Cricket ceases to tap the blade against her thigh, but I alreadyunderstand Noah’s meaning. “No,” she says, eyes cut to slits, anger spurring up inside her.“No.”
“Everyone at the tower is gone.” Noah’s voice breaks a little, eyes vibrating, trying to stuff down the part of him he doesn’t want us—or maybe just me—to see.
I keep my mouth shut… because I know this is my fault. I don’t say a word.
Another bullet screams through the trees, just past our heads.We need to run. It’s only a matter of time until they search the barn, realize I’m gone, and come looking for us in the line of trees. I take a step back, deeper into the forest.
“It’s too late, Cricket,” Noah says, quickly touching a hand to her shoulder. “We need to go now.”
She shoves him away, refusing to look at him, heat in her cheeks. I wonder if it’s always like this between them—bitter, short-fused. Like brother and sister. Or like something else.
Noah gives me a look, quick, and I nod in return.
We don’t have time to argue—we have to get away from the barn.Now.
Together, we break away from the tree line, cutting a jagged path into the dark, into the woods. Noah leads, but Cricket lags behind, glancing over her shoulder—hating that we’re running away when she wants to stay and fight.
The farther we go, the sound of bullets shattering tree trunks and barn walls and bone, of footsteps and screams, fades away into the soft rain. As if it was only a dream, a wretched, unspeakable nightmare we are slowing waking from. Mile by mile.
But it doesn’t wipe away the sour, rotting ache in my stomach,the knots binding themselves tighter with each exhale from my lungs. The hard ground rising up to meet me, thudding in my ears. We run… while others die.
Because of me.
But my legs keep pumping, I keep breathing, I don’t look back—because more will die if I don’t keep going. Those men tracked me all the way from Fort Bell, across a dry, scrubby desert, because they’re willing to kill to get to me.
And I have to be willing to let others die, to save what’s left.
It’s a story that’s already been written, etched into the stars, in the ink on my skin, in the blood that runs through me from my ancestors. I don’t have a choice.Get to the sea, or die trying.
That’s all there is now.
So I keep running: wet air and night sky and a boy named Noah who I follow, and a girl named Cricket whose eyes have gone cold, who glances at me as we scramble down into a gully and up the other side, feet slapping against the muddy ground. She looks at me like I’ve taken something from her—everything.
But we keep going. We don’t slow.
We run through a maze of dense forest—hemlocks and firs and spiky plants that run their thorns along our clothes, searching for bare skin. Drawing blood. Plants that didn’t grow in the valley, that Mom never pointed out and made me memorize—like stinging sage, and honey manzanita that bloomed twice a year with sweet, sticky pollen. These are foreign plants, in a foreign land. A place farther than I’ve ever been.
Dawn creeps through the trees, making everything soft and colorless.
The sky flares against the horizon, the sun catching through the atmosphere at just the right angle—the anomaly showing itself in this brief moment before sunrise. A strange preternatural sight. Like the sky has come alive. But Noah and Cricket don’t pause to stare up at it—they’ve witnessed it countless times before. And likely never wondered at its origin. Never gaped up at the horizon and thought that something might be wrong. We grow used to things—even if they don’t belong.
We all tell stories to ourselves,Mom would say.We ignore what’s right in front of us. And the obvious is often hardest to see.
A moment later, the sun burns away the atmosphere, sending the shivering light back into the dark, leaving only a pale blue sky and a hint of storm clouds. We keep moving, traveling through the hottest part of day, until at last a ravine opens up ahead, the sheer, granite rock falling away. We inch closer, keeping our bodies low so we won’t tumble over. Far below, a river cuts through the land, violent and crashing, a river that could sweep you away and carry you down several miles in a matter of minutes.
“There’s a cave down there,” Cricket says, nodding below. In the light of day, her features are soft, eyes cool and watery from running. “I’ve camped in it before.”
But before we start down the ravine, Noah walks several yards back the way we came, to a broad oak, where he snaps one of the lower limbs, then moves deeper into the trees, out of sight.
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
Cricket is silent, not looking at me—and I know she’s still thinking of the barn, the water tower, all her friends who we left behind. But finally she says, “It’s a diversion.” She runs a hand along theshaved side of her head. “Giving their tracker something to follow.”
“Will it work?”
“It’ll send them in the wrong direction for a little while. But not forever. Once they realize we’re not in the barn, they’ll need to reassemble. Hopefully they lost some of their men and they’ll need to bury the dead. If that trail works”—she nods to where Noah disappeared into the trees—“we should have a day or so ahead of them. Maybe a little more, if we’re lucky.”
I should tell Cricket that I’m sorry, that I know she lost people she loved because those men tracked me to the barn, but the hard cut of her mouth, her eyes staring down the ravine, makes me think that she doesn’t want to hear it. It won’t undo what’s been done. But I wonder:Is August still alive? If he died back there, along with too many others, then I am a girl with all the knowledge of the stars but with no way to reach the ocean—no way to set anything right.
