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“Where’s Indie?” she asks.
“She went outside,” I say.
“I’ll find her,” Hunter says, and he disappears through the door and Cassia and I are alone.
“Ky,” she says, “this is the Rising. ” A trace of excitement comes into her voice. “Don’t you want to be a part of something that could change everything?”
“No,” I say, and she steps back as if I’ve struck her physically.
“But we can’t run forever,” Cassia says.
“I’ve spent years holding still,” I say. “What do you think I was doing back in the Society?” Then my words come out in a rush and I can’t seem to stop. “You’re in love with the idea of the Rising, Cassia. But you don’t actually know what it is. You don’t know what it’s like to try to rebel and see everyone die around you. You don’t know. ”
“You hate the Society,” Cassia says. Still trying to do the math, make the numbers add up. “But you don’t want to be part of the Rising. ”
“I don’t trust the Society, and I don’t trust rebellions,” I say. “I don’t choose either of them. I’ve seen what they both can do. ”
“Then what else is there?” she asks.
“We could join the farmers,” I say.
But I don’t think she even hears me.
“Tell me why,” she says. “Why would you want to lie to me? Why would you take a choice from me?”
Her gaze has softened and she’s looking at me as Ky again—the person she loves—and somehow that’s even worse. All the reasons I lied run through my head: because I can’t lose you, because I was jealous, because I don’t trust anyone, because I can’t even trust myself, because, because, because.
“You know why,” I say, anger flaring in me suddenly. At everything. Everyone. The Society, the Rising, my father, myself, Indie, Xander, Cassia.
“No, I don’t,” she begins, but I don’t let her finish.
“Fear,” I say, holding her gaze. “We were both afraid. I was afraid of losing you. You were afraid, back in the Borough. When you took my choice away from me. ”
She steps back. I see it on her face that she knows what I’m talking about. She hasn’t forgotten it either.
Suddenly I’m back in that hot, shiny room with red hands and a blu
e uniform. Sweat runs down my back. I’m humiliated. I don’t want her to see me work. I wish that I could look up to catch a flash of her green eyes and let her know that I am still Ky. Not just another number.
“You sorted me,” I say.
“What else could I do?” she whispers. “They were watching. ”
We’ve talked this through on the Hill but it seems different down in the canyons. It feels clear to me here that I will never reach her.
“I tried to fix it,” she says. “I came all this way to find you. ”
“To find me, or to find the Rising?” I ask.
“Ky,” she says. And stops.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Cassia. “This is the one thing I can’t do for you. I can’t join the Rising. ”
I’ve said it.
Her face looks pale in the darkness of the abandoned house. Somewhere above us the sky seeps rain and I think of snow falling. Pictures painted with water. Poetry breathed between kisses. Too beautiful to last.
Chapter 40
CASSIA
Hunter pushes open the door behind us and walks in. Indie is with him. “We don’t have time for this,” he says. “There is a Rising. You can find it by following that map. Can you read the code?”
I nod.
“Then the map is yours for telling me what was in the cave. ”
“Thank you,” I say. I roll it up carefully. The map is made of thick cloth and dark paints. You could use it in the rain and drop it in the water and it would last. But it can’t hold up against fire. I look over at Ky, my heart aching, wishing we could bridge the river of what just happened as neatly as one could mark a crossing on a map.
“I’m leaving for the mountains to find the others,” Hunter says. “Those of you who don’t want to join the Rising can come with me. ”
“I want to find the Rising,” Indie says.
“We can all go as far as the plain together, at least,” I say. We can’t come such a long way only to break apart so quickly.
“You should all start now,” Hunter says. “I’ll catch up to you when I’m finished blocking the cave. ”
“Blocking the cave?” Indie asks.
“We made a plan to seal off the cave and make it look like a landslide,” Hunter says. “We don’t want the Society to get our papers. I promised the other farmers I’d do it. But it will take me some time to prepare everything. You shouldn’t wait. ”
“No,” I say. “We can wait. ” We can’t leave Hunter behind again. And though I know our group—our small, fragmented little group that has somehow come together—must splinter eventually, I don’t want it to happen now.
“So that’s why you saved some of the explosives,” Ky says to Hunter. I can’t read Ky’s expression—his face is closed-off, remote. This is the Ky of the Society again and I feel a sudden ache of loss at the Ky of the Carving. “I can help you. ”
