But all my reasoning fails to silence the nagging voice in my head that tells me he’s dead. And it’s my fault. For being weak. For being soft. For being damaged.
Because, if I’d been none of those, we wouldn’t have been out there in the first place.
There’s a knock on the door and I sit up straighter in the bed. I force a smile to my lips when Asher pokes his head around the door. “Hey, you’re awake! Wonderful. I was getting worried there.”
I give him a confused smile. “Why?”
“You’ve been asleep for almost thirty-six hours. The doctors said your body just needed the sleep, though. I guess they were right. Are you hungry?”
Thirty-six hours? An entire day and half of another? Surely Gavin’s arrived by now. I peer around Asher to see if anyone else came with him. “Where’s Gavin?”
His mouth draws into a straight, thin line. He picks at something on his shirt; then, when he realizes what he’s doing, he shoves his hands in his pockets before looking down at this feet. “He’s…” He clears his throat, and I want to throw something at him. Part of me already knows what he’s going to say. “… he hasn’t arrived … yet.”
Even though part of me had been expecting that answer, I still have to stop myself from screeching What? “I’ve been here almost two days and he’s still not here?”
He doesn’t say anything, only stares at the ground as if it might swallow him whole. Maybe he wishes it would.
Unable to remain sitting, I thrust myself to my feet. Although my legs are shaky and weak, I stumble my way over to the balcony and shove open the doors with Asher not far behind me. It’s cold, but I lean against the metal railing. My breath puffs out in plumes in front of my face. The balcony overlooks the house next door, but in my mind’s eye I’m picturing the Outlands.
Too long. Entirely too long. No food. No water. Way too long.
Asher steps up beside me and places his hand on my shoulder.
I can’t help it. I blurt out, “Do you think Gavin’s just stuck outside the gates? That that’s why he hasn’t come yet?”
The hand on my shoulder tightens and I know what he’s going to say before he does. I keep talking so that I don’t have to hear it.
“Maybe we should have left the visa there with them. Maybe we should go there and see. Maybe he’s waiting for us and wondering why we haven’t come.”
He turns me around slowly to face him, his face a mask of misery.
He can’t be gone. He can’t be gone.
“Evie. He’s not there.”
Panic rises up in me, and I try pushing it back down, but it’s almost impossible. I know any minute I’m going to lose it. I’m going to fall apart. Right here. Right now. I wrap my arms around my waist as if I can keep myself together that way. “How do you know? You can’t know that.”
“I do. I’ve gone every day to check with the guards to see if he’s shown.”
I curl into myself. “But he could be there now!” I try to make it sound like I believe it myself, but even I know I’m not very convincing. “We should head over there and see if he’s waiting.”
He shakes his head. “He’s not coming, Evie. The odds of him getting away from the vultures were extremely slim. And even if he did,” he barrels on, ignoring my open mouth, obviously knowing what I was going to say, “he’d have been hurt, with no food or water. In the Outlands it’s been over a hundred degrees every day this week during the day, and near freezing at night. Not to mention the coyotes and the wolves. There’s no way he made it through all that.”
My heart lurches in my chest and I stagger against the railing. I have to close my eyes against the pain, but still I can see him perfectly. His golden hair blowing in the breeze from the birds’ wings and his beautiful gray eyes staring into mine as Starshine raced from him. I can see, now, he knew then he wasn’t going to make it. When he said “I love you,” what he really meant was “Good-bye.”
Suddenly I’m so angry, it wouldn’t surprise me to actually see red seeping into the corners of my eyes. “And whose fault is that? You left him! You wouldn’t let me go back for him! It’s your fault. Yours!” I scream at him.
He only nods, which makes me even angrier. “I know.”
I can’t stop myself—I punch him in the chest. But he doesn’t even stop me. Which makes me even angrier and I punch him again. And again. It isn’t making me feel any better, it just makes me more irate with each hit. Because he doesn’t even try to stop me.
Obviously I’m not hitting very hard, because he doesn’t move, doesn’t even wince. He only continues to stare at me with those pain-filled eyes.
That just infuriates me more. How dare he just stand there and take it? How dare he not even fight back—not even tell me I’m wrong. That it’s really my fault that Gavin’s gone. Probably dead. Why is he just standing there taking it?
My mind’s a jumble of emotions and thoughts. Pain. Anger. Sorrow. Frustration. Back to pain.
It isn’t until the tears I hadn’t noticed blind me and I can’t breathe that Asher stops me, taking my wrists into his hands.
Exhausted, I slump against him, sobbing into my hands. My heart is cracked in so many places, it’s hard to imagine it ever getting put back together completely.
“He can’t be gone,” I whisper, not because I don’t believe he’s dead, but because I need him. And I know it’s really my fault he’s gone. He’d always been there when I needed him, but I wasn’t there the one time he needed me.
Asher lowers us so that we’re both kneeling on the floor. And despite the fact that I just spent the last who-knows-how-long hitting him, he gathers me into his arms and holds me. Not saying a word, simply holding me.
The doors to the room open, but he shakes his head and whoever it was leaves, shutting the door quietly behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Not since the Gutenberg printing press has anything had such a profound impact on the peoples of this world as the nanorevolution. Nanotechnology, developed in part by Lenore Allen, changed the entire course of the War in favor of those in possession of the technology.
—EXCERPT FROM A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE 21ST CENTURY, “NANOREVOLUTION”
Evie
After a long time, I finally cry myself out. Asher still holds me tightly against him. I push gently away, brushing the tears from my face with my sleeve, and look up to the stars. I’m too tired to pull completely away from Asher and it feels so nice, I don’t really want to anyway. It’s the small comforts now. The cold wind bites and snaps at my skin, but I don’t care.
“They’re not as pretty here,” I say, thinking of that last night with Gavin in the clearing. Just us two. Lying next to each other, discussing the stars. It makes me sad. They kind of remind me of myself with their faded lights, and I’m reminded that every day I’m fading. Without Gavin, I have nothing to anchor me to my old life. Who I used to be.
“No, they’re not.” His voice is soft. “It’s all the lights. They’re jealous of the stars, and try to drown them out.”
I know it’s not true, but it’s a nice thought.
We sit, both of us lost in our thoughts. I know something is bothering him, but I also know that he’ll tell me what it is. Especially if it has something to do with me. That’s one of the things I like about Asher. His unwavering honesty. No matter how terrible—or how difficult—he will always tell me the truth. Even when I don’t want him to.