The executioner is full of holes, spotting red, falling to the ground like my dad, but he manages to shoot again in desperation. God no! I’m praying and willing and trying to use my mind to protect her, but I can’t do a damn thing.
The bullet tears into Elsey’s side, and I hear her scream and see the slick red of blood on her skin before I black out from anguish and exhaustion.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tristan
The world is black, but when I open my eyes all I see is white, the underside of my sheets. Flickering orange light dances through the thin fabric. I have no words to say to her; I have no words to say to anyone.
I pull the covers tighter around me, like a cocoon. Inside I feel safe. Outside is only death and pain and a black, black world. A world created by my father.
Anger plumes within in me, hot and gritty. My fists tighten, my knuckles turning as white as the sheets. I close my eyes, trying to control the fire building within me.
After all, Adele needs me now more than ever. Breathe.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
As the fogginess of sleep clouds my mind, my last thought is:
Adele first, revenge second.
Adele
Waking and sleeping are the same to me, a swirl of confusing madness, one disorienting and dizzying blur of time where my face is always wet, my nightmares are constant, and spots of red flash before my vision, whether I’m awake or not.
My muscles ache and my head is throbbing, but those pains are minor compared to the ache in my chest. The awful, awful ache in my heart, where it’s split in two, rattling around. I can almost hear it clanging around in there.
I’m broken.
And I may never be fixed again.
I slip into another fitful sleep. Or perhaps I’ve just woken up from a nightmare. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Adele
Everyone dies sometime. You would think that would make it easier when you lose someone, but it doesn’t. As I lie in bed I let the tears flow freely. I’m not ashamed of them. I’d cry a thousand more if I could, but eventually I’m all cried out and I just roll over and jam my face between my two pillows.
They say his death was instantaneous, that he didn’t feel any pain. A single gunshot to the head. There’s nothing you could do, they said to try to make me feel better. But that’s not the point. The point is he’s dead and I’ll never see him again, never hug him again, never learn from him again.
They say it’s a miracle that Elsey survived. The bullet hit her elbow, shattering it and deflecting before tearing into her ribcage, narrowly missing a handful of vital organs. They could save her, but not her arm. Now she has to learn to do everything with her left hand.
After surviving the Pen, being pursued by Rivet, watching cities being bombed, trekking through the Star Realm, I thought I had proved I didn’t have a breaking point. I was wrong. Everyone has a breaking point. This is mine. The world is dead to me. All that I cared about. All that I loved. Ripped away from me. Wrenched from my shaking hands.
Tristan is here and I know I should talk to him. I haven’t said a word since it all happened. Not to him; not to my mother. Elsey’s still too unwell for visitors, not even family.
But still Tristan comes every day, sits on my bed, talks to me. Lies to me and tells me everything’s going to be okay, even though we both know it’s not.
He told me all about what happened afterwards. How the Resistance somehow managed to kill enough of the sun dweller troops to overwhelm them, eventually driving them away. How they fought like wild animals, with tenacity and heart. How they found us clinging together, amidst the dead, me and Elsey, my teeth chattering as I rocked her back and forth while Tristan used his tunic to put pressure on her gunshot wound. Roc and Tawni, of all people, stood guard over us while Trevor ran to get help. I don’t remember any of that. Although I was apparently conscious for it, my subconscious protected me from the memory.
His father was never there, was just a voice through a speaker. A madman using his pawns to do his bidding.
He sits on my bed, in his normal spot, rests a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I’m here, Adele,” he says.
A day earlier his touch would have sent tendrils of excitement all through me, but now, it’s just a touch, cold and meaningless.
Finally, I break my silence, although the words come from a new Adele. The old Adele is gone, dead. “I’m toxic, Tristan. Everything and everyone that gets close to me dies. First Cole, now Dad. Stay away from me. STAY AWAY!” My body’s trembling and my fists are ready for a fight, against whoever is in my way, Tristan or his father or whoever.
But he doesn’t leave like I expect him to, like he should do. He stays right there, grabs my hands, pries my claw-like fingers apart. I’ve got nothing left. No fight. My body goes slack and I fall apart in his arms as he holds me, rubs his hands along my back. He doesn’t try to soothe me with words or shush my tortured sobs, just lets me get it all out.
I need something to take the pain away. Just for a minute, a second. My lips find his and I kiss him hard, then harder, practically throwing myself at him. He lets me at first, but then pulls away while still hugging me. “Not this way,” he says. “We need to give it some time.”
I’m glad he’s still thinking clearly.
* * *
The next day I finally go to visit Elsey, who is recovering. With each step I take my heart is breaking. It’s like despite everything I’ve been through, I can’t bear one more tragedy. Tristan holds my hand to make it easier. It’s strange, how different it is holding his hand now from the first time. I mean, I still get the tingles, the tiny bursts of electricity up my forearm, but now it feels so normal, so safe, like we’ve been holding hands for a million years plus a million more. I like the subtle change.
But the strength of the magnetic pull I feel toward him has not subsided whatsoever. When he is near I can always feel him on my skin, in my bones, particularly around my head and down my back. It’s the weirdest thing.
We enter a dim room—only a clouded lantern provides a soft glow. We see the thin outline of my mother, sitting on a bed, looking down at a bump under the covers. Tristan releases my hand and I kneel next to her, gaze at the pale face of my sister, who’s sleeping. She almost looks dead and for a moment I think she might be, but then I see the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.
“How is she?” I breathe.
My mom has one hand on my sister, and now she places the other on my shoulder. “She’s a little trooper, hanging in there. She can barely eat because she just throws it back up. The trauma of it all is affecting her entire body. But she’s so positive about everything, it’s hard to keep her down.”
I manage a smile. That’s my sister—a little firecracker. Even with the covers over her, I can tell she’s lost weight. Weight she doesn’t have to lose.
“How’s she taking…”—my voice catches in my throat and I swallow—“Dad?”
Mom’s eyes are misty but she doesn’t cry. She’s tough—like I used to be. “You’ll have to ask her that, but I think she’s handling it better than you or I.”
I nod. “Do you think he’s still somewhere?” I ask, surprising myself, because I didn’t even realize the question was on my mind.
“Elsey does,” she says. “I think that’s one of the reasons she’s handling it so well.”