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“How does she look?” I ask.
“The same as always,” Indie says, and I start laughing and stop running and reach to grab Indie and spin her around and kiss her cheek and thank her for managing the impossible, but then I remember.
I could be sick. So could she.
“Thank you,” I tell Indie. “I wish we weren’t quarantined. ”
“Does it really matter?” she asks, coming a tiny bit closer. Her face is full of pure joy and I feel that kiss again on my lips.
“Yes,” I say, “it does. ” Then I’m struck by fear. “You made sure Cassia wasn’t exposed to the new virus, didn’t you?”
“She rode in the hold almost the whole time,” Indie says. “The ship had been sterilized. I didn’t really even talk to her. ”
I’ll have to be careful. Wear a mask, stay out of the hold, keep my distance from Cassia . . . but at the very least, I can see her. Too good to be true, some instinct within me warns. You and Cassia together, flying away, just like you imagined? Things don’t happen like that.
If you let hope inside, it takes you over. It feeds on your insides and uses your bones to climb and grow. Eventually it becomes the thing that is your bones, that holds you together. Holds you up until you don’t know how to live without it anymore. To pull it out of you would kill you entirely.
“Indie Holt,” I say, “you are too good to be true. ”
Indie laughs. “No one’s ever called me good before. ”
“Sure they have,” I say. “When you’re flying. ”
“No,” she says. “Then they say I’m great. ”
“That’s right,” I say, “you are,” and in unison we’re both running again for the ships. They huddle against the morning like a flock of metal birds.
“This one,” Indie says, and I follow her. “You first,” she says.
I scramble up into the cockpit, turning around to ask, “Who’s going to fly?”
“I am,” says a familiar voice.
The Pilot emerges from the shadows at the back of the cockpit.
“It’s all right,” Indie says to me. “He’s the one who’s going to help you run, all the way to the mountains. ”
Neither the Pilot nor I say anything. It’s strange not hearing his voice again. I’m so used to him talking at us from the screen.
“Is she really here?” I ask Indie quietly, hoping that she lied to me about Cassia being on board. Something about this seems wrong. Can’t Indie feel it?
“Go see,” Indie says, pointing to the hold. She smiles. Then I know. She doesn’t think this is a trap, and Cassia’s here. That’s clear, even though nothing else is. Something’s wrong with me. I can’t think right, and when I climb down into the hold, I almost lose my footing.
There she is. After all these months, we’re on the same ship. All I want, right here. Let’s take the Pilot down, let’s run, let’s take each other all the way to the Otherlands. Cassia looks up at me, her expression strong and wise and beautiful.
But Cassia’s not alone.
Xander’s with her.
Where is the Pilot taking all of us? Indie trusts him, but I don’t.
Indie, what have you done?
“You wouldn’t run with me,” Indie says, “so I brought her to you. Now you can go to the mountains. ”
“You’re not coming with us,” I say, realizing.
“If things were different, I would,” Indie says, and when she looks at me, it’s hard to hold her honest, longing gaze. “But they aren’t. And I still have flying to do. ” And then, fast, like a fish or a bird, she disappears from the entrance to the hold. No one can catch Indie when it’s time for her to move.
CHAPTER 23
CASSIA
We were supposed to meet months ago on a dark early-spring night by the lake, where we could be alone.
Ky’s face is drawn with fatigue, and I catch the scent of sage and sand and grass, of the world outdoors. I know that look of stone in his face, that set of his jaw. His skin is rough. His eyes are deep.
We began with his hand around mine, showing me shapes.
In Ky’s eyes is such complete love and hunger that it goes through me like the sharp, high note of a bird in the canyon, echoing all the way through my body. I am seen and known, if not yet touched.
The moment sings between us and then everything turns to motion.
“No,” Ky says, moving back toward the ladder. “I forgot. I can’t be down here with you. ”
He’s too late; the Pilot has closed the hatch above us. Ky pounds on the door as the engines fire up and the Pilot’s voice comes through the speakers. “Prepare for takeoff,” he says. I grab hold of one of the straps hanging from the ceiling. Xander does the same. Ky still hammers at the door to the hold.
“I can’t stay,” he says. “There’s an illness out there, worse than the Plague, and I’ve been exposed to it. ” His eyes look wild.
“It’s all right,” Xander tries to tell Ky, but Ky can’t hear over the roar of the engines and the pounding of his hands.
“Ky,” I say, as loud as I can, between the beats of his fists hitting the metal. “It’s. All. Right. I. Can’t. Get. Sick. ”
Then he turns around.
