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“Xander told me a little about you,” she says. “When we worked together. He always talked about his Match, and I talked about mine. ”
“Is your Match—” I don’t dare finish.
“My Match is gone,” she says. Tears slip down her cheeks and she brushes them away with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve suspected it for months. But now that I know, I can’t seem to stop crying whenever I talk about him. Especially here. He loved the water. ”
“Is there someone I can help you find?” I ask. “Any family—”
“No,” she says. “I don’t have any family. They’re gone. I’m an Anomaly. ”
“You are?” I ask, stunned. “How did you hide from the Society?”
“Right in front of their eyes,” she says. “Data can be forged, if you know the right person, and my parents did. My family used to believe in the Pilot, but after they saw how many Anomalies he let die, they decided I would be safest in the Society after all. They gave everything they had to buy me a perfect set of falsified data. I came into the Society and became an Official shortly after. ” She smiles a little. “The Society might be surprised to know that they made an Anomaly an Official so quickly. ” She stands up. “If you see Xander, will you tell him good-bye for me?”
“You should tell him in person,” I say, but she keeps going.
“Wait,” I say. She stops. There’s something I don’t understand. “If you weren’t a citizen until recently, you wouldn’t have had a Match Banquet. So how did you—”
“I never needed the Society,” she says, “to Match me. ”
She looks down at the water. And in that moment, I think I know exactly who she is.
“Your name,” I say. “Was it the same, or did you change it when you came into the Society?”
“I didn’t change it entirely,” she says. “I only reversed it. ”
I run back to the medical center to find Xander. He’s working in the lab, and I pound on the window to get his attention.
Xander’s father, who also works in the lab, sees me first. He smiles at me but on his face I also see wariness. He doesn’t want me to hurt his son.
And he knows that Xander is hurt.
I didn’t do it all, I want to tell Mr. Carrow. But Xander has changed. He’s been through so much—the loss of his faith in the Rising, those dark days working in the medical center, the time out in the mountains.
“Your friend,” I tell Xander as soon as he opens the door. “Lei. She’s going somewhere else. She told me to tell you good-bye. ”
And you have to find her. Because she’s already lost too much, and so have you. It all came together when she stood there by the river, when she spoke about not needing the Society to Match her. She told me that she didn’t even need to change her name, just reverse it. Nea Lei. Lei Nea. When you say it out, it sounds like Laney. Ky had never seen it spelled when he carved the name of the girl Vick loved. Neither, perhaps
, had Vick.
Xander takes a step forward. “Did she say where she was going?” The expression on his face tells me everything I need to know.
And what I was going to say doesn’t matter the way I thought it would. Because her story, with Vick, is not mine to tell. It’s hers—Lei’s. And it may or may not become part of her story with Xander, but that is not for me to decide.
“No,” I say. “But, Xander, you can catch up with her. You can find out. ”
For a second, I think he will. Then he sits down at his workstation. He leans forward, his back perfectly straight, his expression a mask of confidence and determination.
How is it that he’s so good at reading others but he’s not paying attention to himself?
Because he doesn’t want to be hurt again.
“There’s more,” I tell him, leaning closer so that the others won’t hear. “The Pilot has decided that it’s time to take the villagers to the Otherlands. ”
“Why now?” he asks.
“It’s coming time for the people to vote,” I say. “He won’t be able to spare the ships then. He’ll need them to keep order. There are rumors that people from the Society are going to try to take control. ”
“He can’t spare the ships now,” Xander says. “We need them to transport the cure. ”
“He’s not going to send many out,” I say. “A few of the cargo transports, not the fighters. They’re going to Endstone and they’ll take the villagers as far as they can. Ky and I are going to the village, to talk to Anna and bring her back here to Camas with us, if she’ll come. I wanted to tell you. ”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want you to worry,” I say. I didn’t want you to feel like we’d left you behind again.
“Will the Pilot let other people go on to the Otherlands in addition to the villagers?” he asks.
“If there’s room, I think he would,” I say.
“The villagers might let me go with them,” he says, and then he grins and I see a little bit of the old Xander, and I miss him so much. “They might trust me now that they know I was right about the cure. ”
“No,” I say, stunned. “Xander, you can’t go to the Otherlands. We need you. ”
“I’m sorry,” Xander says, “but I can’t let that keep me here anymore. ”
CHAPTER 60
KY
Cassia and I wait for the Pilot’s command.
It is just the two of us on the ship. We’re flying alone this time, carrying supplies in and, hopefully, some of the villagers out. Cassia’s decided that we need Anna to stand up for the vote. “She can lead people,” Cassia told me. “She’s proved it for years. ”
“How many ships have to take off before we go?” Cassia asks now.
“Ten,” I say. “We’re one of the last. ”
