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And me, I had to be extra careful, bonded as I was to Carden. Already I got to drink straight from the source, from Carden’s own powerfully beating heart, and that was infinitely more reckless than simply filching an extra shot glass at dinner.
An explosion of sound startled me from my thoughts. A cluster of guys coming into the dining hall. I tensed, hearing Yasuo’s voice rise above the rest.
I stole a peek over my shoulder. His eyes were waiting for me, glaring so intensely, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a couple of red laser-beam dots wavering on my forehead. I had to look away.
It was hopeless. Emma was well and truly dead. I wanted revenge, and apparently Yas did, too. Only he wanted revenge on me.
The rush of strength I’d felt from the drink evaporated. My bravery faded into bravado, leaving me feeling like a wispy paper-doll cutout of myself.
My head was buzzing. I needed to sit.
Despair and the ghosts of friends past scratched at a door in the back of my mind. Because I needed to sit…but where? Less than a year ago, I’d have been settling in at a table with Emma. Yasuo would’ve been there, too, cracking stupid jokes, goofing off. I’d watched as the two of them slowly began to crush on each other. Watched as it’d developed into more. My old Proctor, Amanda, would’ve been there, too, with her Cockney accent, calling her fries chips and her chips crisps. Tracer Judge might’ve stopped by, his friendly puppy-dog eyes meeting everyone’s gaze but Amanda’s. They’d been a couple, and their failed escape had been the death of them.
So few people in my life had gained my regard, and now most of them were dead.
I swayed. Get to a chair.
I made my feet walk to the first empty table, which was thankfully out of the fray, along the wall near the door. I just needed to eat. Not talk to anyone. Get in and get out. I didn’t want to be there, but I needed my calories—proper nourishment could mean the difference between life and death on this island.
I wolfed down bread and soup. An awareness of my surroundings was even more critical than those calories, and I pretended to keep to myself while really I was reading the room. I could no longer see Yasuo, but still I felt his eyes boring into me. He was across the room, sitting with his fellow Trainees.
Emotion clenched my throat, making it hard to swallow. I hadn’t known many friends in my life. Losing one hurt worse than any injury, and I’d had a lot of bad injuries.
I tried to focus on my breathing instead. I chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed. Chewed, swallowed, and tried to consider the fact that I did still have people in my corner.
Carden…Just the thought of him unspooled something in my chest. I tried to picture him, to remember his scent, his eyes. The taste of him. To recall the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. Though I couldn’t summon a complete snapshot, I clung to every thread of every memory as though I could weave it all together into a lifeline.
I longed to see him and consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d see him later. He would come for me—there was no question of it. It was something I knew in my bones. He always sensed when I needed him.
And there were other people I could rely on to cheer me up. Ronan was, well, Ronan—and oddly, he usually managed to make me feel not entirely alone. There was Josh—he always made me laugh, which was nice. And thinking of my old roommate Mei-Ling was always good for a smile, too. Even though she’d escaped and I’d probably never see her again, I liked to think of her out there somewhere, sending positive thoughts my way.
I tried to think of more.
I couldn’t.
Grief seized my throat, and the fresh-baked bread stuck there, my mouth suddenly too dry. I dunked the last crusty heel of it into my soup, but that released a potato smell into the air, a bland, tepid, creamy sort of smell, like the puddle of milk leftover in my school thermos at the end of the day. My stomach turned.
I shivered and clenched my teeth against sudden chattering. I’d never warmed up after the run-in with Yasuo, and not even the dry blast of ancient, pinging radiators could touch the chill that cut to my bones.
The screech of a chair leg against the floor brought my head up. Three girls were settling in at the end of the table. They were Acari, new Acari, clearly green enough not to know that my blue catsuit was code for stay away. One nodded at me, but I only stared back, my face an even blank.
My training had been good for something, and in that brief instant, I managed to assess reams about them. One was petite—she looked about my height—with hair that would’ve been a boring shade of brown were it not for her mesmerizingly perfect ringlets. Another had dark hair and olive skin in a tone that suggested an uncommon lineage, the sort of thing involving an Irish grandfather and a Lebanese grandmother. The third was tall and lean, and her prettiness had an unremarkable quality to it, that brand of conventional uniformity that made a girl instantly popular in high school.
I had a surreal flashback. Me, sitting at a table almost exactly one year ago. I’d have looked short, just like Curly over there, sitting next to Miss Pretty, whose legginess summoned the ghost of my nemesis, Lilac.
Curly nodded at me like her friend had. I looked down, suddenly focused on my soup. It was early days for them, when the culling of new girls was fierce and daily, and I found it best not to be friendly with anybody who might disappear at any moment. Besides, I just didn’t have the energy to enlighten new Acari about things like friendly nods and how they could get a girl’s butt whipped.
My old Proctor, Amanda, would’ve nodded back. She probably would’ve had a kind word, too. But I wasn’t Amanda. The realization bummed me out—though, in a weird way, it should’ve bolstered me, considering Amanda’s behavior had gotten her killed. Besides, I might not have been friendly, but neither was I flashing around my throwing stars like any good Initiate should. So there was that.
“Yo. Curly. ” Yasuo had showed up to assess the new blood, and his words were a knife in my chest. He’d voiced a nickname—Curly—that I’d been thinking myself, and it crushed me to remember how things had been between us. All the old secret looks and private jokes, the stuff that two like-minded people—two friends—shared. All of that was gone. Then the knife twisted as I remembered how his first words to me hadn’t been much different. Hey. Blondie. We’d sat next to each other in Phenomena class. He’d been my first real friend on this island.
No longer. Now he just studiously avoided eye contact with me.
Curly might’ve given me a nod, but the appearance of the boys had her intent on her bowl of soup. Was she right to be scared? Was Yasuo being friendly as he had been with me so long ago, or ha
d his warmth all died with Emma? He had a little gang now, unlike when we’d first met. Sitting there, I’d dismissed them—all the guys blurred together as a mass of cocky attitudes and half-grown fangs—but when the skin on my neck prickled, I reassessed.
Scanning the group, I saw there was a pair of eyes trained on me. While the others were studying the fresh blood, Rob had been studying me.
