Which means they’re alive, at least.
I have to keep going.
I have to warn them.
Limping through the darkness, I try to quicken my pace even though my ravaged body is close to collapse. My vision is a little blurred and I feel as if I might tumble to the ground at any moment, but somehow I’m able to get to the wooden fence that surrounds the town. Then, and only then, do I feel my knees start to weaken, and I take a moment to rest before stumbling toward the gate that leads directly into the center of town.
“Iris?” a voice calls out.
A moment later, people run over to me and I feel someone slipping an arm around my waist to hold me up. I try to turn and see who it is, but I can feel myself slipping into unconsciousness. People are touching me, though, and helping me through the mud. Maybe I’m delirious, maybe I’ve completely lost my mind, but they certainly feel as if they’re real. By some miracle, I’ve managed to find my way home and—
I pause, almost slipping into darkness, before forcing myself to stay awake. I can’t rest, not yet. First, I need to find Asher.
“I’s okay,” someone says, holding me up. “Iris, we’ve got you, we just—”
Pushing past, I stumble through the mud before tripping and falling. This time, when I try to get to my feet, I feel as if all the energy has drained from my body, even as I feel people grabbing my arms and hauling me up.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“They’re buried down there,” Ben’s voice says in the distance. “They’re dead or dying.”
“Shouldn’t we see the bodies for ourselves?” Leanne asks. “Harold told us we had to make absolutely certain they were both dead.”
“What do you think they’re gonna do? Crawl out through a mountain of rubble? When we get to the top, we’ll throw a couple more grenades down to really seal them in.”
“But Harold said—”
“We’ll tell him we saw them die,” Ben continues. “We’ll say we saw Asher’s lifeless corpse, and that we couldn’t drag it up and take it with us ’cause the other guy was still alive. We’ll say we tossed some grenades down to finish him off. Seriously, there’s no chance in hell that either of them could ever get out of this. Stop fussing over everything, there’s no point. They’re both dead.”
I wait, holding my breath in the darkness with large slabs of rock pressing down against my body. After a moment I hear footsteps heading away, and I realize Ben and Leanne truly believe I’m dead. Turning, I try to wriggle through the darkness, squeezing through the gaps between rocks. Finally letting out a pained gasp, I twist around and force my way through a narrow space, and then suddenly there’s a distant boom that shakes the entire cave system. I guess Ben followed through with the plan to blow up the cave’s entrance, and I hear the sound of more rocks falling just a short way over my shoulder.
“Deckard?” I whisper, my voice trembling with fear. I wait, but there’s no answer. “Deckard, how do we get out of here? Can you hear me?”
Chapter Thirty-eight
“Easy!” Olivia says as she holds a wooden bowl to my lips. “Drink, Iris. You need water!”
Unable to hold back, I gulp as much water down as possible. My throat burns and there’s a grinding pain in my belly, but I’m filled with panic and as I look around at the other faces in the hut, I can’t help noticing that there’s no sign of Asher. Deckard isn’t here either, which seems strange. I thought they’d be the first to come and check on me.
“What happened to you?” Olivia asks, setting the bowl down and then passing me a cooked rabbit leg. “You look—”
“Asher,” I try to say, although the only sound that comes from my mouth is a vague, two-syllable grunt.
“Iris, just eat.”
“Where’s Asher,” I mouth carefully, hoping that she’ll understand this time.
She hesitates. I can tell she knows what I said, but clearly something’s wrong.
“Tell me,” I continue, making sure to move my lips slowly and clearly. With a slowly growing sense of desperation, however, I realize that there’s no way I can communicate with any of them. Asher just about learned to read my lips, but she was the only one.
“She probably wants Asher,” says one of the other women, loitering in the doorway.
“Someone should explain,” a man adds.
I keep my eyes fixed on Olivia, but I can tell she feels uncomfortable.
“Things have changed around here, Iris,” she says finally. “Since you left, there have been some… disagreements about certain things. A lot of people became concerned about the direction Asher was leading the town, and then when we really started talking about our fears, the solution became obvious. Asher, what I’m trying to say is that Deckard left and—”
I shake my head.
None of this can be true.
“He did leave,” she continues, “and then…” She pauses again. “Iris, it was a very difficult decision, but we decided as a group that Asher had to leave. As you can imagine, she didn’t take it very well, but it was in the town’s best interest. Asher had to—”
“Asher’s dead,” Ellis says suddenly.
Turning, I see that he’s standing in the doorway.
“Ben and Leanne just came back a few minutes ago,” he continues. “They said they ran into Asher and Deckard out by the caves somewhere. Apparently Asher murdered Carly, so…” He pauses. “I guess it’s good it’s done, in a way. I mean, we all knew she wouldn’t just give up and leave. Now we can—”
Pushing Olivia away, I hurry to the door and out into the town’s central clearing, just in time to see that two unfamiliar faces are explaining things to a small crowd that has gathered.
“She was almost feral,” the guy is saying as I get closer. “Her eyes were wild, like she’d finally lost her mind. She and Deckard rushed us, but I managed to stab Asher in the face. There’s no way she could have survived that. Leanne wounded Deckard, too, but he dragged Asher’s body away into the depths of the cave system. We followed, but the ceiling started to collapse and they ended up getting buried. She’s definitely dead and Deckard can’t possibly escape.”
“Are you sure about that?” a nearby voice asks.
Turning, I see another new face stepping closer.
“No doubt at all,” the first guy replies. “I promise, Harold, I saw Asher die.”
Harold.
I immediately tense when I hear that name. Walter mentioned someone named Harold earlier. I’m starting to realize that I might be too late to save Steadfall.
“It’s true,” adds the woman next to him, another new arrival. She seems nervous, almost scared. “I was there, I saw it all.”
She’s lying.
I can see it in her eyes.
“I wanted to see the body for myself,” Harold continues, casting a suspicious glance toward me. He pauses, as if he’s troubled by my presence. “And who do we have here?” he asks. “A new arrival?”
“This is Iris,” Olivia tells him. “She was here before, but she went off alone a while back. She turned up just now, she’s hurt but I think she’ll be okay.”
“Asher mentioned you,” Harold mutters, stepping toward me. “The girl with no tongue, I seem to recall.” Pausing, he seems worried by my return. “You were one of the founding members of Steadfall, I believe. Didn’t you help get it started, along with Asher and Deckard?”
He pauses again, before suddenly putting his arms around me and pulling me close for a slow, calm hug. I shudder at his touch and immediately pull away.