the two faces were totally out of sync, and the combination quite unsettling.
She studied the rest of the page, lingering on the central picture of the woman, then read the name in a swirling banner at the very top.
Sarah Jerome.
Elliott immediately bent over the body, pulling the head around so she could examine the face. Despite copious amounts of blood from the head wound, she could tell right away it wasn't a Limiter.
It was a woman!
With long brown hair that had been swept back.
There were no female Limiters. That was unheard of — Elliott, of all people, knew this.
She realized who was before her. Who she had killed.
Will and Cal's mother. Sarah Jerome.
She pushed the head to the side again, thinking she should hide it in case any of the boys wandered over.
"Need any help?" Will called out.
"No," Elliott replied, "just stay put."
"it's a Styx, isn't it?" Will shouted, his voice a little tremulous.
"I think so," Elliott called back after a slight pause.
She hesitated, looking at the blood-soaked head, weighing up whether she should tell Will. With a pang of recollection, she thought of her home back in the Colony. She remembered the heartbreaking moment when she'd been forced to leave her own mother, knowing in all likelihood she would never see her again.
Filled with indecision, Elliott regarded the piece of paper once more. She couldn't keep this secret to herself. She couldn't live with it on her conscience.
"Will, Cal, over here!"
Will came jogging over, with Chester following behind. "You really nailed him," Will observed, eyeing the body with some trepidation.
"You might want to look at this," Elliott said quickly, thrusting the bloodied broadsheet into his hand.
He scanned the sheet as it flapped in the wind. Recognizing the sketch of himself at the bottom of the page, he shook his head in disbelief. "What is this?" Then his eyes alighted on the name at the top. "Sarah… Sarah Jerome," he read out loud. He turned to Chester. "Sarah Jerome?" he said again.
"Not your mother?" Chester asked as he leaned in to see the broadsheet.
Elliott kneeled down beside the body. Without saying a word, she very gently turned the head, pushing the damp hair aside to reveal the face. Then she stood up. "I thought it was a Limiter, Will."
"Oh! It's her! It is her!" Will exclaimed, glancing between the broadsheet and the body on the ground. He didn't really need the picture; the similarities between his own face and hers were remarkable. It was as though he was seeing his reflection in a dusty mirror.
"What's she doing down here? And why was she carrying that?" Chester asked, pointing at the rifle.
Will shook his head, overwhelmed. "Get Cal," he said to Chester as he stepped closer to Sarah. Squatting down by her shoulder, he put out a hand to touch the face that was so very much like his own.
He drew it back as she gave a small moan.
"Elliott, she's alive!" he gasped.
Then her eyelids flickered but remained shut.
Before Elliott could react, Sarah's mouth opened and she drew a breath.
"Will?" she asked, her lips moving weakly, her voice so quiet that he could barely hear it over the desolate howl of the wind.
"Are you Sarah Jerome? Are you really my mother?" he asked in a cracked voice. His emotions were in a complete tumult. Here he was meeting his biological mother for the first time, yet she was dressed in the uniform of the soldiers who were after him. And in the picture she'd been carrying, he had a noose around his neck. What did that mean? Had she been about to shoot him?
"Yes, I'm your mother," she groaned. "You must tell me…" Then her voice failed her.
"What? Tell you what?" Will asked.
"Did you kill Tam?!" Sarah screamed, her chest heaving and her eyes flicking wide open as she stared at Will. He was so shocked that he almost fell backward.
"No, he didn't," Cal answered from beside Will, who hadn't even noticed he was there. "Is it really you, Mother?"
"Cal," Sarah said, tears spilling from her eyes as she squeezed them shut and began to cough. It took her several seconds before she was able to talk again. "Just tell me what happened in the Eternal City… Tell me what happened to Tam. I need to know."
Cal found it difficult to speak, his lips trembling. "Uncle Tam died saving us… both of us," he said finally.
"Oh my God." Sarah wept. "They were lying to me. The Styx were lying to me all the time." She tried to sit up.
"You need to keep still," Elliott told her. "You're bleeding badly. I thought you were a Limiter. I shot—"
"That doesn't matter now," Sarah said, rolling her head with the pain.
"I can dress your wounds," Elliott offered, shifting uneasily on her feet as Will looked up at her.
Sarah tried to say no but broke into another coughing fit. When it had passed, she continued. "Will, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. I'm so very, very sorry."
"That's… that's OK," Will stammered, not really knowing what she meant.
"Come closer, both of you," she urged them. "Listen to me."
As they leaned in to hear what their mother wanted to tell them, Elliott set about applying some gauze pads to Sarah's hip, tying them in place with bandage strips.
"The Styx have got a deadly virus and they're going to spread it Topsoil." She stopped talking, clenching her teeth together with a moan, then resumed. "They've already tested a form of it there, but… but it was only a trial run… The full-strength virus is called Dominion… going to cause a terrible plague."
"So that was what we saw in the Bunker," Cal whispered, looking at Elliott.
"Will… Will," Sarah said, staring at him with an intense desperation. "Rebecca carries the virus around with her… and she wants you out of the picture. The Limiters" — Sarah tensed her body, then relaxed again — "won't stop until you're dead."
"But why me?" Will's head reeled — here was the confirmation he was dreading. The Styx were out to get him.
Sarah didn't answer but, with the greatest effort, looked at Elliott as the girl put the finishing touches to a bandage on her temple. "They're coming for all of you. You've got to get away from here. Are there others you can call on for help?"
"No, there's only us," Elliott answered her. "Most of the renegades have been rounded up."
Sarah was silent while she tried to steady her breathing. "Then, Will, Cal, you have to dig yourselves in deep… somewhere they can't reach you."
"That's what we're doing," Elliott confirmed. "We're going to the Wastes."
"Good," Sarah croaked. "And then you must go Topsoil and warn them what's coming."
"How…" Will began.
"Oh, it hurts," Sarah groaned, and her face went limp as if she'd blacked out. Only the occasional flutter of her eyelids told them she was hanging on to consciousness.
"Mum," Will said hesitantly. Addressing a complete stranger in that way felt so incredibly foreign to him. There were a thousand things he wanted to ask her. "Mum, you've got to come with us."
"We can carry you," Cal said.
Sarah's response was resolute. "No, I'd only slow you down. You've got a fighting chance if you get going."